So here's a thousand pictures worth millions of words :-)
Last week our air con in our room was torn out and replaced after not working for a couple of weeks. It was the best night's sleep ever. So thankful!
My 1on1(leader that I meet with every week) has this awesome projector that she lets us borrow and we have movie nights in our room- it's the best thing ever after a long day!
This is my valentine and one of my best friends! Her name is Emily, but we call her Kwai Ying. She's amazing and I love her so so so much! I couldn't do this without her! She's also my daily walking buddy and she's Canadian!
As I've mentioned before, my ministry placement is Youth Street. Every saturday for ten hours we open up the base and hang out with youth, hosting games, arts, music, sports, dancing etc. and kids from all around here come and hang out and get to experience belonging and a whole lot of fun. It's an amazing thing to get to be a part of, and honestly it just allows us to goof off and act like kid's ourselves! Every weekend we have something called the dynamic factor, in the picture above it was bright and light- so that's what's with the crazy clothing!
Apparently it's strange that I didn't know how to play Dutch Blitz- but now I do and it's really fun, and I always beat Kwai Ying which is awesome too! This picture was taken because someone observed the blue overload:)
Although I look very sunburned here, I assure you my legs are fine! This is just a glimpse of what a typical afternoon may include... a sunny day, the grassy knoll, a water bottle and some form of homework!
This is the little bush baby that has become part of our little house! Don't worry that's not me in the picture feeding him- I don't have a rabies vaccine so I'm gonna pass on handling wild critters(except for this weekend because we are going to the Billabong Wildlife Sanctuary, where I am going to get to feed kangaroos and possibly hold a Koala bear!)
This might be the most exciting picture! THIS IS MY OUTREACH TEAM! The 12 of us will be spending three weeks together in Cairns working with Harald's House, and than five weeks in PNG distributing LF medication as well as doing other ministry outreach! We love PNG!
This is my bunk! Lime green is kinda my color right now- for all of you who mock my matching skills... they are still in full swing! And I get made fun of often :)
Planking Australia!
This is from our movie night! We were absolutely exhausted! It was the friday night at the end of Identity week(more details at the end of this post)!
There is this beautiful hill a half mile from here that takes about an hour to hike up... and has astounding views of home here in Townsville!
Here is us by our favorite swimming hole. (You can't actually just jump in the ocean because it is stinger season, so there are designated swimming areas)!
Valentines Day!
Another picture from youth street with my friend Shelby! The dynamic factor this day was red/pink for Vday! Shelby and I run auditorium games at Youth Street Live(the second half of Youth Street)... this past saturday we had a two hour dance party on the stage- complete with inchworm racing, backstreet boys, break dancing lessons, handstand competitions, and the parody "I like Big Bibles".
All in all, things are going amazing here. The only way I can think to describe it is, "This is not real life"! Everything here is so different than our everyday lives at home. We all know so much about each other, we are all here to know God, and to love each other which just provides a really family-home like environment even though we are millions of miles away from our own homes and families. It's hard to believe that three weeks ago my life existed without these people because now it's hard to imagine living without them. Everyone is always asking about Australia and Townsville, and honestly, although beautiful, there isn't a whole lot to do here, it isn't a top tourist destination, BUT the coolest thing is, despite the fact that there are probably cooler places to be stuck for six months, I could NOT imagine being anywhere else because that would mean being with a different staff and a different group of students, and honestly, I wouldn't trade this group for any destination in the world. I belong here. I am home for now. I am loved here. I am supported here. And even though there are difficult and frustrating moments, I am having the time of my life. Who wouldn't want to be exactly where they knew God was calling them to be- there's no better place, no better feeling, no fulfillment like it- YWAM Townsville IS where I am supposed to be and I am sure of that.
Last week we learned about identity. We had an amazing speaker and learned about how important it is to find our identities in Christ, and we were challenged to face the lies that we have believed in our lives that constantly hold us back. As you can imagine this was a very personal and difficult time for many of us, as we shared with the group lies that we were believing that ultimately were holding us back from living fully in the love of God. Things like, not being good enough, not being pretty enough, having made too many mistakes, not being liked, etc, were all stuff that surfaced as people began to share. The cool part though, we didn't share our lies as lies, but instead were challenged to write truths that contradicted each lie, which we then proclaimed. Imagine the emotion and power as people stood up and proclaimed things through tears like, "I am good enough", "I am beautiful", "I am loved"(They got more personal and intense than this but for the sake of protection and privacy of others I can't share the details). It was so amazing to see people rise up and end the lies in their lives.
Normally we are in the lecture room from about 9-12:30 everyday, but on this particular day of conquering the lies, we were in lectures until just before dinner at 5:30(with a break for lunch of course)! It was insane, and words could hardly describe the power of it. We had three worship times that day... one in the morning, one after lunch and one at the end. It was so cool to watch the breakthrough and difference between morning worship and the end of the day. There was so much joy, so much love, so much freedom, so much breakthrough- the room was filled with joy and you could just feel the presence of God's love and power. We are so blessed to be here, to walk through lives difficulties and to be experience God's power over our lives, his ability to heal and our authority in walking in that.
Your prayers are so appreciated. Your love is felt. Thank you so much for taking part in helping me be here, whatever they may be for each of you, whether its in prayer, encouragement or finance. I am so grateful. I love you!
For those of you who like to walk by me(and my school/outreach team) in prayer, right now please be praying for financial provision for our outreach team! It is estimated that each of us will need to pay about $3200 for outreach- as you can imagine with 12 people this is a big thing. That means it will cost just under $40,000 for the 12 of us to be able to go to PNG and serve. Based on what each of us already has towards our personal $3200, it sounds as if we are a little less $8,000 short of being fully funded! Praise God- because how crazy is that- God has already provided so much for this outreach through all of our supporters- that is amazing! If you could be praying that the rest of the money would be provided in the next two weeks that would be great! Sometimes, I'm so thankful that none of this is free, because it's the most amazing thing to see God's provision to make these things happen. Sometimes I just sit in the back during worship and look at the 70ish students in our group and am amazed at how uniquely perfect each person is- how amazing it is that that many students would pause their lives, raise a bunch of money, and travel all the way around the world just to follow God's calling on their lives. This is a special thing, it's a beautiful thing, and I'm blessed to be right in it! Thank you so much for praying- I will keep you updated on the progress of my team, what we are up to, and hopefully in two weeks we will see major financial provision!
Oh& we go camping in two and a half weeks for two weeks two hours away in the Australian bush. SUPER STOKED!
Sorry, this was the longest blog ever. And for those of you who even made it this far in reading it...feel free to leave a comment once in awhile... just so I know people are actually reading this thing! Actually, even if no one was reading, I would probably still be writing for myself!
God Bless!
