Evangelism and Inductive Bible Study

Life has been getting pretty busy here, hence the blog with two weeks combined. Right now I have less than a week before I am going to be in Africa, which is crazy because the time has just flown by! We fly out of Brisbane on Saturday and it will probably take a good 24 hours to get there. We will be in Johanassberg for about 10 days or so and then we will bus it up to Mozambique to work with Destiny Rescue. That is where we will be for Christmas. We work there for 3 weeks and then we will probably head back down to South Africa and work in an orphanage for another 3 weeks. So that is our tentative plan for outreach... but who knows what will happen. There might not be much internet so the staff will be updating a team blog as often as possible. I will add the link to my blog for you to check out.


Evangelism week was good but super busy. During the week we went out and did evangelism in Maloolooba. I can't really go into detail about in on the blog due to privacy issues, but feel free to ask me about it in person if you are interested in learning more about what we did. During the mornings we had lectures on evangelism as well. The speaker was great and I learned a lot about why it is important to do evangelism. Basically it should be one of our main goals. If you know the best news in the whole world, isn't it wrong to keep it to yourself? Yes. If you truly love someone, you would tell them about Jesus. This doesn't mean you should go and shove the gospel down people's throats but rather that you tell them in love. This is definately something that I want to get better at and hopefully outreach will be a good opportunity to practice.

This last week was on inductive bible study which was actually a lot better than it sounds. The speaker was awesome and shared a lot of great stories. We studied to book of Philippians during the week. It is really hard to explain here in a blog, but I definately learned a lot about why it is so important to read your bible. There is a misconception out there that the bible is boring which is sooo not true. The bible is packed full of crazy amazing stories! And it makes so much sense when you read things in context. You have to read the bible as a whole and not just pick and choose verses out of context because that can lead to false teaching. I know this is just a quick summary of two weeks of stuff, but I am too exhausted to go into more detail right now... too much outreach on the brain :)

Prayer Requests:
Could you please pray for our outreach team, for safety and unity
Pray that God will use us to reach people and that we will make ourselves available
Pray for health for the team and that we won't get sick
And just that we have an amazing outreach and will see God move!

Prayer Week

To be honest, I don't even know where to start when I think about prayer week. Basically we didn't have lectures much, instead we were given a 2 hour prayer slot each day with small group where you would pray at the church for the alloted time. It ran all night and you could go to any additional prayer slots that you wanted. So it was pretty crazy! Many people pulled all nighters, I didn't stay up all night but I definately spent a lot of time praying. We had a prayer room as I mentioned before where you could meet and there was paper and felts and pencil crayons, and lots of boards put up on the walls to write on. It was an amazing week. I don't know if I have ever specifically set aside a 2 hour block to just pray before and I didn't really know what to expect. The first night we ended up praying a lot for the western world and the state of the church. I was absolutely amazed at how fast the two hours went by. It was a great experience and I couldn't wait to keep going. The second night we prayed for healing for various issues within our group. While we were praying I had this thought that we should go outside and just pray in the rain. I didn't say anything at first but then later after a girl said something about healing rain, I was like I think we have to do this. I knew that it was storming out because I could hear the thunder, but when we went outside... there was no rain. So I was like okay maybe this wasn't a good idea after all, but we stayed outside anyways and just prayed and sang worship songs. The lightening was absolutely amazing, the best I have ever seen in my life! Just as one girl was saying how epic the sky was we all looked at the exact same spot at the same time and God really put on a show for us. It was crazy cool lightening all across the sky... It was unbelievable! So we kept singing various worship songs outside and by then end there was definately rain and we were drenched! It was just a really cool night, there is something special about worshiping outside in creation. The power of the storm just reminded how powerful and mighty God really is!

The rest of the week was really good as well, but much harder. The last three days ended up being much more personal and I feel like I learned a lot about myself and God. I know that I want to know God so much more and move to that deeper level, but I was unsure of how to do that. So that is pretty much what I have been praying about this last while. I have had to do some really hard things, including giving some stuff away that I really fought against. I have definately learned that God will answer your prayers. If you ask God to push you to go deeper, He will do that and it won't necessarily be easy. In fact, it can be one of the hardest things you will ever have to do. I am definately starting to feel better though... I am glad that God is stretching me and moving me out of my comfort zone. Another good thing that has come out of this is that I feel like I hearing God more clearly now which is awesome! Right now I am doing our evangelism week and this is continuing, but I won't go into that very much until the week is over.

Outreach update: So it looks like Madagasscar is off the table as far as outreach in concerned. It is just too expensive to get there. We already had to pay $2500 for flights and it would be at least an additional $800 per person. So we will probably just stay in Mozambique and South Africa. I am not really that disappointed because I know that we will end up where God wants us and that may not be Madagasscar. Well that is all that I can really think of for now, I will try not to make the next blog so late! (Sorry mom...)

Relationships and Fraser Island

I have to say that this last week has been pretty eventful, especially due to your trip to Fraser Island for the weekend. But I will get to that shortly... first a quick blurb on relationships week. A couple taught the week and they were super cool! They covered a lot of stuff including communication, dating, family relationships, personality and conflict resolution. I actually learned a lot about myself this week which was good. I recognized areas of my life where I need to trust God more and so I have done a lot of praying. The couple who lead the lectures actually shared how they met and it was an absolutely amazing story! It is way too long to try and retell so sorry if you are curious... :) That is pretty much all I have to say about that...

So on Friday, Destiny Rescue came in and did a presentation. For those who don't know this is an organization that focuses on rescuing girls that are in the sex slave trade. They then put the girls in homes and give them education as well as vocational training. These girls that they rescue are all children from about age 4-17. Again I will say that these girls were forced into sex trafficing! This is something that we have learned a lot about... and I will be doing a blog on this topic later going into more detail about what I have learned and what it means for me. If anyone is interested just google human trafficing and I am sure you will find a lot of information as this is a massive issue today. In case you didn't know... there have never been more slaves in the world than there are now! Anyways, I don't want to go into too much depth now, but I will say that this issue is heavy on my heart. So needless to say, I loved the presentation! It was very informative and sad, but so encouraging at the same time. The orgainzation has only been around 8 years or so and it was started by the brother of the presenter. It is amazing what one man can do with God. Now Destiny Rescue has houses in Thailand, Cambodia, Mozambique, India and one other country I beleive. They also do prevention work as well. Anyways we are actually working with Destiny Rescue for a few weeks in Mozambique and I am soooo excited! I don't know what we will all be doing with them, but I know it will be amazing!

So now Fraser Island. Where to begin?? It was beautiful weather and a crazy adventure... no tour bus this time! We had four vehicles that we rented to drive on the island and it was insane. We got stuck before we even got on the ferry that takes you over to the island! So much of the first day was spent pushing vehicles out of the sand... which was very hot I must add. We had two minor accidents... but nothing that bad, just a few scrapes and small dents. Anyways I have to say that it was amazing to finally get to Lake Mackenzie! We were all hot and filthy and it felt amazing to swim in the water. Of course we had to do some more pushing after that... but it wasn't as bad as before. We camped at the Central Station campsite which was an adventure. We set up our tents and then cooked dinner. We had to boil a ton of water because we didn't bring enough and you arn't supposed to drink any of the water on the island. So I was very thirsty when I woke up this morning. (I have to say sleeping on the ground made even the YWAM beds sound comfortable and that is saying something because they suck) We drove through one of the resorts on the island on our way to the ship wreck and we stopped for some water and ice cream. It was much needed! So we checked out the ship wreck and then went to Eli Creek and hung out there until it was time to leave. The drive down the beach was absolutely beautiful! So overall I enjoyed my time on Fraser the second time around but it was much different. This trip was a bit rougher, but full of a lot of laughs and good times.... even though much of it was spent pushing the vehicles. Oh and on the way home to the base on the vans broke down. I don't know what happened...actually I don't even know if the people who stayed with it are even back yet. So... hopefully they got home without too many problems. So basically I think that covers the highlights of the week. Next week is prayer week and I am pretty excited. We each have a two hour prayer slot each day with a small group of people. I think it will be amazing, but I will have to let you know later!

Spiritul Warfare and Jewish Roots

WOW... I don't even know where to start! This week was very intense, but totally amazing. The lectures were awesome! I was pretty excited to learn about spiritual warfare because I haven't had much teaching about that before. The first day we covered the topic of angels and demons. We talked about the differnt kinds of angels: warrior, messenger and worshipping. We learned about the fallen angels and how Satan tries to wage war against us. He tries to bind us in sin and silence us. He makes us feel like we are the only ones struggling with something and then fills us with shame. These are feelings that I have felt before, and this week really encouraged me to believe that it doesn't have to be that way. The good news is that Satan has already been defeated by the cross and through Jesus we have authority over him. On wednesday night we did some worship and then decided to wage some spiritual warfare ourselves. If there were areas in our lives where we were struggling you could go up and share with the group and then we all prayed for them. It was actually a very powerful night. I love that the people here are so open and that there is no judgement so that everyone felt comfortable sharing what was on their heart.

The last two days of lectures this week were on Jewish Roots. Initially I was thinking...okay so are we going to talk about Old Testimant traditions and celebrations or something.... well I was very wrong. The speaker, was so knowledgable in that area and they were some of my favorite lectures. He talked about how we should look at the Jewish people as our older brother. God entered into a covenant with Isreal and that is still being honoured today. Through Jesus and the spread of the gospel, Christians are now fellow -heirs. Romans 11:11 shows that because Isreal didn't beleive in Jesus, it made it possible for the gentiles to receive salvation. Verse 8 states that God blinded them and I believe that He did that so the rest of the nations could receive the gospel, otherwise it would have remained a strictly Jewish thing. The good news is that God will remove that blinding and they will realize the truth about Jesus. Even today, this is happening as it has never happened before, mostly in part due to the severe persecution that the Jews have suffered at the hands of the church.

This is what the second day was mostly about, it was a history lesson on anti-semitism and the church. To be honest I was overwhelmed. I had no idea that it had been so bad over the centuries and it made me feel sick! The holocaust is only one example of how this has happened. I had heard a lot of the stories before, but when they were all told together it really made me understand how the Jewish peoples have suffered. The most intersting thing was how the speaker related this to the decline and restoration of the church. Over the years the chruch lost its Jewish roots, then gifts of the spirit, moves on the spirit and then the authority of the word. This was during the middle ages. Then by about the 16th century we started to gain these thigs back starting with the word being restored. This happened at the same time that Jewish people were flooding back to their homeland (Isreal) for the first time in centuries. Anyways we have gained all those things back now and I think that really says something about where we are in God's plan. There was another verse we were talking about, but I actually can't find it now so sorry, but it says something along the lines that after all nations of the earth hear the gospel, Jesus will return. So anyways if anyone has heard of the 10-40 window of unreached people groups. That is the main area that has left be reached. Anyways we are rapidly approaching that time, whether it be in our lifetime, or our childrens'. Regardless of what you believe about this idea... because i know it freaks a lot of people out... it should motivate you to make sure that you are right with God. For me it makes me see how important it is to serve God during this life and not worry about how much money I can make or if I can buy a car or house or anything like that. So... I hope this wasn't too confusing, but it is so hard to write everything down in a way that makes sense. My point was that this was a good week and I learned a lot about how it is important to remember our Jewish roots. God made a covenant with Isreal and as beleivers we have been adopted into the covenant!

Character and Nature of God

So this week our lectures were on the character and nature of God. It was a good week, but for the most part I felt like I already knew what he was talking about. It was definately good to be reminded just how much God actually loves us though. He is passionately in pursuit in each and every single one of us. God is just, holy, merciful, love, forgiving, compassionate, gracious, powerful, slow to anger... etc. A lot of people have a scewed vision of who God really is but as we went through the bible He declares and shows himself to be all of these great things!

This week also reminded me of the power of prayer. We looked at several scriptures with Moses and King Hezekaiah where God spoke, they pleaded with God and He changed his mind. For example, God said that he was going to destroy the Isrealites after they made the golden calf once they had been delivered from Egypt. Moses pleaded with God and explained why he shouldn't do that. God listened and did not destroy them. It is important to remember that our prayers do make a difference! I have also realized the importance of praying for your nation. I never really considered it that important before, but we should be interceding on the behalf of our nation regularily, especially when there is so much disunity in the church. The church should be the concience of the nation and I don't necessarily think that this is the case most of the time. The church should stand up for those why can't do it themselves and it should stand up for the moral issues, even though it isn't polically correct. So... long story short there, prayer is important :)

As far as outreach in concerned, there still isn't a definitive plan on what we are doing. Please pray for you leaders and the contacts that the are communicating with. I think that they are having a hard time communicating with Destiny Rescue as they haven't heard anything back yet. We did sort out our roles in the group this week. Me and another girl, Annikke, will be in charge of teaching english. I am excited about this, but nervous as I have never done this before. Any resources would be greatly apprecited!

The Fear of the Lord

This week we just finished learning about the Fear of the Lord. It was the fourth week of lectures and I have to say that I can't beleive that it has already been a month! I am amazed at how fast time has gone by.. the next thing I know I will be heading to Africa! But back to lectures. This was a topic that I have heard about beofre but I never really knew how to answer... why should we fear the Lord? We looked at lots and lots of scriptures and I think that I have a better understanding now. The speaker, Glen, drew a picture of a double edged sword with grace on one side and the law on the other side. We talk about grace so often in church that the law side of the sword is often forgotten. That creates lawless grace which is almost like a license to sin...which is not at all what God wants for us! If you swing too far to the law side then you have graceless law which is not good either because no one could actually completely fulfill the law as we all have sinned. So the key is to have balance between these two things. We also talked a lot about fear...obviously! Fear is not cowardise, which is actually a sin. Fear is having respect and honour for God with the realization that is truly is an Awesome (fearsome) God. In Proverbs it says that the Fear of the Lord is the begining of wisdom. To be honest, this week was extremly intense and it was a lot to take in and process, but it was absolutely amazing. The speaker had so much wisdom to share and had a lot of hands on experience in the missions field. There was a lot of talk about spiritual gifts as well and I have really been spending a lot of time asking God about mine. I still don't have an answer, but i know that if I keep seeking, I will find the answer.

As for Africa I still don't know too much more about outreach except that we have booked the plane tickets. We are flying from Brisbane to Sydney and then to Johansberg in South Africa..not sure where we are connecting from in between. Anyways we might spend a week or two there in Jberg before we bus it to Mozambique. We will still need to pay for a flight to and from Madagasscar so we are hoping that isn't too expensive. The staff are still waiting to hear back from differnt people and organizations so nothing is set yet, but it would be great if you could pray for that process.

Just a note on my personal growth... this DTS has been challenging but extremely rewarding. God has taught me a lot about myself and it has forced me to do a lot of soul searching. I have had to push myself and question what exactly I believe in and search out the bible for answers. So basically...it has been good!

Hearing God's Voice

So last week we finished the lectures on Hearing God's Voice and I have to say that it was a pretty awesome week. I was definately a bit intimidated because I was unsure of myself but at the same time I was very eager to learn more about hearing God. The speaker, Jason, was awesome and he had a lot of great stuff to say on hearing God and some great stories too! My favorite part of the week though was the practical things that he made us do in class. The first time we just had a 30 min encouraging time where you tried to encourage as many people as you could. It was great, but a little nerve racking as well because the pressure was on :) Then the next day we were told that we were going to do the same thing except this time were had to spend time praying about what God wanted us to tell people. It wasn't important how many people you talked to just that you tried to hear God's voice. So I prayed and initially 2 people came into my mind along with some pictures and phrases for each of them. I was a bit sceptical as to whether it was God or just myself making things up but I decided to go for it anyways. The first one went well and she seemed encouraged and that was all that I could ask for. The second time, I actually started crying...go figure, but the girl that I talked to means a lot to me already. I talked to her after and she told me about the 4 different people that came to talk to her and how what we all said was similar and that we came in the perfect order and it was what she needed to hear. I was pretty amazed that God actually did speak through me! I talked to one other person afterwards... it was hard to go up to them, but I am glad that I went for it anyways. One of my biggest challenges here is learning how to conquer my fears. I am learning that there is far more freedom is speaking out than holding thing back when you are attacked by doubts. Anyways that next day we did more practice. This time you were supposed to talk with just one person and pray about what you were supposed to say to them. The kicker was that you didn't know who you were praying for....you had to write it down and then pull a name out of hat and go and share what you got with that person. So anyways I was a bit nervous but I did it and basically got a picture in my head of a growing flower. I won't go into that much detail. but I was skeptical. So then I picked out the name and went to that person. When I started to share with her what I saw she got really excited. I guess her mom had a similar picture when she was pregnant with my friend and always reminded her of it growing up. So it really meant something to her which was really cool. I was a bit blown away by the things that I experienced as well as what other people in the DTS experienced as well.

So now for this week...we have just started the Kingdom of Heaven week and so far it is off to a roaring start. So many hard questions have come up and I think it is important for us to think about them. Is just saying a prayer to God enough to get salvation? What does it take to be a true disciple of Jesus? Questions like these make you search out the truth in the bible and that is awesome. So far I think that I have come to the understanding that the most important thing isn't necessarily getting to heaven, it is making Jesus the lord of your life. The speaker Dan made an interesting comment. Most people read the gospels and relate themselves to the disciples. Instead we should try read them and relate ourselves to the Pharisees. Ask yourself: Are you falling into the same traps that they did? They were all work but no deed. Our faith needs to be followed with action! Too many people say that they follow Jesus, but don't act on that and I for one have been guilty of that in the past. Jesus has a heart for the world and so must we. "By doing unto the least of these you have done unto me." God wants to revolutionize the world through our action, not by our just sitting in church on Sunday or going about our daily lives minding our own business. Making Jesus the lord of your life means that you have to be willing to risk everything and that is something that I want to be better at. So...that is basically a bit of what I have been learning about this week.

Prayer Request:

I am getting sick AGAIN so please pray for healing!
That fear will not hold me back...especially when we do evangelism
That I will be open to God's voice and to what He is trying to teach me

New Outreach!

So...things have pretty crazy here at YWAM the last few days. Lectures have been amazing, this week we are learning about Hearing God's Voice. I have learned so much and it is incredible. Then I feel like I was put to the test yesterday. One girl from my outreach team decided that she was supposed to be on the team to India. Then another one of the girls has decided to go home and that she did not want to be at YWAM right now. This left our team with two girls and our leader. Needless to say I was freaking out because I didn't know what that meant for the team. So last night at dinner me and Rebecca talked to the school leader and we were at a bit of a loss. Then my outreach leader and some other people thought that if she joined the Africa team as a leader that would allow me and Rebecca to join that team if we wanted. The other option was that we could join the Darwin/Indonesia team. So I had to do a lot of praying about where I was supposed to go and my mind was like a mess! I was very stressed out about it because I did not want to make the wrong decision. So when it came down to it, I knew where my heart was... it was with Africa. So I went to that outreach meeting this morning and it is official.. I am going to Madagascar and Mozambique! Of course I now know that nothing is certain but at this point I beleive that is where I am going :) I am excited to go, although I know I would have loved Cambodia too. The plan for what we will be doing is pretty vague at this point, but I will fill you all in when I get more information. Hopefully we should be doing some work with Destiny Rescue while we are in Mozambique which works girls that were in the sex trade. Anyways, I will keep you updated..but I have to say that this whole experience is like a roller coaster. It is scary, but it is also the ride of a lifetime!!!!

YWAM Week 1

So I have officially been at YWAM for one week now and I have to say that it has been absolutely amazing! I absolutely love the people that i have met and we have already bonded. It is wierd..somtimes I can't beleive that I am actually here and other times I feel like I have been here for a long time because we have gotten so close already. We haven't even really begun the lectures yet because this was the orientation week, but I have already learned a lot. I love how everyone here has a passion and desire to know God. I think that God is going to do some amazing things while I am here! This week we spent one night and most of the next morning sharing testimonies and it was awesome. It was great to hear everyone's stories and why they came to YWAM. I think it helped us all feel closer and comfortable sharing with each other because there is no fear of judgement.

Today we spent the day at Noosa (well more like 3 hours) and it was nice, but it was basically spent on the beach... It was hot and sunny which was great (I guess I am trying to rub it in!) I did some swimming here at Alex beach as well today and went out for some delicious thai food tonight with a few people from the DTS.

So now for some information about outreach!!! We were presented with 4 outreach options: 1. Africa (mozambic and madagasscar) 2. India/Bangladesh 3. Cambodia 4. Darwin/Indonesia. We then had 15 minutes to pray about it and then put them in order or preference. This would not guarantee which place you visited. I put my first choice as Cambodia and my second as Africa. I would love to go to all of the locations but since that was not an option I had to pick :) We actually found out the next morning which team we were in and I am heading to Cambodia in December!!! It is an all girl team and there will be 5 of us in total. My leader CJ has been there before and is planning some amazing stuff for us to do which we are there. We will work with kids a lot I think and do some slum ministry. I won't go into too much detail about what we will do yet, until things are more certain. But i can tell you that I am super excited!!! I feel like i already have a heart for the people living there, especially the kids and I think that my enthusiasm will just continue to grow before we leave.

So that is basically it for the first week... at least all that I can think of at the moment. I will try and keep you all updated about what I am learning and about outreach. Please pray that I continue to learn and grow!

YWAM the begining...

So I know it has been a while since I have last posted a blog and a lot has happened since then, so I will try and get it all done. First I will start with the sailing trip that I did out of Airlie Beach. It was pretty amazing! It was a three night and two and half day trip that went out to the outer reef. It was a dive boat so there was the option of going scuba diving each day or just snorkeling. I went diving the first afternoon and it was fun...but a bit expensive to keep up so I stuck with snorkeling the rest of the trip. It was fun though and I saw a lot of cool fish and coral. You could often see turtles from the boat and we saw a sea snake too! The first night we went through a passage called the washing machine and I got a bit sick then, it was crazy! But after that I was fine and enjoyed sunbathing on the deck. So that is basically what the sailing was like ( and there was good food which was sweet!), the only bad thing was that me and Julie had to share a one person cubbie becuase they overbooked, but we managed.

After sailing we drove down to Hervey Bay and booked a trip to Fraser Island. The hostel we stayed in was really bad, but the trip was great. We did a guided tour of the island on the bus for two days and one night. It is a sand island so the beach is considered a highway and the roads are all sand and it is really easy to get stuck! It was a bit like being on a ride on a amusement park riding on the bus but it was a ton of fun! The lake were absolutely beautiful and it reminded me how much I miss swiming in fresh water. The ocean is great, but I am not a huge fan of the salt water. We went to a lookout and you could see whales, turtles and rays too which was neat. I will try and get some pictures up when I can.

After Fraser Island we spent a few days in Noosa which is a surf town just north of where I am now living. I really enjoyed my time there and on the last day me and Julie took a surf lesson which was awesome! I was able to stand up a few times and I can't wait to try again! We also experienced the dust storm while we were there which was crazy! It came on so fast and the sky just looked so wierd and dust was everywhere when it passed.

Anyways, now about the present....I am now at YWAM in Maroochydore and I am so excited. I arrived on Saturday morning and we did our first day of classes today. Yesterday we did a welcome bbq at the beach too. My roommates are awesome and I so far I have met a lot of really cool people. It was a bit nervous at first, but I am slowly starting to get comfortable. I have to say that I am really excited to see what God is going to do during my time here. It is pretty amazing to be here with a group of people who are committed to getting to know God more. I will let you know how it goes, but the lecture today was really good. Well that is all that I can think of for the moment. I have been sick the last week or so and would appreciate your prayers! I will try and keep this updated as best as I can, but the internet is really really slow. I miss you all back in Canada and you are always in my thoughts! Please keep in touch so I know what is going on with everyone back home!

First Week in Aus...

The first week here in Australia has been action packed and exciting. We spent the first 2 days in Brisbane and left on the third for the Gold Coast. We spent three nights in Surfer's Paradise and it was amazing. It was a last minute decision to go there but it was definately worth it! We spent the first night there wandering around a bit. The next day was our first real beach day and it was incredible. The beach was gorgeous and the waves were awesome to swim in! Me and Julie spent at least an hour just playing in the water:) Then later that night we went shopping for our Australian bikinis and I say "ours" because I talked her into getting one too! Needless to say they are awesome!

The next day, which was a Thursday we went hiking out the Springbrook National Park and went to the Natural Bridge as well as Purling Falls. I don't think words can describe how awesome it was! The Natural Bridge was pretty cool, but my favorite part was hiking to Purling Falls. There wasn't much water but it was still awesome. You could go and walk behind the falls and it was all rainforest with vines, cool birds and amazing trees. We even saw a Goanna up close and personal! The scenery was spectacular and I think it will definately be a hightlight of my trip.

The next day we drove to Maroochydore after spending some time at the Australia zoo. It was pretty cool and I got to pet a Koala and a Kangeroo! Maroochydore was good, but we got a bit lost and we just crashed by the time we got there so we didn't get to explore the beach at all. Then next day we made the 14 hour trip to Airlie beach which is where I am now. The drive made for some awesome scenery which I really enjoyed, unfortunately I also saw a lot of road kill. We saw over 50 dead Kangeroos on the side of the road in varying states of decompostion which was pretty gross! Apparently they don't clear road kill like we usually do in Canada. Anyways we saw an awesome sunset and a beautiful night sky full of stars. Now we are Airlie Beach and it is very nice here. The hostel we are in is great and the guy working there helped up book our sailing trip which me and Julie are leaving on tomorrow. We are pretty excited for the snorkeling and diving in the reef! So more information on that to follow! Overall the trip has been great so far and I have made some amazing memories!

Finally HERE!

So I have finally arrived in Australia! The flight was very long and I found it impossible to sleep on the plane so I watched a bunch of movies instead. We arrived into Brisbane shortly after 6AM. We took the train downtown and then had to hike up a big hill to get to the place we were staying. Apparently there was a lift we could have taken instead, but at least we got good exercise. At that point we crashed at the guest house for about 4 or 5 hours and then showered. The place isn't great, but i was just happy to see a bed. So far we have spent our first day in Brisbane wandering around the city and checking out markets and cultural events. It was great! I will put up some of the pictures when I get a chance, but I couldn't get it to work today. Anyways, that is pretty much it for my trip so far, but I am sure that I will have more adventures to share later! PS. I do totally love the accents! Soooo cool!

Heading Down Under!

For those of you who don't already know, I am heading to Australia this fall to do a Youth with a Mission program on the Sunshine Coast. The school is called YWAM Waves and it is a five month program that I am taking. I am flying out of Vancouver on September 4th with my friend Julie and her mom and heading to Brisbane, Australia. There we will be travelling around the east coast for just about three weeks. September 27th I will begin my DTS (Discipleship Training School). From there I will complete three months of training followed by two months of outreach. I do not know exactly where I will be doing my outreach, but it will quite likely be somewhere in Southeast Asia.

I decided to start this blog in order to keep everyone updated on my travels and experiences! So I will try and update it as often as possible, but I might not always have internet access. If you want to learn more about the program I am doing visit the following website: www.ywamwaves.com. I will miss everyone while I am gone and would appreciate your prayers! I would also love to hear from people. Even though I am in Australia, I still care about what is going on in Canada :)