Busy! Busy!

So, Perth is knows as the "Black Swan" area because, well, we have black swans (as seen above)

I thought I would start off with a little fact about where I live.  

Now, on to other things.  These last few months have kept me busy.  Back in July, my school got canceled.  Since then, God has been keeping me quite busy.  First, I head south to cook for 125 young kids at a camp.  Then, I headed to Bali to help train church planters.  I believe that's where we left off in my last post

Since my last post

I fly to Darwin, Australia

YWAM has a small base there.  They were having 45 high school students come in for a 2 week "Mission Adventure".  The base was extremely understaff and was in need of help. So, off I went to help out.  I went to do whatever they needed help with.  When I arrived, it just so happened that they needed someone to cook the meals and run a devotion groups for the girls.  BOTH of which I love and am passionate about.  So!  I got to fattened the kids both spiritually and physically :)

  

Darwin was quite different from Perth.  It's a big town that's extremely laid back and HOT.  I felt I was back in Alabama on a hot July day with 100% humidity.  Even the creatures came out to cool off.  I was washing dishes one night, turned around, and this guy was chillin out right beside me.  Needless to say, I freaked out a little.

FIRST, I spent the first few days pre-cooking desserts.  

The kids then came and we spent the first week training and applying.  The week was full of teaching, work duties, small group devotions, intercessions, and application.  Below was a night where the kids just got with God.  The cross was there if they wanted to go to it.  It was pretty powerful

Below is my devo group.  They were AWESOME! Before they arrived, I got a list of their names.  So, I asked God to talk to me about them.  For each girl, I got some pretty specific details and words.  Of course, I wondered if it was really God but as they arrived and I began to know them, I saw that God was right on.  YAY!

I also had the chance each day to teach the groups dance. I taught some "tutting" moves (which is using your hands and arms to make different linear shapes).  The serious of movements I taught them was able to be used to teach kids the prodigal son story.  

After the first week of training, the kids were divided up into small groups and they head out to aboriginal communities to help. I joined one of the groups for a few days before i had to fly back to Perth

This was the house we stayed in; a mission house for groups like us.  It was an interesting experience.  The aboriginal people are highly connected to the land.  Up until a few decades ago, they lived outside and were nomadic.  Now, many of them live in communities with houses similar to this.  Because they stay outside most of the time, these people don't have much of a concept of cleanliness (or what we would call cleanliness).  So, as we walked into the house, we shouldn't have been surprised to see the roach infestation in the kitchen.  The walls and floor was moving.  There were thousands of them.  After the initial shock of it all, we got in there and cleaned.  We never got rid of the roaches and had to make sure they didn't crawl into our food as we cooked.  Many of you are of western decent and are probably grossed out by this.  But this is just living among another worldview.....another way of looking at things.  Because these people are outside people and are use to critters, the roaches don't bother them.  They don't see the need to clean like we do because you wouldn't clean the land like that.  Anyway!  I thought it was a great experience.  In case you're wondering, after the second day, we weren't bothered by the roaches anymore.  We were even sleeping all night without worry that these little creatures would crawl over us a few times.  It's funny what we THINK we can handle and what we CAN handle.   

Another interesting way of the aboriginals.  the communities are led by elders (much like a chief for Indian tribes).  they see their communities as their home (the whole community, not just their houses).  So, we had to wait for one of the elders to walk us through the area before we could go out on our own.  The second day, this happened.  The elder walked us to the billabong across town.  

The billabong had what the Aussies call "salties".  This means the lake had salt-water crocks.  Apparently, there are 2 types: salt-water and fresh-water crocks.  The freshies are smaller and less aggressive.  The salties are larger and VERY aggressive.  Below, you can see a salty.  It's the long mass you see in the middle of the picture.  

The girls of my teams.  

This is Jen, the base leader.  She was the one I related to most during my 2 weeks.....amazing woman of God

After being taken out, we were allowed to walk to the billabong on our own.  So, a group of us went the next morning at sunrise to see more crocks.  I heard a huge amount of birds taking flight and quickly took a shot......it's one of the best shots of nature I've ever taken.  

Again, the aboriginal culture is VERY laid back....much like the islands.  They don't have much concept of time.  If they say something will start at 5, know it will probably start at 7.  Anyway, we didn't take pictures of them because it would have been offensive.  However, I did sneak a shot here.  We were having church with the local believers.  This happened outside of the house we stayed in.  The guy in the picture is the elder that took care of us.  The service was full of singing and dancing.  Next thing we knew, the elder got up and asked if one of my group would read a scripture out loud.  We sat there in silence waiting to hear what scripture.  Soon it occurred to me that he was actually asking one of us to preach.  Nobody knew he was going to do this so nobody was prepared.  Next thing I knew, I put up my hand and said I would.  Luckily, just that afternoon, I had a time with God and he spoke to me through Romans.  So, I shared that.  Wow! I never preached without ANY preparation time before.  I think the whole sermon lasted 7 minutes :)

Now I'm back at the Perth base getting into the life again.  I thought I'd share some fun pics.  On the left, we had a crowd surfing time as part of our worship (yes! it can be done!).  Another time, we had a group of people who still needed money to go to other countries get in the middle and we prayed for them.  There are 350 staff on base, but it still feels like a close family.  It's crazy how they do that!

Next!

in 3 weeks, I will be heading to London to help with a youth missions conference.  I will be there for 1 month.