Wide-eyed and Bushy-tailed

After the hikers got back from the Bucketts, we hung out around the church ALL night. We filled our down time with some “tea” at Mrs. King’s house (the brains behind this entire operation), soccer outside, or perhaps the ever popular game: Ninja Slaps. This evening, all of the host families came together to have dinner with each other. We had a cornucopia of finger foods… including a roll up with a slivered almond at the end (resembling a finger). We followed that up by Pavlova… the best Australian favorite. It’s a sugary, fluffy, heavenly cakeish thing served with whipped cream (not the type of whipped cream you’re thinking of) and a variety of fresh fruits.

Oh – And by the way — Clarification: If you read our last blog.. a “Ke$ha Dance Party” was mentioned. That is just a term used for a Jamfest or Disco or Dance Party or Sock Hop. Music affiliated with any specific artist is not implied. Young people these days… always using the oddest terminology.

We then gathered in the church for a closing ‘goodbye’ service. The Australians opened it up by singing an ancient Australian folksong to us. And then we all sang a worship song that originated here (Shout to the Lord). We heard some heartfelt ‘thank yous’ and teary-eyed ‘goodbyes.’ All of the students were given a bookmark with a Bible Verse and the adults were given a book on the history of Gloucester and a bookmark as well. Then afterward, the choir stepped up and sang some Jesus Jams.

We all said goodbye to our host families and tried to grab some showers when we could. And NOW — we’re just killing time here at the church until we board the bus at 3am (our time). In an effort to getting a jumpstart to adjusting to Georgia time — we’re trying to stay up as long as possible…

Wish us luck!

Major Catching-Up To Do!

So sorry for such a long time between blogs. We have been CA-RAY-ZAY busy and haven’t had much of a chance to really put down in words what we’ve been doing. Here’s a breakdown of the week:

Tuesday: We split up into three different groups and headed in three different directions towards three different towns — some to Stroud, some to Dungog, and others here in Gloucester. In Dungog, the group began canvassing through all the streets, dropping fliers into letterboxes (mailboxes) and telling everyone we saw about the VBS .. or “kids’s club” that would be at the Baptist Church hall for the next two days. We picked up LOADS of trash including hundreds of cigarette buds, glass, and the occasional broken license plate – which was kept as a souvenir. The group in Stroud ran a VBS called “Jigglebugs” for about 20 kids in the area at the Stroud School of the Arts. After, the group went to a local nursing home to sing and then off to a chicken farm to hang out with the “chooks.” That night, the Stroud folks met up with the Gloucester group and held a concert for the folks in Stroud. After the concert, they held an open Question and Answer session with the audience. The audience began asking amazing questions to open Christ-centered conversations. They asked “Why are you here?” and “What does hard work and service have anything to do with why you are here in Gloucester?” and “Is being a christian always easy?” The audiences applauded after every Christ-centered answer. When they began singing again, the audience was different in that they truly listened to the words of the songs and they did the hand motions wilingly. .. (ha). The Dungog group came to Goucester for the night and attempted to host a youth event at the local rec center. Well — that didn’t work out as well as we thought it might. After one person showed up (one who had been with our group off and on throughout the 2 weeks), we headed back to the Baptist Church for some worship and scripture reading. The Aussies who had joined us sat with us at the Church. Shortly after the worship, we broke the mood with a Dance Party – surely a favorite event for the day. The others arrived late and we climbed right into bed the moment we got back to our homes.

Wednesday: We went to the same towns we were in earlier and continued to run the local VBS’s. Dungog’s group was very successful as it was their first offical “kid’s club” meeting. About 20 kids showed up to Dungog’s VBS. In Stroud, they did the power band activity (with the red,black,blue, green, yellow, and white beads) and several kids accepted Christ that day. In Gloucester, after breakfast, they hung out at the church and prayed for VBS groups that would be presenting the gospel. And Mrs. Denise led them up to “The Cottage,” a place of people with special needs. They did a concert for the people there and they just loved it. Afterwards, the guys helped clean up around the building and a shed. They came back to the church for lunch and the handicapped people came down to eat with them at the church. And then they did another concert here at the Baptist Church because they wanted to hear them sing again. After the concert at the church, the Gloucester group went to Dungog to join up with them and hold a concert there. Those who stayed held a youth night for teenagers who wanted to stop by. During the service, they had some testimonies and songs, as well as some one-on-one time. During this time, many people were able to make decisions that led towards accepting Christ. After the youth night, they all hung out at the church and even put up the HUGE “Origin to Origin.” This is the biggest rugby game of the year. Its comparable to the Superbowl. The number of Tim-Tams eaten made up for the heart-wrenching loss of our team. The Dungog team held a concert with the Stroud people in Dungog. Here, after the concert, one girl accepted Christ and began showing up to the other activities in town.

Thursday: This was the day that the Stroud team ran another VBS in the town for about 20 kids. After a big morning, they headed back towards Gloucester. Those in Dungog ran the last VBS. At first, it was a real discouragement because NO ONE showed up. The “kid’s club” was SUPPOSED to start at 9:30am, however not a soul came into the building. Then, finally – after making a song about our failure, eating all the snacks that were for the kids, and after coloring all of the crafts that THEY were supposed to make, a car load of 5 little cutie-pies came to the door. Later, 4 more dropped by: SUCCESS! We learned some cool VBS songs and then did the power bands with the kids. Then we headed back towards Gloucester to join up with the other two groups. The group that was in Gloucester to begin with held their final day of VBS and played soccer with some kids at the rec center. The rest of the day (after lunch) was a free day that we could spend with our host families. Some went and helped out their families at the farm. Others helped put up a fence on some property, and others went up to some beautiful lookouts and saw an expansion of miles and miles worth of land.. or should I saw kilometers and kilometers. That night, we had dinner with our families and most had lamb. Others had cow meat .. which happen to come from a cow that was in the fields just a day before. Can you say.. FRESH? and ORGANIC? Some houses spent the night teaching their homes some classic American card games like: Spoons, War, Go Fish, and Crazy Eights. FUN day.

Friday: Today we got to sleep in! We arrived at the Baptist Church at 9:30 and headed down towards main street and sung on street corners. What fun! Afterwards, we headed into a park nearby and took a couple of group pictures. Currently, we’re all hanging out together at the church. A group of us are about to hike up the “Bucketts” that I mentioned earlier. In case you missed out, its a BEAST of a mountain that we have the OPTION of hiking AGAIN. Let’s put it this way: only a select, elite, athletic few have chosen to go up again. Others like myself will be staying back playing some “footie” (soccer) with some locals, walking the main streets of town and building relationship together. Tonight, there will be a HUGE group dinner with all of our host homes at the Baptist Church. YUMM-O!

Ta-Ta for now.

Hitting the streets Blog coming soon!

Day OFF!

Ok, I know some of you are beginning to wonder what is happening! Due to some technology issues (or probably just me doing something wrong) the blog has not been updated for a while so hold on to your hats here we go.

We left you last on or way to a have free day which is greatly needed and Biblical. We went to the Billabong, which is an Australian Zoo/Animal Reserve. We not only were able to see a lot of the local wildlife we were also able to pet some of them. If you have not see the pictures just wait till we get home. Koalas were the favorite to touch and get a personal picture and coming in a close second was the Kangaroo area where they were just out in the open to pet and feed. The place was amazing, if you are in the area its well worth the stop.

Our off day was only started; next we were booked on a boat tour to see the Humpback Whales migrating up close and personal. The day was a bit windy and some were able to have a better time than others although the sea sick ones did have a good position to look at the water (sorry guys, I had to put it in, its been a while since I saw people that color). It was great and every boat was able to see whales, who needs discovery channel. Next we toured around the port city and loaded up for a greatly anticipated all you can eat buffet. Don’t worry, we did America proud in how much everyone put down that night, the whole staff of the restaurant was in shock.

We returned back home late (sorry host homes) and went to bed got ready for the next day. Most of the groups started kids clubs and one group worked at the local High School with the administration getting what they said “a whole years worth of work done” in one day. The kids clubs were hard, the weather has been bad all week and who want to come out in the cold rain. We were able to get them off the ground and it is exciting to see everyone being able to be used in different ways.

There are loots of stories from the last couple of days and check back soon and we will post a lot of them. One thing before I go. Even in the middle of some very hard positions, tired form 12 days of working, sick from local viruses, and trying to adjust to the winter weather, It has been amazing to see how committed to Jesus and reaching people this group of students have been. Be proud, and we will check back soon and get you up to speed.

Bye

Great God

Well, it been a while since you all were last clued in on all of the amazing stuff that God has been doing through us. Here are a couple of super cool stories to start off:

On Thursday, we drove to a shopping center to talk to people about the upcoming concert and also to conduct a survey with questions like “How relevant is the Bible in your life?” and “How important is your spiritual life?” …. These questions were great openers for spiritual converations. We then broke into groups in different directions. One group went to a local skate park right next to the mall. A kid named Jordan ended up accepting Christ right there.

Earlier that morning, we did a concert at Tyree Christian College (1st- 12th grade). One of the class clowns fromthe school was hiding among the soprano section. Later in the program, we performed the ” everything” skit (YouTube it) and after the concert, that boy (about 16) was told to appologize to Barry for disrupting the performance. Teary eyed, he approached him and started talking about how much the skit effected him and how it reminded him of his own life. After Barry talked with him for a little while he handed him off to two of our students. he explained to them that he believed that jesus was his savior but he had never accepted him into his life, so our students explained to him how to do that and helped walk him through it.

One of our choir groups was singing downtown and there was a young man who was listening to them sing for a long time. A adult pulled Will Fricks out of the choir and he started talking to him. after he explained the gospel to him and he excepted Christ he figured out the boys name he remembered it was the boy he got a post card from and has been praying for him for months.

The students were holding a concert and youth event in Forster at Great Lakes College and they divided up into small groups to discuss topics with local kids and witness with them. There was one local who had been going to youth events in the community for four years but had never accepted the Jesus Christ as his lord and saviour. Four students presented the Gospel to them during their first group discussion and when they met for the second time the local and a friend he brought both invited Christ into their lives.

Through all of these stories, it is easy to see how active the Holy Spirit has been in the past week or so. There’s no telling how much MORE will be done. Not all of our conversations end with a prayer of acceptance, but countless seeds have been planted. Now all we need is a littl Miracle-Gro.

Check in later for more! This morning, we are headed to Newcastle to visit the billabong(zoo) and then a boat tour to see humpback whales!!!

WHAT A DAY!

Well, I’ve been thinking about a word that can describe today and not be to trite but at this point I’m all out of creativity so I’m just going to go with “WOW”. We started with another cold morning here in Gloucester with our “Yellow Rooted Shirts” on and boy did they go over well (just ask your student when they get home). There was a bit of meaning lost in the transition. We packed up and headed to the city of Forster which you really say it Foster who knows where the “R” went.

We arrived into a Tuncurry High School (great school), set up and had a 30 minute presentation and spent the next hour having small group gospel conversations in the quad area. More and more every day we are figuring out that the students here are really like home. It almost seems in some places that the students have been waiting to have an honest and real person to ask spiritual questions and hear about the love of Jesus. As a parent, friend, supporter and definitely as a pastor be proud of the commitment to the gospel that your students have. They are not ashamed to openly share their faith and are giving 100′s of people daily the opportunity to turn to Christ.

After Tuncurry we packed up, had a quick lunch by the ocean and headed to the next school to go at it again for the next 2 hours. We are having the opportunity at just about every place that we go to see people trust Jesus for the first time and also see some make decisions to recommit their lives to Jesus. We headed straight to a mall and set up in the middle with a few people singing and a bunch inviting the locals to a community student outreach service in a few hours.

The local baptist church hosted us for dinner and pavlova we were off to the main event of the day. When tonight’s event started, it seemed like we were all a little disappointed in the number of people. But once everything started we were amazed to see how God linked the local students with our students for some powerful starter conversations. Then as the evening went on, you could see friendships were starting and many ended in first-time decisions for Christ that we were able to hand off to local youth pastors who were there with us.

It was an hour-long bus ride back home and now it’s late — 12:25 AM so good night for now.

MP

5 Concerts. 4th Day. 3 Dead Wallabys. 2 Schools. 1 Great God.

What an incredible day today has been. Today was the first day that we actually got to be all together almost all day. At the beginning of the day, after having breakfast and tea of course, a small group of 10 people went to Kramback public school to have a quick concert for some Kindergarten through fifth graders. The rest of the group headed to St. Claire Catholic School and had a concert in front of about 600 high schoolers. These students absolutely loved us. They hooped and hollared for us through the whole show. It was “heaps” of fun. After the concert, the students went out and met people and the guys even played football and rugby with the students of the school. Then, the smaller group from the morning met up with everyone else and we were all together for the rest of the day.

Now it was on to the 3rd concert of the day at Taree Christian College where we sang, danced, and did dramas for the students. We then got to eat lunch with them and hang out until it was time to go to, you guessed it, the nursing home. This was one of the funnest parts of the day for the students. We sang and had an awesome time talking to the Australian elderly about life and hearing their stories.

We then left and spent the afternoon at the “mini mall” talking to people, handing out flyers for this evenings concert, and taking surveys about moral absolutes, the Bible, and getting to heaven. It was very interesting to hear all the answers that people had and getting to share with them what we believe.

When we were done at the mini mall, it was time to head to Taree Baptist church to get ready for the concert and have some “sausage sizzles” for dinner. (And not to mention, some delicious birthday cake for Lisa Smith’s 34th birthday.) After that, it was concert time. We had a very high energy concert with skits and testimonies. What a powerful evening of worshipping and building relationships.

We’re on the bus ride home now. All very tired but excited from such an awesome day. We saw around 20 people come to know the Lord today. Very awesome to be a part of. It’s only Thursday and we still have over a week left of serving the Lord here in Australia. We are very excited to see what the Lord is going to do through us in the next few days. Please keep us in your prayers and have an awesome day!