Always an adventure

This week was a pretty relaxed week. We had our last few days of staff training and also some meetings, but nothing to difficult.
One story from Wednesday: We have intercessory prayer every Wednesday morning with the base. This week Paula led and put us into different groups by our learning styles. I was in the group that learns by physical feel or doing something. We were to pray for the Base Leaders and then come up with someway to share what we felt while praying. In being physical people we walked around the base praying and then shared. James had the image of "contending for our faith" and we all also shared what we had. In the end we went in and had a boxing match between Blaire and myself. The others were nurturers, delegaters, encouragers, all things for the boxers. It displayed that we need to keep fighting for our time with God and our faith. It was very fun to do and I think funny to watch.
This weekend on Saturday Blaire and I were stuck on base. Almost everyone else was gone or leaving for a wedding so we were trying to come up with an adventure. Our first obstacle was transportation. We don't have a car and the bus doesn't run by here on Saturday. After checking around Penny said we could use her car if we didn't go far, because of insurance reasons. Penny has a manual transmission car, with the gear shift on the left side....I wasn't so sure about that. Also it has been over 5 months since I drove here on the other side of the road and that was only once, but we wanted to get out so off we went. Driving was actually not much different, besides reaching for the gear shift with my wrong hand and turning on the wipers once instead of the turn signal. :) We made it to Cold Rock for ice cream and then off to Ikea. We live within 15 minutes of Ikea and hadn't been there yet. After walking around dreaming of all of the things we could do with the furniture in our little rooms, but knowing we are on very tight budgets, Blaire bought a $3 clock and I bought a $2.95 lint roller. Exciting huh?!! We made it home safely and are getting good use out of our purchases. It turned out to be a fun time of being out on our own.
Okay you are probably getting sick of reading by now so I will let you stop. We are leaving tomorrow morning for the other YWAM base in the city to do our Certification course so we are certified to staff DTS. It is going to be a pretty full week.
I pray that you are all doing well. I love hearing from you! Keep in touch!

Weekend in Fingal

It was a great weekend seeing friends and spending time on the beach! We left Friday afternoon for our weekend away. While I was here on DTS I became close to the people that live there. It was so nice to see them all again. Katie, Blaire, Sione, Troy and I all made the journey.
We three girls spent a little too long in the noon time sun and are experiencing some pain from sunburn. I know that it is tough for you to feel sorry for us while it is 15 degrees in Michigan. I was excited to be able to be outside again.
We celebrated Sis's 30th birthday with the family. It was a big gathering with kids everywhere. The kids are great, it reminds me of my family with the commotion of the kids everywhere.
On Sunday we went to Fingal Church and then had lunch with them before heading back up to base.
This morning I was at my first Base Worship of this year and then we are all taking a class called Kairos. This is a class on missions and fulfilling God's call for us to be a blessing to the nations. I have 2 weeks that I missed so a lot of homework to do, so that is what I am going to go start on tonight. I am interested to see if this is something that I can lead when I get back home.
Have a great week!

Settling In

In just a few days I feel like I am getting back into life at Island Breeze. We are in staff training during the day, learning more about the responsibilities and requirements of staffing a DTS. It has been pretty informative and I am glad that I only missed the first 2 days. On January 28th I start YWAM training in Brisbane. It is a class that we have to pass in order to be certified to staff a YWAM DTS. It should be interesting as there are 7 of us from here all attending together.
My time zones are still messed up a bit as is evident by my waking up at ~5:30 ready for the day. It is nice to have the time in the morning, but it makes my evenings short as I am tired by 8.
Please pray with us as we prepare for the school and for the students as the prepare to come.

I made it!

The past week and a half have been crazy. Not even 2 weeks ago I was still wondering how God was going to get me back to Island Breeze. Now I am sitting in the Training office writing to tell all of you my adventures to getting here.
I received a call on Jan 4 about my visa and I was able to apply and get granted a 3 month visa that could get me into the country. I will need to switch to another visa while I am here, but I have at least 3 months to be here. After receiving confirmation of my visa I went online to book my airline ticket. I had been checking and the cost was right around $2000 so I was excited to book and leave the next Saturday. But another test hit me, I went online to book and the price had jumped up to $3100, then $3800 on Sunday. I almost cried sitting in front of my computer, because I couldn't pay that much.
On Sunday church did mine and Katie's sendoff, and I still didn't have a ticket. I was just praying that I would be leaving sometime in the week. Then on Monday I received an email about a ticket I could get for just over $2200. I was so excited, I called as soon as I got home and booked it. The crazy thing was I had to travel 40 hours to get here.
My traveling started in Grand Rapids at 6 am Sunday morning and took me to Chicago, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Cairns, and then finally Brisbane. I arrived in Brisbane about 10 pm Monday Michigan time. Praise God that everything went smoothly for me on the flights! I even had extra leg room on the longest leg of the journey (14 hours).
It is great to be here. I had a good nights sleep and then meetings all this morning. Now I am very sleepy and trying to adjust myself to this time zone.
Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers!

Returning to Island Breeze????

Hey everyone I thought I should post an update on what is happening with my return to Australia. I am still home and trying to get my visa so that I can head back. I am still praying that I will be able to leave the end of next week, but this will require me to get a visa in the next week. Calls are being made to see if I can go on a tourist visa and change it when I get there. Please pray that this is approved and I can continue preperations.
I will keep you updated as more information becomes available.