Australia Outreach Photos

Katie's 19th Birthday (in Burdekin Baptist Church where we stayed)

Sam prying open a coconut.

Chappy Scott teaching some boxing moves.

Our guys with the Home Hill Boxing Club.

After school program in Home Hill.

YWAM Base in Airlie Beach.

Rachel and I in Airlie Beach.

Hannah and I on the ship headed out to the Whitsundays to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef.

Whitsundays.

Chelsea about to eat a green ant. (taste like lime)

More Whitsundays.

My Outreach leaders, Chelsea and Maddie, super excited about the Whitsundays.

Most of my Outreach team. (me, Chels, Sam, Maddie, Fanny, Ben. Front: Hannah, Rach, and Court)

Airlie Beach (Australia Outreach part II)

After 10 days in Ayr, we went to the Whitsundays... the name for Airlie Beach and a series of islands off of there.  It is a huge tourist/backpacker area.  It rained a good portion of the time we were there, but it was still one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life.  We stayed at the YWAM base, which was a huge house on 5 acres of rain forest, built into the side of a huge hill.  

There was a creek running through the driveway, which we spent a good number of hours building back up the driveway where it washed out and putting in drainage pipes under it.  It was so much fun, getting muddy in the pouring rain and standing in the creek chucking rocks up onto the roadway. 

Our first day there, a World Race team was staying with us.  They were all Americans.  Anyway, they were a wonderful group of people, traveling around 11 countries in 11 months doing missions.  We got to have worship and prayer time with them.  It was so great to be with another really passionate group of young Christians! 

We went into the city on a daily basis and did street evangelism.  We would pray that God would bring us to people and give us words to speak to them.... we pray all the time here and it is amazing how God moves when you are walking in that.  Learning to listen to God in even the smallest things in life really prepares you for the big things.  Now, I have no problem talking to strangers, but boldness to speak what God tells you to can be hard ("fear of man" struggle).  We also prayed over the city and some of the strongholds we felt were there.

I went with a Kiwi girl, Courtney, on our first day.  She is sweet and very quiet.  But, she has shown herself as someone who hears God on everything she does.  We passed a woman sitting on a bench at the beach.  Both of us felt like God wanted us to talk to her.  So we stopped.  We prayed for God give us the right words to speak to her, then we approached her.  Her name was Leanna, she was in her 40's and from Sweden.... backpacking up the coast with her daughter.  We had a great conversation, learned that she quit her job of 20 years, sold her house because it had always been a dream of hers to travel around the world.  She was not a Christian. 

We told her about what we were doing and why God called us to Australia.  As we talked, I felt we needed to be more bold, however.  Despite the fact that she knew nothing about Christianity, I felt like she was pretty close to entering into a relationship with God.  So, I asked her if I could pray for her.  She said, "Yes." I sat down next to her and words from God just poured out.  I prayed she would find God on her journey and that He would bless her with direction and a job when she returned home, etc... then we made it clear to her that when these things happened in her life, she needed to remember that it was God who did this for her because He loves her and sees her where she is at in life and wants to draw her close to Him.  IT WAS SO COOL!  I've never been so bold and I knew it was God completely directing me.  I still pray for Leanna but really believe she will be a Christian soon! 

We have more and more stories of instances like that.  I couldn't get over how much God spoke through us to people from all over the world.  We threw free BBQs and went around the main streets inviting people.  We usually got about 75-90 people show up over the course of a few hours and we got to talk to them all.  I met some amazing girls from Nepal, tons of French, German, and British.  Pretty much none of them were Christian, but most were really open to hearing about God and what He's done for them and some were open to us praying for them.  We never forced it on anyone, but were bold when we felt it was necessary. 

We also had a free day and a family in Ayr gave us money to have fun with, so we took a boat out to the islands and went hiking and snorkeling.  That's right, I snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef!!! How cool is that?!?  Despite my fear of fish, I wouldn't pass up the opportunity.  We had to wear "stinger suits" because it is jellyfish season and they are deadly out here.  I learned that I am not a mouth breather and really struggled with the snorkel.  I met a guy from Mexico on the boat and got to talk to him about God.  He quit his job and is traveling the world and wants to go into some form of humanitarian work. 

Anyway, way more happened, but you all have already read way too much if you got to this point....

Ayer (Aussie Outreach part 1)

The first e-mail is about the first place we went on Outreach.  Ayr, Queensland.  It is about an hour south of here.  It has about 8000 people and is a farming community.  Picture Nebraska but with sugar cane about 8 ft tall rather than corn.  People in Ayr were super friendly.  In fact, so friendly, we were severely over-fed.  Everyone wanted to get us dinner or bring us snacks.  I think I gained about 10 lbs in Ayr.

Our first night we were taken up a huge hill to have a BBQ.  Our van (which we named Bruce) stalled out and started to roll backward on the last push of the hill; it was so steep it was almost straight up.  Maddie (one of my leaders) was driving and after throwing on the E-Brake we all jumped out.  Sam (one of the guys on my team) turns out is an incredible driver and hopped in, got the van up the hill.... we finished by walking.  We have christened this hill "Mozzie Hill" because the mosquitoes were beyond horrible, we were covered from head to toe.  (They call mosquitoes "mozzies" out here.)

We mostly did school programs and went to churches/youth groups.  Our second night our team was split between two churches.  We prayed about where we should go and who should speak.  We ended up at this tiny church with pretty much everyone over 60 (that's being generous with age).... it looked like a retirement home from the early 90's.... pastels everywhere!  Our 3 quietest people felt called to speak, so they gave their testimonies.  They did great!  The church was really encouraged to have young people there and really had a heart for enlarging their church and bringing younger people in but weren't sure how to do it. 

We did a lot of school programs.  In Australia the schools have chaplains and religious educations classes.  Unfortunately the need for teachers greatly out-weighs the amount of students enrolled, so a lot of schools are lacking the chaplains and teachers.  We also ate lunch with kids at the schools, played with them at recess, and did yard work.  We had a blast and the kiddos really loved having us around.  We also did after school programs that were specifically Christian.  It was really cool to openly talk about God in the public schools. 

My favorite kiddo was Sharnie.  She was about 7 or 8.... slightly chubby island girl with short curly black hair.  She had the biggest smile and was precious.  She was eating alone at lunch and when asked said that no one ever wanted to sit with her.  She followed Maddie and I around everywhere and always wanted to hold our hands.  She was glowing every time we came to the school and saw her.

Youth group was really cool too.  I felt called to speak on the closeness and intimacy of God and what He has done in my life.  One of the girls started crying part way through my talk.  I got to talk to her later and found out her parents were separated and hated each other.  Her dad has had cancer for a year and her mom didn't seem to care and her brother was too little to understand.  She felt like no one cared and she had to carry it all on her own.  We prayed for her, encouraged her to continue to seek God through this, and challenged the other girls in the youth group to walk with her through this.  The other girls were really awesome and stepped up. 

Otherwise, there is way too much detail to go into.  I appreciate all of my work at the Pursuit serving with kids because it has come in really handy for Outreach.  I have taught hundreds of kids now songs and dances that we did in Xtreme Life... and they loved it! 

To wrap up, just wanted to tell about one of my Outreach leaders.  She was my absolute joy on Outreach!  Her name is Maddie (Madeline), she is 20 and from England.  She has such a gift for uniting people and bringing out the humor in everything.  We pretty much experienced 2 of the 10 plagues of Egypt in Ayr.... flies and frogs/toads.  We were infested with bugs of all shapes and sizes for half the time.... not exaggerating, they were falling from the ceilings and crawling all over us.  The frogs showed up shortly after.... king toads and tropical frogs of every color and size.... oh, and we had a mouse run out of one of the girls bags one night.  It was really frustrating and every time someone screamed or got angry about it, Maddie would just laugh.  She just has joy bubbling up in her... and when she prays, things happen.  I've rarely seen anyone so in-tune with hearing God's voice.