Don't Stop Me Now

      It really feels good to call this place home.  On the bus back from Straddie Island, we all we really excited on the bus saying 'Oh man, home is so close!'  Its a truth that is just now setting into my heart.  I've been here 5 weeks now, and 'base' here is my home.  We stayed the week here,  at base, which was a nice break.  Sleeping in a bed and having a kitchen are things that we really take advantage of.  We did get to learn about this bible this week, which was really good, the speaker wanted everyone to understand the Story of the bible.  This is something that I have been longing for, something that I don't think I understand enough of, even now.  We got into groups and acted out 21 major scenes from the bible, which was so fun! 

  The Beach to Bush school (mine) played soccer against the sports school Thursday morning, quite early in the morning.  I've never been a soccer player, but I'm a bigger dude, I just kind of ran around and used myself as a human shield on defense.  Needless to say, we won! First time that's happened in 4 years. 

I'm on the top right. 5 people in.

Ronnie and I riding bike, fastest way to get to the mall.

This is really cool! I pass this park on my run
in the morning, it has all this workout equipment
that anyone can use! 

   Now we're headed to this event called EasterFest.  Its a 3 day long music festival with about 35,000 people.  Our job is to setup for the next four days, then we will all separate into various jobs like; hanging with the youth groups that come to the festival, cleaning, security, green room server, tea server, worship prayer etc.  I've been told its a crazy hard week, you'll get 6 hour shifts from like midnight to 6am! There is 72 straight hours of worship as well as a main stage that has bigger bands from around the world.
   After that we head straight to Byron Bay for a week on evangelism.  This is one of those places that you think of when people think "Australia".  Beautiful beach town beaches.  That being said.  I won't have internet for the next two weeks! I will miss hearing from you all!

Last thing. Meet my team. Team India. This is on Straddie Island.

Left to right.

 Michael, We call him Minnesota, good guy who grew up milking the cows at 4:30am every morning.  

Then Team leader Marley, she's from California.  Went to Vanguard for a year and a half before coming out here.

Next is Julia.  She's from Canada, really fun and energetic person who is always looking at the bright side of things.

Then Ronnie who is also from California, he actually came to YWAM because Marley told him about it.  He's a pretty funny guy who loves Jesus.

        Next is me!

In the red we have Iris the other team lead.  She is from Netherlands and is defiantly one of the most positive people I have ever met.

Finally Caitlin, who is also from Canada, funny thing, before coming to YWAM she was at a bible school on a sail boat in greece for 3 months.  Then backpacked part of Europe by herself!

Thanks for reading.  Feel free to comment, like, retweet, push forward, print, publish, instagramy, pin... You get the idea!

Chained to him,

Jeremy 

Survivor week; at its Peak

      Thats what they call it here; Survivor week.  For good reason.  I didn't understand it at first, If you recall.  I was typing up my blog just before getting on the bus and looking forward to just being on the beach, tanning, surfing, and maybe late night fires during the sunset.  Yyyyaaaaa... About that... This was probably one of the hardest weeks I've had in a LONG time.
       We get to take a ferry there, which is fun in itself.  26 of us in a little ferry for 45 minutes with our bus.  That's a party all in itself.  Then, its go time, getting tents up, starting to cook, setting up the lecture space, and generally setting up camp.  Soon its evening, and we're all pretty awake still as its excited to be camping 100 feet from the beach, but the staff suggest we sleep, so we try.  Then, middle of the night, about 1am, I hear my school leader (Michael) say in my ear
     "You have 2 minutes to get dressed and be outside, wear shoes."
     Half asleep, I find my shoes and socks, but on the shirt I wore yesterday, and think, 'we're probably just going for a midnight run on the beach! fun!'  Boy... was I wrong.
        "Follow me" says Hannah, who becomes our leader for the rest of the evening.  With me is my India team, all of us half asleep and confused.
"You will be timed, and you will be scored against the other teams, bring your A game" yells Hannah, at this point, we're on a full out sprit.  We quickly come up to a swam.  Cold, deep, wildlife all around, tall grass, and only one flash light.
   "You will have a few obstacles to complete as a team, this is the first"
   She points to some ropes tied between trees, we had to get the team through those ropes without touching anything.  The holes were small, so small I couldn't hardly fit into them.  It was like trying to put a pizza into a oven, ever so carefully, to not burn yourself.  But instead of a pizza, we lifted each person up and through the small openings, every time we touched a rope, we had to start over again.  There's 7 people on my team.  It took up an hour and a half.
      After many attempts and fails, we finished!
      "Yes! Back to sleep!"   I look at my watch and its 3am, just enough time to shower and sleep before morning lecture at 7:30.
    "Follow me."  says Hannah again. "You now have to dive completely into the water, under the ropes, touch the tree as fast as you can."  
     Gross
 
    The night went on like this, with many different challenges, including, but not limited to; Eating onions and peanut butter, walking on a tarp for 30 feet without every touching the sand, eating a bag of raw fish (bait), balancing on a 2x4 in a line and switching the team from one side to the other, drinking 2 liters of carbonated water, treading through the swap, 70 push-ups each, running a mile, and generally trying to push us to our limits.

     8am rolls around.

"Its time to check for ticks, and leeches" Says Hannah.  We celebrate, knowing its over.  But as it sinks in, we realize, this was only the first night...



The week was really good though, as a team we were forced into conflict and tough situations so that we would know how to deal with these in times of need.  I don't have pictures of much of what we did, and the hardships we went through, but I will have some of the fun that we had!  And I can't even begin to explain how amazing the beach was.  So clear you could actually see your feet when standing chest deep in the water.

Ya, I was sitting on a rock, then a wave got me..

















This is my friend Julia... She's from Canada and going to Inda with me!

Ministry

      They define ministry here a little differently then I've ever seen it.  Usually the thought that I have is that its your personal evangelism, or maybe something you do in the 'church' to reach people either of God or that need God.  But its different here.  This week was ministry week.  Everyone (40 of us) sit in a circle and one person get the floor.  They talk about hurt or brokenness that in their lives.  Some of the things that came out, have never been out before.  A broken secret that they have had on their shoulders  all these years.  Its so cool to watch people bring out the hurt and fill in with God's love.  When it came time for me to go, it was awkward.  All I could really say was that I have an amazing community and family back home, that God has healed me from a lot of brokenness and I felt like He didn't want me to stir up the past.  So thank you, all, who have been there for me over the years.
       The title of the lectures this week was 'Father Heart of God' which was way cool.  The speaker, Pablo, talked about what role our earthly father plays, and our heavenly father plays.  I realized just how blessed I am (again!) because of who my father is.  Always loving, and caring, and able to correct me when I'm wrong.  So thank you, Dad.
    I actually really have to go because as I type this, we're packing up the bus to head to an island.  Its called 'Stratford' or Stratty as the locals say.  Sounds like its some of the most beautiful beaches in Australia. "Straight out of a post card" one of the staff said.

This is one of the places that I go to pretty often.  Its in the middle of Downtown Brisbane.

For all those who care.  This is the gym that I have access too.  Its pretty small but awesome. Lots of people like to work out.  Here are a few of my 'bros.'







In Him,
Jeremy

Rain drops and silly thoughts

         Well, its been raining here a lot.  Like everyday.  At first I loved it! I love the rain, walking in the rain, playing ultimate frisbee in the rain, playing in puddles... All of it.  Its awesome... at first.  It gets old after a while to be honest.  It really created some cool conversations and basic entertainment which was nice but for the most part, ya I'm over the rain...

         This week was pretty cool, we had this guy named Sean come speak to us.  Before he started speaking and they were introducing him, God put on my heart "What he says is going to change your life."  And yes... it really did.  If you recall, last week I had a hard time getting into the speaker because he was just talking out of personal experience.  Come to find out, Sean has his masters in Theology from Moody bible college, which in my thinking, made him legitimate.  Honestly,  Thank God for him, and what he had to share.  He talked about hearing the voice of God in a biblical way... which was so good to hear.  Its something I've tried to do over the past few years and I was excited to hear his views that were biblically backed.  He even said, "95% of the time, God speaks through the bible."

       The second half of the week was about Intercession, that is, standing in the Gap on behalf of someone else.  This is a huge practice that YWAM follows.  It is a pretty intense thing to do and can really show the power of Jesus Christ.  The one thing though, was that we were in prayer for upwards of 5 hours... That is pretty hard. Its also draining.  Emotionally, physically and spiritually draining. There's really so much more I could talk about what I've learned this week, but I wouldn't want to bore all of my followers. ;)

       I will say though, I got my outreach locations this week! Basically we get 4 options, then they have us sit with it and pray about it for a few days and tell them what we come up with.  Monday, I'll know for sure what my location is.  It was quite a process to deicde.   When they put the 4 up, 2 jumped out at me.  One of them seemed 'fun and exciting' and the other seemed hard.  After many hours of prayer and meditation, I wrote down the hard one.  :)

     This week we did some really fun things! Had a grandparents party.  Few of us guys decided to go as grandma's... man it was funny.  dancing like a grandma, wearing a dress, and a pretty little hat.  Ugh, you really can't beat it.  My 1on1 leader looked at me and said "Welcome to YWAM"  Cracked me up, so cool to have a group of friends to do dumb things like that with and just be able to laugh at ourselves all night.  On the opposite side though, I also got to sit down and have some delicious coffee with a few friends.  First off, they have amazing coffee places here where people go and sit for hours on end, second, these moments are where we get to really know each other and be very authentic with each other.

     This week we are starting the Father, Heart of God as our lessons.  Next week.  We'll be backpacking... ;)



In Him,
Jeremy