Hello everyone. This is going to be my new blog for me while I am in Australia. I will start it off by telling you about what has been happening recently, or I guess since I’ve been here. So most of you know that I went to Australia after my DTS to visit a friend that I met while in New Zealand. He was from a YWAM base in Newcastle, Australia and that was were I went to meet up with him just to hang out for a little while before I came home. While there I really felt like that was my home and that Australia was where I was supposed to be. I felt like God was calling me to stay there. When I came home I really started praying and seeking God about whether or not I should go back to Newcastle and join staff. I’m writing this from Australia so obviously I ended up going back to Australia. I’ve been here for just about a month now and it has been awesome!
The first week we started our STS which stands for staff training seminar, it lasted for three weeks and it is the first part of becoming full-time staff. Our mornings were filled with lectures about coming on staff and various things that go along with that and in the afternoons we worked in our staff roles. The first Saturday we helped out at an event called Not For Sale. It was an event held for the people of Newcastle to inform them about all of the modern-day slavery that is going on in Australia and especially in Newcastle. Newcastle is one of the biggest places in Australia that has human trafficking yet not a lot of people are aware of that and so this campaign that was founded and is run by David Batstone. He travels all around Australia as well as other countries to help raise awareness about human slavery and trafficking. The event had a great turnout and I think that it did a lot to inform local Aussies about what they can do to fight slavery in their own country and even in their own city.
On Saturdays we also run an event called Youth Street. It is a weekly event to reach out to the youth in the Newcastle area. Every week we split into different groups that focus on different activities for the “crew” to do. The youth that come are affectionately called “crew” as a way to help them feel included and to make them feel like they are a part of something. There are teams that focus on boys and girls skateboarding, scooters, art, dance, sport and music. We play music and give a message to them as well as just spending time with them getting to know them so that we can help them grow. The main focus of YWAM Newcastle is on youth and that is one reason why we have an event like this. If you would like to know more about it you can check out the website for it which is youth.st and it has a lot more information about what we do and what it is all about.
The next week our STS as well as the current DTS here all went up to Tahlee. Tahlee is a place that YWAM has access to and is in the near future is going to be using as a base for running DTS’s. The STS as a whole went up to Tahlee for three days while I was only able to go up overnight on the last night because I had gotten sick the night before we were supposed to leave. On the last morning there all of us hiked up a hill to a place called ‘Prayer Mountain’ and we had a time of intersession and prayer for Tahlee as a place that God is going to use for future DTS’s, we prayed for YWAM Newcastle as a whole, and we prayed for the DTS students that were in Tahlee with us. That evening we came back to Lewis House. Lewis House is the name of the building that all of the YWAMers live in, in case you were wondering. On Saturday, as usual, we had Youth Street.
The next and final week for the STS was a normal week with lectures in the morning and then work roles in the afternoons. During the STS I worked in the Youth Street Department arranging transportation and making rosters so that everything goes smoothly on Saturday afternoons and everyone can get to where they need to be. On Friday we had our commissioning lunch at a Thai restaurant which was delicious and a lot of fun.
The first week of being on full time staff was interesting, I got moved into the Training Department instead of working with Youth Street. The focus of the Training Department is to encourage more people to do a DTS. While I am in the Training Department I also have the same role for Youth Street as I had during the STS which was arranging Transportation and making rosters for Saturdays. Most of the week is pretty boring, my day usually consists of waking up at 7, having “tidy time,” which is where everyone cleans up the house, at 8, and then I start work at 9. I work from 9 until 1 and then I eat lunch and then work again from 2 until 5. Dinner is at 5:45 and then I usually have the rest of the evening off until bedtime at 10:45. That is a typical day for me on Tuesday through Friday. On Saturday we have Youth Street all day and then on Sunday and Monday we have off.
In a few days I will be going to Wollongong which is just south of Sydney and I will be doing a course there and I will be there for two weeks. The course is called a Phase 1 and I’m doing it so that I can staff DTS’s which is basically the thing that I feel like I am supposed to be doing here. It’s pretty rushed as I just found out about it yesterday and the course starts on this upcoming Monday.
I think that is a pretty good update considering it is the first one that I’ve done since getting here about a month ago. I’m sorry that it has already taken this long to do an update but I promise to do my best to put out more updates more frequently and I will end this with just a few prayer requests that I have.
Prayer Requests:
For my Phase 1 (the course that starts on Monday and I’m kinda nervous)
For health (I’ve been sick lately and it is not cool when you have to work all day and you aren’t 100 percent.
For finances (everything I do here costs me money, it is all volunteer work and so I have to pay for what I do and to be able to stay here)
At the moment that is all that I can think of that I would really like prayer about, but feel free to pray for me in other areas than just these. And I would just like to thank you in advance for your prayers because I know that prayer is so powerful, it is one of the biggest things that I can ask for.
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