Monday, January 7, 2013

Chen

HELLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! 
Yeeeeee!
I'm back from my mini outreach! It was heaps of fun. 
Like..... I dunno how I am gonna be able to tell you everything and you be able to comprehend it. 
I've got so many stories and things to say and blahhh.... I'm just gonna be cray-cray.
I don't know if there are enough words to be able to give you just how amazing outreach was.
Things like that are just things you need to be able to experience yourself to be able to just get it. 

Okay, okay, okay.... I will just start from the beginning and just go from there. 

So we left on Sunday December 16, 2012.
We traveled up to Cairns, Australia. It took about four hours to get there. Then when we arrived we stayed at South Cairns Community Church. It twas awesome! They had like this lounge area upstairs where we played card games, did puzzles, and played ping pong! It was a really nice place to stay!
Here is a wee little video of the church I stayed at! I've got heaps of videos to show use all. lalalalalalalala.

Sooooo yeaaaah.


Monday!- We went to Harold's House!
(Harold's House is this awesome place! It gives youth a place to stay. And there was a pool, a t.v., and food/coffee!!! And they all had daily chores they had to do. Harold's is just one freakin' amazing place.)
Anywho. At Harold's there were four boys. Scratch that. There were four young men. Gah! Those boys were amazing. So talented. One of them could beat box super duper well and one could rap. They were the sweetest boys ever. I love them so much. They all hold a special place in my heart. 
Anywhozle... that day we took the boys to this pool type thingy (it's called like an espionage) and we just hung out all day and had a great time! Instantly they became like brothers to me.
Here's like the only picture I have at the espionage. Looks like nothing, but it was flippin' awesome.


 Tuesday!- We took the boys to Trinity Beach and just had heaps of fun there. Then we also swam in Harold's pool... (which we did like everyday.) Twas so much fun! We would just play pool games (mainly sub) for the whole time.

Here's some pics from the pool! 
That one boy is Michael. He is the bestest.
He can beatbox like no other! 



This is Adam. 
Such an awesome guy!
I won't ever forget him.



Wednesday- We went to Harold's for breakfast and one of the boys (Michael) made us the yummiest pancakes ever, like seriously. Greatest thing ever! They were made from scratch and gaaah I just omm-nommed on those things. Then the rest of the day we just hung out with the boys. We went on a little hike that day!

Then Lisa, Megan, Michael, and I went and worked at Street Level Youth Care. It's this organization that has been running every night for over 20 years that feeds homeless youth. Only one person came that night, so Lisa, Megan, and I just talked to Michael about things. And back at Harold's the rest of the group had a Bible study. It went really well. That night we all got super close to those boys.

Thursday- That day we just cleaned up the church a bunch and didn't go to Harold's till later. We had a Bible study that night. I shared my testimonie and many others shared as well. It was a great night! Just hearing what all the boys said was so good and encouraging. They are all now young men of Christ and I couldn't be happier for them!

Friday- We just hung out with the boys all day and then that night we went to the Night Market! It was so fun! It was like a market and it was at night. You get the idea right? 

They had a Christmas tree up! Sooo purdy!

Saturday- We went to some lake... like lake echum or something like that? I canont remember. But it was great! Some of us swam there and back which was around 2k. That is when I learned I am a slow and awkward swimmer. I do my own doggie paddle. One leg like kicks down and the other kicks to the side and my arms just do whatever. And it's a slow swim. It was just a sad sight to see. 
Anywho! Here is a video! 


And some pictures!


Lisa, Junior (he can rap like noooo othaaa!!)(chen), Michael, ME!!!!, Chris

After the lake we got to go take a few other stops. We got to see  this huge fig tree! It was gawwwwgeous. 

                     Here's the whole entire group! Love them all so much!! 

Then we got to go to this crater lake thingy. It was totes cool. 
This was the crater lake thingy. If you threw a rock down it made this weird noise. I dunno why. Sciency stuff I'm guessing. 

Then this was probz the coldest water I've ever swam in. I mean once you got your whole body it you just went numb... so after that it felt a wee bit better. 
This is Corey. He is the cooliest. 

Sunday- We went to the church's church service. Some of us read from the Bible and just told what exactly we were doing. The rest of the day was just a chill day. 

Monday- Went home for Christmas!!!! And I came back to base with a package. MY FAMILY SENT ME A PACKAGE! It was full of goodies, tank tops, a journal, a headband, a letter, and the cutest picture of my nephew. I was bawling my eyes out when I was opening everything and then bawled my eyes out even more when I saw the picture of my nephew! GAAAH I HAVE SUCH A GOOD FAMILY. So blessed.

Tuesday- CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yeeee, the most wonderful time of the yeaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Well actually to be perfectly honest it did not feel like Christmas what so ever. 
But it was Christmas.
So we all got fancied up and ate till our tummies hurt.
Here's me all fancied up. 
I curled my hair and put makeup on! Yay me!

Here's the group I ate din-din with. 
They all witnessed me pigging out. 
#YOLO

Outreach team Christmas photo! 
Lawlz.
Love dem!

We even got stockings!!!!!! 
I GOT SO MUCH CHOCOLATE.
You best believe I ate all that.
By myself.
In less than a week.
less than five days.
More like three.
IDK.
I LOVE CHOCOLATE

So yeah... Christmas was fun. It was weird/sad that I was missing Christmas with my family back home. I miss them so much! But I got to Skype them and that made me the happiest girl ever. And I also got to Skype my bezzie Megan! It was the greatest. 

Lalala, so later that day my outreach group and I went to the strand. Heaps of fun!
Except Macca's was closed so we couldn't get 30 cent ice cream.
Who does that?! Closes Macca's on Christmas, psh.

But here are some pictures of the beach on Christmas!!
mmmm, I've got me some good looks. Don't cha know!?

Typical jumping pic. 

All the girls on outreach!
They da bestest!!

So yeah! Christmas in Australia was different. But it was totally awesome! Such a great experience! 
And at end the night I walked in on the rest of my DTS watching Elf. SOOO sad I missed it. I've watched Elf every year since I can remember and I didn't get to see it this year :(
But once that movie ended, I ate again (obvi) and we watch The Lord of the Rings. But I ended up falling asleep. TWO TIMES. 
So I just decided to go to bed after waking up the second time. I was all sprawled out on the floor in my sleeping bag. I figured it was time for me to get some shut eye. 

Wednesday- Headed back to Cairns!!!! With my bag of goodies!

Here's my bag of goodies.
They are all gone now.
Cause I ate it all.



Thursday- So this day we didn't really know what we were doing. We all met up and our leaders told us we were gonna evangelize. I was so mad! I didn't want too. I just had a bad view on it completely. And honestly I didn't feel like I was educated enough in the Bible to share. 
Which is silly... I know. I might not know everything, but I definitely have the capability to share the love of Christ and to share what He has done in my life and how He has completely changed my life!
So after some worship and prayer we were still going out to evangelize and I was still not feeling to great about it. 
But I knew I needed to step out of my comfort zone.
So we got paired up and went out.
Chris and I met a guy and he was from Ireland. It was pretty easy to talk to him cause my brother-in-law is from Ireland and there is a girl on my team who is from the same place he was. So we just talked the whole two hours with him. We tried brining up God and stuff, but you could tell he didn't want to go there. He was a great guy and I know God has got a plan for him! May not have led him to Christ, but I planted a seed and someone will come along. I will be continually praying for him though!

Friday- I evangelized again with another one of my team mates and we talked to a lady in from Denmark. She was so sweet! We talked the whole time with her as well. We never brought up God or anything, but she was so extremely thankful that we took the time to talk to her. And then that night we had dinner at Harold's with the boys!

So yeah... I'm still a little uneasy about evangelism but I am getting there! I don't think evangelism is a bad thing, I just feel like there are good ways and bad ways. I'm all for developing a relationship with someone and then telling them about God. Cause I love God and He is good!

Saturday- We had a chill day  
AND WE SAW THE HOBIT!!!!!!!!!
Sooooor gerd.
I can't wait to see the next one!

Sunday- Went to a different church. A couple of people shared their testimonies and a few of us (including myself) acted out in a skit. I was one of the devil person. I'm not that great of an actress if you didn't know, so acting in this skit was rather difficult for me. But we performed and we did really good! 
Yeah and the church service was awesome! We all met so many great people. And we met a lady who used to live in the area in PNG we are going to. How crazy is that?! She invited us to dinner. I'll get to that story in a wittle bit.
Yup, so later that day the pastor from the church we were staying at invited us for dinner.
He took us to this bolder place. It was pretty neat! Freakin' cold as well. But still pretty neat! 

Then we went back to his place and had dinner with his family. It was so good to just have a home cooked meal. It remind me of back home, so it was soothing to have sort of like a family dinner!

Monday- New Years Eve!!!!!!! We spent New Years with the boys! So fun getting to spend time with them!
We spent New Years on the espionage and just had fun and we watched fire works! It was a fun way to spend the New Year! 
Outreach group!!

Heheheheheheh.

It was raining and I had no umbrella... so I just used part of BIL-EY'S pancho!

Michael and I!

"I like turtles"


FIREWORKS!!!!!!!






HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
2013!!!!

So yeah, New Years was fun! But then, later on we had to say by to the boys for good. It was so hard saying bye to them!
They taught me so much.
Like how much my actions and attitudes can have an affect on people. 
And they impacted my life more than I impacted theirs.
They all hold a special place in my heart.
I won't ever forget the time I spent with them and I don't ever wanna lose touch with them.
God has got some great things in store!
Adam, Corey, Junior, and Michael I love you all so much!!
Can't wait to see where God takes you and all that He uses you for! You all are awesome!

Chen
Choiceasbro

Tuesday- We got to sleep in a wittle bit that day. Then we all made new years resolution type things. And I really really really wanna stick to my resolutions this time! I'll be honest here for a second... I'm quite proud of myself and I hope I continue on this path.
Then later that day we went to that PNG ladies house for dinner. She cooked us a traditional PNG meal. It was Sago, which is like a tree bark and bananas. It was like a soup! It was really good. The texture was odd and by odd I mean it was like having boogers and mucus in my mouth, but other than that it was so good! It was a total God thing meeting her. She told us what PNG was like and just the life style and I am so thankful to have been able to meet her to help me prepare for when I do go to outreach. 
It was weird though... she didn't have dinner with us. That's just the culture though. She just served us and that was about it. But, really. I am so thankful to have met her! I can't wait to be in PNG!

Here is the Sago/banana soup! I don't really know what I am supposed to call it.

Yeah so then later that night we all watched the Bourne Legacy. It was alright. Matt Damon wasn't in it... so that was a problem.....

Wednesday- We left for Mossmen, Australia that day. It was about an hour away from Cairns. We stayed at another church and this time we got to sleep on benches and not the floor! AH! I got such good sleep that night. Hahah, so yeah that night we had dinner with some of the people from the church, shared our stories, and played with some kids! Lots of fun!!


OOH OOH OHH!!!! And I God gave me a second chance! I got friend number 2 and I didn't kill him this time! Praise God!!!


Thursday- We went to the Mossmen Gorge! It was Gorgeous. Hehehehe.
We just swam and jumped around on rocks. And the current was so strong that it would pull you and you would just let the current take it you! So much fun!! Hahahaha





Oh hahah and then there are like heaps of Bush Turkey, so I decided to video tape one. I LOL at myself when I hear myself freak out a wee bit. Heheheheh




Friday- I SAW A RAINBOW!!!

We went to Port Douglass beach (the beach where Steve Eriwn died!) The waves were big! (Well there is like never waves a the strand, so to me these ones were big!) So for the longest time we just jumped over, dove into, and swam with the waves. So much fun! But it was so freakin' salty. Not even funny how salty it was. My eyes burnt and I swallowed a lot of it and got bunches of it up my nose. So by the time we were finished we were all just drained from the salt and we were just covered in sand and all sticky and gross. Still a fun day though! 



Then later that day after we all quickly showered off we had an outreach debrief, just talked about our experiences and everything that happened during outreach. Then we went to the Pastor's house and had dinner there! It was so yummy! And we got coffee and milo! Gosh, I just love Australian's! They always serve coffee! yeeeeeeeee! Seriously.. every place I have been too they always serve it. Even here on base we get a "Tea Time" 

Anywho.....

Saturday- We left to go back to Townsville! It was like a five hour car ride. Pretty fun though. We had lunch at the park and played ninja tag for a bit, then we stopped at the one place that had this shoe type thingy we could get into and it was a representation of how much rain fall they got that year or something like that. It was pretty neat. 

Then we just got back in the car and went on our merry way back to Townsville. 
And during the car ride backI got to...
 sip on some iced coffee
(the freakin' best ice coffee evaaa)

Take random pics with my main girls
And sit in the front seat and enjoy this beautiful view!


Yeah so then we made it back to Townsville! It was good to be back and see/hug everyone and clean my freakin' clothes! Ew oh my gosh... my clothes smelt like something was dying in there. 

Then my outreach team ate din-din together and we all watching that new Spierman movie. It was quite good! 

Yeah so.... I think I told you everything....
 If you read this all, congrats. I'm sure this was rather long and annoying. Soz! 
But yeah these last some odd three weeks were amazing! I love my outreach team and I just love all the people God has put in my life and the revelations He has given me! 
It's good to be back at base! So weird that we are gonna be leaving in three weeks for PNG and then DTS is over. WAAA I FEEL LIKE I JUST GOT HERE!!!! So weird. I'll be back though! muahahaha. 
So yeah! This week we are getting back into the swing of things and we are in lectures learning about Spiritual Warfare. So far it's been really good. I'm ready to see how God speaks this week.
I shall inform you how it goes.
I should probably end this now.
I'll blog y'all soon.
Love use all!

PEACE AND BLESSIN'S
PEACE AND BLESSIN'S.

oh p.s. You have cat to be kitten me right meow



































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