Blogs from Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, Oceania - page 97

Many of you may be wondering what I am actually doing in Australia besides soaking in all of the beauty. I seem to forget who I have and have not informed of my most recent life changes. Here’s what happened: Over the summer and through a lot of work, the Lord really changed my attitude towards international ministry. There are a number of ways in which He exposed His desire. However, the most powerful evidence was my change of heart towards the idea of pursuing my second year field placement out of the country. As my heart changed, God opened several opportunities for international travel. In July I found myself attending international placement meetings and in August I actually completed my application for work in Australia. Later that month I received an e-mail (along with six ... read more

January 16th was the National Day of Mourning for the victims of the Tsunami disaster. I spent the morning at Unley Park Baptist Church watching a brief powerpoint presentation that provided an opportunity for prayer and reflection over the events of December 26th. The Pastor entitled this sermon “When Disaster Strikes”. He reinforced humanity’s extended search for the meaning of life and God’s presence in our pain. Our longing for such truth reminds us that God sees the big picture even as He sees every individual person and every heartwrenching emotion. Often, we only see what is clearly evident, but He sees our pain individually, one by one. Not one is overlooked. Psalm 22 reinforces that pain is pain and that God gives us permission to be angry, disappointed and doubtful. It does not surprise Him ... read more

We arrived in Alice Springs, the centre of Australia and the middle of a desert, to be greeted by rain and a closed town as it was a bank holiday. Luckily the flying doctors station was open for a brief tour, as was the excellent reptile centre where all the local creepies, crawlies and slidies were kept. Ness particularly liked the python! Luckily, the following morning we got out of town and started a tour of the "local" (meaning within about 600km) sights. We first headed for the craggy, colourful features of Rainbow Valley. After a brief stop to meet the world famous Dinky the Singing Dingo, we drove to Kings Creek Station, a cattle station in the middle of nowhere, to spend the night sleeping under the stars on swags. The following morning after an ... read more

Since I have never found myself so far away from home, I have never attempted any sort of travel journal before now. I have hunch that we are all in for some version of the truth. That is, knowing how faithful I will be to sharing an accurate and timely account of my travel experiences as time progresses. I thought that it might be cool to include some of the Australia terminology I am learning on a daily basis along (i.e. Word Bank) with some differences I see in the country in comparison to my experience as an American (i.e. Culture Shock 101). The Travel Tips portion of my entry will include those instances I find myself thinking "I wish I would have known _____". So with that said, let the adventure begin... G'day Mates! Well, ... read more

Howdy, So, this is my third group email. Quite convenient, yet quite impersonal, but, at least it's a way to let people know what i've been up to, if they're interested, which i hope you are, but you don't have to be, but it's better if you are, cuz then you'll enjoy reading the email, or maybe not. No pressure. So, i've finally left Melbourne after too long. I wanted to head west to Adelaide, and then to Perth. A dutch girl at my hostel heard me talking and wanted to do kind of the same thing. We looked into a few possibilities, ie train, rent a car, relocate a car, or rent a camper. The best deal was a camper. We rented a camper for 1 week. It could take 3 people, so to cut ... read more