As My Journey Ends...

Oh my goodness. I leave TOMORROW! I can't believe it...my journey is almost over!

As I've been thinking today I keep thinking about a new beginning, (which is actually one of the words I was given yesterday at Hillsong). And, I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am about my new beginning that I'm about to embark on. However, every new beginning innately requires an end to the old - you can't have a new beginning while you're still a part of the old. Which is sad, but freeing.

I'm so sad that I have to leave all of my family here in Australia but, it's worth it when I think of the rich memories I've made, the experiences I've had, and the amazing lessons I've learned. And all of that wouldn't have even been possible if I hadn't made such deep relationships while I've been here.

When I think about myself sitting on the airplane tomorrow all I can think about is what I felt as I sat on the airplane on the way over. I had BARELY convinced myself to actually step foot on the plane and into this new adventure, and I was completely and utterly scared out of my mind. I was unaware of what I was getting myself into, I didn't know a soul, I didn't even know an address!! The only information I had was a PO Box...and yet, I had this weird un-explainable peace and excitement.

I am so incredibly glad that God (with a little help from my mom and Kevin) convinced me to get on that plane that ended up taking me directly into life-change. And I'm even more excited and expectant about this new plane flight that will, as well, take me directly into life-change, again, but in an absolutely unexpected and new way!

If I tried to explain everything I've learned from this trip and everything I'm grateful for it would probably take at least a week! And, even as I try to write it all my mind is becoming overwhelmed with emotions that can't be put into words. The best way I can describe it is as a complete sense of expectancy, peace, contentment, and excitement! God has blown my mind over the past 3 months, and I know that he's going to continue to amaze me over the next 3 months, and the 3 months after that, and the 3 months after that... :)

The transition from old to new is awkward because I posses so many seemingly contradicting feelings - I'm excited to get home, but I'm sad to leave, however, I don't want to stay! I guess I can resolve all of these feelings with one feeling: ready-ness. My first blog ever was about how I was ready - that didn't mean I was prepared, it didn't mean I wasn't scared, it didn't even mean I was excited - it just meant that I was READY.

And, I am ready now. However this time my sense of readiness is accompanied with EXCITEMENT! I am so incredibly excited about stepping into my "old life" but with this new life IN me! It encourages me SO much that God's presence will be with me WHEREVER I go! Even as I write this, I'm making myself ecstatic, I can't wait to get home!!! Honestly, the more I think about everything that I'm going to do at home the more I can't wait to be on that plane!!! It's going to be AMAZING!

I invited God to come on the plane with me this afternoon (hopefully that will mean the seat next to me is open). And, as lame as it sounds it really does give me comfort. I'm not leaving God down-under. Wherever I go from this moment on, God will also be with me - how awesome!? The SAME God that has shown me comfort, excitement, life-change, prosperity, and SO much more in Australia, is the SAME one that is coming back to Dallas Texas with me, and he was with me even before I left!

One thing that has stuck with me VERY significantly this entire trip was what God told me as I flew over Syndey harbor on August 25th. As we started flying lower over the beautiful water with the sunset rising in the background God whispered gently to me, "This is where our love story begins"...and it has been the theme statement of my trip, and has become more true than I could ever have hoped for. But something that God has whispered to me since is , "This is not where our love story ends..." And a truer statement couldn't have been spoken. My love story has a beginning, but it will never have an end. I will be able to look back and say that I found God's heart in Sydney Australia but I didn't leave it there.

This time tomorrow I will be flying thousands of miles above the Pacific ocean as this journey truly comes to an end...but I'll soon flip the page and start reading the next chapter of this endless love story, just with a new backdrop.

Mika and Hillsong College!

Howdy!

I absolutely can NOT believe it's already 9:30PM here in Australia! It blows my mind how quickly my day has gone!!

So, a few days ago they informed us that we have lectures today, but since it's supposed to be a day off they didn't schedule anything in the morning so we could all sleep in until lectures started at 10:30. Well, they told my mind that, but apparently it didn't communicate with my body because I was up and wide awake by 8 in the morning. Granted that's a lot later than I've been used to waking up, but it's certainly not "sleeping in" by any standards.

However, I took the extra few hours and made LaChelle a birthday breakfast in bed, (her actual birthday isn't until the 18th but since I won't be able to be here we decided to change her birthday to the 15th). But, it was pretty much a fail. The watermelon I cut up was bad because I bought it yesterday and left it to heat up in my backpack all day...ew, and I burned the toast so it was kind of like a rock, and we were out of milk so I had to use milk powder in her coffee, and the muffin I got was stale... :( BUT it was the thought that counts, right? I hope so...

After running into the room to try and surprise her, I found out that she had already woken up...lame. But, she still liked it! I think.

Anyways, after that we got all dolled up and headed off to lectures. This week we're learning about "Biblical Worldview" from a FABULOUSLY hilarious lady from South Africa. We only got to stay for an hour, though, before we had to head out.

Mika picked us up at around 11:45 and we headed off to Hillsong College's chapel. It was FABULOUS! Mika had to go back to work so she introduced us to a girl named Roxy who showed us around a little and helped us not feel completely awkward. The chapel was seriously awesome, the entire thing was worship and prayer and it felt like only 10 minutes long!! Then Roxy introduced us to a guy named Cody who is a first year student in the Pastoral stream of the college, and took us to sit in on one of his classes!!

We sat in on his "Church History" class that was led by one of their top professors!! However, it was the last week of their semester so it was not a normal class, which was PERFECT! Cody ended up getting up in front of the class and teaching a little bit and then the professor asked him if he had any words to bring to anyone in specific. And then she asked everyone who didn't get a word during chapel and wanted one to come down to the front of class. So, LaChelle and I got up and went down! And the professor, Cody, another guy AND another professor all had words for the two of us!! AND we were the only ones in class that got prayed over!!!

It was WONDERFUL!! The words were encouraging, uplifting, sweet, personal and DEFINITELY a confirmation of my decision to go home on Wednesday! They all made us feel not only accepted but actually a PART of the college! The professor asked if I was seriously looking into attending college there and I told her I was, as I did her and another guy both laughed and smiled knowingly. They said that they would never want to tell me a prophesy that would influence or manipulate any sort of decision I would make, but they said that they hoped they would see me again. :) She even said that as I walked into the room she FELT the presence of the Lord on me, and even as she talked to me she said she could see it on me!!! She said that often times when she feels that about someone it's the Lord saying, "pay attention to this one, I'm doing a big work with her/him!! Watch out!!" HOW COOL?!?!

It was WONDERFUL! And after that Mika picked us up and we went to go grab a cuppa together! We talked for almost two hours without even noticing a thing! Honestly, Mika has been SUCH a HUGE blessing! And I know for a FACT that I will see her again, hopefully sometime soon! She's so incredibly sweet and the kind of person who makes you think, "oh my goodness...It's possible!!!! It's actually possible to have a ministry and a calling for the Lord but also have a life, and a good balance between the two!" She's so levelheaded but down to earth! And did I mention she's absolutely sweet and cool?! Definitely cool. I love her, a lot, and I've only known her for a little bit - is that weird? ;)

Anyways, after we kept her away from work for WAY too long she dropped us back off at the base just in time to skype with Kev for one last time before I come home!! WEIRD! It is SO weird to think that tomorrow is my last full day in Australia! WHAT?! I can't believe it! It hasn't hit me yet, I just feel like I'm going to leave for a little bit and then see everyone again. I've decided that I am DEFINITELY ready to be back at home but I am NOT ready to leave everyone here! They're seriously like family! I mean, hello, I've lived with the same 30 people CONSTANTLY for the past 12 weeks...we're bound to be close by now!

Tomorrow consists of packing in the morning and lectures in the afternoon and evening. And then an early morning trip to the airport the next day - AAAHHHHHH!!!!!! I don't know if I can think about it yet - so, I wont. :)

Right now I'm going to go get ready for bed and then watch Wall-e with LaChelle in our room. I'm serious, that movie NEVER gets old - ever. I love it. But, that's a whole 'nother blog... :)

I'm fighting off a migraine right now - ugh. I took some Excedrin migraine about 3 hours ago which helped for a bit, but now it's back. However, it's too late to take anything else with caffeine in it, so it looks like I'm just going to have to rely on prayer! :)

I'll DEFINITELY write again tomorrow to let you know how my LAST FULL DAY IN AUSTRALIA goes!! Thank you for all of your prayers!

I love you all!

G'NIGHT!

Big Bow of Australian Sun

I am currently sitting in a roast-y basement with a burning and full belly, completely satisfied and exhausted. Let me explain:

I don't know where to begin! I guess I'll tell you about yesterday first!

Youth street was great, I'm definitely going to miss all of the kids. But, after youth street was the BEST part!!! So, I was just sitting on the computer minding my own business about to write a blog when a group of people started getting their shoes on and getting ready to leave. At first I was kind of bummed that I didn't get invited but then I convinced myself that I had better things to do... :) But then LaChelle grabbed me and told me to put on some shoes and put a blind fold on...?!

Then all of a sudden I found myself being led by my ENTIRE school on this wild goose chase of twists and turns where I tripped over a million things (my guide wasn't very good at warning me of things BEFORE I ran into them...), stepped on a few cockroaches without knowing it, had to be carried over "water", and walked almost a half mile BLIND-FOLDED!!! It was crazy!

And then finally we got to our destination and I took off my blindfold to see my ENTIRE school stuffed into Macca's with chocolate cake, and of course, my favorite ice cream Sunday! They had all decided that my 18th birthday was too special to be overshadowed by the boy's special dinner the night before, so for the past two weeks they had all been planning a SURPRISE birthday party!!!! :)

Seriously, I couldn't express how happy and thankful I was! I wanted to throw all of THEM a surprise party just so they could feel how special I felt...well, I guess it would defeat the purpose of making them feel special if they all got a party...but still, that's what I wanted to do... :)

No one else in my entire school has had a party like this - why me? It seriously touched my heart more than they could ever know! It was so sweet that they all planned it, that they all walked that far for me, and that they were so excited about celebrating ME! It felt so absolutely un-deserved but so incredibly wonderful! I can't even describe to you the feeling in my heart right now!! It's like my heart is jumping, and bubbling, and totally warm! Well...that warmness is probably from my sunburn. Speaking of sunburn, let me tell you about my day today!!

So, I didn't get to bed until past 1 o'clock because our lights were still on...and then I woke up at 6:45 to skype with my dad and talk to kev for a quick second before I headed off for a full day!

A big group of my friends all decided that we wanted to spend our last free day in Australia, where else? THE BEACH! So, we all headed out at 8:00 and embarked on a day FULL of sun! We walked to the train station to get some breakfast at an over-priced waffle store, but I didn't want to spend that much money so I went bargain shopping for fruit. By the time I actually got on the train I had 3 donuts, 1/2 a grapefruit, a mango, and 1/2 a watermelon in my backpack... :) And all of that was under $8!!

Of course, the train tracks were being worked on so we had to take one train to another train station, get off there and take a bus to another station and walk to a ferry, and catch a ferry to the beach. After all that walking in the incredibly hot Australian sun we were SO ready to dive into the freezing water! Then I laid out, listened to my ipod and fell asleep. It was WONDERFUL! Then I got up, got some ice cream, looked around the local market, and laid back out to read "Gone with the Wind" (I promised my grandmother I'd try to read it while I was here, I am LOVING it so far!)

By about 6:00 we were all ready to head home. So we made the long trek from the ferry to the train station, from that train station to another one, from that station to a bus, from that bus to another train station, from that train station to another train station, and from that station we walked about 2 1/2 miles home and straight into the showers. :)

Upon exiting the shower I discovered that I was burnt!!! We all thought that I was the ONLY one of the group that somehow escaped the burning Australian sun without getting toasted - I thought I had just picked up a nice tan. But, once I got out of the shower I realized that I had forgotten to put any sunscreen on my stomach, and while I was sleeping my tankini showed about an inch of my stomach (scandalous, I know). So, now I have a large red mark about an inch wide across my stomach...yes, in this case modest was not hottest. :)

By the time we were all clean and toasting with our sunburns it was time for us to devour about 5 pounds of spaghetti and meat sauce! And now we are all walking around like zombies getting ready for bed. :)

So, that explains the burning and full belly, the completely satisfied and exhausted part - and as for the roast-y room...we live in a brick building in Sydney Australia which at the moment is going through spring time, which is equivalent to an INCREDIBLY hot day in the middle of summer in Texas - and, we HAVE air conditioning...but we're not allowed to use it. We just open up the windows (which does absolutely no good considering there's no breeze) and turn on a few fans - yeah, it's ROAST-Y!!! Okay, I'm probably exaggerating a lot, but it is hot. However, we're allowed to use the air conditioning in our rooms so it is deliciously cool in there at the moment.

Well, I think I have started to ramble, which means I am thoroughly exhausted and ready for bed. Normally Mondays are our day off, but tomorrow we have lectures at 10:30 - but, nothing before then so I'll get to sleep in for the first time in about 4 weeks!!! And then, LaChelle and I are only going to sit through an hour of lectures and then we're getting picked up by Mika and taken to a Hillsong College chapel! :) Hillsong College is definitely an option for me so I'm really excited about checking it out! It's my first college visit...and it's in Australia!!! HOW COOL!?

After our chapel we're going to go grab a cuppa and chat some more - I seriously love Mika SO much! She's been one of the biggest surprises and blessings of all!! But, I'll tell you more about her tomorrow! :)

I love you all! Please pray that this sunburn goes away QUICKLY so that when I get home I can run up and jump into my family's arms...without being in pain. :)

I can now say a very anticipated G'NIGHT with a delicious sigh of contentment from the wonderful day that God specially wrapped up and gave me - with a big bow of Australian sun on top!

BIRTHDAY!!!

Well, I am no longer a child. I am now officially and legally an adult. Weird. I feel like I should no longer use words such as "yikes" and "doozy", but more adult-y words such as "oh my word" and "an exciting announcement"....but, I won't! I mean, hello, in that past sentence I used the word, "adult-y"...come on.

So, let me tell you about my fabulous day!!

I woke up to a sweet birthday text from Kev, a loving e-mail from my dad and a few facebook comments from some friends which was a LOT more than I thought I was going to get, considering it wasn't my birthday yet back in America. And then I went to breakfast and devotionals and intercession, but the entire time my stomach was KILLING me!! It was awful! :(

But, in all honesty I've never been that grateful for a stomach ache before, because it gave me an amazing opportunity to skip lectures! :) I read my Bible and journal-ed, and can I just say, I don't think I've ever hungered that much for the word! It was crazy! I just wanted my brain to open up and soak the entire Bible up into it!!! :) And then I took a nap which was incredibly refreshing, after which I woke up with NO stomach ache!!!

And then my entire school celebrated me! :) I walked upstairs to find that they had made sushi rolls (my fav) and had even set up a birthday table for me! And, the best part was the FABULOUS cake! It was the most moist chocolate and vanilla cake EVER with mocha icing and chocolate chips!!!! YUMMMMMM! Then everyone prayed over me and sang me "Happy Birthday" and then we all got wasted because now I'm legal!!

...hahaha, did you catch that last part? It was a joke! Of course I didn't drink!!! Not only is it not legal in America it's certainly not legal at YWAM! :) I just thought I'd throw it in there to see if you were paying attention! ;)

After that Kev set up a skype date so he could wish me an Australian happy birthday and then stayed up late enough to wish me an American birthday too! :) I then called my sister who said since it was finally midnight in America she could wish me a happy birthday! :)

Then all of us DTS girls cooked a three course meal for our boys including all of their favorite deserts, drinks, and snacks, and of course STEAK! :) They fight spiritually for us all the time so we wanted to show them that we want to be there for them to come and rest after the fight. :) It was wonderful!

Now I am doodling around (yeah, I'm definitely not an adult...I just said doodling) on the internet procrastinating on doing my homework! :)

Seriously though, can I just say I'm an adult?! I have to say it a bunch of times because it doesn't seem real! Normally I make a HUGE deal about my birthday and I look forward to it for weeks! But last week someone had to REMIND me that it was my birthday coming up! So, today hasn't even felt real! Maybe it'll hit me next week when I get to have a little family celebration! :) But, seriously, I've always thought that 18 was a HUGE birthday and now it's here! YAY!

Anyways, I'll let you know later on if it kicks in!

Tomorrow is my last youth street and then it's Sunday!!! I'm going to go to the beach all day Sunday to spend my last free day on the beach! And THEN on Monday Mika is going to take LaChelle and myself to visit a chapel at Hillsong College!!! And then Tuesday is packing day/lecture day and then I leave for the airport early Wednesday morning!! WHAT?! Oh my goodness! I have a feeling that these next few days are going to FLY by! :) But, I'll keep you all updated on everything that happens from now until then! :)

Thanks for my birthday wishes and prayers! I really appreciate them!

G'Night!

Stuck in Limbo

Guess what?! My birthday is tomorrow!! Well... it's tomorrow in Australia, but it's not for another two days in America. That means that tomorrow I will no longer be a child, however I will not be a legal adult (in the US) for two more days....I feel like I'm stuck in limbo! :)

I was talking with my mom today and mentioned that it will be my birthday tomorrow and she was so confused! She forgot that I'm a day ahead in time! So, I figured if my mom couldn't even remember that tomorrow is my 18th birthday for me then I should probably not get too disappointed if I don't have any birthday wishes tomorrow! But I bet I'll have a lot on Saturday! :)

Okay, enough about my birthday...for now, at least! Let me tell you about my day:

Well, it was another one of those days where a LOT happened...but I can't really tell you about any of it. I'm sure you've guessed by now that I absolutely do not agree with the lectures this week - but, I don't want to talk badly about the person or the specifics of their teaching over the internet, so I will just have to skip over that part of my day when describing things to you.

But, something that I can tell you about lectures is that God is completely working in me! I can't believe how clearly I can hear His voice! These past three months I've had to stand firm on what I believe and work out what that means in my every-day life, and this past week has really tested it. And guess what?! I can pretty much see the light at the end of the tunnel! Tomorrow is our last day of lectures and even though it's been really hard, I've learned a lot! But not from what he's been teaching...rather, I've learned a LOT from what GOD has been teaching me.

It's really easy to be told something awesome and have a Bible verse to back it up, but when I'm challenged with convincing teaching that even has verses to back, it is incredibly hard for me to stand firm on what I know and what God has taught me about His character of the past years and especially over the past three months. However, with some sweet people God has placed in my life and some even sweeter scripture, He's really helped me to come out the other side even stronger in His grace and love than ever before!!!

I am REALLY excited about coming home and being surrounded by people who have really similar beliefs as me so that I can lean on them and vica-versa. But, I'm incredibly glad that I've had this time, this week especially, to really build a firm foundation upon which I can build the rest of my life!!

So, all of that to say - I can't talk about lectures.... :)

But, seriously, all we really had today was lectures and then my team made dinner and went to hand out tea and coffee at a local mall! I caught up with that girl I met last week and asked her if she had read any of the Bible. She said that she opened it up a few times and enjoyed it! But, she seemed kind of embarrassed to talk about it - so, hopefully I'll be able to catch up with her on facebook!

Now I am thoroughly tired with my teeth-brushed and my face-washed, waiting for the screaming upstairs to stop...yeah, the Tahiti team is really enjoying the Lord and they're now all screaming and playing drums...:) I'm going to miss that freedom! :)

The next time I blog I will no longer be a child!! Well...I guess I'll still be in limbo, but soon enough I'll be an actual adult!

I love the fact that I left America a child but will come home an adult - both legally and now spiritually too. :)

Talk to you later!

G'Night

Deceivingly Un-Eventful Day

Hello!

Currently I am sitting on the couch downstairs listening to what sounds like a helicopter fly approximately 30-40 feet above our base ever 10 minutes....I have NO idea what the emergency is but I sure do hope it's over by the time I go to bed...did I say that out loud? :)

Anyways, let me tell you about my day:

I woke up, skyped with my mom, listened to a devotional, had a quiet time, cleaned up the dining room, gave a presentation over Uzbekistan, listened to lecture - skipped out half-way into lectures to call my mom and vent about lectures, went back to lecture, lectures went over by 45 minutes so we all skipped intercession.

Then started my afternoon-long skype date! :) It started with a date with my dad at 2:00 then I talked with my mom at 2:30, then I talked with my sister and Aaron from about 2:50-3:30, and then I talked with Kevin from 3:45-6:00...yeah, he stayed up that late for me on a school night. :) And it was FABULOUS. Yes, he is awesome.

Then I went and ate some leftovers - I skipped out on dinner to talk with Kev, but since it's fasting day today I was pretty much starving after we finished talking! :) And I downloaded with LaChelle while catching up with some other girls.

Then I took a fabulous shower and now I'm wasting time on the internet until it gets late enough to turn out the lights and go to sleep. :)

Today SEEMS un-eventful, I'm sure, to you readers but, TRUST ME it was probably the most eventful day of my week!!! I just feel weird talking to you all about lecture stuff and Kevin stuff - but trust me, it is all good and I am loving the fact that I'm going home soon for multiple reasons! :)

Please keep me in your prayers! :) God DEFINITELY told me to come here for a reason, and now I'm just stepping into the fact that I've got to trust that His timing is perfect even if it seems weird to me sometimes...or like it's dragging on. ;)

I love you all! :)

G'Night

Monday and Tuesday Update!

Hello!

I don't know why I didn't blog yesterday! I guess I was just too content with soaking up the day that I didn't even think to blog about it! Weird!!

But, let me tell you about it now:

I woke up at 7AM to skype with Kevin...yeah, that must be true love - I got up on my ONE day to sleep in just to talk... :)

Then I skyped with Aaron and Haven...well Haven was there but she was asleep... After that I went and had a little breakfast date with a girl named Mareike (She's German). Then LaChelle got up and while she had breakfast I watched Wall-e. Then we all went out and sunbathed which was AMAZING! There was a fabulous cool breeze but the sun was incredibly toasty! It hit me while I was getting ready to go outside that back home it's probably freezing and some stores have started to put up Christmas decorations, however, I was here getting ready to go lay outside...WEIRD!

Then it started raining :( So we went inside and I skyped with my mom! After which we went out and danced in the rain, which was fun. And then I made a little lunch/brunch of pancakes! Then LaChelle and I got dressed to have a cuppa with Mika!

Mika is a girl who works with Christine Cane and is seriously AMAZING!!!!!! We went out and talked for a few hours over coffee and I absolutely LOVED it! She makes both LaChelle and I feel sane and not crazy! :) Then we headed home and I relaxed for the rest of the evening by watching a few chick-flicks! It. Was. Fabulous.

Then this morning I was up early for devotionals and quiet time. My quiet time this morning was in "His Dwelling Place" which was FABULOUS! I seriously just love God - you know? :)

After my quiet time was worship, which I was really excited about...and it was good. To be completely honest sometimes worship is hard for me here...I mean, I'm used to the kind of creativity and excellence that is pretty much un-comparable to anything else. But, I still got to connect with God in my own way. And then came the most hillarious song I've ever heard. There was nothing wrong with the song in and of itself, but the picture I kept getting while I heard it made it incredibly hard not to bust out laughing.

The song kind of sounded like a Scottish punk rock 80's hair band song...and the main part said "people get ready, Jesus is coming" and the only thing I could picture the WHOLE time was the clouds opening up and Jesus coming out with a huge mullet, a hairband crew of angels, an electric guitar, pyrotechnics, giving the rock sign as he descended to earth....at first I felt incredibly guilty for thinking of that but then I realized that God appreciates a sense of humor so I just started laughing with Him! :)

Then LaChelle and I cleaned all the windows for our base clean-up time - just a side note, we're both 2 of the shortest people here at the base...so only the bottom half of all the windows get cleaned :) Anyways, we finished quite early so I decided to take a nap. Oh wait. I live in a room with 10 girls...that's impossible to do. But, I still tried.

After "waking up" to the sound of my entire toiletry bag being knocked over I went upstairs and had some lunch. Then our lectures started. So, I don't know if I'll blog much about my lectures this week because, to be honest it's one of those weeks where I'll probably learn more by being challenged with what I DON'T believe as opposed to learning by being taught, you know? Like, I don't agree with a lot of what's being said so now I'm having to go figure out what I do believe! I got so frustrated during lectures that I actually wrote Jesus a letter and poured out my feelings of frustration and just asked Him to open my heart to His truth and close it to anything else. That made me feel better, and now I feel very comfortable with being able to enjoy the things that sit well and peacefully dismiss the things that do not sit with my spirit - that would not have happened 3 months ago! :)

Now I'm waiting for dinner and then we have another 2 hour long lecture!

I'm really really enjoying my time here in Australia and soaking it up, but at the same time I'm getting excited about the things that are to come! But, don't worry - I'm thinking that I'll keep up my blog even AFTER I get home...I'll just have to change the name to "0 miles from home"...well, that is unless God calls me somewhere else! ;)

G'Night!

Hillsong Live Album Recording

Hello!

I just returned from a FABULOUS day! It started off kinda weird - I woke up early to take a shower and I did NOT want to get out of bed. Then we headed out to a local church where the pastor spoke mostly with his eyes closed and had such a thick accent I really didn't catch more than half of what he was saying. But, after that is when it really got good!

LaChelle, Leslie, Nicole, Jen and myself all got into Jen's car and headed into the city to Paddy's Markets!! It's like a huge market but they sell stuff instead of food! First we got some Chinese food then went to get a free slushy!! It's 7-11 day at 7-11 here in Australia, so if you went in and said "happy 7-11 day!" they give you a free slushy...but guess what....we made it in 30 minutes AFTER the deal ended. I was very frustrated - my taste buds were ready for a slushy! So, I bought one...lame, but what was even LAMER was the guy behind the counter thought it was SO funny that I was so frustrated that he decided to play a joke on me and give LaChelle a free slushy just to see my reaction....I was not happy.

But, I at least got to drink a slushy - so, I guess in the end it was good. Then LaChelle and I headed off to the market! I got ALL of my souvenir shopping done (and maybe an extra gift for myself...)!!! It was fabulous!

And then...the best part of the day! We all met up at the Sydney Entertainment Center and got to be a part of the Hillsong Live Album Recording!! So, yeah, whenever you get the new album and you hear that awesome voice singing in the crowd...it's me. :)

But seriously, it was amazing!! I honestly haven't ever experienced worship like that! And it wasn't even just the music (I mean, for real, it helped) it was the place my heart was in! I just stinking LOVE God! Seriously - I discovered today that if you had to boil God down to absolutely ONE characteristic (I know it's not possible...I'm being hypothetical) it would be LOVE. Not power, not justice, not anything else but LOVE. Love sets the captives free, love makes all things possible, LOVE saves the world!

Right before the concert started we had a time of prayer and I told God, "Hey, words of affirmation is my love language - so just take this time as me complimenting you ALLLLLL night long!" And that's totally was it was! It was just me showing my love language to God! And I think He loved it too!!

Now, I have a skype date with Kevin which I am very much looking forward to! And then I am going to go to bed, sleeeeep in, laaaaaay out, and then grab a cuppa with LaChelle and Mika!! :) WOO HOO!

PS I only have 9 days 14 hours 5 minutes and 50 seconds until I come home...but I am NOT counting. :) Hahaha I am excited, but I really am soaking up EVERY LAST SECOND I have here in Australia!!! :)

G'Night All!

TMI?

Well, hello! Today's blog will be much less exciting than yesterday's but, that's a good thing I'm sure.

So, last night I had a fabulous and unexpected quiet time! I was just sitting in bed and then I felt really passionate about praying for someone back home. So, I sat down and wrote out a long prayer and got a lot of feelings out on paper, which was nice. Then something dawned on me!!!

Well, ever since I got back from Fingal I've been waking up every single night to go to the bathroom. Now, that's not that weird normally BUT it NEVER happened before I went to Fingal and ever since then it's happened EVERY night!! Sometimes twice a night...and sometimes THREE!!! Weird, and annoying ESPECIALLY because I'm on the top bunk...and the bathroom is down the hall.

BUT, yesterday it hit me: maybe, God's been waking me up every night to pray for someone back home and intercede for him! So, last night I woke up without fail...and I actually remembered to pray! But, I never told the person that because what am I gunna say, "hey, I pray for you every time I pee!!"....hmmmm...is all of this TMI? (too much information)

Anyways, that was last night. Then I woke up at 7, ate cereal, listened to a devotional, had a great quiet time, fell asleep for the last half of my quiet time, went to work duties, went to intercession, had morning tea, listened to some lectures, had lunch, went to a meeting, and then went to my room to take a nap.

But, before I went to sleep I wrote a letter to someone that will probably never read it. Have you ever done that? It's super weird. I wanted really badly to mail it but, I drew all over the front of the envelope so I couldn't. :) It was kind of nice and freeing but also hard because I probably can't send it. Anyways, after that I took a three hour long nap!

The nap was fabulous and SOOOO badly needed. BUT, I hated the dream. So, you know that song "Dreaming with a Broken Heart"? Well, as stupid as it sounds it's totally true!!! I like dreaming but I totally hate waking up afterward and then you realize that you're back to reality! So, it's taken me a few hours to not only wake up but also be back to being okay with reality. :/

Anyways, I feel totally disgusting today because I've basically only eaten bread today! I can't wait to get back home and actually eat protein and fruit! Hallelujah!!!

I can't believe that it's already Friday night!!! Tomorrow's Saturday, and then the weekend, and then my last full week in Australia! WHAT?!?! Crazy!

Even though today has been kind of hard, it's also been really good because I've really been forced to give everything up to God. I've had to go to him almost every five seconds. And I've basically been in constant prayer all day, for myself and others too.

Oh, I forgot to mention! We went on outreach yesterday and I met some local schoolkids who were CRAZY! But, there was this one girl who totally didn't fit in. She had never done drugs or gotten drunk or had sex and didn't cuss either, but she was hanging out with all of these kids who did. But, she was so sweet. So, Emily and I got a chance to talk to her alone for about five minutes and she admitted that she didn't really like hanging out with people like that but she did it anyways. It was so sad! So, we encouraged her to continue to stand out and not give in to what her friends were doing. Then we gave her a Bible (because she had asked earlier how to read something like the Bible) and told her to start in John and just read it like a story book, but this story was actually true. And we told her we'd be back next week at the same place so hopefully she could read it by then and let us know what she thinks!

So, keep her in your prayers! And her friends too! They were totally crazy. Two of them kept asking for my number and were trying to convince me that we should date. But, I lied and told them I had a boyfriend back home and made it seem like he could beat them up. :) Maybe I can just speak it into being... ;)

But, seriously, hopefully we planted some sort of seed especially in that girl! She was adorable!

Well, I'm going to go have a Tahiti meeting - I won't really be involved in participating but I still want to be a part of the team and contribute any way I can! I'll blog again tomorrow, hopefully! Please keep me in your prayers!

I love you all!

G'Night

Here's "The Doozy"!!

I didn't blog yesterday because I had an awful day. The kind of day that is so awful you don't want to talk about it. So, I'm not going to. BUT, I'm okay now. And by okay I mean not absolutely miserable. SO, God is good. :)

Anyways....today's the day....I get to tell you "The Doozy"!! I told my entire school yesterday so, now I can tell you all.

Well...I am coming home in two weeks.

Now, half of you are probably thinking, "Why is that weird? We didn't think you were going to live in Australia..." And the other half is maybe freaking out because they realize that I'm actually supposed to be going to Tahiti and Vanuatu in two weeks. Well, to the first half, let me say...do you read my blogs? And to the second half, calm down, breath, and read.

Now, let me explain:

Well, actually I can't really explain....let me explain my lack of explanation:

About 2 and a half weeks ago God told me to come home after lecture phase was over. Now, my heart's desire is to take you all through the entire story with all of the reasons, details, and explanations but, I can't. I was planning on doing that for a while and then I really felt God tell me to just say it and leave it at that. Because, my desire to tell you all the whole story is so that I can get people's approval. I want to make sure that everyone's okay with me going home, and everyone knows I'm not doing it for the wrong reasons, and I basically want all of the loose ends tied up neatly before I leave...but, I'm not doing this to please man but to fulfill God's will in my life.

What makes all of this even harder for me is that LaChelle is going home as well. And of course, that looks terrible to the whole school. But, again, I'm not going home only if I get other people's acceptance and approval, I'm going home because I truly believe it's what God's will for me is.

Now, a few people have asked me already, "Why would God take you all the way out to Australia, all the way to this base, tell you to come to THIS DTS for soooo long and then want you to go home early...that just doesn't make sense." Well, I think it actually does. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God wanted me here at this school, with these specific people, in this city, at this specific time of my life; but, He just doesn't want me to go on outreach at this time.

Even though I can't tell you any details of why I'm going home or how I came to that decision I can assure you that I'm not leaving with ANY ill feelings towards YWAM. I still consider myself a "YWAM-er" and I seriously support the missions work they're doing around the world. And I encourage anyone thinking of doing a DTS to continue to pray about it, it's definitely changed my life and I really think it will change yours as well.

That's another thing - I feel completely satisfied with leaving at this point in time because I know I am not the same person that left Dallas Texas two and a half months ago. My life will never ever ever be the same after this, even if I go back to the same "ordinary" life that I left...it will be extraordinary because of the worldview, mindset, and relationship that I'm coming home with. God has helped accomplish every single goal that I had coming into this DTS and even some that I never thought of: I've seen a miracle, I've fallen in love with God, I've seen him in the good and the bad and actually realized that He will never leave me nor forsake me, I've witnessed that there's nothing I can do to make him love me more OR less, I've built a FIRM foundation on God so that even if everyone around me leaves I will not crumble because of who I'm built upon. And, He's still doing a lot in my life and I think I'll change even more in these next two weeks AND after I get home, too!

It was SO incredibly hard to tell my whole school; One, because I didn't give them any reasons either, and two because I seriously love all of them. I came here wanting one best friend, and honestly thinking that's all I would really get. For some reason, all my life I've only ever had one or two friends that I always hang out with and then a bunch of acquaintances that I would see about once a week. And, to be quite honest I didn't think it would be possible to have more than one good friend because I thought I'd get annoyed with them and drained...But, God has blown me away!! He's not only provided me with life-long friends (for real, that's not just a girly emotional thing...I will seriously keep in touch with so many of my classmates) but he has grown my CAPACITY for friendship!! I know that when I get home I'll be able to invest equally in a bunch of different friendships without getting tired or worn out, I'll actually get renewed with such deep and meaningful friendships!

As sad as it is that I'll be leaving my family here so early, I am incredibly excited with what God is going to do in my life when I get home. He's actually going to start almost as soon as I touch down! I fly in on Wednesday the 17th to DFW and then early Friday morning on the 19th I fly into Hartford Connecticut to attend Women of Faith with my mom! And then I fly back to DFW on Sunday the 21st and have thanksgiving with my family! Seriously, I'm not even going to have time to be jet-lagged!

I've been so excited to tell you all my news for so long and I've finally gotten to!!!

Please continue to pray for me as I go throughout my last two weeks in Australia as well as for the rest of my DTS as they prepare to go on outreach!

I love you all! And, I'll write again tomorrow!

G'Later!

Rigoletto!!

Oh my goodness. Wow.

Well, first I just have to start off and say that the cloud is gone!! Well, it's not gone gone but it's not over my heart anymore. It's more like, I know it exists but it's not affecting my mood or day or anything! :) Thanks for your prayers!!

Now, on to telling you about the AMAZING day I had yesterday!!!

I have to start from the absolute beginning...

I woke up because someone was snoring...but ended up going back to sleep until 11:00! Then I woke up and skyped with my dad, but he could tell I wasn't in a very good mood (this was before the cloud left) so we didn't get to skype for long :( But, then I got to skype with my mom and that was fun, too.

Well...the cloud grew heavier BUT it got a little bit better when I realized that LaChelle and I were going to make pancakes, toast, and eggs for breakfast!

After eating breakfast, getting dressed up and fixing our hair LaChelle and I headed out for our day in the city to celebrate both of our birthdays!! However we didn't end up actually getting outside until about two hours after we planned on leaving...

And the second we stepped outside it started raining...yikes! So we grabbed some umbrellas and started walking. But then we discovered that the bike path to the train station was closed...so we just walked the long way through some neighborhoods.

Sweet God held off the heavy rain until we got onto the train so we weren't soaked! And after figuring out our train situation we made ourselves comfortable on the top floor of the train. We spent the whole hour-long train ride listening to music and looking out the window which was very nice. At this point the cloud was getting to an all-time high of heavy-ness...

After getting into Sydney Harbor we discovered that it was pouring down rain! So we shuffled around the shops that were close by and under cover. I got some FABULOUS souvenir shopping done too!

Now, this is when the cloud pretty much disappeared! Do you know what I realized? So...you know how people are always like, "God is the only one you need, his grace is sufficient, etc."? Well, don't get me wrong that's fabulous and I agree BUT I always took that with the picture of me being alone, not needing anyone else, being self-sufficient and not seeking comfort in anyone but God. But, what I realized is that yes, God is enough and his love heals...but I think that he heals me with his love IN people. Like LaChelle, she really really helped me through the hard time I was having yesterday - and it wasn't her, it was God in her. I really really think that when I say that God's love is all I need, it's true - but I need His love through other people too. I don't know...I could totally be on the wrong track...but I don't think so. :)

Anyways, after finally feeling better we were both starving! We had some grandeur ideas of eating at an expensive restaurant overlooking Sydney harbor before waltzing into the opera house to watch Rigoletto; however, we realized that our wallets didn't match up with our ideas. So...we ate at Hungry Jack's (AKA Burger King). But...it was still overlooking the harbor! :)

After eating we wanted to walk around the city but since it was raining we really couldn't without getting soaked - and of course we didn't want to mess up our makeup! So, we found a cafe called "Guylian Belgian Chocolate Cafe", got a table by the window, ordered some cappuccinos and talked...and talked...and talked. It was amazing! We talked for almost two hours...I think...maybe it was more, I don't know we lost track of time! :) By the time we looked down at our clocks it was almost 7! So we walked over to the opera house, got our tickets and took our seats!

We decided that we would try to act demure but we were just too excited! We asked basically everyone to take our picture every five seconds! LaChelle even got teased by the usher for her accent...:)

We sat next to a lady from London who was just traveling around by herself for vacation - how wonderful! I love the idea of taking a vacation by yourself and seeing an opera just to see an opera! Oh, did I mention that we were in the nose bleed section? Seriously, we were one row from the back...but somehow we could see EVERYTHING and hear amazingly as well!!

After about twenty minutes of waiting in anticipation the lights went down and the orchestra started...and then...IT STARTED!!

Oh my oh my oh my...I LOVED it! I want to be wealthy enough when I grow up to A) have fresh flowers in my house all the time and B) go to the theater, ballet, or opera at LEAST once a month!

I will try as hard as I can to not sound incredibly lame and overly emotional but seriously...something in my heart came alive! The lights, the costumes, the sets, the music, the singing, EVERYTHING excited me! It was like my eyes wanted to drink up everything and the more I opened them the more I saw until I realized I was sitting on the edge of my seat looking like a dear caught in headlights, but I didn't care! I wanted the music to keep ringing in my ears and the Italian words (did I mention that everything was in Italian...?) to swirl around my ear drums like wine!

There were times when a man, and a woman would be singing at the same time along with the orchestra and you couldn't distinguish which was which. It was like they all blended together to create a creamy and delicious sound.

So, you know that verse in the Bible that says, "Taste and see that the Lord is good?" well, even though not one thing went into my mouth I felt like I tasted and I saw that the Lord is good! He's so creative, and incredible!

Did you know that for every pitch there's a corresponding color that is actually produced that we can't see? Can you believe that? I so wish that I could have eyes to see those colors, especially last night. I'm sure it would have been even more beautiful than the largest rainbow in the world! Can you seriously believe that our God is that creative? Honestly, He didn't have to make music or voices or color or instruments but he did! Even though Rigoletto was incredibly depressing it was at the same time incredibly uplifting just because of how beautiful it was!

Oh and don't even get me started on the characters. I love acting with all of my heart, even more so than music, and wow did that show captivate me.

My heart literally wept for the character of Rigoletto. He wasn't even the good guy and I still loved him! There's this one line that he said in the first act that brought me to tears. He said, "To be deformed — the buffoon to have to play! Whether one will or not, to be obliged to laugh. Tears, the common solace of humanity are to me prohibited!" Oh my goodness...I wanted to run all the way onto the stage and just hug him!!! I wanted to tell him that I'd cry with him, I didn't think he was ugly, I saw that his jokes were merely a defense mechanism that he used in order to not get hurt...but then I got a hold of myself and realized I was watching a play...and maybe going crazy a little... :)

But, seriously. The characters were so captivating. EVERYTHING was captivating!!! However, after three hours of that deliciousness we had to leave. :(

But while we were walking by the harbor with our cute little umbrellas we realized...we just saw an opera, in Sydney Australia...what the heck?! And then as we passed by that cute little coffee shop again I said, "I wish we didn't have lectures tomorrow so we could go back in there and chat over a cappuccino again!" and then we looked at each other and decided that we only live once!!

So we found another cute little table and talked again over cappuccinos until the shop closed! Then we hopped on our train back home and didn't get back to the train station until past midnight!!

After stepping off the train we realized...hmmm, we live in the ghetto. We're two young girls walking alone in the ghetto. We're two young girls walking alone in the ghetto at 12:45AM and the safe bike path is closed so we would be two young girls walking alone in the ghetto of the ghetto in pretty dresses at 12:45AM. So, we called a cab. :)

After we arrived back at the base we were on such a coffee high that I couldn't get to bed until at least 2! Then...there was yet another orchestra that evening...the orchestra of SNORING! Seriously, it was ridiculous. LaChelle even had to go and sleep on the couch in the media room. And I didn't get a good hours sleep all night. But it was ALL worth it! And I woke up even more excited than I went to bed!!

Oh my goodness yesterday was fabulous. I just can't even express how fabulous it was!!! I LOVED every single part about it, even the rain! If it wasn't for the rain we never would have gone into that coffee shop and discovered such great conversation and cappuccinos! :)

Well, now we have another full day of lectures and LaChelle and I are both jut running on adrenaline and caffeine! :)

I'll blog again later! Thanks for you prayers!

G'Later!!

Oh, PS I'm going to announce "The Doozy" tomorrow to the whole DTS so you'll get to find out soon! :)

Fall Dance Party

Oh my goodness, today was fabulous too!!! :)

Well...I started off annoyed because even thought I COULD have slept in as late as 9 today someone in my room decided to get up at 6AM and pretty much slam every single cupboard in our room...about ten times. I was SO annoyed!!!

But, somehow I managed to get some broken sleep until I finally got out of bed at 9 and got ready for church. And, church was such a great surprise! The little local church we went to this weekend was outside in a park! We all sat on park benches and drank sodas while the kids played on the playground and the pastor spoke. Then we had a bbq and did some facepainting! It was so fun!

Then I had a skype date with my mom which was quite exciting! :)

However, I found out after skyping with my mom that the girl who was supposed to pick us up and take us to Hillsong had the stomach flu. So, that opened up my schedule for the day!

SO, LaChelle and I decided we'd go lay out! So I grabbed my book, journal, and iPod and we both layed out for almost two hours! It was blazing hot but there was a fabulous breeze so it was PERFECT!! But neither of us look any darker...oh, well.

Then Emily, LaChelle, Gwen and myself all headed to the store to buy some ingredients for our Halloween Dance Party!!! Today was Halloween in Australia but they don't really celebrate it at all! And the Europeans had never celebrated it either, so we all decided that we would have a dance party. But, we called it a "Harvest Dance Party" because all of the Europeans had only ever heard horror stories about American Halloweens and they pretty much thought it was Satan's birthday...

ANYWAYS it was basically an excuse to make a bunch of snacks and dance! After buying our ingredients we cooked alllll day! We made rice krispy treats, s'mores (but instead of graham crackers we used sugar cookies), caramel popcorn, caramel apples (and Emily made the caramel FROM SCRATCH!!! Like just butter and sugar and creme...she's awesome), and pancakes too! :) Then we decorated the upstairs worship hall and danced for two hours! It was AMAZING!!!!

It's so nice knowing people so well that you honestly don't care AT ALL what you look like around them! We all danced however we wanted to and whenever we wanted to and with whoever we wanted to! It was fabulous!!

Now I'm going to go take a shower and go to bed fully exhausted! Tomorrow LaChelle and I are celebrating both of our birthdays in the city and we're going to see "Rigaletto" the opera in the Sydney Opera house!!!! WOO HOO!

Today has been fully wonderful in actions...but, somehow my mind has been occupied all day. It's been a struggle for me to focus on the present instead of focusing on the future and all of the worries that come with it. I've felt all day like there has been this ever present cloud around my heart and lungs and when I'm not working incredibly hard on focusing on the present the cloud grows larger and heavier. It's so hard sometimes I just want to cry.

Please just pray that the enemy won't be able to steal any more of God's fabulous moments by growing that cloud in my heart! Especially tomorrow! God has given me this wonderful once of a lifetime opportunity and I don't want anything - especially this stupid cloud issue - to distract me from God's gift!!!

I love you all and I'll blog again tomorrow! :)

G'Night!

Ballerinas, Fried Oreos, and Nose Rings

Today. Was. Awesome.

Well... it didn't start out amazing - I didn't get to surf :(

BUT it was fine because I got to sleep in until 7 and I had raisin toast for breakfast. AND I got to skype with my daddy for a while! And Aaron! AND my mom, too! It was amazing! I love talking with all of them SO much!

After my skyping dates I had assessments, then about a 2 hour break. So, during that time I applied for college! Well...I tried. I'm about 98% finished. It was super weird having to put down on paper (well...my generation's version of paper is the internet) everything you've ever done in your life that might even sound impressive to someone. Under the community service and volunteering part I basically wanted to say, "I just volunteer at my church ALL the time, okay?!" But...I couldn't. :)

Then I went and ate a salad for lunch while sitting on the steps outside. Today was incredibly hot and sunny and delicious. After lunch I found a few minutes to sit by myself and listen to John Mayer while just soaking up the sun...however, when you live with 30 missionaries it's hard to sit on the steps alone in the sun with your eyes closed because automatically everyone thinks you're having a bad day so they all come and try to cheer you up...it's sweet...yet annoying. :)So, I only got through about 3/4 of a song, but it was a nice little escape.

After a few meetings I stole another 30 minutes to take a quick nap. When I woke up it was soooooo hard to muster up the energy to go hang out with 10-15 year olds but somehow God energized me...well, at least enough to roll out of bed.

This week in Youth Street Dance Team we learned modern dance...and oh my goodness...I've found my heart's song. It was delicious - literally, I felt like my soul could soar. We all learned some rough choreography and then performed it by ourselves. However, I made everyone in my class close their eyes when it was my time to perform so I could have real freedom to move - heaven.

After about an hour of dance we all went outside to eat apples! And then I came back inside and found out that Emily really wanted to be a part of the dance team but we had too many members so I switched with her so she could learn at least the last half of the class.

I spent the next hour cutting about 55 apples and talking with Laura and Josh which was fabulous. I love conversation, so much.

For dinner we had Sloppy Joes but Emily and I made egg whites with tomatoes and onions as well as some green beans so we could avoid eating our weight in oil :)

After youth street was over I went and helped Josh out in the kitchen and he taught me how to make homemade FROM SCRATCH apple sauce!! It was awesome! We just hung out in the kitchen for like an hour making apple sauce and apple cobbler while everyone else was in a meeting that we probably should have attended. But, it was great getting to know him - I've technically known him for 2 months but I didn't really even know his last name! :)

After eating some cobbler I went upstairs for a massage...let me explain: As a fundraiser for our outreach a few girls were giving massages. So, I bought a 10 minute massage for five dollars, and it was SO worth it! It was full on, too! Complete with candles, ambiance music, comfy mattresses, and even massage oil! Definitely worth it.

I went downstairs, fully relaxed, and found out that they were having a "Deep Fried Party" where basically they were deep frying everything in sight. They basically shoved a deep fried oreo in my face...so I HAAAAD to swallow it ;) and it was DELICIOUS.

And then....the best part of my day happened....maybe even the best part of my week....even my month maybe!!! I went upstairs to the dance studio, locked the door, plugged in an ipod, and danced with God. Seriously, it was INCREDIBLE! I danced wildly, softly, weirdly, and completely unashamed. It was the most free I've felt since I've been here. For an entire song I closed my eyes and moved for Jesus as an act of worship and intimacy. It was addicting! I didn't ever want to stop! But, after about 45 minutes of constant cardio I had to cool down. So I just laid there listening to music, stretching, talking to God, listening, smiling, feeling, and being. I can't believe I've missed out on this my whole life!

One of the things I've most regretted about my life is not getting into dance as a little girl. I've always always always wanted to be a ballerina, when I was little I had this one dance move that I always did and I still remember how it made me feel. I would always spin around (gracefully, of course) and then put both hands on the ground while lifting my back leg as high into the air as I could. Looking back it was so awkward and clumsy looking; but, as a little girl it made me feel like I was the tallest, most beautiful, eye-catching, heart-captivating, graceful ballerina that ever lived. I was just sure that I made up the move and when people would see it they would want to ask me how they could ever learn how to be so graceful too.

And that's how I felt again tonight. I felt like God was watching me dance all by myself in the upstairs room of a brick building in Sydney Australia thinking, "how graceful and beautiful you are - thank you for dancing for me, it's the best gift you could ever give me."

Ohhh I think I could write for hours about how wonderful and spiritual it was - but I think two paragraphs is enough for right now. :)

Then I had a shower date with Laura and talked about what love is and if we really know or not. I won't tell you what we came up with, it's a secret.

After my shower I skyped with my mom before she had to head over to the arena for Women of Faith - she's awesome. And beautiful. And in love with God. And in love with me. I would be so incredibly happy if I ended up like her one day.

Now I think I am going to head to bed even though it's our weekend and I guess I could stay up all night! But, sleep is one of my favorite things in the world, so I think I'm going to go enjoy that now.

Oh, another thing I realized today: I liked my nose ring. I have a stud in my nose and a month or two ago I bought a ring to put in, and I LOVED it. But, my family said they liked the stud better...and if I'm being completely honest I really changed it back to the stud because Kev said he liked it more. But, you know what?! I liked the ring more!! And, I think I'm going to put it back in!! But...I'm nervous, because it's a lot smaller in width than my stud so last time I put it in the hole shrank so when I tried to put my stud back in I basically had to re-pierce it....and it wasn't comfortable.

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that I'm taking yet another step closer to having a completely firm foundation on God alone without looking to my sides for approval. And I think that my nose ring is going to be a statement of that - along with the tattoo I'm getting. (I just gave you a HUGE hint as to what it is!!)

Isn't it weird that different things have so many vastly different meanings for people? Who would ever ever ever think that a nose ring could really mean anything to anyone more than just a fashion statement. And I would NEVER think that it actually was a statement about God...I mean hello...it's a nose ring...only Satan wears nose rings, right? ;)

Well, I have no real idea why I said all of that - but then again, sometimes I think that a lot about my blogs. But, then I remember that this is also kind of serving as my journal for these months while I'm here. One day I'm even going to print them all out and bind them into a book! And, in my book I want it to talk about nose rings and tattoos...so, that's what I'm writing about! :)

Alright...I'm done! I will blog again tomorrow! I think LaChelle and I are going to Hillsong so I'm sure I'll have a lot to blog about!

G'Night!

Off of My Shoulders and Onto My Hips

I may or may not have just eaten two hot fudge sundaes...

But, that doesn't really have much to do with my day. I just thought I needed to confess it...now there's a huge weight off of my shoulders...and onto my hips. But, its whatevs.

So, about my day:

Woke up early today and went up to breakfast where I discovered that Falita and Emily woke up early to make Fijian pancake batter. I was quite distraught considering I've been wanting to learn how to make them for ever!! But, Bole (one of the staff members from Fiji) said that she needed help cutting them and frying them after devotionals so I volunteered!

I was SO happy! I thought it was such a sweet gift from God - He knew that I've been wanting to learn how to make them and how nice that he scheduled a time for me to! So, Emily, Falita, and I all "skipped" our quiet times to make pancakes for our intercession time. We turned on some Brooke Fraser, poured out some flour and started cooking! Seriously, God was IN the kitchen cooking with us! It was one of the BEST quiet times I've ever had! How awesome is God?

Well....about 15 minutes into our cooking one of the other staff members came in and asked us what we were doing and why we had "skipped" our quiet times (really...we just moved locations). And we all replied that we were having it right now!...she didn't like that answer. She thought we were being really disrespectful by not sitting down and meditating on the word and talking with God. She even said we weren't honoring God? It was all I could do to not say, "Well, God's right here rolling out the dough with me so why don't you ask him what He thinks?" But...I didn't, I held my tongue; however, I continued to make the pancakes.

So, she took it to an even higher level - she told on us to our main DTS leader. And he went and talked to that Fijian staff lady about it, but she stood up for us and it was all good.

And, can I just say - those were some divine pancakes...pun intended.

Honestly, though. They're like sweet fluffy round balls of heaven and you can add toppings too!!

So, after all of our hard work the rest of the school gathered in the dining room and we all split up into tables and had THE best time of intercession EVER! My table had an extra chair at it so I invited God to sit with us and chat. I even kept my eyes open while praying for the different topics and really tried to imagine myself asking him my requests over coffee - it took a while to get used to it, but it was fun.

Then we had a phonetics test - the guy told me I should pray about studying phonetics and becoming a Bible translator...however, something tells me that's not my calling. But, it's cool to be able to understand the science behind people's accents...and something tells me that will come in handy in an acting career :)

Then there was the grammar test. I'm not even joking, it was three pages long. And did I already say that IT DIDN'T COUNT FOR ANYTHING?!? I would think that the fact that it had no real purpose would make me want to take it even more because there would be no stress. However, it just kinda made me aggravated. Especially because I didn't even get to see my score!!!

But, the anthropology teacher came up after that and ended the whole week on a good note!

We had the afternoon off which I spent skyping with my mom and boyfriend-in-law (Haven's boyfriend/ my best friend in the WHOLE world) who are both at Women of Faith this weekend!! And I even got to facebook chat with my brother in LA! I loved it!

Then I went to the store - nothing exciting happened. The killer birds are no longer in mating season so they don't attack us anymore! It's so wonderful to not have to walk in absolute terror to get a cup of coffee!! :)

After dinner I went and laid down for about a half an hour - we ate some fish and I'm pretty sure it was old because it did not sit well in my stomach. But, after a quick nap I felt better.

Then we had a Tahiti meeting. We all walked to Macca's together and ate burgers and ice cream! I didn't have a burger...but yes, I did have two ice creams... :) And they were amazing.

Now I'm going to hopefully skype with my dad when he wakes up. He just got back in town from England and I want to hear everything!

Tomorrow I have a VERY early morning: I'm waking up at 4:30 to go surfing! I'm SO happy we're finally back in Sydney so we can surf again! I am determined to be an expert by the time I get home...or at least be able to stand up and stay up...or at least be able to stand up... :)

After surfing we have "Youth Street" and then...the weekend!!!

I'll update again tomorrow!

G'Night

Break-Down of My Day

Hello!

Today was almost as un-eventful as yesterday. Which is yet another nice relief in comparison to the day before. :)

But, just because I have some time I'll go ahead and give you all a break-down of my day:

6:50 AM - I woke up, got dressed...just as a side-note, I'm trying this new thing where I actually get dressed in real clothes (not sweats or PJ's) every day and it has actually helped me stay awake...I don't know, it could just be a placebo effect. And yet another side-note, I just tried to explain the term "placebo effect" to my Samoan DTS leader and he just looked at me and said, "You're freaking me out. And what's even freakier is that I think you're speaking English." Okay...back to my day.

7:30 - Devotional. I have no recollection of what we talked about today...I think it was about God.

7:45 - Quiet time. My favorite part of the day! BUT the lights over my bed are out so I've been squinting for the past few days. I talked to God about some very heavy things today which made me feel quite overwhelmed, however I just asked Him to deal with it all because I personally didn't have the strength to...and throughout the day I actually started to believe that!

8:30 - Work Duties. Boring.

9:00 - We studied 3 different ways of studying the Bible - Inductive, Meditation, and Topical. In all honesty every single one was presented in the same way there was pretty much no difference between them - weird.

10:00 - morning tea...I confess...I ate three bowls of cereal....I don't know what happened.

10:30-12:00 - Learning French. I can now officially tell hello, what my name is, where I live, and "can you pass me that apple OR potato"...and that's really it. So basically, I can successfully communicate: "Hello. My name is Clancy, can you pass me that apple or potato in the United States?"...real helpful.

12:00-1:00 - Phonetics. Interesting yet incredibly boring, I don't know how that's possible.

1:00 - Lunch. I slept through lunch (3 bowls of cereal will do that...)

2:00 - Lectures start again...I slept through this part too...

2:30 - I was woken up by a staff member wondering if I was sick. I acted very startled and apologetic and ran upstairs...little did they know I KNEW lectures had started and chose to stay in bed...oops.

2:30-2:45 - I listened to the last part of our "translation" lecture...trust me, I didn't miss ANYTHING.

2:45-3:30 - Grammar. I still haven't figured out why we're learning English Grammar...neither has the staff. And tomorrow we have a test. Wow.

3:30-4:15 - Computers...really?

4:15-5:00 - Anthropology. FINALLY!!! Something I'm seriously interested in! As of yet I've been looking into either being a sociology major or an anthropology major so I LOVED this lecture. I was thinking the other day, "hmmm...I always thought I would be a theater major, why do I want to study sociology or anthropology?" And then it hit me! Those would BOTH be incredibly beneficial to acting! Hello....the study of people and the way they interact and live?! God's awesome.

5:30- Dinner!!! We had a delicious "fall" dinner!

It is now 6:30 and I don't have anything planned for the rest of the evening.
It sounds like I have a super bad attitude towards this week's lectures. To be honest, I'm having a hard time being super positive about it, we all are...staff included. We were all told that they were going to come in and teach us French and Anthropology...but we got grammar, phonetics, computers, translation, alphabet, etc. So, it's just been an adjustment...oh, and they're making us do homework and have actual graded tests that don't really count for anything so it's been incredibly hard mustering up the motivation to do it all. You know? But, I DON'T hate this week, I promise! :) It's just not my favorite! :)

Well, now I'm going to go relax! I recently got a LOT of new music, so I might just sit somewhere and listen to it all! :)

G'Night! :)

Update: I had SUCH a fabulous night after writing that last part of the entry! I listened to music with LaChelle - We listened to Brooke Fraser, Brandon Flowers, and I introduced her to The Raconteurs. I dyed her hair. We painted our nails. Had a shower date. However, I didn't wait long enough for my nails to dry before I took a shower so I had to re-do them when I got out. But, it was fine because we listened to Taylor Swift while eating oreos so basically, it was amazing!!! :)

THEN I got to skype with my momma! She woke up at 5:45AM to skype with me...that's REAL love! Now, I'm going to bed and she's going BACK to bed. :) We have a day full of tests tomorrow...those tests that don't actually count for anything... :)

I will talk to you all later! :)

G'Night Again! :)

Leisurely Day

Today was so much more calm than yesterday...thank you Lord.

It was a leisurely morning, long set of lectures, and a delicious dinner.

That could literally sum up my day. :)

Now I have ANOTHER Tahiti meeting...I'm serious...these meetings are becoming QUITE redundant.

Oh, we got our mail in today...there was nothing for me. Sad. I've been here for 2 months and gotten a grand total of 5 items: 2 packages from my parents, one letter from a relative, and two letters from some of you. So...feel free to write me if you get a free chance... ;)

Today I started to finalize the tattoo that I'm going to get when I get home. I drew it on with pen and it looks AMAZING! I might upload a picture sometime.

Well...tomorrow should be an equally boring day - I'll update later.

G'Night.

The Flood-Waters Have Subsided

Here's an update on how my day has gone thus far.

Well....it got harder before it got better, but it did get better.

The floodgates are not closed yet, and I hope they never are. Because, if they ever close then the water is just going to build up again and then...yikes...I'll have another day like today. But, if I just keep them open and feel whatever feelings decide to pop up then maybe I'll really be able to heal and soon one day those waters won't be so strong or violent. Maybe.

Seriously though, I became SO comfortable with my school-mates today. Absolutely everyone knew I was sad...hello I was bawling on skype in the middle of the rec room, no privacy there. And then I kept crying during lectures. But every time I would shed a tear another person would come up and pray for me, or hold me, or tell me "I love you and I would choose you over anyone in the world", or...my favorite: give me chocolate. :)

I skipped both lunch and dinner today, but somehow I feel more full than I have all week. It could be because I just washed these skinny jeans, or maybe its all that bread, or MAYBE it's because pretty much everyone I know wrapped their arms around me to make sure I knew I was loved and cared for.

Thank you to everyone who either messaged me or commented on my post - I read every comment and they all mean a LOT to me.

The other day I got two letters in the mail from two of you guys and just to let you know I LOVED them! Thank you for sending them and thank you to everyone who has prayed for me!

Well, I'm going to go watch Wall-E...pretty much the perfect way to end this very full day. :)

Goooooood Night.

Opening the Emotional Floodgates

It's only lunchtime and I'm already needing to escape to write to you all.

Today has been really really hard.

Living with 40 other people constantly around you makes it really hard to cry in private - actually quite impossible. But, today I went up to His Dwelling Place to do my hour of worship and all of my emotions from the past 2 months just flew out.

I went in kind of aggravated for no good reason and then the absolute smallest incident triggered something much bigger. Do you know what I mean? Something that doesn't actually matter that much just reminds your soul of an incident (or multiple) in the past that hurt? And then you pretty much flip out? Well...that happened.

All of the sudden I just started sobbing, the kind where you try and control it but that just makes it worse. So, I got up, locked the door, sat down and cried...and cried...and cried. But I got so incredibly angry I found a canvas and some red paint and started throwing it, then I smeared it everywhere and grabbed some scissors and cut the middle out of the canvas - no, it wasn't cool looking but it was a release.

But, I got so angry and hurt that I couldn't contain it any longer so I grabbed a chair kneeled at the bottom, imagined Jesus sitting in it, laid my head on his lap and sobbed.

I'm pretty sure I felt everything in that moment that I have tried not to feel for my whole life - family issues, insecurity, abandonment, and I think I finally got to really grieve my break up.

Well....all of that feeling sounds great in theory but it absolutely sucks in real life - I hated it, and I still hate it because I'm STILL feeling it. But, I managed to calm down long enough to go to worship.

Have you ever tried to worship while hurt or angry? Its a very odd feeling. It feels really pure and completely unnatural at the same time - it was like I was basically saying, "Hey God. I feel absolutely terrible right now but I trust you so might as well pass the time by praising you..." Maybe not what Paul was singing in jail but hey, it's real.

Anyways the guy asked if anyone wanted to go to the front for prayer and practically the whole room did, but I just stayed where I was in the back. And people actually came to pray for me! :) So, of course the floodgates opened up again... But, after worship they had apples and peanut butter which is a new found love of mine so it made it a lot better. :)

Anyways, lectures were all right. I learned how to say "can you pass me the apple" in French...because that's so useful in real life....
And somehow tried to figure out the difference in "ahhhh" and "ah" phonetically...I'm baffled.

But, the hurt just keeps coming in waves. And with the hurt comes the feeling of being overwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed that I'll NEVER get over these issues, I'll never be able to stand strong on my own two feet, or maybe I'll never be healed and whole. But then I think back to what God told me on that cliff that day in Fingal while watching the waves crash over and consume the rocks below. He told me "Clancy, I rush in to overwhelm you...I overwhelm you...not the enemy, I do." So, I'm just waiting for the enemy's waves to reside and God's to come rushing in - I'll let you know when they do.


It really makes me laugh out loud to think of everyone reading this, you guys must be thinking I need some therapy or something! My blogs are always like a roller coaster! :) I know some people in my life don't understand or appreciate my emotions, they just think its an overreaction - but, I'm pretty sure Jesus cried so maybe I'm just following in His footsteps ;)

Please continue to pray for me, I need it.

G'Later

Non-Stop Day

Wow.

Today has been absolutely NON-STOP!! I got up early to try and squeeze some extra time in with God but got distracted by some good conversation...I'm definitely my mother's daughter :)

Anyways, we started our lectures at 9AM sharp. This week we're being taught by some Wycliffe Bible Translators...now, let me just describe a few of the unique teachers I have this week.

The first guy gave a VERY interesting session on phonetics but had a booger hanging out of his nose the ENTIRE time...incredibly distracting yet amusing and somehow made him more relate-able? :)

My French teacher had a fabulous white mustache, even whiter orthopedic shoes, and a sweater vest, and he made me feel like I was listening to the narrator of Narnia on tape - amazing.

And the translator/linguistics teacher was an absolutely BRILLIANT man who singly-hand-idly (is that a word?) created a written alphabet, phonetics system, and translation of the Bible for a village language called Rossel....and he wore a fanny pack during the entire lecture.

Needless to say our lectures were very diverse, however they were also quite draining. I felt like I was back in school - graded homework and all!

We had various lectures from 9AM-5PM (with a break for lunch, morning tea and afternoon tea of course) ranging from: phonetics, linguistics, language learning, Wycliffe history, grammar, translating, and on-site missionary work.

Directly following lectures we had dinner then a Tahiti team meeting (our outreach team is notorious for meeting literally every five seconds...) followed by a meeting to evaluate how much we need to make for outreach, followed by ANOTHER Tahiti team meeting (I'm not joking....we meet all the time), followed by a meeting between Emily and Kate and myself where I told them that doozy of a news that I mentioned earlier, followed by a girls meeting to plan a prank on the guys (let me know if you have any suggestions) followed by my blog meeting which I am in right now ;)

But seriously....it has absolutely been non-stop ALL day and I am totally exhausted. I now have a "shower date" with Emily and Kate (we have 3 shower stalls right next to eachother so if you get 2 other people to take a shower at the same time you can talk...I don't know, it sounds more fun in my head I guess) and then we're secretly sleeping in the dance studio tonight. Don't tell.

Tomorrow is another full day starting at 7:00AM and going until 5:30 - please keep me in your prayers! :)

I love you all! Comment to let me know that I still have readers please...I don't know where you all have gone! :)

G'Night!

A God-Send Doctor with a Comb-Over

Well, not much happened yesterday but it's just been so long since I've blogged I had to write another one!!! :)

Yesterday was Sunday for me here in Australia and that means it's our day off! I slept in until 9:30 which was delicious. And then I skyped with my mom which was even better!!! She got sick and had to leave the porch (at WOF) early to go back to the hotel room which worked out perfectly for me! ;) One day I want to skype with her while she's still on the porch...but that's a side note.

Anyways, after I skyped with my mom my grandmother and grandfather got online and skyped with me too! I miss them SO much so it was amazing to get to talk!

After returning to skype with my mom one last time (can you tell I miss her?) I went upstairs and ate some breakfast....I'm telling you, my day was not that exciting...

Upon finishing my cereal a few girls and myself went downstairs and watched "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2". Then I read a little bit of a book that's due next week (I hate the book so I won't even give you the title...it's awful and a lot about legalism and how God WANTS us to suffer because it grows us so he purposely makes us suffer...i hate it.) Then I took an AMAZING nap!

I woke up, watched the very end of "Time Traveler's Wife", I only watched about 20 minutes but I still cried. Then LaChelle and I went to the shops to buy some groceries and food.

THEN my day got kind of exciting! My friend Emily stepped on a thorn two days ago and she thinks it was a poisonous thorn because her foot is about 3 times the size it's supposed to be. Well, after hobbling around on it for two days she finally decided she should probably go to the doctor.

So, we piled into this awful broken down van and headed to something like a "Care Now" center. Well.....she couldn't figure out how the insurance worked so the lady at the desk said she couldn't see the doctor. BUT, at that moment the nice old doctor with a very interesting comb-over walked out and said, "Now, I wouldn't be hurting anyone if I just brought you into my office and took a look at it, right?" So, he did and she ended up needing a huge shot...in her butt. But, the doctor did it ALL for free!! He even gave her a prescription of antibiotics for free too! What a God-send!!!

Then we went and ate this delicious thing called "Golden Gaytime Crusher" at KFC...I love it. It's like a S'More in a glass with caramel...a-mazing.

After all of this it was about time to go to bed so I went and got distracted by painting my nails. Then I did some stretches and crunches (I'm telling you these carbs are getting to me!!!!) before I finally went to bed and slept soundly.

So...that was my day yesterday!!

This week is going to be insane! We have lectures from 9-5 every day...AHHHH! We're learning either French, Spanish, or Pigeon depending on which outreach you're going on. The Tahiti team is learning French and I am very excited!

Well, I will blog again sometime soon, whenever I can find the time! Even if my day was kind of boring like it was yesterday! I just miss "talking" to all of you!!! :)

G'Day!

My Assessment of Camping

Wow.

I can't believe it's already been two weeks. And I also can't believe that I survived for that long...

So, here's my assessment on camping...I hate it.

Now, before you die-hard campers freak out let me just tell you about a few of the "fun" adventures we had while camping...I'll actually start with the drive there:

Well, it started off great! I woke up early enough to get really good seats, and LaChelle and I both slept all the way to the first pit stop. And then from the first pit stop to the second, and from the second to the third (we slept a lot). Well, sometime after the 3rd pit stop we lost a wheel...yep, the entire wheel fell off - completely. And it was pouring outside...and we were kind of in the middle of nowhere.

3 1/2 hours later we were on the road again and a few hours after that we arrived at Fingal. But, guess what? It was still pouring rain and now it was pitch black. So, we all lugged our soggy stuff to the upstairs of a church and crammed in for the night. Oh, and the bathrooms were flooded and outside...and the sinks were outside too...so I just brushed my teeth in the rain.

But, God was sweet and dried up all the flooding by the next morning. :) (not permanently though...)

A few days later we actually put our tents up. Now, I think I would REALLY love camping, if it was with a few friends...and relaxed...and not covered in sand all the time...and not muddy....etc. haha But, honestly camping was actually pretty fun! :)

Oh, and about a week into our trip came a rain storm...and because our tents were set up on sand all of our little metal rods that held our tents in the ground came up...so we had to run all of our stuff from our campsite back up into the church for the night. But, since LaChelle and my suitcase was so huge we had to just leave it and pray. But, about an hour later I realized my phone was in my suitcase!!! So, I sprinted out and back and got soaking wet.

The rain dried up the next day, thankfully, so we all moved back into our tents. Well, we went back in to go to sleep late at night and found out that some of our suitcases were soaked through. What?! It wasn't even raining. Come to find out, there were two large puddles of water stuck between the bottom of our tent and our tarp on the ground, and it was seeping through the seem in our tent soaking all of our stuff. So, me and the 4 other girls in my tent did a little tetris with our bodies and figured it out.

While there were a lot of "fun" adventures with rain and dirt and outside showers and spiders and poisonous snakes and things like that, there actually were a BUNCH of really fun adventures.

One of my favorites was our trip up to the lighthouse! It was BEAUTIFUL! We all went up as a base to do some worship and we were told to ask God for a revelation. Well...I kinda hate doing that because it just feels awful sometimes to me, especially when I feel like I don't get anything. BUT He was sweet and pointed out some sweet things to me!

First: My favorite part of the scene was where the waves got close to the rocks and they looked like they sped up and then they would completely cover up the rocks from all different directions. He pointed out to me, "Clancy, I rush in to cover you and wash over you. And sometimes I come in from unexpected directions".

Second: We saw dolphins!!! So, I was super scared to go in the ocean because of the sharks...but, someone told me that sharks don't go where there are dolphins. And throughout the day we saw two different "families" of dolphins swimming in opposite directions, like they were patrolling the beach, for me!! God was patrolling the beach so I didn't have to be scared to get in the water! :)

Yeah, that was amazing - and then yesterday we went kayaking! And OH MY GOODNESS BEAUTIFUL! We went with a FOR REAL aboriginal guy who even speared a sting ray...with a spear. WHAT?!

And the absolute best part was this: we saw dolphins again!!! This time there were only about 15 feet away! A momma, a baby, and a pappa and two other "teenagers" (I assumed so b/c they liked swimming ahead of their mom and dad ;)
And then all of the sudden one popped up less than 5 feet away from my kayak!! The aboriginal guy told us that if I kept paddling he would swim with me, AND HE DID! The dolphin swam WITH my kayak right in front of it!!!!! It was amazing!!

I thought that I would be able to remember everything that happened while in Fingal but, as I try and write more I can't remember a thing!

Basically, my real assessment of camping is this: although I didn't like the weather situations I had a really really really fun time and enjoyed somewhat of a vacation! We danced a LOT (we're learning a dance for Tahiti) and bonded a TON!

But, the absolute best part was that I heard God's voice! Honestly it was like I had a little honeymoon with Him the whole time! He made it so easy and fun and leisurely and then at the end of the week he spoke a doozy! And when I say doozy I mean a realllll doozy...But, you will find out about that later ;) Don't worry! :)

So...yeah, I don't know why it's so hard for me to figure out things that I did while in Fingal! Maybe I'm just pre-occupied in thought about that doozy that God told me! :)
Anyways, thanks for all of your prayers I really love you all and I'll update again tomorrow! :)

G'Night!

It's been too long!

Hello everyone!!

Well, it has been a while since I last updated, hasn’t it? I think it's been too long...but, there are a few reasons for that: number one, I have been INSANELY busy!!! We’ve had a very full week of lectures, talks, prayers, and very little time for sleep. I have barely even had time to check my e-mail!

And the second reason that I haven’t updated all week is because the teaching has been very hard. Most of it did not sit very well at all with my spirit and I found that I didn’t want to blog about it because it weighed me down so much. It was awful! This whole week I felt bound and weighted down, it honestly was really miserable! But, I talked to my mom the other day and she helped a LOT! It was nice to hear that I wasn’t crazy and I wasn’t the only one in the world that didn’t agree with the teaching!

It wasn’t necessarily the actual teaching that I didn’t agree with, but the way it was taught, the language that was used, the spirit behind it was sooooo not of love but more of a spirit of power and not of humility. Honestly, it was quite annoying!! :)

BUT, today was the last day of lectures and it was actually quite awesome! It was like I walked into the room with a different spirit! Instead of being weighed down and angry at all of the things he said that I didn’t agree with, I just let everything that he said slide off of me if it didn’t sit well with me. Even in my notes I just wrote down the stuff that sat well with me and let everything else slide off if it wasn’t truth. And, oh my goodness it made all the difference in the world!!!

I am absolutely exhausted right now and it is SUCH a struggle to keep my eyes open! I haven’t been getting to bed before 12 in a while and have been waking up about 6’something every morning! Actually, yesterday morning LaChelle and I both turned off our alarms thinking we’d just take a quick rest in the morning and ended up sleeping through breakfast, devotionals, quiet time, and they had to call for us on the loud-speaker for work duties!! Oops! :)

And tomorrow night is definitely not going to be much better…I’m not going surfing in the morning, which is good because I’ll at least get to sleep in until 7. BUT, after youth street my team is staying up all night…yeah, I said it, all night…UGH! We’re making burritos and going to downtown Sydney at 1:30 in the morning to stand outside of the nightclubs as they let out and sell burritos to raise money for outreach. And, guess what, Sunday morning at 5AM we leave for a 12 hour bus ride to Fingal.

I’m sure you’re confused…let me explain. I don’t know if I have mentioned this before but, we are going on a camping trip! We will be in a place called Fingal (aboriginal territory) for the next two weeks sleeping on the beach, surfing like crazy, spear-fishing and kangaroo hunting (YIKES!), having bon-fires, and bonding together!! How fun! And can I just add that I have never been camping before in my life! I used to try and sleep out on the trampoline sometimes but I couldn’t even make it past midnight… so I’m pretty sure that the indigenous territory of Australia is kind of like throwing me in the deep end without floaties… but, we’ll see how it goes!
However, Fingal is 12 hours north of Sydney, which means all 30 of us are going to squish into little 10 seat-er buses and drive for 12 hours straight…and that will be after the night of selling burritos so we’ll have no sleep… yikes! AND, we’re not going to have internet access while we’re there so I won’t be able to update for the next two weeks!!! You’ll just have to imagine what I’m doing while I’m out there!

But, we don’t leave until day after tomorrow so I’ll be able to probably have one last update tomorrow! :)

This week has really made me miss my home! I can’t believe I’ve already been here for 6 weeks, they have FLOWN by…but at the same time whenever I think that I still have 18 weeks left it kind of makes me cringe a little. To be completely honest I would be totally happy if I was in my own bed right now, with my dog cuddled up at my feet and my mom and dad downstairs in the office. Or at lunch with Haven and Aaron and Kevin talking about what songs we’re going to play next at FC. Or at rehearsal for a weekend service…yeah, that one I really miss. Or at my grandmother’s lake house floating in the lake on a canoe! I would love ALLLLL of that, and I CAN’T WAIT to do all of those things in February!

However, I’m trying to keep on reminding myself that even though I’d like to be doing all of those things that I am here for a reason. And, that I am having some major life change that will be a great foundation for the rest of my life. And that all of those things will still be there in February and they will only be that much more sweet when I can actually do them all! :)

Well, I have to head upstairs for dinner now! We’re having fried fish and steamed vegetables! (We have a new kitchen manager which means that all of the food is soooo much better and we’re not just eating yucky fat chicken and rice…thank you Jesus!)

Oh, hey, so this is probably weird but I have a prayer request! I have some sort of rash on my chest and neck and back and LaChelle has something similar on her arms. We don’t know what it is, but could you all pray for it to either go away or for us to find out what it is so we can deal with it? Sorry if that was gross… :) But thank you for your prayers!!! :)

I LOVE YOU ALL! Seriously, I do, I can’t wait to see most of you soon! Did you know that this week marks the half-way point of my lecture phase?! How crazy!!!

I’ll update again soon!

G’NIGHT!

Captivating

Hello!

Today hasn’t really even begun and yet I still just couldn’t wait to update. I finished my work duties early today so I decided to come into my room, get comfortable, and start reading Captivating! And, OH MY GOODNESS!!!! I feel so…understood! I’ve just GOT to share with you some of my heart! If I don’t I just might burst!!!

I wrote down some quotes that really spoke to me, so I’m going to share them with you. The first is probably the one that echoes what I’m feeling most right now. It is talking about the desires of a woman’s heart and says, “It’s not just the desire for an outward beauty, but more – a desire to be captivating in the depths of who you are.” Oh my goodness…YES! I don’t just want to be beautiful, that’s wonderful, but I want to completely and utterly captivate someone’s heart! Not because of how I look, or what I do, or how much time I give to missions, I want to captivate him because of WHO I am! I want him to be captured by the unexplainable qualities of my heart that cannot be found in any other person, the weird idiosyncrasies of my personality, my deep excitement, my deep pain, the annoying things that I naturally do, EVERYTHING!

Another quote that spoke to my heart was “So God endows woman with certain qualities that are essential to relationship, qualities that speak of God. She is inviting. She is vulnerable. She is tender. She embodies mercy. She is also fierce and fiercely devoted.” I love that last part, “She is also fierce and fiercely devoted.” Sometimes I feel like I am too stubborn or too fiercely devoted to things. Like, I am very fiercely devoted to the hope that one day I will end up with someone that is captivated by me. And, I am fiercely devoted to making things happen and getting what I desire, like the other day when I told God, “I’m not going to accept anything less than you showing up and rocking my world today.” I think that God is fierce too!

As I sat down to write this I decided I needed some theme music! And, instead of going to the tried-and-true Phil Whickham I stumbled upon Tchaikovsky…I know, weird. But, I started listening to “Sleeping Beauty Waltz” and “Romeo and Juliet” and immediately I started imagining myself being swept off onto a dance floor, with a beautiful dress (flowy of course…) like Cinderella and her prince – totally romanced, graceful, beautiful and captivating. Then his Piano Concerto No. 1 came on and I immediately imagined myself as a strong warrior after a victory! Like I had just sacrificed everything I had with the utmost bravery and courage and was now being commended for my valor.

Just reading over this makes me blush, because it is so vulnerable and I feel incredibly stupid for writing it. But, am I the only one that feels this way? Am I the only girl out there that wants to be ravishing and courageous, at the same time? Am I the only girl who doesn’t want to settle for less than someone to be utterly captivated by who you are? I sure hope not!

The next quote is by John Elderedge about the heart of a man. He says, “Every man wants a battle to fight…every man longs for a beauty to rescue…it’s not just that a man needs a battle to fight. He needs someone to fight FOR. There is nothing that inspires a man to courage so much as the woman he loves.” I sure as heck hope he’s right!!! I know that pretty much only girls read my blog…actually I’m quit positive no guys other than my family read this…BUT if there are any guys out there please respond to this and let me know if that is true!! Do you really desire to fight for someone?

I’ve always wanted to be fought for. I’ve always wanted a man to be just as “fiercely devoted” as I am, but fiercely devoted to ME! Fiercely devoted to not taking “no” for an answer, fiercely devoted to never letting me get hurt, fiercely devoted to doing everything humanly possible to make sure I am his and he is mine.

A secret desire of mine has always been to be a muse for someone. I’ve always hoped that one day I would date a musician or artist and be his muse – whenever he needed to be inspired he would think of the one he loved and create a masterpiece. But, I’ve never thought of being the inspiration for courage! And, I love it! Whenever I need to stand strong and fight a battle I always think of someone I love, whether it be a person or God – maybe one day I’ll be that person for someone. Maybe I’ll inspire them to run into the face of danger like David did with Goliath, as opposed to sitting there and waiting to play defense.

I know that I have written some pretty vulnerable and emotional things on this blog, but this is BY FAR the most embarrassing and scary! I’m actually very nervous about pushing the “post entry” button. For some reason I almost feel guilty – like I don’t have the right to want all of this. Like, I should just be happy with what I have and realize that all of my desires could only have been fulfilled before the fall. Like, I’m expecting too much of men in general, as if I’m too emotional or “girly” for real life.

But, I’m going to go ahead and step out in faith and trust that if my desires are too much or if I am too emotional then God will let me know and HE will change my heart. But, as of right now I’m choosing to believe that I was made in HIS image and that he is a romantic, merciful, beautiful, fiercely devoted, and absolutely CAPTIVATING God.

Thank you for listening! :)

G’Later