Leaving Canberra

Well, I'm ready to go back to Brisbane.  Canberra has been amazing, Loren Cunningham spoke on the future of YWAM and what's currently going on in the world and it was very inspirational.  He is the type of speaker that, while being soft spoken and not very exuberant in his mannerisms, speaks with incredibly moving words.  It is very hard to listen and not be moved.
The weather at the beginning of the week was quite cool, but now it has warmed up considerably.  It is currently 7:45 AM and already "sensory deprivation temperature," where the air temperature is so close to skin temperature that you don't feel anything, especially in the courtyard where the wind doesn't blow very hard.  I look forward to getting into a nicely air-conditioned car for the trip to Sydney.  Oh, yeah rather than going straight back to Brisbane my mate (Wayne) and I are going to spend a day exploring Sydney.  Check out the harbour and the opera house and see if I can find a few of the locations they shot The Matrix at.  It's going to be great, God bless.

YWAM 50th Celebration Conference

Like I promised I have uploaded a few pictures I took from Canberra, I didn't take many inside the buildings because I was too interested in what was in them to worry about pictures sorry.  But here is the link

The conference is going well, it has been a great time to connect with other campuses around Australia and just bask in the "YWAMness" the sense of shared bonds with complete strangers.  There have been some awesome times of worship and ministry.  I am so glad to be here, God has really been showing me some new things, and its making me excited.  This evening we are having the first of four talks by Loren Cunningham, the founder of Youth With A Mission, on the past, present and future of YWAM.  I am really looking forward to hearing him speak again.  He has a passion that is hard not to catch.

Canberra (ok, apperently its pronounced Can-bra not Can-bur-ah)

As I write this blog I'm setting in a cell. Not a prison cell, but a room in a former monastery, even now the entire YWAM Canberra campus (the former monastery) has a meditative feeling.  Walking around I feel like the whole place is breathing, (but not as loudly as the snores of my roommate, so glad I remembered to bring ear plugs).  The building is old and made of brick and I think sandstone, it is marvelous to look at.  And I have gotten to see a whole slew of new exotic parrots feeding all around.  You can see them too just go to your local pet store.

Canberra is the capital of Australia and the campus here is one of the host campuses of the year-long 50th Anniversary of Youth With A Mission. I came down early as a friend's 'offsider' (Aussie term for right hand man, from the trucking industry, similar to riding shotgun) to help put up a large tent that is being used to house the week long conference. Which we finished today. Tomorrow we are going to go check out the town again (we went last night after dark, so this time i get to go in the buildings). I should be writing again soon and I'll post a bunch of Pic from Canberra

Long, but worth the read

Looking for/breaking trail for the obstacle course

Ok, so I just returned from a day on Stradbroke Island.   I only had one day since tomorrow morning I’m headed off to Canberra to help pitch a tent.  What was I doing on “Strady”? Well, before we send our outreach teams on outreach, we run them through a mission simulation.  This includes a mock airport in “Bagistan” local contacts that don’t show up, and uncomfortable food.  A big part of this is called “Mission Impossible.”  In Mission Impossible the teams are woken up at random times during the night (they don’t know it’s coming) they are run through an obstacle course with several team building activities, food challenges, and the like.  After they leave the course, they go to a mock village to share the gospel to the locals.  This course took an average of about 2 and a half to 3 hours to complete.  I went through my own personal mission simulation that same night.

My roll was first to help make the course, normally it takes about 2 hours to set up, but we had problems finding the trail we normally use and it took us about 5 hours to set up, but the time we finished it was getting dark and we needed to run the guides through so they knew where to go (plus we hung glow sticks to mark the very rough trail).  When all was said and done I had been in the bush for 7 and a half hours eating only a small sandwich and had only a little water.  9:30 PM I emerged and was able to eat and rest for about a half hour.  At this point I was tired, hungry and dehydrated I had no desire to continue helping with the simulation, but we were rather short staffed and I had no choice but to continue.  I had cut my foot while building the Obstacle course, so I was assigned to the village as one of the locals that need the gospel.

So at this point I have no desire for ministry of any kind, I just want to go to sleep, much like the outreach teams that come to the village.  Right before the first team arrives to the village some random drunk guys come up and we start talking to them.  One of them was really interested in who we were and what we had to offer.  His father was a Pastor, but he didn’t follow God on his own.  We told them what we were doing and asked them to join our tribe.  They agreed since they were bored.  The first team came up and was surprised to have complete strangers to present the gospel to so it worked really well.  William, the pastor’s son, was very interested and stayed for a while, and even the members of the “village” were sharing true God and love with him.

It was an amazing experience and I’m really glad to have had it.  Especially when I was so tired and not wanting to do any ministry, it was God’s way of showing me that there are a lot of things much more important than me. And I'll write about Canberra when I get back.

Oz...Finally!

Wow, travel gets weird.  So, let's start from the top.  First off, I left my house without the visa I needed to get into Australia.  Which any traveler will tell you is a bad idea.  I had been trying to apply for it for a month.  But I couldn't even apply until I got my old visa canceled, and the office is closed for Christmas holidays, and only open the day I needed to leave.  LAX is about 4 hours from my house, meaning I had to leave at about 3:30 pm to get to the airport on time (four hours before my flight to cope with longer lines due to new restrictions and holiday travel).  The visa office in Australia opens at 3 pm my time.  So right before I leave I call them on Skype (the only way it would work) to get my visa canceled.  They tell me that the office in Perth (on the west coast of Australia) handled my visa application so they have to cancel it.  But they didn't open for another 2 hours.  So I decide that I need to leave, and figure I'll just find an internet cafe on the road.  Two hours later I'm in Santa Barbra.  I find a cafe and call up.  I talk to a new guy and he puts me on hold for 15 minutes.  Once he comes back on the line he says that he talked to Perth but since I was studying in Queensland (east coast) they had to cancel my visa, but their office wasn't answering.  I figured that it was probably that they were out to lunch.  So an hour later I call from Ventura (this time a small burger joint with wifi, go figure).  So sitting on a dark curb waiting on hold finally the lady comes on and tells me that my visa has been canceled, success! (Well for part one, canceling the visa.)  And about 3 hours before my flight I can apply for a visa.  Normally this shouldn't be a problem since the visa is processed online, and "in most instances approved within seconds."  So after doing all the application stuff I checked to see if it was approved, it wasn't yet.  So I'm now 3 hours away from leaving and still don't have a visa, but at least I have an app in.  Luckily for me they let me check in, so I guess I got my visa.  Oh and that long wait I was expecting because of all the new security stuff?  From standing in line to check in to standing in front of the gate took me, oh all of fifteen minutes!  I think that's the fastest I have ever gotten through an airport.  But at least during the 13 hour overnight flight I had a row all to myself, so I could "stretch out" and sleep, and that was sweet.  Although I only got the row after I subtly rude Canadian couple went in search of new seats. ("Are YOU in this row too?  We like it when we have the row to ourselves so we can kind of stretch out." Doesn't everybody? (Well most people, I would have rather had the chance to talk to them since I'm one assignment away from finishing a two year course, the one assignment?  Share the gospel, kinda hard when sitting by myself.) Oh and I was already sitting down when they asked, if I was sitting there, that's what made it seem rude and rather obtuse.