I have officially been in the Outback of Australia for about two weeks now. I’ll admit, when I first found out that Australia was on my Race route, I was super pumped. Immediately I thought: Sydney–right? because that’s the only place in Australia… (Please note my sarcasm). My team and I found out in the last week of January that we’d be going to a community in the Northern Territory about an hour and a half outside of Darwin. I’d never heard of Darwin (although, this was where part of Australia was filmed), nor did I ever think I’d be going to Northern Australia…although why I keep thinking like that is beyond me. I gave up all those rights to even put God in that box–He can take me wherever He wants (which I know darn well, He will).
To give you a little insight of where I’m at, you need to know that it is blazing HOT here. You cross your arms, or your legs and you stick together. You go outside, you just start sweating. It really feels like I’m in an oven all day. FORTUNATELY, where we are staying has one large air conditioned room and we set up our tents for mosquito netting, so we stay cool and bug free at night. We even got our hands on some ice cream (shh, don’t tell anyone).
Where are we staying you ask? Woolaning Christian College’s Student Center. Our ministry for part of this month is helping out a Christian boarding school. In Australia students go through grade school then college, then Uni (or University). We are working with students ages 10-19 this first part of February. Most of them are here because they’ve had a rougher life, or they don’t have parents. By being here, they have a place to stay, they receive an education or trade skill and they have people who will invest into their lives.
Megan and I helped out with the Level 1 classroom the first week. The students in Level 1 are learning their basics. We help them with their reading assignments, math, spelling, art–things like that. We also try and help the teacher keep the class under control, but a typical day could look like a fight, some yelling, things being thrown and occasional name calling, followed by storming out of the class. Each class has one teacher, 1-2 teaching aids and sometimes one guy to keep the boys in line. I have found that if you show them individual attention and care, they respond fairly well to you though. I even got one of the boys, Billy, to sit with me for a whole twenty minutes to practice reading. I was so proud of him; I could tell he was proud of himself too, because I’m pretty sure I caught a smile on his face for a brief second.
Along with the students, we’ve met a lot of great people at the school. The principal has welcomed us, the staff and faculty are great, but there’s a special place in my heart for the house parents. The house parents have a huge responsibility with looking after the children. Each house operates like a family. There are 3 girl houses and 3 boy houses. The children range from ages 10-19 in the houses. The goal is to have different ages, like you would with siblings. Each house has around 10 kids and then a set of house parents.
I have great admiration for Matt & Missy and what they do, especially because they are house parents for boys. As I witnessed that first evening at their house, it’s not always easy–I mean, let’s face it: boys will be boys. 🙂 We left that night and walked back to our humble abode. I turned to the girls on my team (with huge eyes I’m sure) and said, “wow, I could never do that.”
Well, God heard that, because within the next 2 days, things unfolded and needless to say, we found out this week’s assignment was to be house parents for one of the boys houses. YIKES! When Noe told us this, I started laughing. God is continually showing me that He will use me in spite of me and that I can do all things through Him. So this week, we have been with the Tower House boys. Can I just say what a blessing it has been so far! I’m on the evening shift, which includes getting a snack/tea ready for them after school and cooking dinner. Yes, I, Lauren Outcalt, along with two others, cook for 9 hungry boys. Last night was my first go at it and I was pretty proud of myself. I cooked burgers on the barbie and I even grilled onions too, while Glenalyn made a salad. *Dad, you would have been proud of my grill skills!* Two of the boys even thanked me for cooking and said it was good! WOW!
