As I look back on this last month in Australia, I reflect on all the times that the Lord has showed up, displayed his love, and surprised my team and I with his goodness and adventurous spirit. We have prayed over the city, had conversations about Jesus with people in the streets, helped at a local botanical garden, gone to a drug rehabilitation center to encourage the men in the program, painted decks, gone to local churches, and participated in many other wonderful opportunities.
I arrived in Indonesia yesterday, but I have one more story about Australia that I feel is worth being told. So here it is.
Towards the end of our stay in Australia our leaders approached the entire squad and said that they have been praying about what we should do for that day and felt that the Lord was calling the squad to “adventure”, but not necessarily with our immediate teams. When they numbered us off and put us into our groups I realized that the three other girls I had been placed with were just as excited to go on an adventure as I was so I knew it was going to be a great day.
After getting in groups, the leaders gave us two options that they wanted us to pray into. We could either get in a van and go to a magnificent waterfall and spend the day with the Lord there, or we could go on an adventure by ourselves. My group realized rather quickly that we felt like the Lord was not calling us to the waterfall so we decided to do something else. Most of the squad elected to go to the falls and so after they left we made our way down to a cafe to get wifi and started researching mountains to climb.
I love mountains. I have found that the Lord likes to hang out on the mountain, and have realized that I feel his presence more clearly every time I am on a mountain. However, my group soon found that the closest mountain was an hour and a half away, a 14mile hike, and the public bus didn’t leave for another 2 hours. It was already 1pm and therefore the reality of us getting to the mountain without having a car, climbing it and getting back before midnight was not a reality at all.
We then asked some locals what the best hike around was. They all said the waterfall… the same waterfall my group had neglected to get a ride to. At this point my group was asking the Lord what he had for us that day because we were slightly disappointed that we decided to forego the falls. We soon found a spot in a nearby city (about 15min away) that rented boats out for cheap, so we decided to do that. We also didn’t want to pay for public transportation so we chose to hitchhike our way to the city. Hitchhiking is not uncommon in the area we were, however, we were still praying that the Lord would send us someone legit and not creepy.
So there I was, standing on the side of the highway with my thumb out watching the cars pass by and completely trusting that the Lord would send us the person we should ride with. About 5 minutes go by before a large white van with no windows slows down on the side of the road. It was the type of van you see in the movies. The type of van you don’t want to get into. The type of van that should give you the heebie-jeebies if you know what I mean. Anyways, this van pulls up and out steps a man in his 40’s with a tank top, and long blonde surfer hair. This should have been very off-putting, but if I’m being completely honest, I knew that this was the car that we were going to get into.
His name was Dave. After dialoguing with Dave for a couple minutes we found out that he was a surf instructor in a town about 15min down the road and he was on his way to a lesson, which 4 people had dropped out of. He told us he would give us a special discounted price if we wanted to be a part of the lesson so we looked at each other, felt peace about it and said “Sure! Why not?”
We then proceeded to load into the back of his van where a mattress, some surf boards, dirty clothes, bags of who knows what and other belongings were strewn everywhere.
The drive was actually about 30 min but who is counting. At this point I was just trusting the Lord and hoping that Dave was actually taking us to where he said he was taking us. But I did feel an unexplainable peace about the situation, which is probably why I decided to hop in the back of a windowless van in the first place.
We did eventually end up at a beach that I never learned the name of, and had a surfing lesson with 3 guys from Denmark, 3 guys from Sweden, 2 French girls, Dave, and an extremely loud older instructor with a sailors mouth who insisted on calling me “Connecticut” all day despite the fact that I told him I was from Oregon. But the day was good. In fact, it was great. I was able to surf in Australia, and have some fun conversations with travelers from around the world. After we finished the lesson we piled back into Dave’s van and drove back to the city where we were staying.
The group of us girls then went downtown, grabbed a really tasty bite to eat, some ice cream and made the 5k walk back to the church where we were staying. I went to bed that night feeling rested, rejuvenated, and ready for whatever was to come.
So why did I choose to blog about this story? In reality, to some people, it might not necessarily be a story about God moving in great ways, but to me it is. I learned this past month that living a life for Jesus and being intentional with people about God does not necessarily always mean doing service projects and physical labor. While those things are important and beneficial, I also believe that the Lord has called us to go on a fun adventure with him. He wants to bless us with enjoyable experiences and if we are willing to seek him out, trust him, and rest in the fact that he is in charge, He is there and ready to go on that adventure with us. So far this trip has taught me that God wants to do work, and I believe he wants to work through me. I just need to trust Him enough to take that first step and leap into all that the Lord has planned for this next year.
Until next time friends! Indonesia is a blast already and I’ve only been here for a little over a week 🙂 Thanks for all of your support and prayers.
