This was written on the 31st of January J 
Hi wonderful friends and family! I�fm missing you all dearly. Greetings from Australia! Today is Sunday. We arrived here a few days ago after a couple days of travel. On the night of the 25th we left El Rancho, near Wellington and took an overnight 11 hour bus ride up to Auckland where we arrived at 7 30 am. Spent the day in the city there, got to shower and lock our stuff up at a super nice hostel our friend Matt from soul survivor generously gave us for the day. Then late that night we took a short bus ride to the Auckland airport where we met up with the rest of our squad and stayed the night. There wasn�ft much sleeping since we were all so excited to see each other and catch up. The next morning we flew to Brisbane, Australia which is where I am now.
We�fve been staying at a Ywam base the past few days while we wait to travel to our ministry contact this month. The base we are at is small and outside of Brisbane called Island Breeze near Radcliffe, Queensland. It�fs really in the middle of no where and pretty neat out here. There are three teams here so 15 of us girls are staying in one big dorm style room and we each have our own bed! It�fs been ridiculously hot and sw
eaty but the Kangaroo�fs outside our windows make it bearable. We also saw a cute lil koala bear in the tree on the way to dinner tonight. When we arrived here I wasn�ft sure if we were tenting or not and the drive just laughed at me. He said there are way too many snakes and spiders out here to let you tent.
Since being here we�fve got to wind down a bit from our travels. I�fve taken a few walks and one good run around the property. On my run this morning there was a pack of Kangaroo�fs 10 feet to my left and a small heard of cows 10 feet to my right. The first day we were here, we were so HOT some of us couldn�ft stand it so we took a LONG walk to catch a bus right to the lagoon about 25 minutes away. Sarah, Emily, Bek and I did that and had a great time swimming in a beautiful man made lagoon and cooling off.
The next morning we got up early and went to work at a local food bank and church all morning. That was a special treat and real blessing. We spent the morning cleaning and organizing many things for them and I also got to spend some time talking with a couple workers there and listen to their stories. For a few days we spent time around the base and took care of some laundry and I did some purging of my belongings. (Sorry, Mom I had to ditch Skip-Bo). Made me wish I could go home and start the packing all over again. Felt good to lighten up my load a bit. Thanks to the wonderful Lyndsie for help with that. J
On Saturday we had a free day and bunch of us decided to catch the train into the city to spend the day at Surfer
s Paradise beach. It was just as fun and beautiful as I remember it from my 2006 visit. We ended up running into more of our squad mates and our squad leaders which made for a fun day full of awesome fellowship! After lunch and a down poor we spent the afternoon body surfing through some wicked strong waves. It was a BLAST!
We leave here at 4 am tomorrow morning and will be flying to Cairns just north of here. Our contact is picking us up from the airport and taking us to site for a briefing before we get settled in and start working. I�fm excited to see what this month looks like. Last month I learned a lot about a servant�fs heart and doing whatever He asks of me as if I were doing it for Him alone and not for man. Still have a long way to go, but working on it daily. This month, I know we will be working with indigenous youth who have been in trouble and don�ft go to school much as well as some construction projects for the local community. Pray we can make an impact and touch some lives for Christ this month. I�fm longing to continually walk in the presence of God so that I may shine his light upon His wonderful people here. I will blog about details soon as I know more and can find the time.
G’ Day Mate
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