A day in the life | Australia
5:30am: wake up and head to the beach
6:00am: watch the sunrise, walk in the waves and have quiet time with God
7:30am walk back to the church and pack up my things to clear out of the room (we slept in the kids room at the church, and had to be up and out stuff packed away by 8am every morning)
8:15am: BREAKFAST. Each team was in charge of making the squad breakfast on different days. My favorite breakfast though is Wheat Bix. It looks like a granola bar, and tastes like cardboard on its own, BUT if you spread peanut butter on it, drizzle in honey and toss in some banana slices before adding milk, it’s a breaky of champions. Accompanied with a cup of coffee of course.
9:00am: the cafe opens! (aka the PlayHouse, and was a great tool that the church used to reach their community. They had a cafe, seated area, and a 3-story covered play area for children) so that means coffee time (again).
9:30am: morning worship gathering (every Monday and Friday, our squad would gather with partnering YWAM teams at the church and would spend time worshipping and praying and prophesying over each other). 40+ believers in a small room praising our Father, it was my favorite part of the week.
11:00am: chill time
12:00pm: lunch time. It was never the same, teams had assigned days to cook meals, my team made a quesadilla bar for our squad’s lunch one day.
1:30pm: ministry time. Every day looked different. Typically for afternoon/evening ministry, we would go and do this thing called ATL, which means “Ask The Lord”. Basically we would just let him speak and guide us to what and who he is calling us to do or speak to. Not structured or limited, but has been so so stretching and sweet to see what God has done in those times! Some of us set up a bbq and grilled sausage sizzles (hot dogs) and invited local families to join us for a free meal, and then we got to have great conversations with families from Iran and Malaysia. Some of us went up to the highest point of Coffs Harbour to worship and pray over the city, some went to worship and ended up singing in a memorial service for a woman whose family comes back every year to attend, who’s son is the only believer and needed some help. Some had conversations with business owners and got to hear their life story and why they left the church, so they got to be an outstretched hand of love and acceptance and change the owners viewpoint of Christians.
6pm: debrief, we would discuss what the Lord did, how it went, what could’ve been better and how we’re processing it all.
7pm: dinner, it was normally a lot of pasta and salad. Which I’m not complaining.
8pm: free time to hang out and wind down for the day
10:30pm: bed time! (We didn’t have a set time to be asleep because we’re adults and that’s weird. But 10:30 was normally the latest I could hang so that’s when I retired to my “bed”.
Every day looked different depending on what ministry we had for us that day. Typically our week of ministry looked like this.
Sunday: serve and attend churches in morning and evening services
Monday: afternoon/evening ministry- ATL/street evangelism
Tuesday: morning ministry- nursing home visits/ church service projects
Wednesday: a jack of all trades day. ATL, service, evangelism, skateparks, refugee soccer fields, you name it, we were there.
Thursday: morning/afternoon ministry – serve at the Drug & alcohol rehabilitation center (Sherwood Cliffs)
Friday: afternoon/evening ministry- ATL
Saturday: Sabbath
This was a very busy month, it was exhausting but also so sweet.
How you can pray for Coffs Harbour and our YWAM partners:
Pray for an influx of students to the YWAM base for Discipleship training this fall, pray for funds to keep building up the YWAM teams we partnered with. Pray for rain. Pray for boldness and passion in the churches and young believers of Coffs Harbour
