My travel day began in El Rancho, New Zealand on Monday night around 9pm. We got on our overnight bus to Aukland where we would spend the next 10 hours. Sleeping on a bus is impossible. I think I slept a total of 2 hours (all in 10-20 minute intervals). When we arrived in Aukland we then had to carry all of our bags (yes all 70 lbs of bags I have) and had to walk 30 minutes to a hostel…all UPHILL. I thought I was never going to make it because lets be honest…I am NOT a strong person. I was lacking sleep, had no energy and just wanted to plop down and wait for someone to come back to pick me up. Against my will, I kept on marching up that hill praying to God that he would not let me think about how bad that bag made my hips and shoulders hurt..After we got to the hostel (which someone who we had met at Soul Survivor had gracioiusly let us use for our day in Aukland) we slept for about an hour. We finally had a free day to ourselves so most of us decided to go Bungee jumping off the Aukland Bridge. This was the most amazing feeling of my life. Then our team got braughtworst and sat on the bay. It was nice to spend time having fun as a team. We had not got to spend much time together the past month because we were always doing different jobs and on different schedules. After our adventure day, we went to the airport around 7PM. We then had another sleepless night in the airport ( literally 0 hours of sleep for me).
I am now safely in Brisbane, Australia. While here we will be clearing waterways, working with the elderly and with special needs children. This was hard for me to hear at first because all of the other teams around me were being sent off to work with aboriginees or to do beach ministry. God has a purpose for us here so I am just going to have to learn to have a postive attitude and enjoy doing work that I don’t usually enjoy. You knever know how God will use you in any given circumstance. I had a few words with God saying “what the heck, why are we going to be doing stuff like THAT again..isnt this supposed to be more of missions trip where we share the gospel with tribal people and heal the sick?!” After my complaining, God told me that missions isn’t just about reaching out to tribes in exotic places, but its also about the “everyday” people. A positive attitude, encouragement and helping in every little way needed can be a huge blessing to anyone…not just aborigines.
