Hoops in Melbourne!

Party for Charlotte!

2006-08-07T15:31:00.000-07:00

Charlotte became a Christian today!!!! She was soooooooo ready- all i had to do was ask. God is so awesome to let me experience that with her. My leg was flippin shaking while we were praying. This brings us to 8 believers, and i can barely comprehend why God has used us for this time of reaping. It is not like we are special or some kind of pros at this evangalism thing. We were warned so often that we may not see the fruits of our labor, but we were so richly rewarded and joyously surprised. My prayer now is that we will hold on to this experience and treasure it, and go back home and live this ministry lifestyle always. I think we may have a hard time adjusting into the mode where we have to deal with the mundane details of life and we don't have hours a day just to talk to people about Jesus. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm..........

frickin seven!

2006-08-05T06:19:00.000-07:00

Two white aussie males= saved! Breaking news! In a great turn of events, RMIT campus ministry, spearheaded by 3 brave summer project souls, saw two white aussie males receive the love of Jesus.

Backround- white aussie males are the most under-represented demographic among Christians in Australia. RMIT campus has no student life, but 3 of our project peeps explored the campus for interest all summer. God is soooo good!

I only have 4 more days in Melbourne. 3 more days on campus. I love melbourne, and i hope this will not be good-bye forever. Still keep praying for souls- we have 3 good days left. I am still meeting with and praying for Natalie, Lisa and Charlotte.

Missin home, the dogs, my friends, uni and the gym. I miss tank tops, drivin in my new sweet lil car and my laptop.

I have discovered that, at this point in my life, I will always be missing someone that i truly love, no matter where i am. I guess it is kind of cool to know that there are a lot of people out there that i care about.

Hoops in Melbourne!

2006-08-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

It is impossible to summarize the last week. 2 more saved souls brings our count to 5. This is the 4th summer missions project to Melbourne, and that is more than the last 3 summers combined. It is certainly not our skill at work, but the Lord. This is some tough soil, only he could change hearts.
We only have 4 more days left at Melbourne Uni :( I wish i had more time to foster friendships. I am going to be hanging out with my new friend Natalie tommorow for the 3rd time. She had some awesome questions last time, and i gave her the book "Cracking the Davinci Code" for some of her questions related to the movie. She is just so cool that i wish i could stay to hang out with her, but i know i am passing her off into good hands with Kat and the rest of the stinters.
I am starting to realize some of you guys are going to make fun of me hardcore when you hear the phrases i have picked up. I am prepping myself for ridule when i start saying "good on ya" for good-bye and the such. But i can't help it- aussies are just so much more chill than we are! :)

Learning and laughing and living

2006-07-28T02:32:00.000-07:00

WHEW! I am one tuckered out girl. Another day of intensity. I am ready to check out. Why is it that when i am the most tired, I miss home the most. I love Melbourne, and I had an awesome day yesterday, but at the end of it I just wanted to draw near to the people I love. Is it wrong that I can not just be satisfied and rest in the comfort of the Lord?.....

QUick update

2006-07-27T15:18:00.000-07:00

I presented the Gospel yesterday! Twice! I have never used the spritual laws booklets before (or Knowing God Personally as we now call it). I didn't really use the booklet yesterday either- i just told them myself.

The one girl (KElly) is from China, and she had never heard it before, so we are meeting on Tuesday to talk about it. She is a thinker, so I hope she can ler her heart and her soul be led by Jesus. I would love to see her become a believer, but if not, at least she has heard now!

She said something i found interesting. She said she has seen a few friends become Christians, and they changed a lot. However, their lives have become more difficult, and her life is pretty smooth.

WOW. God does not promise an easy life for Christians, but he promises an abundant life in a relationship with him. I think sometimes we forget that we do not have a right to an easy life, but we can still find joy in all that we do.

5 Questions for you

2006-07-27T04:49:00.000-07:00

1. What three words would you use to best describe your life?

2. What one single thing would you absolutely like to accomplish in your life, if at all possible?

3. In your opinion, what happens after death?

4. If your best friend came up to you and said, "I want to become a Christian, but I don't know how," what would you tell him? Assume he wants to hear from you, not referred to a church, priest or other person.

5. On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your desire to know God?

2 more souls

2006-07-26T05:08:00.000-07:00

Alright my last post vanished into thin air. i guess australia is now the bermuda triangle of blogs. what i wrote is that on the first day of our evangalism on melbourne uni campus 2 more souls came to Christ!!!

It seriously blows my mind. They told us we would be lucky if one or two people accepted Christ while were here. This is such hard soil, but we are perservering. I see our team really is willing to submit to the Lord, and I am so encouraged by seeing their faith. We have prayed here like I never have before, but I still feel like I want more.

I did not anticipate working 13 hour days as a missionary, but- wowzers- that'll knock ya out!!

Pray for Charlotte- I met with her, and she is coming to her first Bible Study on Thursday. I pray that her heart is ready!

Photos!

2006-07-22T10:10:00.000-07:00

Halleujah!

2006-07-21T05:06:00.000-07:00

Praise the Lord for Emma! They told us to be happy if we left Melbourne with one or two new believers, but on our very first day on a college campus evangalizing Emma got saved! Amazing. She even met up with a few of our girls and few aussie believers for coffee the next day. I pray she will become a part of the Student Life (Campus Crusade) Community at Monash.

I can not belive that I left home three weeks ago! It feels like i have been here for months and like it has flown by all at the same time. Time is limited. I will update soon.

Hoops in Melbourne!

2006-07-18T05:33:00.000-07:00

Internet time is quite coveted here, so my blogs may be few and far between.

This weekend we had the last of any real "tourist time." One of the great sites in Australia is supposedly the Great Ocean Road and "The 12 apostles"- huge limestone rocks sitting right out from the ocean. However, when it is about 40 degrees, windy and with a foggy scene set for a murder mystery movie, I don't think you appreciate it much. We drove along this crazy windy road right along the beach. I was soooo excited because I thought I finally touched the Pacific Ocean before I was rudely informed that it was actually the Tasman Sea fed by the Indian Ocean- bah!

ANYWAYS, our evangalism team is in charge of a lot of organizing and record keeping, and we also led Bible Study today. I guess I never really thought of that sort of stuff as ministry, but it sure is! Prayers for patience since I am in charge of collecting all the data to send back to CRU about the surveys we pass out.

I was ecstatic to get a chance to hang out with my buddy Gail again. A few of us went over to her and Rachel's apartment for dinner, and their entire Bible Study group (like 10 adorable giggling Asian girls) were there. Once again, connecting with them was AWESOME! Several talked about being inspired to share with their fellow students more. Jesse said to me, "I really need to step out from my youth group and share with all my none Christian friends on campus!

I feel like if we left Australia, and all we did was raise up Christian Aussies to minister to their non-christian friends then it will have been a success. Pray that these girls will not loose that inspiration and that the Lord will stay after them to evangalize.

We are starting evangalism on Monash University Campus tommorow for a few days. The straight up evangalism is starting! We have all been warned not to get discouraged, so part of me is trying to stay realistic, but ya gotta dream big right?

Oh, I saw a poster advertising free crack at some party club. How disturbing is that?

G'day mates!

BACK at the GREENHOUSE

2006-07-14T00:42:00.000-07:00

Homesweet home! We have been back at the hostel for 2 nights- can you believe i call it home? Conference was AMAZING! Our whole team reached out and got to know a whole bunch of Aussie students. I was so impressed with the way the team was able to love on these other students.

I met a darling a girl named Gail from Singapore. Get this- she is training to be a professional ballerina, too! We spent time together, and the day after we got back to Melbourne, she invited me to take ballet class with her!

First of all- "OW!"- my body killed from ballet after a year without class. But second of all, "WOW!"- Gail spent the whole rest of the day with us in a looooooong day of b ible study, major planning, and prayer. She was a great encouragement to the team about how inspirational we are to the aussie and melbourne uni students, and she even said that she is now praying about taking on a much larger role with student life even though she is not a melbourne uni student!

Conference was an inspiration for us as well. Though Aussie christians may be few and far between, these student lifers are ON FIRE! It is fabulous! I was just inspired to live my life with a "ministry mindset", here in OZ and beyond. The Lord blessed our time.

Oh, and it was also heaps of fun! I played my first game of soccer, and Kara and i dressed up like straight up gangstas for the last nite partayyyyyy! Oh, and how could we not love having two to a room with HUGE double beds and warm showers- ffwwwwww doggies!:)

oh, and i pet an emu today. rock on.

Leaving Melbourne, tear tear

2006-07-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

We are off to midyear conference in a few hours, so good bye city, hello small town. I can't believe conference is for 6 days!! I think i will truly miss the city- i am already flippin attached to this place. I am just praying we are not at a girlscout type camp or something- cuz it is CHILLY around here- i totally bust out the eskimo jacket and am sporting a new little hat.
Prayers for this time- we finally get to hang out with the Aussie Christians- i am so stoked. It will be great to worship the Lord with these people that live half way around the globe from America. I think it will feel like being home as we praise God together. So the wheels on the bus go round and round and we are gettin out of town...

Day with the Lord

2006-07-05T15:48:00.000-07:00

Today our leaders gave us a great gift- 6 hours to spend with the Lord however we pleased. They even amended the rules and let us venture out on our own if we so pleased. Ya'll know that made me tremendously happy- ahhhh sweet freedom! I spent the day roaming and talking to God, as well as praying and reading- ya know, the whole shabang! I was finally able to reflect over the last few days, and fix my eyes back on Jesus and finding joy in the Lord.
I fell even more in love with the city today. It seems just like an American city, only cleaner and friendlier and a little bit off. Ya know, cars racing the wrong direction, toilets with 2 flush options and totally different candy bars in the convience stores!
A newscrew tried to interview me today about rugby, but when they heard my accent they let me off the hook. The school kids love to hear us talk. They love American accents because "it sounds just like the movies."

Hoops in Melbourne!

2006-07-05T04:24:00.000-07:00

Hoops in Melbourne!

AUSSIES Rock!

2006-07-05T04:19:00.000-07:00

How can I possibly sum up the last 5 days! After 6 airports and 34 hours of travel, we arrived safely at the Greenhouse backpacker Hostel to some comfy bunks and chilly showers. But, no worries, it is already like home sweet home! Although our leaders missed their flight to LA and 5 team members lost their luggage for 2 days, we are all in good spirits. The Aussies are a friendly lot, and Melbourne is this great eclectic and suprisingly clean city.
We met the stinters who are here and a few of the student leaders at Melbourne Uni. They are still working through the death of their colleague Andy, who died in a car accident. We are stepping into a difficult time for them, but they still threw us a 4th of July party, complete with sparklers!
Be praying for them in their grief. Be praying for us as we try to comfort them. The Lord is already working in this team, but pray we will be open and willing to be used however he wills it.

P.S. I tried the infamous veggiemite- i almost barfed- it tastes like salty beer goop mixed with paste.

Hoops in Melbourne!

2006-07-01T07:29:00.000-07:00

Hoops in Melbourne!

Alright, bye guys! I am leaving for the airport in 20 minutes. I appreciate your prayers sooo much. This is my first transcontintental passage through the air, so let's hope I don't need that barf bag. Here we go.............

Hoops in Melbourne!

2006-06-29T21:18:00.000-07:00

muchos gracias samuel parks for this muy excellente blogworld!