So far so good...

So I flew to Calgary which was only an hour flight and was super boring. Then I had a 2 hour layover there and then I flew to Vancouver. Then my flight from Vancouver to Sydney was delayed almost an hour so I pretty much wanted to die in the stupid airport. I met a guy that tried to make me apply for a credit card and I told him I didn’t want one because I wouldn’t use it for like six months and told him what I was going to be doing and he told me he just wanted to tell me to keep praying and to pray as much as I could in the next six months. It was pretty weird. I told him I wanted to grab a coffee then I would come back to talk to him and he said yeah for sure. But he was gone. So I had to entertain myself other ways. I got here on Monday at noon (so Sunday at 7pmish for you guys). Monday is a day of our weekend because Saturday we have a youth program to run. So I got here ate some food, watched a movie with my roommate Raychell and then went to bed at like 6 pm.
Everyone on base lives in this huge hostel. It’s so crammed with people. Right now about 95 people live here. Two families who have their own living quarters attached to the house, 50 staff, and a bunch of students. We have work duties which are pretty much chores and tidy time once a day Tuesday for Friday. My daily tidy time duty is to cut cucumbers and lettuce and tomatoes. My work duty is cleaning the guest room for the speaker and organizing birthday parties. It’s pretty fun so far. Our weekends are Sunday and Monday. I have 3 roommates named Serah (from Australia), Raychell (born in Brisbane but is 100% Hawaiian and recently moved there) and Courtney (also Hawaiian).
The next day I had orientation all day. Super boring. But I got to know some of the staff and most of the kids on my school. There are 18 of us (a 19th possibly coming still trying to get funds). We come from tons of countries and places. There is a girl from Hong Kong, 3 from Hawaii, 3 from random states in the US, 3 from Australia, one from Norway and one from Sweden. There is a boy from Germany, Holland, and 3 from the states. We are a school of 5 boys and 13 girls and 4 leaders. Two of the leaders are from USA and one from Australia and the other from Tasmania which is apparently part of Australia. News to me. The guy from Tasmania was on Shayla’s DTS and went on outreach with her. The boys are stinking hilarious. And side note to people. Remember how I always used to add “sh” to the beginning of everything? Well there is a kid on my school and his name is Steffan, pronounced Shteffan. End of side note. But yeah orientation was lame. Anyways, orientation was boring but now I am an expert of Lewis House Hostel.
We also had a full week of lectures this week. Our topic was Character of God. We explored who God really is and who He isn’t and what is tainting our view of God and who He is. We were given the opportunity to share what events and things have made us view God differently for example deaths and bad accidents. Our leader Jesse, shared about how last year one of the staff from base here was killed. For more information on him go to www.onetwentyone.com I believe. After Jesse shared alot of us also shared. God really moved and helped us understand those situations and events. It was amazing.
Our base is super unique and I’m stoked about it. October DTS, which is me, is a special school. We get to go camping for a week with the whole base! We leave in two weeks. Also normal DTS’ have 8 weeks of outreach. We do as well but ours isn’t 8 weeks straight. We are going to a thing called Schoolies for a week in November. It’s where all graduating Aussies go to Gold Coast and party and drink and do drugs and all sorts of not good things. We are teaming up with a organization called RedFrogs (again there is a youtube video on this and I believe the website is something like www.redfrogs.com.au). So basically as RedFrogs, we are on call 24/7 and we bake pancakes every morning for the Schoolies, walk people to their hotels, we give out RedFrog candies, we have run a stage where we entertain tens thousands of Schoolies and we clean their rooms! So this counts as one week of our outreach. Our outreach locations are still undetermined but as soon as I know, so will you. Another reason our base is unique is because every Thursday night we head to a mall in Newcastle and do evangelism. In Australia, kids and teens hang out in the malls. It`s the cool place to be seen in you nice clothes, it`s where fights take place, it`s where people get drunk and high. We go there every Thursday night not only to promote Youth Street but to tell them about God. Youth Street is the youth program that is run out of our base. It happens every Saturday afternoon and evening. In the afternoons we just do hang outs and go skateboarding, hold dance classes, art classes, surf lessons and play sports. In the evenings we do worship and bible study. I`ve yet to experience Youth Street. Our base right now is building a youth centre in an old warehouse. We get to help out with that. They will have a skate park in the parking lot, a cafe in the warehouse, offices in the warehouse, a sound proof auditorium in the warehouse and a half pipe. It`s nowhere near done but is getting close. It`s going to be huge. The base is also looking to purchase the houses around the warehouse so they can have an actual `Youth Street` which was the original vision of the idea of Youth Street.
I`ve got a few cool stories already. I ate a kangabanga (kangaroo sausage. Australians call hot dogs sausages). Then we went to Blackbutt Reserve which is an animal reserve and I got to see kangaroos, wombats, wallaroos, koala bears, pythons, quails, and a bunch of other ugly birds. We also had a tour of Newcastle. Man the ocean is gorgeous! We are hopefully heading there on Saturday.
Anyways, I`m having an amazing time. It is freezing here though, but not cold enough to snow! I love the opportunities to chill with people and with God. I love the lectures and how much I have already learned. I love how much God has already stretched me. I miss you guys a ton. But not enough to leave. You guys are in my prayers!