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| Reading Acts in King's Park |
Last time I checked in, I was on my way home from Taiwan after successfully finishing the 9 month School of Biblical Studies with YWAM Taipei. My time at home was awesome, but also insane. Being home for only 2 weeks at Christmas time is pretty crazy. It was amazing to see a bunch of family and friends and was definitely amazing to see the support that I have from a lot of them! It definitely means so much to know that people support me in what I am doing and believe in what I am doing. It has definitely been difficult being away from all my friends and family, especially since I'm pretty sure I won't be back in Canada long term for quite some time, but it is absolutely amazing knowing that I am living my life for God, the way that He wants me to, and to know that friends and family believe in that too means a lot to me.
So here's a little summary of my time at home: I got home on the night of the 17th to surprise my sister Jenn at her 30th birthday party, which was a definite success! Both her and my brother were completely shocked and floored that I was there because I was supposed to come in the next day. The next afternoon my mom's side of the family came over for our family Christmas, so I had a very loud welcome back to Canada from the family and had an awesome time visiting with everybody, and of course watching football too! Most of my time home was spent hanging out with my family, especially my nieces and nephews, and seeing as many friends as I could. At the same time I was still waiting for my application to go through at YWAM Perth (who were in the process of moving their base from one location to another, so they were pretty bogged down with that), but more on that in a second.
First, I'll tell ya about a bit of a highlight of my trip home, which was going to the Lions-Chargers game in Detroit with my parents on Christmas Eve. Before the game we met up with my Aunt Betty and Uncle Ed and my 2 cousins Krista and Melissa in Chatham because they were going to the game as well, and we were surprised by my Uncle Ed renting a limo as an early Christmas present to his girls, which we got to enjoy as well! So we got to ride to the game in style (first time ever in a limo), and had an awesome time watching the game. It was great to get to spend time with my parents and catch what may be the last football game that I watch live in a long time, and being able to ride up in the limo gave me a great chance to talk to my cousins as well and hear how they've been and share about what God's been doing in my life as well.
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| Our ride to the Lions game! Thanks Uncle Ed!! |
Anyways, back to the whole getting to Perth story, my acceptance finally came through on the 22nd and I was able to apply for my visa online, but had to drive to Toronto to get a chest x-ray done the next day, and because of the holidays it didn't get looked at until the Wednesday after Christmas. This all added an extra level of stress to my trip home, but I was able to give it to God after struggling with it a few days and He definitely came through. Because of the holidays I was worried that I wouldn't get my visa until after New Years, but it finally came through in the nick of time on the afternoon of the 30th and I was able to book a ticket leaving early in the morning on the 2nd. So I was able to spend New Years Eve with some friends and spend the afternoon watching football at my parents' place with family before leaving for the airport on Sunday night. The most amazing part of it all is that the price of the plane ticket didn't really go up hardly at all from the first time I checked when I first found out I would be going to Perth to when I finally booked it basically 2 days before I would leave, God is so good!
So I got here to Perth a few days late, but that didn't matter too much because I only missed a little bit of training. Since I've gotten here it's been pretty full on. Thankfully I didn't have any real problems with jet lag at all (I think my body's used to being on this side of the world by now), so my transition here has been pretty good. The base is absolutely HUGE with over 300 staff and students currently at the base and a ton of others out on outreaches. It has been pretty tough learning everybody's name, but everybody has a lot of grace when it comes to names because we all know how crazy it is meeting so many people in such little time. I am still amazed that God sent me to Australia for a season since it's somewhere that I always wanted to go to, but didn't think I would ever end up going, and it definitely hasn't disappointed! I am loving it here in Perth. The city is beautiful, and our base is very close to the downtown, which is amazing considering the cost of land and housing and such in Perth. It is definitely an interesting time to be on base because of the transition to the new buildings and still waiting on the main building to get completely finished and approved by the city. It is a time where flexibility is key, but it has given me many chances to serve people and do whatever I can to bless the base and the people here.
The Bible Core Course that I'm staffing is now into its 2nd week. Our first week consisted of orientation and registration stuff, as well as reading Genesis-Ruth, Isaiah and Acts. We are now starting to study Acts and we just finished the first day of teaching the introduction to the inductive method. I was a little surprised last week when I learned how different the course is from the SBS that I just finished in Taiwan and kinda wondered a little of what I had gotten myself into, but God has given me a lot of peace about it and I'm just trusting that He will help me to learn a lot during my time here so that I can go to Oxford, NZ and lead the course there successfully after I leave here. I have an amazing leader here (Melinda) who has staffed about 16 BCCs and is leading her 7th school, so she has a ton of experience and is more than willing to teach me as much as possible as I prepare to lead after this school. We have 7 students and 3 staff (including me and Melinda), and we seem to have a pretty great group that are all eager to learn and excited to start digging into the bible over these next 3 months.
If you could all be praying for me and for our school, it would be greatly appreciated. More specifically, for me that I would be able to learn a ton while I'm here, both about the BCC and how to lead it as well as about the Bible and that God would bring me deeper understanding and closer in relationship with Him. Also, for the school that the students would be blessed by their studies and by us as staff and that God would be moving during our class times as well as their study time. We also need your prayers for finances, both for our school, especially for outreach fees for both staff and students, but also for the base in general because they are still in the process of raising money to fully pay off the new building.
Well, I think this is probably long enough (and longer than I planned, as usual), so I will sign off now. I hope everything is going great for all of you and that God is blessing you and moving in your lives. I'll try to send another update in a couple weeks or so and let ya know how the school is going.
God bless.
