I wanna go to 5DE . . .Oh Wait I am!

Hey guys just wanted to let you know that I am back from Palm Island safe and sound . . . It was so much fun I loved it wore me out, but loved it none the less! I will be posting pictures and writing a much more detailed blog when I get back from the Gold Coast. We leave tomorrow (my Sunday) and will be getting back sometime around Saturday (Oct. 3rd) don't really know when for sure but I promise once I do you will all know ASAP!

I really appreciate all of your prayers while I've been busy, I can tell so have faith and know that they are working . . . Mission Adventures was so GREAT and your prayers and support were a part of seeing people go deeper with God and seeing parts of the Aboriginal communities changed for the better!

Ok I love you guys and please keep praying for me I am about to take a 15 hour bus ride with 44 12-17 year olds so that should be fun! I love you all and you have all been in my prayers as well cant wait to talk to you all more soon!

Love and Light,

J.

Last Post Until the 24th

Hello over there! So I just wanted to let you guys know this is my last entry until the 25th (Thats when we get back from Palm Island) I thought that we would be able to have a bit more Internet Access than what I will. I will be able to on occasion check my email and facebook and send small responses if your keen on that but major communication is temporarily suspended! Please do keep my team and me in your prayers and I will definitely be praying for all of you as well.

Love You all and talk to you in 11 days!!!!

Love and Light,

J.

An update from the Last week and The Mission Adventures Adventure is Beginning!

Hey Guys! Whats up in the land of free and the home of the brave? It has been all good down here in the land down under! I have had a great last week and a half since I last updated you all on my happenings!

Not much has been going on here outside of the usual but, it has still been pretty good none the less. Lectures this week went quite well. Our guest lecture was Dean Sherman and man was it good. His main topic was spiritual warfare but really he talked a lot about just the basics of being the church and where we have screwed up and where we can make a difference. One night outside of normal lecture time he also spoke on relationships to the whole base and it was even better than his lectures during class. He talked about how as christians we have just messed relationships up and that the world has messed them up but, it dosnt have to be like this. It was good. . . Relationships is my favorite subject so maybe that has something to do with it as well.

As far as fun down here this week I got to do some skating around town on a long board one night and that was fun. . . . I discover mylifeisaverage.com Umm yeah its funny! . . . Spent some time down at the beach saw some art work that was sweet as. Yeah sums that up I guess . . .

YouthStreet last saturday was good I am loving being a part of it! It is funny I wasnt exactly the most excited person in the world about working with 14-15 year olds but my heart has just continued to grow more and more for these kids and I cant wait to come back to the states and get to implement some of the things I have learned here and to get to minister to the kids back home, this age group is so important!

Speaking of kiddies! We moved out of our house this morning to get ready for mission adventures that starts tomorrow! We are now allliving in this really nice house about five minutes off of base ( Dont worry pictures will be posted . . . I will post a whole album at the end of our minor outreach) But yeah so thats been exciting . . . With mission adventures like I said before we will be training and holding some stuff for the Youth Group the first four days. I am personally helping with outreach prep, and leading some intercession times. I also am playing Jesus in a thing they called the passion play (Its about the crucifixion) I am really excited about all of this . . .Then for the outreach part I will be cooking for the week with one other person for the youth group as well as my team while we are staying over on Palm Island . . . While we are at Palm Island we are staying at what they call the PCYC its a youth rec center. We mainly will just be holding a few activities on the Island hanging out with the youth there and just building relationships and witnessing though those opportunities so it should be good, not super structured but thats more my style anyway.

So yeah this will be my last post for about 10 or 12 days . . .Ill get a day off when we get back from Palm Island where I can throw a quick update up about how Mission Adventures and Palm went and Ill let you know more details about 5DE! . . .

I hope everyone is doing well, please keep me and my team in your prayers a little extra these next 3 weeks as we will be really having a lot of opportunities to share the Love of God with a lot of people and as we all know thats when we seem to come under the most attack so your prayers are not only appreciated but needed! Much Love to all!

Love and Light,

J.

Two Weeks in the Bush!

SO, where to begin? What a two weeks I had . . . Camping at hidden valley was one of the greatest experiences of my life. It was so much fun to be out in nature for two weeks straight, sleeping on the ground, living in a tent, not really showering HaHa!!! So here lets break down a bit of the basics . . .

I lived in a 9 person tent with 6 guys for two weeks, slept in a sleeping bag on 1 inch piece of foam that was not so properly titled a bed mat, I shared one shower and two toilets with 10 guys for the first week (Like 50 guys the second week . . . the staff came up and joined us for the second week so there was about 12o people plus children for five days, the staff normally dosnt join in on camping but it was their staff retreat so it was a great opportunity to serve), we had hot water that got pumped up from the creek and then warmed by a fire, drinking water was pumped through the creek then filtered, we had one giant urn that boiled water to clean dishes and to have coffee of course, we ate quite well there was three gas burners, and two gas grills ( we went through a lot of propane needless to say), a generator gave us a bit of electricity for a few hours a day, we drank powdered milk (which actually isnt all that bad), I cleaned myself in a creek (aka Man Bathing) and spent a lot of time in the sun, I am now quite tan, I was brekky prep so I got up by 5:45 am everyday (well almost somedays were later than others and the second week I only had brekky prep once but I was still up by 7 everyday) I loved it! Getting up early was so nice watching the sun come up, being by the fire . . .

So a few more of the details might interest you as well, the weather was perfect!!!!!! It was warm and sunny during the day ( I rocked shorts ad a cut off most of the time) it was warm enough to go swimming, but then at night in jeans and a hoody you were freezing ( well not freezing but quite chilly) if you werent by the fire and we drank lots of hot chocolate!

Our schedule was quite similar in that we had lectures every morning and work duties and what not but we also had a little extra free time, and we also had extra time in the morning for some great quiet times . . .If you have never sat out in nature on a cool morning and listened to some good music and prayed and read your bible I suggest you try it its such an amazing way to grow and hear God!

The nights were Epic! The stars were everywhere and I saw at least 5 shooting stars every night even if a few of the nights we had to pray for them or at least pray for the clouds to go away for just a bit Haha . . .

We also did a fair bit of star tripping which is one of the funniest things I have ever seen . . .EVER!!!! It is when you stand out in an open field with no lights stare up at the stars spin as fast you possibly can for as long as you possibly can then stop and someone shines a light in your face and your body just freaks out. You dont know whats up and what down and it is HILARIOUS!!!! Brain cells were probably killed but what the heck you know it was fun! HAHA!!!

And then of course the highlight might be the Gorge! It was about a fifteen minute drive from camp and it was beautiful and I hope everyone get the chance to see something that pretty one day in their life and that they can get a chance to play in a waterfall! NUTS!!!

So yeah in a lot of words that dont do it justice that was camping in no real special order! I am glad to be back though and I hope I get to talk to all of you soon! You will all continue to be in my prayers and I hope I am in yours!

Love and Light,

J.

New Blog Post and Pictures Soon!

So I am feeling really lazy! And after two weeks of not having computers and communications I dont really find it all that intriguing its not to get away and not have all the distractions of life and really let God talk to you in lots of ways!

But I love all of you guys and I just wanted to let you know that I had an amazing time camping, it was way epic and I will be posting pictures and writing a much more detailed blog about what fun activities that happened? I just dont quite feel like it today just being honest here! We got back Friday evening and I had an amazing day of YouthStreet yesterday, took the day off today with some beach time but I promise Ill get back with you all soon!

I miss all of you lots no lies cant wait to have some one on one convos to talk to you all! Oh yeah speaking of which, I was thinking about doing maybe a once a week teaching type blog a little more focused on what I am learning about God and how it can change your everyday life as well? Anyone interested? Let me know and Ill do that!

Love and Light,

J.

Camping in the Bush!

So I just wanted to get on here and let everyone know that I will be camping in the Bush for the next two weeks we are at a place called Hidden Valley approx. 2 and 1/2 hours way from base . . .

I am leaving today the 16th and will be back on Friday the 28th, while we are there we will have no access to phones or internet so Ill take lots of pictures to document it all and I will let you all know as soon as I am back how it was . . .

I hope you all take care of yourselves, and please continue to pray for me as I am on this journey and to pray for me as we prepare for outreach! I will be keeping all of you back home in my prayers as well!

Outreach Destinations are Official, details still lacking.

SO yeah thats right I know where I am going on outreach . . . FINALLY!

In almost exactly 5 weeks from today I will be starting my minor outreach. This will be with the missions adventures . . . A youth group will be coming in and for 4 Days my team and I will be training and preparing these youth to go out and minister to people, then after there short period of training we will head off with the youth group to Palm Island for around 10 days . . . Side note here Palm Island is an Island off the coast of NorthEast Australia, it will be about a two and a half hour boat ride for us. Palm Island is the largest grouping of indigenous people in the Australia left, it is also known as one of the most violent places in the world. We have been told that it is quite the cross culture difference and that it is rather similar to the conditions of a third world country even though it is still considered Australia . . . After we return from that we will then begin 5 Day Escape, If you dont remember 5 day escape is a week long youth camp that we here run and I will be a part of the staff, there will be about 60 kids that are from Townsville and are a part of youthstreet. We will load these lads up on a double decker bus and drive all the way down to the Gold Coast (thats about 12 hours, Gold Coast is an hour south of Brisbane and one of the biggest surfing areas in the world). While we are in Gold Coast we will be staying in a camp with cabins and meeting halls. This week is more about relationship ship building with the kids than anything else but at night we will have devotions and worship. As well I will be a leader of a small group of young fellas that we will have discussions in each day. As for the activities we will be going surfing one day (YES!!! SURFING) and we will be going into the city just to hang out and shop and we will also be taking the kids to a couple of amusement parks.

For my Major Outreach I dont really know many details just that we are going to first be flying from here to New Zealand, then from New Zealand to Southern Australia (possibilities are Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and others but it will mostly be in the states of Victoria and New South Wales . . . If you dont know your Aussie geography I am in Queensland as is Brisbane we are located above New South Wales this is where Sydney is and Victoria is the next state over to NSW and that is where Melbourne is) other than that all I know is that we will be going to help at other YWAM bases, working in and for churches, and going into schools as well as just the general communities that we are going in. Most of what we will be doing will be focused on getting things ready for the ship tour that is going on as well as focusing on youth in these areas and trying to help them see the Love of the Lord.

I am super excited and cant wait, as I find out more details I will let you know. I feel kind of silly being a missionary from America and coming half way around the world and never leaving a first world nation but I know that there are lots of people everywhere that need to see the Love of God and I know that exciting things will take place and I know God will move.

Please keep me in your prayers and I thank you for your continuing support, I thank you all!

Love and Light,

J.