Since you last heard from me a lot has happened... I am currently back in NZ for my two week break, it is cold, VERY cold. But let's rewind for a bit and I'll give you a glimpse into my life prior to coming back across the ditch.
We spent an entire month in Perth and I simply LOVED, loved, LoVeD Perth! WA is such a special state, so different from the rest of the country. During our time in Perth we frequently visited Fremantle which is a super cute, super hip beach side town. Other than the fact I loved the place we also did some pretty awesome ministry. We were allowed into a youth detention centre where we spent two one hour block with two different groups of young men, even though it was such a short time it was also incredible, so sad too, these were talented, funny, outgoing guys. Who we all thought were awesome, so whoever you are that is reading this please pray for those young men that when they get out they will make a change in their lives, cause they deserve SO much more. We also did our largest ever retreat which consisted of 165 students, that was fun (and I'm not being sarcastic either). We also travelled to a few neighbouring cities to do ministry, one of these was a place called Pemberton. It is a very small countrey town with a very tight knight gourp of amazing Catholics, seriously the youth we worked with their were around 10-13 years old and they were some of the holiest young people we've met all year! There isn't much in Pemberton BUT they do boast of the third tallest tree house in the WORLD and we climbed that sucker. It was 61m high with metal rungs sticking out of it, no netting to catch you, so if you fall... Well let's just hope you don't. Nonetheless, AWESOME.
Going up? (this photo in NO way does it justice)
After Perth we started the long drive back to Brisbane, yes we drove the entire way. It took us 6 days, along the way we stayed at places with funny name, did stupid things, saw amazing sights and had an incredible time. Our journey took us firstly to Norseman then Eucla, Streaky Bay, Broken Hill, Coonabarabran and then finally Brisbane.
On this journey we also took on the famous Nullarbor which saw us crossing the longest straight road in Australia which is 145.6km but that was only a very small section of the Nullabor which took about two days in total to cross. There is a tradition among the National teams that you leave behind a package for the next years National team to find whilst on the Nullarbor. We heard about this in January and we waited patiently until it was finally our time to search for these mystery packages and also leave behind our own. Last years National team never found the package that was meant for them so we had the pleasure of also finding theirs which was located at a tree dubbed "the NET tree" in the package were affirmations, toothpaste, a colouring in book, markers, a prayer book, as I'm sure you understand it was a completley random collection of item but still so exciting to find! The next package was located at THE cow grate, driving from Perth it was the first cow grate we'd come across in two days. We didn't exactly find the package left for us by the 2011 team we assume it was ravaged by animals because we looked HARD! We found a small portion of it which was one of our vans missing head rests which now resided on the back seat, somewhat discoloured and a handwritten note on a jandal. When it came time to leave our package it only made sense to leave it exactly in the middle of the cow grate, so as Phil (our male team leader and the person in charge of risk assessment) tries to force the large package through this small gap a HUGE road train starts coming down the road firing it's horn madly and doing at least 110km, but Phil was committed he was going to make this package fit so amidst screaming, tooting and near death Phil made the package fit through and jumped to safety.
The longest straight road in Australia, found on the Nullarbor Plains.
We also had the incredible blessing of getting to see the Great Australian Bight, as the National Team we have been to every coast of each state (excpet Taz) and it is truly an AMAZING country but as it often is with God's creation nothing could prepare me for the excitment and beauty I would find there. Australia simply stops... sheer cliffs up to 60m high and then just ocean, you've reached the end of the country. It was awesome and it was as though God himsef greeted us when we God there as we stood at the edge of the cliff a pod of about 20 dolphins swam passed and we even got a rainbow. I love nature and for me it's one of the way God shows me he's present.
The National Team sisterhood on the edge of the Nation.
As for the rest of the journey, it was awesomse too. It was nice to have time just to be and enjoy each other's company in fun random locations. When we got back to Brisbane we had a 2 1/2 day retreat with year 12s, that was nice to be with youth for more than a day and actually form relationships and get to know people in a deeper way. After that we had mid year debrief and retreat AND we were reunited with all the other NETters which was so good to see friends and faces that I've been missing and praying for over 5 months. On the final night of debrief the staff even honoured us by setting up a beautiful dinner and waiting on us so we all got dressed up and had a great night. Then two days later I headed back to NZ, I can't wait to get back to my team, Australia, the ministry but for now I'm grateful for a break.
.JPG)
My beautiful sisters all dressed up.
Without trying to drag on and on I think I will leave it here for now, I will upload more photos to facebook in the coming days. Thank you for reading I'm praying for you.
AMDG
