Looking Back.

Looking back on my year on NET, the simplest statement about it I can make is “it was an adventure.” It certainly had its many ups and downs but now, sitting here with the year all done and dusted I can hands down say it was the best year of my life. For me personally, my year, even though I didn’t intend on this being the case, was about my growth and learning who I am, growing into an adult and coming to see myself the way that God sees me. Learning about who I am, outside of the name I created for myself at High School and in my community which in itself was a HUGE challenge. One I want to pose to you, whoever you are that is reading this; remove yourself from your achievements, be it academic, sporting or cultural, take away the opinions your friends and family have of you whether you’re the ‘funny one’, ‘nice one’, ‘trustworthy one’ or whatever else, forget about the people you hang out with or the activities you participate it and then reflect. At the core of who you are what kind of person are you, is it who you want to be? How does God see you at the very core of your being and is it how you want him to view you? This is what my year has been, reflecting on who I am. Constantly striving to be a woman of integrity, which of course is who you are when no one else is around to see.

As for a day in the life since I was on the National team we were CONSTANTLY on the move, in the 10 months I was on NET our team went to approximately 72, yes 72!! Places, some of them were double ups true, but we went all over Australia, a truly amazing country, we went to every state or territory, excluding Tasmania and ministered to over 7000 young people. From Brisbane to Darwin, From Perth to Adelaide and just about everything in between. We stayed in large cities like Sydney and tiny ‘towns’ like Theodore population of only 600 including the surrounding area. We ministered to a large array of ages from young adults to year 4 students. God worked in us and we worked for God, without Him at the centre of everything there is no way we would have been able to accomplish everything we did this year.

This year was incredible, inspiring, challenging, scary, tough, fun, crazy, silly, awesome and so much more that can simply not be put into words.

So here is my year in pictures, well a few anyway.

 

 

 

No longer a NETter

It's official, NET is OVER! Well technically speaking it’s been over since Saturday, that’s when we were officially “released” from our titles as NETters. We ended the year with a thanksgiving Mass followed by a banquet and then… nothing. We’ll not quite nothing but that was of any formal NET duties. We all still hung out with each other until the very end made the most of the few days between banquet and heading home. It’s very weird sitting in my home back in New Zealand and no longer being a NETter. I’m of very mixed emotion about my current place in life but for now it’s nice to have a bit of a break in comfortable surroundings. I’m sorry this isn’t a more interesting update but….
 
AMDG

the beginning of the end

The National team, we travelled all up and down east and west through this amazing country and now? Well we're finished travelling. We arrived back in Brisbane, where this journey all began. We arrived few days ago and we will stay here (with the exception of going to Peregian for debrief) until we leave to go back to our respective countries. It's weird, I never had the ability to feel particularly settled here in Aussie considering we were always on the move but I really do feel like I'm preparing to say goodbye to my home, or at least to my family, my team, which will break my heart but that's okay because For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven (Ecc 3:1). I know I was here for a time and that is quickly coming to an end but all is well because I served my purpose and learnt so much along the way.

We have a week left of retreats here in Brisbane, which will be super busy and full on but also so good. We recently had an overnight retreat in a place called Harrietville with a group of year 10 students and it was possibly one of my favourite retreats EVER. The students were so open and happy to be there and it was truly beautiful to watch the students respond to God during the quite time of pray and reflection. I always feel so very privileged to play a part and be a witness to students responding to God, it is my favourite aspect of what we do here. A random little story for you all, on the retreat I was just talking about one of the girls there started fainting and got pretty sick. The first day everyone thought oh shell be fine but it kept happening and she started passing out more frequently so on the second day the teachers called an ambulance for her. We naturally agreed to move all the other young people into a different hall on site so the girl and the paramedics could have some space. We were all gathered and settled in the second hall and I was giving a talk to the group when the girl who was sick walked into the room and promptly passed out, in front of everyone. Talk about a distraction....

I am doing well, recently I had been getting pretty sick so I was told to cut gluten out of my diet so that has been an interesting adjustment to make but it was improved my health dramatically so that's good. Please pray for my during this time as I prepare to leave these people that I have come to call my family but also that I would be fully present and alive in every aspect of ministry we have left this year.

AMDG

Church is Boring?

Jesus, God, Father, Holy Spirit, Church, Christianity, Catholicism, are so often described as boring, out dated, an institution for those who are not free. Clearly myself along with about 1000 other young people missed this memo. Over the last few days IGNITE (the largest Catholic Youth Conference in Australia) has been taking place. The National team, along with 3 other teams had the privilege of being able to volunteer, help out and attend the conference with varying level of involvement. The conference ran from Thursday 27 – Sunday 30^th. The theme for Ignite was “Awaken” – Wake up sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Ehp 5:14. First off the whole thing was A-MA-ZING!! For the Kiwi’s reading this it’s sort of like Setfree but WAY bigger and on steroids.
 

The National team was responsible for running the “blaze” stream, which were grades 8-10. Basically what that means is that every day we ran and 1½ session with them and we were the small group leaders for that age gap. Other than that we had to do various odd jobs, like being an usher, or manning the NET ministries stand. With that said we also got to attend the conference and WOW it was crazy good. Every morning we kicked the day of with a rally, which consisted of praise and worship, a fabulous speaker, prayer and more praise and worship. All of the music was led by Emmanuel Worship, so obviously it was epic. Throughout the day, we were fed copious amounts of food, had workshops, listened to talks, small groups, did some random stuff and ended each night with a rally, similar to the morning rally. So much goodness, so much God, so much joy.
 

Church is boring. The statement is so flippantly thrown around but for me the  only way to make the statement true is “Church is boring?” it has to be a question, a shock, a surprise, because God is anything but dull and the Church is certainly alive and overflowing with joy. Ignite Conference 2012 was so good and for many people it was life changing, God was truly present and he alone is responsible for changing lives.

 

AMDG

 

Just another day in the life

My exciting daily life, well perhaps that's not exactly true. My life is super exciting but not on a day to day basis, I only tend to realise just how not normal my life is this year when I reflect on it.

This is what the past few months have looked like for me, we started in Brisbane then Toowoomba, then Brisbane, Hervey Bay, Brisbane, Gatton, Brisbane, Evans Head, Brisbane, Biloela, Blackall, Claremont, Mackay, Gladstone, Rockhampton, Yeppoon, Theodore, Yeppoon, Rockhampton, Bundaberg, Coffs Harbour, Goulburn and now finally Traralgon. I have been in all these places, toing and frowing for as short as one night up to a week in the past two months. WOW.

Now, here's a breif peak into what my life has been looking like. In Clarmont we got to milk cows, ride horses, drive four wheelers, and have bonfires. In Rockhampton (aka "Rocky") we helped to run the Rockahpton Youth festival in which we got to team up with the Emeral team and do some ministry, it was so refreshing to hang out with them and save souls (or at least do our best) with them. Theodore had a population of only 600! By FAR the smallest place we've worked in. In Yeppoon a few of us girls went out with a mutual friend of one of my team mates, we went to see some of Yeppoon’s night life, we went on a mullet hunt and went down "pie alley" a (somewhat sketch) alley way in which at any hour of the night there is someone in the back of the bakery waiting for a knock on their garage door and willing to sell pies to those who have been out on the town, we of course thought the whole thing was a joke but we were not disappointed! In Bundaberg (Bundy) we did a lot of work (and simply hanging out) with the young adults group there. One of them, whose name is Brent, is heavily involved with the community theatre and he invited our whole team to go see their production of "Little Shop of Horrors" totally free, exclusively for us and before the show even opened. We also had our supervisor visit in Bundy, it was pretty chill and we did a lot of fun stuff like went to the Bundy ginger beer factory, took a tour there and got to try all 16 of their non-alcoholic drinks, we also got to try sugar cane, for the first time for most of us and just generally had an awesome time. After Bundy it was a 3day drive to get to Traralgon, which is where we are now. On Sunday we took a day trip to Melbourne to visit Megan, which was fun, Melbourne is such a stinking hip city, it was awesome. I guess it’s just another day in the life of the Natty team.

On a personal level I am doing well, I'm exceptionally tired and exhausted all the time but I love the ministry and I live such a blessed life. Next week we are back in Brisbane for the Ignite youth conference, the largest Catholic youth Conference in Australia, which we as the National team, along with the Sydney, Emerald and Mazenod (Melbourne school team) will be taking part and helping with. Please pray for Ignite and the young people who will be there. Also I seriously miss everyone back home so please if you get the chance send me an email so I know how your lives are going. I will try and repost sooner in the future. For photos check out my facebook, sorry my internet here is to slow to upload any for the blog.

AMDG

Half way there.

Back to reality… Well my reality of early mornings, long days, late nights, students who think you’re the lamest person who was ever born and students who worship you almost as much as we worship Jesus. Ok so my week of work really hasn’t been that tough but we have worked with quite the array of students, our first retreat back was 140 year 11 students and tomorrow our final retreat of the week will be 23 year 7s. No two days are ever the same and God chooses to work and show himself through it all.

Since getting back we had a week of training up at Mount Tambourine at a campsite called Bornhoffen and in true NETters of 2012 fashion we were rained on the entire time when historically speaking it is sunny every year, seems to be a recurring pattern whenever all of us are in one place. Training was awesome, to get to see people from other teams to see Sam and Katrina again, it was just so awesome to see faces that are familiar and loving outside of my team. I often forget that there are other teams doing ministry just like us in local areas and it’s so reassuring and inspiring to hear of their victories and know that we are not alone in this mission here in Australia. The campsite was beautiful, located up in the mountains with many nature walks to take and an awesome waterfall, and topped off with a large cross on the side of the mountain, once again God showing that he is everywhere. This half of the year brings with it many new changes for our team with two people leaving, and a new team member coming aboard, shifting from 11 to 10 people on team, please pray for our “new” team.

It's really amazing, daunting, scary to think that I'm over half way done here. I look back and think WOW I'm so blessed to have seen pretty much all of Australia and met well over 3000 young people, stayed with and experienced many different families, cultures and seen God in so many different ways but OMGOSH it went so quickly and this half of the year is so much shorter, it's a bit freaky really. The biggest thing I've learnt this year is beyond anything people need to know they are loved, if they're an athiest or Christian people need to know they are loved. As Christians we know that God is love so what people really need is God, that is obvious but for those who don't believe they need to fist experince human love in order to accpet or even begin to understand a divine being that is all love, please, please, please I beg of you, whoever you are that is reading this, love more, and PLEASE pray for me to do the same.

I don’t really have anything amazing to report, I am doing well and am praying for you all back home and for anyone who may be reading this. I also ask that you pray for the hearts of the young people we are still to meet this year that they will be open and attentive to whatever God wishes us to say to them.

AMDG

Mid Year Musings

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.

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