A brief snapshot.

I'm sorry for being such a poor correspondent to you all but I feel as though you seriosuly deserve to SEE a bit of my life and my team, so here are some photos:

Official team photo: Gabriel, Robert, Myself (Katie), Rebecca and Maddie

Team photo in a cool graffiti alley in Melbourne

Doing a drama to the song 'Dare you to Move' on a retreat

Robert being very prayful as he prepares to alter serve for Mass

Team photo at breakfast on Easter Sunday morning

 

Helping out at a Vietnamese Youth Camp, this is us with all the other leaders

I will try to write and post photos more regularly, but I feel like I say that a lot so please just bear with me.

AMDG

life in Melbourne

Since last we spoke.

I have been living in Melbourne for about six weeks now and in that time we have experienced Melbourne’s worst heat wave since the 90’s, been on a boat cruise around the Melbourne Harbour to celebrate St Patricks day (even though it wasn’t on St Pat’s day), we have been FREEZING cold (or at least I have) hung out a lot and have spent some time doing ministry.

 

In depth.

When we arrived we all felt SERIOUSLY lied to about what to expect as far as Melbourne weather goes we were told to expect to be cold, wear jumpers and jeans… Getting of the plane we were greeted with 30 something degree heat which didn’t cease for a week. Our first weekend in Melbourne saw us helping out at the Vietnamese Catholic Youth Association of Melbourne’s annual retreat which was awesome. It was held at an adventure camp an hour or so from here so as well as everyone being stinkin’ amazing which made helping out and sharing the good news of Jesus easy and so much fun we also got to do a few awesome outdoor activities like kayaking, flying fox, human swing, we had fun participating in obstacles courses and team activities, GREAT way to kick off our ministry. We attended Holy Hour at the Cathedral and occasionally help out there, we’ve been to a couple of schools running RE classes and retreat days and we’ve even been to a couple Youth Groups.

 

We live across the road from a beautiful little Church and everyone has been so welcoming! We live right across from a tram stop and our house is in a fantastic location, only 10 minutes from the city centre and we have a beautiful park only a couple minutes’ walk from our house.

On Easter Sunday we thoroughly celebrated our risen King. We had a FANTASTIC breakfast went to Mass and then headed into the city to hand out happy eater cards and eggs to people we met. Our dinner was definitely one to be envied and a couple team members even decid3ed to end the night with a food fight. It was a good day.

Sorry it has been so long since I last posted, upon arriving in Melbourne my computer promptly broke but now it’s fixed so hopefully I will be able to give more regular updates.

 

AMDG

Teams!

Hey all, I just wanted to give you all a beyond brief update that is; teams have been announced and I am on the Melbourne Diocesan team! Hopefully I will have photos soon but not today. My team consists of 5 people ranging in age from 18 (me) to 30, each of us are from a different country we have a Kiwi, Aussie, Irish, Indian and American. Last year I thought my team was multi cultural but wow THIS team certainly one ups last year on the international front.

 

I am doing well but please continue to pray for me and my team this year.

 

AMDG.

Here we go again.

Once again I find myself in a rather familiar situation.  I am back in Brisbane and am about to embark on another year serving with NET ministries Australia. But first off to Peregian on the Sunshine Coast for initial training. Although everything that is physically happening in my little world has a lot of similarities to last year it all feels so very different. Everything and everyone (or just about) that I associate with NET is no longer at my side and I am in a very different state of mind then this time last year and I won't lie I am nervous about this year, excited but SCARED. The only thing of real importance from this update is that I beg your prayers for the team I will be a part of this year and for any challenges that will come my way.

 

God Bless,

AMDG

you know that I could use someBODY

"Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink." (John 6:53-56)

"On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" (John 6:60)

"As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him." (John 6:66)

 

Jesus tells us that his flesh is REAL food, his blood REAL drink. We can read in black in white that Jesus makes no mention of a metaphor from here we can understand that if what He said was merely symbolic and all we had to do was eat some bread and drink some wine to gain eternal life, well that would be easy and everybody would sign up for this kind of salvation. But His disciples, people who knew Jesus, who had left literally everything they had ever known to follow Him, family, friends, a job, said to Him "this is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" These people didn't just show up for one day to hang out with Jesus they knew Him and trusted Him with their welfare. If all the disciples had to do was eat bread and drink some wine then it wouldn’t be hard. Jesus tells his followers eat my FLESH and drink my BLOOD and because of this "many of his disciples returned to their former way of life." These people knew Jesus meant what he said (either that or thought he was insane) regardless they knew he MEANT what he was saying. Men who left all they'd ever known, possibly miles from their homes, maybe even had to sever ties with family to be with Jesus left him because of this teaching and Jesus let them go. Jesus let them go because he knew that if they couldn’t accept this teaching then they would miss out on so much more, that this was one of the most important things he was offering to us, His people on earth and ultimately when they rejected his body and blood, they rejected Jesus.

 

Jesus is REAL body, blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist and thank God for that gift. I was really inspired today during prayer listening to a podcast from Father Michael Schmitz on the Eucharist so I just thought I'd share with you all.

 

AMDG

 

 

 

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