much to tell

wow, it's been so long I don't even know where to begin. on tuesday it was quiet day again and it went alright i guess. i learned heaps, but it was a painful experience. I went for a walk along the 4.5 km path with only thongs on my feet, my little pack on my back, my 1L water bottle and rug (blanket) in my arms. i walked for roughly 3 hours in the blazing sun. I was hungry, hot sweaty, tired, had to pee and my feet were getting blisters. by the time i got back it was lunchtime so i ate and went to a tree to continue my quiet day. I hopped up into it and got comfortable because i was so exhausted. I read my book, "how to live a christian life" and by the last chapter things were coming together for me. i set out that day to have God show me what path to take once i was done at school here. in the last chapter it outlined that there are gifts that each of us are born with. everyone has at least one of them, some have several, but you have one for sure. mine is serving, i love to serve others and do the jobs that maybe others don't want to do, but i like to do them in my own time and do a really good job when i'm motivated by myself. then it outlined what kinds of jobs are suited for those kinds of gifts. working in an orphanage wasn't one listed, but i still felt like working in one would be an amzing chance to serve others and i have this desire to work with kids now, don't ask me where it came from because i might just give you a sermon on "don't tell god you won't ever do something because he'll place in you the desire to do it." when i left home i didnt want to get married, didnt like kids, and i belched a lot. what do those have in common? well, i threw in the last one just because i'm trying to quit...i got the patch. lol. But the other two were things that i was scared of because i thought that i was incapable of overcoming the hardships involved. marriage is hard, dealing with kids is really hard, and not burping is a daily struggle. ;). but God has been doing some amazing things in me and i'm not one to try and stop him. so when/if i come home i want to go to school to take some courses that will help me get a job at an orphanage and that will make me good at my job, maybe learn german (ahh!!), and take a photography course. if all of those are at all possible to take at once, i want to do it! anyway, on to other matters. I gave my bible study presentation on prayer on wednesday and there was so much discussion that I had to cut out a lot of it, but it went really well and on the manuscript i got an A+. woo! i was so excited. We had a family night get-together at the beach. it was freezing cold but Liz and i went swimming and attempted surfing anyway. then we went into this pool that was kinda made right into the ocean so that you can swim in it in the dark since it's not very safe to swim in the ocean at night with all the big fishes and such. And i also gave my testimony on Friday and that went really well too. But it was only because i put a lot of prayer into it all because i was just so tired, i didn't really feel like writing it up, but i had to. Then on saturday we had breakthru at the school which is an afternoon setup for the kids in the community. The second semesters set it up and then we just help out on the day of. there were activities like stacking crates as high as you could, bungee running, pushing a car around a field, obsticle course, riding bikes that powered a electric car track, spinning game, water ballon catching, wheelbarrow races, waterslide (but it was pretty cold so not many people did it) and i think thats mostly all. Sarah and i manned the bungee running station and cheered on the kids when we didnt have anyone at the station. i think that i had more fun than the kids cheering them on. and a really exciting thing that happened was that i actually talked to the kids there. for those of you who know me at all know that i am not comfortable going out on my own, sitting down with a group of unknown teenagers and chatting about stuff to make them feel welcome. i just dont ever do it! but i did and i loved it and it made me wonder why i held back before. Then we has sausages and a speaker spoke a really powerful message. then there were a few songs and the kids headed off for home. I was a really great night for all and i think the second sems are relieved that it is over and it went well. Today we had a prac week meeting at woodsey's and it almost felt like marriage couselling because we all sat in our pairs (can't remember if i already posted this, but flo and i are partners) and talked about a bunch of things. But we do need to get to know each other well before we can work smoothly as a team. the funny thing is that flo and i dont really need a whole heap of help in that department, but they ask us questions that we don't always think to ask each other. at the end of the day flo and i pray for prac week and anything else in our lives that need prayer. (woodsey suggested it!) There was a gorgeous sunset last night, the sun was so huge and red, but i didnt manage to get a good photo of it. cameras can't always capture things like that. still playing some v-ball when i get a chance. and now you are up to date! talk to ya'll lada

spring has sprung

wow, the weather here is really picking up. yesterday it was 33 and we went to the cliffs to do some cliff jumping to cool off. It was really refreshing and such a thrill to jump off of cliffs. I'd never done it before so i was pretty nervous about it, but it all worked out to be pretty incredible.
This term has been really amazing so far. Things feel so much different already and it's only been a week. groups are inter-mingling and it's been really good to get to know people other than the group i usually hang out with. My new roomie, Joy is really great. we've been getting along so far really well and have had some pretty interesting conversations. The only problem is that i'm an early riser and she likes to sleep up until the last minute. I'm usually not too bad with waking up early, but i decided that this term i am going to be really disciplined with my devotions and i found the best time to do it was in the morning before brekky. so that means waking up at 6 every morning, usualy waking joy up in the process no matter how hard i try and be quiet. i've already learned a lot in those morning times, almost more than in the classroom.
Sarah tore her achilles tendon while we were playing volleyball so she is hobbling around on crutches and got to have brekky in bed for a few days. it is really hard for her because she can't play sport for 2 months and sport is who she is. but its been fun taking care of her.
Here's a web adress of a photo of the kind of spider we have hangin garound the school. it's called a huntsman and fairly harmless, but it looks pretty scary. http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/images/huntsman.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/huntsman_spiders.htm&h=190&w=250&sz=7&hl=en&start=2&tbnid=zGn27KHiayfzQM:&tbnh=84&tbnw=111&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhuntsman%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D
ta for now

students

Here's Rike from Germany. She is a fun-loving girl who likes to laugh lots. This is her on work day with some hot coveralls on
















This is Christo on the left. Bad angle, but he's one of the guys at the cabin with us. he's from south africa mainly, but has lived in AU for a few years and is completely fluent in aussie (thats hard you know) on his right is mike who you will learn about later.









This is Drew, or Andrew, from ontario canada. He is the guy who i met in Sydney and travelled with on the trains to the school on the very first day. He's an interesting guy who likes to have fun and analyze life. many interesting conversations have been had with him.









This is Mike. He is from Ontario Canada. He's got some texter on his face in this photo, but he's usually not one for facial hair. He is one of the guys staying with us for two week break, and like me is trying to learn how to surf.









This is Ela from Germany. She is a lot of fun to hang out with and it's always fun to talk about German stuff and exchange words in our different languages.










This is Lesley from Canada. She is one of the older girls who us youngin's look up to and she gives wonderful head massages.












Here's Nicola the kiwi or New Zealander(her hair usually isn't this unruly). Where to start with her? She reminds me so much of vanessa; she paints, is artistic, laughs loudly, says what is on her mind, loves life and is just a blast to be with.










This is Joel during 50's night with Lesley. He is an Aussie and is like a brother to many of us girls, especailly sarah. maybe it has to do with the fact that they share their nationality. who knows.















Joy is on the left. she is my new roomie and she is from Calgary. She has an amazing voice and can cut hair! woot. i'm very excited to get to know her over the next couple of months.


Jared is on the right and he is from canada. he is quite the character. he loves taking photos of himself, has a flat iron and loves playing guitar and posing for photo shoots.




This is Sale (sal-eh)from Germany. He came here with Flo and they are good buddies. He likes to ride pink bikes around campus, down stairs and up stairs too.











Here's sarah from AU on the left. she has been my roomie for the past couple months and we are basically sisters now. we are "joined at the hip" as drew likes to say. There are so many stories with her that i don't know where to start. she wants to be married in a few months (she doesn't have a BF yet but...) and have 7 kids. I love her to death.

Beside her is Steph from Washinton state. She loves to share clothes, and she got the best dressed award at the 50's night dance, which is where this photo was taken.


L-R Liz from BC. she is a blast to hang out with. she loves wearing gum boots in the paddok and climbing trees.
Ashley from Canada. we like to read kiddie books outloud together inbetween classes.
Alayna from USA. Her laugh is so contagious and when she tells stories you are in stitches by the time its done, no matter how funny it really is.







The infamous German Flo. Again, really bad photo. He is like the brother I never had. We have icecream sessions quite frequently, volleyball sessions almost every day now, chats in the retro roomon weekends, chats in the library when we should be working on assignments, water fights on work day, towel snapping wars during chores, and many more fun and exciting adventures. He is very inspirational to me and he's been the biggest influence on my stay here aside from sarah and of course God himself.


This is Keith from Arkensaw USA. He's a really cool guy who likes to play guitar and take crazy photos on his apple computer. He's in my church group and going out for lunch with him is never dull.









This is Julie-Jet (yulie-yet) from AU. She doen't have much of an accent for being from AU but i still love her ;). She cleaned sarah and my room once during work day even though she didnt have to . she was probably just so disgusted by us that she couldnt take it anymore.








Now you will know what all of the students look like. Hooray! mind you these are all really bad photos of everyone and they will probably hate me for putting them on here, but oh well! tee hee.

more photos

ok, so these are kinda random photos that i thought i'd give to ya. There's a photo of my clean room and my messy room, our classroom, the church that i've been placed in in moss vale, the waterfall, me inside a tree, and sarah and i being silly. enjoy!

two week break

alright guys, it's the moment you've all been waiting for, photos! so i'll start off with recent ones, like from 2 week break and then i'll put on some others so you can put faces to names. first, the girl with me in the photo where im wearing my pack is sarah, my aussie roommate. and the house is the house where we spent our first week of two week break at with sale, flo and keith. the dark and poor photo is keith, sale, flo,sarah and me eating breakfast outside. The one of just me is when i woke up one morning and the whole side of my face had inflamed to disgusting proportions. i had to get an anti-inflammatory to get it to settle down, but i'm still working on getting to the root of the problem. The picture of the tents is where we stayed for the first part of the second week. there were 6 of us on one site. Sarah, (L-R) christo,mike,drew,jared and i. it was ridiculous and expensive, so we opted for a cabin in the same park. its far better and good for the overcast mornings. i'm learning to surf from my persistent coach sarah. we are out there for hours everyday. i love it so much! anyway, im going to get some more photos on here. cheers.