While In The Rainy City of Sydney PART 1...

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers." Galatians 6:9-10

Since I have discovered I cannot update the length that I want to every time, I am going to have to post in segments. There is just not enough time in a day to write very descriptive posts... and that's what I want to do for you guys so please bear with me as I try to spill EVERYTHING that's gone on since the last update. I can't believe that we have been here for over a week already! All us girls were talking about it a couple mornings ago how it feels as if we've been here for over a month or something. Starting last week into this week, we have been doing ministry with the SOW students as well as some campus investigation for a possible Campus Outreach ministry-plant in the near future. We as a CCP team have been split into two teams so that we can cover more than just one campus. The first team, which is USYD (University of Sydney), is me, Erin, Kandice, Hunter, Caleb, and Brandon White, and the second team (UNWS, University of New South Wales) is Haley, Beth, Rachel, Kyle, and Brandon Land. Each Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, we travel to our Uni's to walk around, meet random strangers as well as meet up with the SOW students to hang out and such. If I didn't clarify before, SOW is called Student Outreach to the World. It's a Korean-based ministry as of now but their vision is to have a diverse group of members to resemble the kingdom of God, so they are looking for it to grow in such a way that it's not just koreans or asians joining... They are such a fun group of people to hang out with and have been such a joy to get to know this past week.

Saturday we rode the train to Rhodes to meet up with SOW for the first time. We tried to get there for the girls' volleyball practice but instead we got lost and didn't get there until 2 hours later than we hoped. Of course, that would happen considering this is all of our first trips to the wonderful land of Australia... BUT we finally found the park and made the last 30 minutes of practice. Slowly, people started to show up and we began to meet all the different SOW students that participated in the different uni ministries.We had a time of worship, lunch, and games to follow, and all i can say is that we had such a blast. One thing I think is hilarious is that all the SOW girls and guys talked about how athletic us girls seemed.. We had to fill out this 'get-to-know-you' info sheet and most of us put outdoor activities that we enjoyed- apparently that's not normal haha. ANYWAYS, we had a blast spending the afternoon with them.
Every Sunday, we go to Jim Jung's church-plant which has been such an amazing experience for us as a team. For me, it reminds me of how the church used to meet back in Bible days. The church community is small, but the fellowship is great. We meet in a small upstairs room in a community center in North Sydney. The room has a small piano in the corner along with stone walls (just trying to give you the feel...) and after every service, we gather in the back for traditional TEA TIME! Nothing is better than tea time. I feel like my consumption numbers of tea and coffee have sky-rocked since arriving here... and I'm sure everyone can back me up on that.

Last week, we started campus time ( like i stated previously) and through doing that, we have been able to get a feel for the campuses where we are serving. The first Monday (which was last Monday) was the very first day stepping onto campus. What a rude awakening. I felt like i heard an imaginary voice in my head saying, "Let the games begin." For me personally, I felt very insecure. I am the type of person that likes to KNOW what's going on, and look like I have it all together. Being here, the Lord has completely stripped me of that identity, and has given me some pretty humble experiences. I'll give you an example that is quite embarrassing that I'm sure I will get over later... Haha BUT SERIOUSLY. It's still fresh. So, Subway is the only place that looks familiar on campus after walking around, trying to find a decent place to eat or that doesn't look difficult to order from the counter. Erin gets in line, but Kandice and I are like, "Nah, let's eat something else that doesn't make us look so AMERICAN"... Well, we didn't find anything else so we just get back in line at Subway. We were hoping to get into a great conversation with someone in line and hopefully sit with them, but that technically didn't happen because most of the people around us were pure Asian, and when I say pure, I mean most likely with broken English... (this will begin to make sense later). Since this is Subway, I'm like "Oh, I've got this."... but apparently not. Without really realizing it, I get my sandwich confused with the guys in front of me. Oh yes. I completely fixed his footlong up with all my toppings... Okay, so I realized that it was a footlong, but I just assumed the Subway woman heard me wrong and gave me the wrong size. Ohhhh no. I didn't understand why the asian in front of me kept looking at me weird. I just thought he was looking at me funny because I was American. Well, I finally figured it out and that was embarrassing. When I tried to apologize, he just stared at me. AWKWARD. Let's just say God used great humor sometimes to bring us down a level. Praise Him for that, huh?

Here are some pictures from the Blues and Jazz festival that we went to. ABSOLUTELY incredible. They have it once a year and it lasts for about a week. RIght now they have this thing called Vivid Lights where they shine these very high tech, artsy lights on old buildings such as St. Mary's cathedral. I'll have pictures up soon. Here are, also, some other pictures that you might enjoy...!

This is what the currency looks like... Odd. They have dollar and two dollar coins... NO ONE DOLLAR BILLS. It's hard sometimes, and sometimes, I get called an ignorant American (not really, but I know that some of the cashiers hate me when I give them big bills instead of easy coins... Oops!??)


Keep looking out for another update. I have realized that I need to just blog short little clips instead of Long narratives... So I'm working on that. Hope you enjoy the pictures! They are courtesy of Linden White.

"In regards to Christ, I feel as if those who have fallen away have never truly fallen in love." Erin Duncan, my teammate as well as roommate