Week 1

It is already the second week and this is the first time I’ve finally been alone with enough time and space to reflect.  This past week has been an absolute blast!  Here’s a rundown of what activities I’ve done this past week

Sun: Arrive in Brisbane at 6:45AM at the Hostel with 70 other US students also studying at University of Sydney.  Hang out around hostel with Jet lag.  Had Kangaroo for lunch, swam at the pool, walked around down town and just chilled.  Met some really awesome people tooo!

Mon:  Went to the Koala Sanctuary (the biggest Koala sanctuary in the WORLD!) it was SO amazing!! Got to hold a koala and hang out with kangaroos. Literally hang out with kangaroos!  They had a whole field filled with them and we could just walk into the gate of the field and feed them and pet them and just chill with them!  It was the one of the most amazing experiences ever!  Then we went to the riverfront for the Brisbane River where we had lunch.  Then we had some Aboriginal men perform a few native dances.  I was in the very back so I couldn’t really see all of it, which was kinda a bummer but it was till interesting to see their dances, songs and body paints as well.  Next we all jumped into kayaks and went up the river.  The current was reallllly strong so it was a pretty good work out.  After that we went out for dinner.  I was still pretty jet lagged so after dinner I just hang around the hostel and went to bed early

Tues: FREE DAY!  Some people went to the Gold Coast but it was pretty rainy so I decided not to.  A couple of us just walked around Brisbane, hit up the mall & made dinner together.  We were a little family for the day!

Wed:  We planted trees and weeded a forest area that was destroyed by the flooding pretty much all day.  We went back to the hostel for dinner, then just hung out and went to bed early.

Thurs: We got up real early and headed to the rainforest!  It was about a 1.5 hr drive away, wayyy up the mountains.  We had some tour guides but my group was so big that I ended up discovering most of the forest on my own with a couple friends. It was seriously the most amazing sight I have ever seen!   It was such a huge area and the nature was absolutely breath taking.  It is not even something I could possibly explain in words.  Pictures only capture a brief bit of how amazing this sight was!  We went to 5 different paths and walked about a mile at each.  One of the locations included a skywalk, so we were walking through the tops of the trees, SO amazing! After that we had dinner on our own & walked around the city late at night because we were still starving haha.  The city was so gorgeous at night!  We walked around the mall area again, which is more of a strip mall the consumes about 4 blocks in the center of the city, all lit up with different colors!

Fri:  Got up early & caught my flight to Sydney. After we got our room assignments a couple of us decided to check out the area so we roamed a bit then went and bought some necessities.  I am living in a dorm building about a 5 min. walk from campus.  I have my own double sized bed, own bathroom & shower, mini fridge and microwave!  This wasn’t my first choice of living, but after spending the last week living in a hostel with 6 girls and sharing 3 toilets & 3 showers with an entire floor of females, I am praising God for this safe haven away from everything!!

Reflections:  It has been pretty difficult being the only practicing Christian around.  I have found one other person who is Catholic who has pretty much the same beliefs as I do but I haven’t gotten the chance to really form a relationship with her.  It is so crazy how different the real world is from the Bethel Bubble I have been living in for the past three years.  This experience has already opened my eyes so much to the ways of this world.  Pretty much all of my friends right now are not practicing Christians and I am fine with having non-Christian friends, it’s just hard for me to figure out how to minister to them when I feel so out numbered.  There have definitely been times of doubt in my mind as to why God has sent me here, but time and time again He has reassured me that this is where he wants me to be.

 I left home extremely nervous and for the past week I haven’t really felt like I have been myself.  Partly because I felt like I was a t a camp that I didn’t find all that necessary & partly because by day 2 I was just frustrated with living in suitcase.  Normally AustraLearn does their orientation week up in Cairns, AU but because of the cyclone our group had to be moved to Brisbane so our week was kina thrown together at the last minute and really  disorganized which frustrated me as well as pretty much everyone in the group…. But that’s over now and I am glad to be almost unpacked!

Everything here is ridiculously expensive. It is $18 for mascara.  Looks like I’m going to be going make-up free!! Haha  The heat is also ridiculous.  I feel like I’ve already lost weight from all the walking & sweating I’ve been doing! My feet hurt real bad too. Lol

I am really excited to see what this next week will look like… I’ve got 10 days before orientation for my University starts so I’m pretty much just hanging out and going to the beach!  I’m trying to find a job this week too, so if you could keep that in your prayers that would be awesome!

This is the most I am capable of writing at one point. I’ll try and blog more often so ya’ll don’t have to read as much! ;)