I'm backkkk!! Yay!! You do not know how nice it is to come back to the base here in Townsville. No dust, no bull ants, no spiders, and toilets that flush properly hehe! Reminds me of how I need to be thankful to God at ALL times! We arrived in Hidden Valley on Sunday 16th August at approximately 11.30ish....2 hours away from civilization, and all other necessary things. This was my first time camping properly so it was really exciting!Hidden Valley is a beautiful place, tucked in the middle of a nowhere. We had a creek nearby which we could swim in, we even had hot showers, a proper kitchen with amazing food. Most of our activities were held in a huge shed which is on the property. The weather was really hot during the day but the night was a little chilly and the mornings the same. We were woken up each morning at 6am ( without fail) by the Kookaburras in the trees, unless of course you were a really heavy sleeper (which was not me).
Our first night was amazing. We had worship under the stars after watching a video “How Great is Our God” and He really is great! There was even some stars in the sky that looked like love hearts, and the Milky Way was able to be seen too. It was soo awesome!
We had amazing breakfasts! Pancakes, Bacon & Eggs, Porridge, French Toast...it was soo good! I definitely did not expect that.
I tented with my best friend here, Alexis Leavitt, she is from Laguna Beach California, and she is one amazing woman of God. It was really awesome to spend some more time with her. Thanks to my wonderful Mum and Dad, I had a really nice tent and a thermarest (though I didn’t figure out how to work the thermarest till the night before we left, so was sleeping on hard mat the whole time, silly me).
Our DTS got the whole first week to ourselves, there was just 28 of us, and it was a really good time. Week 6 was all about Lordship, just learning to make Jesus the Lord of our lives. My school leader Ryan Booker led this week and he did an amazing job! I made Jesus Lord of my life, laid down all my stupid goals and aspirations and promised to do whatever he wanted for my life. It was tough but I know it’s the best thing. Still have to lay down things everyday but it was awesome.
We spent most of our days here swimming in the creek, sleeping in the heat of the day, walking through the woods or just hanging out.
Week 7
The Staff joined us this week, which took the number of people on the campsite up to 120..yea you read that right haha. Imagine that, breakfast, morning tea, lunch, dinner, and supper for 120 people for 5 days!! I felt sorry for the girl who had to organize how much food to bring up! I was on breakfast preparation on Tuesday, which was the one day that I got sick. I was nauseous all day till about 3pm. It really sucked, but thank goodness that night I had an amazing sleep. Alexis prayed for me, and I slept through the night, even through the Kookaburras, which is a miracle J.
I spent alot of time with one of the Staff Couple’s little girl, Raelynn Woje. She is 3 and absolutely adorable. She clicked with me the day before I left with camping and kinda stuck with me through most of camping. I have gotten to know her mum Rachel Woje, and her husband David, they are such a beautiful family. I took Raelynn for walks and played with her in the creek. She was sick the same day as me, so we coloured together in the shed.
We had lots of corporate worship, and I danced around the field like a nut but it was sooo fun!
I asked God for confirmation on what I could do if I came back on staff in April and funnily enough, the YWAM base director Ken Mulligan asked me if I was interested in joining the Ship Tour that our base is going to be running next year. He said that he had been wanting to talk to me about doing something with music, because he knew that I sing and play piano as I had told him this previously and he thinks that God has placed an annointing on me and he would really like me to join this as it is a new development that Reef to Outback is taking charge of . I was really excited! The Australia PNG (Papua New Guinea) Ship Tour is basically just going around to different ship ports in Australia which our Ship is going to be docking in and raising awareness about the problems in PNG, also raising support for the tour, then we head to PNG and do some work there. I am going to PNG for outreach so it will be good for me to get to know the place a little more. Ken has asked me to pray about it. I am really excited about it and would love to do this but will see what God wants me to do. So yea, if you could keep this in your prayers for me that would be good, just that God would confirm what he wants me to do. I’m not in a hurry but its something I will need to confirm eventually J.
Week 7 was all about Evangelism and the Holy Spirit. David Stevenson from the YWAM Newcastle base preached this week. He is a New Zealander, so I talked to him a little about Paraparaumu which was cool. I had a really great week. Was a bit sick during the week which slowed me down but really seeked after God for a spirit of boldness to be an Evangelist and it was really awesome! I had some good God time this week.
The last night of our camping we all sat around the fire and all the different nations were grouped together. I joined the New Zealand group. It worked out that there was a stick and if you were given the stick you had to get up and do something that related to your culture. The New Zealanders attempted a medley, I got up and sung Pokarekare Ana to start off and then they joined in with Slice of Heaven and How Bizarre, it kinda flopped because we forgot the words to Slice of Heaven but it was still fun. The Aussies, Americans, English, Scottish, Phillipinos, Swiss, German people also brought some interesting things to this fun time.
All in all I had an amazing time camping, getting to know some more of the staff members better and just having fun with my friends! I will write again soon! To see some pictures of Camping you can go to these links : http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=146357&id=700994895&l=1294a1942d and http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=146364&id=700994895&l=9c9af777c2