Canberra means “meeting place”. It seems fitting that our 50 year YWAM celebration was in Canberra and gave us a chance to meet together and spend the whole week meeting with God. The Canberra base once was a monastery and is made out of brick and reminded me of a University in England. In the middle next to the courtyard they set up a massive tent where we met everyday a couple times a day.
At first I wasn’t looking forward to going to Canberra. It seemed unfair for the base to ask us to pack everything up after only being in Newcastle for a week and driving six hours to Canberra to spend a whole week there. The entire school basically shut down and packed up (including the offices) and we all left on Sunday morning. On our road trip down there we didn’t have AC and our gas tank was small so we had to make way more stops than everyone else.
The best part about the drive was seeing the countryside as we drove by. Australia is such a beautiful country and the more I see of it the more I love of it. We passed a lot of farms and rolling green hills that made me long to go horse back riding. I tried to keep my eyes peeled for kangaroos and koalas but I didn’t see any.
When we got to Canberra we got our tents and sleeping bags and set up our campsites all around the base. Luckily there were bathrooms pretty close by yet none of us were prepared for the weather. The school didn’t mention that Canberra was having cold weather so at night we were freezing cold and most of us slept in several layers and our sweatshirts and were still cold.
The first night we got there we didn’t know what to expect. Our school was one of the first to arrive so there still wasn’t a large group of people. We all ate dinner inside the dining hall and met the staff of the Canberra base and then had worship the first night and no lecture on our first day so we were free to wander around and explore. Canberra is a lot more rural than Newcastle. They are currently having a draught so everything was dry and dusty and when the wind would pick up little dust clouds would blow across the campus.
As I said, all the students weren’t prepared for the cold weather so it got down to 3°C at night and most of us couldn’t sleep because it was so cold and a lot of us didn’t have mats to sleep on. Most of us crawled out of bed and wrapped our arms around each other and stumbled miserable to the dining hall for breakfast. I was horrified to discover that they only had instant coffee and realized my patience was being tested. Luckily later that day our school set up a café on the base to raise money for Youth Street and I was able to buy myself a latte. (Youth Street is a ministry my Newcastle base started to work with youth and do activities such as Art, Music, Sports, Skate, and Surf for afterschool)
The next day I begged Tessa my leader and bribed her with buying her coffee so she took me into town so I could get a blanket and something soft to sleep on. She was nice enough to take me and a few other students to Big W which is the Australia equivalent of Wal-Mart. It was amazing to see how similar yet different the mall was from the U.S. My favorite part was seeing little kids calling out “Mum where are you!” in a thick Australian accent. Also one thing interesting about Australian is you don’t have to wear shoes so a lot of people go around barefoot. We quickly finished our shopping then got back to the base in time for lectures.
Our school was able to find a speaker for lectures so Mark Brokenshire, a big leader in YWAM was able to talk during our lectures while he was in Canberra for the Jubilee celebration. He spoke on “Hearing God’s Voice” which was so perfect for the week. It seemed fitting that during our 50 year celebration in Canberra (the meeting place) we learned how to hear God’s voice and meet him.
That night we had Steve Ahern who is one of our school leaders and also plays a big role in leadership in YWAM Australia speak during our service and we had worship again. More schools began to arrive and it was amazing to see that huge tent quickly start to fill up. At first I guess it didn’t hit me how big of a celebration our YWAM Jubilee celebration really was.
The Youth Street café was set up in a separate building which also had a pool and ping pong table and was a big hang out place for our DTS as well as a lot of others. It was a nice place just to meet people and hang out and talk. I loved getting the chance to talk to each one of my YWAMers and get to know them even more. There is also a sport DTS going on the same time as our school at our base so I’ve been befriending them as well since we all live together at the base and eat meals together.
On Tuesday night the Canberra base hosted an event called a “Bush Dance”/ “Barn Dance”. At first I had no idea what to expect and I didn’t even know what it was but I heard the music start while I was in the café and me and a group of people went to see what all the commotion was and then quickly joined in the festivities. A Bush Dance is a huge gathering and is folk dancing. So we had live music and we did dance styles from all around the world.
Before each dance the instructor would tell us to partner up or tell us how many people we needed in a group and then we’d all so through the instructions together and do sort of a test dance. Then the music would finally play and we’d all start to dance. It was hilarious and so much fun! I’ve never done anything like it before and everyone was crying laughing so hard when they’d mess up and no one cared that anyone was watching.
My first dance was with Ashley and Matt. I was talking to Ashley trying to figure out what was going on and she was explaining the dancing to me when someone grabbed both our arms and yanked us in the circle of people to dance. It was a three person Russian dance and we messed up a lot at first all the while laughing.
The Australian’s in our school are hilarious. They are such warm, carefree and loving people. At my base we have Alana, Josef, Jono, Mark, Matt, and Nathan. Also the Stevensons are a family that live at Lewis house (the house where we live and have lectures in Newcastle) and David AKA Stevo our school leader is a true aussie. During the Jubilee celebration I got to know his family a bit more, especially his son Nathan who is 16 and is an amazing kid and a lot like his dad.
I first met Nathan right before the bush dance and we were talking about music together and then someone started shouting about how they needed another dance couple and then we got pushed and dragged out to the clearing much to our embarrassment because we had missed half of the instructions and had to “wing it”. I think I stepped on his foot and we ran into people because we went the opposite way and laughed the entire time.
I pretty much adopted Josef, Jono, and Nathan as my younger brothers. Nathan acts like he is 26 which is hilarious and amazing to see someone so young have such a mature outlook on life and such a strong relationship with God. He is a YWAM kid to the core and also is on the worship team. He and I instantly became friends because we discovered we have the exactly taste in music and were able to swap ipods and introduce each other to some amazing new bands we’d never heard of.
Jono has horrible taste in music. He listens to all the bands I listened to when I was 14, a bunch of punk rock and whatnot. But he’s hilarious and has a good heart and is the jokester of the group. We get along well because we both joke with each other mercilessly. Josef’s father is a pastor and been part of YWAM for a long time. Steve Ahern is also Josef’s uncle so I think its amazing that Josef is going to be part of YWAM now too. His mother is Swedish so he is bilingual but he is a true aussie. He goes barefoot more than he wears shoes and looks like a complete surfer.
When the rest of the school bases finally arrived in Canberra we had a huge worship gathering which was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. There is something incredibly powerful about a group of people coming together with a common purpose and the desire to praise God. I have a distinct image of everyone raising their hands while singing and seeing the joy on their faces.
Much to our excitement we had Loren and Darlene Cunningham arrive at our celebration to speak. For those of you who don’t know who they are, they are the original founders of YWAM. They both took turns speaking and Darlene was such a joyful and kind woman and shared some amazingly powerful stories of miracles and God’s mercy. Loren shared with us his vision of YWAM and how it has come true the last 50 years and what he sees what will happen next. I was excited to have my book “Is that really you God?” that Loren wrote signed by him. He even gave me a word and wrote scripture in there which I thought was incredible.
My overall feeling after coming away from our jubilee celebration is excitement. I feel a change ahead and it’s going to be huge. I never thought I could be called to missions yet here I am living in another country, studying 24-7, and feeling closer to God than I ever have felt before in my life. We find out in another week where we will be going for outreach so I’ll make sure to post our location options as soon as I find out. It is definitely something I will be praying about and will need prayer on. I also still don’t have all my outreach fees yet and could use some support in that area.
Thank you all for reading my blog and being interested in what is going on in my life. God is doing some pretty amazing things and I can’t see what else will happen. Things are a little crazy and hectic at the moment and I feel like I have zero free time. But its all worth it in the end. I have never experienced community like this before. I’m loving it! God bless you all and big hugs and lots of love.
At first I wasn’t looking forward to going to Canberra. It seemed unfair for the base to ask us to pack everything up after only being in Newcastle for a week and driving six hours to Canberra to spend a whole week there. The entire school basically shut down and packed up (including the offices) and we all left on Sunday morning. On our road trip down there we didn’t have AC and our gas tank was small so we had to make way more stops than everyone else.
The best part about the drive was seeing the countryside as we drove by. Australia is such a beautiful country and the more I see of it the more I love of it. We passed a lot of farms and rolling green hills that made me long to go horse back riding. I tried to keep my eyes peeled for kangaroos and koalas but I didn’t see any.
When we got to Canberra we got our tents and sleeping bags and set up our campsites all around the base. Luckily there were bathrooms pretty close by yet none of us were prepared for the weather. The school didn’t mention that Canberra was having cold weather so at night we were freezing cold and most of us slept in several layers and our sweatshirts and were still cold.
The first night we got there we didn’t know what to expect. Our school was one of the first to arrive so there still wasn’t a large group of people. We all ate dinner inside the dining hall and met the staff of the Canberra base and then had worship the first night and no lecture on our first day so we were free to wander around and explore. Canberra is a lot more rural than Newcastle. They are currently having a draught so everything was dry and dusty and when the wind would pick up little dust clouds would blow across the campus.
As I said, all the students weren’t prepared for the cold weather so it got down to 3°C at night and most of us couldn’t sleep because it was so cold and a lot of us didn’t have mats to sleep on. Most of us crawled out of bed and wrapped our arms around each other and stumbled miserable to the dining hall for breakfast. I was horrified to discover that they only had instant coffee and realized my patience was being tested. Luckily later that day our school set up a café on the base to raise money for Youth Street and I was able to buy myself a latte. (Youth Street is a ministry my Newcastle base started to work with youth and do activities such as Art, Music, Sports, Skate, and Surf for afterschool)
The next day I begged Tessa my leader and bribed her with buying her coffee so she took me into town so I could get a blanket and something soft to sleep on. She was nice enough to take me and a few other students to Big W which is the Australia equivalent of Wal-Mart. It was amazing to see how similar yet different the mall was from the U.S. My favorite part was seeing little kids calling out “Mum where are you!” in a thick Australian accent. Also one thing interesting about Australian is you don’t have to wear shoes so a lot of people go around barefoot. We quickly finished our shopping then got back to the base in time for lectures.
Our school was able to find a speaker for lectures so Mark Brokenshire, a big leader in YWAM was able to talk during our lectures while he was in Canberra for the Jubilee celebration. He spoke on “Hearing God’s Voice” which was so perfect for the week. It seemed fitting that during our 50 year celebration in Canberra (the meeting place) we learned how to hear God’s voice and meet him.
That night we had Steve Ahern who is one of our school leaders and also plays a big role in leadership in YWAM Australia speak during our service and we had worship again. More schools began to arrive and it was amazing to see that huge tent quickly start to fill up. At first I guess it didn’t hit me how big of a celebration our YWAM Jubilee celebration really was.
The Youth Street café was set up in a separate building which also had a pool and ping pong table and was a big hang out place for our DTS as well as a lot of others. It was a nice place just to meet people and hang out and talk. I loved getting the chance to talk to each one of my YWAMers and get to know them even more. There is also a sport DTS going on the same time as our school at our base so I’ve been befriending them as well since we all live together at the base and eat meals together.
On Tuesday night the Canberra base hosted an event called a “Bush Dance”/ “Barn Dance”. At first I had no idea what to expect and I didn’t even know what it was but I heard the music start while I was in the café and me and a group of people went to see what all the commotion was and then quickly joined in the festivities. A Bush Dance is a huge gathering and is folk dancing. So we had live music and we did dance styles from all around the world.
Before each dance the instructor would tell us to partner up or tell us how many people we needed in a group and then we’d all so through the instructions together and do sort of a test dance. Then the music would finally play and we’d all start to dance. It was hilarious and so much fun! I’ve never done anything like it before and everyone was crying laughing so hard when they’d mess up and no one cared that anyone was watching.
My first dance was with Ashley and Matt. I was talking to Ashley trying to figure out what was going on and she was explaining the dancing to me when someone grabbed both our arms and yanked us in the circle of people to dance. It was a three person Russian dance and we messed up a lot at first all the while laughing.
The Australian’s in our school are hilarious. They are such warm, carefree and loving people. At my base we have Alana, Josef, Jono, Mark, Matt, and Nathan. Also the Stevensons are a family that live at Lewis house (the house where we live and have lectures in Newcastle) and David AKA Stevo our school leader is a true aussie. During the Jubilee celebration I got to know his family a bit more, especially his son Nathan who is 16 and is an amazing kid and a lot like his dad.
I first met Nathan right before the bush dance and we were talking about music together and then someone started shouting about how they needed another dance couple and then we got pushed and dragged out to the clearing much to our embarrassment because we had missed half of the instructions and had to “wing it”. I think I stepped on his foot and we ran into people because we went the opposite way and laughed the entire time.
I pretty much adopted Josef, Jono, and Nathan as my younger brothers. Nathan acts like he is 26 which is hilarious and amazing to see someone so young have such a mature outlook on life and such a strong relationship with God. He is a YWAM kid to the core and also is on the worship team. He and I instantly became friends because we discovered we have the exactly taste in music and were able to swap ipods and introduce each other to some amazing new bands we’d never heard of.
Jono has horrible taste in music. He listens to all the bands I listened to when I was 14, a bunch of punk rock and whatnot. But he’s hilarious and has a good heart and is the jokester of the group. We get along well because we both joke with each other mercilessly. Josef’s father is a pastor and been part of YWAM for a long time. Steve Ahern is also Josef’s uncle so I think its amazing that Josef is going to be part of YWAM now too. His mother is Swedish so he is bilingual but he is a true aussie. He goes barefoot more than he wears shoes and looks like a complete surfer.
When the rest of the school bases finally arrived in Canberra we had a huge worship gathering which was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. There is something incredibly powerful about a group of people coming together with a common purpose and the desire to praise God. I have a distinct image of everyone raising their hands while singing and seeing the joy on their faces.
Much to our excitement we had Loren and Darlene Cunningham arrive at our celebration to speak. For those of you who don’t know who they are, they are the original founders of YWAM. They both took turns speaking and Darlene was such a joyful and kind woman and shared some amazingly powerful stories of miracles and God’s mercy. Loren shared with us his vision of YWAM and how it has come true the last 50 years and what he sees what will happen next. I was excited to have my book “Is that really you God?” that Loren wrote signed by him. He even gave me a word and wrote scripture in there which I thought was incredible.
My overall feeling after coming away from our jubilee celebration is excitement. I feel a change ahead and it’s going to be huge. I never thought I could be called to missions yet here I am living in another country, studying 24-7, and feeling closer to God than I ever have felt before in my life. We find out in another week where we will be going for outreach so I’ll make sure to post our location options as soon as I find out. It is definitely something I will be praying about and will need prayer on. I also still don’t have all my outreach fees yet and could use some support in that area.
Thank you all for reading my blog and being interested in what is going on in my life. God is doing some pretty amazing things and I can’t see what else will happen. Things are a little crazy and hectic at the moment and I feel like I have zero free time. But its all worth it in the end. I have never experienced community like this before. I’m loving it! God bless you all and big hugs and lots of love.
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