In between the lines
Someone recently asked me how my trip was going...This struck a chord in me, not the best one, and my personal response was, "What do people think I do here?" And then I got to thinking about it some more and I thought, "They think what I tell them; which, this time around, hasn't been a whole lot." To be honest, I've been kind of afraid to blog too much for fear that my blog would just become like white noise that people just tune out, but I have a bigger fear and it's that people would think that I'm vacationing around the world rather than working and serving.
So after praying about it and thinking about it, I've decided to start blogging a bit more about what I do here in Australia.
Monday:
-Clean the base
-worship and prayer for an hour
-morning tea
-base work until lunch (for me this means that we are either working on prayer and worship stuff or we are helping in the kitchen or the hospitality department)
-lunch
-ministry work until 5pm (this is when I work on the music ministry with the rest of the band. For the next two months we are working on remodeling one of the cellars to be our practice room/office)
-Zumba for an hour before dinner (we all are trying to do more exercise so at 5 you either keep working till dinner or you go do some type of fitness. All of us girls do Zumba together and the guys usually go lift weights or play some sport)
-Dinner
-Sometimes we have other things we have to do after dinner, it just depends on what we have going on that week, but majority of the time we are off after dinner.
Tuesday:
-We connect via skype with our partner base in Melbourne. We have worship together and pray together over skype. After that we usually have a Bible study led by our base leader, Pablo.
-Morning tea
-Base work until lunch
-lunch
-ministry work until 5pm
-Zumba
-Dinner
Wednesday:
-We have worship/prayer for a little bit and then we have our staff meeting
-Morning tea
-Base work until lunch
-lunch
-ministry work until 5pm
-Zumba
-Dinner
Thursday:
-Clean the base
-Intercession for 1 hour
-Morning tea
-Base work until lunch
-lunch
-ministry work until 5pm
-Zumba
-Dinner
Friday:
-Morning worship/prayer/family time for 1 hour
-Morning tea
-Base work until lunch
-lunch
-ministry work until 5pm
-Zumba
-Dinner (cook your own)
Saturdays:
-I spend the morning and afternoons skyping, emailing, and catching up.
-Every other weekend, at night, we go and pass out food to the homeless. Every so often we go and pass out water bottles to the kids partying in the city and to the drunks so that they don't get dehydrated and just to bless them.
Sundays:
-Go to church (haven't been going lately because I haven't had transportation but as soon as I register my car I hope to start attending a church in Port Adelaide and really invest there)
-Finish up whatever I didn't finish on Saturday
-Relax
Now on top of that, or in place of that, we do heaps of other stuff. For example, the 3rd week of November we are going to be working for 3 or 4 days at an event called "Schoolies". It's basically a Spring Break party for all of the graduating seniors of high school. All of the volunteers are Christians and it's our job to provide a safe environment for around 10,000 kids to have fun and celebrate. Over the past 3 months I've been able to do heaps of things on a purely voluntary basis; I've been a clown, I've been an ambassador for YWAM, Salvation Army volunteer, etc. Also, as a music ministry, we've got our own ministry that we are already doing and will be increasing in as opportunities arise. For example, last Sunday we traveled to a church in Victor Harbor and led worship for them.
These are some of the details of what I do in between the skeletal summary I usually give once a month. This is in NO WAY to boast or make you go, "Wow!" because it's not enough. When the music ministry's foundation is finished, then we can start building on it and there will be heaps more to do and even more to talk about and share. For instance, right now we as a band are transforming one of the cellars into a place where we can practice and work; we plan to have it done by the new year. Now it may sound like a very inward focused work but we made a decision to begin with this because it's better for our work that we have a place to practice and work so that our results can be better.
So yeah guys this is my work, this is what I'm up to behind the monthly blog posts. Please feel free to write me with questions, comments, chit chat, anything that's on your heart or mind. Thanks for reading!