Tasmania trip

Hmm, it's been three months since I've updated this blog. Well, I'll try to get you caught up in a couple posts, rather than one long post since I don't have time to write one long post now. The first semester ended on November 29th and I don't start again until February 1st, so I have a good two months off during Australia's summer. I decided to start the break with some traveling. I left on the 30th to go down to Tasmania for four days and then Melbourne for 5 days.

Tasmania was amazing. Four days really wasn't enough to see it all, but I basically went non-stop and saw as much as I could. I put over 1300 kilometers on the car I rented over the four days. I flew into Launceston, rented a car and then drove to Cataract Gorge. It's a gorge that has several walks you can do around it that has some amazing views, a swimming pool at the entrance, and a cafe in the middle with peacocks wandering around right next to you. I spent about three hours at the gorge, then got in my car and drove about four or five hours out to the west coast. I got to the town of Rosebery that evening and checked in with the campground I had reserved that night. Rosebery was the kind of town that you blink and you missed it, so there really wasn't much to do there. I went to the local pharmacy to get a few things and started talking to the pharmacist there. When I told him I was from Hillsong College, I found out he was Christian too and we ended up hanging out and having dinner that evening in town. We exchanged email addresses then I went to sleep early in my car since there wasn't anything to do really in that town. I woke up early the next morning and drove to the beginning of the Montezuma Falls hike I'd planned on doing. It's about a three hour hike round trip to waterfall and once you get there, you walk out on a small bridge that sways back and forth with two pieces of chain-link fence on either side keeping you from falling. The waterfall was beautiful. I spent about 30 minutes at the falls before heading back to the car. I then traveled south to the town of Strahan. I grabbed some lunch and walked around the town for a bit. Then I headed west to Lake St. Clair National Park. By this time, it was evening, so I asked the ranger there if there was a 1-2 hour hike I could do around there. I did a hike around the lake to platypus bay, where supposedly it's common to see a platypus. It was raining a bit though, so I think that kept the platypus from coming out. I slept in the car again that night.

The next morning, I began the drive to Hobart. I got to my hostel and decided I would make the drive out to Port Arthur, where they housed some of the troubled prisoners back when they first brought the convicts to Australia. Along the way, there were several stops with interesting views at the ocean, including the Tessellated Pavement, the Tasman Arch, and the Tasman blowhole. I also stopped at the Tasmanian Devil Conservation Park. There I was able to watch them feed some Tasmanian Devils. Since Tasmanian Devils are fairly slow and not too smart, they generally eat roadkill in the wild, so that's what they feed them at the Park as well. They eat the bones and fur of whatever their meal is, so by the time they're done, there is nothing left. While watching them eat, I accidentally dropped my camera over the gate where they were. A few of them heard it drop and went to see if it was food. They bit it a couple times and then went back to the Wallaby roadkill they had been eating. The ranger grabbed a stick and retrieved my camera for me. That was a bit embarrassing, lol. Then I was able to see a kangaroo feeding there as well. But for the kangaroos, they have a bucket of food and allow the visitors to feed them. So I had the kangaroos eat out of my hand. It was pretty fun. I then went to Port Arthur and walked around the grounds there, seeing the harsh conditions of the prisoners who stayed there. I then drove back into Hobart, walked around the town, and grabbed some dinner.

The next morning, I drove to the top of Mount Wellington. You can look up pictures online, but it's supposed to have an amazing 360 degree view of Hobart and the surrounding area. Unfortunately, the day I went was rainy and extremely foggy. You could barely see 10 feet in front of you. It was also pretty cold up there, I'd guess around the mid-forties, farenheit, which is very cold considering this is Australia's summer. I didn't spend too much time up there, considering I couldn't see anything. So I drove back down to Hobart and checked out of my hostel. I needed to be at the airport the next morning to fly to Melbourne, so I was staying in Launceston that night. Rather than get there by the highway, I drove up the east coast and stopped in Richmond, the oldest city in Tasmania with the oldest Jail, church, cemetery, and bridge in Tasmania. Then I continued north and stopped at Freycinet National Park and hiked to Wineglass Bay. Once again, the foggy conditions that day prevented me from seeing the amazing view from the lookout point that you can see if you look up Wineglass Bay online, but I did hike all the way to the bay, and it was still beautiful once there. I really felt like hiking fast that day, so what was supposed to take me an hour and a half each way, took me 50 minutes to get there and 40 minutes to get back. I was having fun getting my heart rate up. I did walk around the beach for an hour once I got there. I then finished the drive up to Launceston, getting there around 10:00 pm. I went to sleep and got up to get to the airport the next morning and flew to Melbourne.

If you want to see pictures from my trip, they're on my facebook page. I'll try to make a post in the next couple days about the Melbourne portion of my trip. Thanks for reading!

Fear and Spring Break

I was reading in Esther earlier today and part of it stuck out to me. In chapter four after Haman made the decree for all the Jews to be killed, Mordecai told Esther to go to the king's chamber to plead for the Jews. The problem was, the law said that anyone who went to the king's chamber without first being summoned by him would be killed unless he extended the golden scepter allowing that person to live. Esther was left with the choice to risk her life to try to save her people or stay safe (for the time being) and let her people die. She tells Mordecai to gather the other Jews and fast and pray as she also fasts and prays. Then she makes this statement. "And so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish!"

We all face fears every day. Some are rational, some are irrational. Someone with a fear of public speaking might imagine that they will get up in front of everyone and stumble over their words causing everyone to laugh and ridicule them and throw rotten tomatoes their direction. This would be an irrational fear in most situations. Most audiences are nicer than this and don't carry rotten tomatoes with them. Some fear can be very helpful though. Fear keeps me from petting a bear in the wild, or jumping out of an airplane with no parachute, or swimming out in the middle of the ocean. Esther's fear is a very rational fear. There is a very real chance that she will be killed. This fear would keep her from going to the king's chamber just because she feels like it. But in this case, the call of God on her life bids her to act against her fear and go anyway. I really like her response. She doesn't say "I know God will protect me." She says "If I perish, I perish." To me, that is such a real, down to earth response I can relate to. She doesn't know what will happen to her. But she's going to follow God anyway. How often does God call us to follow Him in spite of fear. Maybe you need to tell a friend what he's doing is wrong at the risk of losing his friendship. Maybe you need to drop your career and go be a missionary at the risk of not being able to provide for yourself. Or for some of the church that is still being persecuted, they risk being tortured or killed just by being a Christian. It's not wrong to be afraid in these situations. But let our response be like Esther. I'll do whatever God would have me do regardless of the outcome.

So things have been going well here in Australia. God is still doing an amazing work in me and pushing me to continually grow in Him. I'm learning some great things in my classes. New Testament intro is changing the way I look at my reading of the Bible. Personal Evangelism challenged the way I viewed witnessing and challenged me to do more of it. In worship band, I'm being stretched towards excellence in the music and worship I offer to God. A lot of what God is doing is taking concepts that I already know in my head and putting them in my heart. For example, I've read that story of Esther many times, but this time as I was thinking on it, Esther's response really jumped out at me like it hasn't before. What I wrote is nothing ground-breaking. It's probably something we all know, but the question is do we let it change us. I believe God's Word is powerful and we can change every time we have an encounter with it if we allow God to speak to us. But often times I think it never makes the jump from our head to our heart.

The last week has been spring break for us. Yes the seasons are opposite for us here. We start classes again tomorrow morning. I made it to the Blue Mountains yesterday and it was amazing. I went on a hike down into the forest area. Total, I probably hiked about six miles. I passed the Three Sisters, which is three rock formations right next to each other. Down at the bottom was an old coal mine and there were some pretty interesting sites to see around there. Then on the way up is Katoomba Falls, which is a really cool waterfall. When I first came to it, I could only see the bottom portion of it, which was still pretty. But then as I hiked further, I saw that there was so much more. The waterfall is about 800 feet altogether. It's an amazing waterfall. I have pictures on facebook if you want to look on them. Then we went to the Blue Mountain Chocolate Factory. They are famous for their hot chocolate. You are given a plastic cup with a metallic cup inside with hot milk in it. There's a gap on the bottom part of the plastic cup where a candle sits inside to keep the milk hot. You then put chocolate chips inside the milk and stir it for the best hot chocolate you've ever had in your life. Well, that's about it. Hope things are going well for everybody else. God bless!

Weaknesses and Strengths

Last Friday, I was performing the song Doesn't Mean Anything by Alicia Keys with a band from my worship band class. I was playing keyboard. The song is fairly basic musically. It goes from an E to a C#m to an A, back to an E for most of the song, mixing it up a little bit in the bridge with a few different chords. There's a fairly basic piano part that I play at the beginning and a few parts in the middle. After we performed it, a few people came up to critique us and give us some things to work on. They talked to us about dynamics and how we can really build the song up to the climax just after the bridge, stuff like that. Then the guy who was doing sound came up and talked to me for a minute. He said I was playing all the right things for the song, but there were several times when it seemed like I would accidentally hit a wrong note, as if I was hitting two notes next to each other rather than cleanly hitting the correct note. I wasn't sure exactly where he was talking about, but as we played through the song once more, I watched for it and sure enough, my thumb would periodically hit an F at the same time I was hitting an E. I realized that the reason I was doing this is because my fingers weren't as curved as they should be when I was playing. This is something I've always struggled with for some reason, I play with my fingers very flat. After the song, I went up to Luke, the sound guy, and thanked him for bringing that to my attention so that I could work on that. He went on to tell me I should spend time every day practicing keeping my fingers curved while playing. I can play scales or chords and focus on keeping them curved so that this weakness would eventually become my strength.

As I was thinking about this later, I realized that this should be how we approach our weaknesses in life. Often I think Christians have defeatist attitudes. They accept their weaknesses as "just the way they are." I know I've had this attitude about myself a lot in the past. As followers of Christ, we should be walking in victory. When God calls things in our lives to our attention, we need to allow Him to change us, so that those weaknesses we have in our life eventually become our strength. It's not about striving on our own though, but allowing Jesus to change us and having faith that He can and will change our weaknesses into strengths so that we can help others with the same thing we struggled with. Hope this encourages you!

The last six weeks

Well since so many thousands of people have begged me for another post, here it is. Ok maybe only a few.. and maybe not really begged.. except KLUB, he begged. I warned you guys in my very first post I may not be the best at updating this, lol. So the last six weeks or so have been amazing. I've seen God do incredible things in my life and the lives of friends of mine. I'm learning a lot in the classes I'm taking, God's presence is powerful at every church and chapel service, and overall, I think God is just working a lot on my character. When I say things have been amazing, not all of it has been easy or comfortable. There are a lot of areas in my life that God is bringing to light that I don't like, but as He's showing them to me, He's healing me. For example, one thing God's shown me is how selfish I can be. My motivations for many things I do, even in ministry, is on me and how it makes me feel. More and more, God is changing my mindset from looking at me to looking at Him and others.

Another thing God's showing me is how powerless I am at changing myself. I have a tendency when I see an area that needs to change to strive towards changing it myself. While there may be practical things I can do to bring about the change, I'm seeing that if I just keep my eyes on Jesus and let Him transform me, there's a lot less heartache and failure.

So things have been really busy. I feel like time is going by faster here than at any other time of my life. Last week was Father's Day in Australia, so they moved the Sunday Night Service to Friday night. That freed up Sunday to go to the beach with some friends. I had an amazing time. We watched the sunset over the beach, then after it had gone down, I went for a short swim. It was pretty cold, so I didn't spend much time in the water. Everyone with me thought I was a little insane for going into the water, and to be honest, I've always known I'm not totally sane, so whatever. I ate a kangaroo burger, which was very tasty, and then we walked along the beach for a while before heading home.

Sunday night services during August were incredible. Every August they do what's called Sunday Night Live, and it's basically church like you've never seen it. They present the messages in such creative ways with drama and music hitting certain points home. A lot of people gave their life to the Lord this month. Praise God!

Well, I'll try to update sooner than six weeks from now. God bless you guys!

Kingdom Minds

God's had something on my mind the last week or so, so I decided I would blog about it. Often times, I think we do things with the mindset that it's a means to an end. Perhaps I'm going to school just as a means to get a job. Or I'm working in a company as a means to get a promotion to the job I really want. Or the latest for me, I realized that I was seeing my job I just got as a means to pay for school and other things I need. God really convicted me about that. I don't think that's the way God works. He doesn't have us do things as a means to an end. He has us in places for a reason and I think we miss out on that reason when we think in that mindset. God wants us to have his Kingdom mindset in every aspect of my life. The reason I'm at this job is because God has a purpose for me there. He wants me to be a light for my co-workers and probably has things he wants to teach me through being at this job. I think it's critical that we change our mindsets to begin viewing every part of our lives in light of His kingdom. Otherwise we will miss out on so much that He's called us to in this life.

God's provision

Well it's been an amazing couple of weeks since my last post. I've only been here three weeks and God's already done so much. Last week, they had some fun activities for all the first semester students that really allowed us to meet a lot of people and see some cool stuff in Sydney. On Monday, they served us brunch. Tuesday they took us to Bondi beach where a friend and I went into the water in spite of it being a little cold. Wednesday, we went over to Manly beach and walked around the town there. That evening, when everyone else took a ferry back to where we started, I stuck around in the city and connected with a friend who had been here for the last year and a half going to the Hillsong city campus. He was getting ready to go back to the states, so it was good to connect with him once before he did. It was a fun three days and I met a lot of really cool people. The next couple of days we had orientation and got our schedules for the next two weeks.

Last Thursday night, I went to what was called Creative Team Meeting. It's designed for anybody involved in the church through worship, dance, or media. It's a time of worship and exhortation and the Spirit of God was there from the moment it started. Through the time of worship, God really started speaking to me about areas of my life I need to change. Towards the end of the night, they took up an offering for the people affected by the tsunami. They take up an offering for them every Thursday night. I still hadn't received a job, so I was trying to hold on to all the money I had and not spend much. I had $25 in my wallet, and I really felt like God told me to give it all. I was obedient and put it in the offering. Later, as I was praying I felt like God told me I would receive a job the next day. The next day, I went back up to a restaurant that had told me they might be hiring and asked him if they still were. He told me to give him another week. I noticed a couple other places that said they were hiring so I gave my resume to them. I went through the rest of that day and still hadn't heard anything. I figured I must have heard from God wrong. The following day, I received a call from one of those places to come in for an interview later that afternoon and they gave me a job. So God did get me a job the day He told me He would by leading me to the right place to turn in my resume. Praise God! He's showing me each and every day that He will provide for me.

Classes started this week. They have gone really well. I've been blown away by all the teachers and how genuine they are. They really seem to care about the students. They love God and they love people. One might think that with such a big church, (well over 20,000 people attend each week) when people climb the ladder so to speak and have positions of authority, it could get to their head. But everyone I've come into contact with has really seemed to have such a heart of a servant and are willing to do whatever it takes to further the Kingdom of God, not their ministry or their ego. God, would you give me that heart as well. Sometimes I think I care more about my passions, my dreams, than I care about people. More and more I'm realizing that when you have a servant's heart and are willing to do whatever needs to be done to further the Kingdom, then God can use you and then He will cause the dreams that He's given you to come true. So God, use me however you want, whether it be leading worship, setting up chairs, or cleaning toilets. I'm your servant.

The first week

Well, the adventure started before I even left Salt Lake City. My plane was scheduled to leave from Salt Lake at 7:52 on Monday night. Jacob came over that afternoon to say goodbye and suggested I call them to see how full the plane was. I called and they basically told me I had next to no chance of getting on that plane. So I rescheduled to leave the following day at the same time. When I called the next day, they told me the same thing. Finally I had someone helpful though. She suggested leaving the following morning because the morning flights aren't nearly as full as the evening flights. The next morning there were 28 empty seats, so I easily got on the flight to LA. I got to LA at 9:30 am and the flight to Sydney left at 10:35 pm. So I sat around for the next several hours. I spent some time reading and playing games on my computer (no free wifi in the LA airport, lame). I had people checking on the flight to see how many empty seats there were and it seemed like there were plenty and I shouldn't have any trouble getting on. Someone came to the gate around 8:00 pm. I went up to ask her how the flight looked and she told me it was oversold by 6 people and I was number 10 on the standby list. So it didn't look good. Apparently the night before, nobody on the standby list had made it. So my mind began flooding with what I was going to do with another 24 hours in the airport, or even longer if I didn't make it the following night. I contacted my parents and a few friends and asked them to pray. Over the next couple hours, they let a few people on standby on the plane, but not many. Finally at 10:30, 5 minutes before the plane was scheduled to leave, they called my name and let me on the plane. I was the second to last person to get on the plane. I got on the plane to hear them say turn off all electronic devices. I disregarded that for just a minute to call my parents and text a few friends to let them know I got on. As I was sitting there, I felt the Lord just speak to me with the same words He spoke to Peter after he started to sink when he was walking on the water, "Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt." God has provided for me each step of the way since I decided to come spend this year in Sydney, and yet when an obstacle appears in my path, I forget about all that. In that moment, I just felt God saying, "I love you and I'm going to take care of you. Now just trust me." Even now as I'm here wondering what I'm going to do about a job, I'm reminded that God has been providing for me. He's not gonna leave me hangin' now.

So I got into Sydney 6:35 am on Friday morning. I'm 16 hours ahead of Utah time, so that's 2:35 pm Utah time. I had a few troubles finding the right bus I needed to get to where I'm staying, but eventually found it. I didn't do much that first day, just settled in, unpacked, ate, and went to bed early. The next day, Bonnie, the person I'm staying with (a friend of my mom's who lives just a few miles from Hillsong), took me around Castle Hills, the suburb of Sydney where I'm staying. Then on Sunday, I attended two services at Hillsong. They just finished their big conference, so they had a bunch of people from there that were helping out with the services. Andy Stanley, pastor from Atlanta, preached at the morning service. Darlene Zchech led worship along with Israel Houghton. Then that evening, Ed Young, pastor from Texas, spoke. That service was packed. Both services were great.

This week, I'll be looking for a job, going to the college on Wednesday to figure out what my schedule will be like as classes start next Monday. I'd like to make it into the city sometime this week also. Well that's about it for now. Talk to all ya'll soon!