Life

Life is good. One of my favorite professors from IWU emailed me right after we got here and he said, "doesn't it feel good to know that you are in the center of God's will?" It does. We know that Yeppoon is exactly where God wants us.

The initial excitement is finally settling and we are getting into our daily routine. We are figuring our what our roles are like and don't have to ask our Pastor every few minutes, "what do you want us to do now?" We arrive at the church around 8:45 each day and leave around 5:00 except for on Friday when we have XLR8 (the children's program) and youth and we're there until about 9:30. While we're at church we are making preparations for youth group, XLR8 and Bible study. Sean also helps with the music and we both help around the office wherever needed. Our nights are usually spent at worship practice, Bible studies and night services. Don't worry! Tuesday is our day off and we make sure that we take some time to relax while exploring Australia in the mean time.

One thing that we really enjoy is our Young Adult Bible study group. We are getting ready to start the book, The Wild Goose Chase by Mark Batterson. I would highly recommend it. While we are waiting on the books to arrive we had a relaxing night last night where we simply shared our hearts and what the Lord is doing in our lives. It was very encouraging.

We are adjusting well. There are definitely a few things that we miss from home. Some things we expected to miss, but others we didn't even realize we would! Friends and family are definitely up there on the list. Even though we've met some amazing people here, I miss my close relationships from home. It's amazing how often I go to pick up the phone to call/text someone and realize that I can't! We really miss our weekly game nights with friends...luckily we've met some other people who like games as much as us!! By the way we got a new game this week that we are VERY excited about-pictionary with cards, look it up!! We also miss ranch dressing and lemonade...but for the most part food is somewhat similar. Colts and FSU football are very missed as well!!!!

Overall, life is good. I feel so blessed to have an amazing husband to serve the Lord with. Yes, ministry has been difficult at times, but we love it. We are very grateful for your prayers and support.

Cluedo and Trivia

We have had a very fun and exciting weekend! Every Friday night we have youth and it always has a theme. This weekend we played Cluedo or in the US we would call it Clue. You know...the game with Colonel Mustard, Mrs. Plum and the rest of the crew?? We decided to get some adults from the church involved in youth group and asked for some volunteers to be the "suspects" in our murder mystery. We had so many willing volunteers! Below is a picture of all of them!

We had a nurse, doctor, truck driver, teacher, butler, maid, housewife, farmer, gardener and singer. Then, the students had to go around asking questions to figure out the murderer, motive, weapon, place and day of the murder. We had a record number of students and we all had a great time! Only 3 out of 27 students were able to solve the mystery!

Last night was also a great night! We had a Trivia Night at our church to raise money for Chaplaincy. Each state (public) school has a Chaplain and they are there for students to come and talk to. They are not allowed to teach students about Christianity unless students ask questions. They are like a counselor. The Trivia Night was held to raise money for Chaplaincy so they can buy more resources and programs to help the students more effectively. It was a great family night and over $1,200 was raised! Our team came in 3rd place and we were behind the 1st place team by only 1.5 points! Sean and I were also in charge of the games in between the Trivia question sets. We played Minute To Win It games and had a great time!

We've had a few requests to see pictures of our church so here are a few :)

*This is a picture from the Stage looking out*

*At look at the stage*

*The entry way*

Coffee Club

Our church is very blessed with some talented musicians. Sean is loving getting to serve along side of them! Once a month, a few people from the worship team play some jazz music at a local coffee shop. This Sunday Sean and I were very excited to get to go listen. When we got there, the band asked Sean where his guitar was because they wanted him to join in! We quickly ran back to the church and grabbed a bass guitar. Sean jumped right in as soon as we got back.

It was a very relaxing afternoon of good music and fellowship. If you notice in the video there are some super cute little kids dancing in the front :)

Youth

Boy, do we sure love the youth that we're working with!!! Before coming to Australia, I (Sam) had very little desire to work with high school aged kids. My heart was completely with the little ones, or as they say here, the littlies. I love the way that the Lord is changing my heart! There is no place I'd rather be right now then serving exactly where we are. Last week we wrote to you and shared that we are starting a youth Bible study. The first week we had 5 and this week we had 10 students. God is good :) We are really enjoying spending time with them and getting to know them better! We are all becoming more comfortable with each other. Ephesians 3 is our prayer for them. We're praying that God would open their eyes so that they can see and understand His incredible love for them and that they would make decisions to follow Him with their lives. A lot of them are really striving to see what it is God wants them to do with their lives and they're trying to live it out at school which is a struggle. Please pray for them. Also, please pray for Sean and I as we are leading this group. Pray that God would give us wisdom and guidance as we prepare the lessons and that it would be His words and not ours!

Sunday Night Services

We had an incredible service last Sunday night so we wanted to share just a little bit about it. Right now we have a Sunday night service the second and last week of ever month but we are hoping that by October, we will be able to have the service every week. Please pray that everything will go well and the transition to having this service weekly will go smoothly. Anyways, back to last Sunday night... we had a night full of singing worship songs, hearing some incredible testimonies and hearing a challenging message. And following all of that, a lady giving her life to Christ. We also have had quite of a few youth really trying hard to with their relationship with Christ coming back from camp. Please also pray for this lady and our youth as they learn what it means to give your entire life to Christ!