Lately

I realized that I haven't blogged in a while, so I thought I'd give you a little update on what we've been up to these days! This weekend we headed down to the beach for a BBQ beach day with our youth. It was a lot of fun. We played soccer on the beach with a giant ball and had a sand art making contest. Then, we had a sausage sizzle. A sausage sizzle was new to us...well maybe just the way they eat their sausages. What they do is grill sausages on the BBQ then put them on a slice of bread (we miss the good ole hot dog buns!). Weird right? Usually the bread has butter on it, then you squirt some BBQ or tomato sauce on it and you're good to go. Here are a couple pictures from the beach day!

Please notice Sean in this picture!! I can't look at it without laughing. He looks like a little ballerina or something!

On Saturday we also had the opportunity to head out to Pumpkin Island. This is a beautiful island off the coast of Yeppoon. The woman that we live with took us over for a couple hours. We got to explore the island a bit and do some snorkeling. This was the first time we'd been able to go snorkeling, so that we pretty exciting! We climbed around on some rocks and took a few pictures!

One of our favorite things to do for dinner is get some fish and chips (aka fries). Well, Sean gets fish and chips and I get chicken! Last week we decided to ride our bikes down to a fish and chips shop then have dinner on the beach. It was night to get out and have a relaxing evening together. As you can see in the picture, they serve the fish and chips different that we're used to in the US! You should come visit and have fish and chips on the beach with us :)

The Case for Faith

Bible study is going so well! It is growing a lot...I think we had 15 students yesterday. As the group is growing, there are new challenges, but we are welcoming them because we can see that the Lord is working! We are entering our 3rd week of study in The Case for Faith and really enjoying it. Some of the questions that we are working through are pretty tough, but the kids are doing well. They are working hard to find the answers to these questions and they are asking great questions of their own. Please pray that God would help use this study to solidify their faith and help them to figure out the tough questions of faith. Pray that the students would truly make a commitment to serve Him!

This is the book that we are studying...it has a new cover from when I studied it in high school.

We split into groups on Wednesday as the students dug for the answers to the questions we are working through.

Mad Scientist Night

This week at youth our devotions were about how God can perform miracles, even if it doesn't quite make sense in light of what we know about science. We talked about how this can be true and reasons why we should give God the benefit of the doubt. Based on that, we decided to make our game theme "Mad Scientist Night." All of our games had to do with some sort of science. We had a great time! Here are a few pictures from the night :)

This game was called "Burst the Atom." Each student had an "atom" aka a balloon tied around their ankle. The goal of the game was to stomp on people's atoms and protect your own. The last person with a balloon on their ankle won. This was really funny to watch!!

This game was called "boom." It was based around the scientific law that says, "for every action, there is an equal or opposite reaction." In the US Sean and I played this game and it was called "drugs." It would take a long time to explain the rules, but it is an AWESOME game if you would like to know more about it. I think we played 4 or 5 rounds because they loved it so much.

This was the apple and fork game. This one dealt with gravity...whatever goes up, must come down! The team had to thrown the apple back and forth and catch it on a fork. We played this game in college and it's a lot of fun!

A Sandy Aventure

After church today, Sean and I were up for a bit of adventure so we decided to go to this place called 9 Mile Beach. We attempted to go here once before on a Sunday afternoon outing. It is in a town called Byfield that is about 30 kilometers north of Yeppoon. Some people had told us that Byfield was beautiful and we should go there. So we decided to listen to the advice and head out there. Well, it turns out that there is NOTHING in Byfield. Wait, I take that back, there is a sad excuse for a general store...that's it. So we saw this sign for 9 Mile Beach which was 30 something kilometers away so we decided to take the road. The whole time I was keeping my eye on the fuel gauge. I asked Sean if he thought we could make it and he assured me that we could make it. To make a long story short, Sean soon realized that we were going to be stuck in the middle of no where with no gas and no cell service. So, we turned around and decided that we would go another time.

That brings us to today...We made sure that we had enough gas and headed out around 4. We heard that you have to have 4 wheel drive to go, and thankfully we do! Once you hit the turn off for 9 Mile Beach the road becomes dirt. About 10 km in, the road started getting bad. We were really enjoying it though because it was really bumpy and there were lots of curves. I started getting nervous when the road turned from dirt and rock to sand but I kept my mouth shut. Then, we turned the corner and oh boy! There was a hill with really soft sand and the tire tracks were not very defined. I looked at Sean and noticed that he was nervous as well. I told Sean that I wasn't too sure and he immediately decided that we needed to turn around, we were not going to make it! That's when we got stuck. Yep, stuck in the middle of no where with the sun setting and we weren't sure if we even had cell phone reception. Even if we found someone to help us, it would be dark by the time that they got there. We got out of the car and looked around at our very limited options. There was no good place to turn around so we decided that our best option was to back up until we found a place. We tried a few times and the car kept stalling so we had to get out and dig under the tires. Finally, Sean was able to back the car up a bit while I stood outside and prayed. He told me to hop back in and we were going to back up until we found a place. Thank goodness it wasn't too far before we found a good place to turn around. I am so thankful that we got out of there, because we really had NO idea what to do if we didn't!!

When we got home we looked up some information about the place, as well as pictures to find out what we are missing! Turns out that if you let air out of your tires, it helps get through the sand! Good to know!! It also suggests traveling with a buddy in case you get stuck...again, good to know. So, we are determined to make it ALL the way to 9 Mile Beach, but sadly today was not the day. On the bright side, we saw a random cow in the middle of the road, saw 4 kangaroos hop across the path and a gorgeous sunset. Overall, it was a great day and I am so so thankful that we were able to get out of the sand and make it home!!

I was able to take some pictures off someone's blog to show you what we were trying to get to. I was too scared at the time to take pictures of the road!! But here they are!!

I think is probably close to where we got stuck....but where we were looked worse and the tracks were not defined they like are here!!

Isn't the beach beautiful??

Look at the view!

This is the beautiful sunset we saw once we got back onto the good road! What a good ending to the day :)

The Market

This morning I got up real early with a friend and we headed to the market. It is at the Yeppoon Fairgrounds every Saturday morning from 6 to 9. We have prayer meeting at 7am so I've always been too sleepy to go, but today I decided to make myself some coffee and head out early to try to get some good deals. I am so glad that I went!! One thing that Sean and I both love is Bananas. Last year there was a lot of flooding due to cyclones across Queensland which is where all of the banana crops are. A lot of crops were ruined so the banana prices have been through the roof! When we first got here they were $14 kg which is about $7 lb. Insane, right?! I've refused to pay so much for bananas. They price is down to about $11 kg now, but that's still too expensive for me. But this morning I found them for $3.50 kg!! I was thrilled! I was also able to find some delicious pineapple, carrots, tomatoes and homemade jam. I think my friend and I are going to make this a weekly outing because they deals are so great. I celebrated by having a peanut butter and banana sandwich for lunch and I think that I may be making some banana bread for my sweet husband :)

Bible Study

Bible Study started back up again on Wednesday! Our youth attend 2 different schools, one in Yeppoon (just down the street) and the other in Rockhampton which is about a 30 minute drive. When we first started the Bible study we asked the students when the best time was in order to make it available to as many students as possible. Unfortunately, we realized that the time that worked best for the most number of students, made it unavailable to others! Last term we have Bible study at 3:30, which was right after school got out. The Yeppoon kids walked down the street, had an after school snack then we jumped into Bible study. The Rockhampton kids were unable to attend because they didn't get back from school in time.

Well, we came up with a brilliant plan! Why not move Bible study back 30 minutes! Why we never thought of this before, we have no idea! So, this Wednesday we moved the time back and had more kids than we've ever had! We are really looking forward to this term, with our new theme "Refocus." We are looking at why we believe what we believe. Please pray with us as we continue to plan this term. Pray that God would give us guidance in what we teach and that it would be His words the youth would hear and not ours!

District Conference

This past week we had the opportunity to go up to Townsville for the annual District Conference. We had a great time getting to know the other churches in our district as well as spend more time with the people from our church. During the conference meetings, Sean and I had the privilege of running the children's program.

On the first day, we took the kids to the beach. There is a free little water park there as well as an open area where the boys played rugby.

On the second day, we started off with devotions and read the book There is a Yeti in My Shed and talked about the importance of obeying our parents! Then, we introduced the kids to puppy chow (muddy buddies) and they loved it! They ran around camp sharing the puppy chow with everyone. We then played some group games outside for a bit followed by Uno. We were amazed at how much they enjoyed playing Uno. We ended off the day by making Gak which was a big hit!! Here are a few pictures :)

We had 2 travel buddies on our 9 hour drive to Townsville. Darryl and Myrtle are both members of our church and we really enjoyed getting to know them better! During our free time we enjoyed driving around town and getting ice cream with Myrtle. We also visited Castle Hill that had a beautiful view of the town! Below is a picture on top of the hill.
Although Sean and I were not able to attend the Conference meetings, it was neat to hear about the business side of how the church works and how each church in the district is represented at Conference. The new district board was elected as well as a new District Superintendent. We would like to ask for your prayer for these individuals as they step up to take these positions of leadership. Pray that God would fill them with his wisdom as they go about their jobs and that the decisions they make will glorify him. Also, pray for balance in their lives as they take on their new responsibilities.

The Little Things

There are 2 things I look forward to every day. The first is getting up early with my cup of coffee, bowl of cereal and doing my Bible study. The second is being able to cuddle with my husband every night :) This morning as I curled up in my chair with my delicious coffee and started reading my Bible, I was touched at how much God loves us and how much he cares about the little things that matter to us. In John 15 verse 9 it says,

As the Father has loved me,

so have I loved you.

Now remain in my love.

I have read this verse so many times, but today it really touched me. Do you understand how loved you are by our Savior? Here Jesus is saying, "as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you." As I thought about it for a while this morning, I was completely blown away by how loved we are!!

Sean and I love riding bikes, and obviously we were not able to bring our bikes with us to Australia. We have been looking into buying bikes here, but we've found that bikes cost more than we are willing to spend at this point in time. As we were sitting in church 2 weeks ago, I looked outside and noticed what a beautiful day it was. I thought to myself, "man, what a beautiful day! If only we had bikes!!" After church, Sean and I were talking to some people and this man came up to us (who we hardly know!) and asked if we would want to borrow their bikes while they are out of town for the next 3 months! I was completely shocked because I had just been thinking about how much I would love a bike. And to add to that, he also offered for us to borrow their car while they are out of town!!!! What?! I love that God not only meets our every need, but he also brings about little blessings like these to remind us how much we are loved by him.