Crazy, awesome, ride!

Where in the heck did these 3 weeks go?! As I approach my month mark for being in Australia my mind is baffled. It has been go, go, go. I have been fortunate enough to see some amazing things that words cannot describe, God's beauty is written all over this land. Things are now finally starting to slow down and mellow out a little bit and the newness of it all is starting to become familiar. Sometimes we will be walking down the street or I will wake up in the morning and forget where I am at. I feel as if I am still back in the States and a lot of us wonder if it will ever sink in that we are here. This trip has been nothing at all like what I expected. Everything I thought would happen or had "planned" to have happen.. hasn't. Which is what I should have expected because I have this tendency to think up brilliant plans and set my mind to it. The moment I stepped off the plane I knew it wasn't anything like I had planned it to be. The first three nights I was utterly alone, no one was here. I am serious literally NO ONE. The 5 students that I met were amazing Australians who were so nice to me but had school all day and I only saw them at dinner. I have never felt so alone in my life, the first night I wanted to jump right back on that plane and go home to my family and friends. So lets be honest.. I cried myself to sleep a few nights. Yeah, yeah I know what a loser!! I don't think I have ever prayed so hard for the Lord to make me feel His presence and each night I new He was holding me as I tossed and turned. I even woke up in the middle of the night and forgot where I was, thought I was at my Grandparents house in the Queens room. Then the slow and painful realization came over me of where I really was. Okay enough of the sob fest! So basically it was way harder than I thought it was going to be. My saving grace came to be this prayer from a book my dad gave me to read on the plane ride over called: The Prayer of Jabez. Every morning and night I would close my eyes and call on the Lord and say: "Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain." The Lord has so many blessing in store for each of us through out the day but in order for us to see them we must open our eyes and follow Him. Enlarge my territory by allowing friends and people to surround me so that I may bless them and love them the way that He loves me. I know that He is always with me but sometimes I forget or can't feel Him so I would ask Him to make Himself known to me and walk with me. I would ask Him to give me eyes to see evil and stay far, far away from it and to protect me against it. And I would ask that I would cause pain to no one, that I would never say a word to hurt someone else and that I would love them right and make them feel known. It was a simple prayer and by George it worked! The third day after I was tired of being a lameo laying around the room, I went to the beach, the city, and worked out the crazy bus system. I saw and met some of the nicest people who were fishing and throughout the malls. Every night at dinner I was meeting more and more people and I cannot say one bad word about any of them. By Friday I was surrounded by people! Yay!! We ended up going to town and watching one of our guy friends play the fiddle at an Irish pub that had an Oregon license plate in it!!

 

 
From then on it was person after person or what I like to say blessing after blessing that was coming into my life. This was the first night I met one of my bff's Caitlin otherwise known as Lloyd, and we hit it off right away. Then my roommate came.. who just so happens to be a Jesus believer (coincidence? I think not!) and just about the sweetest girl. I like to call her Adds but officially Addie. Every place I have ever gone in my life I have been blessed with the most solid group of guy friends and I wasn't so sure that would happen here being a different country and all. Yet once again the Lord proved to be faithful and I have met some of the most amazing guys ever who remind me so much of my guy friends that I miss back home. And then came Maya or Maya papaya! This woman with the most beautiful voice and a point of view and love for the world that I envy. Each one of these girls possess qualities of my bestest girlfriends back home that fills my heart with so much Joy.

Caitlin, Maya, Me of course, and Addie

At the lagoon

 This is a picture of us snorkeling on the great barrier reef off of Green Island! The water was so clear here that you could lean over the side of the boat and see the fish and coral, it was stunning. I felt bad for the people with us because it just so happens I thought I was drowning the majority of the time out in the water. So lets be honest I kept envisioning a shark swimming toward me the whole time, it was like a bad Nemo nightmare. We have been all over Cairns into the city multiple times, to the markets, different pubs and places, to the many different beaches, up to the rainforest, waterfalls, hiking in the hills behind our school, the lagoon (the pool to the right), to the new batman movie, and then some. School has finally started and we are all on week two. I some how got the most awesome schedule ever and only have classes 2 days a week? Can you say 5 day weekend! Whoop, whoop. But sadly I am a little bit of a nerd and miss having it everyday..

I just wanted to throw this picture in here because what are the odds of having a jumping picture with everyone in the air.. on the first try. Slim to none. This is at a beach called Trinity Park where most of the locals go. There were maybe 4 other people out there with all of us. The water here on the beaches is so warm that you can just swim around like it is a pool. This was the first for me usually I would never in a million years swim around at the Oregon coast. Mainly because I would probably die from hypothermia or be eaten by something. I can see the bottom of the Ocean here so I think that is one of the main reasons I feel a little better about swimming in it. Minus the fact that there are salt water crocodiles, box jelly fish, and irukandji jellyfish that are the size of your finger nail and I am pretty sure they can kill you.. minor detail. Thankfully we are not in the "jellyfish season" and the crocs are supposedly lazy this time of year but I still find myself looking over my shoulder every other second.

Some of the Australians told us about these things that are called Drop Bears. They sit in trees and when you walk under them they drop on you and maul your face off. Fun right?! I'm pretty sure I almost pooped my pants right then and there. Come to find out 15 minutes later that they aren't real and Australian just like to tell Americans that because we believe what ever they say. My response: who wouldn't? Everything else here can kill you.

As I look back on my three weeks I thank the Lord for those first three days because, if I didn't have those I think I wouldn't appreciate all the people and blessings I have been given since than as much as I do now. To my disappointment the church has not emailed me back to the multiple emails I have sent them and there are no buses that go there. So needless to say my plan to be so involved with the Church must have not been the Lords. Which is so exciting to me because that just means there is something so much greater in store for me. He blessed me with a roommate who loves Him just as much as I do and we get to spend some time together listening to podcast's from back home by John-Mark from Solid Rock. As John Mark talked about in his sermon Philippians 2:14-18, "Do everything without complaining or arguing.." so I will not complain about my "hard" days or being homesick or school. Did Jesus complain or argue when He was being crucified by His own children? No. And if He can endure the most excruciating death known to man kind without grumbling than I can survive this. And now I feel stupid for ever complaining about anything in my life when I think about Him... but that's okay because He still loves me when I do! So my goal: Do everything without complaining or arguing. What is there to complain about when I get to see things like this:

I made it!!

This is right after take off flying over Portland

So after 20 hours of flying and 6 hours of layovers I am officially in Cairns, Australia! For my first time flying it was not half as bad as I thought it would be. I had a window seat from my very first flight from Portland to LA and it was beautiful and really exciting, even take off was fun. Kind of like a roller coaster. I was praying the whole time basically because the first time I hit turbulence I was pretty sure we were going down. In the LA airport I met the nicest Australian older couple in line, when about to board for Sydney, who has family here in Cairns and had nothing but nice things to say about it. The lady reminded me a little of one of my Aunts and it was very comforting. The 15 hour plane ride went faster than I thought I sat next to two younger girls one from Brooklyn and one from New Zealand who were very nice and I didn't have to worry about beatin anyone down for stealing my stuff. Virgin airlines was super nice all the way around, and from LA to Sydney we were able to watch unlimited movies for free and were served dinner and breakfast. The food was not as bad as I thought it was going to be and thank the Lord I didn't get sick. If you know me you know exactly what I am talking about by "sick". If not than you can use your imagination. I took the red eye from LA to Sydney and arrived in Sydney at 6:15 am their time. The view from the plane was breathtaking flying in. The sky was an almost blood red and the sun was barely rising, the city was still pitch black and all you could see were the thousands of lights all over. Coming into the Sydney airport was a little intimidating I knew absolutely no one the airport was BIG. The girl from Brooklyn and I helped each other out and she ended up giving me a hug goodbye which I thought was just the darndest thing! I had to take a bus from Sydney international airport to their domestic airport. I left the Sydney domestic airport and boarded for my last flight (finally) to Cairns where I ended up getting placed at the Emergency Exit window seat.. "in a time of crisis ma'am could you assist passengers to their safety".. Ummmmmm maybe?? I said yes of course but when the time came I would probably be the one yelling: "Every man for himself!!" and then proceed to jump. The flight was 3 hours and wasn't as bad we were above the clouds pretty much the whole time which was amazing.

God is so good!

I flew into Cairns and the hot sticky air hit me like a freight train, the air here is kind of like being locked in a little room with 4 other people with no windows or ventilation. Needless to say it's a little stuffy but really not unbearable. I took a bus from the airport to Cairns student lodge, my final destination. All along the way it reminded me of Oregon very green with lots of trees and plants. It was raining when I got here which was kind of a bummer because everyone kept saying how unusual it was but it was still really warm. I got to the lodge and managed to get lost within the first minute with a 50 pound backpack on my back, with a rollie suitcase, and two other small backpacks. But I made it!! Whooo who! They even found someone to carry my big backpack for me! I kind of felt bad though because I ended up being on the second story.. whoops.

I took a little video of my new place that they call a "cluster".

I hope the video works! If not I'll try something else. I brought some pictures and my own pillow case from home to make me feel more comfortable. The Lord has been great and solid through all of my travels allowing me to get there safely and even calming me down when I wake up in the middle of the night to what I think a hurricane might sound like. It was the loudest and biggest rain storm I have EVER seen. Huge! And when I asked someone about it the next day they said: "what rain storm?". I mean seriously you would have had to been deaf not to hear it or maybe just not American. But anywayyyy the campus is beautiful and I can see the rainforest from my bedroom window. The town city center, Smithfield shopping center, was great and I found everything I needed and was a lot of fun to walk through. Similar to our malls or shopping places they even had a food court! But the only difference was that they had this outside next to them while they were eating:

And there is no glass in between you and that! But it was beautiful and nothing screams tourist more than some weird girl standing and taking pictures where everyone is eating. Well there is a little taste what it has been like here for me in the last two days and I am sure there will be more to come! It is amazing to see God's talent and greatness outside of the U.S.