three glorious weeks.

Well, its true. I have been gone for three weeks now and this is the FIRST time I've posted. Ahh horrible person I am. BUT the internet where I live is extremely finicky and seriously every time I sit down to write a blog post the internet goes out. I have NO idea what is up with that. So anyways I'm sitting here at my favorite coffee shop, Gloria Jean's happily updating you all with my life in Australia!

I arrived in Aussie on January 5th around 4pm and was greeted by two team leaders, Bronte and Rachel and a fellow teammate, Nathan. I was also greeted with 91 degree weather. Sweat fest ensued rather quickly. My flights to Perth were rather uneventful and LONG, but good. From the time I woke up on Monday in Maryland to the time I went to sleep for the first time on Wednesday night in Perth at 12am was a total of 85 hours. Yeah, THAT happened. And I woke up that next morning at 530am. All-nighter, my foot!

For the first 4 days in Perth we (as in the 7 early arrivers) had nothing actually planned so we had long days of watching movies, exploring the city at night, going to the beach, and taking spontaneous naps (as in you're sitting on the sofa and all of a sudden you realize 5 hours have gone by, you have a crick in your neck, and you can't remember where you are. love those naps!), and welcoming new students! By the time Orientation monday came around and 50 new students had rolled in, those who had gotten to Aussie early were super ready for a schedule. And so began the first week of YP! The first two days were Orientation and then wednesday-friday kicked off with lectures on Hearing God's Voice taught by our school leader, Quenton. Good stuff, hey! (oh also, I live with a bunch of Canadians and Australians. Pardon the random outbursts of canadian and aussie talk lol).

The first week was pretty chill and we had a lot of time to hang out and still do a bunch of fun stuff. However, then came week two which is basically when REAL YP starts. (By the way, YP stand for Young Peoples, the name of my school.) Here's what a typical day looks like: Wake up in the morning at 545am and walk across the street the the Oval (an oval shaped park. hence the name) for morning exercises which either consists of a stretch session, ultimate frisbee, or running. I usually go for the ultimate frisbee. After 30 minutes of that, it's back to 228 (girls house) for either breakfast or sleeping more. Then it's time for a shower at 7:00, then quiet time and then morning chores starts at 8. Morning chores is just that, chores in the morning. I clean 228 with about 25 other people (it's not THAT big so we get done super quick!), while others clean either 15 Gladstone (boys house) or 12 Gladstone (classroom building). After that, if it's a monday, wednesday, or friday, we have either group worship as a whole base (as in everyone here doing anything with YWAM in Perth) or just as a school. Let me pause here and say that worship here is NOTHING like I've ever experienced before. I've never been around a group of people more on fire for the Lord than the people here. Seriously, one of the most amazing things to be apart of. I love it SO much! God's presence is truly felt all the time!

Anyways, after worship its to the class room for either 4 or 2 hours of teaching. Big prayer request here! Although the content of the lectures is superb, I'm having quite a hard time staying awake! Pray that God gives me energy! After lectures end at 12:30-45, I usually head across the street to the boys house to eat or read or just chill with them, sometimes I'll even curl up in a chair and sleep. Now, here is something you must understand, there is no air conditioning in the boys house and we live in Australia and its DEAD in the MIDDLE of SUMMER. It is miserably hot most of the time. And by miserably hot, I mean 42 degrees Celsius. that's 104 degrees Fahrenheit. YEAH. HOT. So the only way its possibly to fall asleep curled up in a chair in the boys house is if you are absolutely EXHAUSTED. And that would be me. Dead. Tired. almost all the time. And when you wake up you're completely soaked in sweat. Yay.

But anyways, at 3:30 I walk about 5 seconds down the hallway of the boys house into the nice air conditioned registration office where I have work duties for 2 hours. (Side note: I work with the BEST ladies EVER! I love them so much!) After that its off to dinner with my cluster: a group of about 20 people who all eat together every night. Two families are staff here with YWAM and then about 10 of us are YP students with 2 leaders. Love having dinner with these people!

And thats basically what a day looks like! Some nights we have free after dinner, and some times we have class or evangelism.

I've gotta catch the bus back to base for work duties, but hopefully later this week I'll put up morning stories about what God is doing here, who I have met and come to love, and just daily life.

Miss you all back home!