hippies, treasure, and thankfullness

it seems like forever since i last wrote to you! one thing about beach to bush that i've noticed is that weeks can pass by but when i get back on base it doesn't seem that way. so anyway, how are you? how was your christmas and new years? cold i'm sure :) a few days after christmas i left for byron bay and satyed there for 2 weeks. byron bay is the easterly most point of australia and is known for it's spiritualness, but not in the best way. byron has a ton of hippies and new agers and some pretty dark spiritual people there, but that's the reason we went. for 2 weeks many ywam groups came together and did this thing called impact summer which has to do with evangelism. the groups came from brisbane, gold coast, island breeze, byron bay, and adelaide. it was so cool being able to meet so many ywam-ers from all over. i was able to meet some germans which was super nice :)

we all slept in churches and in my church we had about 30 girls and 1 shower. one way or another it worked out :) every morning we had to pack up our stuff and put it away because in the church i was staying in was where we had our big meetings. at 10:30 we all met in the church and had worship and devotional time, along with the occational game (blood, sweat, and tears were shed for those games, literally). afterwards we had lunch then evangelism time until about 4:30. we would be dropped off in town and we could do evangelism in town or do beach ministry which is where we played volleyball most of the time. later we'd have dinner, an hour to rest, and then at 7:30 we'd have a worship time and then head out at 8 or 9 for panchai (pancakes and chai tea). we would go down to one of the 2 parks, rails park, and make free pancakes and chai tea and have some kind of entertainment going on too. so many people would come out and it gave so many opportunities to talk to the people. we had the option to stay in the park or go out into the town or beach and evangelize there.

for the first week it rained every night so we didn't really have the chance to make panchai but we still went out and evangelized. to be honest, i'm not all that comfortable with evangelism. i don't like going up to random strangers and just start talking about jesus. it's just something i'm not used to. but i tried. so yeah, for the first week i went out every night and tried to evangelize, or if anything just did a prayer walk around town. like i said before, byron bay is filled with hippies and at night you have to watch out. the drug and alcohol use is so bad at night that i felt really bad for them. never in my life have i been asked so many times if i have any weed. people will come up and be nice and start a conversation like "how are you" "where are you from" and you think you're making progress. but then they ask "do you by any chance have any weed" as if they were asking "do you by any chance have the time". so normally do they ask. it caught me off guard many times. it was also frustrating as a girl to try to talk to people about christ when all that was on a man's mind 75% of the time was that they wanted a good time. the pick-up lines never ended either. but by the second week i was used to them.

the first week on friday we held a volleyball tournament and it turned out so well. we had it on january 1 and it was a good way to start out the new year, for the most part. at first we were hoping that some people would come out and in the end we had 20 teams with 4 people on them. we even had to turn people away because we didn't count on having that many people. it was fun watching and talking to people and swimming in the ocean was glorious. but the undertow was pretty strong so i left earlier. unfortunately i got the biggest sunburn of my life and was red and in [ain for almost a week. i thought i put enough sunscreen on, but i guess not- oops.

last week was a pretty tough week. one of my friends in my group, jen, got a phone call from her mom the day before we left for byron bay saying that her dad was in the hospital with pneumonia, a blood clot in his legs to where he couldn't walk, and he was unconscious. her mom told her that if he wasn't better by the next week she would sent jen home. it was so dicouraging for her since just 2 weeks before we had all prayed for her dad and he had been healed from a very rare form of cancer. but jen had faith and we all got together and prayed for her dad and for her family. the week went on and on thursday morning jen missed a call from her mom..... just thinking of it now brings tears to my eyes. next thing i knew i heard screaming and i knew that it was jen. as another friend of mine and i held a screaming jen down we heard her mom say over the phone that jen's dad had passed away. it was one of those moments that will stay forever in my mind. holding her while she was crying was so heartwrenching. it was awful hearing her cry and say that God had promised her that her dad would be healed and why would He go against His promise. i had to leave for about 20 minutes but then all of beach to bush was brought to the church to be with jen. one of the worst things was when she looked at me and was like "stephanie, what am i going to do? what's going to happen now without him?" even now writing this i'm fighting the tears so much. it killed me that i couldn't answer those questions for her. all i could do was look her in the eyes and tell her with as much confidence as i could give that it's all going to be ok. apparently what had happened was that her dad had heard how jen's mom was going to send her home, but he told her not to, that jen was exactly where she was supposed to be. jen's mom and brother went and visited her dad and he told them that he loved them and to make sure that they told jen that he loved her. jen's mom and brother left and a few hours later her dad had a massive heart attack. jen and 3 other beach to bush people who she was also close to left for brisbane that day and tried to get flights back home. she got one the next day on january 1. please keep jen in your prayers. she family barely had enough money to pay for the funeral due to all the hospital bills. jen really wants to come back to australia since back home things aren't going so well. she doesn't really have friends since they're mostly pushing her to drink and party. she calls almost everyday and we skyped her yesterday (yeah!) and she really wants to some back so badly! so, as beach to bush we thought that if we could maybe riase money to get jen back here. even if we just gave $50 we could get her back here and still have some money left for her outreach. but this is something that we're praying about and we're going to see what God says.

for new years beach to bush had off during the day to recooperate from what had happened that morning with jen. then that night we had to go out and do evangelism. to be honest i was in no mood to talk to anyone about God. i was still down from the morning and this was the last thing i wanted to do. we were put into groups and the one i joined wanted to go down to the beach. so we walked down to the beach and as we tried to figure out what to do next someone got the idea that we should walk down the beach to this big look out point. halfway there i realized this was exactly what i needed. i talked to God abit and hummed a few songs. the long walk gave me time to clear my head and at the top of the look out i was able to talk to God about what was really on my mind and how i was hurting. this was really what i needed and i'm thankful for that. we left for the church at 11 and brought in the new year with praise and worship. it was hard to sing while i was still thinking about jen, but i made it through.

this week the byron bay leader gave us something new to do as far as evangelism- a treasure hunt. this isn't just any kind of treasure hunt but a spiritual treasure hunt. what you do is pray and ask God to give you a location, a person's name, their appearance, something that they need prayer for, and then the unusual. you write down whatever God gives you and then you go out and find your treasure. one thing i've learned is that you need to write down whatever comes to mind because many times we ask God to talk to us and when something random pops up in our mind we many times push that aside since 'we're waiting for God to speak' and He jsut did. so for me it was:
location: by one of the round-abouts in town
name: gabriel
appearance: shaggy blonde hair, blue eyes, ear piercing
something for prayer: searching for something or Someone
unusual: bracelet
so i went out that day and tried to find my treasure but didn't find him. but no worries, my last treasure hunt lasted 3 weeks til i finally found the person. that night we had panchai and i decided that that night i would step out in faith and have no fear of man. so that night i went out with another girl and we invited people to panchai. it actually went pretty well. haha it's funny seeing people's faces, especially guy's faces, when they hear the magic words "free" and "pancakes". i saw so many times guys go "free pancakes?!" and then their girlfriend drag them away going "no, i don't want any". it's highly entertaining :) so after a few invites (and the occational lame pick-up line) i went back to the park and stood on the sidewalk and invited people to the panchai. i stood in line at the pancakes because i was delivering some to some people and i started a conversation with the guy infront of me. it was small talk like how are you and this and that. as he was about to leave he was like i'm sitting over there and so i joined him after my delivery. we talked for a few minutes and then he introduced himself as casper. as i shook his hand i heard the holy spirit go "this is your treasure". oh my goodness!!!! it was so hard to keep my enthusiusm in control. many times not everything in your "map" is correct so just listen to what the Spirit says. anyway, we talked for like an hour and then we got up and got some tea. one of my german friends from the gold coast came over and i exploded on him with excitment and told him how i found my treasure. haha i must have been some kind of sight to see. casper and i talked for another hour and we talked about some spiritual things. he had already talked to some ywam-ers and he knew about christ. i didn't pray for him or anything too deep just because i felt that this wasn't the time for it. he's talked to another christian who had come on very strong and defensive so i knew he still needed time. but i'm so happy i found my treasure!!!!

as the end of the week was coming to a close a very important anniversary also came. on january 7 was the one year anniversary of my car accident. it's so hard to believe that a year has already passed yet i remember everything like it was yesterday. my friend from gold coast told me happy anniversary and wondered if i had gotten emotional yet and i told him not yet ;) the day seemed to drag on and that night at panchai i had a conversation with a german backpacker and i left feeling frustrated. so i ended the night with a sit on the beach and lookingout at the ocean and stars. the next morning i woke up at 4:50am and went to the lighthouse that was in byron and watched the sunrise at the easterly most point of all australia. it was definately a sight to see.

i leave tuesday for straddie island for survivor week in prep for outreach. but in closing i want to thank some people in connection to my accident. looking back i realize how much it changed my life forever and without it i probly wouldn't be in ywam australia. through all the struggles and hardships i faced i guess i'm thankful in that it's made me a stronger person and it's made me closer to God. there are 3 people whom i would like to thank for when it seemed like my world was crashing around me they were there and helped me until my mom could get to me.
mr. eric colvin, mr. billy oram, and mr. dustin wells: you have no idea, no words i could ever say or write could fully express my thankfullness and gratitude for what you did for me that day. other than the ride to the hospital you were there for me and it was such a comfort to me. as i'm writing this i'm crying for the kindness and love you showed that day, i'll remember it for the rest of my life. you were there to help me in my time of need and that means more to me than anything. you helped mareike and lucas when i felt like i couldn't, and with tears falling down my face, i thank you eternally. may God bless you and your families and may He always fullfill your needs. i love you guys and thank you.
~stephanie~