Brisvegas

What an amazing week I've had. The ball has started rolling at one of the schools we're at. There's an R.E. class tomorrow we'll get to volunteer at. As in the U.K. in Australia you can teach religion in classes as long as there's fair representation of all religions. Some schools have religion classes every week but most get to experience other religious practices through assemblies. Tomorrow morning the 8th Graders of Cavendish Road High school will be piling into a lecture hall to hear about Jesus. I'm so excited for what God is going to do there. At our meeting on Tuesday we went into the room and prayed over Thursday's R.E. that hearts would be exposed and kids would have their eyes opened to see what's missing in their lives. Every prayer helps. We'll have a chance to share some of our testimonies and lead small groups after the lecture part is over. This will also give us a chance to promote the camps we're holding in a couple weeks. I can't believe the team will be here a week from Saturday. Time flies.

I can't wait to have more American's around. It will be funny to watch all of their reactions to the culture shift after having been here for a month. God is blessing my relationships with growth as time goes on. I really want to be able to surrender and let him move in them more. Help me love deeper and more genuinely. I often force things because I don't think I'm friendly enough but that never works. We just need to be transparent and loving and be able to laugh together. I just got back from a camping trip that helped me do all those things. We were able to experience some authentic Australian bush. I had forgotten how much I love to go camping. We had such good times just sitting around a fire talking. I think humans need to do that more often. It's so much better than sitting in front of a television.

Yesterday after visiting the schools we were able to go rock climbing. I really need to take pictures and I'll have some up later but it was dark last night. It is such a perfect area to do it. It's a natural rock face that runs along the river that cuts through downtown so right on the other side of the water is a beautiful view of the city. I went abseiling for the first time. I was expecting a new way to repel down gracfully back words but no. We got to the cliff's edge over 100ft to the ground and Josh, the ACU intern we're working with over here jumps down face first. I was not mentally prepared for that. The first time I was too timid and didn't let the rope out fast enough so I fumbled my way down the rocks and whacked them pretty hard once. But once I got the hang of it I went down much faster. The harness has less time to dig into you if you go fast. If you ever get the chance go faster than slower. Ok, that's all for now. Thank you agian to everyone that made it possible for me to be here. God is doing such wonderful things here and I'm privileged to witness and participate in it.

Shalom,
Robert