Rivers Baptist Church - Christ alone - and Him crucified

I would like to thank you dearly for your support through prayer leading up to my mission trip. There is less than 17 days until I leave and at the moment everything is being finalised and I’m gathering everything I will need to pack. Since I believe prayer is such a vital part of this ministry, I ask that you please continue to pray for me and the rest of my team the entire summer.

I realised that you don’t really know much about where I an going or what I am doing which is what the purpose of this letter – to inform you exactly what I will be doing while I am away.

I leave on the 23rd of December to go to Tewantin (in Noosa) for a 10 day boot camp. This will involve training in practical classes such as carpentry, care of tools, painting, concreting, building layout, music, drama and puppets. We also receive training in classes such as bible memory, servant hood, attitudes, issues in society etc.

Hi all, one last email from Sulewesi for you : )

I hope that you are all well!
Just a quick email to let you all know our plans to arrive back in Oz. On Thursday at 7am we leave on a ferry for a 5 hour trip to Kendari. Thursday night we fly from Kendari to Makassar where we stay overnight. Friday will be spent shopping in Makassar : ) and around 4pm we fly into Bali. Around 10pm on Friday night we fly back to Brisbane where we arrive at 5:55am.
Lastly we travel from Brisbane to Townsville and arrive in Townsville at 10am on Saturday morning.

We look forward to seeing many of you soon

Hello,

The last week and a half has gone really quickly and has been quite an adventure for us! On Tuesday the celebrations started to mark the end of fasting. That has meant that for 3 days we visited many houses and at each house you basically sit and eat cake and cookies and drink. The problem is you are expected to eat at every house - so after a while you end up quite full!

On Friday M received a text message from our friend saying she is getting married. She came home from town to her island last week to spend with family and was basically told she was to marry. On Sunday was her engagement and they decided for her wedding to be on Monday. We traveled by boat to a small island village to be there for her as she was very upset. She did not want to marry, but the culture says that she must respect her parents decision. It made T, M and I angry and very sad...she is only 20. We all sat there and watched with tears in our eyes as she cried the whole way through the ceremony. She had no choice. It really made us appreciate our freedom to choose!

Hi,

Another update for you from Sulewesi :) Well we are halfway through the time here and the last week or so seems to have gone a lot faster than the previous weeks. Last week we actually went to the university campus for orientation for the students. M wanted to show us that it actually existed because they keep changing all the starting dates so we hadn't actually had a chance to see it yet. If I go to university next year I will definately appreciate all the things our oz unis have because over here it is very basic. I'm not sure what the last date I gave you was, but teaching will not start now until November 5th (and I think that is final...but who knows :)

Greetings,

Well another week has gone by, it seems the days are just blurring together.
We found out this week that classes for university won’t start until October 16th and then they break again a week later for the end of the fasting month. So that has proved a little disappointing for all of us, especially M. It means that in the 8 weeks only 3 and a bit weeks will be spent teaching at Uni and because school is out too we can’t go into the primary schools either. But that is what it is like over here… no timetables, no structure or organisation. We are just trusting that what happens is what is meant to happen, and taking one day at a time. It is good though because there is not such a focus on ‘things and time management’ there is a greater focus on people. People just drop in to each others houses all the time (no appointments made) and people are very hospitable.

Hello again,

Thank you for the emails you have sent. I just wanted to say that because of the slow net connection I probably won't be able to personally answer many email, but we do love getting them and really appreciate it! And we do want to know how you are all going and what has been happening in oz and beyond I will try to send an update at least weekly to let you know what has been happening over here in Bau Bau.

Well it's one week down and 7 to go - no we are not counting or anything.

There has been so much to take in this week, but we are really starting to settle in now. It has been great to have this week just to get our heads around different things.

I now have time to write a proper email to update you all. Man its crazy over here. Bau Bau is fairly small and internet is very slow and drops out, so I'm typing this up in word on Margaret's computer and going to copy/paste it. I hope that all you guys overseas are doing ok, I got to read all of your emails today and it's great to hear from you all. I can't believe that Sarah and Lauren still don't have their luggage, You guys have certainly had a troubled time getting there. Hopefully it arrives for you both soon.

We arrived in Bau Bau yesterday afternoon and it is so amazing. It is a pretty seaside province, though we certainly have heaps compared to these people. As we hopped off the ferry lots of boys ran to us and grabbed all our luggage and started carting it away. Tegan and I didn't know what was happening, They carry it off the ship to earn a little bit of extra money.

Greetings once again from Townsville,

It has been 12 weeks and the time in sunny Townsville has almost come to a close. In a week and a half Tegan and I will fly to Sulewesi in Indonesia. Our trip is quite a long one involving 4 flights and a five hour ferry ride, though it is exciting none the less. The time up here in Townsville has been a time of learning about ourselves, others and God. Each week I have learnt something new from the many subjects, though I would have to say that I have mostly enjoyed Spiritual Disciplines, God’s heart for the world, community work and Basic Counselling.