From the Unexpected

If you are not aware I am going back Australia to continue my mission with NET Ministries. So with that comes the problem of fundraising the money to go back. It's been hard and I still have a bit to pay off but I will get there ... one day.

It's in fundraising that I have seen beauty. Yesterday was the last Sunday that I will be home until November next year, so we stood there again asking for donations. Its been hard to fundraise as there are four from our parish going to NET next year, so everything we do has been divided by four. I was talking to a beautiful lady who has not long become a nun. During this conversation she stuffs every bit of money that she has into our donation box. I was stunned! All I could think of was 'I can't take this from you, that is all you have!'

Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything - all she had. - Mark 12:43-44

I suppose I had never really seen generosity like that, I was blown away by how willing she was to give the money to us. I think I would have been shocked if anyone had done it, let alone a newly professed nun who lives under the vow of poverty. '...but she, out of her poverty, put in everything she had.' There isn't really much that I can say, I was just blown away by it all. God sends you what you need by unexpected means, He sent us somebody who vows to be poor and she gives us everything she has. God is an awesome and mysterious guy.

I suppose it's one of the ways God shows us that we can rely on Him for everything, I am this year, I have no choice in the matter, I can hardly afford to fly to Australia, thankfully I just have enough to get me there. It's liberating to be like this, not be tied down by the constraints of money but still do what I love by the blessing of God. Living free from the worries of the world.

I thank God for the blessings that He has sent, the ones I know He has sent and the ones He sends in disguise.

A coincidence is a miracle where God chose to remain anonymous - Heidi Quade

Safety Blankets

Well tonight is my last night at home until I return home in November. Again, I am jet setting off into the unknown, but a little more known then last time. I don't fly until the third January but I am going to stay with my trusty bestie Katie until I do fly. So I am packing (well procrastinating really) 

See look I've at least started, and this is only half the stuff I actually want to fit in my suitcase. Don't judge about the pj's I wearing them so that I don't have to dirty clothes that I want to take with me

I was listening to the radio the other day and it brought up the true meaning of Christmas, it was a Christian radio station (I wish it was a secular one :) ) and it spoke about the Christmas Charlie Brown. Now I never really watched Charlie Brown when I was younger but this intrigued me. It spoke about the real meaning of Christmas and how this little clip shows it. Well basically Linus, the character with the green hat, tells all about Christmas from the Gospel of Luke. Yeah that's cool but the best thing of all is when he says 'and the angels said unto them fear not ...' at the moment that he proclaims 'fear not' he drops his blanket. We all have our secruity blankets, now it may not be a physical blanket, mine however is a teddy. We all have that thing that we hold onto, we never quite leave it behind and give all to the Lord because we are scared we might lose something, but Jesus came to us so that we might not have fear, only fear and awe in Him and Him alone. We should  be able to take that step and drop the 'security blanket' and let God take control.

So anyway, my NET journey 2.0 starts tomorrow, kind of. I will be living with another NETer for a  few days. There are things that scare me, it's another chapter in life, I will be going back to something similar but find it very different, not all the same people will be there and my team will be totally different, I will end up in a different, or possible several different places. So there are the fears and worries in that. I am particularly sad that I won't be with my team, I would love to continue my journey with the, but this is not what it's about, I'm sacred about being put on a new team, I scared of the fact that my new team won't live up to my previous. I need to let go of the safety blanket feeling of my current brothers and sister and stand up and fight for my next team, I need to create a bigger heart to add love for my next team, but never leave or forget my other brothers and sisters. Lets just say that my biggest fear is my team, yes it was scary this year but I had no expectations, no experience of what it could have been like, but now I have. I need to put those expectations aside and come to understand that no two people are the same therefore making it impossible for two teams to be the same. The only safety blanket I need is Jesus.

This blog post is making it sound that I am rather scared and nervous about going back, as a matter of fact I am totally pumped and excited, ready to go (apart from the fact that I've not finished packing) This coming year is going to be awesome adventure and I pray that it goes as well as my time in Australia was this year. I get to proclaim that Jesus is Lord and help people let go of their safety blankets as I learn to let go of mine.

In it all I ask for your prayers during my time away, prayers for those whom I minister to for and my family that I leave behind. Know that I am praying for all you out there and the youth in thw world who have not yet encountered the love of Jesus.

Praise and Glory to God ... always

Jesus loves you always, His love never epires

Where has Christ gone?

So I am sure you are well aware that it is Christmas tomorrow, unless you are in the American region of the world :) So anyway, all I want to know is where has Jesus gone in the crazy escapade of Christmas? I've just been watching the news and all I saw were people doing their last minute shopping, getting presents, food, anything they need for this festive day just around the corner. Commercials showing all the last minute deals.  No mention of the real reason of Christmas. Not one. Te fact is that there would be no Christmas without Christ ... it would just be 'mas' or as I have seen increasingly often xmas.

Seeing xmas everywhere really annoys me. It is one small bit of proof that the world isn't needing God, or should I say not wanting God, the world definitely needs God. Xmas shows that people are removing God from their lives, literally, they replace the name of Christ with a simple 'x'. Not only are they removing God from their lives but are also showing super laziness, 'who would want to write a word with 9 letters when we can shorten it to 4?' Doesn't God deserve our very best, even those who believe in God write xmas, I write it. Shouldn't we show how proud and excited we are to write the name of Christ, we should put care and attention into it. We should honour Our God in everything we do, especially in the joy of writing His name.

I suppose if we look to a deeper meaning of xmas we can see the shape of the cross in the x. It can serve to remind us, even in these most blessed and joyous times that 'God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life' (John 3:16) and that the whole reason that Jesus came to earth was so that we can be united to Our Father in heaven.

I really want to make this Christmas one centered on Christ and not presents and food and all the other worldy things because it's not the point. The point, the very center of this season is Jesus.

I pray you all enjoy the true spirit of Christmas and have a blessed New Year. Jesus is the reason for the season.!

The Concept of Normal

So I have been thinking about this concept of what it is to 'be normal' for a while now. My conclusion: there is no universal 'normal'.

Since being back home I have been constantly bombarded with 'being normal'. To be honest, my life is normal, for me anyway. The fact that I am living (not forever) in Australia, preaching the Word of God to youth, praying, attending mass, writing schedules, running youth groups and RE classes has, in a way, become my normal. Currently though my 'normal' has been thrown out the window and I'm just sort of floating in this weird unknown of what others say my normal should be, being pulled in all directions. I suppose this started my musings into the norm. It was mentioned to me the other day 'Why don't you go and do something that a normal 19 year old would do?' I think the moral of this question was 'Why don't you go out to town and drink, take drugs and party to the wee hours of the morning?' Now I'm not saying that all late teens do this but this but lets say a large percentage take part in at least one or more of these. Trust me I'm still a teenager and sometimes I feel like all I want to do is go out and party, but I know it's not the right thing for me, personally, to do. I've been asked 'Why don't you go hang out with some of your 'non-church' friends' - most of my friends all attend church at least on Sunday; 'Why don't you let your hair down?' - funnily enough I let my hair down by being at church; 'Why do you always read Jesus books?' - I find them enjoying and inspiring: the list goes on. My 'normal' is not the worlds 'normal' for late teens: FACT.

'Someone please explain what it is to 'be normal', it sounds rather dull and boring. God didn't make us to be dull and boring, He made us to be extraordinary. Don't fall to the worlds standard of 'normal', go out there and be extraordinary for the Glory of God"

I find myself on occasions thinking that maybe I should just go and be 'normal' (in a secular sense) and that I am too 'over churchy' and I need to get a life, then I remember what my 'normal' has been for the past 12 months and both the struggles and triumphs that I have experienced and I realise that I am living the 'normal'. My 'normal' and most importantly God's 'normal'.

Shouldn't God's normal be everybody's normal? Oh how we can hope and pray that the world would find itself back in the hands of God's normal, can you imagine it?! It would be incredible. God created us, loves us, wrote our true 'normal', but it's up to us to take that 'normal' up but in a sad and realistic sense the world is too 'I need my instant gratification and I need it now' and God doesn't always give us that, He gives us what's not only best for our whole life, but for our eternity.

I hope that my ramblings made at least some sense ... I just needed to write it down somewhere. I pray that I continue to follow God's 'normal' that He wrote for me and I pray the same for you.

This Man right here became my 'normal' and I hope that He always stays my 'normal'

Home Again

Well I have been home now for a while. Back in the great, very green country of New Zealand. It seemed very weird at first to be back in my house, back in a place that is so familiar, a place I am so very fond of. I could tell you of all the adventures that I have been on since being back but the truth is, I haven't been on many. My favourite journey that I have been on since I have been home is getting large amounts of sleep. I didn't realise how tired I was until I got back and just crashed into a sleepy, sick version of me. I arrived home and almost immediately I was full of a cold and just wanting to sleep. I think now I may have crossed the line of having too much sleep and being exhausted for the fact that all I have done is sleep.

Chilling out in the garden and enjoying the warm weather

Enjoying the beautiful sunset behind the misty mountains

I suppose I have been having a whole lot of 'me' time since being home, spending time chilling out at the library, St Mary's chapel, home. I have been sat in this bliss of nothingness. Until I go back to Australia I have nothing to do, no aim to achieve, nothing. I have never had that in my life whatsoever, I was always at school, preparing for exams or assignments and then on NET I had to minister, fill out paperwork etc, but now I can just sit back, relax and enjoy the beauty of God in the small things. The small things that we miss when we are always busy, when we are always on the go.

I was able to help out with a retreat on Wednesday with the year 10's from my old high school, it was such a blessing to do so. I remember last year, when I was asked to help out I had no idea how to do things and I was nervous and unsure of what to do. I'm not saying that now I am perfect at running a retreat but I am certainly a lot more confident and have an idea of how to do things. To see the difference between helping run a retreat when I had no idea what I was doing to now is great, it was much more enjoyable and I felt like the young people got a lot more out of it. But God can work with anything so you never know what he did with the previous Aquinas retreat I helped run.

Whilst I am enjoying the huge amount of 'me' time I am also looking forward to a little bit of crazy time with two of my team mates who are coming to stay with me for a while. It will be awesome to spend some time with them.

Well this is just a short update on life

Trust. What is Trust?

You know this year has been a massive learning curve to actually trust God and know that He has everything all sorted. For years I have been sat in my comfortable house, going to church in my car knowing that I can always afford to put petrol in it. I have amazing friends who are always there for me even though they live across the ditch from me at the moment. I have an amazing family who are always wanting the best for me. I have clothes, food, a roof over my head ... in other words I have everything I need and want. I can say that I never really knew the meaning of actually trusting that He has a plan and will make it happen.

"For I know the plans I have for you,' declare the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" -Jeremiah 29:11

I always thought that this was one of those 'cliche' quotes from the bible and I felt it had lost it's meaning because of it. Just know that a quote from the bible never can and never will lose it's meaning. I was looking into this quote in my personal prayer time the other day, again I used to read it and think that if I have God in my life He will make it perfect, I came to the realisation that having God in your life does not make it perfect. Nowhere in that quote does it say that, how could I be so silly as to think that, I should read the quote and take in what it actually says not what I think it says. '...plans to give you a hope...' My plans this year were to come to Australia save some souls and go home again. Never did I think I would end up being really sick, lose a Grandparent and face some hurts from my past ... but I did and in that I have learnt to trust God, really trust in Him. It probably sounds silly but I now realise that God isn't going to make your life perfect and amazing and coat it in pretty glitter, in fact following God isn't always the easy option, but through all your pain, hurt, anguish He gives you hope, a hope for something more, a hope for others, a hope to keep living through your pain and to help others through theirs.

Anyway I must go as the sun has gone down, the bats are out and I am being eaten alive by mosquitoes.

Tired But Still Running

Since getting back from England life has been hectic, hectic in a good way. Busy all the time. Never stopping.To be honest, I'm tired, I don't think I have ever been this tired, but it's worth it.

Just days after arriving back to Emerald I met my team up at year ten camp in Bunbaberg for 3 days of intense high ropes, tree climbing and mingling with the youth; getting up in the morning walking out of your room and having the happy face on, before breakfast even starts. I loved year ten camp and seeing the youth on a more personal basis and I'd do it all again, including having the jet lag on top of it all.

Jumping off the 'Flying Possum'

Then we were in Rockhampton for the youth festival that we helped run with the incredible National NET Team. Again another amazing experience where we got to share our lives with youth. We met some incredible youth from around the Diocese and celebrate being young in the church. We really got to hear some incredible stories from the youth that went and it was a blessing to be there. It was crazy, we drove to Rockhampton and organised what was happening only an hour before the youth event started, the event went really well and lives were changed. In all of that craziness we were able to hang out with the National Team before we drove 3 hours back to Emerald to run our young adults group, Awaken. However in the ride back we drove into a massive storm, the storm being that bad that I couldn't see out of the windscreen causing me to pull the car to the side of the road a wait it out for 15 minutes.

The crazy Emerald and National Team

This is the rainbow's after the storm

 Because of the storm hitting us on the drive home we made it back with 25 minutes to spare before Awaken. That night we were all dead and pretty much went straight to sleep after the last person left.

We also had our supervisors up from Brisbane, what an incredible time that was. We so much to do. The first task that they set us was giving us a $2 coin and told to buy something with it, then with that thing we bought we need to trade it with shops and businesses until we had something totally awesome. So off we set with the task in hand. We bought bubbles, and we traded this for some dog food and that for some beer stubbies etc. For 2 hours we did this and it got to the point where people were no longer trading with us but just giving us stuff, so we ended up with so much stuff. We came home with a toy zebra, a picture of 2 dogs, a beer stubbie, bike light, protein shaker and best of all speakers for a iPod (which ended up being very useful). We had lots of ministry stuff to sort out so we spent a lot of time during supe visit working, but we did get the chance to go to Zumba ... funniest thing ever! It's like exercising without feeling like you are. We also gave a 3 minute exhortation to our team, so basically getting the team pumped up and ready to go all out for the last bit of the year. We are told to be really creative so I decided to go with an Avengers theme, I made a little movie out of it ... here it is.

Since supervisor visit, life has been crazy challenging. We have been busy with so much paper work and ministry that we have all been super tired. We sort of got to the point where we were dragging each other through the day and crashing at night after we finished working. Most of our days have been consisting of getting up and starting doing work and ministry stuff from 6:30am and finishing working at like 8:30. I shouldn't complain but I'm tired. It's a good tired though, like after a good work out your muscles hurt, but its a good pain. Like all the organisation of IGNITE, which is the largest Catholic Youth Conference in Australia, we are sorting out taking the youth there. That has been a challenge in itself as all of our plans for it have been falling through and changing every second day and we were exhausting ourselves out with it, but after a lot of prayer, God pulled through and most things are sorted. We have also been doing a HECTIC amount of fundraising and have managed to raise $2500 in two weeks, bake sales, raffles and SO many sausage sizzles (if I see another sausage this year I will cry) IGNITE will be happening in 3 days and we are travelling down to Brisbane on a bus that leaves at 5:30am and will be arriving in Brisbane a 8pm.

For now, I have had some sleep that has helped a lot but I am looking forward to 12 hours on a bus, where you can do nothing but sleep :)

Plane Brain

*I apologize for bad grammar and spelling as my brain isn't really working from the long haul flights that I have been on up to now*

So I am currently sitting at a window at Brisbane Domestic Airport awaiting  my flight to Emerald. I have a six hour wait before boarding my flight to Emerald and being able to have a shower and unpack. I fear that I smell rather bad but that's what long haul flights do. I left England on the third of August and it's now the fifth so I have been travelling a while. I spent the last few days of my trip to England (I would say holiday, but it wasn't a holiday trip really) saying goodbyes to my family after a beautiful funeral and wake for my Grandma. The funeral mass was highly attended by at least 200 people, followed by taking my Grandma to the Catholic Cemetery where she was buried with Grandad, who passed away 3 years ago. I said goodbye to my Mum, Dad, Sister and her boyfriend at Manchester Airport and began the arduous journey home. I flew out of Manchester Airport with my Auntie, Uncle and Rebecca (my youngest cousin) to Dubai Airport. It was really nice spending that time with them, Rebecca was kicking Uncle Christopher's butt at checkers for most of the flight. I however enjoyed watching the whole second series of Downton Abbey ... amazing. I then spent 3 hours at Dubai Airport where Uncle Christopher proceeded to fill me up on pringles. They then boarded there flight to Perth and I went through my gate and waited to board my flight to Brisbane. I was luckily sat next to a nice girl who was just coming back from a six week tour of Europe. I did get a reasonable amount of sleep so the thirteen and half hour flight didn't seem as long as I thought it would, but it was still reeeaaaalllly long.  So now I am sitting at Brisbane Domestic Airport just waiting ...

The 10 clone-like Grandchildren of the beautiful Valerie and Raymond Heselwood

This is what my Grandparents started ... and isn't it awesome!

I have really enjoyed my time in England, spending time with my family doing things like going to Legoland, shopping, having my hair cut, going to the Museum of Science and Industry and most importantly attending my Grandma's Funeral. I feel totally blessed to have known this amazing, faithful woman, I know she is looking down from heaven on me and my family and keeping her protective gaze upon us all.

The Family. Me, Mum, Louise, Dad and Damian

The weather outside currently is amazing ... the skies are totally cloudless and there are planes surrounding me taxiing in and out all coming and going to their respective places. It's interesting watching the people working, the planes make the ground staff look tiny and ant like. I'm still waiting for my gate to be announced, but it will be a few more hours before it is announced.

So I must be off as I am going to have a baby wipe bath and brush my teeth, then I don't feel as smelly as I look.

London 2012 ... kind of

No, I'm not in London but I am however in Manchester which is north England.

I mentioned that I would keep you updated on my asthma. I did have another major asthma attack and my team ended up taking me to hospital. It was Wednesday evening last week and during team prayer I started having another asthma attack, so my inhalers were grabbed and I was bundled into the car and driven to Emerald hospital, I'm getting quite familiar with that place now :) I was dragged straight into A and E and onto a bed, nebuliser straight onto my face, heart monitor on and a cannula went into my hand. After about 15 minutes I had calmed down and Mateo and Ruth were allowed to come and see me (Odyn held the fort up at home) I was quite 'jolly' by that point, because of all the different drugs the doctors had pumped into my system through my cannula, which I called my laser and proceeded to shoot Mateo with, I was away with the fairies, but still totally conscious of what was going on, so for the next hour or so there were some very funny comments passed around. Ruth decided to video me, so maybe I will see if I can put the video onto the blog. Since the attack started I had a steroid injection, 4 lots of nebulisers and blood tests. I did however have to stay in over night as my heart rate was extremely high, which was at 150, I ended up having to be put on a drip, which went into my cannula, a nebuliser ever four hours, blood pressure checked every hour. I also had the pleasure of a chest X-Ray and two ECG's , but I had an AWESOME lunch the day after at the hospital of roast chicken and vegetables followed by fruit and ice cream :) So I now have to be permanently put onto a preventer and regular check ups :(, but that's ok. My team were amazing and were very good at getting me to the hospital, so I am totally blessed to have them in my life.

Sunset from the sky over Emerald

Relaxing on my three seats

 Now, I am currently in England, not for the Olympics though, Friday last week my Mum phoned me and told me that my Grandma had passed away, which was to be expected but sad. For the past few months Grandma has been suffering from Lung Cancer and passed away in the early hours of Friday morning 20th July with my Mum and sisters around her. So on the Monday afternoon I flew out from Emerald to Brisbane Domestic Airport, caught the bus to Brisbane International Airport, took a thirteen and half hour flight to Dubai, followed by just over seven hour flight from Dubai to Manchester to be greeted by my Mum, Dad and sister waving a sign with my name on it. The flight wasn't too bad, I was hoping for an upgrade (as you are more likely to when travelling alone) but God went one better, I stayed in Economy class but on the first flight I had three seats to myself, with a window and the second flight I had four seats to myself. I have been in England now for just under a week and I have spent time with family and I will be attending my Grandma's funeral on Wednesday morning, where I will be doing the first reading. I am missing my team greatly, but I have been lucky enough to phone them every few days and catch up. I can't wait to return, but I have enjoyed ans will continue to enjoy my time here in England. Prayers for my Grandma would be greatly appreciated. Peace to you all and God Bless

Dubai at night, it was 4 o'clock in the morning their time

The A380 that I am about to board for my flight from Dubai to Manchester

COCA COLA

Back Again

So I arrived back to Australia safely, flying comfortably on Emirates Airline with Katie. I am however slightly annoyed as I started watching the movie New Years Eve and didn't get to finish it. it was an alright movie but I just wanted to see what happened to the characters at the end ... will have to wait for another day to watch it. Katie and I arrived back into Brisbane Airport expecting to walk through the arrivals doors and have someone waiting for us ... it wasn't quite like that, we had to wait to be picked up but after waiting around for 15 minutes we were greeted by the smiling Danni, from Katie's team and Lucy, from Sam's team. I caught up with Ruth at our host home. It certainly is nice to be back in the warm Australia, where I am currently sat outside in 20 degree heat (which is warm for the middle of winter).

After a comfortable stay in our host home, Ruth and I headed out to Mass to meet up with the rest of the Netters and from there be heading on to mid-year training at Bornhoffen Camp on the boarder between Queensland and New South Wales. It was a beautifully surrounded by green mountains and misty mornings where you were greeted with steam rising from your breath, but there was the continuously lit fire in the dinning hall where we all spent most of our time. We spent 5 days being given inspirational talks, hanging out with our teams and having spontaneous Praise and Worship sessions.

This is a picture ... the little dots are glow worms.

I'm still in Queensland but the boarder to New South Wales is on the cattle grid behind me

Standing in QLD and NSW ... AT THE SAME TIME!

So on one of the days we went as a massive group to see the glow worms, for a kiwi, it's not that new but for the North Americans it was a brand new experience of standing in a cave surrounded by glowing dots. Ruth and I were also taken on a 3 minute drive by our amazing Supervisor, Jill, to the boarder of New South Wales

I was however quite sick during the last few days of training as I suffered from five serious Asthma attacks in the last 3 days. I did have the amazing support of Jill who sat with me and helped me out through these attacks and even stayed with for a while whilst I slept after my attacks. You get very tired, very quickly after an attack so best thing for you is to have a nap. I have since been to the doctors and have been given two different inhalers one to take twice in the morning and twice in the evening and then the other to take every two hours ... so I'm puffing away. Let's just pray that I have to only do this for the next week and not for a prolonged period of time. I haven't had an attack since arriving in Emerald and I pray that I don't have one as the doctor ordered that I go to hospital during my next attack to be given a Steroid shot and put on a Nebuliser, which doesn't sound fun. I will keep you posted on my recovery over the next few weeks.

But all in all it's nice to be back in Emerald, in the warmth and the youth have over the moon to see us. I'm looking forward to the next few months and what God has in store for us as a team so get excited to hear all about it.

Prayers.

The break begins ...

So mid-year arrived with great anticipation, I'm not sure Ruth or I slept for 3 days before for sheer excitement. We would sit talking to the wee hours of the morning about nothing much in particular mainly because the excitement of seeing everyone again was immense.

So the day of traveling back to Brisbane arrived, but before we could catch our flight we had our last state RE class for this half of the year. I know there is a certain knowledge that Netters are generally always happy and excited for Encounter Days and such, but I think there was also the excitement of the journey back to Brisbane hanging in the air. Well we arrived at Emerald airport, Ruth and I being in our 'country outfits' consisting of plaid shirts and overalls, however thay must of thought Ruth looked rather 'shifty' as they tested her for explosives. The flight was, well flight like and we arrived at Brisbane domestic airport on time, we were greeted by the amazing Canberra/Goulburn Team with lots of screaming and hugs. We were then transported by the ammzing LKK (National Team van) driven by Paddy back to NET office in Paddington, where again we were greeted by screaming and hugs. The excitement of everything was unbelievable and seeing everyone together again after 5 months of no contact, I can't even begin to describe.

Well we arrived as a group at Hogwarts (or Stuartholme school for Girls), it did look very much like Hogwarts so I felt it would only be right to wear my Hogwarts shirt. We had our mid-year retreat, which was amazing, but I'm not going to say anything because I know some possible future Netters will be reading this (yes, you know who you are) and I don't want to spoil the surprise.

Katie and I arrived safetly in New Zealand on Sunday 24th to a cold NZ, we were both wrapped up and feeling the cold very much. I know for me that the weather change from Central Queensland to New Zealand was drastic. Apart from the cold, I have had the chance to catch up with friends and family and catch up on a huge amount of sleep. Note that I have slept in till two in the afternoon by accident on two separate occasions, but I think that it was well deserved, plus I'm full of a chesty cold. Maybe I should be justifying the sleep ins to Dad instead of myself :) I have been keeping dad company and doing the cooking and cleaning as Mum is away in England and Dad's broken wrist is restricting him in most household and everyday tasks. Lets just pray that it continues to heal properly and quickly.

But I still have just under a week left of break so I shall keep you posted on what's going on. Hopefully I can keep my blog a little more up to date this half of the year.

Blessings to all.

Survivor: Carnarvon

To be honest there hasn't really been much new and interesting stuff going on. We have been going on in life. We have been really hectic but nothing new. Running our 3 youth groups, youth masses, encounter days, RE classes, jam sessions and the other random things that we do.

We had our Supervisor visit at the beginning of May, which really fun, going out for dinner with Ruth and Jill; whilst the boys went and played poker with the staff from Marist and on to watch The Avengers. We had a lot of things to discuss with our 'Supes' and new bits of training. But in that was a whole bunch of fun. We did find these random bicycle things which were fun.

Jill and I peddling to catch up

We also had a whirlwind of a visit from Ruth's brother Patrick. He definitely brought a bit of spark to the Emerald Team with all of his random comments. One comment he used to describe a tin of tuna with mayonnaise and corn was ' that's like chipmunk and banana.' Maybe it was a 'had to be there thing'. We took hi horse riding at one of our youth group attendees farm fort he first time. He now claims to be a horse rider! We spent the afternoon cantering around the paddocks which was fun.

Giddy up horsey

Getting my country on!

We did however just get back from year 8 camp. Being classed as part of the teaching staff at Marist college has it's perks, so we got to attend the year 8 camp. Not only was it nice to get out of the very small Emerald for a week and go and see some of the surrounding country. We sat on a coach for over 3 hours with 40 year 8 kids, screaming down the bus to each other quotes from ASDF Movies, that was fun. We arrived at Carnarvon Gorge and set up our tents, between Ruth and I we had an 8 man tent, our argument for the sheer size of it was that we were there for the whole week where as everyone else including the teachers were only there 2 nights. The reason we were staying was that they split the 140 kids into 2 smaller more digestible groups and we were the lucky ones to stay the whole time! The first night we introduced the kids to 'Big Foot' who kidnapped Mateo and Odyn and eventually sent them back with a message saying the kids have a series of tasks to complete so that 'Big Foot' wouldn't eat them ... lol. The next day we were sent on a 12km walk through the amazing Carnarvon Gorge, I was looking after a group of 13 kids along with another teacher. I had the privilege of being the chaperon at the back 'cracking the whip' trying to get them to walk just that little bit faster. Although I was 'cracking the whip' I did get to know the kids in my group really well; what else can you do on a 12km walk but talk? On the Wednesday of  camp we sent home the first group of students and teachers home to watch the State of Origin Game 1, but we were greeted by another bunch of year 8's on the Wednesday, so the fun didn't stop. The second group being a slightly larger group, were, lets say a little rowdier than the first bunch, so we had to compete a little more for cooperation but all was well. Unfortunately we had to take the second group home early, on the Thursday as it had started to rain and we were going to be flooded into the camp ground, which wouldn't have been fun at all, considering Ruth was getting over a serious cold, Mateo was in the middle of the serious cold and Odyn and I were on the edge of falling into the same cold. So we gladly took the Friday off and slept in until 12:30 ... heaven.

Well I wasn't complaining about our palace tent ... until we had to put it up

Trying not to fall in the creek

Ruth surviving the treacherous Mickey's Gorge

 I know that my team is very much looking forward to our up-coming mid-year break, and are enjoying making a video ... "A day in the life of the Emerald NET Team' Well I must be going, but I promise to blog soon.

P.S Please keep in your prayers a family that goes to Marist college who have been involved in a serious car accident, which has resulted in two of the youth I minister to, to be in intensive care. Please keep them in your prayers

Long time no blog ...

So I realized it's nearly May and I haven't blogged since March, pretty slack I'd say. I'm trying to think what's happened since then.

Well my eye is all better now thanks to my amazing Doctor Odyn. It's definitely a funny story that most of the students at Marist College seem to enjoy. I have become the infamous NET Team member who got super glue in her eye. Funny that :)

But since then, we have had Easter. What a wicked few days they were. we kicked off on Holy Thursday with an evening Mass, where Ruth and Odyn played the music and Mateo and I took part in acting out the Gospel. We had Adoration outside of the church surrounded by fairy lights and massive candles after Mass. Then Holy Friday rolled around and we had Mass at 3pm, where the echoing drum beat as the cross was carried in by two of the youth and several readers read the Gospel. Easter Saturday was a pretty relaxed day where we chilled out as a team together and celebrated Odyn's 20th birthday. We surprised him with a roast dinner that Ruth and I prepared as well as a massive hunt for all his birthday presents around the house, church and school grounds; we claimed that the 'Super-ninjas' from a inter-galactic universe had stole all the 'preciousnessnesses' (his presents) from our earthly dwelling place, but somehow left a trail of clues behind to find them, at the end of the trail, the 'super-ninjas' had left an ice cream cake behind for him. How nice of them. Then later we had the Easter Vigil Mass, where people were being baptized and welcomed into the church. Easter Sunday was a blast. We started off with Mass at our Parish, then headed out to a little town, maybe more of a hamlet, about an hour away called Anakie and played music for their Easter Mass, Mateo and I arranged a billion chocolate eggs outside for all the little kids to find. Then we went to one of the Parishioners house for an amazing lunch of roast pork and beef with an assortment of a million amazing veggies. After that we went and hung out at the Dam with a family where they sent us home with a beautiful home made cheesecake. After that we went to our contact person, Loy, house for an amazing roast dinner with pork and duck. lets just say that we were extremely spoilt on Easter. Easter Monday was ridiculous! Another very generous family offered to take us out Knee-boarding and tubing on the dam. That was awesome, we spent about 5 hours out riding the tube and knee-board. What a blessed few days

Then We got back down to business with all the youth groups and stuff going on.

Just over a week ago we attended the Year 12 Marist retreat and got to hang out with the youth. What an awesome time. Not only did I get to see the beach after 3 months of being inland but we also got to know the youth a lot better and the teachers were amazing. The day after we got back we went into Marist College and spent the day being totally over-whelmed by how popular we are, and this continues. We've had an increase of kids coming to both Impact and Awaken, two of our older youth groups.

A few days ago, I had the most epic privilege of skyping Girls Group back home in New Zealand. It as totally amazing talking to the most amazing holy women that I could know.

So yeah, this is life :)

Accident Prone

So life is treating my team and I very well, our celebrity status just keeps going up in the small world of Emerald. It seems that where ever we go there is always someone there to shout "HI NET!" ... as a collective we all share the same name, NET. In fact even when we are out on our own, which is rare as NET teams all up spend more time together than the average married couple, we still get the name NET.

We were supposed to be heading out to a place called Carnarvon (I think that's how you spell it) Gorge this week to attend the year 8 camp, unfortunately the rain called it off so we are still hanging out in Emerald, preparing for the busy weekend ahead. It would have been nice to have a change in scenery but that will have to wait till our next camp, which is the beginning of next month with the year 12's. We will, however, still get to attend year 8 camp in the upcoming months, not sure when yet.

Our schedule was quickly filled up this week by our awesome contact person, Loy, with mingling at Marist College and preparing for R.E lessons and our 3 youth groups and the possibility of taking a group of young people to a massive Catholic Youth conference called Ignite, in Brisbane. So we still had a lot to do, but we were lucky enough to get TWO sleep-ins to the amazing time of 8am (we all took advantage of that)

It does seem that over the slightly busy week I have still managed to find my way in to hospital ... again. I'm not sure what it is about Australia but I seem to have become quite accident prone. When we go to Marist College we wear a badge, just like the staff but with 'Katrina Jackson, NET Team' written on. It makes us feel special. Now you are probably wondering how a badge landed me in hospital. Well Mateo, my brother on team, his magnet on his badge decided to fall off, so I felt the need to fix it with superglue, so there i am standing in the kitchen with magnet and superglue, when the superglue, not sure how, thinks it would be funny to flick up and land in my eye. So there I am standing in the kitchen with glue in my eye, Mateo is freaking out and Ruth runs out of the spare bedroom, next minute I'm at hospital. So after that event I had a litre of saline solution poured through my eye, local anesthetic, yellow dye, three doctors examining my eye, cotton bud being wiped over my eye, THEN they, they being a collective group of doctors, decide to scrape the glue off my eye with a needle. I'm sure doctors page each other with all the funny accidents to let them know to come down and have a look. So over the past few days I have been enjoying life with one eye, whilst the sick eye, enjoys a nice rest behind an eye patch. Luckily my 'private doctor', Doctor Odyn, who actually refers to himself as 'The Doctor' (hint, he owns a sonic screwdriver) would put my eye medicine goo stuff in my eye every three hours. Thank you Odyn. I no longer have an eye patch and I have now nearly perfect vision in my left eye. On the first day it happened I had what they called 18/6 vision, which means I can see at 6 meters what everyone else can see at 18 meters, now it's back to normal. YAY! They were thinking of referring me to Brisbane hospital to see the specialist but thank God I don't need to go, because I am all better now.

So that is my life so far! Yay, oh and congratulations to the Sealy's, I can't tell you how excited I am!!!

Celebrity Status

It's been getting busier over the past few days with work, more ministry, more ministry prep time, more drama practice, more testimony writing, more talk writing, more mingling.

I have come to the conclusion, with the help of my sister, Ruth, that I hate mingling. Okay so hate is a bit of a strong word but, i do, however, dislike it with a passion. Just hanging out at both High School and Primary, we have to make conversation, about anything really. Now you're thinking, 'yeah easy, you can talk about anything' but it's a lot easier to say than to do. What do you talk to kids about when you know nothing about them ... 'So do you do any sport? ... no. What's your favourite subject ... don't have one. What do you do in your spare time? ... nothing.' This begins the awkward silence. I must admit I have improved greatly over the course of the past few weeks, but it's still not fun. But mingling is where we can start to build relationships with the youth here and get them to start opening up and being genuine with us.

I do however much prefer mingling at the primary school, as we seem to have some form of celebrity status. We run Encounter Days for the primary school each Wednesday and we are offered Tuck shop food (canteen) so we collect our amazing lunches and head out to the crazy onslaught of kids screaming our names, pleading for us to sit with them. It;s a tough decision where to sit as once you have picked a table, you get kids feeling sad they weren't picked. So we feel we have an obligation to share to love. Yes this is probably one of the harder decisions to make throughout most of days and we have to suffer the consequences of the kids. My team seems to have taken up saying 'ACTION STATIONS' as the oncoming craziness begins. Random team inside news fact for you there :) . Mingling at the High School however, is hard! Students just don't want to know the crazy Jesus Freaks ... but that's okay, because persistence is key, and that is what we shall do ... good luck :).

Other than mingling, team life is sweet, Ruth and I get on like two peas in a pod, sitting in our room watching chick flicks whilst the boys sit in the lounge watching crazy action, blowy up scene action movie things ... yeah. There will be videos to come of our very random team life .... really weird, but awesome :) Yeah, so that's just a little of life at the moment :)

Mateo is hungry I think

This is what Odyn does in his spare time

Team randomness

We are yet to get a mop

Yeah

This is our nice team photo

Arrived Safe and Sound

So I have landed in Emerald and we have gone straight into it head first! We were picked up from Rockhampton Airport by the lovely Loy and her husband Glen and driven 3 hours west into the rural parts of Australia. Yes, I am living 4 hours from the nearest beach, which is a big change from what I am used to. The heat is ridiculous we have been experiencing days of 35 degrees and up, apart from one day where it went down to 25 degrees and we all felt cold. COLD? IN 25 DEGREES? lol. Also since being here on Sunday we have had 4 thunder storms ... I love Queensland storms! So I have settled into our little house in the center of Emerald a cute little 3 bedroomed house. Ruth and I are sharing the biggest room and the boys are in the next bedroom along, we have cooking and cleaning roster all in place. So we have already settled into the swing of things. 

We were greeted into Emerald with an afternoon tea put on for us by a few of the parishioners, so many names to remember! Monday we were given a tour of Emerald, which took approximately 5 minutes as most things seem to be on the one road :) So it was really quite a relaxing day. Tuesday we were introduced to the Catholic High school, Marist College, I feel like there is quite a bit of work needing to be done there, and the school has made me appreciate how Catholic my high school was and still is. For a little bit of fun we have all been put into house, I, naturally, have been put in the best house, Moore with the awesome symbol of a shark, and we will be soon be given our Marist College Staff sports shirts in our house colour. We will be heading along to all house competitions to help out and just hang with the students, coming up is the school swimming gala, where there may actually be a NET team race taking place :( ... that should be interesting, and the school war cry competition! We were introduced to the St Patrick's Primary school on Thursday, and they are all so cute and just fell in love with all four of us!

Friday night we had our first youth group, Zeal, which is for Year 4-7's. Wow what a loud bunch of crazy kids, it was insane, they have so much energy ALL THE TIME! We just really introduced ourselves to them and played games and hung out for and hour and a half.

We have our older Youth Group, Impact, tonight, for year 8-10, so please pray that it goes well, and we have Young Adults Group tomorrow night, for year 11 and 12's, so it's going to be a busy few days.

So life is real good at the moment, I'm missing all my family and friends back home. I'm also really missing all my NET family who have been sent around the country! Love to all and God Bless

This is the AWESOME Emerald Team of 2012! Ruth, Me, Odyn and Mateo

Odyn and I celebrating The Lord's Day Celebration

Mateo ... Chillin' as usual :)

The amazing Ruth stood in the check-in queue at the airport  hoping that our bags aren't overweight

Boarding the plane to fly to Rockhampton!

TEAM TIME! Boarding the plane

The crazy brothers and a little snapshot of Ruth and I

SISTERS!!!

TEAM!

Emerald City

The kangaroo that just hung out with us, that we named Peter Wallace (not sure why)

A treat to myself on Waitangi Day

This is Ruth, my sister for the coming year, in the golf shop with a golf club cover :)

So life has been very full on these past few weeks. And I have had hardly any internet connection, which in one way I have quite enjoyed but in another been slightly annoyed by it. The past four weeks of my life have been spent at a camp, where 42 NETters have been learning about all the different skills we will need to survive the coming year. It was an amazing secluded place in the middle of the Australian rural - ish area. To be honest the world could've ended whilst we were on camp and we wouldn't have known about it. The camp has amazing beauty surrounding it, but with that comes creepily large flies, random stick bugs and HUGE lizards, but among it all there were the mornings where we woke up to Kangaroos outside our dorm.

We were thrown head first into a crowd of 42 people we didn't know from ALL over the world, and told we would know each other very well in the time span of a week, it's true, we all got on very well and started to build really strong friendships with everyone, after 4 weeks at camp we would all be able to tell you each others random little things, like knowing which night was a retainer (braces) night for other people.

Since being at camp I have a group of incredible friends, learnt all the different skills for youth ministry, everything from doing a random skit about vasaline to Crisis Care. I have experienced the Brisbane rain and blistering sun, and soft tissue and ligament damage in my left ankle. That was fun, being on crutches for a week ... or as much fun as it can be. All is going well now with my ankle, still in an ankle brace but I am walking on it again, everyone has been really good and helpful and most of all patient with my slow pace of walking :).

Teams were announced a few weeks ago, I have been put on the smallest team, a team of four, we will be spending the next ten months in a place called Emerald, in rural Queensland. My team is amazing, my sister for the year is Ruth who is 19 years old from Cairns, Australia and my two brothers for the year are Mateo, 21 from California and Odyn, 19 from Port Macquarie NSW, Australia. This year is going to be an epic year of ministering to the young people of Emerald and getting to know more about running a household and normal everyday life.

I am now back in Brisbane at an amazing host home, a beautiful family of three older boys, one who now lives in London, and whose bedroom I am currently using, and the parents, our host-mum just love to feed us, so don't worry I'm not starving. I was thrown into it the other day driving back to Brisbane when we were lost in the city centre of Brisbane and I was asked to take over the driving, we were somewhere very confusing in a van and trailer in the mist of the Brisbane traffic at night with one working headlight, two GSP's, one of which wouldn't even switch on and the other one so old it was telling us to take a left turn on a bridge ... hhmmm. It was a very good team building excersise. Don't worry we finally made it to our host homes after five and a half hours in the van.

I will be staying in Brisbane until next Sunday, which will be when I am being sent to Emerald. More news is to come in the coming weeks

Here are some pictures of the last few weeks of life:

Katie and I at the beach

Christine and myself on one of the girls nights

Me with the large creepy lizard

Landings, adventures and musings

Well, I arrived safe and sound in Australia. The last few days before I left  I endured an overwhelming amount of goodbyes, all as equally sad and hard, from the Barbeque I had with friends and family, coffee and lunch with friends, multitudes of family ringing from the UK to wish me luck ... the hardest  of all was at the airport, saying goodbye to Mum and Dad. It was an emotional goodbye and ridiculously hard to walk through the departure gate, but I did it.

After the goodbyes, we joined the long queue at customs for passport checking, bag scanning etc. Our flight was scheduled to depart at 3.15, so we joined the queue at customs at 2.15, making sure we would have enough time to stroll to the gate, we didn’t factor in the length of the queue, but we continued, oblivious of the time customs would take. We came out the other side, checked the gate on our ticket to realise we hadn’t been assigned one, and continued on in a leisurely manner towards a screen to check the gate number ... FINAL CALL flashed  next to flight number NZ739, our flight. We all paused in shock, then coming to our senses we sprinted through the departure lounges, luckily everyone moved out of our way. It was all a bit of a blur really; we made it to our gate, inevitably the last ones there. Panting and out of breath we handed our boarding passes over and made it on to the plane. The crew obviously knew that we would be the crazy loud people as we were seated on the VERY last row at the back of the plane. As we took off, we said our last goodbye, to the green grass, the tall trees, the cooling breeze and New Zealand.

Three hours and seventeen minutes later, we bumped down on to the Australian tarmac, home for the coming 11 months. We made our way off the plane, and proceeded to collect our luggage as it came banging down the ramp onto the conveyor belt,  we stood around waiting for Katie’s guitar to come after our bags, we waited and waited and waited until the baggage claim area was empty, it seemed that it wasn’t coming. The increasingly anxious Katie asked a security guard where it could be, and to all of our relief there was a fragile baggage claim area. And there sat a guitar case. We proceeded out and passed through the doors to see the bubbly smiling face of Sarah, one of the NET staff.

Katie and I have been hosted at a home in the suburb of Indooroopilly (you will have to excuse the Aboriginal names, as I am still trying to get used to them, it may be an impossible task). We currently have 4 host-siblings, 3 boys and a girl, all extremely loud and excitable, but it’s a nice change from the quietness of my home.

The first full day that I was here, Katie and I went on a hunt looking for the humble and cute abode of Christine and her home stay buddy, the loud and awesome Canadian, Dana. They have been living around the corner from us for the past nine days, we just didn't know where about, so we spent half the morning walking aimlessly around looking for a small sign of their house. After about an hour and a half we found it and knocked on the door to find only their host mum home, and a message that they had gone down the road to the local koala sanctuary. We eventually found Christine and Dana among the Dingo's, snake's, emu's, kangaroo's and every other wacky Australian creature.

Since then I have been attending the 'BEAT' school of music, and I have been loving every minute of it. I have been cramming my head full of awesome new songs for the coming year and I have assured myself that by the end of this year I will be able to play the guitar. I have attended hands on vocal workshops, worship leading workshops, music ministry workshops, performed with a group of 'NETters' and attended the awesome 'HEARTBEAT' worship night. The school of music was an awesome 4 days of getting to know some 'NETters' in a small amount because the next few days will be packed with an overwhelming number of new people and faces.

Since 'BEAT' I ventured out to bustling Brisbane city and joined a group of 'NETters' to a man-made beach along the river, where we just had fun and got really sun burnt (well I did anyway). I have had a relaxing few days off.

Today however we had orientation day where we met a large portion of the 'NETters' and did all the legal paper work for the oncoming months. So today was a hectic mass of people, when I say mass, I mean 45 people, trying to sign all the necessary documentation.

Tomorrow I will be heading out to 'camp' for the 5 week training program about an hour north of Brisbane. I can't promise when I will be next available to update my blog but I will try to keep it updated as much as possible.

God Bless