January 24th
It’s officially been a week since our great adventure first began, but we’ve experienced enough to have made it seem like ages ago since we were last in Canada. From baking on big and beautiful beaches, to kanoodeling krazy kangaroos, to strolling the streets of Sydney, we’ve really had a week jam-packed with life memories. The last couple of days have certainly been different, as the high speed always-on-the-go pace has slowed down to a pace more apt for absorbing in Sydney culture as best we can. Despite the change, and some slow moments, we’re still having an amazing time here in Australia.
Our last day with the Worners started early, as we were all out of the house and leaving Mittagong by 7:00am; which was a tough departure as it was a town that we all had grown to love! We took transit for the majority of the trip, and arrived in Sydney around 9:30. We were planning on taking a ferry to Darling Harbour, but the ferry didn’t leave until quarter after ten, so we spent 45 minutes walking around the Sydney Opera House, which was really cool! We were all blown away by the size of the Opera house, and the architectural uniqueness was even more evident in person! After taking about a zillion pictures with the Opera house, we were at ease with the idea of moving on, so we got hopped onto the half hour ferry destined to arrive at Darling Harbour. Darling Harbour is a very busy, commercialized harbour that is the home to the Sydney Nature World (a cute little zoo where you can literally cuddle with Koala’s), the world’s largest IMAX theatre, and the Australian Maritime Museum, which contains everything from pirate ships to Nazi submarines. The Worner’s took us on a tour of the harbour, and showed us a restaurant where we can get a good quality lunch (aka burger and fries) for less than $10.00, which is extremely hard to find in Sydney! After lunch they showed us Paddy’s market, which is a fascinating massive-scale version of Pike Place market, selling everything from lingerie to DVD players, to fresh fruit. After looking through heaps of knock-off UGGS vendors and less than legitimate brand name clothing stores, we found our hotel and checked in. Originally when we booked our hotel, we booked into a “Petite Double” room, which was supposed to only have one double bed, but when we checked in the manager told us that we were put into a Deluxe Triple, which meant that we got a mini-fridge, air conditioning, three beds, and a sufficient bathroom, so we were extremely grateful, and relieved! All of our bags were still in the Worner’s car which was parked near the Opera house, so after we checked into our hotel we took a very interesting and scenic walk back to the area where their car was parked. We walked through “the rocks” area of Sydney, which is the oldest part of Sydney, which was really cool to see, and then we walked to the Sydney Harbour Bridge; the famous bridge that overlooks the Opera House, and the entire downtown core. Phil went with the Worners and they climbed up the bridge a little ways to get better pictures and a better view, but considering that it was 43 degrees at the time, Ryan and I unfortunately felt that we had to stay down and sit in the shade and catch a breeze, to cool down avoid overexposure to the extreme Sydney heat. After this we brought our bags back to the hotel, and the Worner’s left us there, which was an extremely emotional departure as we grew very close with them! As we watched our Aussie family drive away, we were hit with a sense of independence, and we started to miss them immediately!
Friday night was our first night alone, and we spent it volunteering at the local Salvation Army. The dean of Capernwray Australia mentioned to us that he was going to be there so we chose to meet up with him, and had a spectacular night of worship with over 50 local street people. The street ministry that the Salvation Army has in Sydney is a very active ministry, and is seeing great growth. They put on a lot of local events for the congregation, and they try their hardest to ensure that the ministry that they have goes further than just offering a free meal, or a church service once a week. The Salvation Army is very intentional about establishing relationships and changing lives and through the testimonies that we heard, they are doing a great job. We were so blessed to be able to be a part of their daily routine even for just night, and all of us felt very stretched, and challenged as we embarked upon conversations with people that we would have otherwise never come into contact with. The stories of faith, pain and triumph that were expressed through their very personal prayer requests brought up so many emotions in all of us, and we all felt so inspired by the people we met. I really realized through these Australian street people just how big God’s movement is. There is a Christian revolution that is taking place, and it is an international, multiethnic, movement that is not bound by any social restraints or political ideology. I found it encouraging to see firsthand just how big our God is, and how beautifully contrasting the faces of his followers are!
Saturday we finally caught up on some sleep, bought groceries, and then went to Hillsongs Church, the World renowned mega church. I’ve been researching the church for awhile now, and I knew what the building looked like where the services were held, and I knew were to take the train to, and where to catch the bus, and we were able to make it their without flaw. I confidently walked up to the big white building that I had seen on the internet, and went to open the large double doors only to be rejected, as they were locked. The security guard who had been apparently been talking to us as we walked up to the doors then informed us that Saturday night services are held in the smaller 1500 seat auditorium in the youth wing, and pointed us in the right direction. I was a little disappointed, as I really had hoped to see the massive 4000 seat auditorium, but nevertheless I was at Hillsongs church, and I was so excited to dive into the experience! The worship at Hillsongs was as amazing as expected. Phil and I went to the front and joined into the mosh pit that developed, and we jumped and worshiped with hundreds of others from the mostly young adult congregation. The speaker for this weekend was American speaker John Bevere and his wife Lisa, and John delivered a really good word based on Honour, and the reward that is received when you honour authorities, peers, and those that you have authority over. It was a really good talk, and was really challenging when he addressed the issue of honouring authorities that abuse the authority that God grants. After the service, we were waiting for the bus to take us back to the train station, and we got talking with a man who we found out was the head of the nearby Hillsongs College. We talked to him about the service, and about Capernwray, and he told us that if we really wanted to experience Hillsongs Church, we had to come back to the Sunday night service, as that is the service that they fill the main auditorium, and that is the service that is 95% 18-25 year olds, so we shrugged off the idea, assuming that we wouldn’t be able to make the hour trip back to Hillsongs.
This morning when we woke up, we realized just how acclimatized we had gotten to the Australian weather. The last 3 days had been 39degrees, 41 degrees, and 43 degrees respectively, so when we woke up today to find it 25degrees, let’s just say we had hoodies and blue jeans on before you could say “that’s not that cold..?!”. We had planned on meeting up with a mutual friend between Phil and me, and going to one of the Sydney beaches, but that plan quickly changed when we realized the balmy weather, so instead we just met up with her for a brief lunch. We were left with the majority of the evening to ourselves, so we decided to go back to Hillsongs to experience the Sunday night service. Doing so was a very good choice! Marty Sampson, one of the leaders of Hillsong United lead worship along with some other members of Hillsong United band, and John Bevere spoke again, but this time he spoke on the empowerment of grace leading to extraordinary living, and it also was a very good message. We left feeling like living in Australia and attending Hillsongs church on a regular basis wouldn’t be such a bad idea!! After the service when we were waiting for the train to come, two girls came up to us and asked us if we were going to Capernwray New Zealand, and we said yes, and found out that they too were going! They were two girls from Calgary named Danielle and Shannon, and so we talked with them for about half an hour, and then said goodbye. It was a weird interaction, but got us pretty excited to go to school. We have about three more days to experience Sydney, one of which is the much anticipated Australia day on Tuesday, and we are really excited to be Australian for a day!
That is a very not-brief update on what we have been doing for the last couple of days, I’ll continue to keep you updated on our journey as best I can. Thank you for your support, and for your prayers, this has been an incredible adventure! Part of the reason that we are able to be so involved in all of the activities we’ve been a part of is because we know that we have an amazing network of friends and family back home that are supporting for us, and loving us every step of the way.
God bless,
Zakk... (written on behalf of Ryan and Phil as well!)
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Vegemite!
January 21st
Greetings from Mittagong!
Ryan, Phil and I arrived safely, without hassle in Sydney Australia on Tuesday, and I have since had 3 of the best days of my life! We were blessed to be picked up at the airport by some close friends, who then proceeded to take us on a two hour coastal tour on the way back to their home. I quickly realized that Australia was nothing at all like I had expected it to be. I’d always envisioned that Australia was very commercialized, and that the beaches would be full of high rising hotels and condominiums, with super malls scattered across the country, but that is not the case. Once we were out of Sydney, there was an extremely natural feel about everything. The beaches are extremely clean, with no signs of human interference, and the people are EXTREMELY kind and friendly. Whoever says that Australians are like Americans, and New Zealanders are like Canadians is a fool. The warmth, generosity and compassion of every Australian person that I have come across is palpable, and incredibly comforting! Within minutes of meeting the Worners, the family that has taken us in, I felt as though I was their son, and that has been such a blessing to us. Everyone has taken us in and made us feel so welcomed to Australia, I can already tell it’s going to be very difficult to leave!
The first adventure that we had was going to see the Capernwray Australia Torchbearers campus. My friends Nicole and Paul are going to that school in about a week, so we went to check it out, got a good tour, and wrote them a letter we left with the schools dean. The dean talked to us about the capernwray that we are going to, and gave us words of encouragement, and it brought us back down to earth, and reminded us that despite how amazing this vacation has been for us, we are here to go to bible school, and we are here to learn about God, and the school that we are going to will be an incredible place to do that. Steve Woods got us extremely excited about school, and that will help make leaving Australia a little bit easier!
Yesterday the Worners drove us about an hour and a half to visit their friend’s beach house, which is on Jervis Bay, in a town called Vincentia. We stayed the night there, and had an incredible time! The beaches are known for having the whitest sand in the world, and they were breathtaking! I felt like I was walking on icing sugar, they were so pretty, and so soft! Jordan Worner, Ryan, Phil and I rented mopeds, and went for a ride along the beach for an hour or so, and got to drive on the left side of the road, which was so weird!
Later that night, we went out to try and find kangaroos. We were informed that if we went to the local golf course, we’d be sure to see kangaroos, so we went there. At first, we didn’t see any anywhere. We walked down a few fairways, and were completely out of luck, until I looked a couple greens over and thought that I saw one standing on the green. Sure enough, there were two little kangaroos on the green, so we started walking towards them, ever so slowly! We were about 100 meters away, and they were both looking at us, and twitching so we decided we probably couldn’t get any closer and we started to take pictures. I was looking through my camera, and had it zoomed in with its 10x zoom, or whatever the furthest zoom I had was, and was taking extremely average photos. Suddenly the kangaroo that I was focused on left my zoom finder, and I thought I had lost him. I tried to find him, thinking I could maybe get a good action shot of him hopping away, but wasn’t able to track him anywhere. When I finally put down the camera, I realized why I couldn’t find the Roo, and it’s because he was standing 4 feet in front of me! Ryan Phil and I all got some pretty good pictures with the kangaroo, and called it a day... and an amazing day at that!
Another memorable experience we had was this morning, when one of the Mom's forced Vegemite upon Ryan Phil and I. For those of you who don't know, Vegemite is a yeast extract that contains natural vegetable salts. It is the most vulgar smelling spread you could ever imagine, and people actually enjoy eating it. It is extremely salty, and we had the blessed opportunity of having it on our toast this morning. As gross and salty as it was, it was still a fun experience, and was a neat aspect of Australian culture that we would not have discovered if it wasn't for the generosity of our Australian friends!
The opportunities that we’ve been able to experience have truly been astounding, and we have only been here for less than three full days!
The weather here has been consistently above 30 degrees Celsius, and after 3 days I’m still yet to see a cloud in the sky! It has been absolutely perfect, and the forecast predicts much of the same, only much much hotter! Tomorrow has a high of 45degrees, plus humidity which makes it feel 2 or 3 degrees warmer, so it might be a little bit unbarable!!
That’s about all for now. I’ll continue to try and keep you guys updated
Blessings
Zakk
Greetings from Mittagong!
Ryan, Phil and I arrived safely, without hassle in Sydney Australia on Tuesday, and I have since had 3 of the best days of my life! We were blessed to be picked up at the airport by some close friends, who then proceeded to take us on a two hour coastal tour on the way back to their home. I quickly realized that Australia was nothing at all like I had expected it to be. I’d always envisioned that Australia was very commercialized, and that the beaches would be full of high rising hotels and condominiums, with super malls scattered across the country, but that is not the case. Once we were out of Sydney, there was an extremely natural feel about everything. The beaches are extremely clean, with no signs of human interference, and the people are EXTREMELY kind and friendly. Whoever says that Australians are like Americans, and New Zealanders are like Canadians is a fool. The warmth, generosity and compassion of every Australian person that I have come across is palpable, and incredibly comforting! Within minutes of meeting the Worners, the family that has taken us in, I felt as though I was their son, and that has been such a blessing to us. Everyone has taken us in and made us feel so welcomed to Australia, I can already tell it’s going to be very difficult to leave!
The first adventure that we had was going to see the Capernwray Australia Torchbearers campus. My friends Nicole and Paul are going to that school in about a week, so we went to check it out, got a good tour, and wrote them a letter we left with the schools dean. The dean talked to us about the capernwray that we are going to, and gave us words of encouragement, and it brought us back down to earth, and reminded us that despite how amazing this vacation has been for us, we are here to go to bible school, and we are here to learn about God, and the school that we are going to will be an incredible place to do that. Steve Woods got us extremely excited about school, and that will help make leaving Australia a little bit easier!
Yesterday the Worners drove us about an hour and a half to visit their friend’s beach house, which is on Jervis Bay, in a town called Vincentia. We stayed the night there, and had an incredible time! The beaches are known for having the whitest sand in the world, and they were breathtaking! I felt like I was walking on icing sugar, they were so pretty, and so soft! Jordan Worner, Ryan, Phil and I rented mopeds, and went for a ride along the beach for an hour or so, and got to drive on the left side of the road, which was so weird!
Later that night, we went out to try and find kangaroos. We were informed that if we went to the local golf course, we’d be sure to see kangaroos, so we went there. At first, we didn’t see any anywhere. We walked down a few fairways, and were completely out of luck, until I looked a couple greens over and thought that I saw one standing on the green. Sure enough, there were two little kangaroos on the green, so we started walking towards them, ever so slowly! We were about 100 meters away, and they were both looking at us, and twitching so we decided we probably couldn’t get any closer and we started to take pictures. I was looking through my camera, and had it zoomed in with its 10x zoom, or whatever the furthest zoom I had was, and was taking extremely average photos. Suddenly the kangaroo that I was focused on left my zoom finder, and I thought I had lost him. I tried to find him, thinking I could maybe get a good action shot of him hopping away, but wasn’t able to track him anywhere. When I finally put down the camera, I realized why I couldn’t find the Roo, and it’s because he was standing 4 feet in front of me! Ryan Phil and I all got some pretty good pictures with the kangaroo, and called it a day... and an amazing day at that!
Another memorable experience we had was this morning, when one of the Mom's forced Vegemite upon Ryan Phil and I. For those of you who don't know, Vegemite is a yeast extract that contains natural vegetable salts. It is the most vulgar smelling spread you could ever imagine, and people actually enjoy eating it. It is extremely salty, and we had the blessed opportunity of having it on our toast this morning. As gross and salty as it was, it was still a fun experience, and was a neat aspect of Australian culture that we would not have discovered if it wasn't for the generosity of our Australian friends!
The opportunities that we’ve been able to experience have truly been astounding, and we have only been here for less than three full days!
The weather here has been consistently above 30 degrees Celsius, and after 3 days I’m still yet to see a cloud in the sky! It has been absolutely perfect, and the forecast predicts much of the same, only much much hotter! Tomorrow has a high of 45degrees, plus humidity which makes it feel 2 or 3 degrees warmer, so it might be a little bit unbarable!!
That’s about all for now. I’ll continue to try and keep you guys updated
Blessings
Zakk
Air Update
Days 1-3
Greetings from atop the International Dateline! I would add a date to this entry, but I’m really not sure what day it is.. According to the inflight GPS, I’m 11277 meters above the pacific ocean, and seemingly directly above the International dateline, and I certainly feel on top of the world; albeit oblivious to the current time and date. I’m moving at 903km/h, yet feeling like this plane could not be going any slower. The excitement amongst us is extremely evident, and makes time stand still! The reality of the fact that we’re literally moving across the world has finally set in, and we are all so antsy to arrive! We’ve been on the flight for over 11 hours, and flown over 10,000km’s, yet it feels like we’ve been on this plane for days. Some of the highlights today have been:
- Being delayed in the Vancouver airport for an hour and a half, and having to sprint as fast as we could to the complete opposite side of the San Francisco, only to barely make our connecting flight..
- Getting on our 13 hour flight, only to realize that a group of Australian girls were sitting beside us, behind us, and really all around us..
- Having amazing turbulence, and pretending we were on a rollercoaster..
- Having a glass of traditional New Zealand wine and toasting to our amazing adventure
- Phil asking our flight attendant what he meant by "duh-maw-doe" juice.. when really he was just trying to say tomato juice, Phil just couldn't understand his accent!
- Talking to the nicest New Zealand flight attendant ever, for long periods of time!
I promised my parents that I wouldn’t meet a New Zealander, fall in love, and stay in New Zealand forever.. But if every New Zealand girl is as nice, with as soothing of an accent as our flight attendant, and if the country’s beauty comes even close to rivalling the beauty of the girls that we’ve seen so far; this promise I made might be impossible to follow through! Just kidding, but seriously; we’re going to have an amazing time, and that’s a guarantee J So far we’re all getting along very well, and I can’t imagine that changing anytime soon. We’ll be landing in Auckland in about two hours, and then taking a 3 and a half hour flight to Sydney Australia, and I’m so ready to arrive!
Stay posted
Blessings from down under.
Greetings from atop the International Dateline! I would add a date to this entry, but I’m really not sure what day it is.. According to the inflight GPS, I’m 11277 meters above the pacific ocean, and seemingly directly above the International dateline, and I certainly feel on top of the world; albeit oblivious to the current time and date. I’m moving at 903km/h, yet feeling like this plane could not be going any slower. The excitement amongst us is extremely evident, and makes time stand still! The reality of the fact that we’re literally moving across the world has finally set in, and we are all so antsy to arrive! We’ve been on the flight for over 11 hours, and flown over 10,000km’s, yet it feels like we’ve been on this plane for days. Some of the highlights today have been:
- Being delayed in the Vancouver airport for an hour and a half, and having to sprint as fast as we could to the complete opposite side of the San Francisco, only to barely make our connecting flight..
- Getting on our 13 hour flight, only to realize that a group of Australian girls were sitting beside us, behind us, and really all around us..
- Having amazing turbulence, and pretending we were on a rollercoaster..
- Having a glass of traditional New Zealand wine and toasting to our amazing adventure
- Phil asking our flight attendant what he meant by "duh-maw-doe" juice.. when really he was just trying to say tomato juice, Phil just couldn't understand his accent!
- Talking to the nicest New Zealand flight attendant ever, for long periods of time!
I promised my parents that I wouldn’t meet a New Zealander, fall in love, and stay in New Zealand forever.. But if every New Zealand girl is as nice, with as soothing of an accent as our flight attendant, and if the country’s beauty comes even close to rivalling the beauty of the girls that we’ve seen so far; this promise I made might be impossible to follow through! Just kidding, but seriously; we’re going to have an amazing time, and that’s a guarantee J So far we’re all getting along very well, and I can’t imagine that changing anytime soon. We’ll be landing in Auckland in about two hours, and then taking a 3 and a half hour flight to Sydney Australia, and I’m so ready to arrive!
Stay posted
Blessings from down under.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
The Beginning.
"Saddle up your horses - we've got a trail to blaze
Through the wild blue yonder of God's amazing grace
Let's follow our leader into the glorious unknown
this is the great adventure"
-S.C.C.
Today starts the adventure of a lifetime for me and my two best friends, and I do so with extremely mixed emotions. I'm leaving behind so much, and setting forth with so little. I have no idea what is going to come in the future, but I know that it will be an incredible test of faith, and an incredible opportunity to discover myself and let God work in me. I'm not alone in this journey, I'm blessed to have an amazing network of friends and family at home that will be thinking and praying for us every step of the way. I'll try my best to updated my blog as best I can, but considering the fact that internet access will be sporadic, and freetime may be tough to find, consistency may not be realistic, but I will try my best!!
Thank you for supporting this adventure that has begun.
Blessings,
Zakk.
Through the wild blue yonder of God's amazing grace
Let's follow our leader into the glorious unknown
this is the great adventure"
-S.C.C.
Today starts the adventure of a lifetime for me and my two best friends, and I do so with extremely mixed emotions. I'm leaving behind so much, and setting forth with so little. I have no idea what is going to come in the future, but I know that it will be an incredible test of faith, and an incredible opportunity to discover myself and let God work in me. I'm not alone in this journey, I'm blessed to have an amazing network of friends and family at home that will be thinking and praying for us every step of the way. I'll try my best to updated my blog as best I can, but considering the fact that internet access will be sporadic, and freetime may be tough to find, consistency may not be realistic, but I will try my best!!
Thank you for supporting this adventure that has begun.
Blessings,
Zakk.
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