Update #4

Good morning Earth!!! How are you doing? You can’t really answer me unless you are actually talking to me so I will just assume that you are hunky dory. (that means swell) There has been a lot going on over here and I don’t remember what I have all told you so I might repeat myself, but that’s ok. So you may know that we were supposed to go to Darwin but that fell through cause of finances, so that sucked. We were supposed to go to dubbo yesterday instead, but as you can probably tell I am still here and not in dubbo. This is because it fell through. We found out on Monday. Now the plan is that we are going to Tingah. It is about 10 hours north of here and is more along the coast then Dubbo. We are leaving on Monday now, so one more weekend until I leave even though outreach has officially started. That means it was time to start not shaving… oh boy lets see how that goes. The other team going to Vietnam and Cambodia are leaving on Sunday. While we are waiting to go on outreach we are fixing up a house that the base owns and has been renting out. The tenants that were living in it totally trashed it. Apparently there were rabbits and rats all over the place and they had to fumigate the place before we started cleaning. So far we have striped the floors. And washed and sanded the walls. We are going to keep working on the walls and do as much as we can before we leave for outreach. Please remain praying for us here. The rest of the team and myself. There are two students that still don’t have there grounds fee’s paid off, they are going to Vietnam. And both staff members on my team are still currently needing money. One has there staff fees paid off and just needs grounds fees. And the other has a little bit of staff debt still. If you could keep praying that finances could come in for them that would be awesome. Thank you for stumbling though this Blog update. When I go on outreach it will be even more difficult for me to keep this updated but I will try my best. I love all you guys so much. Thank you for supporting me with prayers since I have been here. You can never have to much prayer support. God bless you all.

Update #3

Hello Universe!!! How are you guys going? I know I can’t actually hear what you are saying so I am just assuming that you guys are all egg salad. (Excellent, that’s a little Zach humor for you right there) I would like to start off by saying I am sorry that this is only my 3^rd update; I have no legit excuse as to why I haven’t been keeping up regularly. The Internet has not been working since the third week of school so that has a lot to do with it. But the main reason why is that I am quite busy. I have had lots on my mind and plate with school and lectures. I will try to fill you in on what been going on in the world of Zach. So here we go.

There have been lots happening since the last time that you were able to tune into this wonderful blog. We have had wedding, and guest speakers. Tons of lectures, a Muslim concert, gone to the outback, almost got fluided in that one. More lectures and now getting ready for outreach which starts in 2 and a half weeks!!! That is crazy close! Ok for those who don’t know I am going to South Africa for outreach!!! So in 5 weeks I will be going there to Durban and touring around there. And in 2 and a half weeks we are leaving for a 3 week tour around Australia, we were originally going to go to Darwin for three weeks and then south Africa but because of costs we are just touring closer to home. I am really excited for that. We are relying a lot on God for money. The base rules are that the staff on base isn’t allowed to go on outreach if they have a debt at the base. So the 2 staff members that are on the same outreach team as me have about 10 000 dollars of debt plus they need to pay outreach fees. So that is really stressful. Please keep my team and the base in your prayers that the money will come in. Thank you so much for your prayers.

I have been learning a lot since I have been here. The lectures are teaching me so many things and reaffirming that I have heard from church and other teachings. Trust is a huge thing that I have been learning about. Trust for the lord to provide in everything, for him to take care of situations that you have no control over, to provide a situation for you to talk to someone about God, and trust that God will provide finances. Since I have been here my excitement for reading the bible has also gone up. It’s gone from not ever wanting to read it to enjoying my alone time with God. I am also learning different things that the church can to do to increase our outlook on missions. I can’t wait to get back and share with you what I have been learning in lectures and from my own one on one time.

I want to thank all the people that are supporting me and keeping me in your prayers. I could not do this without your support. You guys mean the world to me. I will hopefully be able to send you at least one more update before we leave for Outreach. The weeks that we have left are the Holy Spirit, and relationships. I am really looking forward to those weeks.

Thank you for taking the time to read this rather pointless message. If you made it all the way through good for you, if not I totally understand. I just want to say one more time thank you for being such a great support to me. It really means a lot. My God bless you a thousand fold more then you have blessed me.

Zach

Update #2

Oh hello there, didn’t see you dashingly good looking people were there, if you are reading this right now that means you are reading my second update, which means my first one didn’t bore you to death so I will try to do the same with this one.

So I think the last time I updated this so right before opening ceremonies so that’s where I am going to start. The opening was really cool; if you haven’t seen my pictures then you should go do that on Facebook. There were aboriginal dances from Australia, and from Fuji. There was also a fire dancer from Fuji as well. I got to play with the fire. I managed not to burn myself so that was a huge plus. Then surprisingly we did nothing that weekend, just chilled. Which was good. On the next Monday we went to I wildlife park zoo thing. There were little kangaroos jumping all around in the zoo that was kinda awesome. We also got to see koalas and I got to touch one as well. There were also penguins, (ya be jealous) a crocodile, tons of snakes and reptiles, cool birds, the Tasmanian devil, and some emus. So all in all it was a great day at the zoo. Then that week was orientation week, so going over rules and expectations. Then we also talked about intersession, which I though was really cool. I think that is what I learnt most about that week. When praying for someone I usually would say some things and wait awkwardly for others to be done praying as well, but now I have 10 steps to intersession prayer. I wont list them now cause I don’t remember then off the top of my head. The Friday we had a coffee house, it is a way for us to connect with the community around us. Even though no one but the people from the base came to the first one it was still a lot of fun. The little kids that were on the base put on a really funny skit thing, it was really cute. This last Monday we went to the beach, Manly Beach to be exact, and let me tell you… It was the craziest place I think I have been. The main beach was closed due to wind and huge waves, but I still went in anyways and body surfed. That was awesome. It was the first time I had ever seen the ocean let alone swim in it. I got kicked out of the water by the lifeguard so we walked to another beach where we could swim. The sand wasn’t as nice as the first one but it was still amazing. It was also the first time I got to experience the sun since I have been here, and needless to say I got pretty burnt. It was still worth it though. This week for lectures the people from Newcastle base are here with us, it is nice having more guys here to hang with. And David came yesterday!!! So now there is three guys on the base instead of two. He seems pretty radical. This week the lectures are on knowing the character and nature of God. The national director of YWAM Australia, he keeps it pretty interesting. This last weekend the Internet has been down so I am sorry to anyone that has inconvenienced. One night during the weekend we walked to McDonalds to use there free Wi-Fi. I don’t know what else to say so I am going to stop here, thanks if you got this far without leaving due to boredom, and if you skipped the middle and went straight to the end just to say you read this… that’s ok too. I love you all so much. Thanks for keeping me in your prayers and thoughts.

Love Zach From the land down under (queue music!)

Update #1

Hello one and all. Thank you for tuning into my blog. My time here has already been an adventure and it is only the first full day. On my way here I met a lot of interesting people. Right of the bat when I got through customs I met a couple going to California, we talked a lot in the terminal and we found out we were sitting beside each other on the plane. We talked all the way to Denver about hockey and things like that. We landed in Denver 2 minutes after the boarding started for the next plane, so I ran across the airport and made it to my next plane to San Francisco. On that plane I also talked to the people around me. The person beside me worked for facebook, I thought that was pretty cool. When I landed in San Francisco I met up with someone going to Hillsong School. It is his third year going, we went out for Japanese food in the airport. Then he long flight commenced, the food was alright I guess. I slept for like 8 hours, I was quite proud of myself. I was sitting beside an older couple. I didn’t get up for the whole flight cause I didn’t want to have to crawl over them. When we landed in Sydney at about 8. It took a while for them to find me, but eventually they did.

Now I am at the base, we have just been chilling for the last few days, went to the mall. Fun stuff like that, the people in the mall have the coolest fashon style. All the guys are each wearing tight jean shorts, or dull color short shorts and a muscle shirt. If you guys saw them in our malls you would think they all lost a dare.

There was a little of a miscommunication on as to how many people would be here. When I asked before they said there would be about 80 people on base including staff and such. But when I got here I found out that there is only going to be 12 students on dts. Which I think can be a really good thing, we are already becoming a little family. There is a girl from Germany, and a girl from England but lived in Germany for 7 years, and a couple of people from the states and on other person from the great white north.

The weather has been super nice so far, it hasn’t rained which I think is a good thing, all the locals that are on staff are Aying this is one of the cold summers, it is only getting up to 27… I already think that is crazy hot so if it gets up to 40 I may die of heat.

We start the school today, my Friday. I have the morning to just chill until 5 30, then we have the opening ceremony. On Monday we are going to a wildlife park to feed kangaroos and hug koalas. I am very excited. But the thing I am crazy excited for is… we as a dts are probably going kangroo hunting!!! I know crazy right, I don’t know when that is going to be but I hope its soon.

I will try my best to keep this up to date, I will usually have Sundays and Mondays off to do things on my own.

Thanks for tuning into this and suffering through my bad righting style. I love you all so much and thank you for keeping me in yours prayers.