Copy and Paste

I am taking this from an email I just sent to my girlfriends at home, but thought it was good general info so I'm posting it.

I just got back from Tuesday night indoor beach volleyball, which I love! The walls and ceiling are all netted in and you can play off of them.
I had my one on one today with my school leader, Trisha. I meet with her every Tuesday afternoon and I really enjoy our time together. I realized how much deeper the teaching has gotten since last Tuesday and how much I have been pushed in a week. A lot of new teaching to take in, process and decide what I am going to do with it. This week we are studying lordship, giving God total control over your life. Crazy to think that even Jesus gave up His will and went to the cross! Good stuff!!

I've been meaning to share...when I flew here in September I flew to Sydney, then to Perth. As we were descending into Sydney it was sunrise and as I looked out my little 1 by 1.5 foot window I could see the Sydney harbor and the opera house. I was looking for the bridge, just hoping I would see it and then there it was! It was beautiful in the early morning light.

I'm headed to bed, this is one exhausted lady! Love you all! Laura

Four weeks complete!

I knew time would fly, but I amazed to say that I have already been here four weeks.

Life on base is good. I'm very busy during the week. Our schedules are packed from 6 am to about 9 pm everyday except Wednesdays. And that night we are supposed to use as a study night! Hopefully this explains why I am slow to write people back. Today, Sunday is very mellow for me now that I have finished all my work that is due tonight. I'm headed to a coffee shop with some gals to have more relaxing time.

Last week we had teaching on evangleism with Ross Tooley who has been a missionary for 41 years. He is originally from New Zealand, but has lived all over the world with his wife and four sons. Ross was a great teacher and told the best stories that really drove home his points. I bought one of his books, We Cannot but Tell, which I highly recommend.

This week I will be recieving teaching on lordship, which is looking at what you place as your highest priorities in life. I'll tell you more as I learn more. Our teacher will Colleen Noblet, who was one of the first staff members here at YWAM Perth 21 years ago. She came over from Sydney with Pete and Shirley Brownhill, the founders, to help start the base. Colleen spoke at the first friday night meeting I was here for and I really admired her heart and passion for knowing God more.

We've been playing a lot of volleyball and I coming to really like the game. I go down mountains on my bike and am not scared, but that little white ball scared me!!! It hurst when it hits your arms!! But now I'm learning the right way to hit, set, serve, all that jazz and I'm really having fun with the game.

Time to head out for a cup of joe!

At last...pictures

First trip to the beach.

This is the park where we have morning exercises
play our games. Group picture of my Sports DTS.

Saturday hike at Serpintine Falls. My first sighting of kangaroos and a joey in the pouch!

Week 2

Week 2 Update:
This week we had a guest speaker, Cliff, an American who is a missionary in China. He taught on worship and prayer. What they accomplish between you and God and what they mean. Cliff is a great teacher, very interactive and kept our attention. He also talked to us about joining them in China for a two year commitment of full time missions. Sounds interesting, but don't worry yet Mom! I didn't sign up for it! But I am definitly praying about what God wants for me after these 6 months.
We are also getting underway with our sports schedule. Playing indoor beach volleyball on Tuesday nights, a sports activity on Wednesday afternoons, morning workouts at 6 am M-F. I'm having a lot of fun, learning a lot, getting to know the tons of new people that I have met and so looking forward to where we will go and what we will do on our outreach for the second three month segment. We don't know where or what yet.
Here on base we all have work duties for two hours every afternoon. Some examples are dinner or lunch dishes and prep, hospitality, vehicle maintenence, gardens, reception, our coffee house downtown, media, etc. Mine is on the property/maintenence crew. I'm starting out with designing the new wardrobe closets for one of the new student dorms called Gladstone Street House. Then I will design storage shelves for the bathrooms there and then help build everything. I'm having to figure out the metric system and try and design using the length and width of boards as they come so we can save time on cutting and not have wasted materials. I'm having fun with this project and people are quite impressed with my hand drafting skills! No autocad here! I should be able to draw and letter correctly since I taught how to do it!
Our time here is pretty programed throughout the day and sometimes on Saturdays too. This weekend we are completely free so a group of us are planning to go to the beach of Saturday. There are several birthdays in this group of days so I have several birthday party and dinner invites for that night. Sunday I'm going to church with a gal, Gwen, who is a friend of my aunt and uncle from Texas. Gwen is on staff here. The church is in Fremantle which is a suburb of Perth. She invited me to go kiyaking (sp?) with herself and a friend after church so I might get to do that.
Thanks so much for all of your replys. They mean so much! I think of you and pray for you all the time. Laura

Wednesday match

Hey guys! I have some to spend on the computers so I thought I would give somemore info about my days here.
Today we met to find about about family/base chores. We all work together M-F from 8-8:30 to keep the base and surrounding living units clean. My assignment for the next two weeks is 228, which is a dorm just down the street housing students here for the general October DTS.

Our school, Sports DTS, met at our classroom at 8:30 to 9:15 for worship. Then we had morning tea, which consists of tea and a muffin or roll. At 9:30 we met in the main lecture class room for our first session of teaching. Peter Brownhill, our base director, spoke on this first topic, the Nature and Character of God. He will lecture two or three more times on this topic this week. I'm soaking in the content, it's so rich, deep, and moving. I wish I could share all of my notes with you so you could understand what I mean! We broke for lunch at 12:30. Today my school met at the park down the street for a game of soccer at 1:30. It was so much fun and I did better than I thought I would! Usually we will do work duties from 1:30 to 3:30, but we don't have those assignments yet. I signed up to work at the coffee shop the base runs downtown, CAIO (pronounced kie oh), or working in the yards and gardens on the base grounds.

Now I'm back at base. Just put in a load of wash. Will walk to the office supply store to get the proper notebook for my weekly assignments, C.I.R.s (creative intergration record). It's an in depth reflection on the weeks teaching and how it impacts or moves us. It is due every Sunday night at dinner time. Yes, that's right, I have homework again! And we have three books to read in the next three months along with reports at the end. Go ahead and laugh! I will say the book topics are great and I'm really excited to get this knowledge deep down inside of me!

Dinner is in 1 1/2 hours so I need to get moving. No class, lecture, street evangilism (thursday nights) or meeting (friday night meeting) so I'll be relaxing and working on my C.I.R.

I do plan to write you back individually to those who emailed me. I'll maybe be able to start on that tonight. Thanks for the updates. Laura

Arrival to Orientation

Hello Family and Friends,
There is so much new to share, so much I want to tell you...I'll give you as much as I can!
Staying with Aunt Lynn and Uncle Jack for a time before leaving was so wonderful. Exactly what I needed, when I needed it! Thank you so much for your support, mighty prayers and for making sure I got on the plane! I want to share every bit of this time with you because I know strongly you prayed for me and with me leading up to this.
I arrived here Thursday afternoon and there weren't many new students on base. That's what we are considered, students, as we are participants of the Discipleship Training School. Over the next few days, 14 other students would arrive for my school and about 80 students for the schools that are running concurrently. Plus about 100 people on staff as teachers, local daily ministry members , base directors, maintanence, and support. Thats way too much of "Hi, I'm Laura. I'm from the US. I'm here for the Sports DTS." Plus trying to remember there name, rank and country, but I'm doing pretty well with that.
I thought the first thing I would do was shower, but instead I went to town with a girl, Andrea, who was back in Perth YWAM to do the School of Art Evangelism (SAE). I didn't really need to go to town, but knowing how to get there seemed like a good idea. So how I get to town: walk about 5 minutes including on a foot bridge over the freeway to the train station, Claisebrook stop. The train is similar to the Light Rail in Sacramento. Two stops in brings me to the Perth city center stop. There are 4 main lines that radiate into the town from the city center. The train is free for the first two stops, which luckily includes us! After town, I finally showered and made it to dinner at 5:30. Dinner is another experience. A dining room which can hold about 300 people. They let the YWAM families sit together and the rest of us sit at a table with them if there is room or together at the other tables. Almost everynight there has been a birthday and this is celebrated for each person. They get a special table set for them and 7 friends with nice plates, napkins (which we don't use here b/c they are a waste of money, if anyone wants to send me a cloth napkin or two it would be welcome!) and snacks. At the end of dinner, everyone sings a special birthday song and they bring you out a homemade cake. My roommate, Elle from England, is having a birthday next week so I'll get to share in the festivities with her! Ok that enough about that day.
Roommates:
I live with 5 other girls, in a room about 12'x14'. We have 3 bunk beds, and wardrobe closet and a shelf unit. You can probably see why on the frist night I was asking myself why I left my nice apartment, income, and friends to come live in these conditions!
My bunkmate, Verena. She is 19, from Germany. Today I realized this is equivelent to having my little sister with me!
Another 19 year old, Jes, from Denmark.
Elle, 22 355/365 (her math) from southern england. She is an absolute kick!
Kathy, 30, from Canada
Coriana, from Holland, but she is leaving tomorrow as she did the last school and has just taken her time leaving. We get a new girl in a few days who is arriving late for our school.
All of the girls are in the Sports DTS with me.
I have made friends with so many others too. The ones closer to my age group offered for me to go hang out at their house if I ever feel like the younger gals are getting to be too young!! Everyone here is so friendly and look out for eachother. As Elle says with her British accent, they are sound as a pound! There have been so many signs that I was headed to and am now in the right place. It's so amazing!
Today was orientation where we paid fees, got our books, took base tours, and filled out interest forms for our work duty assignments. Class in the afternoon. Our days are going to be so busy! Then we all went to King Park, which is a huge, beautiful park and garden and wildlife sanctuary all in one. We all, students and staff, played a few games together including slip and slide tug of war. It was a lot of fun and I will go back to the park to explore more. We were supposed to have a bar b (bbq) at the park today, but the weather was very tempermental , rainy and windy today so they brought us back to base for a feast of burgers and hotdogs. The experienced ones tell us don't get used to that much food! There is plenty to eat, but our plates are not overflowing with food. Makes me realize how in American culture we are used to having so much on the table, even if we don't eat it.
It is now almost 11 pm my time (8 am tues morning your time) and this is the latest I have stayed up since I've been here. See what having the internet does to you! Good night! I love you all!!