New Perspective

This blog was for the purpose of informing every one of my amazing adventures in Australia. Now I’m home… well sort of, I’m back at school in the good ole land of Illinois. My attitude the last few days has been focused on my perception that the adventure is over- now it’s back to the real world of nothing but stress and work in order to graduate in May. One thing I do know is that God is not done with me yet. Maybe life will not be as exciting as it was in Sydney. Maybe I will no longer get to take a ferry to the coast and stand on a cliff overlooking the ocean and watch an amazing sunset…. But the point is that God’s glory is everywhere- and is represented in many different ways. Maybe I will get to see it on Sunday mornings as I help with the nursery or as I stand in a chapel of thousands of students raising their hands to worship. Maybe I will get the opportunity to witness his love as I wait on tables and see someone pay for a stranger’s meal. Little miracles are happening around me on a daily basis and it’s up to me to either see them or spend my time wishing I was somewhere else. As life get’s busier, my prayer is that God will fill me up with His presence and allow me to see Him in the little things- that will be worth more than a thousand adventures abroad. 

Life After Australia

  

     Ok, so I really feel like I need to update this blog but my thoughts are so scattered I’m not sure what to write… First of all, I’m only a few assignments away from claiming the title of “senior” and that is just too crazy to process! Second, I only have less than two weeks left in Australia (three weeks till I’ll be home)! I’m so excited to be home because I miss everyone but at the same time… yeah let’s just say my emotions are up and down most days. One thing that I feel God pressing on my heart is that I can’t go back with the attitude that life is going to be boring or insignificant just because I’m going back to more “normal” activities. Wherever I go there will be abundant life and opportunities to grow personally and spiritually. This will most likely be my last blog update before leaving so I just wanted to thank everyone for their prayers and support on this journey!

 

The End is Near

      Hey blog readers, I know it’s been awhile since I’ve updated… life has been speeding by at a pace I find challenging to keep up with. Some of my activities of the past few weeks have included: working on a photography project (pictures below); exploring more of Sydney; going to an Australian football game (nothing like American football!) and finding a semi-warm day to go snorkeling (my first time!). Other days are spent attending classes, writing papers, working on projects, spending time with my host family and working at my service placement. The days are full but I always am able to get plenty of sleep which is good. J The crazy thing is that I only have about four and a half more weeks in Australia and then it’s on to New Zealand before heading home. I’m looking forward to being reunited with family and friends and soon meeting my new niece or nephew! As the time draws nearer it’s time to begin processing my time here and everything I’ve learned while at the same time preparing myself mentally and emotionally to leave. There are some things I will not miss such as waiting for the bus every day or not being able to communicate with my family when I want to. But there are other things that I will miss terribly and I have felt my heart begin to connect on a deeper level with people and places the last few weeks. No matter how I feel when I leave: whether I absolutely cannot wait to board that plane and head home, or whether I’m heartbroken as I say my goodbyes: I am grateful for my time here. I’m going to sign off on that note but thank you to whoever takes the time to read my posts and I hope to update again at some point!

Beauty in Christ

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before in a previous blog but this semester I’m focusing on memorizing Psalm 34. This wasn’t anything I had planned on previously but instead found it to be something that was really encouraging and applicable. One of the verses that has been on my mind for awhile is verse five: “Those who look to him are radiant: their faces are never covered with shame.” You know those people who are so in love with their Savior that the joy just overflows into their eyes? That’s the kind of person I picture when I read this verse and this is what I pray for in my own life. So much of the time I let my frustrations with circumstances in life or with the overwhelming presence of sin in my heart amount so that I can no longer see past any of it. This is about choosing to turn my attention to God and allowing Him to change me: He has the ability to turn my heavy heart into pure joy. These thoughts may seem scattered but sometimes how I process things is to write them down in the form of a poem so that is what I’ll leave you with:

One way into Christ’s beautiful arms

I breathe peace and see clearly

This crazy world has the potential to bring me down

I choose to go only as far as my knees.

Processing Events

   How do I go about describing everything that happens while studying abroad? Sometimes life just seems so normal as I get on the bus, attend classes, feel completely overwhelmed with the amount of school work I have: these are the things I dealt with while back in the States (minus riding public transportation). But then something happens like our trip to the outback last week- such a surreal experience and a memory that I will always treasure. On Thursday morning we loaded up onto a tour bus with our faithful driver Ian and headed for a long trip out of the city, through the Blue Mountains, and to the flat plains and red dust. It’s an eight hour drive straight through but add in the times of stopping for morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea (they feed us a lot here!) and one stop at an Indigenous center , we arrived approximately twelve hours later. The place we went to is a sheep station and we all got to bunk in the sheep shearer’s quarters. Before going to sleep that night we were presented with a challenge: to sign a sheet saying we wouldn’t shower for the next few days. This was because there were only a couple of showers for forty people but also to conserve water. Not everyone signed it but most of us did and by the end my thought was what would have been the point of showering anyway as the red dust sticks to you and everything you own anyway? I won’t go through all the details of our time there but some of the highlights were riding pick-up trucks or “utes” as they call them here, star gazing (never seen a night sky like that!), having meaningful conversations and hearing people’s stories around the campfire, playing with the many pets and seeing all the feral animals (which included a fox, a wild boar, kangaroos, an emu, and some beautiful exotic birds). Now that I’m back at school I need to switch my focus onto all my assignments that are due next week but I wanted to keep you all updated on my experiences here!

Never-Ending Adventures

      Hello blog readers! I promise I have not vanished into thin air or anything- just been super busy and internet deprived. Last week was the beginning of our school break which many of the American students have been calling “spring break” despite the fact that it is not spring here J. Speaking of the opposite seasons, the last two days have definitely felt like fall weather! I suppose I was hoping that it would stay sunny and warm for the rest of our time here but it has been quite chilly the last 24 hours or so. This weekend was beautiful though! Friday I met up with some people and we spent the day as beach bums at Manly Beach. Friday night my family rented the movie “Red Dog” which is a newer Australian film- I enjoyed watching it. Saturday I had service placement in the morning and then the afternoon was spent going to a market, and watching some free shows at Darling Harbour. Easter Sunday I spent the whole day with my host family, went to church with them, had fish and chips at the beach, and then they had a family dinner Sunday night with some of their extended family. The last couple of days have been mainly devoted to homework but I did take a trip to Watson’s Bay where there is a lighthouse on top of some cliffs- a beautiful view for sure! Tomorrow we leave for the outback; we’re taking an eight hour bus ride to a sheep station in the middle of nowhere. We’re told that it’s won’t look like the outback that we’ve probably been picturing in our heads simply because they’ve had a lot of rain and so the plants have sprung to life. Anyway, this is just a quick update on what I’ve been up to but I hope to update again soon (after the outback trip) about some of the stuff I’ve been learning! I miss everyone back home and would love to hear how you all are doing!

Work and Play

    Hello long lost blog, it’s been awhile. What have I been up to since we last talked? Good question…. Despite the deceiving pics on my facebook, I’ve actually been wasting away in a library for the most part. School has decided to pick up the pace (which I guess makes sense seeing that I’ve been here for over five weeks now). Last weekend, for our “Indigenous Cultures, History & Identity” class, they packed the American students into a bus and we headed to the South Coast, our destination- Booderee National Park. It was about a three hour bus ride to get to the campsite; we then proceeded to set up our tents, and then make our way to the botanical gardens. The Aboriginal community own and operate the park and they gave us a tour and taught us many things about the various plants, animals (including trying to get a python to come out of hiding, I made sure to back up several feet but thankfully they were unsuccessful), as well as many things about their culture. That night at camp after dinner, several of them showed us some of their traditional aboriginal dances. We then ended the night with smores (with Australia’s flavored marshmallows), stargazing on the beach, and playing card games. Unfortunately it rained that night while we slept so many people woke up in puddles (my tent stayed dry for the most part thankfully). The next morning the rain moved away and we proceeded to pack up our mud caked stuff. We had to head back to the city pretty quickly but not before stopping at “Summer Cloud Bay” where I got my first view of dolphins and learned a little more history of the area. On the way back we stopped in the town of Kiama to eat lunch, we enjoyed watching their famous blow hole spew water into the air as well as climbing on the rocks to get some amazing views. That was an eventful weekend but the days before and since has been spent preparing for a presentation, writing papers, reading, etc. It’s now Friday and I’m looking forward to my service placement, visiting churches, and maybe even… the beach? Hmm… don’t really have anything to complain about there. J

Lessons Learned the Hard Way

    Have you ever had a day when nothing went as planned? Yesterday was one of those days, and it’s carried into today. One thing after another, small things but they don’t have to be big to disappoint. This is the beginning of week four, the week that we were told would be one of the hardest because we would start to feel the pressures of school as well as begin to miss home even more. I have to say that I didn’t really believe that it would be that big of a deal. After all I’m in Australia! That should mean that I’m happy to be here all the time right? The saying that “the grass is always greener on the other side” never means so much until you leave home for an extended amount of time. It’s the same way every time I drive eight hours to school, from Nashville, TN to Chicago, IL. I like school but after awhile it starts to feel like a prison and I just want to escape.  See, what I’m learning is there’s never just one hard thing you have to deal with at a time. When I was kid, I remember being so upset at one particular thing: maybe a toy broke or I had a fight with one of my siblings. Those things loomed large in my mind. But now that I’m an adult, there always seems to be so many things coming at me at once, tearing my focus from where it needs to be. You, the reader are probably wondering why I’m being such a downer but I told you in my previous update that I wanted to go deeper with this blog than just the surface level, fun things that I’m doing here. Amidst some of the struggles, here are some of the beautiful things God is teaching me at the moment:

    I mentioned in my last blog that I was able to go with a group of people to the Blue Mountains last weekend. It was a gorgeous place and I was glad I got to go. However, it was one of the hardest physical things I had ever done. I am not, and have never been, athletic. The most I do to work out is go on long walks or ride a bike, I’ve never been a runner and as much as I like hiking, I had never done a very long, strenuous one like we did last week. We started at the very top of these cliffs, climbed down a ton of stairs, walked on some flatter trails for a little while and then proceeded to climb up the other side of the cliffs. I decided afterwards that it would be ok if I never saw a set of stairs again after that. The point of this story is that my pride was stamped to the ground that day. I wanted so bad to keep up with the other people in my group. I did not want to be the straggler that struggled to take each step and sounded like I needed an inhaler. But that’s what happened. It’s been my unmentioned goal in life to not be in vulnerable situations. I like to believe that I’m a strong person mentally, emotionally, and physically. I’m not. And my Heavenly Father is breaking my walls down in this area. It hurts, but this is what I asked for. I’ve been in a spiritual ditch for quite some time now. I’ve never stopped trying to have a relationship with God but that was the whole point all along. It was my prideful thinking that I could do something to fix my own heart. This is not to say that I now have it all figured out now, but I am in the midst of learning to surrender. I didn’t have to travel to the other side of the world to learn these things, but God is using this time away from home in a powerful way and I’m grateful for it.

Week Three

     So I’ve been keeping up with both of my sisters blogs and they’re so insightful and deep! I’m going to attempt to put some thoughts together about some stuff I’m learning about God, myself, and culture…. but not right now. J This past weekend was packed full but a lot of fun. Friday was another field trip into the city to visit the “Hyde Park Barracks” where we learned a lot about Australia’s history and saw the places that some of the convicts stayed in when they first came to this land. Saturday was an early morning start as my service placement at Hillsong started. I wasn’t sure what to expect but it’s an organized program where groups of “street teams” go to houses or apartments of various people (a lot of elderly for the most part) and either help them clean, or do something else to help out, or just sit and visit with them. I really enjoyed it and am excited to be a part of the program while I’m here. Saturday afternoon was spent walking around Sydney, seeing just a small part of the botanical gardens (I will be going back soon to explore them for sure!) and then visiting a church across the Harbor Bridge Saturday evening. Sunday was another early morning as large group of us students caught an early train to visit the Blue Mountains. It was about a two hour train ride and it was sooo nice to be out of the city for a little while! We even saw some wildlife including a Goanna (large lizard), some kind of bird (not sure exactly what it was) and then I saw two kangaroos on the train ride back! Well that’s all for now… thanks for reading!

Two Weeks

          Today (Wednesday, March 7^th, 2012) is the two week mark since I arrived in Sydney, Australia. A lot has happened in those two weeks! I won’t go into detail about everything but I’ve definitely stayed busy! School here is set up differently: instead of having classes Monday, Wednesday, Friday and then Tuesday, Thursday, each class is once a week and is three hours long. At first I wasn’t sure how I would like that but they give you breaks during class and it’s nice to be able to focus on one thing at a time. Monday’s I have two photography classes and then I have one class a day for the rest of the week (excluding Saturdays and Sundays of course). Another part of my program here is to do 35 hours in a service placement, I’m not yet sure what I will be doing because they’re in the process of switching me to a different placement.

         This weekend was full of fun, new adventures with the other American students: Friday night some of us went out and had Kangaroo burgers (it was pretty good but we all decided we’d rather have normal hamburgers). Saturday I found my way into the city by myself for the first time and met up with a couple of people to attend the Hillsong evening service (not the main church but one of their other campuses). After the service we went to a place called “Pancakes on the Rocks” (“The Rocks” is a place within the city, near the Opera House). Sunday we spent most of the day at Cronulla Beach, with the intention of watching a Surf competition (wasn’t as exciting as we imagined), and for the most part just soaked up the sun and watched people brave the intense waves. Monday was a full day of classes and then yesterday, our whole class (there’s 37 of us) went into the city and got to explore a lot of the historic parts of Sydney.

     I think that about covers my adventures of the past few days… here’s a collage of some of my favorite pictures I’ve taken so far (I haven’t taken a whole lot yet but don’t worry- I will!): 

Land of Opposites

     What would you expect from a country on the opposite side of the world? Well I’m here to tell you what I have found so far (been here just over a week now!). The first thing I noticed is they drive on the opposite side of the road, with the steering wheel on the opposite side of the car. This makes crossing the road a challenge because you have to look the opposite way first (right left right). Did I mention how everything is measured differently? It’s kilometers instead of miles, liters instead of gallons, kilograms instead of pounds. The temperature is Celsius instead of Fahrenheit (so “30 degrees” here is hot instead of cold). I already mentioned that the constellations in the night sky are upside down (Orion stands on his head). And I’m sure there will be other things I will discover along the way. My favorite thing to do when I’m at my host family’s house is discuss things with the eight year old about life here, such as the different words they use, etc. His favorite question to me is “do they have ______ in America?” Sometimes it takes some talking in circles to figure out what the other one is talking about! There is no end to the amusement. Anyway just thought I would do a quick update here to let you all know I’m alive and well on the opposite side of the world!

:)

-Rachel

A Whole New World

So this is my first blog update since I arrived in Sydney, Australia! I’ve been thinking about how I wanted to go about describing my time here so far and I think I’m just going to give you a run down from the time I left Nashville to when I’m typing this (it’s currently Saturday but I won’t post it till Monday which will probably still be Sunday for everyone back home J). My family took me to the airport on Monday, February 20^th, and my flight left from there around noon, I landed in LA around 3pm local time (so about 5 at home) and had a 7 ½ hour layover there. I was a little bit nervous about finding my way around LAX because I had heard that it is very big and busy but I actually found my way to the international terminal quite easily. At 7:30pm local time I met up with the rest of the students that are doing the same program as me, they are from different schools all over the country. Our plane left at around 10:30 that night, we settled in for a fourteen hour plane ride! When we arrived it was 8:30am on Wednesday, February 22^nd. So I can now say that I have successfully time traveled. J When we got off the plane we were greeted by sunshine, and a lot of people from the school that welcomed us and helped everyone load their stuff onto a bus. Everyone was so friendly and they quickly began to tell us things about Australia as we made our way to the school (including a story about an animal that they called “a drop bear” that lives in tree’s and will fall on you if you walk under it, which we quickly realized they were making up after the story kept getting more and more ridiculous!) Throughout the day on Wednesday they did their best to keep us awake the whole day and get us acquainted with each other and the school. By the time I went to bed that night, I was exhausted and fell asleep right away. I’ve been very happy that they made us stay up the first day though because it forced us to switch to the time zone quickly and I’ve been adjusting very well, sleeping the whole night through and only dealing with a little bit of drowsiness during the day. Thursday was more orientation, we met some of the first year students at the school (this is their fall semester so they’re beginning their school year). Thursday, mid-afternoon, we split up into groups, loaded onto buses and made our way into the city. I got my first glimpse of the Sydney opera house and the harbor bridge! Then around five o’clock we took a cruise around the harbor which involved, eating dinner, listening to live music, and watching the sun set. The city of Sydney is absolutely gorgeous at night! After the cruise, my roommate and I got the fun experience of finding our way back to our host family’s house by bus. One of the Australian students came with us part of the way and was kind enough to tell our bus driver where we needed to get off. But when he dropped us off, it didn’t look familiar to either of us so we just started walking for awhile. We eventually stopped at a gas station (they call them “service” or “petrol” stations but either way it was Shell J) and found a police officer that told us we were walking in the wrong direction. Turns out the bus driver had dropped us off exactly where we needed to be but for some reason we just didn’t recognize it at all (shows how jetlagged we were when our host mom had shown us the area the night before). Anyway, we made it back safely so that was good J. Friday was our last day of orientation, my roommate and I found our way to school by the bus for the first time (or host dad had dropped us off the previous day). The first day they gave us public transportation cards which allows us to get anywhere in the city by bus, train, or ferry! Friday night we all went back to our houses to spend the evening with our host families. I’m at a house with parents and two little boys, ages 8&3. The dad is originally from Fiji and the mom is originally from Italy but the whole family has Australian accents and has lived here for awhile. Me and my roommate share a room and have a separate bathroom of our own. The house is beautiful and is only about 20 minutes away from the school. Today (Saturday) has been a day of running errands, and just enjoying the summer weather which I’m told will not last much longer!

I feel like there’s a ton of other things that I could type up but it’s hard to get all the details of the last three days that have just been packed with a lot of new experiences. So I’m just going to leave you with the overview of my trip thus far as well as give you a couple of little details about the Land Down Under: it is true that the constellations are upside down; when I wake up in the morning, I automatically remember where I am because the birds sound so different and strange here; and lastly… it’s hard to describe the feeling when an Australian tells you (an American) that they “love your accent!” J

Thanks for reading my blog!

-Rachel

Provision

I am a junior in college and every semester is a challenge to continue trusting God for finances. He always comes through with adequate provision and it’s always on His timing. One way that the Lord provides is with my ability to work and this semester I have extra time before I began my trip to Australia. I’ve already paid my first payment (a miracle!) but the second payment is quickly approaching! I’m doing my best to get as many hours as I can as a waitress but I still have a lot of extra time on my hands. This is where you, the reader of this message comes in. If you are in the Nashville, TN area and are in need (or know someone in need) of a babysitter, pet sitter, house sitter, photographer, or any other odd job you want to throw at me, I would love for you to contact me in the next few weeks! You can do so through facebook, e-mail (rmaupin@live.olivet.edu) or my cell # (615-517-9378). I don’t have a set schedule at my job so I can’t tell you for sure when I would be available but hopefully we can work something out if anyone needs my help for anything!