Tis December

I Can't believe its already December. Christmas season is here! Christmas looks very different in the southern hemisphere, but I do still get excited about celebrating with my YWAM family. And you know I have my tree up, with hot pink sparkly ornaments!

The past few weeks have been very hectic here. We involved in schoolies evangelism over thanksgiving week. Schoolies is a time of celebration for the highschool graduates. 60,000 17 and 18 year olds in Surfer's Paradise, drinking and trying on their new independence. We work with an organization that goes in and becomes friends with the teenagers, to be involved in their week to calm down intense situations, encourage drinking water, and eating food. To have the "sober" friends around to bring stability into the week. We had around 3,000 volunteers this year and even saw salvations through the week. In the past I have been on the teams that go into hotels and are with the teens all week, this year I worked in the call center.

This organization has a hotline that the teens can call to request a team to come to their hotel to hang out, clean their room, make pancakes, or calm situations down. They can also call when they are out and want someone to come walk them home if they are alone, drunk or just need some help walking. This year we had over 5,000 calls come into the call center. I worked the midnight to 8am shift and we got some really intense calls where we had to call the police, or ambulance, and then we got some really funny calls when people just wanted to talk because all of their friends were asleep.

It was a really crazy experience to be the first voice they heard when they needed something urgent, and the last voice they hear as they are going to sleep in the early hours of the morning. Some would even call every night to just have a chat, getting to tell them that they are valued and that someone cares about them and their lives. It was an amazing week. A crazy week as my schedule was literally upside down. It took about a week to get out of "jet lag" as we were calling it, but totally worth it.

We only have a couple weeks left of lectures, and then Christmas break before we go on outreach! Please be praying for the team, some of the students still need funds, and I still need $800 to completely pay outreach fees. :):):)