internet evangelism

Culture is a rapidly changing thing, so the question is.. how do we bring an UNCHANGING Gospel message to a CHANGING culture?

This past week was spent in Auckland, New Zealand at a Campus Crusade for Christ conference for students living in the Oceania region of the world. (Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, East Asia, and some others). There were actually students there from 40 countries around the world!

One of the days we had an outreach, and I had the unique opportunity to be a part of an internet outreach which largely involved Facebook, of all things. There are some amazing people doing incredible work on how to use social networking for evangelism... and they've created a program called God Chat.

We sent out a link to a website called www.watchthinkchat.com, where people viewed a 6 minute short film on the Gospel message. Watch Think Chat is a site for people to do just that. WATCH a video THINK about it CHAT with someone about it The story may be one you've heard before, it may even be something you're passionate about. But maybe it's something completely new. Whatever the case, here's a great opportunity to get your mind ticking, your God questions answered and discover the greatest story in history.

Imagine this: 200 people sharing 60 laptops, posting links to this website all over facebook, chatting with facebook friends and people ALL over the world who caught wind of the link.

In the end, just over 10,000 people viewed the video. there were over 150 gospel and spiritually related chat conversations that occurred that afternoon, and there were 3 people who prayed to receive Christ by hearing the Gospel online and praying a prayer of salvation with someone through the internet. There were even people in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other closed nations who viewed the Gospel video. INCREDIBLE.. yes?!

I think so :)

It was amazing to have a changed perspective on this... Christians often try so hard to avoid or run away from popular culture... Understandably so, with so much sin and awful stuff out there.. but rather than running from this culture, Christians should CREATE culture, such as evangelistic short films and up-and-coming ways to present the unchanging message of the Gospel to this world.

Please pray for the future areas of creative ministry that Campus Crusade for Christ is working at developing in the near future. There's a HUGE need for this!

i'm 24!

Hello readers,

Sorry again for the long span between posts... Being busy pushes blogging to the end of the to-do list. Although I must say I've been downright lazy with this thing again... oh well.

A brief update of ministry:

-we have 17 KV's (Key Volunteers, ie: Student leaders who are committed to serving God in significant ways in our campus movement)

-3 of those KV's are brand new to our ministry this past semester! Its so encouraging to see their passion to grow and be used by God!

-we have a group of 27 Americans from the Upper Midwest region of the US here to basically do evangelism on campus for 5 hours a day, 5 days a week on whats called a "Summer Project." Its so awesome to have them here as its a time where we as STINTers are busy doing some off-campus prep for our Mid Year Conference thats coming up and we're wrapping up the semester with a lot of administrative work.

-the Summer Project has seen 12 Griffith University students pray to receive Christ already! Praise God! Please pray for them as they're here another week and a half :)

As far as life updates go, many of you might not know yet that I have a boyfriend now! Ben Cornish is my co-leader here on my ministry team in Brisbane... we were serving God here last year together and this year have started dating... Since March 25th. Its a tricky balance with work and personal life, but God has given us much grace to work it out and honor Him in our relationship and in ministry together. Its really fun dating in Australia :)

On that note, Ben took me for an incredible date on my birthday (June 15th) to a place called Stradbroke Island ("Straddie" as the Aussies call it)... its an island 45 minutes off the coast near where I live. It was the most memorable birthday I've ever had-- beautiful weather (even though its winter it was warm and sunny!!)... we saw incredible views of God's creation and experienced it, too! We saw 2 humpback whales, 25+ dolphins off the coast, and 4 wild kangaroos. There are some cool photos to follow...

Photo of me and Ben...the boyfriend :)

the coast off Stradbroke Island

One of the Kangaroos we stumbled upon while at Straddie

6:45am... the sunrise as we waited to catch the 7am ferry to Straddie

orientation week!

This past week we have been on campus meeting freshmen, asking God for opportunities to share our faith with students who are interested in hearing more about what Christians believe and who the heck Jesus really is.

God totally provided for us!!! Firstly, the weather forecast was supposed to be rainy all week... but we had gorgeous, 90 degrees and SUN! Secondly, we had 10 of our students helping us reach out to freshmen, 8 of whom have been involved in Student Life less than a year! Thirdly, we had a huge response of students interested in either: 1)finding out more about Student Life Bible studies, events, etc, 2) learning more about Christianity, 3) finding out more about who Jesus is, and 4) Men's and Women's events throughout the semester.

Please be praying for us as my team and our students call students to set up appointments on campus over the next 3 weeks... join us in praying that God will bring 10 students into a relationship with Himself as a result of these orientation week surveys... Praise Him that we already have one new believer! Her name is Rita, she is from China, and she's actually going to be my new roommate! She's from the same hometown as my two other Chinese roommates, Phoebe and Jeanie. They were the only two people she knew in all of Australia, and they're my two Christian roommates... I think God just likes to show off sometimes :)

Photos of O-week to follow...

1. The guys helping the bouncy castle crew move it back a few feet... they were having trouble just the 2 of them :)

2. My teammate Ben and our students on campus

3. My teammate Danae and I, excited to see what God has in store this semester as a result of today's contacts:

4. One of our students Chris, along with our beautiful display boards, flyers, lollipops and surveys:

kicking it all off

From February 2-4 we had our first annual combined Kick off Retreat with 3 different universities... Griffith (where I am working), University of Queensland (UQ), and Queensland University of Technology (QUT.

The retreat was up in the Bunya Mountains, about a 3.5 hour drive from Brisbane... On the journey we saw a lot of evidence of the floods and how high the water levels had been... there were clothes up in the high branches of some trees over 30 feet tall!

Over those couple days, we re-focused the vision of the Great Commission, to make disciples of all nations... several students shared about how God has recently captured their hearts toward evangelism since being on Summer Project this past November.

We also got to spend a bit of time focusing on the upcoming year at Griffith... we had 14 students attend Kick off and made some great progress on planning and preparing for Orientation week, where we'll have the opportunity to meet all the first-year students.

I have this deep sense that God is at work more this year at Griffith than I remember last year... everyone is so excited and eager to commit time and energy into serving God through Student Life :) We even have 2 first-year students involved for this next year and it hasn't even begun yet!

Thanks for your prayers and support, I really appreciate it :)

Photos:

My team! (Danae, Ben, Kyle)

Al and Kyle singing some worship around the camp fire :)

The whole crew, from Griffith, UQ and QUT. What an encouraging bunch of college students; they're ready to take on the upcoming school year and serve God actively on their campuses :)

floods and cyclones

1. FLOODS.

I've never really had a personal experience with floods before. I mean I once volunteered over my spring break to help with some clean up down in New Orleans post-Katrina, but I had never been there before, I didn't know what it used to look like, I didn't have memories attached to the place...

Well... you've probably heard, in mid-January, Queensland experienced the worst floods they've seen since 1974, and now that I've been back in Brisbane for almost 2-weeks, I have seen a bit the damage thats been done... places where you can see the water line, where homes have been damaged, where torrent waters rushed through land and plowed down trees and everything in its path... But it hit home the most when I walked past Southbank, one of the places I've spent lots of my free time this past year.

Yes, the river is still a muddy brown color, but Streets Beach, a man-made beach and swimming pool has been completely dug up. Apparently the flood waters just barely made it into the water, but because it has sand on the bottom, its been contaminated and they had to take it all up.

Its so sad looking, so much left to do... Its such a beautiful place thats enjoyed by hundreds of people-- maybe thousands-- on any given hot, summer day... It serves as an on-going reminder of the floods that came and all the work that has yet to be done... Yeah, its only a pool, but to me its the first place to be destroyed by such a natural disaster that is so "close to home", as you say.

The Brisbane River, after the flood:

Southbank, Streets Beach, before the flood:

Soutbank, Streets Beach, after the flood.

2. CYCLONE YASI.

Last week northern Queensland got hit hard by Tropical Cyclone Yasi. Meteorologists saw it coming almost 4 days ahead of the storm crossing the coast, which was great. Many people evacuated and stocked up on food, preparing for the worst.

Cairns, the tourist town that is the outpost for visitors to the rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef was forecast to get hit the worst. Thankfully, Cairns is familiar with big storms and the structures (and people) are built for them. Unfortunately, the cyclone didn't cross the coast in Cairns, but a little further south where there are many more small towns that aren't nearly as strong and sturdy for such a storm. I've heard that many of these towns will not be able to recover because it will cost too much money.

The cyclone has left 150,000 homes without power, thousands will be made homeless. Disaster relief payments have been activated for residents affected by the cyclone. There are concerns about water supply in Townsville and Magnetic Island.

Thankfully, though, the storm was expected to hit as a category 5, but as it crossed the coast it dropped down to a category 2, and many lives and properties were spared. There has so far been only one death. Here are some visuals...

Satellite image:

Perspective. The size of the US, Australia, the UK and Tropical Cyclone Yasi:

The following photos are taken from the Brisbane Times (http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au)

Brisbane Times
Brisbane Times
Brisbane Times

Banana plantation near Innisfail, a small town devastated by the storm... the price of Bananas is expected to skyrocket :(

Please join me in praying for those who have been displaced by the floods and whose homes have been damaged and belongings lost and destroyed. Please pray that many people's hearts and minds may be opened to thoughts of God and what role He has to play in all of this devastation. God knows what He's doing, and He works all things out for good.

Please also pray for the many affected by the cyclone, and for the tourism industry. Tropical north Queensland is the holiday "hot spot" of Australia... Many islands had been evacuated and the government is very concerned about the future of tourism here.

Thanks for reading!

Emily

new years resolutions

Well, folks, I'm happy to say that I've arrived back in Brisbane, Australia once again :) I've really enjoyed being at home in Minnesota for the past 6 weeks catching up with friends, family, relaxing, enjoying the snowy weather and preparing for a second year of ministry here. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to be back and am excited to dive back in, already knowing what to expect, more or less. The learning curve on STINT is pretty big your first year, and I didn't really feel like I knew what I was doing until about June. I know what to do and I know what I want to do better and differently than last year. While I'm on that subject...

I realize that yet again i've severely neglected this blog. my initial excuse was that i didn't think anyone read it... but to my surprise i was scolded by a friend during my time at home for stinking at blogging. so here i go. new years resolutions:

1. eat more vegetables

2. work on scripture memory

3. blog consistently

4. study apologetics ("New Evidence that Demands a Verdict" Josh McDowell. I got it as a gift from a supporter last year and have been intimidated by it for a while.)

so there you have it. more to come soon :)

new vocab

I still find it funny to notice the differences in vocabulary and pronunciation of words between Aussies and myself. I learned a new word last week- what I call a french braid, they call a "plat". I'm always learning!

And so, as I've been here over 8 months now, I must confess that I've adapted to some new terms:

college- "uni"

shopping cart- "trolley"

sweat shirt- "jumper"

gas/gas station- "petrol"/"petrol station"

trunk (of a car)- "boot"

candy- "lollies"

ketchup- "tomato sauce"

french fries- "chips"

Those ones definitely roll off the tongue with no hesitation. yikes! I of course still get made fun of-- there will be a never ending banter between correct/incorrect words and pronunciation i think... it doesn't get old :)

PS. We're going on a massive camping trip next weekend and I'm introducing the Aussies to s'mores! Thanks to Nate's girlfriend who transported "the goods"; you can't find graham crackers, jet-puffed marshmallows or hershey's bars in australia! Good ol' American summer tradition :)

the wonderful world of apologetics

I've been blessed with a team of guys who can study and speak about apologetics VERY well. God has gifted them with a brain like that. As I've heard them talk theology/philosophy/world views, etc for the last 8 months, I'm reminded of how much I don't know. Apologetics has never been something that I've attempted to study, but as I encounter more and more Aussies who are set in their post-modern ways, who are stuck on "tolerance" of all religious beliefs (meaning, a tolerance that says EVERYONE is correct)... I find myself frustrated and unable to stand up for the Gospel adequately.

So... I'm excited to announce that I'm doing something about it! One of my financial supporters gave me a book, "The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict" by Josh McDowell. Its a MASSIVE text-book style book on answering those challenging questions that people often have about Christianity... and I've actually cracked it open and started to study.

I'm excited to engage my brain in a challenging way again... not being a student for over a year now, I forget that I actually liked studying and taking exams! (just a little bit)

Feel free to hold me accountable or ask me what I'm learning!

WWJD? seriously!?

Oh how I remember those WWJD? bracelets from middle school... I wasn't a Christian then and thought they were pretty lame... especially because the people who I saw wearing them didn't really act how I presume Jesus would act. (I think about Jesus as a pre-teen... how did he live through that age and NEVER SIN!? amazing!)

God has been showing me lately how much I do NOT live like Christ. God (Jesus) became man to live among us and give us an example of how to lead our lives. I had this "lightbulb moment" the other week about those "challenging people" in our lives... about those who sometimes bother us more than others or who get on our nerves more than they should. I had a realization of this: Jesus lived the MOST relational life of anyone who has ever lived! He hung out with prostitutes, tax collectors, hypocrites, religious leaders who glorified themselves... He was doubted, scoffed at, betrayed, murdered... He lived among people who I imagine are heaps more challenging than those I live among... YET, he never sinned! He never responded to sin with sin. never ever!

In all this realization, God has been showing me how sinful my mind is... how judgmental and critical I am, how quick I am to get irritated and annoyed. Boy, its a blessing and a curse to ask God, "make me more like Jesus!"... because HE WILL! and it has so far involved humility in ways I've not experienced before, and a dramatic encounter with my sinful nature. God is at work in me, and its a great and awesome thing when the Holy Spirit brings about change... I'm nowhere near "changed" in this matter yet, but I've found myself frequently asking "What would Jesus do?" It helps me to focus on HIM rather than myself.

Whew!

every thought captive

"We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." 2 Corinthians 10:5

As I've gone through ups and downs in ministry throughout this semester, I can't help but wonder how or why I can know Jesus, know His commands, know what His Word says is true of me, know that Its only with God that anything I do is possible or relevant... YET... its in my insecurities, its in my pride, its in my American need to be so darn efficient and on top of things, that I get caught up in myself and lack dependence upon God.

When I'm exposed to my own doubts, and exposed to opportunities to be self-sufficient, impatient or judgmental... I have a choice! I can 1) go with the flow and once again fall short and cling to my pride and abilities, once again allowing unhealthy thoughts to take me captive or 2)I can recognize the danger in this mindset and turn away... running back to God and the truth of His Word.

As I serve here and live life alongside college students who are on all sorts of spiritual journeys, I want to love them and be able to point them toward the God who loves them and is the only place where they could have the desires of their heart met. But in the last few weeks I've been more easily irritated and impatient... and I've recognized that I've been pouring myself out in ministry without first being filled with God's love and strength. I've been serving Him out of my own strength which is always always ALWAYS insufficient!

I must give myself first to the Lord and then to ministry. I dare say that my ministry nearly became my walk with God! I'm looking forward to going away to our Mid Year Conference for a week of focusing on Him again :)

twenty three and still going strong :)

well, i'm 23! My birthday (june 15) was a huge reminder of how blessed I am... Thanks to all my friends here and back home who showed me love and helped to make my birthday special :) So many thoughtful birthday cards and gifts, and my roommates Dani and Amanda even made me TGI Friday's potato skins! My FAVE! To top it off, we played capture the flag with our students on campus... thats what normal 23-year olds do, right? haha.

Ministry-wise, we're mostly off campus now. Heading into the 2nd week of finals, my team and I are prepping for MYC (Mid Year Conference) thats coming up June 30-july 4. I'm doing the set design, so been trying to use my creative energy to paint a banner and come up with other sweet ideas... also, i'm co-leading two ministry training seminars, so been preparing for that. One called Into the Harvest, which is about having a lifetime of evangelism, reaching people with the Gospel whoever and wherever you are... and the second one is called Personal Discipleship.. about making disciples and helping younger Christians to grow in their faith, targeted at student leaders. Its been hard for me to workout what to do with my time... and hard to deal with feeling "guilty" about not doing hands-on ministry all the time, and instead, doing more behind the scenes tasks. I'm NOT good with structure-free days... I need appointments, I need timelines, I need a plan... and the last week and half I have not had that. So this week is a new week! I have specific times to meet with students, to share my faith on campus and to even have coffee with one of the summer project Directors, Sarah. Its going to be a good week!

On the topic of summer project... theres a group from the Midwest here for another week and a half. In total, they'll be here 6 weeks, and their primary focus is to do evangelism on all 4 Griffith campuses. They have been a HUGE blessing to us! Especially since we've been off campus and not having as many conversations with non-christians as we usually are... its awesome to know that there are 12 students and 2 staff sharing their faith monday through friday for 5 whole hours! So far, I think they've seen 5 students put their faith in Christ! Praise God! He is doing amazing things through them, and will continue to do so until they head back to the states on July 2nd.

Please pray for God's continued guidance in their lives and that God will orchestrate divine appointments in their final days spent sharing their faith on campus!

i'm back!

well i've been pretty poor at keeping up with this blogging thing.. oops! To update you on the ministry, things are going well! God is moving, He is answering prayers like CRAZY! Its been so encouraging knowing that so many people have been partnering with us in focused, intentional prayer the past week... At our weekly meeting called Fusion, this past tuesday, we had heaps of new people there! Two new girls that I spoke with really connected with the topic of that evening, "living a fulfilling life." I felt blessed to be able to have spiritual conversations with both of these girls, one of them has just started walking with the Lord again after falling away from Him for a few years, and the other girl is an international student from Zimbabwe who told me she had been thinking about these things for a while now. This just goes to show that God knows what He is doing, he brought both of these girls to Fusion that night to here a message that pointed them even more toward Christ... Awesome!

On another note, the summer project arrives here on wednesday morning.. 15 students and staff from the Upper Midwest region will be joining us for six weeks! They will be primarily doing evangelism on campus but also partnering along with us in all areas of our ministry. Please pray!

I'll work on updating you all more regularly :)

God bless you!

GIANT JENGA!

This past thursday my team and I threw together a last minute first-year student outreach. We bought some prizes and gifts for the students and set up a giant Jenga game in the middle of a popular part of campus. To be honest, I was feeling pessimistic about this outreach because we had not done much planning or preparation and had no idea who would even show up. We just prayed that God would bring the right people to meet us.. that His hand would be over our outreach

and would provide us with opportunities to glorify Him that day.

Well God showed up. Its amazing what a ridiculous-looking game of Giant Jenga can do to bring a crowd of people together! At times there would be 50 students gathered around to watch all the blocks come tumbling down. We invited students to join in on the game (which was the whole point of us playing it) and there was much fun had by all. I personally was able to have some really good conversations with women standing around... I'll tell you one quick story:

One girl came and sat just about as close to me as you could possibly be.. which was a little odd because there were PLENTY of other seats on the large bench in the area. I knew that God placed her next to me for a reason, so I talked with her. Its amazing how easy it is to get into spiritual conversation-- All I had to do was ask her what she studied and when she reciprocated the question I answered that I'm not actually a student. She then asked me why I was here and what student life is all about and BAM! It's as simple as telling her we're a Christian group on campus, and we want to get to know Griffith students and what they think about Christian things... "I'm interested, what's been your experience with Christianity?"

She was FULL of questions! I found out that she calls herself "orthodox", which meant that she's been baptized as a baby and thats about it. She never goes to church and believes that there is a God out there. Long story short... She stayed and was engaged in deep conversation for over 2 hours!! I look forward to meeting up with her soon and being able to answer more of her questions. I think we're going to go through a 6-week "Christianity Explained" course to get into who Jesus is and WHY He is the central figure of the Christian faith.

Here's some more photos of "Giant Jenga". The guys especially got really into it :)

It was such an encouraging day and my team and I were completely in awe of God... that He used our last-minute outreach for His glory. He showed us that we had NO control over who would show up or how "well" it would go, and that all we have to do is take steps of faith and leave the results up to Him.

Praise God!!

"You of little faith...why do you doubt?" -Jesus (Matthew 14:31)

february prayer letter

Logan campus!

"Market day" on each of the campuses is where every student club and lots of organizations/companies come and hand out freebies, trying to get students to join or find out more... so as Student Life, we do "Chupa-Chup" surveys... a short spiritual interest survey in exchange for a free lollypop ("chupa-chup).

**see photo below for the survey questions... hope you can squint

So, today we ventured out to Griffith's Logan campus where we currently don't have a Student Life ministry happening. We went praying that the Christians on that campus would come find us and want to join the ministry there and WOW did He answer our prayers!! I personally spoke with 4 different ladies who were excited about getting involved-- two girls even said to me, "we didn't have any class today, we came to campus to try and find a Christian club." WOW!! Praise God :)

It was such an encouraging day-- in fact, the past 8 days or so have been! We have been able to meet SO many Christians and have way too many students to call back who have shown interest in either talking about Christian beliefs, hearing more about Student Life bible studies, etc, and taking a six-week course about the foundations of the Christian faith. Now when i say "too many" i dont really mean it.. but boy, are we going to be busy! It will be GREAT!!

doing surveys.. this wasn't even posed!!

AC/DC experience 2010

Now i'm not actually a fan of AC/DC... and the only song I could tell you is "highway to hell" which isn't too great of a song... BUT this is still pretty cool: across the street from where I live is the Queensland Sport and Athletic Centre where AC/DC just played their largest outdoor venue anywhere, ever! Apparently they're on their 2010 "back to home" Australian tour.

At 6pm tonight my housemate and I were walking down to our guy teammates' house, where we passed all the concert-goers on their way... Then, at 11pm as we were walking home, we caught the tail end of their show, saw the fireworks, and joined up with the thousands of AC/DC fans as they left the stadium. People EVERYWHERE. blinking devil-horned headbands EVERYWHERE. even small children who attended the concert with their middle-aged-youthfully-dressed parents semi-EVERYWHERE. It was the most entertaining walk home I've ever had in my life.

heaps of people on their way to the show as we walked past

after the concert... crowds of people leaving the stadium as we walked past.

january newsletter + a little blurb of an update

hello blogging world! here's my latest newsletter. So far nothing all too blog-worthy has happened. I've been in-country just over 3 weeks now and things have just started to pick up.

We have had a few team meetings... been planning impact camp (our student leadership weekend which is 11-13 of Feb.) been meeting students and getting to know our student leaders. Last week we played ultimate frisbee and also had a dinner/movie night.

This upcoming weekend of Impact Camp, I'm in charge of food. I really love to plan, organize AND cook, so I figured I'd volunteer for this job! Our group is 30 people-- all are Aussies except my team-- 5 Americans. My first problem-- what I would choose to cook might be way different than what Aussies would choose-- for example: anything with beet root on it. (they eat it all the time!)

Secondly-- what does it take to figure out how to buy the right amount of food for 30 people?! 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches, 2 afternoon teas, 2 dinners and 2 suppers. (a tip: "afternoon tea" happens at 3pm and its a snack, and "supper" happens at 9pm and its also a snack.) Ruth is helping me-- she's a friend and girl I'll be discipling this year. Bonus: she also has a CAR so I don't have to take the shopping cart (trolley!) home with me from the supermarket.

I'm excited to be having tacos as one of our meals! Apparently mexican food is hard to come by in Australia, and when you do find it its never any good. Now I can't guarantee that I can make the best tacos on the planet-- but they are delicious :)

As far as things coming up... after Impact camp we have a week of planning time (which we will definitely need!) Then we have O-week (first year orientation week) which will be really busy for us. Then after O-week the semester starts and we'll be in full swing!

Thats all for now! Thank you for reading :)

Blessings, Emily

am i blog-savvy?

Ok people. I've got something to admit. As I read the blogs that my friends keep I'm SUPER intimidated. It doesn't help that several of them are English majors, and have an incredible wit about them as they write about the everyday things in their lives-- whether they're in Nigeria or starting a teaching job in Minnesota-- I feel I can't compare.

I realize, however, that competition isn't the point. Duh. I'm here to invite you to be a part of the adventure that God has placed me in here in Australia-- to share how He is at work in my life and in this country, to give Him the praise and glory, and to add bits and pieces of my experiences this year.

So maybe I'm not all too savvy in this blogging world... but I'll give it my best! Its not supposed to be about me anyway.

settling in

G'day! Its another hot, humid and sunny day here in MacGregor (the suburb of Brisbane where I live). Yesterday was a national holiday here-- Australia day! Pretty similar to the fourth of july for us.. Very patriotic, lots of barbecues, red white and blue, aussie flags everywhere and fireworks at night!

Theres a picture of me in front of the beautiful city. I got an entire patriotic outfit from K-mart so I fit in. My shirt even said "100% Aussie". (oops. I lied).

Today marks our team's official start to the year. We had a week at a staff conference, then we've spent the last week settling in and "nesting". We had our first team meeting today-- the most unique meeting I've ever witnessed. 3 of us were here and 2 were still in the US! Nate joined us on skype from a Caribou coffee in St. Cloud Minnesota, and Amanda joined us via skype from her home in Racine, WI. Here's our first ever team picture:

We got a lot accomplished today and are having another planning meeting tomorrow. Praise God that we have this incredible use of technology at our finger tips so we can get things going even if we're not on the same continent.

Thats all for now! Please pray (still!) for Nate and Amanda to arrive quickly! Nate's still waiting on his Visa, and Amanda has to wait to come with him.

Thanks and God bless you!

hello from the land down under :)

Hello friends and family! I've been in Australia for 3 days now, and am adjusting to the heat and humidity fairly well. Last night my teammate Ben and I joined 2 others at a Cricket match at the largest professional Cricket stadium in all of Queensland. What a cultural experience! It was a lot of fun-- especially once I understood what was going on on that field!

Tomorrow we leave for a 5-day staff conference called Nexus. I'm excited to meet other CCC staff in the country and prepare for the upcoming year of ministry! We'll be near the ocean as well, which I am especially excited for. Please pray that God would use this next week at the conference to prepare me for ministry this upcoming year!

God bless, Emily