Mark 16: 15

"Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation."

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Sydney Excursion!!!

Wow, God has blessed me so much here....I am having an amazing time!!  I wanted to share with you about my day in Sydney last weekend because it was pretty incredible.  To start off with I figured Neil, Jameson, Tyler, Michael, Haley, and I would spend the day sightseeing and enjoying the sunshine and although we did, God had some other plans for us too. 
   Lets see....our train left at about 7am and we spent the early morning hours on the train playing 20 questions and reading to ourselves.  When we arrived in Sydney, we parted company from our YWAM travel companions and headed for the bus stop.  It turns out that the last bus going to Hillsong had left about three minutes before we got there, Frusterated, I went to the bathroom and while I was gone a train came by that would have taken us close to Hillsong, but because a couple of us weren't there they didn't take it. This is where it started getting strange: about three minutes after I got back, we discovered that a bus that would drop us at the front doors of Hillsong Church was scheduled to arrive in three minutes!!!  We were so excited and praised God the whole way because we had been praying that we wouldn't be late to Church.  At Church we got to spend some time with another DTS from Townsville that we had met the previous weekend here in Newcastle.  It was so good catching up and hearing about all that God has been doing through them during their outreach.  It was making me excited for our outreach to Indonesia!!
  Our afternoon was spent jumping bus to bus ( God was amazing with the bus schedule that day!) and using ou 21 dollar all day train, ferry, and bus pass, we visited and sang on the front steps of the Sydney Opera House....what a dream fulfilled for me!!  Plus the weather was beautiful all day long.  The only time that we felt a Spiritual heaviness was when we first arrived at the Sydney Harbor and so many people were walking around, alot of them dressed in traditional Indian garb.  This lasted for a while and it didn't help that there was strange music playing in the background and a man dancing out of control, but as we walked closer to the Opera House we came upon the sound of "Ave Maria" coming from a beautiful violin being played by an elderly man.  I wonder if he knew how much he raised our spirits by playing his music.


  The ride home on the ferry was lovely under all the city lights, we sang hymns and I was asked if I was a singer. :)  The train ride home was probably the coolest part...In Sydney that day their had been a huge music festival called Soundwave and they all were coming home the same time as us.  So amongst the tatoos, language, and occasional visits to the restroom caused by too much alcohol, I was getting a little bit tired of it all and for some strange reason decided to sing.  It was pretty cool, I started out pretty quiet, but as I was encouraged I got louder and during that time it was really peaceful on the train.  Even though it was scary I felt like I needed to do it.  I think it was the Holy Spirit inside of me wanting to change the atmosphere on the train to something that would honor God. :) It was so cool to be used for His purposes!  All in all it was a day full of God appointments and when we got home we felt like walking the town because we felt so annointed.