The Final Countdown..

My time in Sydney is drawing to a close and because of that a myriad of people have been bombarding me with questions like, “Has it changed your life?”, “What was the best part?”, “What was the worst part?”, “What have you learned?”, “Have you grown?”. I’m realizing now that I better have an answer for all of these questions when I get home so that I am not completely overwhelmed and give some lame answer like, “Australia was good.” We had a debrief class session just going over everything and processing what we’ve learned and Kimberly said one girl summed it up well by saying how our experience here in Australia wasn’t about all the touristy places we’ve been and seen, it was in the day to day experiences that we had and that is so true. My experience was the beautiful view on the Gladesville Bridge on my way to school every morning of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was “running amuk” in Sydney with my American and new Australian friends. It was figuring out the public transportation system until I can easily say, “Take the 506 to Drummoyne then the 490, 492, or 504 to the school” and knowing that if I want to stay out late to take the 501 to Gladesville because it runs later on weekends than the 506. My experience was LIVING in Sydney, not vacationing in Sydney. I did plenty of touristy things like the museums, art galleries, Bondi Beach, Palm Beach, Paddy’s Market to buy souvenirs, and going to the Gold Coast for project week but the majority of my stay here is summed up in my life in Gladesville. A massive part of my experience was getting close to my three roommates and spending a lot of time with them.


Has it changed my life? Definitely. I am now going home and changing my communications major to journalism possibly because from this I know that I want to have the freedom to travel all over the world. Being in Australia has made traveling a reality for me! I’ve always had a list of places that I wanted to go in the world and now that I’ve been to one of them it makes the other destinations seem so much more possible than I ever would have thought. I’m not ready to go home and stay there; I have so many places to see!! It’s also changed my life because it has shown me how much stronger I am than I had realized. Being in Australia has definitely been lonely at times but it has taught me how independent I am and how much I have to rely on God. Kimberly gave us back a question from our applications that asked how we wanted to be challenged this semester and I said I wanted to be challenged to get outside of my box and learn to rely not on myself, friends, and family back home but totally and completely on God. That totally happened here. I have read my Bible more these four months than I have in a long time. I have been journaling about so many experiences and changes that I see in myself that have come about by my total reliance in God. I found a church that I attended not because I knew anybody there but because I loved the atmosphere and because it challenged me every single Sunday. I have been stretched, pulled, and pushed so many uncomfortable directions these past four months and I think it will be interesting to see how those things will affect me when I go back home.

Going home hasn’t really hit me yet. I don’t feel like I am going to be leaving Australia in 6 days. I have taken in so much information that I’m not quite sure how is going to be used when I get back home. Social justice, land and environment issues, and little things like using reusable shopping bags and water bottles instead of plastic are all things that were really stressed here and I don’t want to forget them when I get back home. Doing volunteer work all semester has shown me the importance of not just volunteering at a church but volunteering for people who don’t know God yet and are in a tough place in their life. I’ve always just volunteered at either my church back home or did worship at the church I attend at Olivet, but I have never really done consistent volunteer work outside the church. I want to find a program that works with kids or youth and really dig in and get involved. I think of how much time I waste sitting in my apartment at school on facebook or watching pointless television shows and think how much better it could be spent for an hour or so a couple nights a week tutoring kids or working at a soup kitchen. I’ve realized what a comfortable and selfish life I’ve gotten used to living. I know a lot of people are probably thinking, “She went to Australia! It’s basically a vacation!” but it really wasn’t. Of course it was wonderful, but I did learn a lot and issues of consumerism and materialism were really pushed this semester until I thought I was going to SCREAM, but it has stuck. I need to make a life change when I get home. I need to find practical ways to implement the things I’ve learned so that my semester here has a lasting impact.

It’s going to be crazy hard to not go back to shopping whenever I want, spending all my money on myself on things I don’t need, not volunteering, using plastic bags, and so on and so forth but I am determined! It’s going to take a lot of accountability from the people I’ve spent my semester with and from my friends back home but I think I’ve gotten a lot stronger this semester and gained a lot of self-control and perspective. While I’m sad to go home I’m really excited about the changes I want to make in my life so it makes it easier.

Here’s what I’m committing to:

• Finding a program to volunteer at that I’m passionate about when I’m at school instead of just being a couch potato!

• Using only reusable shopping bags EVEN if it means not buying something because I forgot my bag

• Using a reusable water bottle instead of buying packs of plastic ones

• Recycle, recycle, recycle!

• Not shopping needlessly... I want to be more generous! If I have extra money it doesn’t mean I have to spend it on myself!!

I am totally aware that this will take effort when I get home and it will be easy to slip back into my habits so feel free to hold me accountable when I get home :)