Lovin' Life here in Aussie :)

So far Australia has met and exceeded all my hopeful expectations. The people and the land itself are both incredibly open and lovely. I am so blessed to be here! Every day is an adventure and so much is packed into twenty-four hours. The general experience so far has been jump on board or get left behind! I am trying to take enough pictures to remember my experience, but not view everything behind the lens of my camera. I’ve learned that the majority of Australians are so helpful and friendly and even being on public transportation systems or walking home late at night is not in the least bit scary!

Last week was my first full week of classes and I must say my schedule is pretty fantastic. On Mondays I have no classes but I usually go to the school to use the internet and try to talk to people from back home. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays I only have one class each but on Wednesdays I have class from about 1030am to 7pm. It’s a very long day but it’s the day that all my worship and theology classes are so I don't want to change it. My first day of my Christian ensemble we lead worship at the Gathering and I learned that my teacher is Darlene Zscech’s music program director of Hillsong or something along those lines and he tours with her so he is definitely the real deal! He oversees my ensemble and he also teaches my Music in Leading Worship class and he is very chill but really knows what he is talking about. I think I am going to really like the class. I’m also taking a New Testament class, a Visual Communication in Culture class, and two classes about Australia’s history and it’s indigenous peoples with the rest of the ASC students.

Saturday was my first real day of my service placement at Hillsong Street Teams. I was put on a the “Towers Team” which is a team that goes to a local apartment complex in Red Fern and literally goes door to door seeing if we can assist the residents in any way. It is definitely a rougher apartment complex and my team found needles in the stairwell. I quickly learned that there are two starkly contrasting reactions to seeing our smiling faces and green Street Teams shirts. The first is the ever so appreciated smile and genuine happiness to see us. The other reaction is not nearly so inviting. There is one resident in particular who gets infuriated if we even knock on his door. The cool thing is that even if they don't want our help people take one look at our green Hillsong shirts and there is total respect. At one apartment lives two older gentlemen who had been looking forward to our visit all week so that we could help them clean their bathroom (or toilets as all restrooms are called here) and help them vacuum the living room. They are residents whom my Hillsong team knows quite well and they are always excited to see the team every Saturday morning. Another resident we got to visit that morning was an elderly Russian lady named Helena who lives with her husband Boris. In contrast to some of the other apartments we visited hers was neat and tidy and it was clear that she took pride in her home. We passed her apartment to visit another resident and I saw her get out of her chair and watch us go by and on our way back to see her she was waiting at the door hoping we would say hello to her. She invited us in and we sat down on her couch and talked to her the best we could in spite of the language barrier. She knew most English words and as long as we kept terms simple we could have a lovely conversation. I could tell she enjoyed having visitors and offered us cookies (bikkies) and tea. I really want to go see her again this upcoming weekend because something about her struck a chord in me. I just felt like she was someone I was supposed to be praying for this week so every night I shoot up a prayer for Helena. She was having some problem with her leg and her calf and ankle were swollen dreadfully. My group leader told me that many of the Russians living in Australia were quite rich in their home country being doctors or lawyers but here in Australia their qualifications don’t mean anything and they live in poverty. I felt so blessed talking to the people in the Towers and being able to serve them. Since it was my first day I followed the lead of my leader in conversations and just tried to soak in as much details about the residents as I could so when we go back on Saturday I can greet them by name and ask questions so that they know they’re not just a face to me.

This weekend I got to experience my first Australian Mardi Gras here in Sydney which was absolutely crazy!! The streets were so packed with people you could barely walk anywhere. It was a gay and lesbian Mardi Gras so the crowd was quite diverse to say the least! I went with three other people to the parade after spending the day at Coogee beach (absolutely GORGEOUS with rocks to climb and a lagoon area which blocks all the waves). It was quite an adventure just to get to the parade itself and once we made it there it was so crowded it was pretty hard to see. We did get to see several floats as we walked through though and they were quite interesting! It appears that everyone showed up to party in Sydney that night!

Sydney is so much fun to roam around in because there is ALWAYS something t o do. There are fun bands and street musicians and delicious food everywhere. I’ve been to two amazing beaches, Manly and Coogee, and I’ll hopefully get to go several more times this semester! A couple of us girls even managed to find a store on George St. (imagine Michigan Ave in Chicago) that we can afford to shop in!! My list of things I want to do before I leave is quickly growing. I have only been here about two weeks but I already feel like I’ve lived here forever and if I feel the same one in four months leaving is going to be so hard! My ASC class on Friday is usually trips into the city which is nice because we learn firsthand about Australia instead of sitting and reading a book about it. Last Friday we went into the Rocks which is a historical district of Sydney and got to see a lot of buildings and areas that date back to when the Convicts were transported here from England and Ireland. Australia’s history interests me so much. I read a historical fiction book about an Australian convict when I was about thirteen and since then the history and Australia has interested me so I am soaking everything up like a human sponge!

I miss everyone bunches but am enjoying every minute of my experience!!!
Xoxoxoxo!!!

Caitlin

p.s. No I haven’t seen any kangaroos yet ;)

Plane rides, buses, Sydney, near drownings, harbor cruises, scavenger hunts and more!

My first couple days in Australia have passed in such a whirl I feel like they have been fastforwarded.

After I met up with my group in the LA airport we boarded our Qantas flight and woke up in Sydney 3 movies, 2 tv episodes, 2 snacks, and 2 meals later with several naps in between. My first interaction with Australians was with the stewards on the flight and they were DELIGHTFUL! Most stewards on planes are polite but not beyond that, the Australian stewards were so funny! They joked around and everything was "lovely" and they were so happy to see us "mates". This escalated the excitement level by like a thousand!

When we landed in Sydney, my fabulous impression of the Australian people was improved even more by the genuine kindness of the people in customs. After I finally tracked down my guitar and met up with my ASC group (Australian Studies Centre) we were boarded onto a bus and filled with funny Australian lingo and pretend animals that would attack us called drop downs or something (similar to Americans taking kids snipe hunting). From the second we got off the airport we were introduced to Wesley students, filled with TONS of information in orientation, and made to run around in a game of Pictionary relays. The Wesley students who are on their type of student council are called Wibblies (Wesley Institute Buddies) because they help out the first years and ASC kids. They are really outgoing and willing to answer any of our questions about their funny words!

During the three days I have been here it's been jam packed with Orientation events and meetings. The second day of Orientation we spent half the day here and experienced their version of chapel called, The Gathering. I liked it a lot. One of the classes I am taking here, a small contemporary Christian ensemble, actually does the worship for The Gathering which I think is going to be an awesome experience that stretches me. Other classes I am taking are "Music and Leading Worship", two classes dealing with the Indigeneous Australia and its views, a New Testament class, and Visual Communication in Culture which will go towards my communications major back home. I am quite excited for classes to start because I think they're going to be pretty different from back home.

The second half of Orientation was a huge scavenger hunt in Sydney! The catergories were "Snap it, Grab it, and Work it". We had to take pictures with different things and people, find or get someone to buy us things, and work things. Examples? Snap a picture of the group in front of a fountain posing like the statues, grab a bus schedule, and work it included getting strangers to play a game of basketball with us at the Rock court and getting strangers to trade clothes with us to take a picture. It helped us get a glimpse of Sydney and tour the city in a really fun interactive way. I saw the Opera House up close and the bridge :) My group didn't win but it was fun asking a random stranger to change shirts with me!

After the scavenger hunt we went on a Harbor dinner cruise and got to see Sydney from the water. This was a lot of fun and quite the adventure. There was a live band that played music and we danced for hours!! The cruise was not only just ASC students, but the Wibblies and some Wesley first years too so we all broke out of our shells and boogied together! When we were pulling back into the harbor and passing the Sydney Opera house we noticed a man in the water. One of the boys in our group actually saw him fall from the side of the Opera house into the water. Everyone started yelling and finally our boat cruised over and one of the waiters had to jump in and save him. It turned out to be an older man and the ambulance was called and the coast guard (or whatever their equivilant of that is) came and pulled our waiter and the gentleman out of the bay. Kimberly (ASC program director) told us today that part of the harbor is generally where the sharks like to hang out. SCARY! I just thanked God that that little old man and the waiter were alright!

The last part of my crazy first days includes meeting my host family and finding my roommates. My roommates names are Emily, Courtney, and Natalie and are all great! We are living with the Rastall family which includes my host dad Wayne (ironic, huh?), mom Gerry, and new brother Conor who is fourteen. The family is so nice and the dinners Gerry makes us are AMAZING. We live in our own wing of the house which has 2 bedrooms, an office, a living room, and our own bathroom. I share a room with Emily and we get to rock bunkbeds. So far the trip has been amazing!! It's a little hard to keep in contact with back home because we only have internet access at our college. I got a cell phone so that I can stay in contact with fellow students and friends that I meet.

The weather is amazing and I love Australia!!!! :)

Love, Caitlin :)

Getting Ready for the Adventure of a Life Time!

In ten days I will be stepping off the airplane into Sydney, Australia my home for the next five months. The program directors have been sending us e-mails to encourage us to begin to mentally and spiritually prepare ourselves for our time away from home. They have repeatedly stressed the importance of not considering this time abroad to be a vacation, but rather a pilgrimage; a journey in which we will be stressed and pushed to our spiritual limits. Not only do we have to adjust to being without our friends and family, we have to adjust to being in a new country and learning how to adapt.

This past weekend I went to church at North Campus at Olivet and Pastor Kendall used a quote from the Chronicles of Narnia to help put Jesus into perspective. It's one of the last scenes in the movie and Aslan is walking along the beach while Lucy is watching him leave with Sir Tumnus. Lucy is sad and wants to know why he is leaving and Sir Tumnus replies, "He isn't a tame lion" and Lucy tells him, "But he's good". Pastor Kendall was showing that God isn't some nice tame God whom we can carry around in our pockets and contain him. He is a big God but as Lucy said, he is GOOD. I'm excited to see how this untame God is going to radically change my life in Australia. I want to be open to this God and not only try to follow the "tame" God especially while I am in Australia.

Today I am going to start packing and getting ready to go. My list is seeming pretty long for having to fit into one suitcase and a bookbag. We'll see what happens!!