Well, it has been awhile.

     Heya one and all, it is Michael Kindle. So some of you probably don't know since I haven't been able to communicate with you guys. I am, and have been back in that states for three weeks now. I came back early due to my Grandpa passing away, I came home for the funeral and decided to stay with my family, let's just say I am still on a Mission trip it just changed location. So, for one week in Sydney we didn't have internet, then things got crazy in Australia with Amanda's hospital visit and me getting ready to leave. Then I got back to the states and entered the chaos of coming back home, so needless to say I was busy, distracted and too boot left my charger in San fran on a layover so I haven't had my own computer. (That is why no pictures for the moment, although I hope to get them up soon for you guys!!!) Anyway, as the blogger of the group I would like to apologize that we kind of left you out of the loop for so long but we will try and catch you up with what you missed and keep you updated again, great things are going down in Newcastle and I am sure the team is doing great work, I believe they just finished a week long k-6 day camp. They were the counselors!!! haha!!. We truly appreciate the support you have given us and the prayer you have blessed us with. Please keep these things in your prayers and feel free to ask us any and all questions!!!

---That the garden would continue to be a blessing to the school and community.
--- That the international student's would learn to love Jesus, and walk with him so they may go back to thier various countrys with God's word and spread it.
--- That Soul Cafe/Life Church would continue to bless the poor and homeless community in the Newcastle area.
---That the YWAM base would continue to walk in unity and love for Newcastle and love the youth of the area in a way that represents Jesus well.
--- That our team would walk in unity as well(even when separated), following God;s plan for the trip and taking all opportunities to spread the word of God.
---That I, Michael Kindle would be a blessing to my family.
--- That the relationships we have and are building will be one's that Glorify God.
--- That God would soften the hearts of all the people we meet.

Newsletter #6 " And....more catch up!"

     Well time is flying by here in New castle Australia and we have done so much and will be continuing staying busy. So I (Amanda) am going to share what we do on a weekly basic and some fun stories to go with! Well staring with Sunday its one of our days off, but we go to an international church to help Sam with preaching and building relationships with people around the world. I love this church because I have met so many people who are new Christians or don’t know the Lord. So after church they have relationship building time, which is lunch and they serve us Korean food and we hang out for a good hour to 2 hours with the international students. Then sometimes Sam takes us to the mall. Later Sunday nights we go to a church called Bayside and it’s a bit fancy but fun to meet people there too. Mondays is our other day off so we usually go to the beach and meet people. I think since I have been in Australia I have met more strangers/ friends then I have in my entire life, It’s been great! One day I was on the beach on one of our Mondays and this girl was all by her self. I was about to go swim and I walked over to go into the water but there BIG waves so I started a conversation with her about the wave and found that she is from the states traveling Australia to find her self and what she is worth. So I felt it was a great opportunity to talk with her and see where she is at so we were talking for a long time and I invited her over to hang out with us. She spent the day with us it was a great day just being able to talk to her and Shaina bought us all ice cream! Well, I think this leads me to Tuesday. On Tuesdays we go and work on the community Garden for the school right down the road from the base. We have cleared so much and worked really hard on it and still working on it. I feel this is a great way to reach to the community and the family’s it is touching through the kids, they even come out and work on the gardens and they help collect eggs. They also have cooking classes so they can learn life skills it’s amazing on how much this garden is helping this school. So later that day to go with the international church we go the university to hang with them and to continue to build relationships, we get Korean food once again (yum)!   Wednesday its one of my favorite days! It’s the base day and we all get together and worship and pray and just have time together with the lord. It’s always a G’day! Thursdays is another fun day we go to another church, its called Life church and the pastor there is amazing! He is like our best friend he has done so much for us it’s been great meeting him and spending time him. After the service they feed the homeless and I met a guy there and he was getting health care and lunch. It was just nice to hear his story about how he met Christ going to this lunch. This program and church has had a great impact on people’s lives in the community. So the pastor Kevin is great he took us down to Wollongong to see our friend James we met at his church and we stayed down there for one night and that was a blast … we were kind of running late and Kevin had to talk at 5 and we made it to the church at 5:15 something like that it was good timing. Well while we were looking for James and dinner Ricky saw a sign that said BBQ everyone is welcome (I know with Ricky I will never go hungry) so he and I went to check it out while the other two went to look for James. The principle there said they will give us half price so we went and talk to the others and she came out and said come on in for free!! (EVEN BETTER Ricky said) So we went to a catered BBQ for FREE! What a night, so that was a weekend there In Wollongong. So Kevin also threw us a BBQ with kangaroo and all types of food it was amazing he really treats us well, he is a good mate!  Friday we plan to go in to Waratah high school to hang with the kids and we teach them how to play the guitar, and as always build relationships to share the word with them. Later that day we go and teach a bible study to the international students. Then comes SATURDAY the big day!!! YOUTH STREET woot, woot! This is our big day we pick a team and we go do activities and its different every week so that’s always exciting. Youth street is a lot like young life back home. It’s a great program and fun to be involved in and be apart of. You can see the kids love it. Then this brings us back to Sunday. So that’s an overview of our week, sometimes it’s different,  but this is what we are mostly doing in a week’s time.

So most of you might have heard but we went to Sydney for a week due to the over booked house that we are staying in. They had the outreach team back and a bunch of people back so it was a youth street night and Kevin the pastor said we could go and stay with him for a night to figure out where we were going. But anyways that night this lady heard we had no place to really go so she said hey come stay with me for a week in Sydney and she was really sweet and so we were like ok well the next day we met her daughter at Hill song church, by the way it was amazing it has 4000 people a service and there are 5 services its crazy! So we met her daughter there Maryanne and we stayed a week in Sydney and we went to the Blue Mountains and had prayer time and it was a beautiful night. We did a trip down south to Javas Bay and it was one of the whitest beach's they say… it was really white! One night we were all heading back to the house there was 6 of us and we all got in the stair lift and it got stuck it was one of the smallest lifts I have ever been in and it got stuck with 6 people in it and we were stuck for about an hour maybe more, I don’t think I have ever got so claustrophobic in my life!! I think those where some highlights in that week! Oh and while were there Maryanne was thinking before we came about doing a DTS and she is now up in Newcastle with us about to start her DTS in April, the lord used us in many ways to get her away from her life back home and get her focus back into the lord!! So we got back to the base a week later and everything was going great we got back into the roll of things!!



So today(***This is the day she wrote it, I, Michael Kindle have been a bit of a distracted blogmaster, my apologies***) is March 25 and the past week has been a little rough emotionally, spiritual, and physical. Last Saturday I got really bad stomach pain and ended up in the ER, they said that I have to avoid a lot of different foods so that has been really rough for me because the foods I cant eat is all they eat here but I’m figuring it out and seem to be getting better praise the lord cause he is really showing me what trust is and how I can trust him to take care of me, I feel the lord is speaking to in many ways on how to take care of myself and that I can do it with him not alone and he is pushing me to new levels that I have never been too!!! But so the week has been getting much better have had a lot of quality time with the lord and in his word to understand what his plans and dreams are and what I need to be doing!!! Well that’s my update on my time in Australia and how the lord is using me and what he is doing in my life theses days!!!


----Amanda Carlson 

Newsletter # 5 "Sorry about the delay, ready for catch up?"

Well, I am in Newcastle and I (Shaina) am finally posting the blog update I promised a month ago. It has been an awesome month!! To back up a bit, the last weekend in February the four of us traveled with Kevin, the pastor of Life Church, to Wollongong. He was preaching at a church and we were going to meet up with James, another “random” acquaintance. When we arrived and were waiting for James we saw a sign for a BBQ, welcoming all. When I say we I mean Ricky. Michael and I were waiting for James to pick us up while Ricky and Amanda went to go scope out the food. An Aussie man walking past us(while I was whistling) and told me not to quit my day job- that I’d never make it as a whistler, and continued walking…! Haha Between Ricky’s tricks and Amanda’s sweet smile (or God’s provision and sweet blessing) all five of us (Ricky, Michael, Amanda, James, and I) had a catered meal, drinks, and dessert for free! Over $100 of deliciousness and our picture to go in the newsletter haha. We’ve had a TON (metric) of free food since being here. So good.

We had to relocate for a week when and it worked out awesomely of course. Went to the reputed whitest beach in the world, Hillsong church, and met another 100 random peeps.

Things we’ve been up to lately:

The garden at Mayfield East Elementary has been going well. We finished cleaning up the land where they want to plant melons and pumpkins. Not sure how many kilos of waste, dirt, and shrubs we moved but a small hill probably. We weeded a few beds and pulled up grass from around the small citrus trees with picks. Stephanie Alexander is the chef who donated the grant to the school, she came yesterday to see the progress and how the children are learning and benefiting from the gardens. I guess it was a pretty big deal for her to come because there were several reporters and cameras. We stayed for tea time, grabbed food and headed out.

Ricky has organized some peeps to do worship at our church in down town. He played the guitar and sang the last few weeks which encouraged me a lot, to worship God because He is Lord and Friend, Holy and Gracious not because I have or do not have a pleasant singing voice or musical talent.

We went to a different elementary for harmony day last week and did a few skits. I shared a story to encourage kids there to get along and befriend and accept people who are different than they are. We got booed at on stage… not exactly sure why... haha. I met a few islanders who performed different cultural dances for the kids. They are a group from the university and invited me to come and learn sick dance moves! I’m hoping to go!

The retirement center won’t let us come and play bingo with the oldies without police checks which are too expensive and time consuming for them to deem worthy of a few months visiting. We’ve met old strangers instead. And they invite us over for tea and dinner J haha I have found that the things I do to bring a smile to someone’s face or sharing a kind word/ greeting with strangers has brought such goodness and happiness to me. Doing things just to improve someone else’s day expecting nothing back has actually given me a lot- it is ridiculous!

Surf Fest was fun. We walked, talked, and swam all weekend. Played table tennis with some pro surfers and they invited us out to a pub, we didn’t go but pro surfers wanted to hang out with us! We met some girls from Germany and invited them to dinner at the base. Also met Louisa and another gal and got to love on them for a few hours. It was so cool because I got the impression no one has invested in them like that for a long time if ever. Hope to see them again. Ricky and Mike seemed to have some long conversations with some people over the weekend as well. Our friend Cory from our road trip to Brisbane was putting on an art festival next to Surf Fest and I got to meet a few interesting folks over there and listen to some great tunes.

Going to the University has been awesome!! Every Tuesday we’re in Newie we invite people to have lunch in the math building. Everyone loves free food and friends it’s so fun. There are tons of people who come back every week. More keep coming and bringing friends then the friends bring friends the next week. Lots of them come to International service on Sunday at the Korean church for more free food and chats. I think the “christianese” word for all this is evangelism. Building relationships to love, encourage, and speak truth to people who want it. It seems like what Jesus did. I love the freedom to travel and spread the GOOD NEWS while being so involved with in the local community. CHRIST IS KING OF NEW SOUTH WALES!!!! And we are living out of that reality every day.

Tomorrow we are doing something with the polls and the mayor of the city and elections.. I’m not exactly sure what it is yet but we’ll be on the street meeting people all day. Dancing in the street!! Hopefully anyway.

Personally:

God spoke to me when we were up on the Blue Mountains when we were worshiping together as a team and said “How can you worship someone you don’t know?” My heart had been burning for the last few weeks about KNOWING God, knowing what He is like, who He is. I just miss Him. I have to know this man; who He is, what He is like, His nature, His character. I’ve been reading through the book of Acts and it is so beautiful to see how the Holy Spirit is a sign to believers of kinship and common love of Jesus. It has been such a learning time for me. Reading through the Old Testament, I’m in Exodus now. Super excited to meet my month old nephew Jeffery!

I’m learning how to disciple Amanda well and lead her. That mostly means a lot of apologies. I can see her growing so much in her personal life. She is falling in love with God and learning what it is to trust God. I can tell He is being faithful to her in what ever it is she has been talking to Him about because her faith in God is stronger and life is getting more intense.

Michael left for home two days ago because his granddad passed away. I’m hopeful that he will come back. I believe Michael will go where God leads him, even when it is painful.

Ricky is just cheeky and seems to be doing alright. I’m positive that I am tanner than he.

I have the beginning of dreads (which I call joy locks)! Shells included.

Swam over wild dolphins, went out with a surfer, had a hot chip sandwich, ate a tablespoon of vegemite, had a camp fire on the beach at night and went for a swim, ate kangaroo and fed some live ones.

----Shaina O'Leary

Newsletter #4 "Time flys when your having fun."

     Wow, this week was a blur! It was fun, serving the Lord in a lot of different ways still and hopefully that will continue. It has been a wonderful, we had quite a lot of interesting days and life is still a bit chaotic here as we still try to get into a steady roll of things and pioneer a few new things. Although, I am beginning to doubt we will ever get into a routine, life here is simply too crazy with to many random opportunity's, but hey, keeps us on our toes not knowing what the Lord has planned for us day by day.
     So after our weekend(Sunday and Monday) We went back to Mayfield East Primary, and kept working on clearing out a space so they can keep building up their community garden. We made an even bigger dent then we did last time, I am under the distinct impression that we moved a small mountain of debris out of the area. But, maybe I am biased. After that we went to the Uni, to have lunch with the international students and invite them to the Sunday service we help host. Building relationships with so many people from so many different cultures is amazing, we all got to work on our chop-stick skills too, since that is what was available for our free Korean lunch! I got complimented on my chop-stick skills might I add, and we are all managing to not embarrass ourselves with them in general!!! What can I say? Our team rocks!
     Amanda and I also went back to help with three more year 7 scripture classes with the areas local school chaplain! We gave our testimony each time and helped with the games, we saw around if not over 250 kids during these classes, and in less than two weeks have had the chance to speak into over 500 kids lives, through our testimony and these classes! It has been amazing!!! On an interesting side note, the last class of the three was by far, these loudest, most disruptive, of all the classes. They were also the only ones to come up and thank Amanda and I for sharing our testimony with them. It is beautiful to see God touch broken hearts and broken lives. I look forward to going back to these schools!

Friday and Saturday was Youth Street prep and outreach! On friday, we went to go chill and hang with kids at Waratah, a local school. We got there only to find out all the kids were having a swimming carnival at a swimming pool a few kilometers away. Let the adventure begin!!! A few wrongs turns later, asking for directions twice and we made it!! Got to talk to kids and invite them to Youth Street it was great! The next day the Youth Street team I was on went to see pro-skaters at a demo! Newcastle just had a world class skate park put in, so we took the skate team to watch the pros and relax by the beach! It was finished off with Youth Street live where they talked on bullying and praying for your enemies(like the bully) and how it is far better to repay evil with good then evil with evil. When we broke up into small groups many of the kids stepped up and actually prayed for their "enemies" together!! All in all, another great Saturday!!!
     Once again thank you so much for your prayer!! I would love to hear back with comments and questions from you guys!!! Please keep praying for the different ministries we are involved in(Youth Street, Community Garden, International Church/outreach, and soup kitchens) and that God would lead us into any other ministry opportunity's that He wants us in!!! Thank you----Michael Kindle

Newsletter #3 "Things are starting to get rolling!"

Hey everyone!!!

 

So, we have had a lot of opportunity's come up this week, its been really busy and really long.  We feel like we have been here forever, not just two weeks! We are getting out into the community to see what we can do and have already had a lot of events and activities......

 

 We started off the week working on the beginings of a garden at a near-by school.  The school wants to give and sell the produce to needy families, this is a great opportunity and its going to impact people around us. It was raining a bit so it felt just like home...kinda. It was still real warm but working there was great!

 

Then we went to the local university to hang out with people from our international church, had lunch with them.  We got to invite a bunch of new people to church, the women at church cooked food for them which is what gets them to come!

 

So after that all four of us went off to have a devotional time and really put some questions into my head.... what does hope mean to you? What is your hope in the Lord?

Later that night we went got to serve some homeless and hungry people. It was a great time to build relationships with people that are hurting and I got the chance to sit and talk with people and hear some amazing story's abouth their life. 

 

Our next adventure we went to go help serve some more people but praise the Lord but they have to many hands but they said to check in every once in a while to see if they need help if we are in the area. On our way out we met this guy and he invited us to church the next day he was a wonderful guy he told us his story and how the Lord changed his life. So while we were down in town we had lunch at the park and then we hit the beach and had some good individual quality time. So then Sam came to pick us up and he told us we had an opportunity to go on a road trip so when we got back we met with this lady and only two of us went and two of us stayed back to do testimonies and help with youth street.....so Ricky and Shaina went on the road trip, while Michael and I stayed back... (Ricky will share share about the road trip) So for Michael and I we woke up Friday to head to the school to help share the word with the kids. Something that really stands out to me is in Australia schools they have set time aside(1 hour per week) for people to come and do "religious studies" with the kids. Christians luckily are the ones taking advantage of it and use it to build relationships, its a great opportunity. While we were there we did some games,and we talked about the body and how important it is how God created it to work and how each person is beautiful and wonderfully made! It was amazing to be able to speak into over 150 kids lives!! Then comes the big day, Youth street!!! So this week we went to the skate park to hang with a bunch of kids and tell them about youth street and invite them, i got to talk with 2 girls and they plan to come this week so I'm stoked for that!! Then we came back to the base and we had youth street live, it was on purity and relationships! It was amazing to see teens choose God's plan for purity in there life... Then Ricky and Shaina came back !!!---Amanda

Surprise Adventure #1

   

     As if the randomness of our last few weeks hasn’t been enough, we were proposed a trip of excitement that was meant to promote a festival that starts in less than a month. It involved an 800 Km one way road trip, with lots of stops and people meetings along the way. Since we had already made plans to run a seminar for a public school, we decided it best that only 2 of us go on this journey with Coriander the driver, yes like the herb! So Shaina and myself Ricky were the ones to take off! She picked us up around 730pm on Thursday arvo, about an hour and a half late, and decided to tell us that she’s flat broke and we would be busking-playing music on the streets- for gas money. Let the adventure begin. We drove straight through the night, and when I say we, I literally mean Cory, myself and Shaina all driving! I know I could go on for days about the joys and excitement it was to watch Shaina drive, for one a manual shift car, and two on the wrong side of the road, but for times’ sake ill just say, I haven’t laughed so hard on the inside for a while!! We made it up to Brisbane, known commonly as Brizz-vegas around 630 in the morning, 11 hours of driving! We found a nice little patch of grass and slept for a good hour or so. Then were off again, this time to the beach, to get cleaned up! After we were all refreshed, we jetted over to the downtown area of Brizzy, which reminded me a lot of Seattle, except a lot cleaner and more shopping areas. We tried our best at busking, but fell short, made less than 10 dollars, was a very humbling experience. I was on guitar, Shaina on harmonica, and Cory on a box drum. After packing the car back up we were off yet again to a town called Toowoomba where we would go to a benefit concert for flood victims in the Queensland area. Another 100km drive and arrived in Toowoomba. Picked up some sandwich stuff from a local grocery store and had a bite to eat. The concert went well, a few local bands then a mainstream aussie band wrapped it up. Cory had the chance to talk to a lot of people about the upcoming festival and made a lot of contacts. After the show we cruised back south to a place world renown for great surf called Byron Bay, where we spent the night in a parking lot right by the beach, falling asleep right when we arrived, at 430am. We arose to blue skies and sun and went for a morning swim! The next few hours consisted of swimming, combing beaches for shells and rocks, eating true aussie food like meat pies and fried chip sandwiches, and driving another 9 hours back to Mayfield, where we live. All in all it was a 50 hour journey, consisting of 26 hours of driving, less than 5 hours of sleep, a rock concert, barely eating anything, seeing and swimming some of Australia’s nicest beaches, and sharing the gospel with this chic Cory the whole time! I know God has a rhyme and reason for every one of our little adventures, I’m just stoked to see what’s next! ----Ricky

Newsletter #2 "It's getting hot in here!"

     So, we began our travels a week ago now. It seems like is has been much longer, but it hasn't and somehow we seem to be fitting right in. The Hostel we are staying at is super welcoming and a great place to be. We are just getting settled in and checking out Newcastle, or Newie as it is called(apparently everything is shortened in Australia.) It is defiantly a blessing to be here, it is a gorgeous city with a lot of need for God's love. The culture is varied and diverse with many different foreign nationality's. After the first week we have been praying about opportunity's to serve the community and what ministries we undertake.

     This Saturday we volunteered at a christian community outreach event in Karuah, a small town north of Newcastle by about 30 k/m. There were tons of people, and tons of kids. We helped out by setting up a mini-skate area for the kids. It was a blast to see so many Christians loving on the community!We also went to an international church service this Sunday that we will be helping out with, many foreign students that go to a university nearby, many are not Christian but are just seeking community as they are so far from home, we look forward to helping with this service as even just in Newcastle, Australia we have the chance to reach China, Japan, Indonesia, India and the Middle-east from this university's students.

      Another ministry we are excited about is helping a public school with a community garden, where they can grow and sustain a large garden to help provide cheap and healthy produce for the family of their students. Thus, not only improving the kids life by education but by meeting real physical needs like food as well. The school is a public, low income school but the Principal has a huge heart to help these kids in everyway he can.

       We will keep checking out Newie and various other ministry opportunities, there is so much of this city to see and we have barely scratched the surface of the possibilities God has provided for us with this trip. We are so excited to be here and can't wait to see more of what God has planned for our trip. Thank you all once again for the support that got us here. Please continue to pray for us while we seek God's will for our trip.

P.S. Yes, it is quite warm here, even today with a bit of cloud cover and rain it is in the 70's.