Quick Update

Hey everyone,

Everytime I come to the library in hopes on updating the blog, I end up spending so much time sending e-mails and doing stuff on facebook that the time runs short! Anyway, I'll just try to get in a short update before we start our stuff for the day.

This week we have been doing some different training and preparation for our work here, since the students are still on their winter break. They come back on Monday, so next week will be a big week of meeting people and trying to establish some primary contacts.

This weekend was full of fun and excitement. Since we were just getting back from the Mid-year conference, we had the weekend off to relax and take life easy. Instead, we took the time to explore the city and ended up more worn out than when we started. There is a huge market area in the city called the Queen Victoria Market where lots of vendors set up little shops of all kinds. I bought a jacket that says Australia across the front and has a flag above it...pretty touristy but I figure it'll get some comments back in the States. The market also has tons of food vendors and pretty much anything you could ever be looking for, so we spent most of Sunday morning/afternoon checking that out.

Sunday night we went to church in Carlton(the part of the city that the footy team I chose to follow are from, the Carlton Blues). It was called a "unichurch" because it targets university age students. Everyone there was in the late teens or early to mid 20s, with a few exceptions. It was alot of fun to see how church operates here and how there are many similar aspects.

That's been one very encouraging thing to me as I've been here in Australia so far. When going through some of the basic foundational training at the mid-year conference, I realized that the teaching here is the same as the teaching with Campus Crusade in the States. It's comforting to know that such Truths are international and do not depend on gender, location, race, or whatever else could break them down.

Monday was a really busy day. One of the student leaders here had prepared a scavenger hunt for us to do around the city to see some of the special sites and to get more acclamated with our surroundings. It took all of the morning and most of the afternoon to go all over the place. We got different points for finding the locations and taking pictures at them. We got some extra points for having a random Australian in the picture with us so that made for some pretty funny encounters. The city of Melbourne has lots of attractions so it was really cool to get to see alot of them all in one day.

On Tuesday we rode all over the city checking out the different campuses we will be doing work on. Here in the heart of the city we are going to RMIT City and Melbourne University. A little bit outside of the city we are going to RMIT Bundoora and La Trobe University. It took most of the day to tram and bus all over the place and we walked around each of the campuses and had some time in prayer for the work we'll be doing and the student we'll be trying to reach. Much of the university life is different here, as there is little to no on-campus housing. Almost everyone commutes to school and so there is a strong lack of community in all aspects. There are also lots of intenational students from all over the place, so there are some language and cultural barriers that we will have to deal with as well. It was good to connect with some of the campuses and really see where we'll be working. I am anxious to get on and begin talking with students and hearing their perspectives.

Today(Wednesday) we'll be doing some training on cultural differences and really preparing to go onto the campuses next week.

For the rest of the week we are going to be doing some different things to prepare for our work and the weekend should be lots of fun with a cookout on Friday at one of the staff member's houses, an Aussie football game on Saturday, and whatever else kind of fun we can find on Sunday. I'll try to do another update this weekend, but as busy as it seems around here, I won't make any promises.

Thanks for following and please continue to pray for us and the students we'll be interacting with.

Allen