Australia's Aboriginality

As we round the final turn and begin our run toward the finish, our Australia team has been blessed and sometimes overwhelmed with all God has shown us here in Queensland. A good portion of our last two days has been spent with the indigenous (aboriginal) community- observing, interacting with and learning from them as they live out lives straining toward a greater recognition and equality in this setting.

"Deadly" is a good term here!

  We spent the better part of Friday at NAIDOC (National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee) which celebrates the indigenous cultures of the aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.  It is a festive, carnival-like atmosphere with much joy and thankfulness for the heritages presented.  We watched dances, heard singers and speakers, and interacted with organizations and vendors providing social services information for those in attendance.  


This afternoon we learned to throw boomerangs (some learned better than others) with Goma Conlon, an indigenous pastor and good friend.  He also demonstrated the playing of the didgeridoo (way cool) and talked about what it mans to be a follower of Christ in the aboriginal setting.  Following this, we hopped over to the church at which he and another indigenous pastor are working an shared evening service with them.  It was a great blessing to gather and worship with them.  Josh drummed for their worship team, Don and Alexis shared testimonies and Alexis sang.  What a rich history of stories and struggle were present  among those members!


I thought you might like to share one more collection of photos of this great team:

NAIDOC festivities in downtown Brisbane

Josh and Luke made a new friend

Papa Fresh in da house!

Time for chocolate fondue at Max Brenners

Don sharing testimony at Saturday night service

Remember these guys?! They were the bomb!

Josh and Alexis with Saturday night worship team

Please pray for our last hours here.  I'll preach Sunday morning at Ann Street, and Josh will speak for their Youth Church in the evening.  We want more chances to share the hope that's within us before we leave these shores.  Will you ask God to provide them, and for us to boldly speak of what He's done with our lives and what He wants to do for all who come to Him?  Thanks!  


We'll see youse soon- good on ya!

Eidsvold Doesn't Sound Australian

Our 2011 Australia GO! Team has had an incredible experience so far!  We just returned from 4 days in Eidsvold, a small community about six hours from Brisbane.  Our goal was to serve the Christian Center there, along with its new pastor, Mark, and his wife, Alex.  We had such a great time with kids and adults alike, playing sports, working through Bible lessons and crafts, singing, eating and running around together.  We also got better acquainted with different adults in town, learning much about the issues and circumstances surrounding this small community of both white and aboriginal residents.

It's tough to quantify our take-aways from this experience, or the impact we were able to have.  One local businessman did tell me that he appreciated our group being there, even for a few days each year, because he saw positive influence in kids' lives from our interaction with them.  He told me that our presence is a reminder of normality (imagine someone referring to us as normal!), that the world is bigger and more functional than what is seen only through the local lens of the town.  He thanked us for coming again, and offered his encouragement for our return next year.

The following are some more snaps of our last couple of days.  I'll write more about Eidsvold and other good stuff a bit later:

Pastor Mark and his wife, Alex

Prayer circle before leaving Eidsvold

Captain Luke, superhero of the crafts debris!

Lianna mixing it with kids during crafts

Craft Woman Leslee and her monkey

Beautiful Eidsvold kids

Josh and Clinton

Which way back to Brisbane?!

Alexis singing to an appreciative audience

Don (aka Papa Fresh) and the girls, Leslee and Daun

Please keep us in prayers as we head into our final weekend here.  Pray that we'll finish well and will take every opportunity to share the most important message on our hearts.  Pray that we will remain focused on the task at hand and not too distracted by thoughts of getting back to our "regular" way of life.  And pray that God will speak to us, even as He speaks through us, concerning lessons He's been showing us while serving here.  We just can't afford to be the same people when we return as we were before we left.


And those around us can't afford that either.

GO! Australia in Fine Fashion

Wow! it's been a whirlwind first week here in Brisbane for our team. We've tried to update our activities via Facebook, but our long days/evening schedule has hindered blogging up to this point.

Ann Street Church

We made it here with no worries, surprising our missionary (Daun) with her father (Don)!  It was great to see her stunned expression at the airport as he came out the ramp! More than anything throughout this week, we've been impressed with the need and opportunity for relationships.  The young people of the Ann Street Church are so open for friendships, and those connections matter to them.  People with whom we've come into contact are also open to finding more about us and connecting with us on some level.  These opportunities are abundant and fairly easy to negotiate- something all of us are able to do!

Community BBQ

We've been to an island off Brisbane's shore with the church, visited a zoo, cleaned and begun repainting Ann Street's Fellowship Hall, eaten kangaroo, served a Community BBQ (like our Community Supper), dined at the Pancake House in the city at midnite, attended a farewell service for Ron Tatum (visiting for a month from Southside Christian Church in Inglewood), and prayer walked in the city...just to mention a few things. Tomorrow (Sunday), Mike will preach a combined service (Ann St. regulars and their Korean church), then we'll pack up and head to Eidsvold, a small, predominantly aboriginal community 6 hours from here.  Chances are there'll be no way to blog there, so we'll catch you up on our return next Thursday.  Meanwhile, thank you for your prayers and love (keep 'em coming!), and enjoy a few recent snaps:

Daddy Don

Luke the artist

Josh and St. John

Alexis and the Ann St. mob

Work crew gettin' it done

In 'N' Out training pays off 

Beach bunnies!

Mike keeping an eye out

We've experienced a lot in a short time, and there's more to come!  Pray for opportunity and boldness as we represent our God here.  We love you all!

Australia and Montana- GO!

Summer in SoCal is kicking off, and with it two Knott Avenue Global Outreach (GO!) Teams committed to making a lasting difference throughout the world.

GO! Australia will be in Brisbane June 26-July 11. We'll again partner with our own Daun Slauson and the Ann Street Church of Christ, working with them as they reach those in their world. Our team includes Luke Hamagiwa, Josh Carman, Leslee Marvin, Lianna Cabrera, Mike Carman, and (in insets) Alexis Alvarado and Dan Stanton.

GO! Montana- Larry and Joyce Clasen, Kelly and Judy Kappen,  Lynn Ramirez, Carol Hall, and John and Connie Bergsto (not pictured)- will be in Kalispell, MT June 26-July 6, working at the Youth With a Mission (YWAM) base there. This training center is led by Jeff and Kristi Wilke from KACC. The team will be busy with projects  from office help to construction needs.

These teams need your prayers, as the experiences they'll encounter are not simply of the physical realm.  Without sounding too esoteric, we need to remember that we wage a battle of a spiritual nature.  That means that no matter what we're involved with, there are spiritual overtones and constructs that take us from the natural to the supernatural. Our conversations, relationships and opportunities all have spiritual overtones and ramifications that may resound into eternity.  So please pray for each of these team members as they give themselves for a cause so much greater than they.

Brisbane

Pray for them as they travel, serve, connect and pour themselves out for the glory of our Lord. Pray for divine appointments with people who need the hope and that Jesus brings. Pray for team unity and a spirit of oneness. Pray for their families who will carry on here in their absence. 

Remember also that you can check this blog site periodically for updates (at least for the Australia team!) as a way to keep you more closely connected with what's going on.  Better yet, you can subscribe to this blog (it's on the right of this screen and it's free!) so that when we do post, that update will come to you automagically!  Thanks for your prayers and concern for our teams...and as we go, will you also be aware of your call to go to wherever your world or field might be today so that you can make a world of difference?

After all, we really are all in this together!

Run and Fun

So much to tell you and so little space! Let me catch you up a bit:

After Sunday's service at Ann St. we loaded up a bus and hit the road for Eidsvold, a small, rural and largely indigenous community about 6 hours from Brisbane in the bush. We've been making the trek to this town since 2005, and Ann St. continues to visit throughout the year. Our goal is to connect in significant ways with people (especially youth) through our Christian Centre there. Although we have no congregation presently in Eidsvold, our arrival signals that there will be activity for a few days! Kids and adults we've come to know begin to come over and they bring friends.

One of my (Mike) highlights was teaching about 25 kids some songs for a Tuesday evening program put on for their folks. It was simple. really. I taught them "Lord, I Lift Your Name on High" and "Father, I Adore You." Nothing new for us, but apparently new for them. They not only learned those songs and asked to sing them again and again, but recalled what they had learned last year ("I Like Bananas") and taught that to me!

Tuesday evening we hosted a community bbq (no shrimp, but plenty of sausage!) and then our program. The kids did a great job and Edgar shared his testimony with the crowd. He gave an invitation for people to give their lives to Christ, and at least three responded! The time of sharing afterward and the days that followed was also full of opportunity and openness.

Leaving Eidsvold was tough on Thursday (it always is) because friendships had been formed and strengthened, and some were just now opening their lives to some of our team. We will continue to grow those relationships while we are apart, believing God will use what we offer to do more than we could imagine.

Today (Friday) was our experience with NAIDOC- National Aboriginal and Islander Day Of Celebration. It is a time of recognition for indigenous Australia, as they remember and rejoice in their heritage. We spent the day at a downtown park, along with many hundreds of people. The festive air and chances to learn more about this integral part of Aussie culture were exciting for us and we reveled in rubbing shoulders with such wonderful folks. And tonite we traveled the downtown part of the Brisbane River of the City Cat transport boat. It's a beautiful (and cold!) run up and down the heart of the city- a can't miss kind of thing.

Tomorrow Ann St. hosts a regular event, "Big Day Out." We will pack up a group and head to a local rain forest for a bit of a bushwalk, lunch and time together. In the past they have taken upwards of 50 to such experiences, but this time we have about 100 signed up! Should be exciting figuring out how to make transport and logistics work, but it's a great challenge!

We thank you for your prayers and concern for us. We are all doing well and are daily growing in our love and appreciation of this culture and people. We see God's imprint all over the place, even though society is more secular than ours in almost every way. Those with whom we talk are open, friendly and often interested in talking about spiritual matters. There are great challenges, to be sure, but great potential as well. And that's where we can be used! Please continue to pray as we finish well this weekend. I will speak Sunday morning- ask God to make His power and message understood in a fresh way, and that people will respond to His prompting. Thanks!

Pictures...

1. Our mob at Eidsvold the day we left

2. Team at South Bank, downtown Brisbane

3. Tim and Edgar walking through South Bank

4. Gorgeous view from the City Cat

5. Aboard a cold boat at night!

Sharing What We've Seen

Today was a workday for us. We spent the better part of the morning cleaning an indigenous (aboriginal) Christian center in Logan (a part of Brisbane. After lunch, we threw boomerangs with Goma, an aboriginal pastor and leader from the area. Then we cleaned the yard of a young woman in the Ann Street church who is recently widowed. In all these events, we had opportunities to connect (and reconnect) with brothers and sisters who encouraged us, even as we sought to be an encouragement to them.

I want to share two video clips with you that will give you a taste of some of what we are doing here. The first is a short demonstration of shepherding skills using border collies; the second, our friend Goma showing us how to play the didgeridoo. I hope you enjoy seeing them as much as we did being able to be here in person for them!

where in the world are we going?

As we approach the end of June (and the beginning of our summer), two Knott Avenue Global Outreach (GO!) Teams are making preparations for experiences in different parts of the world.

Our Australia Team will be in Brisbane June 27-July 12. We will partner again with our own Daun Slauson and the Ann Street Church of Christ, working with them as they reach those in their world. Team members (left to right) are Edgar Garcia, Mary Flores, Kyle Marsh, Brittany Hughey, Leslee Marvin and Mike Carman.

Our Montana Team (Larry and Joyce Clasen, Kelly and Judy Kappen, Carol Hall, Lorraine Dupray, Jim and Maureen Wilke and John and Connie Bergsto [not pictured]) will be in Kalispell, MT June 30- July 14, working at the Youth With a Mission (YWAM) base there. This training center is led by Jeff and Kristi Wilke from KACC, and the team will be busy with projects ranging from office help to building and construction needs.

Pray for these teams as they travel, serve, connect and pour themselves out because of the good news they've come to know. Pray for divine appointments with people who need the hope and encouragement that Jesus brings. Pray for team unity and a spirit of oneness. Pray for their families who will carry on here in their absence. And for lessons to be learned and lives changed, both among those who go and among those to whom they go.

Romans 10 tells us that those who bring good news have beautiful feet. How great to know that KACC has several with such gorgeous feet this summer! Check back here throughout the trips for updates and encouragement. And while you're at it, why not show off your own pretty feet? Wherever you find yourself, take the opportunity to deliver a message of hope, life and good news to those around you. After all, you don't have to get on an airplane to make a difference in this world!