Rebekah is ... in Australia

My Facebook status says it, so it must really be true! It's nearly 4am here but of course it doesn't feel like it, so I'll be quick. I think I used the journey reasonably well, including reading The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants and watching High School Musical 2 (there's a reason why I get on with the kids at youth group!)

Impressions so far - the people I'm staying with are very kind. The country is plesantly warm, so will be murder once morning arrives no doubt.

Oh, and they didn't even comment on my 3 month tourist visa -vs- 6 month study intention at immigration. Matthew 6 anyone?

Packing

My parents tell me that even as a child I hated packing. While my sisters would go and get their clothes 3 t-shirts and 7 pairs of socks at a time as asked, I would spend hours doing anything but putting clothes in a suitcase.

Things haven't changed much. I still procrastinate and dislike packing. On the upside, I'm getting much better at it.

I am currently sorting out my CDs to take to Australia. That involves ripping and burning all the ones I want cos I don't trust myself not to lose any CDs if I take the real copies. I'll leave them at home. Waiting for me.

I am excited and so, so nervous right now.

What if I'm not 'YWAM'? What if my student visa gets declined and I have to come home early? How am I going to survive 6 months without seeing my friends and family? Will I just make all the same mistakes I've made before?

I feel like I've not prepared for this trip maybe as much as I should have in terms of praying stuff through and writing down my hopes and aims for the trip. Maybe doing some of that writing would be a good way of passing the 26 hour journey.

The Countdown...

I have a flight booked! I officially leave on December 28th, headed for Melbourne. I'll sort out my internal flight once I'm there. I'm travelling on a tourist visa (so prayers that the student visa will come through quickly once I'm there would still be appreciated!)

Aside from that, it's Christmas Eve, so I'm wrapping the last few presents (not all of them got delivered in time, so sadly my little brother won't be getting his gift from me tommorrow) and deciding if I want to change for midnight mass.

I am looking forward to going to Australia. It was great to be prayed for at church yesterday (and one lady told me she saw an angel behind me while I was being prayed for! How cool is that?!) But at the same time, I know I'm going to really miss home, especially knowing that when I do come back it'll only be for a short time.

In other news, I found a really cool present for my friend Jody at the supermarket today. I would say what it is, but since she'll probably read this on my facebook feed I won't. Maybe I'll take a picture and show y'all later though.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Visa visa...Drama drama...

I've been asking people to pray about my visa situation for going to Australia over the past few weeks, thank you to everybody who's been doing so! Sadly, the wait isn't over yet, but things are starting to make sense. It looks like I'm going to have to travel there on a tourist visa to give me time to travel before the course starts, and apply for my student visa once I'm in Australia.

The strangest thing, though, is that I, worrier-extraordinaire, am finding it hard to worry about this. I know it's in God's hands and the best outcome is going to happen. Kinda difficult to worry when we know that's the case, isn't it?

Matthew 6:33
Philippians 4:6-7

Praise God =)

Story Time: The Gentlemen music video

On Sunday I volunteered to be in the crowd scene for The Gentlemen's first music video. It was a fairly standard shot - a crowd of people looking like they're at a gig enjoying the music. You can picture it right? Hands in the air, reaching out as the lead singer walks forward, no space between you and the person in front. And we shot the whole thing on our knees. Yes, that's right - there wasn't enough height to have us stood up so we had to kneel down! All in all, it was very good fun. The video will probably be out sometime in the spring to promote their 2nd album.

The part I found strangest was the people who hung around at the end. We'd been waiting round all day, why stay even longer? I think maybe they were waiting to meet the band. That makes me laugh. The Gentlemen are getting bigger...are you feeling it?

God bless

Getting Ready

This is a post I wrote for another website a few days ago about my coming plans. I figured it should be repeated for my blog...

I've been thinking/praying/daydreaming about doing a DTS for such a long time that it's still not quite sunk in that this is real! I am so thankful to God that it is! To be quite honest, since my last year of school I have struggled with not knowing where I'm going education/career/calling-wise, and God gave me two words about it (both of them about 2.5 years ago) one was "You're not ready to know yet" (couldn't really argue with that one, could I?) the other was "Don't seek God's will, seek God".

This summer God has blessed me so much in many different ways and I feel that, through a challenging time, He has really brought me to a new place in trusting Him. Then at the end of the summer I finally sent in my DTS application to reeftooutback (I've looked at schools all over the world), applied to uni (God willing I'll be going next September) and generally got to a point of not cringing when people ask what I'm doing and what my plans are.

So as I'm getting ready to go, I'm already so thankful to God for bringing me to this place at this time and pray that His will be done - no limits, no boundaries, just whatever God wants to do in me, through me, to me and with me. I'm excited - bring it on!

Back Again

So I had this blog, then I closed it down and now I'm starting again from the beginning. I'm going on a journey and I want to keep people updated. I guess I kinda hope that God will give me profound things to say to inspire anyone who chooses to read this, but if not, that's ok too. I guess this blog may at least start as thinking, rather than dreaming, out loud. But maybe that's ok. Maybe there's a lot of rubbish I've got to go through in my head, with God, and out loud, before the good stuff will come. That's ok.

Besides, it'll also be a chance for me to plug my flickr (www.flickr.com/photos/bek_flickr) and write about stuff like the places I've been, what God's been teaching me and gigs I've been to.

I went to see Delirious last night. They were way better than the last two times I saw them. There was some real energy (Plug is such a great venue for live music!) and I loved the visuals they had on the screens. These guys are good. The only thing that slightly concerns me is will we actually take what they say seriously, or will we just enjoy the hype of the evening and then go away and forget about the town we promised to paint red, or the modern day disgrace we lamented? I guess it's like that whenever we go to a gathering of the Church, even when the gathering is held in a nightclub.

May God bless you and guide you by His Spirit and grace.