DTS Week 6 & 7 - Camping

I've got a feeling this is going to be a long post so please bear with me. I'll try to use headings to make it a bit easier to read!

Camping/Camping Stories
Camping was good fun. It was really great to get away from base for a little while - less distractions and more time to spend together. Of course, we weren't exactly isolated (we were at the local scout camp) but you can't have everything.

There were frogs in the shower and plenty of insects (so many bites). There were wake up songs at 6.30am. There were games. There were campfires. There was supper (everynight). There were storms. There was going to sleep wet. There were wellies. There was sleeping in tents. There was swimming in the river. There was worshipping around the campfire in the rain and the presence of God. There was spontaneous worship under the stars when it was so dark I couldn't even see who else was there.

A cool camping discovery was doughboys. Here's an explanation for those who don't know:
1) make bread dough
2) wrap it round a stick
3) cook it on the campfire
4) take it off the stick
5) pour syrup into the hole
6) eat and enjoy

Lectures
The first week we had a different teacher every day so just had short teaching on various topics. Probably my favourite day was the teaching on different worldviews, where we discussed various philosophies that are prevelent in the world today - what they are and how Christians respond to them.

The second week we were studying The Lordship of Christ. This included teaching on salvation, following Jesus, and how although He already is the lord of our lives, we have to choose whether or not to live in the truth of that.

Baptisms
On the last day of camping we went down to the river and five of the students got baptised. These were all students who had been Christians for a number of years, but felt that it was time for them to make (or in one case, remake) the public commitment to acknowledge and submit to Jesus as Lord. It was good fun. There were a few teenagers there who seemed to find us a little strange. That was kinda funny though.

Celebration Night
As Friday of Week 6 marked us being half way through lecture phase, our wonderful leaders decided to throw us a 'Celebration Night'. Every part of the evening was a secret beforehand and was great fun. It started in the afternoon with a trip to the beach (see pictures in the previous post). When we first got there we had time to just be quiet and spend fifteen minutes with God, then we joined together for worship & talked about the things we are thankful for. We spent a little more time at the beach, ate food, drank lemonade and had a really great time.

The beach was beautiful (as I hope these photos show). We were the only people there, which is always special (especially to a European!). There was tropical vegetation lining the back of the beach and such an incredible view of the ocean and a couple of islands just off shore. Sadly we couldn't swim as there was a danger of crocodiles and there are also poisonous jellyfish the size of your thumbnail in the water. It was a look-but-don't-touch kinda situation.

Celebration night continued with a delicious meal back at the campsite followed by a surprise open air movie evening watching Evan Almighty (which I hadn't seen and had wanted to so great choice in my opinion). It was a really great day.

Outreach
We still haven't been given a totally set plan for outreach (i.e. date-by-date where we're going) but we're getting a clearer idea. I'll post more on this later, but we should be hitting about 6-8 towns in the 8 weeks, including most likely the towns of Emerald, Longreach and Mt. Isa. Mt. Isa will be our final stop and we'll be working alongside some people who moved from the base in Townsville to Mt. Isa to minister there and also with the School of Music in Missions (another school currently running at the base). I'd really appreciate prayer for the team to continue to bond, especially as our final team member (a guy who didn't complete his DTS outreach due to injury) joins us next week. I want to take hope, encouragement and the gospel into these towns and really bless the people there. My biggest prayer (and please join with me, I'm not the only team member praying for this!) is that every single member of the team will lead someone to Christ (i.e. pray with them as they acknowledge Jesus as their Lord and Saviour for the first time) at least once during the outreach. I really believe that that alone would be worth it!

Finances
I am very blessed in that this area is not a struggle to me. However, if you want to get involved with this work, specifically the outback outreach, there are 4 team members still needing funding. If you feel led to support them financially, send me an email (yednickteck@hotmail.com) and I'll give you more information on that. Please thank God for providing my outreach fees already!

General News
I really feel that I'm making some good friends here, which is a huge blessing to me. I'm trying not to think about the fact that not all my best friends are on my outreach team! I'm missing home a lot at the moment, despite enjoying being here, so I'm really looking forward to my parents and brother visiting in just a few weeks' time.

During camping it's really started to hit home to me that the real test of this time is going to start when I get home - how am I going to use what I've been learning here to really impact my home nation for Jesus Christ? Or, to phrase it another way, how am I going to use what I've been learning here to really bless the people of Britain and introduce them to the answer they've been looking for?

Shout Out to Louise
During camping I got a package delivered (someone picked it up during a food run to base). This package was from one of my best friends back home, Louise. Just before I left she introduced me to the ingenious and beautiful TV show Firefly, and we watched the entire series and the movie in the space of about 16 days around work & Christmas. It was quite the challenge. Anyway, the package contained a card with a picture of Burbage Edge in Derbyshire, a Firefly bookmark, a hat like one of the characters in the show wears and two toy dinosaurs because one of the characters plays with toy dinosaurs. It made me laugh so much. I have played with my dinosaurs quite a bit. So yeah: Thanks Louise!!!