Well, I bet you would like to hear that we got to and from Papua New Guinea all in one peice, no sickness, no lost luggage, no missed flights ( which is nothing short of a miracle seeing as our pilot didnt show up in CAIRNS...yeah i know right? we werent even in PNG yet )
I have found that just cheap words cannot express what I saw there, but heres my attempt to articulate my experience, coupled with a video I created and some photos I took.
Papua New Guinea, The land of the unexpected. A land of eight hundred languages and tribes. One of the most beautiful and untouched places on earth but a land where security is the country’s biggest growth industry. Where the houses of the wealthy hide behind walls tipped with razor-wire and gates watched by security guards. The living conditions, the health conditions, the lack of safety and comfort are way below what anyone from a western nation would be used to, But you still look around the villages, and they are filled with happy, joyful people, singing and playing carefree in the ocean. They live a simple life. and love it that way Amidst the unjustice, poverty, poor healthcare and dispair. These incredible and beautiful people still find something to smile about. Its impossible to miss the deep and rich inheritance this nation has, and is yet to find for itself.
Here is a video I made up of my photos/video footage that hopefully helps show more of the beauty of this incredible nation
It was awesome watching the reaction on the kids faces when I would show them their photo. For some of them it was the first time they had ever seen a photo of themselves
blah im trying to post more photos. but it isnt working. ill try again later though.
This is the outreach team im helping lead with my school leader Buddy Baldock!
Theres Elizabeth. Luke , Buddy, Rebecka, Chelsea, Megan, James, Viivi, Jess, Brianna and me!
And as you probably guessed. I finally found out the location in PNG my team will be going to!
Were going to a city called Kerema which is in the gulf province of Papua New Guinea. along the southern coast, west from port moresby ( one of the ports the ship will be going into ) and surrounding villages ( hopefully going up some rivers in boats and stuff to get to some remote villages, should be fun! )
We will mainly be speaking in churches, schools, doing open air events, giving primary healthcare and visiting hospitals. as well as some manual labour and hanging out with ALOT of kids
My budget for this Outreach ( including Australia in January which ill talk more about later ) comes to $3,071 But I only need $2,023 paid in , in 3 weeks ( the rest can be paid in by january )
If you would like to help out. Just go to http://www.ywamrto.org/profile/stephanieanderson and click on the big orange button!
1 newly built skate park + 1 massive set of skate ramps + a load of wicked awesome bands + 1 mechanical bull + art workshops + scooter/skate/BMX competitions?
One.epic.weekend.
Seriously. Against the Grind was such a blast!
For those of you who dont know our base here put on a city wide music festival / skate competition called Against the Grind ( Which i got to design the logo and posters for, which was fun! )
We were given these massive skate ramps a couple years ago. and we have no where to set them up so they just sit on this empty property in a random metal box One day we just thought. well. lets do something with them..so we did.
It exploded into a massive skate competition that the city and PCYC even got involved with and gave us finances/volunteers to help with it.
So this last weekend we put it on and got almost triple the amount of a turn out then we expected! around 4,000 people showed up and not even one ambulance had to be called ( Which is incredible seeing as there were hundreds of kids on those skate ramps doing crazy backflips and stuff )
It was just so nice to be a light to the city here and put on a positive event. We heard so many stories of courtesy on the skatepark ( which is almost unheard of in townsville so i heard ) and had no word of any fights or bad behaviour over the entire weekend.
And we had To Write Love on Her Arms come up and share about teen depression and how it affects people and where to get help. Sharing stories of hope and purpose instead of a message of destruction
Here are a few photos that i took that i feel really sum up the weekend
SO about that previous statement that went something along the lines of
" a blog that I will actually update "
It seems to me that i already havent been doing that. Sorry everyone who knows about this ( which probably isnt too many at the moment. so im ok with that )
Anyways. So the reason I have been so slack on this is because I have been up to my neck in work because I am going on outreach on November 24th!!
Where to you may be asking??
Well. this requires more of an explaination.
Because we really feel like our outreach is meant to coincide with what our ministry is involved in at the moment. ( The Australia and PNG ship tour. which ill explain in a second ) we are looking at spending 3 weeks in papua new guinea as an entire school then travelling down to canberra to spend a week serving at the YWAMs 50th birthday jubillee where the founders Loren and Darlene cunningham will be visiting/speaking at. After that we will be travelling to help out first hand with the australia and PNG ship tour as it docks at its first ports in australia. We will be going into schools sharing about missions and how youth can help!
SO what is this ship tour im talking about?? See YWAM Australia was given a ship, a medical ship. they are equipped to do primary health care, dentistry, and ophthalmology (including cataract surgery). The vision of the ship is to go into Papua New Guinea with the ship, and treat the locals that otherwise would never receive medical assistance. Before going there though, the ship is going to make a few stops in Australia! All along the east coast of Australia the ship will dock at 16+ cities, and skaters, dancers, Ywam’ers, and bands will engage the youth of these Aussie cities calling them to missions! The goal is 100,000 young Aussies committing to missions in 2010! Epic, yeah?
But we will be involved with the very beginnings of this insane vision YWAM australia has and im so happy to be a part of the base thats pioneering it!
Watch this video for more of an understanding ( our media team i was involved in developed this video in house. im proud of what we have done! )
Another really exciting aspect of this for me is I have the incredible opportunity to finally use photojournalism in missions!
Ever since my DTS ( 2 1/2 years ago ) God has put a burning desire in my heart for photography and was calling me to use that gift in missions specifically to show Gods faithfulness and beauty, to tell the stories of people i meet and how theyre lives have been changed. and to capture the face of injustice.
and most importantly. not just for the sake of a photo.
My goal is to not have those powerful images sitting on a shelf getting dusty, or to have them sitting on my hard drive or sitting on a website where no one will see it, but instead sharing it with people and showing God's true heart for the nations, hopefully moving the people who see it to be the change. I decided that I was going to try to use the power of photography to make my little corner of the world a little better than how I found it.
What this means for me in this DTS, is collecting photos and stories while we are up in Papua New Guinea on outreach next month that paint a picture of the injustice there; images and stories that capture your heart for the nation and to put a face to the issues we hear so little about
I want to be showing the reality of healthcare conditions, stories of people with AIDS and stories of maternal deaths. But not just sob stories that have no happy ending, but ones that show hope as well as reality and how each one of us can be involved and help out in something bigger than ourselves.
To accomplish this. After we come back to the base for 5 weeks I want to use this time to develop an art exhibition that we will take into schools and churches around Australia on our second half of our outreach helping out with the Ship tour in January and Febuary.
Overall my hope is to be motivating young aussies to get plugged into missions and to make a difference in the world they live in
Sort of a Do first, then teach kind of concept.
Im really really stoked about this opportunity. and am so happy for all of you to be involved!
Iv decided to start another blog ( that i will actually update ) to keep you guys up to date with what im doing in a way that is cool and isn't face book. Dispite its advantages im slowly having the opinion of facebook notes and groups being silly.
Well this first entry is basically going to be a little bit long winded but none the less it will be setting the stage for the epicness that is the October Discipleship Training School i am about to embark on staffing.
What is a Discipleship Training School you ask? ( i actually completed one when i came here in april of 2007 )
A DTS is short for Discipleship Training School. it is a 5 1/2 month course we run here with YWAM. YWAM is a christian missions organization ( short for Youth with a Mission ) and the main goal is " To know God and make Him known"
so we have students come in for 3 months of lectures (2 of which are spent camping in the australian bush )Helping them learn more about God while helping them find a purpous and identity for their lives, We spend alot of time serving the community with youth programs one being youthstreet
My main role in Youth Street ( which runs from 2pm to 10 pm ) is discipling young people through friendship and creative arts and to work with the youth in a small group setting, create projects for them to participate and develop their skills in. I even recently got an opportunity to share at the second half of our program in the evening called youthstreet live on the topic of generosity. It was really cool to see kids walking out in it when i had finished that evening. I even saw one kid with a bunch of cokes in his hands saying " Im buying a coke for everyone i have been mean to! " haha.
Back to the DTS though.. after the 3 months of classes are done, We head out on an outreach. Ours will look a lot different than many DTS's in the past. so i will save the explaination for that when everything is finalized
I was shocked when they asked me to staff this DTS, It was pretty short notice but was blown away by what God has spoken to me over the short time i had to process and give my answer to leadership here. I have come to find that what this DTS specifically means to me is. I have noticed especially in this next generation. Alot of the questions you seem to hear are. Why am I here? What am I good at? What difference can I make? Youth today seem to just we wandering around aimlessly. without purpous. wanting to find one but not knowing where to look.
But my hope for this ( and all of our ) DTS is for the students to hear some answers from God to those questions while finding their identity in Christ, helping them understand how they are made and gifted is something I have come to have a burning passion for, and helping them find out what in the world God has for their lives I want them to know God wants to use them to impact the world.
Nothing brings me more joy than developing and watching people discover themselves in ways they never thought possible and from finding people who bring to the table talents I dont have!
So all in all. im overly abundantly stoked for what God has for this next 5 1/2 months. The first week of the lecture phase ended today and we have an insane group of people of whom i love already. 36 people from 7 different nations including the US , Canada , New zealand, finland, sweeden, UK and germany
I will write more about whats going on in the next post as this is getting pretty long winded already. Im sorry. But thats where im at right now! woo hoo!
