Outreach in 4 weeks!?

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!