February News

Well, it’s been a while since I sent up an update.

So here’s a bit about what I’ve been up to for the last few months, and some of my plans for this year.

PCYM Wrap-up

When I last wrote, I was on my way to New Zealand. We had a great 3 weeks working with kids, mostly disadvantaged kids in Auckland. We also spent a weekend at the YWAM NZ National Gathering, where we ran the kids program for the weekend. The whole team was stretched in a lot of ways, and it was great to see the students step up and take leadership in a lot of areas – to the point where I mostly just had to supervise and advise them while they did most of the ministry.

Once we got back to Australia, we finished up with a few weeks of outreach in South Australia, including helping out at Schoolies. As usual it was a lot of fun to get to hang out with the newly graduated teenagers. This year as well as picking up rubbish, as we usually do, we also rode on the buses that were picking up Schoolies to help keep the peace, and helped with general crowd control.

In keeping with the PCYM tradition of making everything as fun as possible, graduation had a pirates & ninjas theme. Everyone enjoyed dressing up, and it was great to look back on the 6 months and celebrate finishing the school.

Personal Stuff

On our way back to Adelaide from NZ, Bec & I stopped off in New South Wales to spend a few days with family. We were there to celebrate our Grandad’s 80^th birthday, Dad’s 50^th, and our uncle’s 40^th.

It was great to spend time with family, but it was also a tough time as Grandad had been diagnosed with cancer, and by that stage was in palliative care.

Grandad passed away on November 30^th, and we’re going to miss him a lot. But it’s good to know that he isn’t in pain anymore.

Holidays

I had the whole month of December off – and it was amazing! The long holiday was just what I needed after a very hectic year. I got to spend time with family (including helping my parents move house), catch up with friends, and I enjoyed spending a large amount of time just reading or doing nothing. By the end of the year I was feeling refreshed and was looking forward to getting back to work.

Then I headed Sydney with some friends, where we spent a few days being tourists, including watching the New Years Eve fireworks from just near the Harbour Bridge.

Coming Up in 2011

This year I am taking on some new areas of responsibility on base. I am taking over all of the government accreditation for our courses. This mostly involves a lot of paperwork, and generally ensuring that we are always meeting the requirements set for us by the government. I’ve been starting to do this job for the past few weeks, and I am starting to realise just how much is involved in the role.

I am also going to be involved with running our staff training, and continuing to be responsible for helping our staff and students to get visas.

At the moment we are struggling a lot to get visas for people to come and work with us. We are going through a registration process with the government, and it is all moving very slowly. I would appreciate prayer for wisdom as I am dealing with this, and also for patience – both for me and those who are waiting on the visas.

It’s challenging at the moment to try and get my head around it all. But I know that God is calling me to higher levels of responsibility in this, and He’s going to teach me a lot. One of the main areas that He is already challenging me on is the area of integrity, and being sure that we are doing everything to the very best of our ability.

That’s about all I have room for in this newsletter. I hope you’ve found it informative J