Well here we are a month in to this life experience of mine and I am already skimping on keeping my mates(friends) back home up to date. My apologies. Now that I got that off my chest I have so much to fill all of you in on. I will start where we left off last in the Garrett Langebartels saga. We here at Riverside Community Church have been in the middle of a big move to North Lakes, the area where the planters of Riverside originally wanted to have the church. We are finally finished until the building we are about to start building is finished. It is super exciting to see God fulfilling this vision that was laid on a few people's hearts several years back. I also have begun to play guitar on the worship team(acoustic and electric). That was my work life up until the Thursday of Good Friday. On that day I began my intern work by making packets for a church planting even that is going on this week. More about that later. As for my recreation, it has been truly amazing. Three weeks ago, I believe it was, I went wake boarding for the first time. I stood up first try and I must say I was pretty impressed with myself until Winston, Jim's brother, told me to straighten out my arms. This is what you are supposed to do once you get a hang of the whole ordeal. So as I did this I took an humbling fall into the shark infested river(not infested). I then stood up three more times, though I did spend much of my time being dragged behind the boat , but we won't talk about that now. So that was my awesome wake boarding experience and I am planning to get out again either this week or next. I also have been going on runs every few days. It is mad the variety of wild life you see running through suburbia. Quick side note, at the new offices I often see kangaroos. Thats when you really know you are in Australia. I don't really watch TV at all but I do catch the occasional rugby match(there are three kinds: Union, Rugby league, and AFL(Aussie rules)) and don't follow it hardly at all. It's much like hockey. You watch it to see if people will get hurt or in fights. I also went to my friends Dan and Kerry's for a passover meal one night and it was very cool. It was good to spend time just remembering what Christ has done that we might have life. So that brings us up to Good Friday. We had a really good service in the morning and from there I took off to a place called Dicky's beach. Dicky's beach is about a 45 minute drive north of where I live on a good day. I went up with my friends the Linley's. We took up there caravan(camper trailer) to a caravan park where our spot was just a hundred meters or so from the ocean. You could see it from where we were set up. We stayed for 9 days. The first day I spent some time getting to know how the ocean works and just playing around in it. It's one of the most amazing things, the ocean. It was my first time spending any extended time on a sandy beach or in the ocean, so I felt like a little kid the first day. The second day I got beat down by the raging Queensland sun. I was red as a tomato, though it did turn into a really good looking T shirt tan. We just spent the week relaxing on a level I don't know that I have ever experienced. So good. On day three we busted out Stu Linley's surf board and me and my friend Riley went at it. I stood up pretty easily in the white wash off of the waves. I stayed there pretty much for my whole surfing experience on that day. We spent the next two days walked around, swam, body boarded, body surfed and played beach footy(casual form of rugby). Then one day we went up to this beach called rainbow beach. On this beach you can drive up the coast if you have a 4x4. We met up with some friends and swam in this secluded beach area with no one else even close to us in the water. The waves were so clean and good. We then hiked up this red valley. It was just a big red soft sand stone rock in the valley and then you keep climbing up this sandy surface and you can get to the peak. It took about an hour to get to the top(barefooted) and about 20 minutes to get down. The view from the top was amazing. You could see miles and miles of coastline. I forgot my camera there so you will just have to imagine that view. So we went back to the caravan park after that. I then spent three of the last four days surfing for about 3 to five hours each day. I can now catch a real big kid wave. I also can get owned by big kid waves. I never wanted to leave Dicky's beach but I had to. So we got back at about 6 on Sunday night. Then this morning we had our first church planting training day. It was so amazing to meet all of these pastors here that just want to serve and spread the gospel by way of church planting. We had a really good session with tag team teachings from Hendrik and John Bond(pastor from Perth). We have that the rest of this week. I will let you know about that in my next blog in a few weeks or sooner. Life is good. Blessings to you all
WHAT GOD IS DOING IN ME
Since I have been here it feels as if God has completely changed me. It has been a gradual to me but as I look back now God has done so much so quickly. As I have written earlier we had been moving for the first two and a half weeks I was here. This was unexpected for me. I came to serve behind a desk in the air conditioning, but God had different plans for me. Through my first weeks serving as we moved God really showed me what service is. I never would have thought I would learn as much as I did through a long move in 85 to 90 degree weather. God really began to break down a part of my servant heart that I had largely neglected over the years. A friend of mine who I am serving alongside with really showed me what it was like to serve all out, and the whole time he just kept telling me to put a smile on, its not so bad. God used that little phrase in such a big way. Service is no matter what you are doing, truly doing it for the glory of God. God has also been teaching me to adapt. Riverside is a whole new style of church for me. They are running about 150 people a week I would say, and are in growing stages. The staff is me and Hendrik and Ursula Vorster. Coming from eagle to here was like going from my room clean to my room after I unpack from a long vacation. Everything has seemed to be on the fly. It has been good for me to just see what will happen next, and trust God will take control of what ever it is. Also one night while we were at the beach I was looking at the sky, and there were some clouds that had rolled in from the south in the evening and they had blanketed the sky. I was so taken back by the beauty and depth to the grays of clouds in the night sky. As I admired God He began to move. As I was looking there was a quick gap in the clouds. In this gap there was a single star. See up until this point I had been a little discouraged because I hadn't heard any profound words from God about my life calling so I was a little frustrated about that. But as I saw that break in the clouds God just said that beyond all of this gray area that you see in your life and beyond all of the questions I am still here and I have plans as big as the universe for you so just enjoy where I have put you for now. Then I had peace. As I walked on the beach the next few nights and I looked at the stars I just had this growing peace about my future and that God was in control of every piece of it, all I have to do is obey.
THINGS TO PRAY FOR
- Pray that God Speaks and continues to unveil what He has for me and in the waiting that I stay near and content with where ever He has me
- Pray that I can serve and be able to control how I try to influence things/that God would show me where to push for change.
- Pray for more workers here. The Christian population is only 8% or something like that.
- Pray that God raises up passionate leaders and that a revival would break out in this nation
- Pray that I would learn to love God more
Pray as I will be praying for you.
Pray:Love:Worship
Garrett
