Nearly Month Three. WHAT!

Well I are quickly coming up on month three and time is flying. I can't even believe looking back now all that has been done and all the fun I have had. I will pick up where I last finished. Since I last wrote I have met the first American since I have been here. His name is David. He is from Spring Lake Wesleyan in Michigan and he has been to ignite camp. Small world right. We have been hanging out quite a bit. One Monday we decided we would go for an adventure into the city. So we hoped onto the train for our 45 minute train ride and it ended up taking us and hour and 45 minutes, because we caught the train when it was on its way out of the city. So once we made our way into the city we decided it would be the appropriate American thing to do to grab some McDonalds. Once we obliterated our double quarter pounders(half pounders?) we left the train station and went over to the Queensland Art Museum. There were several cool exhibits there. The building also was very cool in structure, with it's water pools and large open areas. Then the next week we had a birthday party for David at the beach. That was fun several people showed up for the extravaganza. We played Frisbee on the beach, then we had a skim boarding competition in a dirty pool of salt water. Then Mitch and I swam out to a sand bar that we thought would be an easy swim to get to. Turns out it wasn't. After we got half way we realized how far it actually was, so naturally we kept swimming. It made touching our feet on the sand bar, that we were speculating existed, that much sweeter. Then one Sunday night I went with several of my friends into the city to a restaurant called the pancake manner. It was this super sweet restaurant in the city that, as the name suggests, specializes in pancakes. It was extremely good. Then Clint arrived just this past Wednesday. It has been good to catch up with him. We went out on the boat on Saturday. I finally was able to get some small jumps that were shortly dwarfed by Jeff and Clint's jumps. Never the less I was landing. Needless to say I woke up a very sore man the next day. So naturally Clint, Jeff and I decided to go and climb Mt Tibrogargan. So we take off to climb it, in the rain. It was about half rock climbing and half hiking. It was a really good climb. It ended up sprinkling lightly for parts of the climb, but the trail brought us to an amazing view of the Glass house mountains, and the Queensland coastline, with Brisbane off in the distance. We then down climbed the rock parts and ran down the foot of the mountain. That pretty much brings me to the end of my more major recreational events. For work I have been up to several things. I am doing admin stuff for children's ministry. I am also still working on our children's VBS camp. I have been in charge of planning that. It is coming up quickly. It's only a month away now. I also have still been leading worship at youth. This past Friday I spoke on healthy friendships. It went well. There is a lot coming up to be excited for, so stay tuned for my next blog with the updates from all of these things.

WHAT GOD IS DOING

God has been so amazing. Several of my prayers have been answered. It has been awesome to see Gods comforting hand on my life. As I was getting more home sick God remained faithful and sent me several comforting people and events. It is simply amazing to see God's faithfulness. God is teaching me stacks on being content with where He has me and that His will is higher than any home sickness, or frustrations that I could have. Though I am missing Bram and Eli a whole heap, I am at peace with what God is doing.

WHAT TO PRAY FOR

• Next week we have the Gathering event, which is meant to be a renewal event amongst our district of Wesleyan churches. We are expecting God to show up
• We have the Kids games at the end of the month that I am in charge of. We still ideally would want more volunteers, and we are still trusting God for a good turn out of kids
• Also keep praying that God would clearly show me my next steps. I have several big decisions coming up that I will need to make.

Pray:Love:Worship

Garrett Langebartels

Into week 9 of 26

Hey Hey all. Welcome to the third entry of your blogging experience with Garrett Langebartels. It is now a week off from being in the beautiful Queensland Australia for two months I just got back from an early morning surf so I decided now would be a good time to write a new blog. I can't believe I have been here that long. Life is so fast right now. It is so mad to look at what I have already done and to imagine what God has in store for me to do next. I will pick up where I left off. I have now had a few weeks of seemingly regular work in our office. It is good to finally start getting some routine into my life, though I call it routine loosely. I have have started work now on our Vacation Bible School(Kids Games). I am in charge of making it happen. It has been so crazy, and such a good learning experience so far. That has been taking up a majority of my work time. I have also been doing things for our youth group here. We just launched last week at our new facility that is located right in the heart of the aria we are trying to reach. We had a good launch. I lead worship and a game at it. I have also started leading worship in church. I lead for the first time Sunday night two weeks ago and it went well. I am leading again this coming Sunday night. Thats what I have been up to at work. My times of recreation have been awesome lately. Three weeks ago I went into Brisbane City. It was so cool. The city here is like no other city I have been to. I went to some of the shops there and walked around to several different plazas and things. There is a river that runs through Brisbane and there are board walks all the way up and down the river, so I walked on that and got a coffee. Then I went to one of the three art museums in the area and didn't get past the first room. So needless to say I will be taking the train into the city a few more times in the near future. Then last week on Monday I went wake boarding again. This time was much more successful than my first attempt. I am now able to go outside the wake and glide across the water like a wave glides across the ocean floor. I started trying to jump, but that made me go from gliding across the water like a wave on the ocean floor to skipping across the water like a stone tossed from the hand of a clumsy 10 year old. But by next time I am confident I will perfect the art. We also did some wake surfing which was pretty sweet. (For those that don't know what wake surfing is, it is when you load up the back corner of the boat with weight and you create your own never ending surf able wave). It was real cool. Then this morning I went for a surf at Alexander headlands. The waves were massive we are talking 20 or 30 foot waves, and by that I mean 6 to 8 foot and by that I mean 3 foot waves. It was my first go on a short board so it took me about an hour before I could catch a wave. I got dumped about 3 times, AKA my feet went over my head trying to drop in on a wave. But after that I got it and it was funky fresh. I wish I could just live in the water and surf all the time.

WHAT GOD IS DOING

It is like I am learning something new every day here. It is so crazy how much my reliance on God has grow to an insane level. It seems like every day I find myself in a spot where the only answer thing I want to do is pack up and go home, or just go to the beach and live there for ever. Every day I find myself in a place where I literally don't have the training, knowledge or resources to accomplish the task placed in front of me. All I can do is draw strength from God. I find myself wondering whats next and I have to look to God because without him I can't sleep, I can't think I can't move in the right direction. He also has been showing me heaps about patience. I am just living in a mode of waiting and again without trusting Him I would just fall apart.

HOW TO PRAY

• The first way you can be praying is that God would continue to give me the strength to press on. It has been two months now and though it has gone fast, I am experiencing home sickness from time to time.
• Pray that God would give me the team I need for Kids Games. Pray that He sends passionate, loving, fun, hardworking people that want to see the lives of the kids they will be coming in contact with flipped head over heals.
• Pray for peace in this waiting stage to see what God wants my next move to be.
• Pray for more workers here. The harvest is truly plentiful and the workers are most defiantly weak.

Pray:Love:Worship

Garrett Langebartels