Admiral's Arch, seals, underground church, Melissa & I at Coober Pedy, camel riding at Anna Bay - Brendan and I

RELAYID graduation, friends from the US visiting, Brendan's parents, kangaroo on Kangaroo Island, Remarkable Rocks

Brooke's Australia Adventures Update #7

Brooke’s Australia Adventure Update # 7 – October 21, 2007

Dear friends,

Romans 5:5
“And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”

Greetings once again from Down Under and please forgive the gap in my communications. It is amazing how time can go so quickly when you keep busy! I want to first begin by thanking so many of you for responding to my last update with special wishes and prayers for Brendan’s family during the illness of his aunt. Brendan’s mother wanted to express her gratitude to all of you as well. Brendan’s aunt did pass away and now the mourning period is occurring. I know for those of you who have lost a loved one due to any type of cancer, you can relate to how difficult it can be since many do recover that when your family member doesn’t, it is so hard. Please do continue to keep the family in your prayers especially Brendan’s mom, Barbara.

Matthew 5:4
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

The past two months has been filled with many different experiences, emotions, activities and opportunities. Some of the most fun and unique opportunities have had to do with Rotary. I was honored to serve as a facilitator at two leadership camps for young people. The first was entitled RELAYID and stands for Rotary Educational Leadership Award for Young people with an Intellectual Disability. This was a weekend experience and I helped facilitate with three other young people who are involved in Roteract, the young adult version of Rotary, a group of 18-35 year olds that I would never have gotten to know otherwise. Our locale was a beautiful pastoral spot in rural New South Wales about an hour from Newcastle, at an agricultural college called Tocal. We had many hands-on activities throughout the weekend that allowed our students to utilize the campus, explore the dairy cows, and enjoy the nature including the hopping kangaroos, the swooping magpies and the colorful rosellas. It was very rewarding to see the student’s confidence levels rise during the weekend and the shy girl that was assigned to my group who didn’t want to participate and had never been out of home before, get up and give a presentation at the end of the weekend. It was a pretty full-on experience even though there were just a few students per facilitator, but I was again reminded how much patience, love, and listening matter in life and that going a little slower is actually a good thing and you learn a whole different side of life when you do slow down. You get to know the life you’ve been too busy to notice…

The second time I went to Tocal was again for a Rotary event, this one for 18-25 year olds called RYLA, standing for the Rotary Youth Leadership Award. This program is a worldwide program Rotary has adopted, but it originally began in Brisbane. I was actually a recipient of a RYLA in 1997 just before my senior year of high school. I remember the time for me was very significant as it was one of the first leadership camps I had done and I participated in it at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, FL. This year’s RYLA in Tocal was a fantastic experience and it was the second week of uni holidays – so those that came either took a week off work or used one of their vacation weeks to attend. There were 29 students coming from all over the Rotary District – stretching from Dubbo (about 4 hours west of Newcastle, the so-called capital of the Central West of NSW) to the Central Coast. I facilitated with 5 other former RYLArians and it was led by friends Murray and Astrida Scoble who I was introduced to when I first moved to Australia by Armandee, a lady who took over some of my duties working for Pastor Jackson – so truly it is a small world! From California to Australia to Indonesia (where Murray and Astrida met Armandee) God works through relationships and connections! The week was a fantastic opportunity to explore leadership in so many ways ranging from psychological tests to learning from a legal panel to debating and public speaking. There were many talented speakers who came and shared with the students during the week but I think the most impressed I was, was with the students themselves. The students split up into 5 committees that were responsible for different aspects of the week ranging from organizing for a mini-Olympic event, a formal dinner, a concert, a daily editorial report and introducing speakers. It was wonderful to see their creativity come out and the personality of each student begin to be expressed as they were put into different positions of leadership and sometimes forced kicking and screaming, but how much they grew even in a week. It was also a fantastically fun week that also included a high ropes course, bush dance and many laughs at inside jokes. The friendships I was able to make are already bearing fruit as we have had a Roteract meeting this week and a fundraiser/welcome to summer party last night. I just wish RYLA had come earlier in the year for me as I meet all these fantastic locals and I am only a month from moving to Sydney… qué será, será!

Hebrews 11:1
“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

It truly is almost over… yet, I am very grateful for this year in Newcastle and to see what will be coming next. I only have 3 more weeks until I finish all my assessments and complete my master’s studies! It is amazing. I am working on final papers and projects in some very interesting subjects. Two of my projects will be focusing on the Washington, DC area – one on the Chesapeake Bay and the sustainability of the projects that are working to protect it’s ecosystem health and the other on my former workplace – the Southeast DC Partners and looking at how the Capacity Building approach is and can be applied to the work there. I am also working on a paper about participatory practices in social program evaluations and the power and empowerment dynamics at work there and about environmental issues in the developing nations and how they are intrinsically tied to the economic relationships with the developed nations. It has been a fascinating year of study and I will be in many ways sad to see it end. We had our International House farewell dinner on Friday night and it was the first goodbye of the year and it was a chance to reflect on all the different cultures and people that have come through here in the year. I haven’t had the chance to get to know as many people this semester as the first, but I have enjoyed living here and I was able to do two line dances recently with 3 other American girls representing our home nation during the Cultural Soiree and it was great being able to express the uniqueness of our nation in such a diverse environment. I know I’ll miss my RA Sarah, Kristi, Lucy and many others in Block 11 but I am glad I have a wonderful place to move into. In 4 weeks time I will be living with a wonderful family in Hornsby, a northern suburb of Sydney. The Saxton’s have taken me in many times during my frequent forays into Sydney. They have a little unit over their garage that is gorgeous and they have generously offered it during my 4 months in Sydney. Jeremy was the committee chairperson for the NSLF this year and his wife Allison and I have gotten close during the year. They also have 3 teenage children – Edward, Rupert and Elna, so it will be great to be living with all of them during the summer. I am also saying goodbye to my work at the Viking Center, which has become a great place for me to work over the year and the relationships there have also become dear. I am not sure what exactly I will do for work yet in Sydney, but will definitely be volunteering at some organizations that I am interested in and one of these I applied for a volunteer job with this week is Opportunity International. This organization does micro-credit loans for folks in developing nations and is a Christian non-profit. I have heard the founder David Bussau speak and would love to serve with them. It is all in God’s hands what will be coming next…

Hebrews 11:39 & 40
“These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”

I just want to detail one last great adventure that the past weeks have offered me. I was able to travel back to Adelaide and stay with the wonderfully hospitable Dee and Don Fleming, and this time was able to bring Brendan and my friend Melissa from IH with me. Dee and Don opened up their home and heart to us, even when they were already hosting our friends Milt and Karen from San Diego and Ryan and Alice – friends from Sydney (Ryan is Milt and Karen’s son). We had a full house for a few nights, but it was a precious time. Brendan, Melissa and I also were able to take a trip to visit Kangaroo Island, Australia’s third largest island. It is a gorgeous place where we saw in the wild koalas, many kangaroos, wallabies, an echidna (a spiky looking thing), seals, New Zealand fur sea lions and an absolutely gorgeous array of dolphins jumping through the waves. The geography was very diverse also and allowed us the chance to bush walk, run up sand dunes, see remarkable rock formations and drive by beautiful beaches. The three of us also explored Adelaide together but after Brendan returned to work, Melissa and I continued on to the Outback. We drove up to an opal-mining town called Coober Pedy that many have described the scenery like something from the moon. It is an interesting town because many of the homes, churches, etc. are underground. People began living underground because the temperatures can soar so high. We were able to stay in an underground motel and it was remarkably cooler in this place. This town is the opal capital of the world and 70% of the world’s opal supply comes from it. Probably one of the coolest things for Melissa and I was to get to see aboriginal Australia a bit more. It was the highest concentration of aboriginal people I have seen since coming to Australia, but Coober Pedy also has a very diverse international community of people who came from everywhere to work in the mines. The drive through the Outback was also very interesting as we passed saltpan lakes, dehydrated dead cows and bones of kangaroos… a bit eerie actually! Melissa and I also enjoyed driving through the scenic Flinders Ranges Mountains, the Clare Valley wine region and a day in the Barossa wine region. It was a great trip and so fun to share with Melissa. Melissa is a fellow American student who is studying abroad this semester from Kansas. She and I got along fabulously and the Lord really opened up our hearts and lives during the trip. We were also able to meet up with some other Adelaide friends of mine including Mena, a friend I met a year and a half ago at the Asuza Street Centennial that I hadn’t seen since and Michelle, who was my assistant small group facilitator at the NSLF in Canberra in May. It was a great trip!

Hebrews 13:1
“Keep on loving each other as brothers. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.”

My holidays ended up with a great celebratory weekend with Brendan for our 6-month anniversary. Truly the Lord has been faithful and although relationships are never completely easy, it has been a journey worth taking. He and I were able to begin the weekend with a drive to a small town in the Blue Mountains to hear a man he truly respects and honors, Peter Kumar a prophetic leader from South India who is now based in South Carolina. Peter spoke some important words into Brendan and my life and encouraged us greatly. From there we drove through the back mountains and valleys of NSW, through the Hunter Valley wine region and back to Newcastle. Early the next morning I treated him to breakfast on Stockton Beach and we were able to do something I’ve always wanted, we camel rode on Anna Bay sand dunes. The sand dunes of Stockton are the largest moving sand dunes in the Southern Hemisphere and stretch for 32 km and it was a real treat to see them. After this, Brendan treated me to wine and a seafood platter in Shoal Bay and a whale-watching cruise that left from Nelson Bay. It was a fantastic day and really did celebrate God’s faithfulness to us.

Thank you friends for your prayers and encouragement on the journey. Many have been writing to ask when I will be coming back to the US, and the honest answer is, I don’t know. I am trying to live out this season to the full and will return when I feel I am supposed to. At the earliest I think that would be in March 2008, but I am open as to when that will be.

May the Lord bless and keep you and reveal to you what is next on the great adventure for you. Please keep in touch and know you are loved,

Brooke Gagnon

As always, please go to my blog to see photos of the places I’ve mentioned: www.brookesintladventures.blogspot.com