Young Life photos: Crows Nest at ACC, Brad, Steph & Shann at Chatswood, beauty of Armidale & Brooke and Erica at Ryde outing

Brendan's birthday, Kiama blowhole, NSW, with Jamie on working bee in Armidale & Brendan and Brooke at Kiama

Brooke's Australia Adventure Update - Winter 2010, July 4, 2010

Brooke’s Australia Adventure Update – Winter 2010 July 4, 2010
Dear friends, Winter has well and truly come to the southern hemisphere! Here in Sydney in the past week we had the coldest night in 61 years! Now, before you start feeling bad for me, I do realize that compared with the majority of winters where you live it is not that bad here, but the temperature dropped to 4.3 degrees Celsius (or 39.74 Fahrenheit). Which, when you don’t have heating can be a bit cold. But of course no snow is threatening our sunny city. It is fun though to see from our third floor balcony across Cook and Philip Park there is an Alpine Festival on right now, in the square immediately in front of St Mary’s Cathedral. They’ve brought in an outdoor ice-skating rink, and food vendors to represent many international cuisines, and of course serve mulled wine! But besides our winter – I must say Happy Independence Day to all my friends and family back in the US! Brendan and I are off to enjoy a fourth of July BBQ with some fellow expatriates this afternoon hosted by my dear friend Leila. And of course, to all my Canadian family I also hope Canada Day was a fun holiday for you too this year. It is so fun that we were able to be there in both nations this year as we celebrate from afar with you at this time of the year.

Romans 13:8
“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law.”

These past few months for us have been wonderfully full. We’re both well and truly in the swing of life at work and yet have also been making an effort to be hospitable and enjoy having friends over for dinner quite regularly. Both of us continue to enjoy cooking and since we’ve been married we’ve done a celebrated cookbook of the month that we’d cook out of in order to learn new recipes and challenge our culinary aptitudes. It has been fun and a good way to enjoy staying home and indeed welcoming others into our home. Some favorites in the past few months include Jamie Oliver’s “America” (that we used for today’s 4th of July potato salad & sweet potato pie) & The Columbia Restaurant (my favorite place to eat in Florida, Cuban & Spanish food) that we enjoyed many dishes full of olive oil and garlic. This is a great skill for us to have, but doesn’t help my waistline so much… so in April I decided to train for another marathon – the Blackmores Sydney Marathon, which will take place on the 19th of September. I had run this half marathon in 2007, but haven’t run a full marathon since 2004. I decided though I was up for another physical challenge. I always remember how good it is to see a city by putting in serious training runs, and having had the opportunity to train for my first marathon in St Augustine, FL and my second in Washington, DC – I thought this would be a great way to get to know Sydney. Of course when you decide something like this, you remember all the benefits and good parts of the past runs you’ve done… what you forget is how early you have to get up to do a run before work, how cold and dark it can be to train (in winter!!), and how bored you can get mentally when training alone. But, once I decide to take something on, I am pretty stubborn about staying the course. Plus, a fantastic benefit about distance running is that it does offer time to reflect and pray and I’ve discovered that in a busy life this is a time that is so precious. All was going well with the training until I decided I should have my sore toe checked out by a physio. Turns out I had a ligament injury caused probably by my running on flat feet… I never knew I had those before! Anyways, I am waiting on orthotics and icing the toe and doing all sorts of cross training to keep fit as I rest from running.

2 Timothy 2:2
“And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.”

The work with Young Life continues to fill up much of my life with amazing opportunities to speak words of life from God’s word into teenagers and young adults lives. A few highlights have been our annual Northern Leadership Retreat that was held in April in Scotts Head, on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. This was a chance for all the volunteer leaders to come together with the staff of the northern region – stretching from Bathurst/Sydney to Ipswich in Queensland. I was able to share at the retreat from Women’s Forum research on the female image in young women’s magazines as well as the hard yards within the ministry of Young Life – the things that are hard, but where we find our strength and our motivation from the Lord in those places. Coming together with others who are likeminded in serving God and youth is a huge encouragement to me and makes driving 6 or 7 hours each way in the weekend so worth it. Plus, these road trips also allow for fantastic getting to know you conversations to happen. Kelly, our newest Young Life leader in Ryde, was in the car with Brendan, Brad and I up and back on this trip and it was so fun to hear from her, even if we were playing games most of the way. On the June long-weekend we decided to pack up the car once again and brought Jamie, a year 10 student from Ryde, along with us to go to Armidale and help out on a working bee to fix up a property called Coventry. Coventry has been a place that Young Life has leased from the Anglican Church in Armidale for a number of years, but it was in need of some TLC. The vision is for the property next year is to be used to host a gap-year program for Young Life. This means that students leaving high school can come here to live and be trained in Young Life’s ministry principles, be able to practically do ministry with Young Life in Armidale, and work a part-time job, all with the hopes of them seeing if this type of work is for them. It is a great vision that we wanted to support and so through painting, pulling up tree stumps and having Bible studies around Jesus as a servant leader for the high school students that came to help, we all saw much accomplished in the few short days. One of the best parts of the weekend was seeing a whole community come out to serve on the Saturday. There were over 30 of us for lunch that day, as different churches had heard about the vision and need, and different small groups brought people with both skill and a willingness to work. Plumbers re-tiled and ripped out unused toilets as older members helped with outdoor labor. It was a great picture of the body of Christ working together. Another picture of that for me this term was our All City Club (ACC). We have one of these events each term where the different clubs from the different areas of the city can join together for a larger night of fun and outreach. In Sydney currently we have Young Life held weekly in Ryde, fortnightly in Crows Nest, and we have partners in ministry at two churches in Maroubra. On the 18th of June we held our ACC for Term 2 (of the school year) and it was a Michael Jackson (MJ) Memorial Club. It was the second club that the newly formed ACC Committee helped plan. The ACC Committee is made up of former Young Life leaders that can’t commit weekly to club anymore because of work or family commitments, but are full of great brainstorming ideas and are willing to help plan and be at the occasional quarterly ACC. This term’s club was the most fun one I’ve been involved with and I believe part of that was seeing how so many different people got on board using their gifts to serve. Our night was divided into Michael Jackson’s different eras of music and as the youth were split into 4 different teams (LaToya, Blanket, Tito & Janet), they went to different rooms where games and activities were held with that musical era. It ranged from the “ABC” room where children’s games like Pass the Parcel were played headed up by Steph, to the “Beat It” (or eat it) room where Brendan had the youth playing musical chairs and the one out would have to lift up a photo of MJ on a poster to find instructions to either “beat it” (using many different disgusting ingredients like canned mackerel or creamed corn) or “eat it.” One of the rooms, the “Black or White” room had props and costumes where the youth could film their own version of the song, you can see the finished product where all the videos were edited together on You Tube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFOCOYVnzwQ
From here, we filed in for the club portion of the night where the ACC band led us in song and this band was brought together by our young Ryde leaders who wanted to have a band that spanned the geographic areas and not just were filled by the host club of the night. Then, Erin, an American former YL leader gave a fantastic talk about looking for love in so many places that can only be found in God. Then (I know the night just kept on going and getting better!!) a young man from Chatswood High that we’ve been getting to know during lunchtime contact work, Yovan came with his friend and performed a popping dance for us to MJ’s “Billie Jean.” We’ve been trying to get Yovan to come for so long and it was great to have him involved and from there, the Hip Hop Church, Krosswerdz joined us to do some break dancing and spinning with the J.A.W.R. crew. Seriously it was an amazing night filled with so many sharing so freely – from those who helped film and edit, to the set-up, clean up crew, to those that manned the canteen. The night was so much fun for all the youth that came and I believe revealed to them the love Jesus has for them in such a real way. I love being a part of a ministry that brings people together from different churches to reach teens that are not currently being reached. The last trip I’ll share that I’ve taken with Young Life is to help train, along with my boss and a few other seasoned Young Life veterans, a group of new leaders that are hoping to get Young Life started in the Barossa Valley of South Australia. I was able to work with Fudge, the head of our camping ministry with Young Life, to share about the joys and Biblical principals of contact work, going into the world of a teenager and being Jesus with skin on to those that we meet. We also shared about the rest of the Young Life model, church partnerships, club, camp, and campaigner small group Bible studies. It was fun to also be with them in preparing how to run a club and give them resources for skits and games and watch them run one themselves. The joy of seeing a team come together and get excited about strategically planning how they were going to reach the youth of their community was exhilarating and what a privilege to pray for this fledgling work.

1 Corinthians 12:1
“The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.”

Work with Women’s Forum Australia also continues to interest and challenge me, as I have been working with our pilot School Ambassador Program (SAP) as well as expanding my speaking into schools and community groups in presenting on our research. One fun and interesting speaking engagement was to share at the Ukrainian Catholic Women’s League Association Day. Brendan came along with me since he hasn’t heard me present on Faking It: The Female Image in Young Women’s Magazines before, but it turned out he still didn’t get to, as the priest that was blessing the day, spirited him away to drink whiskey and have men talk. I was also able to present and serve as part of a panel for TeenStreet’s inaugural Sydney camp. TeenStreet is a part of Operation Mobilization’s ministry and the original camp began in Germany and serves thousands of youth each summer. I am always encouraged when I have the opportunity to present the research as I see it brings life into girls lives to realize how much they are believing about themselves comes from media influences and how it limits their free thinking and movement to be caught in the trap of the “beauty myth” as Naomi Wolf says. I’ve been reading many books lately on the topic of girl world and here are a few recommended readings. What’s Happening to our Girls? (and the newly released What’s Happening to our Boys?) by Maggie Hamilton – excellent books that deal with the over selling, over stimulation and over sexualisation of our current culture. Queen Bees and Wannabees by Rosalind Wiseman – excellent resource for parents of teenage daughters or youth workers. Another good read, but a hard one is Victor Malarek’s Johns: Sex for Sale and the Men who Buy It – a book that really reveals the demand side of the equation for why girls and women (and boys too) are bought and sold in prostitution.

“Our culture teaches girls a very dangerous and confusing code of behavior about what constitutes “appropriate” feminine behavior (i.e., you should be sexy, but not slutty; you should be independent, but you’re no one without a boyfriend).”
- Rosalind Wiseman, Queen Bees and Wannabees

Brendan and I have also been getting more involved with our church and have joined a Connect group that has been a source of much joy, deeper friendships, and needed prayer in our life. As I close, I’d ask you friends to keep in prayer both organizations I work for as the financial year has just come to a close. Working with charities means we are reliant on supporters donations, please pray for the resources to continue to pour forth so we can continue to do the work we have set before us. Please also pray for volunteer leaders for the work in Northern Sydney with Young Life, our dear faithful senior leader for Crows Nest, Stephanie, has gone on a European adventure for at least six months, and there is a need and opportunity for God to reform the team. I really appreciate each of your friendship, love and support over the years. Please know that if there is anything I can be praying for you personally, I’d love to be and even if I don’t always respond quickly, I do read e-mails.

I leave you with an encouraging quote from Philip Doddridge, an eighteenth-century minister, and a response from the Wilberforce devotional 365 days with Wilberforce. I pray you too will find encouragement from it.

“For to his Almighty grace nothing is hard, not even to transform a rock of marble into a man or a saint.” ‘So may we become ornaments of grace in the hands of the Master Artist.’

With loving friendship,

Brooke