Three Weeks at home... already!?!

(Grad dress... a bit better pic of it, although

still not my fave cuz it puckers in an awkward spot, but owell.)

The title for this post was originally "two weeks home..." and this week just flew by without taking time to sit and type. My original plans for tonight and tomorrow changed, so I have some time now to sit and think about how to write one last post.

ooh, wow... I just got this tinge of saddness wave over me... the same one I had when I finally purchased my cell phone on thursday. It's these steps that make the experience more and more distant. It's still hard to put into words... it's like closure is happening and I want it, but don't want it.

Closure seems like the wrong word because of the finality of it, but really I am ending the YWAM part of my life... or the DTS part of my life. I don't know if I'll join with YWAM again, but really once a YWAMer always a YWAMer whether I'm active or not. So... yes.... closure... the end... BUT a new beginning as well.... so..... here we go.... I am going to give you my promised "update" from a couple days at the end that I didn't really follow up with... sorta seems silly at this point, but owell... maybe it will help me continue to the "closure"... haha.

Okay... So, that last week... on tues and wed. morning my outreach team ate breakfast together... the same kind we'd have when we were in Czech, dark breads, fruit, veggies, and yummy coffee... it was fun to come together again after our aussie outreach and have fun together. Wednesday afternoon/evening my small group met one last time and made chocolate cookies together. We ate cookie dough and laughed and just had a good time with each other... then at dinner we ate together in the community room and ate the freshly baked cookies... we talked and reminisced of our fun times over the last months. One thing is for sure, our small group really knew how to have fun and laugh with each other!

Mary-Kate and I.... Jules and Kayti... mmm... coooookie dough....


This is a picture taken from Mt. Cootha, a look-out over Brisbane. We came here as a school on thursday night as one last "hurrah"... or just one last outing and fun time as a school... just the school, no parents or staff/students who weren't involved in MAD. It was fun, except we had to go in two different groups, and we weren't altogether for the whole time. Following the time at the look-out we had a "dance party" and then a slide-show and some songs that some of the musicians had planned to perform during graduation. Although, there were too many apparently and it had to be cut out, so they played them for us on this night instead.

Up at Mt. Cootha.. (upper) me and Hannah-Claire... (lower) me and Laura!



Me with some wonderful "staff"/friends(upper).... (lower) laura, senja (j=y), Pauliina and Heikki

hmmm... what else... i think that's kind of it... oh, maybe briefly share about AFTER graduation. Well, the big thing was to go out to a "chill-club/bar" and have drinks and dance, if that was your thing. The info we got on this club was that it wasn't your typical dance-club techno packed type place. The thing we forgot about was that it was ANZAC day, which is like our memorial day. Everyone was out that night and partying because, well.. it was a holiday. Needless to say, it wasn't the "cool chilled out" place we thought. I actually went to this coffee shop called "The 3 Monkeys" before going to the club, which was nice to relax. Although, when we decided to meet up with the others at the bar, they were done with the club because it wasn't what they were expecting. The groups were going in different directions, one to the coffee place again and another to a place called "the valley." I decided to go to the valley, in which there were bars with dancing, etc. It was an adventure that normally isn't my "ideal scene" but fun none-the-less to do something out of the ordinary. I mean, come on, it was my last couple nights in the great land of Australia, I had to live it up! And, I did... ordered a white russian and was appalled by the price tag! Shouldn't have been a shocker though, when the cheapest beer in the city was $6/7! What ya gonna do? owell... I've got a story tell! :)
We found the cheapest deal in Brisbane though, a 1/4 slice of pizza for only 3bucks!! Now that, was shocking... i s'pose it's good business, keeping the drunks fed! haha... and the poor ywam missionaries! hahaha

I'm home... can't quite believe it.

This is Brisbane at Night... atop Mt. Cootha..



A long sigh of relaxation just came out of my mouth.

It is good to be home. (arrived sun. night, april 27)

Yet, it is hard to not be in Australia, with the people who I was surrounded by for 7 months.

The grass is always greener... You don't know what you've got until you loose it...

Those are things that have been running through my mind for the last week. I got home on Sunday night with a flood of emotion, even as I was walking to the elevator to get down to baggage claim. I saw Caribou Coffee and almost lost it... after travelling for over 24hours and having not been home for 7mos, your emotions are quite volatile. And, it's amazing how a laptop bag can gain in poundage after carrying it around in three airports. Needless to say, I was a bit exhausted.

The following days were filled with lots of sister, nieces and nephew time, as well as MUCH sleep. I developed a cold that hit me Wed. morning and couldn't be bothered by getting out of my bed much of the day. I called my mom at work to bring me some throat drops of some kind, and started nursing myself back to health with those, some fruits and veggies and lots of water and this new V8 Fusion stuff. Well, new to me atleast, it may be 6mos. old for all I know!

I haven't updated in awhile, I should back track and fill you in on the last weeks of my time in Aussie-land. I think I mentioned my parents came, and them driving on the left side of the road drove me a bit crazy. :)

It's almost hard to recall those last two weeks. We didn't do a whole lot, and actually, I wrote about Byron Bay that Saturday, and there really was only a week left after that, so I don't have much to update. It was a lot of time just spent at the base with my friends, spending time doing things together... all those "one last time" things.

We had lectures two more times with a man named Dave Way, and then had a few other morning lectures with the base director's wife, Jenni. Every morning we had a "chapel" time... worshipping and praying. To some, it would seem overkill because it was every day, but I think it was different and unique each time (and really we only did it 3 times as a school, monday and fridays were a bit different). The prayer times were most important, really seeking the Lord for peace and readiness as we headed back into life after DTS.
Friday was the big Graduation Day! Woo hoo... nothing was on the schedule except Worship and Intercession in the morning with the whole base. I found out the day before that a friend, Krista, and I had the same flight out of Brisbane to New Zealand and then NZ to LA. What an amazing blessing from God, especially for her as she is younger and her dad was just praying for good people to be sitting next to her on the flights. So, we went down to the phone after Intercession and confirmed our flights and had them cross-reference our information so we could get seats together.
My next plan of action was to get a pedicure done because my feet have been much neglected over the last 7 months, but because it happened to be ANZAC Day, everything was closed. If you don't know what it is (and I wouldn't expect you to), it's like Memorial Day for us... look it up if you want more details :). The rest of the day I spent finishing the last things to pack in the suitcase my parents were bringing home. At about 2pm, my small group all went to Mary Kate's place to get ready for the Graduation. The graduations are like formals or prom in the states, so everyone gets all dolled up and puts on fancy dresses. Tammy did my hair and I painted my fingers and toes, did my make-up etc. I was ready to put on the dress my parents brought from home, but was thoroughly disappointed to realize it didn't fit quite right anymore. The better thing would have been to try it on right away when they brought it, but I wasn't that smart. It didn't dawn on me that maybe after not wearing it for about 5years, it may be too small. The girls at the house tried to give me some options, but I just didn't feel comfortable with any of the suggestions, so I left and quickly made my way back to the base.
Upon getting back, I was pretty broken up inside, not knowing what to do and not wanting it to be a big deal. I searched through my clothes and threw on a skirt and tank top, knowing it wasn't that great compared to what everyone else had on. A couple of friends noticed and Hannah-Claire came through for me... without me even asking. What a life-saver, she had this white dress that looked great, and another sweet girl had a necklace that looked perfect. THANK THE LORD! Problem overted, and just in time!

Me and Ing (my 1:1) and the dress! :)

The graduation was really surreal, it really didn't hit me that we were done, until I got home, I think, actually! It was a good time of eating and chatting and getting our certificates, etc. I won't go into detail because it isn't that exciting for those who weren't there.

I will post more later.... there are some more stories of after graduation party and I also remembered the night before graduation, there's a little bit to tell about our last night as just our school together.
It's just WAY late in the night... I meant to have this done an hour earlier, but my ipod was and still is acting up. Anyone have suggestions of what to do if your iPod doesn't respond to anything and is stuck on the "Do not disconnect" screen?? None of apple's suggestions work for my situation... grrrrrrrrrrr.