Blog entry feb 19 - almost one month!

Blog entry Feb 18
Hello everybody!
I hope everything is well where you are, im still having great times here at capers, but definitely miss home and the people there, at the same time im loving the people here and the community we have together. I have now been at school for over 3 weeks. The weather is a little better lately, less rainy days, still cloudy but there have been periods of beautiful sunshine and warmth.
It has been almost 2 weeks since my last post, but ill try and keep it brief.
First off, sorry to anyone that was offended or anything like that from the kangaroo story/picture, just want to say that i shouldn’t have put that on here (or Facebook), unfortunately I can’t change that now.

As far as sessions go, we have finished up prayer, gone through Colossians(great book by the way). Colossians is the letter Paul wrote to the church in Colosse about what their faith and dealing mostly with the heresy and other issues they were dealing with. I have a bible study presentation to my family group on Wednesday for Colossians. My topic is the spiritual battle we face and how Christ is sufficient for us. Last week i handed in my outline for a bible study on Prayer. This week we are learning about the early church. We have also had sessions on hermeneutics and old testament survey. On our last 2 Wednesday workdays i have worked on putting all the songs in the music binder into powerpoint...and there are a TON of them.

We had our second snac last Sunday, which went well and was on “light.” Afterwards we all hung out in the conference hall, listening to music and whatnot.

Two weekends ago was pretty relaxing. We watched a movie on Friday night (kingpin and Hitman, I think.), then on Saturday a bunch of people went out of town but some of us stayed behind. Kiwi and I went to Bowral and got pizza then took a taxi back. Saturday night we watched more movies and a bunch of music videos.

Last Wednesday we had family group, we went out to Carrington falls and had a bbq. A few of us went and checked out the falls, they were amazing, absolutely beautiful. There is some absolutely stunning country out here. Another thing i noticed this week was that on most of the roads they have reflectors everywhere, there are red ones along the left side of the road(they drive on the left, so its like taillights), the middle has yellow and on the right side there are white reflectors (think headlights). Way better signage on the roads too. The area we are in has huge trees, and at the edge of the highlands there is an escarpment, driving down the side of it is insane! Fun stuff though

We had a valentines dinner on Thursday, everybody got dressed up and people made cards for each other, then we did some pictures after. The dinner was stew, so not a fancy dinner, but a good day and i got to open my card from friends back home! Later that night, at guys night, we threw the tylers up in the air for their birthdays haha.

This last weekend we went to a beach town(Illawara) and went bowling for a birthday thing for Tyler, Chloe, Cheryl and the other Tyler. On Friday some of us watched casino royale, great movie. Saturday afternoon i worked on my bible study for about 5 hours before heading out to go bowling. We stopped at Mcdonalds(the locals call it mackers) before “chucking a U-ey” and going bowling.

Sunday we had snac again, it was great, and there were many people from the community there too. It was dealing with addictions. Later we played scattergories!

Today the alarm clock our room had been using wasn’t set, so we all slept through brekkie, turns out we had to do duties because of that(brekkie is mandatory). Colton and I pulled thistles for 45 min in the afternoon, Tyler C cleaned the dining room. Ian didn’t have to do anything because he found out yesterday that one of his close friends back in Canada had died, we prayed for him last night. Tonight im probably going to play soccer again!

This coming Saturday a few of us guys are going to a mens conference called Katoomba, it is about a 3 hour drive northwest of here. In 3 weeks we have travel weekend, Tyler, Mark and I are going to go to Sydney and check it out, along with possibly others. Most of the students are heading out to Sydney that weekend too. Alot of us are going to the Hillsong recording in Sydney that Sunday night(it is going to be AWESOME).
*the travel weekend is referred to as travel weekend because we don’t have to be back Friday

or Saturday nights, we can travel from lunchtime on Friday til Sunday night at 10.

We had funhouse the last two Thursdays, which has been good. Basically 6 of us go to a really small church in moss vale for an after school program for elementary school aged kids for 2 hours in the afternoon. We lead them in games, watch a video, read stories, teach them about scripture and other stuff. There were about 15 kids but apparently last semester there were about 30, so we are expecting it will get to that point.

A few of us are going to be involved in a youth event for a church in Bowral on Friday.
9 of us went and played soccer again last Monday and i this monday we were going to but couldnt get a ride in so we played volleyball.

Last piece of news for you, and its kind of a biggie
...no i haven’t decided to stay another semester(not yet anyways!)....I am going on a mission trip to Hong Kong during the term break for 2 weeks! (thats April 4) A few of us are going to be staying in a drug rehab place called Newboy house, working with people there, in a beautiful building, and doing lots of praying, including praying in tongues! Should be Very interesting, should learn more soon, but there are many other things to think about at this point too. I have an oral presentation in a week and a half, i’m not sure what to talk about at this point, but im free to talk about anything for about 8-11 minutes.

I’ve also posted some pictures, i have learned a ton already and am excited for what else God has in store for me here. Its been an adventure getting to know some of the people here, its definitely cool to see how people relate to each other day to day and the kind of people i relate to and don’t relate to. I have seen already some differences in the people here, but its cool because everyone just accepts it(for the most part, there will always be a few people that rub you the wrong way). Its definitely a little community of 43 students here, it can be tough to find alone time sometimes, but im trying to get in a habit of spending some alone time with God, i woke up early on Thursday and did it. Its definitely a time of growth for me and others.

That’s about it for now from Australia. Shout out to everyone back home, and the people who signed my valentines card, I Absolutley appreciated it SOOOO much. Thanks a ton. Miss you guys, keep me updated on what is going on back in Calgary.

Here’s my address til june 21 if you want it

Adam Warkentin
CAPERNWRAY TORCHBEARERS AUST
PO BOX 210 MOSS VALE
NSW AUSTRALIA 2577

So much for being brief!
I’ll leave you with a few notes of summary we had on Friday for Colossians, and say bye for now from down under,
Adam

Be thankful, Pray always, bear fruit, have wisdom, walk worthy, be strong, give thanks, we have been rescued, don’t go back (to old sin, or backwards), Christ is in control, He is our power, he is our peace, he was reconciled us to God, we must persevere, we will suffer, Christ is in me, don’t be deluded, Christ has the victory, don’t be legalistic (its about relationship, not just knowledge), hold on to Christ, we have died – new life in Christ, don’t repeat the past, dead to sin, act rightly to everybody, treat our relationships honourably, people matter to God-value each other!, the answer is always Jesus.

An example he finished off was on satisfaction. We try to find satisfaction in lots of things, but its like buying the new car, driving it out of the lot and seeing a newer one soon after that we want more, it just doesn’t last. Satisfaction doesn’t come in “things” but in Christ.
That was a quick summary, you can only begin to imagine the lectures....Colossians is a great book, take some time to read it, not just scan through it but actually read it....

Thanks for reading

Blog entry Feb 5
Hello everybody!
I hope everything is well where you are, im still having great times here at capers, despite the fact its been raining since Sunday and its supposed to rain til this coming Sunday. Here are a few things we have done in the last week.
We went to the beach on wednesday, which was great. It was cloudy but still a good time. I swam in the ocean for the first time! It was salty, and the waves were awesome. Unfortunately i didn’t get to try surfing but another time. We had a bbq there and hung out for quite a while.
Highlight from Thursday was playing volley ball, fun stuff.
We got our family groups, which are small groups that we meet once a week for prayer, and once for a bible study, which a different student leads each week.
We wrapped up our week that we had lectures on Christianity explained, oral presentations and devotions.
We had our first full weekend which was awesome. On Friday we had guys night. We drove an hour out to a farm with a bunch of paddocks(fenced fields). We had an awesome bbq and when it was dark, we jammed onto the back of a few utes(4x4 trucks essentially) and searched for kangaroos and wombats. We saw a wombat and a bunch of guys chased it in the dark, which was really funny. We saw about 25 kangaroos in one field and actually hit one(by accident of course). It was being chased by guys off the other truck and ran in front of ours and...ya, we had to put it out of its misery. And yes i got some pictures of kangaroos, but its hard to see them when it’s so dark, plus they move quite fast. They were little ones, like 4 ft tall. I still plan on seeing the big ones in the taronga zoo at some point
We slept outside under the stars on Friday night and it was amazingly cool, and cold. We drove back on Saturday morning after having bacon and eggs!
On Saturday a few guys and I rented bikes and biked for around 30km and ended up in bowral, where we bought tons of pop. We played capture the flag that night, then watched movies. I watched counte of monte cristo...great movie.
On Sunday we went to church, i went to a Baptist church which was good. I found out that the ministry i am going to be working with is funhouse, which is an after school program for youth on Thursdays, should be interesting.
Also on Sunday we had snac, which stands for Sunday night at capernwray, where we have worship and a program that the locals are invited to...kind of our own version of church. I ran the powerpoint for the worship. It was a fun night.
yesterday it rained again but we went into town anyways, i got access to my Australian bank account and pulled out some money....this is trouble! Haha. Last night we (20 of us) went to a gym and played indoor soccer which was lots of fun
This week we are studying prayer....should be good. It’s kind of cool that we are talking about prayer now because we just covered that in my youth group back home. I also have to prepare a bible study outline for next Wednesday on prayer. Cool stuff
Today we learned about what our dean of students has done in hong kong in Jackie pullingers ministry there and then we had a prayer soak. You might be wondering what exactly that is...well we moved all the tables out of the conference hall and put down blankets and pillows, we relaxed and listened to a worship cd, with freedom to do whatever(pray, read the bible, think, sleep etc) and the staff prayed over us while we did that for an hour. It was totally awesome. Also today a few of us went to the recording studio in town and learned to how to start producing, so we can make a capernwary cd(they have done one each semester for awhile apparently.
I’ve also posted some pictures.

Thats about it for now from Australia. Shout out to ryan, thanks for the card(s) buddy. I hope you enjoyed this long post everybody.
Bye for now from down under,
Adam

skype

hello people
ok so quick update for you all. for internet access. these times are in sydney time...so add 6 hours and subtract a day or subtract 18 hours to find calgary time. sunday 1-7, monday -friday 5-10, saturday 5am -1pm. i hope that makes sense. my skype is adam.warkentin
no garantees when ill be on tho
..
as for update wise, im running out of time and will try to update on sunday or monday...we went camping last night and chased kangaroos in trucks! fun stuff...more later
bye from down under
Adam