Coming close to the end.

Crazy thought, for all of us.  Feels like it was just last week that we stepped off the plane into this new land.  But we're coming down to the final week and time really has been flying by!  I can speak for us all when I say, we're trying to soak up every last minute while being here. 
   Anyway, I left you off where we had just gotten back from a kids camp. That was last week.  We spent the week doing all different kinds of ministry. Ronnie had the idea of reaching out to the other backpackers and travelers which is great because people who often spend a year traveling are looking for something, some type of adventure maybe, but we know that they are really just searching for Christ.  So we spent a day doing that, We spent a day at the Deaf school hanging with kids and doing programing there.  We also spent a day doing another after school program, and visiting the Hospital again.  These were places we had gone before, so it was nice to see some faces that were familiar to us.
   That really brings us to this weekend.  We went on an unexpected journey.  We were told it was going to be an hour drive and a hour hike through the jungle.  Leeches and snakes and all!  I think the first thought going through some of the team members minds was; 'ah, busy work!' because it seemed like we were just trying to fill the time.  Come to the end of the weekend, I would say it was the best 3 days we've had and we probably did the most ministry during this time too.
  We stayed at a school, a single lady pretty much ran the whole school by herself, she also adopted 6 kids.  This lady is a absolute inspiration to us all, she truly has given up herself to God and is clearly trying to be more like Jesus.  We had a kids part on saturday morning for 50 of the school kids, of whom were so very excited for us just to be there.  Then we did house visits of local christians in the area.  I personally found this to be amazing, just being able to bless the Christians in the area.  Not many words even needed to be said as the 7 of us would sit in their small houses, but we all were blessed by knowing each other and knowing we had the same father.  Sunday rolled around and the lady who runs the school also runs a church.  The girls ran the service as us guys hiked another 2 hours to another church where we all shared.  The girls continued on after church and hiked about 2 hours to another fellowship.  Then the team met up at a house fellowship in the evening hours where we shared once again.
   Honestly, this was an amazing weekend.  Hard at times, but easy to see the fruit that is produced by just praying for others.  Now, we're headed down the mountain, doing a week of ministry there, probably more kids ministry and hopefully visiting a bible college.  Then on a train to Kolkata where we'll be for a day, then back to Brisbane!

J

As the outreach continues

      I've come to see that this page is often viewed, and so I shall once again update it and hope that some are inspired by the words on the screen.  All Glory to God.
     This past week we did another kids camp, but it was quite different then the last one.  It is organized by one of the guys at YWAM: Darjeeling, he's an older gentleman named Alok, but everyone calls him Uncle.  Its the norm here to call your elders Uncle, which was weird when kids started to call me that, sure made me feel old. 
   Anyway, he has done these camps a few times and basically goes into villages and does 3 days of day camp putting on program but more then anything else, trying to show the Love of God to the next generation.  We basically did it all of the programing and background work.  Most of the time, Michael was in the kitchen cooking and cleaning, with Ronnie.  While Caitlin, Julia, and myself (Jeremy) would be running the kids programing which included games, music, and giving a lesson.  Our fearless leaders, that is, Marley and Iris were all over the place supporting us in everything we needed.  Iris was constantly with kids and gave the lesson on Sunday, while Marley was the go to girl for anything that needed to be done.  The system worked really well and showed just how strong our team has become.
    Most days, we were running by the seat of our pants and making up programing.  We couldn't plan much because Uncle would constantly change it and want to do something else, but then have a random hour where we needed to do something fun with the kids. This is where creativity had to come in while we taught classic songs such as Pharaoh Pharaoh, Let Your Light, Papaya Song, among many others.  It was awesome, but it sure kept us on our toes, not knowing what we would need to pull our from our hat of tricks at any moment.
    It was quite the little hike to get down to this little village, and about 50 kids showed up, but the whole community knew that we were there.  Our biggest hope is that in everything we say and did, we proclaimed the name of Jesus Christ, as it was a Hindu/Buddhist village for sure. 
    Today is a day off, which has been relaxing and amazing to be able to sit back and just take in the last few weeks.  Keep us in your prayers!

Iris's birthday! 

"There is no real adventure in all of the world."

    Its something that I personally have been learning, and was something that was in one of our books.  You see, so many times we are looking for adventure, looking for something more.  Often a sense of adventure is satisfied by traveling the world and seeing new things, but the truth of it is, "There is no real adventure in all of the world."  The real adventure is following Jesus Christ in everything we say and do and in every situation no matter what it is, even when it feels like we aren't doing much at all, adventure can be found by looking for and seeking after God.
    That brings me to last week, starting with July 2nd. We headed out to Mirik, Darjeeling, India.  Its kind of close to where we are, just down the hill in fact, but it took about 3 hours to get there.  The Jeep ride was hard, and all of us got a little car sick.  Constant bumps in the road and winding down the switch backs while being stuffed in a jeep.  It wasn't easy but soon enough we got to our destination.  A church that was putting on a 'Youth Camp' for the week.  We met the director who told us that we are suppose to just help in anything we can, he isn't going to assign jobs for us, but to just be around and help in everything.  It really seemed like that was going to be a lot of fun and easy as we get the freedom to hangout with the students all day.  Come to find out, the camp was different then we were expecting.
     We got to our hotel and feel asleep pretty quickly knowing that we had to be up and out by 5:45 the next morning.  Ready for a full day of camp!  People started rolling in about 9am when worship started, we spread ourselves out among the locals.  Worship lasted about an hour, then lecture.  They taught on Fear of The Lord, a topic that we had just learned in our DTS.  Then Lunch break, then more worship, another teaching for an hour, then afternoon break at 3:30.   By that time we were feeling pretty helpless.  We hadn't actually done much other then just being there.  In the evening we got to share testimonies and ate dinner with some of the students.  This is how the week went.  It was really cool to be there and encourage the church.  More then anything else I think that's what we did, the leaders constantly asked for our opinion and wanted feedback on how things were going.  We tried to help in anyway we saw possible, and more then anything else, we tried to proclaim the name of Christ in everything we did.
   The end of the week came quickly and we really enjoyed the camp, and the times we got to hangout with the students.  Come to find out that there were 320 people there at the peak, we know God was moving in that place and only hope that the camp gets even bigger next year.

You can check out our personal blogs if you want to know more, I'll post links later this evening.  I'll also hope to post some pictures.


Prayer:  More then anything, health.  We all seem to be sick in some way.

May the peace of Christ be with you.




Jeremy's Blog: http://jeremyrobinson33.blogspot.com/
Ronnie's Blog: http://letmystorybehis.wordpress.com/2013/06/15/life-is-an-adventure/
Michael's Blog: http://norrismichael70.blogspot.com/

Road trip! 

Tea field. 

Ronnie giving a Devo. 

First Step

    Hello friends and family!
Sorry it took me so long to get a blog up, but many factors came into play.  We arrived in Calcutta (Kalkuta) safely pretty late last week.  Took one of the craziest, life changing, taxi rides any of us have ever taken, to a  hotel.  The original plan was to catch a train to Darjeeling the next morning, but we ended up having problems getting tickets so we got the pleasure of staying in Calcutta another night.  We had a chance to visit the mother house where Mother Teressa is from and now rests in peace.  It was an amazing couple of days where we had to really learn about the difference in culture.  Personally, I loved it and think it was a great experience.
   We then took a 10 hour train ride all night long to some town outside Darjeeling, can't remember the name right now.  From there we took a scary 4 hour Jeep ride up the mountain.  With every mile that passed up those curvy, tiny roads, we fell more and more in love with this beautiful place.  Everything being so green and clouds that we drive through.  Its absolutely amazing.
    We got settled in at the YWAM base for a couple of days then headed out again to Sikkhim.  A state that's just west of Darjeeling.  Another beautiful place.  There we spent last week doing all types of ministry.  From visiting monasteries where we did worship and prayer walks, to going to a recovering addict house that we did skits at, to helping with the church service, to going to house churches for fellowship, we even spent a day on the pastor's (of the church we stayed at) farm with 21 boys where we just got to love on them and tell stories from the bible. 
    All in all its been an amazing first week.  Eye opening and life changing already.

Prayer points:
Health.  We all seem to be a little sick in one way or another, nothing major though.
Unity between the team.  John 13:35 is our team verse.  ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Energy.  We love having busy days of ministry, but its easy to run out of energy.
Love for the people.  We want to just love the people so much that we miss them terribly when we leave. 



(trying to get photo's to upload still.)

Laying the Foundation

    Hello! Thank you for taking the time to read our blog! This will be the place to come check out for any information regarding the YWAM Brisbane team going to Darjeeling, India.  As I'm writing this, we have 12 hours until we get on the plane.  We first head to Singapore, where we'll have a 6 hour layover, then to Calcutta.  We'll be staying there one night and taking a train up to Darjeeling where we will connect with the local YWAM base.  The hope is to update this blog about once a week to talk about the things that we are doing and hopefully showing some pictures too.
   Just a short introduction to who we are!

From the top in the blue.  That's Marley Cook from California and one of the team leaders.  Below her is Michael Noris from Minnesota.  Below him is Caitlin Whelpton from Alberta Canada. Below her in the bottom right corner is Ronnie Maestas also from California.  Moving to the left in the blue is Julia Rogers from BC, Canada.  Left again in the Black is myself, Jeremy Robinson from Colorado.  Finally the bottom left corner is the other team leader Iris Bruijn from Netherlands. 

     We are all very excited to see what God has in store for us in India and are hoping to get front row seats to what God is doing there.  Our team verse is John 13:35 "Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples."  This has really been our goal, to be so unity and dependent on each other that people will know we follow Jesus Christ.  

   We appreciate the prayers and will post an update again soon!