God is Good, Life is Good!

What a dream we're living!  Everyday I wake up and look outside and can't believe that we're in Australia serving God.  
Things have changed drastically as our family has lost one of its key members.  Our good friend and adopted Auntie,
Peggy has decided to move back over to the States to reenter the life that she was more accustomed to.  We are so,
so thankful for her friendship and partnership over these last three months.  She has selflessly served our family in countless
ways and provided a bit of familiarity in a very unfamiliar place.  She leaves us missing her greatly and looking forward to
the next time when we'll be reunited, in the meantime we'll keep her up to date through Skype and relying on her prayers
and ability to communicate our needs to our church friends and family in San Diego and abroad from an experienced
perspective.  God Bless you Peggy if you're reading this!

There have been many other things to catch you up on over these last few weeks, the first being the seminar season
which we just completed.  This began back in October with the kicking off of three schools, the Discipleship Training
School (DTS), the Introduction to Primary Health Care (IPHC), and the School of Music in Missions (SOMM) and an
internship program.  After a couple of weeks another leadership training program began called "Slingshot" and continued
for three weeks into the 1st week of Nov.  After another week there were a few days of meetings and events having to
do with the handing over of operations for the Pacific Link, the YWAM medical/dental mercy ship to YWAM Townsville.  
This was, as you can imagine, a huge deal and many heavyweight YWAM men and women of God were on hand to take
part in the ceremonies and celebration.  Our family really feel privileged to be apart of this momentous occasion. The
following weekend the base hosted a two day set of meetings for the national YWAM Australia base directors and then for
the next week we hosted the National Leaders Meeting with YWAM leaders from Australia and all over the world, probably
well over 100 in attendance.  The base was certainly hopping during this time and all the staff were working overtime.  
Nonetheless, all went well and the Holy Spirit really ministered throughout this season.

While all of these events were occurring, Cameron and I were blessed to be asked to help staff the October DTS, something
I'd considered before but didn't really think we'd have the opportunity to do for quite some time.  So we jumped at the chance
and though we've entered into a huge commitment we are excited to be used by the Lord.

Here is a general schedule of events for the school:
Oct-late Dec. will be lectures here in Townsville
Late Dec.-Early Feb. will be outreach in Papua New Guinea (Ryan and Jeremy will be serving in this outreach
for about 3 weeks)
Feb.-early Mar. will be outreach in Northeastern Australia, in and around Cairns (The whole family will take
part in this 3 week trip).

The school consists of 35 students almost evenly divided between men and women with 9 staff including Cam and me.  The
ages of the students are 18-34 with various nationalities represented including Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Japan,
Sweden, Switzerland, N. Ireland, England, Canada, and the USA. They are all very different and having varying degrees
of understanding of what YWAM and the DTS is and what it means to know God personally but they are all hungering to
know Him more and to serve and make Him known and that's the most important thing. We've completed 5 weeks of the school
so far and have enjoyed many speakers presenting on topics such as Friendship with God, the Father Heart of God, Identity
in Christ, Relationships, and Design and Destiny.  There is lots of good information and challenging times of spiritual
and emotional transformation.  As staff we take part and assist in all areas of the school from planning events, to hosting
speakers, meeting one on one with students, leading outreaches, and generally ministering as the Lord leads.  Very cool
for our family as we absolutely love doing this kind of work and have been in transition for the last year keeping busy with
other things, so it's good to get back in the saddle again.

Here are Some Prayer Requests:
Peggy's transition back to life in the USA and ours without her.
Balancing time in ministry with family.
Finances, with all the extra traveling coming up our expenses will also rise ...About $2500 for the Papua New Guinea
Outreach and$1000 for the Australia Outreach on top of our regular budget.
Making good choices in obtaining the next visa to help us stay in the country longer...our current visa allows us to stay
in until June 2011 but it's always a good idea to start researching our options. 

Praise Reports:
God continues to provide for our every need!
Seminar season went well and is behind us.
Home schooling is going really well.
Our health has been good.
The Church van has been a huge blessing and is mechanically doing well.