CAR!

Lately I have really been wanting a car. This whole week, especially, there have been so many circumstances that really required me to have a car. I found myself becoming really demanding of God, and then I had to take a step back and see the situation for what it was. Satan was really trying to get at me and make me question God's authority, wisdom, and timing. This guy that helped my friend find her car was going to help me find a good car, but he kept saying he'd call me and never did, so I'd call him to arrange a time where we could go car shopping, and he'd always say something like, "I'll give you a call tomorrow."...I always ended up calling him because he never actually did call me on that day. Finally he told me he'd call me when he found a good car. I gave him like a week and he never called, so I decided that I was going to have to start looking myself. I really didn't want to do this myself, because I'm a young American female. 3 disadvantages for me and 3 reasons a car dealer could very easily take advantage of me. But I just prayed that God would lead me to the right car.

Well, I began searching the internet. I had an idea of what I wanted and what I didn't want in a car, and I learned alot along the way. I narrowed down some cars, and one of my girlfriends came over to help me find the perfect one! :) She offered to take me car shopping on Friday as well. We narrowed it down to one car...a white Mitsubishi Magna. I really wasn't thrilled with how it looked, and it was a gas guzzler! I called them the next morning (which was Friday morning) before my friend, Erina, got to my house to take me car shopping, and that car dealer said that they sold the Magna the day before. I was kinda bummed but I was totally at peace with it, because I just felt like that wasn't really my car in the first place. I had pretty much ruled out getting a Honda or Toyota, because I wanted a car no earlier than the year 2000 and that would mean paying a lot of money for a Honda or Toyota! So I was looking particularly at Nissans and Mitsubishis. But after that dealer told me the car was sold, I began my search again. I figured I'd just look at car lots here and see if I could find one. For all you Charleston people, there is a road here that's pretty much like Savannah Hwy (TONS of car dealerships), but times 10! So I just decided to search car dealerships online to get an idea of what place had what. In the process, I found a '99 Hatchback Toyota Corolla. It was blue, and really cute! So I called the dealer and got their address and told them I was interested in that car. They were so nice. Erina came to pick me up and we went to this car dealership that I was talking about called "Automobile Gallery" (www.automobilegallery.com.au). When we walked up to the lot, I was expecting someone to bombard me with questions and facts about their cars. Instead, me and Erina got to look around for a few minutes. We spotted the car I'd been looking at online, and as I was walking toward it, I saw a familiar car - a 2001 Honda Civic! Same model as mine back home. I told my friend, "Erina, I just have to take a look at this car for old times sake." I had no intentions of buying the car. When I saw that it was only $1,000 more than the Toyota Corolla, I was like, "Oh my gosh!" It had low kms (or miles, for the Americans) as well, but I went and looked at the Toyota. I chatted with the dealer, who came outside shortly after I got to looking at the Toyota. He was really nice, and wasn't trying to sell me his stuff, but was really just trying to help me along and gave me all kinds of info! He told me everything I needed to know about things such as insurance, registration, etc. I was in a pickle now. I had to decide between this Toyota and Honda. How funny is it that I had totally ruled out getting a Honda or Toyota, but now I was having difficulty deciding between the two?! Seriously, God has such a sense of humor! Well, I ended up getting the Honda!! How much more does that prove God's sense of humor? I got the same car here as back home! That thought had never realistically crossed my mind! It's dark blue, and has dark interior. Those are the major differences (other than the steering wheel being on the other side of the car).

All I can say is thank you to my dad! And thank you God! Seriously, I am SO blessed! I know this car is the one God had waiting for me, because I took out $500 cash, hoping they would take that as a deposit, because I definitely don't have thousands of dollars to fork out right now. I have to wait for those funds to come in from dad back home. When I got there, they said, "We take $500 deposits on all of our cars." Woah! Also, I looked into how much the Honda cost here and converted it to US dollars, and it was just under the price my car sold for back home! Such a God thing! Here's some pictures:

(P.S.): You can see more pictures on the site I mentioned earlier. Just go to "Gallery" and then get to the Hondas. Mine is at the top of the page. It's a 2001, Dark Blue.





So yeah, I'm going to go pick it up some time next week hopefully! YAY!

ONE.

Sometimes I find it amazing how something that seems so small to me can greatly affect someone’s future. Something that I do on a regular basis, something I don’t think twice about – something such as making a phone call. We do it pretty much every day – making calls. It’s just a part of our culture, our generation. What’s a cell phone for anyways? To me, serving has become like that as well. I don’t want it to become mundane and familiar, but I do want it to be a part of who I am, not just a part of my life here at college and church. Well, when you combine the two (phone calls and serving), you get one thing: making calls to members of the church. Don’t worry, I’m not going off on one of my tangents. Let me explain a bit more what this has to do with anything.

For Sisterhood (the women’s ministry service on Thursday mornings), I serve in the buses ministry. When I am rostered on for the week, I ride on one of the church buses that picks women up around Sydney who don’t have cars. I get to greet the women and just make them feel welcome in the mornings. The lady who oversees this area is actually about to have a baby, so I told her I don’t mind helping to make the phone calls and such like she used to do. So this week I made the phone calls and edited the bus run sheet, which just tells the bus driver the routes we need to take for that Thursday morning. I was given a few new people to contact along with the “regulars”. One lady, though, had an incomplete number. I actually was thinking it looked weird, because it was only 7 digits, and it looked like an American number, like this: (xxx-xxxx). Home numbers here are 8 digits, so I realized a number was missing. I emailed the bus driver that morning, and kept checking my email, but no reply. So finally that evening she sent me an email back with the correct number. I called this lady and said, “Hi, this is Rian from Hillsong Church and I’m calling about Sisterhood tomorrow. Just wondering if you are coming and if you need a ride on the bus?” She seemed really happy to talk to me and was saying that she wanted to come to Sisterhood but didn’t have a car. I told her that I didn’t have a car and that I know how frustrating that can be, and I told her that the Sisterhood bus could pick her up. When she got what I was saying, she was SO incredibly happy! I apologized for not calling earlier but someone had given me an incomplete number and I just got the right number. She was so thankful that I actually “went to so much trouble” (as she put it) to get her number. It really didn’t seem like a big deal to me. “It’s just my job.”

When I met her on the bus the next morning, God just totally spoke through me. I didn’t say much to her on the ride because I wasn’t sitting next to her, but as we were getting off I asked her if she had anyone to sit with and she said, “No.” I told her I didn’t either and asked if she wanted to sit with me. She refused at first because she thought I wanted to sit with my friends or something, but I reassured her that I had no one to sit with and I wanted to sit with her.

The reason I say “God just totally spoke through me” is because after the service was over and I was chatting with her, she told me that she wanted to go to Colour Conference this past year (yes, what I’ve been talking about in my past couple blogs) but that she couldn’t afford it. She said that she applied for financial aid but no one at the church contacted her. I apologized to her and encouraged her to still come next year. She then told me what totally hit me hard. She told me that because no one had contacted her (and she had tried several times to call the church but no one was helpful) about Colour, she was becoming really bitter. She told me that if I hadn’t called her, she would’ve been turned off from the church. I quickly realized after that how crucial it was to be connected. I learned that she has been going to Hillsong now for 8 years, and yet she still doesn’t know hardly anyone! That blows my mind, because I’ve been going to Hillsong a little over 8 months, and I know so many people. But you know what? It’s not about knowing people and having friends and people seeing you, it’s about quietly finding that “one”. It’s about loving the “one.” Because I know if I were the last person on earth, Jesus still would’ve died for me. He’s all about the “one”. He’s all about you.

Colourful.

Hey everyone!

Here's some videos giving you the feel of what's been going on lately here at hillsong. The first one is of the women's conference we just got finished with (Colour Your World 2009). The second one is a video that someone (obviously one of the volunteers) took during one of the rehearsals of the opening to Colour. I swear, the girl who sings in the beginning (her name is Amy I think) looks so much like Jennifer Anniston, don't you think?

Daylight Savings

So just a head's up for everyone back in the States...Daylight Savings Time ends tomorrow, so I will be setting my clock back one hour tonight. Just know that starting your Saturday night, you will be adding 2 hours to your current time, and then flipping the AM and PM.

Yay! I'm so excited--I get an extra hour of sleep tonight! :)

Colour Conference & Album Recording

Well, Colour Conference is over. Colour Your World is Hillsong's annual women's conference. We served at two Colour Conferences and then a day of serving at the live album recording for Hillsong's next album release. So basically I've had a week of 12-14 hour days this past week. It's been sooo tiring, but incredible! I got to go into a few sessions. These included sessions by Lisa Bevere, Sy Rogers, and Pastor Brian and Bobbie Houston. I worked in kids (ages 1 and 2) for both Colour Conferences. For album, I served in choir. Both areas of serving were amazing! Colour Conference One was 3 days long. Then on Sunday I served in my normal area of serving on Sunday mornings (security) and ran out to catch the church bus to the Sydney Entertainment Centre to get to choir practice and was there til late that night. Then Colour Two was another 3 days long. Seriously, it was amazingggg!

Some ministries came and were represented at the Conference. The biggest thing was Compassion. Compassion is a Christian child sponsorship program. The president of Compassion Australia spoke and Colour Conference was celebrating 10 years of partnership with Compassion. Compassion Australia is just a part of Compassion International. I actually got to volunteer with Compassion International once. It was so fun! I got to go to a Riverdogs game and work at a Compassion booth (for those of you who don't know who the Riverdogs are, they are a local baseball team back home). I loved it...Caedmon's Call introduced us as we passed out "children" to be sponsored to people.

Another ministry represented was Samaritan's Purse. Samaritan's Purse is actually Franklin Graham's ministry (Billy Graham's son). Every year they do something that you might be more familiar with...does Operation Christmas Child ring a bell? Okay, I LOVE Operation Christmas Child. I try to do a shoebox every year. My mom will tell you that it's one of my favorite things to go to the Dollar Store back home and just buy all kinds of toys and fill up boxes and wrap them. Haha, I go through the "Mom, do you think this is a standard sized shoebox?" as I rummage through closets in the house, searching for empty shoeboxes that no one needs. So let me explain what Operation Christmas Child is. Basically you get an empty shoebox and fill it with toys for a child around the world that otherwise wouldn't get anything for Christmas. I got to visit and work at the Samaritan's Purse headquarters a couple years ago. My job was to open and sort through the boxes to make sure that everything inside was acceptable (i.e. no war-like toys, no candies like chocolate that could melt, etc). I want to go back again so badly! It's just in North Carolina..not too far from home. So yeah, they actually had an Operation Christmas Child booth at the conference, where you just would pay $20 and fill up a box for a child! I got to do one and meet this really cool lady who had a full time job and volunteered in her spare time at Samaritan's Purse. There are some truly amazing people in the world!

I also found this out at the conference through the guys that served. I met some really cool people because the City and Hills students were combined (the two college campuses) for the conference. This is like the only place we ever see each other. haha. But anyways, the guys worked the conference as well and all of the girls got to go in for some sessions. The guys on my team were super nice. Most of them were from the city campus, so I hadn't met them before. But I just remember sometimes being amazed by their hard work. God caught me off guard a few times and would say things to me like, "See Rian, there are some really good guys out there." He reminded me that He's got a great guy waiting for me somewhere. :)

Well, I'm sorry I haven't kept in touch much, but like I mentioned, I have been super busy this past week! Thankfully I had today off and I have tomorrow off as well. As much as I miss Colour, I'm so happy I get to sleep in! Having to stand at the bus stop at 7am in the pouring rain for a bus wasn't the funnest thing in the world, but hey, you don't get that experience everyday. I forgot to bring my umbrella one day, so as I was walking through the city during my lunch break, it began to pour. Haha, sometimes you just have to learn to let go and run in the rain (and pray you don't get sick)!

By the way, please consider sponsoring a child. I sponsor a boy in Ethiopia named Temesgen. We actually write each other alot! It's nice too, because you can write him from your online account or you can choose to send via "snail mail". I get to send him or his family money gifts for different occasions - his birthday, Christmas, etc. Or just whenever I want to. I love how personalized it feels. You can even meet your child on this side of eternity...I hope to visit Temesgen one day in his hometown! I love him so much! There's lots of poverty right now around the world. My heart was broken as I watched some of the stories that Compassion shared through a video at Colour. There was a little boy during one part who was saying he wanted to become a doctor and support his grandparents and he began to cry as he said "I pray that my sponsor will always be happy." I couldn't stop crying (part of that was probably from a lack of sleep as well). To these children, you're not just someone who gives them money and an occasional letter. For alot of Compassion kids, you are their source of hope...you seriously are like a parent to them because your money shows them you not only care, but that you BELIEVE in them. Anyone who has kids knows that's what a child wants to feel like - that someone believes in them. We all want to feel like way. Many sponsored children's wall decorations are just letters from their sponsor. There was a girl at the Compassion tent outside at the Conference that was speaking about her life and how her life and her parents lives have been completely transformed because of the sponsorship program (she looked about my age). She said "now my kids won't have to be sponsored children, because I have the opportunity to live a successful life." Compassion works with the children's local churches to set up the children for a win in life. I don't know everything about Temesgen - what he goes through everyday physically and spiritually - but I do know that I make a difference and bring hope to his life - a hope from God! Please sponsor a child. It's only $32 a month. That's seriously so cheap if you see it for how it is - giving someone the opportunity to live life!

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