Byron Bay

Hello,
Well we made it to Byron Bay; a place with the population of 6,000 people and around 1.7 million tourists a year so on average around 15,000 tourists are in Byron Bay a day. Its a hippy town where there's a lot of "new age" beliefs and it is a pretty big drug town. We arrived in Byron Bay on Friday, March the 2nd and we set up our stuff at the base here in Byron. This base (school ground) is around 10 minutes out of Byron and it is amazing. It has a pool in it (although its currently broken) and it has amazing rooms. Its a nice huge house, us girls are staying in the pool shed but its a awesome room decorated very nicely with tons of bunkbeds. The guys were stuck in a couple of rooms in the house and in their mozzie domes (mosquito net tents). On Saturday we had the opportunity to either go on a 5 hour roundtrip hike up a nearby mountain that was fairly steep, or go to the beach in Byron Bay. Well obviously I went to the beach! lol. So me, Corina, Hana, Zac, Jason, and Megan all went to the beach in Byron. The only bad thing is the beaches here allow women to walk around topless. This of course created a huge problem trying to find a place where us girls and the 2 guys were comfortable sitting. So we spent the day at the beach. When it was close to lunch time I was praying and after I had finished I felt like I should look to my left, so I did. There I saw a women in her 40's sitting in the sand with 5 kids. I really felt like I was to go talk to her but our group was going to go back to the base for lunch then come back. But I couldn't leave so I explained the them that I felt as though I should go talk to the woman. So I stayed and a couple of others stayed because they didn't want me by myself. So I eventually went up to this woman and started making sand castles with her kids. She came and sat by me and we were talking for a bit. I really felt like she was either divorced or seperated and that those kids were hers and not relatives or friends kids too. I never said anything but eventually she told me about her split from her husband and how her and her 5 kids had just came to Byron Bay and were renting a place about 15 minutes away. We talked about life, I never really got to share my faith with her but I did tell her about YWAM and we talked about the church back home etc. She told me that she doesn't reallly know what you would call her faith or beliefs. But after she said that she stopped and was thinking so I could tell that she was questioning herself and what she believed, but I didn't want to pry so I didn't ask her about it but rather just sat there with her as she was thinking. Then it was time for her to leave as she had 5 kids to feed so we said goodbye. Her name was Dea and I would appreciate it if you could pray for Dea and her 5 children who are 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 and that by some small chance what we did talk about in regards to YWAM and why I am in Australia have caused her to question. It was then that the others came back with the sandwiches so I went to our group and we ate and hung out for awhile. Some of us decided to go for ice cream so we went to Baskin Robins and on our way we stopped at a little jewelry stand. A very lovely blonde girl in her 20's was working there and asked us where we were from and some other questions. We told her where we were from and she asked why we had come so we talked about YWAM. While we talked she had many questions and was so interested and in awe that we would come to Australia to help others out and to learn more about God. She asked about God and Megan was trying to explain it and she mentioned how God is love. The girl told us that she thinks that awesome and that there is a God but Love is just a energy and that we are all in fact "little gods walking around because we can all possess the energy of Love". We talked a bit more but then we kept on going, her beliefs are common around this area "new age", it totally shocked us but apparently the whole energy and feeling good is what many people here believe in. At night there's so much clubs here and you can most definitely buy drugs if you wanted to. It feels like such a dark place here its intense. The churches here are really mobilized though and they all have different ministries. On Saturday night we went back into town after I helped cook dinner for everyone and we got to see a ministry of spinning flaming batons to the beat of some drums with free Chai. It was unique there was a group of maybe 10 people who were running the thing and the people dancing with the fire were very good. Their ministry was to attract people to come watch and give them tea and they had little chairs set up to talk with the people in hope of ministrying to the tourists there. On Sunday we went to church which was another good experience. The church is very focused on the importance of intercession and the need to reach the people. They have a huge passion for the country of Australia as well as the rest of the world which was encouraging. They had a woman come up and talk about missions and how we are to Go. It was ironic because she talked about some of the things we were about to be learning in our lectures. Afterwards we had the chance to go shopping downtown or in the market or go to the beach. So our afternoon was that and later that evening we had our first lecture about why we are to go and evangelize and why God thinks its important. On Monday we had 2 lectures from Kevin again. We talked about the importance of the Message and what it brings and that night we were talking about the power or authority we have in Jesus name and what "In Jesus Name" really means. We got into a deep discussion about the gifts we can have and the things we can do through Christ. We talked about some spiritual gifts, Kevin usually opened up the teaching with some miraculous story about either someone raising the dead or just being healed. So we talked about that and then had a time of prayer. Then on Tuesday we had our last lecture about what we could use as a guide for evangelism or different techniques like tracks, the Romans Road etc. Then most of the group went to the ocean again. That night we had a time of worship and prayer which was another amazing experience. Lately I have really been finding out more about Gods character and it has been encouraging because I have also been promised a lot of things as well. So I am so excited for what my future holds and I can't wait to see what the plan is for my future. Well we left Byron on Thursday to go to Mount Tambourine for a international missions "Outlook" conference. So we set up the tents there and we attended some sessions throughout the weekend and had electives. I went to a TESOL elective and a Testimonies from the Frontline elective. It was very interesting, our speaker that weekend was a guy from Uganda who was a pastor of the church there named Gary Skinner. He was a amazing speaker and we learned so much about the Great Commission and how we as churches need to be mobile and to reach others and not to just go to our seperate buildings and live our seperate lives because we are called to share the Good News. It was a amazing weekend and it was so much fun even though we had to set up so many huge tents and work a lot. I really grew a lot in the time there. Now we are back in Byron Bay for some more lectures and it is 7:26 in the morning. We got up at 5 to go watch the sunrise as Byron Bay is the farthest east as you can get, so we drove up there and watched the sun come up over Byron Bay at the lighthouse. Thanks once again for you support, I have really been stretched and have been learning so much in my time here. Thanks once again!
Daneille Dirk