Last year I spent a few days in January in Newcastle with the Gray's, the host family that put Shaun and I up for World Youth Day in 2008. It was a great way to start my time in Oz. I then flew up to start my year in Brisbane. I was headed to 'The BEAT school of music'. I was unsure as to wether I wanted to go to this bit as it didn't really seem like my thing.I arrived in Brisbane and I was the last pick up that day from the airport. Got in the van and met some other 'NETters'. They were from all over the world, USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. I remember feeling a bit nervous, I was going to be spending a year with these people and I had no idea wether I would like them even. Turns out they were all lovely, and still are. I keep in touch with all of them still. The 'BEAT' was run by a group called 'emmanuelworship', they are a Catholic Worship Band who go all over the world playing at conferences, events and running music workshops for parishes, schools and dioceses. There were individual instrument workshops for guitar, bass, drums, piano and singing. We learnt songs that we would play throughout our year, we learnt how to lead others in praise & worship and there was a showcase to see the talents of each other.
It was a great few days, however, it was interrupted and cut short by the floods in Brisbane. For those people reading this and remember the floods in Australia being on the news, it was amazing to see it first hand. Obviously it was devastating but there was something about the seeing the power and seeing the water rise in front of my eyes and seeing houses disappear overnight that was just incredible. I was staying with a family called the Gleeson's. They were wonderful and just so kind. Where I was staying was on a hill and there was a river behind our house a bit further down. I would take a walk to see the river with a friend and we could go right down to the river bank. Then just a day later the whole bank of the river was under and the water was flowing so quickly. Before we knew it the water was onto the road and creeping into peoples houses. Just a few streets away there lived some relatives of the Glessons and there house was in danger of going under, so we started clearing out there house. If you went to the back porch of the house on day 1 of the clear out you could see the houses stretching about 4 back, (going down hill) by day 2 the house directly behind was affected by water and the houses behind that were either completely underwater or half under. When we finished clearing out the house we were wading through ankle deep water to get the final things out of the house.
The whole street was helping everyone out. It was great to kindness and love being shown in such a big way. The house next door belonged to a staff member of NET but their house was set lower than the one that we were clearing. When the floods (in that area) reached their maximum height the house we cleared was under about 8 or 9 feet of water and the house next door was only showing the roof.
Over a year on some houses are still going under renovations and fixing, but this year there was another dose of heavy rain in January so a lot of people again experienced flooding. Australia has been in drought for years and finally they got some rain, so for some farmers and land owners it was much needed. A dam just outside Brisbane when I was there reached 160% full! The dam apparently has an overflow capacity but it was close to actually overflowing so they had to open the dam gates and that caused a lot of the flooding.
After that we headed up to Peregian Beach, a town a couple of hours north of Brisbane where we started our 5 weeks of training. That will be the next post!Right now I am sitting outside at 8am with a 25 degree sun and some wallabies sitting the other side of the fence. I love this country and it is incredibly beautiful, I am so blessed to be here. Going to see some our youth group perform in the 'Seusical' tonight. Very excited about that!There is lots on for us to keep busy with and plan ahead for. We are planning a weekend conference for young adults aged 16-30 called Breakthrough. The Australian Catholic Bishops have set this year (pentecost 2012-pentecost 2013) as the year of Grace, an opportunity to contemplate the face of Christ. We are linking it with that theme and will hopefully through the speakers, the theme and the prayer bring people closer to Jesus.
It was a great few days, however, it was interrupted and cut short by the floods in Brisbane. For those people reading this and remember the floods in Australia being on the news, it was amazing to see it first hand. Obviously it was devastating but there was something about the seeing the power and seeing the water rise in front of my eyes and seeing houses disappear overnight that was just incredible. I was staying with a family called the Gleeson's. They were wonderful and just so kind. Where I was staying was on a hill and there was a river behind our house a bit further down. I would take a walk to see the river with a friend and we could go right down to the river bank. Then just a day later the whole bank of the river was under and the water was flowing so quickly. Before we knew it the water was onto the road and creeping into peoples houses. Just a few streets away there lived some relatives of the Glessons and there house was in danger of going under, so we started clearing out there house. If you went to the back porch of the house on day 1 of the clear out you could see the houses stretching about 4 back, (going down hill) by day 2 the house directly behind was affected by water and the houses behind that were either completely underwater or half under. When we finished clearing out the house we were wading through ankle deep water to get the final things out of the house.
The whole street was helping everyone out. It was great to kindness and love being shown in such a big way. The house next door belonged to a staff member of NET but their house was set lower than the one that we were clearing. When the floods (in that area) reached their maximum height the house we cleared was under about 8 or 9 feet of water and the house next door was only showing the roof.
Over a year on some houses are still going under renovations and fixing, but this year there was another dose of heavy rain in January so a lot of people again experienced flooding. Australia has been in drought for years and finally they got some rain, so for some farmers and land owners it was much needed. A dam just outside Brisbane when I was there reached 160% full! The dam apparently has an overflow capacity but it was close to actually overflowing so they had to open the dam gates and that caused a lot of the flooding.
After that we headed up to Peregian Beach, a town a couple of hours north of Brisbane where we started our 5 weeks of training. That will be the next post!Right now I am sitting outside at 8am with a 25 degree sun and some wallabies sitting the other side of the fence. I love this country and it is incredibly beautiful, I am so blessed to be here. Going to see some our youth group perform in the 'Seusical' tonight. Very excited about that!There is lots on for us to keep busy with and plan ahead for. We are planning a weekend conference for young adults aged 16-30 called Breakthrough. The Australian Catholic Bishops have set this year (pentecost 2012-pentecost 2013) as the year of Grace, an opportunity to contemplate the face of Christ. We are linking it with that theme and will hopefully through the speakers, the theme and the prayer bring people closer to Jesus.
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