Further travels...

Two weeks after leaving Australia, I'm now in Scotland. I spent ten days at home in Spain, catching up with some coaching, and preparing for this trip to the UK, where I'll be teaching a  discipleship seminar this weekend. The theme is "Road to Growth" and we will be considering different ways of growing in our own relationship with God, as well as keys to reaching out in a friendly way and sharing our faith with others. I'll be here throughout the coming weekend, and will fly back to Spain again next Monday.

Last day in Australia

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Today was my last day in Australia. With all the meetings behind us, we could enjoy the pleasant sunny day by taking time to walk along the Strand (the long beach area in this photo) and visit the local botanic gardens with their palm trees, parrots and butterflies. It was also time to say goodbye to old friends and new, as the local YWAMers began the first of hundreds of airport runs. As for me, I'll be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning and heading to the airport for our morning flight from Townsville to Brisbane. Then onwards to Singapore and Zürich, before finally flying back to  Spain on Tuesday evening.

Here are a few more wildlife photos from last weekend. Can you tell that the wildlife sanctuary was one of the highlights of my free time during the week?!

End Bible Poverty….

We had a really inspiring day yesterday, considering how we can play our part in ending Bible poverty. Of the world's 7000 or so languages, around 1800 of them don't yet have any portion of the Bible in their own heart language. We looked at how we can partner to see new translation initiatives started; at how we can pass on the Bible orally and audibly to people groups who can't read; at how new script inventions can teach literacy in only a short space of time… We called for people to sign the convenant to end Bible poverty now. Many had already signed before coming to this gathering in Australia, and yesterday nearly a thousand more signed up online. Countless "I commit" photos were posted on Facebook and Instagram.

To do your part, please click here to read more info and sign the covenant. Then spread the word to your Christian friends, so that they can join the initiative too. There have been many initiatives over the past decade to end physical poverty in the world. But Jesus Himself said that man cannot live by bread alone. Let's do our part in ending Bible poverty too, so that every people group in the world has the opportunity to read/hear the scriptures and encounter the God who loves them.
You'll find helpful videos on the End Bible Poverty website…… or you can even watch the whole first hour of our morning session yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BstMWbt1LYc

Another full day lies ahead now, and our evening session, which will include the graduation of several dozen University students, will be held down on the wharf, next to our medical ships.

Fun on a free day (in Australia)

After several busy days of meetings with the College of Education, we had some free time today before the large YwamTogether event started this evening. A group of us decided to rent a couple of vehicles and go to visit the Billabong animal sanctuary which is just ten miles south of Townsville. I have to confess it was a lot of fun: we got to feed kangaroos, hold a koala, a wombat, a snake and a baby crocodile, watch a bird show, and pat a dingo.

Here are a couple of the highlights of the day. The first picture shows me with Tonka the wombat and KKI friends' kids from Argentina. The second picture shows me with Mac the koala, and in the third I'm feeding a kangaroo.

 

The YWAM Together event kicked off tonight with a great cultural welcome to Australia (including Australian songs, indigenous music... and even a crocodile and snake on stage from the Billabong sanctuary.) YWAM Townsville deserves to be in the Guiness Book of Records. After we closed our meeting with worship, they served pavlova dessert to everyone present. That's 1350 bowls of dessert, served to an international crowd from 73 different nations. Amazing! Tomorrow will be our first full day with an exciting programme of worship, multi-media, seminars and expositions. 
Thanks for your prayers.

Arrived in Australia...

After four days of travelling (five flights, leaving from five different countries) I've finally arrived safely in  Townsville, in the north east of Australia. For the next four days I'll be staying at YWAM's University of the Nations campus in the city, and then changing accommodation to spend a week at a nearby backpackers' hostel. I'll have four days of meetings with the College of Education, and then a full week at a larger university gathering with more than a thousand people.

Although the 4-day trip seemed rather long, I arrived a day early in Townsville and this meant I had some time this morning to go for a long walk and explore the town a bit. Just fifteen minutes from the YWAM campus is the beachfront area called The Strand. I went for an early morning (after breakfast) walk along the seafront to a hill that marks the location of a fortress during World War II. You may have heard of the Battle of the Carol Sea in May 1942, and the bombing of Townsville just a few months after that. The most enigmatic aspect of my walk, however, was finding official posts containing bottles of vinegar all along the beach area. Turns out that this is because marine stingers (jelly fish) can cause a lot of injuries during the summer months.

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My walk was sufficiently early in the morning, that I passed many dog walkers and was impressed to see that border collies were often the dog of choice. Aussies have good taste!! I also saw an amazing range of birds, trees and tropical plants - some of which were familiar to me from my years in Africa, and some species that I'd never seen before. We'll be busy with meetings now for the next few days, but we'll probably have some free time again on Monday morning, and a couple of us are hoping to go and visit a place where we can see koalas. Seems a pity to visit Australia and not see at least one of their most well known national animals. In the meantime, thanks for your prayers over the coming days as I meet with the college of education people. 

Two down, three to go

I'm writing this in Thailand. Two flights are behind me now, and three more lie ahead. I'm very blessed that a friend gifted me air miles to upgrade these longer flights to business class. It's meant I can spend the waiting time in the business class lounges (I had a shower in the Thai lounge this morning) and use the internet there too.

I don't tend to sleep on planes and so, despite the fact that I had a wonderful seat that went down completely flat like a bed, I only slept a couple of hours on the overnight flight… but I did watch four movies! In less than an hour now, I'll be boarding again for the shorter flight to Singapore.