Walkabout

Student Life Ministry in Brisbane, Australia with Amanda DeCesaro

It Thursday already, where have the days gone? I've eaten way too much sugar, haha. I will be without internet for the next two weeks as my team, a few other missionaries and about 40 Aussie and Kiwi (NZ) students hit the beach of Burleigh Heads to reach out to high school grads, tourists and locals. I'm at an awkward stage where I'm not sure if I am nervous, stressed, excited, or what, but no matter how I feel tomorrow morning we'll be heading out and I will have to trust God that things won't fall to pieces. I am in charge of evangelism on this project which is a huge responsibility since evangelism is one of the main focuses of project. I have two Griffith students helping me, Jeremy and Beth and it has been so much fun planning with them. We make a great productive and enjoyable team. They are both first years and this will be there first project, sometimes I forget that so I pray that their inexperience will not cause them to be nervous nor things to be overlooked or not known. Please pray that even among any failure we face we praise God and rejoice in His will and partnership with us. Please pray for me as I will need much patience and endurance for the next two weeks.

The roomies! Emily, Dani, Lynn, Me, and Jeanie:-)

We had a delicious but cheap dinner at an Irish pub in the city

This week we had our final roommate date and I had my final discipleship time with Megan where I made her the most delicious chocolate cake (thanks to a recipe from my teammate from last year, Susanna). I said goodbye to her as she flies to her summer project in Japan this Sunday. Tonight I go over to the Park's house, they are a Korean couple who work with ISM (international student ministry). They are so sweet and invited me over for dinner and to talk to me about Korea (they got excited when I told them I would like to work there next year). Well, hopefully I don't stay up too late as I still have to write a talk for Saturday's evangelism training (I still procrastinate, hehe) and Min Jun might come over to dye my hair a random color again (but maybe I will just have to stay a red head for project). Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!!!!

This week has been very busy and so will this next week as I continue to prepare for Summer Project and as I wrap us discipleship. I've had a few meetings this week and spent a whole day with Kelly, one of the girls I disciple, we had a really great chat about the two years I've been here and how much she has grown. She thanked me for not letting her stay the same as when I first met her.

Dani and I went to see a girl I did a Christianity Explained course (CE) with last year at her job. Her name is Dannie and she is from China, I met her through my beloved friend Mel. She was surprised when we walked in and I told her that I was leaving for the States in a month, I thought she was going to cry. We were not able to meet up this year but I still remember when she told me that she hoped to be a Christian one day and that at our last CE lesson she said that she knew the gospel in her mind but not in her heart. Please continue to pray for her with me as I ask for someone to pursue her with the gospel.

Dani, Dannie and I just before saying goodbye

There are a quite a few students who need to be followed up and many I hope will be pursued by Christ loving friends. I know that my time with them was impactful and exactly what God wants and that now I can leave them in His faithful hands. It's just so hard to say goodbye and what is a huge fear of mine is that I will not be able to say goodbye to everyone. I know there will be people I will never see again, all those acquaintances I have at uni that I never even told I was leaving, will they wonder where I went? Will I remember them 6 months from now? Memories are important to me, especially the memory of people, these are just some random panicky thoughts that run through my mind as I think about leaving. I especially hope to say goodbye to RyuSho who will be busy with summer classes when I get back from Summer Project.

Tonight a bunch of us went out to dinner for Andy's (one of our graduating students) birthday. It was fun to hang out with a huge group. I said goodbye to everyone who I may potentially not see again, I was glad about that. I spent most of the day with Mary, we chatted, walked around the city and she bought a guitar that we played in the park. Please keep Mary in your prayers as we will be limited to talking through the internet, I hope that we continue to speak about the gospel and that she will turn to Jesus as her Savior.

Mary, Kelly, Megan, Andy, Min Jun, Dani, Budd, John, Lauren, Pete, Chaela,
Daniel, and Yuki were just some of the cool people that came to dinner.


Budd and John striking a pose:-)

Thank you for all your prayers... I'm going to sleep now as I will be going to Chinese Church in the morning with some of our students.

Love, Amanda

At the start of the week we had our Beach Reach, where we invited our friends to come to the beach with us. It was a chilly cloudy day but thankfully it didn't rain on us. We all had fun playing ultimate frisbee in the sand and just hanging out with each other. It is really cool that living in Australia we can have beach outreaches like this, I hope our students continue to invite their non Christian friends along to socials like this to form deeper relationships.

Min Jun playing in the sand

Min Jun caught me a dead fish, so I made a photo op- "Can't Survive on Diet Coke Alone"

Tuesday morning we had our last team meeting where we talked about leaving and about our year together. Afterward, we went down to the Brisbane River and took a couple team photos. It was a beautiful day and made me think about how much I am going to miss Brizzy, it is such a wonderful city.

Kangaroo Point in the City

Study week was packed with fun on campus, including our first annual Fusion talent show, where people set aside their shyness and made us all laugh and applaud. I debuted as an emcee and it was really fun to just be goofy and interact with the audience.


Julius sings for us at the talent show

On Thursday we had another ISM adventure. We were planning on going to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary but that morning as we met to leave it started raining heavily. Our backup plan was to go to the free museum in the city and then just wander around, I realized that I'm pretty talented at wandering.
Me at the museum trying to pet the cheetah

Tyler and Wil at Gloria Jean's where we planned Plan B

Mary and I with Dani being silly in the background

The kim bap (Korean) I made for our ISM day- first time unsupervised ;-)


This weekend I spent with Lauren, just spending time together before I will have to leave. We always wanted to write a song together and although we are still planning on writing a serious one, we came up with a song about tapioca. At Lauren's house I got to play with her two dogs which was fun since I've been animal deprived lately, there was even an interesting looking lizard in her pool.

The mysterious lizard


Our song- Enjoy, haha


A new discovery this past week was when I went to Coles (grocery store) and saw a yellow watermelon, I was like, "WHAT??!!"

Yellow watermelon!!!!!!

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amanda.decesaro@gmail.com

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