AN EXPLANATION

I promis you that I will give an explanation for such a stupid name for a blog to Australia in a moment, BUT FIRST!

Thank you for the slightest interest you are showing in my missions trip to Melbourne (pronounced Mel-bun. yea i thought they spoke english there too), Australia. I could not be more excited to be taking this trip, seriously. I love the team we have going there, but that is for another post.

This trip did not come without some serious conversations with God and fights with myself. It all started last semester when we were told by our bible study leaders, Ryan and Jenny Penley, that they would be leading the summer project ( Cru's summer missions trips) to Melbourne. I missed my chance last year to go internationally to Maracaibo, Venezuela, and decided to stay home to take classes.

Who better to travel with the our staff to another country, and to Australia?

Enter late December. I am sitting down with Ryan at our Christmas conference. We are talking about applying to the trip and I am getting a lot more questions then answers, as is par for the course with him and I love it! After my conversation with Ryan, I had some serious conversations with God during the 4 days of our conference and felt a push to apply.

The only thought I had after finishing my application was, "if i get accepted, i may still stay and take classes." WHAT A HORRIBLE THOUGHT! I was sitting in health class one morning, and in the middle of class I felt God smack me across the face and all I could think was "WHY WOULD YOU NOT GO, IDIOT!?" What a horrible feeling. My application was filled out half-heartedly. I suck!

This story will be continued on the next post. As promised, this terrible name comes from an episode of The Simpsons where they travel to Australia. Bart brings a bullfrog with him and lets it go into the wild of Australia. The bullfrogs quickly reproduce and start taking over. A shop keeper pushes them out with a broom. The clerk says they are like kangaroos but they are reptiles. Marge then tells the clerk that they are called bullfrogs, to which the clerk replies, "What? thats an odd name. I'd have called them chazzwazzers." stupid name for a blog? Yes, but it get a laugh out of it.

http://www.watchcartoononline.com/the-simpsons-season-6-episode-16-bart-vs-australia
It's a great episode and worth 22 min of your day. the clip starts at 17:00 if you really want to see it

I am going to try to keep this updated us much as possible before leaving, and then in Melbourne, I will try to post once a week for the six weeks I am there. If you have made it this far to, I applaud you because I would have quit very early on. And I swear these posts will be much better in the future. But until then...