byron week one

byron bay. week one! read read read read read this! i am writing this on the church floor that i have been sleeping on for the past 2 weeks. there has been zero internet, so i have not been able to be in contact with the world... no facebook. o dear. 60 girls have been sleeping on this church floor, with one shower! shock horror. It's not been so bad, but living in such closequarters has resulted in people being extremely short tempered. I stupidly forgot to bring a sleeping bag, so i just had a sheet. The first night i probablyhad around an hour sleep or less. However, thank goodness to Nataly, she has been sharing her sleeping bag with me every night.Every night i wake up scratching my legs because they are absolutley covered in bites, you can actually see the spiders and antsall infested in the carpet. Its so itchy to lie down during the night. It's been a preperation for south africa. The first week, was schoolies week. Schoolies is basically when a load of 18 year old Australians graduate from shool and they just go all out and go to the costal parts of Australiaand get drunk, for a week. Apparently its the " thing to do". Its basically like "freshers" for university, but worse, people are doing drugs everywhere, naked everywhere, having sex literally...everywhere. We was volunteering for this organisation called the "red frogs", they are an organisation that give out these red frog sweeties to drunk people.The MAD school, was allocated to day crew, so we had to go to the schoolies hotels or houses in the morning and make them pancakes, clean up their rooms. the schoolies were so schocked by our generosity and love, no one believed we was doing this for free. However i was being paid in eating the red frogs.The first hotel i remember doing , i was so nervous i had no idea what i was going to talk about with these people. In my team was Jess, Nick and Carla. we went to the backpackers inn,which i must admit , was a dirt bag hotel, it was 50 dollars a night and there was 5 of these guys in one room, so they were paying like 10 dollars a night, so 5 pounds. There were 5 guys staying in one room, and they answered the door in just their underwear...o my innocence! They had weed, bongs and alcohol lying around, which we had to clean up, i washed my hands throughly after. The guys there were so grateful and we managed to have a decent conversation, despite it being a tad awkward to begin with. I felt like a bit of a wedding crasher type, crashing in on their party. At the end of every morning i just endedup really angry at these schoolies parents, that they would willingly allow their children to go to these places, knowing all the chaos that goes with it and even worse to give them hoards of alcohol!After making pancakes every morning , you thought we would rest... but o no, it was straight out again. we set up this massive tentin the city and called it the 'hub' and every night we would have pancakes and chai tea there, and we all would wear our really attractive red frog t shirts, and spark up conversations with drunk people about God, something they did not enjoy. It was really odd to be on the outside of the party seenand not involved, i made friends with these girls, liv and rachel, that i met up with most nights at the hub. They seemed like my kind of girls i would be friends with, and i did not see the harm in them having innocent drunk frun. But, by wednesday i woke up with a sicky feeling and i felt so convictedthat i had not even tried to talk about god with them or about my faith i had even avoided it. It made me so sad, that i had missed such an oppurtunity, that i could of had an affect on these girls and planted a seed in their lives. I admited to myself that i was not even willling to go to the extent of making a fool of myself for jesus, when he went to the extent of dying for me. so from then on , i made a vow that i would ask schoolies about their beliefs and about god, without trying to shoving my views down their throat. Even if it was just tobe an example to them, by not being part of that scene and not having the same attitudes to them. The next evening i was feeling so drained and so tired, and after last weeks breakthrough with ken helser, i really felt the enemys attack on me. The feelings of not being good enough and worthless were so strong, i could not even stand walking down the streets of byron and seeing another beautiful girl. Every girl looked like they had lived in topshop their whole life, perfect hair, perfect tan, perfect clothes, perfect body , perfect perfect perfect. I felt like i would be a hypocrite if i was to talk with these peopole about jesus, and how great and beautiful he makes me feel, if i did not reflect that. i wore my hood up the whole of that night and was definatley walking in the oppisite direction jesus had placed for me that night. but god placed the perfect group of people in to my life just then . i saw some of the red froggers talking to this group and i thought i would just stand near by and listen, they heared my english accent, and were totally excited. They were all so thrilled to hear me speak, they kept wanting me to speak to them. I did not even haveto seek my next "victims" out to convert, but they just came to me. There was a guy there, called sam and he was gay. I absolutley adored him. We chatted for hours, and he said he grew up as a catholic and went to a catholic school, but after coming out as gay, his church, family and friends rejected him. He was really hurt by religion, i was so furious. Religion, the church and man really make me so angry, they have painted such a bad picture of church. I agreed with him that religion has messed up,because its built on man, but if you look at the bible and you look to jesus' life, then you can't argue. He lived a perfect life, and he was the one who hanged outwith the sinners, the prosteuts and the drunks. I did not even know what was coming out of my mouth, my words were so annointed by God. I really would not of made it throughthe night without God's strength. The following night , i so excited to get out there and be around these drunks. Byron bay is so amazing , its very hippy and very free. Its like the 70's, seriously google it.I started talking with this boy called josh, he was from england. it was like listening to an angel, i remembered how much i missed home. We talked for 2 hours, and he was so funny, he had moved to australia about 6 years ago, but had spent the past year in the south west, bristol. so he sounded like vikki polard, which just made the conversationall the funnier. he was impressed with the lifestyle i live and the principles i live by. i told him my testimony and how im waiting for marriage, i told him not only can i notdrink but i dont want to. i want my life to reflect and honour god. he was taking the mick and being sarcastic, but it was just the english humour i needed and missed so much i did not mind. he ended up proposing to me. it was hilerious, i said he needed to wait off 6 months though.