Back from Outreach

I'm back on aussie soil! We just arrived back in Darwin a few hours ago and will leave tomorrow morning for our 3 day drive/trek back to Townsville. Outreach has been amazing, but after 9 weeks it will be great to be home.

Our 22 days in Indonesia was fantastic! My team was involved with many different ministries and many different people during our time there and I saw and did many things that I have NEVER done before. We were able to go an orphanage, do prostitute/transgender evangelism, speak in churches, speak at schools, hang out with street kids, but our main focus ended up really being slum ministry. We would usually be in a slum at least 5 days a week. The city where we went has such a dichotomy between rich and poor that at often times it felt like you would step from one world into another within a moment. One day we spent the afternoon hanging out in a huge slum with people who lived in plywood "homes" literally built in a graveyard (literally on top of the graves) and who pulled the labels off of plastic water bottles to make a living next to open sewage...got in a taxi and went to an evening service at a church that has a multi multi million dollar structure, a sound system with acoustics that rival any concert hall (their sanctuary is actually called a concert hall!), immaculate state of the art musical instruments, and our team even got to use electronic ear pieces so the service could be translated into english as the pastor was speaking!

Our time spent in Indo really was amazing and there are so many stories and experiences to share. We saw people come to know the Lord, prayed for and received a healing, discipled local christians, helped meet people's physical needs, and so much more.

We also as a team got to experience a little thing called outreach stomach. We all did pretty well health wise until about the last 3 days...and then things started happening....literally. Let's just say that yesterday, our last day and the day we flew out, my team of 7 visited the throne room over 40 times combined. Go ahead....do the math. We have one member who has visited that room 34 times over the last 3 days! Woohoo! Oh yeah, and there is very rarely toilet paper....it's just this funny looking hose that looks like something you would wash your dishes with at the kitchen sink. We visited some facilities that have neither TP or hoses....just a bucket of water with large ladle like spoon. Let's just say you do not shake with your left hand under any circumstance. Sometimes there aren't even toilets themselves....just squatty potties.

But like battle weary soldiers limping home...we come back victorious.

God has done so much in the City where we were over the last year and it was an AMAZING experience to play a part in something so much bigger. There are lives that are literally not the same as they were 3 weeks ago. Not only that, but there eternities have changed as well. I'm still trying to understand the magnitude of that.

Thanks so much for your prayers and thoughts over the last few weeks. You all are amazing.

Aaron

P.S. I shall be returning to the States at the end of december and am currently scheduled to speak on Sunday December 28 at my church...so mark your calendars! Hope to see you there!

Read more...