Schoooollss... schooolssss.. schools.. schoolss.. f. s. f

Yeah, that's what I do. If anyone asks "so what is jason doing in australia" the correct response is "schoooooools." Got it.

Things have been generally good. We are in Murray Bridge right now. We were in Adelaide, Golden Grove, and Tea Tree Gully since the last post. The last two are suburbs of Adelaide, however, so basically Adelaide. I guess we are heading south east now which should be pretty good. Mount Gambia next I think? I think that's right.

We've had some fun and funny experiences lately. Our bus (we would call it a van, but it's a 14 passenger bus here) got a dent in the back of it when Corey hopped into the trailer and somehow managed to knock it off the hitch by doing so. The trailer rolled into the back of the bus. Yeah pretty lame. Hopefully we won't be held accountable :).

Adelaide was sweet. We went to a lot of...well schools. And we played some concerts at some local churches as well. I found some people who played decent hacky sack and that was cool because it was a first since I've been over here. I played with them for a long time. I don't know if you guys remember, or know this, but I'm pretty decent at hacky. I'm down right good over here because it's not as common.

While in Golden Grove Sarah and I stayed with these awesome people. Nathan and Amanda. They had to be like late twenties, I don't think I ever actually caught their age. But they were just very cool. They'd been married like a couple of years and they were just fun. Closer to our age, so it was more relaxing conversation. And I saw this show on Aussie television called The Bloakshow. Yeah, seriously. It was like The Man Show on comedy central with actual boobs though. Meaning naked ones. I didn't mean to imply that all the boobs on The Man Show are the result of plastic surgery, it's just that they are covered with thin pieces of material. But here they can show nudity after like 9pm. Crazy huh.

Our Murray Bridge hosts are pretty rad too! I stayed up with them tonight discussing some thick theological topics like. How can a compassionate God condemn anyone to Hell? And in discussing these things, some of my radical theology came out, and they were pretty cool with that. Ideas like, there might be natural consequences that exist outside God's control, it might be possible to disagree with Paul's theology in the New Testament books, etc. But anyway. On to another topic.

I bought a cuban cigar the other day. That was pretty exciting considering we can't get them in the states. In addition, I seem to remember that if you live in a place where cuban cigars are legal for more than 3 months you can legally bring back a certain amount to the states. If this is the case you better believe I'm bringing some back, probably with the monitary help of Marcus, Jon, Aaron, Greg, just to name a few. They just don't know this yet. Heck I don't know this yet, I still have to research it.

I'm kinda freaking about planning Marcus's bachelor party. How the heck am I supposed to do that with zero free time, limited internet access, and a 16.5 hour time diffence. I found a couple places in IL where you can go paintballing for $5 a person if it's a special party like a bachelor party...does that count as thorough research? Maybe some peps would be up for that before the debauchery in Chicago proper begins [sigh].

I've been growing closer to a lot of my teammembers lately...that's been nice. Although it means some more distance from some that I was originally more close to perhaps. But I'm balancing it. It's nice to get to know all my teammembers well, ya know. Team life's been pretty dec. We are communicating more and I think on a personal level I'm just becoming more okay with some people being pissed and not letting it bring me down. Because people are not always gonna be happy about doing this at every moment and I need to allow for that attitude. I'm not always happy about doing it. Sometimes I think, "I can't believe I'm doing this till august." But stuff happens that keeps me going too...totally. God is teaching me a ton, and I'm growing slowly but shirley (that was for you dad). And every once in awhile worship will still hit me as entirely refreshing even though I do worship for a living right now.

Jenny, yes fortnight as in a 2 week period. I'd never even heard the other use until I read your comment. Love you too Mom and B. Shawn, the aborigines wear exactly what you describe. I can't tell you how many snoop dogg, dr. dre shirts I saw. I even think I saw an Arrested Development T and a Color Me Bad T. Pretty funny huh. Yeah they all shop at the op-shops here (second hand stores). And thanks for the "your not the worst white man on the planet" encouragement LOL. I'm gonna go read your blog soon to find out all about what you are doing!

Now onto the sad news. I can't do a round of phone calls this week or next week because both mondays that we are supposed to have off are filled. Which means I need your prayers that I don't have a mental break down. We might be sorta doing days off in rotation. So I might be able to call some night next week but I don't know when it will be. I'll try cell phones and all that if I need to. I miss talking to all you friends too, but hey family comes first. By the time I'm done having about a 30min-1hour discussion with three different family telephone lines I'm pretty tired of talking. But know that I think about all of you all the time. I miss everyone.

peace out America,
in Christ,
jason

Barossa Valley

Apparently I was in some famous South Australian valley called the Barossa Valley. They are world reknown for their vineyards. Look at a wine bottle from South Australia next time you're at the store and see if it is made in the Barossa Valley. I was also in anothber winery valley called Clare Valley. I haven't been able to check out a winery yet, but I have on good authority that we will get to go wine tasting in the Barossa in a couple of weeks when we come back here, which is good becuase I'm a sucker for good reds.

The team has hit some major bumps in our interactions. One teammate blew up at another the other day. It wasn't pretty. We are trying to rebuild trust amongst the team. It's crazy what happens when you get 7 people on the road. Undescribable really. We are working through it though, but I'd appreciate your prayers on the matter. We are tired. We had to drive through our day off last monday, which meant no rest for the last fortnight from constant ministry/driving/music etc. It also means I couldn't call my family and friends, bugger (pronounced "bugga").

Oh, so some more slang for yas:
napkin = tampon
serviette = napkin
bathroom = not necessarily containing a tiolet, but sure to have a bath tub or shower
oval = gaming field that crickett is played on
crooked = sick
omg there are so many more but I'm blanking...so moving on.

So anyway. Tons has happened since my last post. We played at a bunch of aboriginal schools. That was really interesting. I felt kinda wierd about it. We saw this creepy film about how the aboriginies were treated when the settlers came here. They had these camps where they would put aboriginal children who had some caucasian blood in them and force them to sing christian hymns, learn to read etc. I couldn't help but think about the scene from the movie where they are forcing the aboriginies to sing christian hymns as we were "encouraging" them to sing christian sing-a-longs that we do. I am a Christian so I believe that sharing Christ's love is the most important thing we do here on earth, but it was still in my head. They love us though. They loved playing games with us afterward. There were difficulties with understanding each other. Both verbally and culturally, but with both sides trying to give the benefit of the doubt to the other, we ended up playing a fun game of baseball which they called "run around" or something. They are very different. The adults all were small and looked not much older than teenagers although they were like thirty. They are very community based and family based so they all sit on the ground in little groups at barbeques and things. The parents pretty much let the kids run around and do whatever. The kids know where to go if they need anything. There were tons of dogs around. I don't know, I'm having a hard time describing it here and now at 11:32pm after a long fortnight of programs. So yeah...it was an experience.

I'm going to start trying to post city names of where I am, or where I'm going so people can look those places up if they want. Here's a list of places so far in chronological order:
Adeliade, Whyalla, Ceduna, Yalata, Cunibba, Wudinna, Port Lincoln, Maitland, Clare, Blythe, Eudunda, Freeling, Tununda, and I'm probably missing like three or four in there. We often drive to a new town, do like one thing, and leave.

Port Lincoln was so awesome. It was like a smaller san francisco. Great weather! And we met a cool contact their names jane.

Our CD is finished. It sounds pretty good, and I'll try and post pics and/or sounds soon.

i gotta go to bed all.
love ya,
in Christ,
jason

p.s. mom and jenny, thx for the comments. I'll talk to you soon! mom, it is crazy that life is changing so much. I feel that way for myself in regards to our family. Come what may right :). It is exciting and scary all at the same time. Love yas.