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.