hey guys,
just quickly, thought i’d let you know where i am going to be this week. it’s a small town called tripoli. apparently it was affected by the flooding in iowa last week, so it should be interesting to see what is going on there.
i am doing day camp at a church, so this just involves organising and running activities for the kids for 4 days. then at night we stay with host families who apparently are always awesome! so i’m in for a great week!
here is a map of where tripoli is in relativity to where okoboji is.
well i wish you all well this week, hopefully i will get a few photos and share them with you.
god bless you all!
hey ya’ll,
well i have a faithful 20 - 30 people checking up on my blog pretty much everyday, so i guess i should really let you know some news.
this is day three of six with my first lot of campers, i have a bunch of seven boys all around the 12 - 13 age. they are a rowdy bunch and i have found it difficult to get them involved in discussion and it makes it really hard when they are meant to be my focus. but thankfully we have a god who is bigger than that. so after praying about it and asking co-counsellors to pray for them and me as well, god has answered. so today, we have just finished bible study and it started off pretty dry because it was more of me preaching to them from a piece of paper. so i decided to go outside and just have them fire questions at me, it took a while to get going, but once they got going they couldn’t stop! so that is really promising and they are all starting to get along well now.
but boys will be boys
majority of my time is spent with my boys but i have some time where i need to be doing other things.
i have been put on the worship team this week, so i am drumming for all the worship sessions. i enjoy this, but the songs are really basic and kiddy, but its for glory of god.
i have also had to do several skits and i have several more to do. i have also had to do a “share”. this is just like a 5 - 10 minute sermon. it is amazing how much you have to rely on god to get you through these things. and he always does, yay god!
camp with kids becomes quite childish, but it is expected. i guess from a directors point of view, it would be hard to train adults in one way, then have them implement it differently with children/teens.
this last weekend i saw three movies at the cinema’s and went out for tea twice.
i saw iron man again (for $3), don’t mess with the zohan and kung fu panda. don’t mess with the zohan is funny, but i wouldn’t watch it again. but kung fu panda was really good and i highly recommend it! we went to tea at perkins, which is like a middle class restaurant chain with pretty decent food. i also went to another mexican restaurant called ‘marcos’. it was a great way to finish off the two weeks of staff training.
i also got my social security card yesterday, so i can do money stuff now. yay!
well i need to head off and practice for another skit now, then work down at the lake during free time, then practice for a mime, then run around for a few hours… wooo!
my love goes out to you all, especially my lovely adele (happy 5 month anniversary babe!)
murty!
p.s prayer for energy; campers to open up; god to move in their hearts; safety of everyone; and that i can remember my skit lines
hey guys,
thought i’d just make a quick blog and let you know what has been happening a little bit. unfortunately i don’t have any photos to show as of yet, but hopefully soon i will cruise around the campsite with my camera and take some photos.
so i have been at camp since saturday afternoon now, and i have already developed some awesome relationships. there are 3 summer camps that have joined in together this week for staff training, okoboji (the camp i am at), ingham and riverside. so in total there are about 90 - 100 staff here at okoboji at the moment. but there are only 40 here once the other camps leave.
i am living in a small house just down the road from the main campsite with 7 other guys. they are an awesome bunch of guys and are very open and willing to share and listen. most people here are roughly the same age as myself (ranging 19 - 24), so i fit in very well. i have also found the people here are very passionate about jesus and serving god. this is very encouraging for my faith and i am finding myself being challenged everyday.
so this week has just been staff training, but there is also a big emphasis on building friendships and relationships which is awesome and has made the whole experience so much better!
well that hopefully will catch you up a bit on what has been happening. please feel free to email me or leave a comment if you have any questions.
cheers
murty!
this is a video from last week in downtown minneapolis
hey kids!
well i am here! i have finally made it to okoboji lutheran bible camp. but before i get into that, i will recap you on the last few days i spent before coming down to milford, iowa.
i spent a day and a half in gaylord, minnesota. this is where annika’s parents reside currently, and where annika grew up. their house is set by lake titloe (interesting name…) and surrounded by beautiful gardens and forresty type of environment. so i was able to spend a fair chunk of my time there by myself, catching up on sleep and computer stuff. but i did spend a fair bit of time outside enjoying the sunshine and awesome weather.
i also went squirrel hunting, determined to find my first squirrel and i did! so i took photos and showed annika when she got home from teaching. she was confused and informed me that what i saw was actually a chipmunk… silly boy!
it was really good to relax for a while and catch up with annika’s parents as well as her sister and kids.
we headed back to minneapolis on friday afternoon and headed to “downtown minneapolis”. this is basically like adelaide cbd, so just the main city part of the city. we ate at the spaghetti factory and checked out the new gutherie which has a observatory overlooking the mississippi. was fantastic! we also checked out some funky looking sculptures at the sculpture park.
overall i was impressed with downtown minneapolis, it is a very nice city and it is a lot easier to get around in a car then it is in adelaide.
saturday morning, annika and i arose early, packed and headed back down to gaylord (roughly an hour away). then we tripped down to okoboji lake in iowa with her parents. [side note: highly recommend the movie 'lars and the real girl'] we had lunch at a pizza buffet place then got dropped off at camp.
i rocked up at camp feeling very confident and ready to tackle it head on, but after annika and her family left, i suddenly felt very alone and scared. i knew a few people here, but my mind was freaking out and my heart felt heavy and confused. a lot of it was probably to do with not knowing what to expect for the summer, but i think this was the first time it has really hit me, i am in america!
these times are when i really need to say to god ‘you need to take the wheel here’. so looking back now, it was a humble way to start off at camp, and even after a day, i look back and praise god for taking control and enabling me to feel welcome and accepted and finding my spot in this place.
i won’t go on for too much longer, but i just want you to know that i have already established some awesome friendships and am having a great time and loads of fun. the people here are very encouraging towards my faith and i am so grateful that i have been placed here and am apart of it.
prayer asks: that i am not selfish in who i develop relationships with; the kids and families that i will be apart of ministering to; god creates in me a pure heart and mind; i am always humble and unselfish; god uses my talents and abilities to bring people closer to him
thanks guys, missing you all!
love murty!
p.s. i saw my first squirrel at camp yesterday! wooo!
well hi there (said in american accent),
ok, even that was too much american for me. i hope i find you all well and working hard (unlike me)
it is currently day 3 for me in america, i am sitting in the beautiful sun room of the swanson abode. the house is surrounded by a foresty type of environment and probably about 50 metres away is a lake, lake titloe :P. the sun is shining, the birds are singing and i am home alone listening to hamish and andy! enough of that, now i will update you on day 1 and 2.
tuesday was a pretty uneventful day, we slept in and had lunch and organised a few things. annika was very keen for us to meet her friends and people she worked from hosanna. hosanna is a lutheran church with a twist… it has over 5,000 members. so the church is huge! there are roughly 150 staff working there, 7 full time pastors and another 5 volunteer pastors. so annika showed us around the place and introduced us to a heap of very cool, loving people. apparently the church was started off by a pastor walking around the city, knocking on doors and asking them to come to the church. that was about 20 - 30 years ago. it is amazing to see how much it has grown, the facilities that are there, the services that are available, the passion people have and how modern it is, even though it is a lutheran church. i had a great chat to the worship leader there (he’s in his mid 20’s i would say) and am going to keep in contact with him in the future. we then drove across to caribou coffee and had a hot chocolate and enjoyed the free wireless internet. it was great! if i could i would work there! this is something i really think is a great idea and cafes and coffee shops in australia (or particularly barossa valley) really should take hold. i know it is a very american thing to do, but sometimes we should learn from our allies rather than avoid them.
we then headed off to the grocery store to do a spot of shopping. american shopping centre’s are similar to australian ones, except they have so much more variety, prices are significantly cheaper and the whole store is laid out in an easier format. we checked out the meat section, oh my gosh, the meat is huge and cheap! (adam please don’t pull anything out of that.)
so we went home and had some tea (not dinner). then off to a friends place to watch ‘kenny‘. only the aussies (and annika) got the humor that this movie produces. oh well, i think its hilarious and would recommend it (if you don’t mind a bit of crudeness).
so after tuesday, i felt like i now knew some more people and already started some relationship building.
annika and i stayed up until a ridiculous hour chatting back home to some of our friends online, and got very little sleep that night. tuesday morning hayley was picked up around 10am by a lady who was heading down to okoboji. we then spruced ourselves up and headed off to teresa’s. it is a mexican restaurant, and it was so cheap and tasted amazing! this was also my first opportunity to tip… i was kind of freaking out, but all you have to do is leave like 10 - 20% on the table as you head off.
speaking of heading off, we headed off to the mall of america… good segway murty, good segway.
for those of you who don’t know, which is probably most people, apparently the mall of america (situated in minneapolis) is the third largest mall in the world. so it is big! i was interested in this mainly because it has a theme park inside the mall. so basically its like elizabeth shopping centre (a big square) but it has 4 stories and is a lot bigger, and in the middle, there is a huge theme park! the theme park (nickelodeon universe) has roller coasters, log water rides, mini golf, small kiddy rides, the place is amazing! of course i’m all mature and stuff now, so i don’t do “rides”. but i was just awestruck with all the shops that are there, they really go out of their way to make it “themed”.
also, i went to my first ever apple store! it was pretty cool, like 10 people standing around just waiting to help you out with anything. i really like apple and what they do and the way they do things. so i got to play around with the iphone, which is very similar to my ipod touch, but non the less, it was fun.
i also bought a new pair of asics sneakers, for $65! normally i would pay about $100 - $120 for the same pair in australia.
we then shot home, packed up and went to an adults service at hosanna, which was really good! got to meet some new people and remeet some other people. then we headed up to gaylord, which is where i am now!
well there is so much more i want to talk about, but we are just about to sit down and eat “dinner” (tea for us aussies), so i will leave it there. make sure you check out my pictures on flickr from day 1 and mall of america
well i am here!
26 hours, 3 airplanes, 4 airports, 8 in-flight meals, 19 hours of flight time and 2 sore bum cheeks later, i arrived in minneapolis to a very excited and happy annika.
this will probably be a long blog, cos it is my first one actually being in america, how crazy! so quickly grab a starbucks hot chocolate, oh wait you can’t. cos you don’t have them in australia! [update: sorry! australia does have starbucks! have a cry!] but you do have milo… so grab one of those instead, and put hot water and milk with it as well, cos raw milo will taste a bit funny while reading my blog. anyways, grab a milo or coffee or tea, and sit down in your favourite desk chair and prepare to read the most amazing blog ever!
well i only started packing late sunday night because i am a male and that is what males do. so i only got half an hour of sleep which turned out to be really helpful. anyways, i headed to my parents and travelled to the adelaide aiport with them and met up with my grandparents and hayley and her family. check-in was straight forward and easy. which as a side note, was a huge surprise to me, just how easy everything has been. people make things seem so daunting, but i had no hassels at all the whole trip. which is amazing!
farewells was hard cos there were so many people to say good-bye to and it was hard knowing who to spend the last hour of my time in adelaide talking to.
but anyways, good-byes were said, tears were shed, and now murty will takeup poetry. no, no he won’t. but yes, it was hard to say good-bye, but it was also a joyful time. so hayley and i boarded and we flew off to sydney.
now, last saturday night, sam beales had his 18th birthday party down in town, so i took my new camera to take photos and remember the good night. but unfortunately, i got way to excited and while taking a photo, i dropped my camera and broke the lens. how annoying! right before i was about to head off to america. [side note: annika is watching american tv, so stupid!] but i worked things out with my parents, and they have organised to claim insurance on it.
so we got to sydney, and i rushed to duty free to see if i could get a new camera and they were out of stock! but they gave me the one off the shelf (which was fine) for a discount and chucked in a couple other things as well, which was nice of them. so i now have the same camera as i had before, but am $700 short until i can get an insurance payout.
so we boarded the plane to los angeles, and we had technical difficulties which delayed us. nothing like leaving for a 13 hour flight which technical problems…
the flight was relatively uneventful. the aircraft was huge, and they compensated by giving us small seats. fortunately hayley and i had 3 seats to ourselves, so we could spread out a bit. every seat has a small screen on it, with heaps of movies, tv shows, news, games and music. [side note: tim and alex if you are reading this, i am watching volleyball on tv!] all up we had 3 main meals served, which weren’t anything amazing, but it sufficed. i also slept for about 6 hours in total, which really helped in me not having any jetlag. hayley was less fortunate and didn’t get much sleep at all.
we arrived in los angeles and were preparing for getting through customs. hayley was worried because she had to declare tim tams and vegemite. but we soon found, all we had to do is line up for about 15 minutes, show our forms, have a fingerprint scan, have a photo, grab our luggage, line up again for 5 minutes, show one more form, and off we went. [side note: volleyball is sponsored by crocs, i just lost all respect] we then rechecked our luggage in to our next flights and were like… soooo, what do we do now? within 10 seconds, a guy came up to us and asked if we needed help. he directed us to our next terminals and told us where we can get food and internet and exchange money. was so extremely helpful. hayley and i were pretty keen to get something to eat and sit down. [side note: if you buy a chevrolet and then eat 15 hotdogs, they will throw in free running boards...what the heck!] so we headed to the international terminal and found the internet cafe, checked e-mails, then went and got mcdonalds. we were kind of freaking out, because we weren’t sure if were supposed to tip them or not… so we didn’t. (we found out later you don’t need to tip fast food places, only restaurants really.) the food was pretty much the same as it is in australia, except more fattier. i found the change i received interesting, because they have 1 cent pieces (pennies), so you receive the exact change.
we decided to go for a wander seeing as we have a few hours to kill, so we headed out the international terminal (where the food and internet was) and someone else came up to us with more information on where we can go and what we can do. we also got asked if we wanted to donate some money towards child abuse in america. so we did. as we headed out of the lax airport we got asked by like 5 other charities and organisations to donate money. (we didn’t, stupid stingy australian’s!) it took us about 20 minutes to get out of the airport and it was interesting just seeing america in real life for the first time. i was freaking out about the cars having the steering on the wrong side, then driving on the wrong side of the road! it was pretty surreal, because it was very similar to the l.a you see in the movies. big palm trees lining the streets, and even bigger buildings and hotels. we sat on the grass outside a hotel for a while and took things in, then headed back to the airport.
we parted ways and headed off to our respective terminals to check into our flights to minneapolis. i was a bit unsure if everything would go smoothly for me, because i booked on a website called ‘cheapair.com‘ and got my ticket ridiculously cheap considering i booked so close to the flight. but everything processed quickly and i boarded straight away.
this was the first time i was flying without sitting next to hayley, and instead i sat next to a lovely american and her daughter. they were coming back from mexico, and it was interesting talking to her about america and mexico and australia. [side note: ooh baseball is on tv. yay!] i arrived to minneapolis to a very excited annika, carrying a large piece of cardboard saying ‘lhrdl lhrdl lhrdl’. (those of you who don’t understand what lhrdl means, you can read about it here.) [side note: annika came to australia for a year last year working at bethany church and working with young adults in the barossa valley. i developed a great relationship with her before she headed back to the states]
it was fantastic to see her again, and was great to sit down for a while with her and quickly catch up. i had my first american starbucks and we waited for hayley’s flight to get in.
we packed the car and headed home to annika’s place. i spent the whole trip freaking out about being on the wrong side of the road and how weird things were. we got a quick tour of the house, set up our beds, chatted online for a bit and crashed to bed.
i have now been awake for a few hours, annika is upstairs getting ready for this afternoon, hayley has fallen back to sleep (she is pretty tired) and the birds are singing outside.
i am not 100% sure what exactly we will be doing the next few days, but i’m really excited about meeting some of annika’s friends and seeing some of the country.
everything still hasn’t really sunk in yet, but i think it will be a slow transition into it. which is probably a good way to go.
i really want to thank god for making the whole trip over a safe and easy experience and hassle free. has made it so much more positive and easy to recommend more people do it if they can.
also for those of you who are wondering, it turns out i don’t have reception over here yet on my mobile (or “cell”), but i’m going to call 3 and see what i can organise.
if you want to check out my photos from the trip over, you can find them here. you can also email using the yellow icon up the top right of my blog, and i will try to respond, but no promises. if you comment this blog, i will also try to reply to any questions you may have.
i will keep you up to date with my happenings this week and hopefully more prayer requests and more personal feelings as well. until then, please keep the kids and families we will ministering to in your prayers.
love all you guys!
murty!
i will leave you with a video of my first experience at starbucks in america.
hey guys,
for the convenience of everyone, i have written up my itinerary for my trip over, including different time zones.
where
australian time
my time
minnesota time
adelaide →
9:35am (mon)
9:35am (mon)
7:05pm (sun)
→ sydney
11:25am (mon)
11:55am (mon)
8:55pm (sun)
sydney →
12:50pm (mon)
1:20pm (mon)
10:20pm (sun)
→ los angeles
2:15am (tue)
9:45am (mon)
11:45am (mon)
los angeles →
8:30am (tue)
4:00pm (mon)
6:00pm (mon)
→ minneapolis
11:56am (tue)
9:26pm (mon)
9:26pm (mon)
for all you south aussies, to work out the time difference between me and yourself, this is the formula to work out murty’s time in central america (minnesota, iowa):
south australia time – 14.5 hours = murty’s time
e.g. 12:00pm monday – 14.5 hours = 9:30pm sunday
if you want to download this as a pdf file, click here
thanks guys
love murty!
here is a video back in the old pranking days, good times!
i got my freaking visa! wooooo!
i have just finished booking all my flights and travel insurance and i am dirt poor now
now i’m off to the bank to open an account and then buy some luggage and other stuff. such a busy day!
love you god! your amazing and you always make it work!
hi fans of murtys blog!
it has been like more than a week! you must be so deprived and like a parched river-bed! but fear no more, i will fill your streams with the flowing life of murty.
well a great deal has happened since my last blog, lots and loadfuls! i will recap you on the eventful last couple of days.
actually last week, hayley and teela (the 2 girls who are going to america with me) had their visa interviews over in melbourne and got their visa back within 2 days, which is fantastic! this gave me a stack of hope because my interview was so close to when i had to leave.
so this tuesday i headed on over to melbourne!
adam and i left at 5am and headed to the adelaide airport, checked in and waited for our plane. we were flying with tiger airlines, which is the cheapest airline available at this stage in australia. ($80 return ticked to melbourne. quantas is $220 return ticket.) but considering they were so cheap, i was really impressed with how good they were. granted you don’t get any food on the way over, except if you buy some, its a small price to pay. so we arrived in melbourne and caught a shuttle bus into the city. it was such an easy process and very good for people new to the city. as soon as we hit southern cross station, adam and i turned into massive tourists. we donned our camera’s and started snapping anything that moved. of course adam being the professional, was very fancy and taking complicated photos. then there was me, ooh a tree ’snap’; ooh a car ’snap’. oh well, someone has to be the amateur. so we started walking towards the cbd where we needed to catch a tram down to the embassy. of course being new to the city, we had little idea about where to go and what to do, but i was so impressed with the service melbourne offered.
there were little information booths all around the place and people with red jackets that could help you find your way, it was great! so after wandering around for a while, we got a tram ticket and headed down to st kilda road to snipe out the us embassy. as soon as we got there, i started taking pictures of the embassy sign and flag for memento purposes, but was quickly stopped by a security guard. apparently they don’t like people taking pictures. so i politely deleted them off my camera and apologised profusely, after all i didn’t want to get on the bad side of the us already!
we munched down lunch at a cafe next to the embassy and went for a walk around the area to check it out. before we left, we could see the waiting room, and there was 1 girl waiting in there. 20 minutes later when we got back, there was around 40 other young adults all waiting there! so we all lined up and got let in slowly through security and put on the lift up to the top floor. we had another security check and sat in another waiting room. it was like a process line, because we all had a ticket and got called up by a machine and told to go to a booth.
the internet made it sound like such a complex and tough process, but it was so easy and simple. just as long as you have all the required paper work, its a relatively smooth process. and it was great chatting to some of the other young adults there and seeing where they are heading off to.
so after all that shamozzle, adam and i decided we would go see if we could visit hamish and andy, as their studio (fox radio) wasn’t too far away from the embassy, so we trammed down there and nervously asked the intercom if we could meet them. no luck though. awww! so back we trammed to the city and bummed around in the stores for a while before heading back to southern cross station to catch the shuttle bus to the airport. then we sat in the airport for a while and piled onto the plane. we arrived back home home (as in barossa valley) at around 10pm. so all in all a pretty jammed pack day when you think about it.
i was hoping to get my visa in the mail on wednesday and it didn’t. so i was hoping to get it today, and it didn’t! consequently hayley (who i am flying over with) has already had to book her ticket and we are going to see if we can still sit together on the same flight… we’ll see what happens.
i am hoping and praying that i will get it in the mail tomorrow, if not, i am going to have to fly over later in the week, which sucks! all of this is causing me stress, and i am continually questioning god and wondering what he is trying to teach or tell me.
i also finished my job today at reliable systems and am officially ‘jobless’. the government doesn’t like my type. i had to travel most of today, so it was a rushed end of the job. i will definitely miss the people i have worked with over the last couple years and i really enjoyed my job so i will miss that as well. i will also miss the security of having a full-time job with my father as my boss. but this is definitely a new direction in my life and i am incredibly excited about where god is going to take me and use me.
well i know i have rushed the last half of this blog, but it is getting really late and i’m tired. i will blog hopefully once, if not twice before i leave to america and will keep you up to date with everything.
please keep me in your prayers as i have emotions flying all over the place and thoughts going crazy. give me peace and joy in knowing that you have it all under control lord!
i spent a day and a half in gaylord, minnesota. this is where annika’s parents reside currently, and where annika grew up. their house is set by lake titloe (interesting name…) and surrounded by beautiful gardens and forresty type of environment. so i was able to spend a fair chunk of my time there by myself, catching up on sleep and computer stuff. but i did spend a fair bit of time outside enjoying the sunshine and awesome weather.
we then drove across to caribou coffee and had a hot chocolate and enjoyed the free wireless internet. it was great! if i could i would work there! this is something i really think is a great idea and cafes and coffee shops in australia (or particularly barossa valley) really should take hold. i know it is a very american thing to do, but sometimes we should learn from our allies rather than avoid them.
well i am here!
so we headed to the international terminal and found the internet cafe, checked e-mails, then went and got mcdonalds. we were kind of freaking out, because we weren’t sure if were supposed to tip them or not… so we didn’t. (we found out later you don’t need to tip fast food places, only restaurants really.) the food was pretty much the same as it is in australia, except more fattier. i found the change i received interesting, because they have 1 cent pieces (pennies), so you receive the exact change.
as soon as we hit southern cross station, adam and i turned into massive tourists. we donned our camera’s and started snapping anything that moved. of course adam being the professional, was very fancy and taking complicated photos. then there was me, ooh a tree ’snap’; ooh a car ’snap’. oh well, someone has to be the amateur. so we started walking towards the cbd where we needed to catch a tram down to the embassy. of course being new to the city, we had little idea about where to go and what to do, but i was so impressed with the service melbourne offered.
so after all that shamozzle, adam and i decided we would go see if we could visit hamish and andy, as their studio (fox radio) wasn’t too far away from the embassy, so we trammed down there and nervously asked the intercom if we could meet them. no luck though. awww! so back we trammed to the city and bummed around in the stores for a while before heading back to southern cross station to catch the shuttle bus to the airport. then we sat in the airport for a while and piled onto the plane. we arrived back home home (as in barossa valley) at around 10pm. so all in all a pretty jammed pack day when you think about it.
