Letter from DYMT

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Letter from DYMT

UPDATES:
To view or download the April/May letter from DYMT click here (Adobe PDF format)

To view or download the March letter from DYMT click here (MS Word format)

Greetings from Perth,

The team arrived safely on Saturday 12th Feb at Perth airport. We were all exhausted because we’d gotten up at 6:00am and it was midnight when we arrived. The problem was that Perth time, midnight is only 9:00pm and the twenty people that greeted us at the airport were ready to party because of our arrival. The pace of the week has been really full on! Our average day looks something like this:

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	6:00	get up and have morning prayer
	6:45	mass
	7:30	get home, have 5 mins to get ready for work
	7:30-9:30	work either in a cafe making coffee or on a building site doing some manual labour
	9:30-5:30	Training. Involves drama practices, work on testimonies etc
	6:00	Dinner at one of the community members houses. This is awesome because the community is so we are ever without food. However it does mean we don’t get home till about 9:00
	9:15	have half an hour of night prayer
	10:00	crash into bed and thank God that the day is over!

In the team boys house it is just me and Pete my team brother. Both of us were exhausted after the week however we took all of Saturday off and it was so nice to just relax and do nothing. We are currently looking for another border to live in the house with us to make it easier on the finances. I’ll give you a bit of a run down on the team.
Click for larger image	Pete is 21 from Penrith, he is two years through a three year Psychology degree but doesn’t want to be a psychologist. He’s a bit of a rogue and gets himself into trouble with his practical jokes. He has a beautiful relationship with God and the impromptu prayers that he comes out with everyday say that there is far more to Pete than meets the eye. Pete says that in the time he has been here he has already seen a change in himself and when speaking on the phone to a friend he was reminded of the ‘life’ that he was living only weeks ago. He says that this now, is the way he wants to live.
Anna is 21 from Melbourne, she is three years through a four year teaching degree and wants to teach maths. She is the ‘mother’ of the group and is always telling Pete to be careful. She is very bright, but she says she finds it easier to relate to people if they don’t think she is smart and so she plays down her brilliant mind.	Click for larger image
Click for larger image	Simone is 20 from Perth and spent last year on the Melbourne team. She is the life of the party and has a wonderful sense of humour. At times her and Pete don’t see eye-to-eye, however they, haven't strangled each other yet! This being her second year, she provides some of the leadership in the group and we are blessed to have her on team.
Gio is the baby, fresh out of school, she is 18 in two weeks. She is far more reserved than the other two girls and is extremely talented when it comes to any kind of sport, especially cricket and soccer. I know that there is no way I could have handled a year of team at her age but she possesses a maturity and wisdom far beyond her years and I have no doubt that she will excel in this year of ministry.	Click for larger image
Click for larger image	Christie Swire (Mel’s sister) at 23 is our manager. This is her third year on team, having spent 2003 as a team volunteer (that’s what I am this year), 2004 as ministry co-ordinator (paid position as leader of the ministry days) and has now moved up the ranks as our manager. There was not enough money this year to pay a ministry co-ordinator so she will be filling this role and coming into schools with us and performing in dramas, giving testimonies etc.
I am amazed at the different people that God has called together as Perth DYMT 2005. We are all from such different backgrounds and have such different personalities and yet God calls each of us and says “do my work”. This Thursday/Friday we have a two day retreat at a co-ed school. I’m a bit nervous about it and don’t feel ready just yet. Maybe come Wednesday night that will change? I must say I feel a lot better than I did during training at Wollonogong. Our dramas are looking really good and I think the Holy Spirit has been working over time in the team because they came together in only two days. I’m playing Jesus in ‘Hearts’ which made it easy because I knew the lines from when we performed it at Sword, Jesus in ‘Unseen Journey’ which is the one about the boy who is saved by Jesus from his old life, but then chooses to go back to it, and just when the demons are about to kill the boy, Jesus jumps in and takes the sin (in the form of a backpack) from the boy, hangs it round his own neck. The demons then crucify Jesus. It’s an awesome drama, very poignant. We also do a humorous version of the prodigal son set in a downtown Italian pizza shop. In that I’m Papa Guseppi, the father who welcomes his lost son home.
Click for larger image		I hope that gives you a bit of an idea of what’s going on over here with DYMT, feel free to email me any questions you have. I’m going to see if I can find the time each month to just put together a letter like this one. We’ll be pretty busy throughout the year so please don’t be offended if I don’t answer an email directly, it’s just far less time consuming for me to send out this ‘group letter’. Please continue to pray for me and the team and a big special prayer for us on Thursday when we kick off the year with our first school.