What can I say about my daughter? She is amazing. She is beautiful. She is smart. She loves people. I am amazed at how much that she has grown in this past year. She can almost have full conversations with me, where she understands most of what I am saying. She also loves to sing, both my kids do, I love it. Just today I was practicing and preparing to lead worship and the kids came in and started dancing and singing along with me. I can already see in my kids that they will truly love God and want to grow deeper in their knowledge of Him, especially Josiah.. But we are talking about Promise here. She is learning so much as well.

I need to break away again for a moment to thank Bethany for being an amazing mom, but not just a mom, a leader, a teacher, a friend, an amazing wife, a prayer warrior, and a lover of God and people.. She doesn’t think that she has been doing a lot here, but I can tell you for sure that she has, and the kids will thank her for it someday in the future.

Ok, back to Promise. She is a lover of people. She really just genuinely loves people. My favorite moments are when I come home from a long day at school, I walk through the door and not matter what is going on if Promise notices me she will drop everything and come straight to me to be picked up hugged and held for a bit. I always say that this is a real picture of who God is. That no matter what is happening in our lives, when we look to God we can drop everything and head straight to Him to be hugged and held for a bit. Another way to look at it is that whatever may have happened throughout my day, when I come home and walk through the door and my kids come to me, nothing else matters. I could have the best or  the worst day ever, but when I walk through the door the only thing that matters is that my family loves me for who I am. At my best, and at my worst and I don’t have to worry about how they are going to accept me or not, they always will, they will always love me. The same is true of God. As soon as we put our eyes on Him nothing else matters, God loves us no matter what..

Poll: When is the last time that you have run to God to be hugged and held for a bit?

I just wanted to post about my son Josiah. Josiah is an amazing little boy. I really am impressed by him and what he can do. He will be turning 4 at the end of this month and I can’t even believe how smart he is, how sensitive he is, and how amazingly helpful he is. I have always that that my kids were special from the moment of their birth, and I will never stop thinking that, but I am blown away by what God is doing in Josiah every single day.

Josiah can now; dress himself, use the potty himself, brush his own teeth, count, sing [he loves to sing], and almost knows the entire alphabet. The other day we were even trying to teach him how to add and subtract and he was totally understanding it. He is one of those kids who really takes time to warm up to you, and doesn’t really jump right into a situation right away. He likes to kind of sit back and think about who you are, and what is actually going on, before he gets involved in something. Once he spends the time he needs, he will quickly start to catch up for lost time.

Josiah loves people and as I mentioned above he loves to help. A few examples are; I will sometimes ask him to throw something in the trash for me, and without hesitation he goes and does it. He will go and get things for me when I need help, like my slippers, my phone, a tissue, anything and will not drag his feet at all, he loves to help.

Josiah is a strong leader. Bethany and I remind him of this all the time, he really has a chance, especially with his sister, to be a leader and show the younger kids what to do and how to do it. Example; Promise wants to do everything that Josiah does, so we have noticed that when Josiah is being helpful and putting his toys away Promise will want to do the same. Or when Josiah is brushing his teeth by himself, Promise will want to try and do the same. It also works in a negative way too. If Josiah is doing something he isn’t supposed to, Promise will also join in. With this in mind we really try and encourage Josiah with the fact that he is a leader. He has major influence in the life of his sister and all the younger kids, and he has a choice to either show them the right things or the wrong things.

I love my son and I just wanted to write and share a few ways that I have seen him change over the past 9 months or so. I will soon write a post about Promise and the amazing little girl that she is, but for now I just want to mention it again.. I love my son Josiah, thank you Lord for such an amazing reminder of who you are and how much you love us.

So things have been amazing here, and we have done a terrible job trying to keep this blog up-to-date. The reality is that I [Patrick] am learning things every day. In my classes, during chapels, in church on Sunday’s, in conversations I’m having with people from all over the world, and not to mention all the things that I have learned out side of all this. God has been changing me, shaping me, growing me. My world has definitely been changed forever. My experience here is only the beginning of what God wants to do in me, and in my family. It will take years to process what I have learned in these 9 short months.

We are just in awe of what God is doing, not only in America and Australia, but all over the world. It has been a privilege to serve and be a part of Hillsong Church. It is a church that has major influence all over the world. In these past months I have really gotten to experience the day to day runnings of the church as well as taking part in and watching the unfolding vision for the church and the ministry all over the world. Here at Hillsong they have a huge heart to reach people for Jesus. Every week, every service, they do an alter call [give people a chance to get right with God, or meet Jesus for the first time] at the end and people respond. I’m not saying that every church should do an alter call at the end of each service but I am saying that these times are very powerful and for the people who respond, you can see that there is something going on in them.

So that’s all for now. I hope that some of this made sense to you and I hope that you are all blessed by it. It is really hard to try and explain what is going on here, but I hope to be able to unpack some of the stuff a bit more before we leave and even after we return.

Questions:

What are some things that God is speaking to you about right now?

How can we start to see things from a Godly perspective?

So since I last wrote something, too much has happened to explain it all, let’s just say that God is good! We founds some amazing friends from the states, we found friends from here in Sydney, Australia, We were blessed with furniture, we found a car for pretty cheap, we found housing that we are sharing with two other families at a reasonable price, and we have been blessed just by being a part of the Hillsong Church. Every week we are just blown away when we hear/see what God is doing here.. We really miss home, but as we have learned here at the college.. “Home is where the heart is”, and at the moment our heart is hear in Sydney as well as back in the states.

So we are here.. We made it. The flight was a little nerve racking. We had all our bags packed checked and all of our carryon bags as well. We waited about three hours for a standby flight and after everyone else got on the plane we were told, at first that we would not be on the flight, which was then changed to you guys are good to go.. Once on the flight we found seats that were not together, Bethany and Promise were, and Josiah and I were.. The second half of the flight someone switched and we all sat together. The flight wasn’t too bad though, and the kids did great and it really didn’t seem too long.

Once we got off the plane things started to get a little crazy.. We had to go through customs get all of our bags and then go through Quarantine.. And then find a ride from the airport.. Oh I forgot to mention that the person who was supposed to pick us up wasn’t able to, and that it was an Australian holiday called Boxing Day, so most of the cars we could rent were not available.. So we called every Australian we knew, which was difficult because we had no Australian money and didn’t know how to use the phones.. So we stopped and prayed. We then decided to rent a car for a few days that was really expensive, but it got us around.

We show up at the YWAM base and just relaxed.. It was pretty cool there, they had lots of room for the kids to play, free Internet access and food to eat. So we ate and I hopped on the Internet and immediately was met with a message from a family that had been here for about 6 months who was going to the college as well.. They had had a similar experience to ours and wanted to meet up with us and help us.

We showered, took a nap, got in the car and headed for Hillsong.. We were driving with a GPS and typed in Hillsong church and when we arrived at our destination we found that we were at one of the extension campuses.. We were totally lost, and the GPS wouldn’t show us any other results for Hillsong church. I tried typing it in one more time and it gave me a new address, so we start to head there and as we are driving toward the church it looked as if we were heading to the downtown campus, but we kept driving and did finally end up at the Hills campus.

We parked, got the kids out and headed into the service.. We were late, so we weren’t able to meet that other family right away, so we just headed into the auditorium and sat down. It was a Holiday the day we arrived so it wasn’t as full as normal, but it was pretty packed. The music was great, the message was great and we finally had a chance to just breathe. I was able to sit and relax and say we had a rough start to being here, but this is why we are here.

Bethany had to take Promise out to the parents room and feed her, and while she was there she started talking to another mom named Emily.. They chit chatted for a bit and then Emily realized that Bethany was with me and that we were the family that they were going to be meeting up with.. So after the service we all met up and headed to their place. On the way Emily and Ariah decided that the extra room in their house was not getting any use and we would be more than welcome to stay with them for the time being.

So after a rough night, long flight, crazy first day.. God totally reminded us that He is here with us, no matter where we go.

Sorry it took so long to write this blog, and another one will soon follow, we are just trying to settle in and figure this country out at the moment.

Talk soon. Please continue to pray for us, and if God lays it on your heart to help support us on this journey, please click on the donations button at the top of the page.. We would greatly appreciate and donations.

Also we are still selling our Australia shirt back in the states to raise awareness and support. Go here for that.
We love and miss you all.
God bless!