A Note from Amanda

As promised...here is a note from one of our teens. They are starting to turn in the blogs. Here is one from Amanda Phillips

The other night we had a group discussion on where we have seen God thus far in the trip, though we haven’t done anything so called “spiritual.” Tom stressed the importance of writing at lease something in the group journal every night to bring back and share with the parish. He also said he was a tad stressed in that they hadn’t been able to get this blog up and running and parents would rather hear from us kids than from him.

During this discussion, I took so many notes on how what was read related back to my life and what I wanted to journal later on, that Sara and Alicia decided I should record the opening blog for the group and relieve the stress from Tom. After thinking it over, I felt called to just that, so here it is. I have enough trouble logging experiences for myself, but God doesn’t call the prepared, he prepares the called. So He will give me the words I write here. It may not include much insight on my thoughts, but at least family and friends back home will know what we’ve been up to.

So you all know we had a send off Mass Saturday night where Father Michael gave what I feel to be the perfect sermon to jumpstart this adventure, about putting everything aside to just take in the moment God has given you. We then had a potluck dinner, then went home to get some sleep before meeting at the church to head for the Houston airport. This was my very first plane ride ever and everything went so much smoother than I expected. Hardly anything went wrong. We had a four hour layover, the boarded the 14 hour flight to Brisbane at 11:20PM. I personally slept most of the way here. We took a bus trip to a catholic boarding school where we are sleeping in classrooms for the first week. After settling in, we had the rest of the day to do whatever. We trudged through the drizzling rain looking for a place to eat lunch until we ended up back at the college eating ham sandwiches. When the rain let up, we took a city bus down town to look at the shops and scenery. We even took a ferry ride across town. When we got back we said a group prayer and went straight to bed. We were so tired. The next day, we met up with other groups staying at the college to go to the Australia Zoo, Home of the Crocodile Hunter. We got to take pictures with a statue of the Irwin family and even got to see them in person through the concert “Trouble in the Jungle” by Bindi and the Croc Men and the “Wildlife Warriors” show by Terri. I think most everyone had a lot of fun there. When we got back, we ate dinner, registered for our Youth Arise Workshops, had our group prayer/discussion (the one I already spoke of) and went to bed. Thus far today, we’ve pretty much just been chillin’…

Sisters Amanda and Sara Phillips