Some pictures from our new home..

View from our balcony

Cockatoos hanging out on our balcony

Feeding the Cockatoos

Our living room

View of Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge

Being tourists outside Sydney Opera House

Medallions, Sydney & God

Life is very good. In the last few weeks we have met so many brilliant people, learned countless new skills, passed assessments, assisted in activities, shared our faith with the kids that come into camp, settled into a brilliant church where we are already being challenged and growing in our faith, visited the sights of Sydney and generally have had a lot of fun together. A massive thank you to those of you who have been praying for us for those things – particularly for us to feel at home here in Australia, and for finding a good church - which has been so important to us. God has been answering your prayers!

            Work is pretty busy and tiring each day as we are constantly learning new things. Lately, we’ve each been shadowing the instructors on various activities and have just started to lead some of them on our own for the first time. Last week I got to go on a ‘big day out’ with our group of 11 year 9 kids for the day, starting with a hike through the bush, followed by canoeing down the beautiful Port Hacking river, to a spot where we pulled up and then climbed up to some cliffs in the bush that the kids then abseiled down. My highlight of the day was the abseiling. One boy had been adamant that there was no way he would ever abseil, as he was very scared of heights. The instructor was brilliant with him and encouraged him to have a go, and he completed it! Watching somebody face their fears head on like that and conquering them, is incredible. It’s the reason I love this job.

            We’re gradually getting to know all the people who work here (there’s around 50), but it’s been great having our own teams whom we spend each day with. One thing we’ve been impressed with is that each Monday morning all staff members (all activity teams, leaders, catering, office workers, and the CEO) meet together, to start the week in prayer and encouragement together. Then on Friday afternoons, we finish work 30 minutes early and all meet again at someone’s house on site, (for lots of food) and we all share how the week has gone.

            We had two days of training this week on our ‘Bronze Medallion’ – Australia’s lifesaving award. We had to swim 400m (of 4 different strokes) in 13 minutes, learned how to rescue unconscious, injured, weak and non-swimmers, and had to swim 50m to reach someone, and then tow them back 50m, all in 3 minutes. I found it a real challenge as I am not a confident swimmer (I’m quite the opposite), and have avoided it for years. I can’t even remember the last time I swam 50 metres, so I was really pleased to complete the 400m. However I took a bit longer than 13 minutes, so I will have to do the 400m swim again in a month in order to pass. Thankfully I have an awesome husband who’s trained in swimming coaching! - One of his many talents. He did so well at the big swim and passed everything in great timing. I also passed the timed tow, which was cool. We need this qualification in order to lead any of the water-based activities here.

            Next week we’ll do a 2 day first aid course. It’ll be cool to learn the Australian version, as it includes things like how to treat a child with a poisonous snake or spider bite, whilst out in the bush!

So this last weekend, we finally got our act together and got the train into Sydney! It was such a fun experience to see the city together. We spent a few hours in the amazing botanical gardens, which are full of all sorts of crazy native plants, trees and birds. Literally – some of them just looked bizarre. I was in my element with my camera surrounded by green things.

Whilst in the gardens, we saw no less than 15 weddings! Granted, it’s a very beautiful place and looks out to the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge across the water, but it was weird that they could each see the other bridal parties close by. A funny moment was when some Japanese students excitedly asked to have their picture taken with us. They must have assumed we were Australians, but actually they got a picture of tourists, with tourists.

            We explored the city lots and had an awesome (massive) meal together, before walking back to the Harbour for some Baskin & Robins ice-cream, and to see the bridge and opera house all lit up beautifully in the night.

            Sunday was another great day blessed by God. We had the best time in Church as we were so challenged and encouraged by the guest speaker, and went up for some prayer afterwards. We feel re-ignited in our faith and passion to live our lives completely and fully for God. We went back to Church again last night for a seminar by the same speaker, on ‘how to reach your life-goals, with a Biblical Perspective’. Lately we’ve really been praying into our dream of one day perhaps having a centre of our own in Britain – a facility that will build people up, and encourage a love for the outdoors. As a result of last night’s talk, we’re keen to pray into exactly what God’s vision for our lives is, and how He wants us to get there. We’re committing it all into His hands, and want to always be sure we’re seeking His will. Please pray with us that we will seek God’s heart and plan for our lives. We are pretty excited about the future and returning to Britain next year for the next step – whatever and wherever that will be.

            But for now, Australia. Please pray for us this week as we will continue to lead different things for the first time and may have some assessments. Also, we’d each appreciate prayer for relating well and comfortably with the kids in our groups. Sam’s camp tends to have younger kids, whereas as mine tend to have more teenagers, and we’re both a lot more comfortable the other way around.

We’d also love love love to have the Internet in our house! We’re desperate to Skype many of you and it’s continuing to be a pain trying to get it sorted.

We won’t be using our British mobiles whilst out here, but do have Australian ones. My number is 0415597170 and Sam’s is 0426830918. Sorry for still not putting any pictures up! As soon as Internet access is sorted, it’ll be easier to do so.

Big love from us both x

Almost a month in..

Dear all, after being in Aus for nearly a month now we’re starting to feel quite settled. This has been the first week we’ve spent entirely at our house, and working on site each day in our teams. It’s been really good to be in one place, get to know our teams and different sites. However, this week’s been quiet, so have mainly been doing odd jobs around the place that we feel like we know our way around now. I had fun using the blower clearing all the leaves from the paths.

The week before last we spent at Shoalhaven – another of Youthworks sites, about 2 hours drive away. At Shoalhaven we had a few training days in abseiling, archery, low ropes and how to lead ‘Christian Discovery’ and small discussion groups. There was lots of theory, lots of practical, how to run sessions, health & safety, standards & procedures ect. We’ve since had a few assessments on some of them. There’s still a lot to learn but our training from now on will be more spread out over time, so we’re looking forward to working on site, assisting the leaders, and gradually leading activities on our own once we’re qualified.

There was a funny moment on our way back from Shoalhaven after stopping at a petrol station, I (Katie) walked out the shop and opened the car door, moved a strange looking bag to sit down, and a complete stranger turned around in the front seat and said hey. I quickly apologised, got out, and ran over to where our car had been moved to.

I (Sam for this paragraph) spent Thursday and Friday of last week assisting on a Youthworks advanced sailing course and assessment for some of the staff. It was great to get out on the water and help the staff learn more about sailing and try to get them excited about it. They all did a great job picking up man over boards and trying to get their head around how to use a conventional spinnaker. The two days ended with a great race out on the river. It was great to be able to introduce some of my own and some of the RYA’s techniques, the best of which was the 5 Essentials! Awesome. It has been good to see Katie out on a boat too and she is looking forward to getting out and learning as much as she can while we are here.

           

Sam has just returned from a ‘Rathane’ team day off/social in the Blue Mountains. He spent the morning canyoning, jumping from rocks/cliffs into icy pools and abseiling down a 25m waterfall. The afternoon was spent grass-karting, pretty much summer sledging or simply flying down a big grass slope on 4 wheels and some metal. Quite an awesome way to spend a day off.

           

On the weekends we’ve spent a fair bit of time at Cronulla beach, last week we watched the a big Christian Surfers competition event where Sam was able to try out a demo shortboard and chat to people about what he was after. Having been pretty nervous about going out for the first time in Aus he came back pretty happy even after he had to swim back against the rip to get in. This weekend he brought a 5’ll shortboard and tried it out yesterday. The waves were pretty small, but he did pretty well considering the board is tiny! I can only really surf bigger boards and most places don’t have any to rent until the summer starts, so I’ll have to wait a little while sadly! The weather’s been quite random since arriving – lots of heavy rain but also lots of sun. It’s generally sunny enough to get burned, but the wind’s pretty chilly, so it’s not always as warm as it looks.

           

This last weekend was particularly exciting as our good friends Sam and Lex (whom we also worked with in Greece) had a baby boy! Maxwell Samuel Hudson. They invited us to visit in hospital and Max is adorable, I think it’s an absolute miracle how God designs and creates each of us! They’re all doing well and think they’ll be heading home today or tomorrow. We feel so fortunate to be in Australia at this time with them, and to see Max lots for the first 9 months of his life. Sam and Lex are awesome and have been an incredible blessing to us since being here.

           

We think we’ve found a church that we’ll settle in for our time here – thank you to those of you who’ve been praying for that. We’ve been twice now with a couple friends and really enjoy it. It’s quite big, very multi-cultural – most countries seem to be represented there! We felt challenged that it’s the kind of church you can’t really sit back and cruise along in. People there will always ask what God is doing in our lives and how they can pray for us etc. It is a church that will challenge us, where we can serve and where we will be supported.

We were touched (and quite amused) to see a Welsh flag at half-mast at Cronulla yesterday! We were very gutted to see them out of the World Cup, but it was great watching them.

            Still don’t have internet sorted in the house but really hoping to over the next couple days. Looking forward to skyping with some of you soon!

Thanks for reading.

Lots of Love

First week in Australia

I’m currently sitting in the Australian sunshine on our balcony, looking down through the numerous gum trees onto Deer Park centre where I’ll be working, and the Port Hacking River beyond. And my wonderful husband is out here with me playing the guitar. We’ve just been feeding about 10 different cockatoos on our balcony and taking lots of pictures of them, they’re incredible! They’re as common as seagulls and eat right out of your hand.

We arrived in Sydney last Friday after our long flights from Heathrow and Hong Kong, to a whole bunch of Youthworks people who came to meet us at the airport which was really nice though a bit overwhelming, and were taken back through the Royal National Park to our own little wooden house, that we don’t share with anyone! We’re so grateful to finally have our own home after 6 months of just having a room wherever we went. It’s such a blessing to have our own space, a living room and a kitchen! That first weekend we went to our friend Lex’s baby shower, and then borrowed a staff car to explore the area a bit.
Then since Monday we’ve done a full week of our training, which they refer to as Boot Camp, and rightly so.  There’s three other guys doing it with us. We’ve had loads of orientation, admin stuff, a couple days in a house in Kangaroo Valley learning leadership and facilitator skills, a couple of days doing our bushwalk training and camping, and have just spent a fun though very very wet weekend camping at a Christian music festival, running a portable climbing wall, advertising Youthworks. It’s been fun but physically and mentally very tiring, as we’re only just getting over our jet lag too.

The 2 day bush walk was epic, we navigated our 30k route through bush, and along the most breathtaking coastline I’ve ever seen. The bush is full of gum trees (‘sribbly gums’ are my favourite) and loads of crazy tropical plants. After walking through streams, past waterfalls, up and down hills, through paths that are so overgrown and above your head that you cant see where you’re stepping, occasionally getting a glimpse of the Sydney skyline across miles and miles of bush, the sun went down and just before reaching the campsite in the dark, we walked on mud that literally illuminated as you stepped on it! Reminded me of the film Avatar. The next day was mainly coastal paths of beautiful ripply sandstone, more bush, and amazing golden beaches. At one point we stood on an overhanging cliff top shaped as an eagles head, looking out to 180 degrees of sea, and down on huge red cliffs, with three big waterfalls along it. Only thing missing was a great whale coming out the water and splashing his tail. One day. I mourned my lack of camera throughout the trip, and mentally took some awesome pictures and made a beautiful album up in my head. It was a tough hike, we had hot weather and I spent the whole of the second day limping on both feet with painful shin splints and bruised toes. We both got really excited about the thought of leading these trips on our own, teaching kids compass and map reading skills. We found a dead snake, had a wallaby jump passed us in the bush, saw possums, wombats and lots of lizards. We’re always aware that there are plenty of snakes and spiders around but we’re learning to not live in fear of them as we’d never get anywhere otherwise.

            This weekend at the festival was great training and experience of belaying the kids and adults as they climbed the wall. Though it did tip it down most of the time and it got a bit flooded. We’ve been surprised at how cold it is here! Since coming it’s been pretty cold and rainy and have spent a lot of time struggling to warm up! We got to hear a bit of Mike Pilavachi from Soul Survivor who was there speaking.
From tomorrow we’re away all week again doing training on the ‘Christian Discovery’ ministry that we’ll do with the kids on camps here, and also getting training in leading archery and abseiling, then we’ll get next weekend off.

            Soon boot camp will be over and we’ll start working with our teams at our separate centres (we live on my site – Deer Park, and Sam’s site, Rathane, is a short walk away). School groups will come in for 3 or 4 day camps and we’ll start assisting leading in bushwalking, climbing and abseiling, archery, high & low ropes courses, sailing, canoeing, raft building, waterslides, obstacle courses, and bush-cooking. Camps will be tailored for the different things schools request to learn out of the activities, such as trust, confidence, team-building, sharing, responsibility ect. So in each de-brief we’re taught to faciliate discussion in what they’ve learned, and they can apply back at home, or with their relationship with God. It’s an awesome thing. We’ve been very impressed by the professionalism, quality and organisation that Youthworks show in everything. Tons of people work here in the various sites, and we’re looking forward to getting stuck in and stepping out of our comfort zones.

Sorry haven’t had a chance to write sooner as we’ve been away from internet the whole time, and will be for another week.

We miss the rugby world cup! No-one seems fussed about it here and we’ve been working each evening so have missed a lot, but we’re loving the scores we’ve heard so far!

Our postal address here is

Sam & Katie Knott,

Youthworks Outdoors,

Rathane Road,

Royal National Park,

PO Box 705,

Sutherland,

NSW 1499,

Australia.

Landline number in our house is 0285253152…not sure of the code you’ll need to call Australia sorry. Hoping to have internet in our house soon, but for now we’re using the office.

Much love from us both x