DECEMBER birthdays!

December was full of birthday celebrations!

1st we celebrated Jordy Merry's 21st birthday at his Disney themed party!

Jeremy wanted to be "Tron" but the costume was never made. SO... here is Minnie & Mickey!

Jordy's  Scar costume was amazing- unfortunately I don't have a photo of his head piece.

Next was little Eva's 2nd birthday BBQ!

Eva & Selah

Dan also finished his degree so it was a double celebration.

Eva didn't really enjoy the singing.. it ended in tears. Poor girl!

And Emily's 27th girls birthday dinner night!

We missed another special birthday back home in December. Jeremy's mom turned 34! woo hoo Happy Birthday Mom :)

We hope you are having a wonderful last couple days in 2011. We have more pictures from the holidays coming soon!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Merry Christmas!! and a Happy New Year!

So sorry its been a while since we updated. As I'm sure with all of your family stuff going on and Christmas right around corner your as busy as we are.  Just wasted to give everyone a bit of a recap over the last couple weeks. (I'll try to keep it short)

Boardstore Surf Shop is doing really well. We have entered into our most busy time of the year with everyone buying Chrissy presents. So I have been flat out there and the Local kids are all on school holidays and they hang out with me all day at the shop. Somedays I can have u to 10 Groms hanging in the shop for hours. Its amazing the relationships I have been able to build through the Surf Shop already.  I have had several opportunities to spend time with the boys outside of the shop.  Last friday I picked 4 groms up Billy, Luke, Michael, and Beau at 530 AM and we went for a surf. the wind was terrible and the waves were small so we ended up just hanging out and having breakfast. I was with the boys all day just hanging out and they helped me do some work on the shop. I loved it!  This is why I'm in a shop to spend time with these kids!  Please be praying for me as I spend time with them and that God would bless our time together and reveal himself to them.

I'll let Ashlee fill you in with what's happening with her.

Our Christmas plans are set and we are ready to celebrate Jesus' Birthday with friends! Christmas Eve we are with a family that is basically our own. After eating most likely more than we should we will go to bed and wake up to do it all over again on Christmas day!  the day after Ashlee and I are getting away for about 4 days. We will drive about 8 hours south to a place called Port Macquarie in New South Wales. We have friends down there that we will stay with and Ashlee and I get to spend some much needed time together!

thanks so much for all your thoughts and prayers. We miss all of you and hope that you have an amazing time wherever you are on Jesus' Birthday! 

Religious Education Class

Religious Education(RE) class is finished for the year. We had our last classes this past Thursday. I, Ashlee, had my class answer a couple questions for me. 

1. What they liked about RE...

3. What they didn't like about RE...

4. Something they learnt...

Here were just a few answers....

This was my fav!! wink wink!

And then one class made me a card! I was really touched to hear that they did actually like class. It gives me encouragement for next year. 

It's amazing that the public school system allows us to come in and teach 30 minutes a week about Jesus and how much He loves them! Praise God for that opportunity and pray for the kids we had this past year that they would continue to seek truth in Christ!

Oh Christmas Tree

Hope you are all getting excited for Christmas! We are! A little sad that we had to go with a fake tree but grateful to have one!

freeSTARBUCKS!

Lots of exciting things happening around us here on the Sunny Coast, Australia. Last night Starbucks hosted a Christmas party with free drinks for everyone. There were nearly 100 YWAMers present :) Starbucks loves the base here. They had some of the School of Biblical Studies* students serving drinks, YWAM worship team playing Christmas carols and special treats for the kids. Here are some pictures from the night.

YWAM Sunshine Coasts next generation! 

Bryan- the School of Biblical Studies(SBS)* Director & a lovely SBS student

some of the chaos

friends!

I tried to post a picture like this a couple weeks ago but it wasn't very clear. Starbucks has chosen the "boardstore"to give 5% of it's gift card profits. This is so generous of them!!!

*School of Biblical Studies(SBS) is a 9 month intensive inductive Bible school. Students spend a week on each book of the Bible(or a couple smaller books in one week). They have lectures, read the scriptures, study them inductively. This is not theological Bible school. Just reading the Word and studying it the context it was written. Students study for an average of 12 hours a day with only one day a week off. It's intense but it transforms each individual that completes it. DTS is a pre-requesit to do a SBS.

our{Thanksgiving}

We celebrated Thanksgiving this year with 17 of our YWAM American friends, just like we did last year. It will hopefully be a tradition. Lots of food and games to follow. It didn't feel like home, not sure if it(Thanksgiving) ever will. Eating pumpkin pie while wearing flip flops just doesn't feel right. As much as I missed home, I'm so so so grateful to the wonderful friends we got to celebrate the day with.

The spread in a circle... a little chaotic!

The whole family

Pumpkin Praline Tort for dessert.Yes please!

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!! Tell me about any amazing Black Friday deals you got!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Happy Thanksgiving from Australia!!!!

this little turkey found his way to the beach!

Today we are celebrating so many things to be thankful for! Although we miss our family and friends back home this holiday, we are grateful to have our YWAM family to celebrate Thanksgiving with today. We've been busy organising and cooking up a storm to have a little taste of home tonight. It's hot and humid today so my senses aren't telling me it's Thanksgiving but my taste buds sure will tonight...bring on the turkey & pumpkin pie :)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!And good luck to all you crazy mid-night shoppers! Get a great deal for me!!!

Christian Surfers Australia

Christian Surfers Australia (CSA) is a christian organisation that's heart is to be a christian influence in the surfing community. This week in Coolum, the town where we live, all the regional coordinators for CSA are here to meet & prepare for conference next year as well as tackle regular leadership needs. 

A giant pot of pasta to feed the hungry leaders!

My, Ashlee's role with CS is working specifically with the region of Queensland(it's a state, for those who don't know your geography...) and take care of administrative tasks there. Currently I'm focused on the conference we are hosting next year in Coolum. We hope to have 250 people come and have every mission represented. Please pray for us as we prepare for this week of gathering and growth in Christ. Unity is really important in CSA as we are spread out all over the country.

our FRIDAY

Meet some of my friends from work....

Olivia, Hannah, Danielle & Kylie

They are all super sweet & great co-workers. We all feel blessed to be able to work together. We're more like a family! Kylie moves to Germany in December :( Part of my role is taking over for her.

my desk...note the background on my computer... miss my girls back home :(

Jeremy met with his mentor this morning before opening and running the surf shop today. Unfortuantely we have 0 pictures to show you from his day....

Today after work I had a Christian Surfers state(regional) team meeting. I had the honours(that's how you spell honours here) of taking notes :) Most Thursday mornings I work with the Regional Coordinator on conference planning(for Easter weekend 2012, we are hosting it) as well as a few other administrative tasks. It's really exciting to see all the different things happening with Christian Surfers regionally. New missions being planted, grooms going overseas, chaplaincy on the pro-surfing circuit. God is using a fun hobby to connect people with Christ.

After the meeting, I quickly went home to eat a yummy beef roast I had in the slow cooker. Jeremy greeted me with a "I made a mistake :(" .... come to find out he tried to roast the potatoes like I asked him to and they burnt. No big deal at all! I was expecting a way worse mistake. Despite the burnt potatoes, Jeremy is doing an awesome job with helping around the house and starting dinner before I get home. Sorry I just had to toot his horn a little.... okay Friday continued....

The July 2011 DTS graduated tonight. We didn't really get to know these students since we came after their school had started and weren't really around much. We still loved hearing about the outreaches and what God did in their lives. Watching the videos made us both excited for our next opportunity to go to a developing country... hopefully sometime in 2012!!

And these are my sweet friends.... Selah & Laine!

And now it's 10:30pm & I'm ready to go to bed! Hope this gave you a little glimpse into my day!! Nighty, night!....or I guess it's good morning for you!!

TWO BABIES :)

It's been an exciting week for us. More because of what's going on back home than anything being new here. Two babies in two days!! My(Ashlee) best friend had a sweet baby boy this week. This is as close as I'm going to get to having a picture with him for a long time. We feel blessed to have journeyed with Jade & Jamie through this pregnancy. Praising God for a healthy adorable baby boy! Jameson Jeffrey!

Only a few minutes old here... Praise God for FaceTime & Skype this week!!! It made the world feel like a much smaller place.

We're officially Uncle Jeremy & Aunt Ashlee with the birth of Jeremy's brother, Tim's baby girl Ella Grace! We wish more than anything we could be there to meet these precious little bubs. 

Ella is an 11/11/11 baby!! We're praying for these new babies and their parents as they adjust to their new lives! We hope for lots of good eats & long sleeps :)

{FRUIT&STARBUCKS}

If you didn't know, my(Ashlee) role at work for the last few weeks has been to cold call churches and tell them about the opportunity to screen the movie "Soul Surfer" as a fundraiser or an outreach. Many people think I'm a telemarketer, or that I am wanting to sell them something, which is a little bit true. Rather, we believe in the power of a good movie, and it'd be great if they'd decide to have an event. I've had all sorts of responses! In the last few days I haven't made many calls, as my role has started to move into my more permanent work. We received an awesome email today from someone who hosted a movie screening, 3 girls who saw the film gave their lives to Christ afterwards! Hearing this made all those hours of calling churches totally worth it. I love how we got the opportunity to hear about the fruits of a simple movie screening, so often we don't see or hear about it. We only played a very, very small part but it all contributes.

On a total other note, Starbucks in partnering with the Boardstores (skate/surf shops that are run by YWAMers)and helping fund all the awesome things that they do! I just thought this was really exciting! All the time spent at Starbucks by YWAMers has paid off!!

I know it's small and your probably can't read it but this is posted at our Starbucks here!

Specific prayer requests for this week....

--Christians Surfers Coolum is having a camping trip this weekend. We can't go, as Jeremy needs to man the shop. Pray for opportunities to build relationships & share Christ with the grooms that attend.

-- For the students in our RE classes. That they would see Christ's light in us and would have open hearts to the gospel

-- Jeremy & I both have one-on-ones, other staff that we mentor and disciple. Pia & Jono-- please pray for them, because we love them so much!

-- Our marriage, of course! We are doing really well, but you can never have too much prayer :)

-- Jeremy: wisdom as this week he committed to be the official manager of the shop!! (woo hoo Jeremy committed!!!!! :) If you know Jeremy you know this is HUGE for him!)

Video Update for our Home church in PA!

To watch an update video that we put together for our home church in PA, just click the link!

Hoover's Update Vid!  

Love y'all! 

{CS}BBQ

This past weekend we spent at the "Yaroomba Classic", a surf competition put on by the Coolum Boardriders. Every year we(Christian Surfers) help the boardriders by running the BBQ/concession stand. Some years we make a little profit to help support CS ministries. Jeremy also helped with filming the surfers.

 Jeremy spent the night on the beach protecting all the equipment... sounds much more exciting than what I think it was!!!

It was a beautiful weekend to be at the beach.. Hope you have a blessed week!

this {WEEK}

The Surf Ministry meeting went great! We feel like we all value and share the same purpose and vision. However, we all have a little different approach to fulfilling that vision. It's going to be awesome to see how God uses us all to reach and meet different needs and people. Our intentions are to continue to meet as a group regularly, as we continue on this journey together.

The Boardstore Surf is going well. We had some better days in sales and our stock is starting to fill up. Today(Saturday) Jeremy said there were 15 kids hanging out in the shop in the morning and they came and went through out the day. Pray that they would find a real sense of belonging there.

Religious Education class this week was... good, challenging, scary and awesome all at the same time! We shared the story of Jesus feeing the 5,000. Jeremy researched a bunch of statics and numbers to show the kids how many people in this world are hungry. It painted a good visual picture for them. They seemed to really love it. At the end of my one class, I asked if any of the kids had any questions. These were a few:
"How do you know God is real? It's not like he's just sitting there"
"Who made God?"
"If Jesus is God, Can I be God?"
"Did God have{give birth}Jesus?"
Then there was a whole conversation with a little girl who didn't know Christmas was Jesus's birthday.
I've just assumed that kids in western cultures know the "basics" of Christianity. But they sure don't! Please pray for our RE classes. It's such a huge opportunity!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! We pray for God's presence in your life! Blessings!

SURF MINISTRY UNITY

It's been an exciting last couple weeks for us! God seems to be birthing a lot of vision into ministry opportunities. Now that the surf shop is running smoothly, we are able to focus on the ministry side of things and the relationships that are forming out of the surf shop.

The surf shop is doing exactly what we were hoping it to do: connecting us with the community. When we walk on the school premises to teach RE, so many of the kids say "HEY JEREMY!" It was quite comical for me, as the groms treat Jeremy like some sort of celebrity. I don't say that to boast about my husband but rather in awe of how God is using a surf shop to bridge two generations.

Tomorrow night we are getting together with some of the YWAM crew around that have a heart for surf ministry. The base currently runs a Surfers DTS(Discipleship Training School) each year. They are finding that there are always people wanting to come and staff Surf Ministry but we haven't had the structure to support staff. It will be a night of brainstorming, sharing vision, our hearts & evaluating opportunities.

One thing that I am most excited about it is the new community center in the same area that the school and surf shop are. I think this is a GEM! We hope to go check out the facilities later in the week. It's just a cool thing to dream about--- what we could do there, after school, during school holidays, etc. There's no plan of using it anytime soon just an opportunity for months down the road.


Below are a couple maps to help you place things:
We live in COOLUM BEACH
The surf shop is in MUDJIMBA BEACH
The YWAM base is in MAROOCHYDORE
Ashlee's work & the warehouse for the surf/skate shop is in KAWANA WATERS

It's about a 25 minute drive from Coolum to Kawana!

This is a map of Mudjimba. The distance between the school and the surf shop is about a mile!

We hope that clarifies things! Please pray for the meeting tomorrow night... especially for UNITY!

CS {DINNER}

Thursday nights we have Bible studies with the  Christian Surfers leadership crew in Coolum. 

Some nights we like to also have dinner before.

Chili & cornbread was a new combo for most Aussies

We really value the relationships we have amongst CS!

JEREMY'S {27th}

In honor of Jeremy's 27th birthday we had a little guys night, steak & potato dinner!

And they even wore the birthday hats! (Just for this picture of course!)

his favorite: cheesecake with fresh strawberry sauce

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEREMY!

Christian Surfers Fundraiser!!

Saturday night we had a big Christian Surfers fundraiser auction! We had a goal of raising $10,000 to help support Christian Surfers Queensland as a whole and also some other projects. 

Naomi & I in the kitchen. We served tapas-appetizers/hors' de overs! 

One of the things the auction benefited was a trip to the Philippines. Compassion is teaming up with Christian Surfers and the Australian Christian Channel(ACC) to hopefully make a documentary about the trip. There are 4 groms from Coolum going on the trip with Jordy Merry (his dad works for Compassion!), Mr. Merry & some crew from the (ACC). We will upload their promo video soon!

Some serious bidders! 

The evening ended with a very exciting auction item. Aaron's dreads!! One by one we cut them and sold them. He raised over $500!! Ashlee got to do the "honors"!!

 Since Aaron raised so much money by cutting his dreads, we all decided that for each $100 raised above our goal he must keep one big dreaddy for 1 month! He set the limit of a max of 2 months! We did it, so here is the lock he has to keep till December!! haha

We met our goal and feel complete blessed and blown away by God!