"I come from a land down under"

Hey all!! Alyssa here....(that was for Allison D. so that she knows this is my post:) ) First of all, I'm on timed internet and I only have seven minutes remaining so this may have to be short and sweet. A fun fact of information - It's sunday here, and as I write this it's only saturday in the states. Muhahaha...I'm basically in your future.
Anyway....the plane rides went well. We were on four different plane and it ended up taking about 24 hours altogether. Luckily, though, our longest flight was only a little over thirteen hours from San Fransisco to Sydney. We got here bright and early in the day. Jet lag isn't all that bad since we're so far around the world. We've all adjusted pretty well, considering the circumstances. We've spent our time so far touring the campuses and yesterday we went to down town Brisbane.
Funny story - I got seperated from the group when we went to get our library cards. They booked it out of the library when I was looking at a book...oops. I promise I was keeping an eye on them. But they didn't notice I was gone so I looked up and they were gone. We were in the library which is inside of a huge shopping center (NOT a mall), so I looked all over for them in places they may have been. Then I walked back to our Brisbane Holiday village about 3/4 mile away to try the phone numbers they had given us but none of them worked. So I cried a little, without any other options to try except to hang out in the BHV until late night when they got back. Thankfully, though, one of the guys ran all the way back when they realized i was gone and brought me back to the shopping center to find the rest of the group who was at the bus stop. It was a little traumatic, but it all turned out well. Nothing like being lost in a city of millions without any way to contact anyone. It gave me a better understanding that this wasn't America anymore.
So once i caught up with the rest of the group, we met for discipleship time downtown, explored a little bit, and then the Student Lifers (Student Life is their "Cru") threw us a barbie (Barbeque) so that was really fun to get to know some of them. It was a little intimidating, but they're so much fun.
We've been learning that evangelism here has no hope unless it's relational. It's a huge step up from what we would call relational evangelism even in the states. Basically, if you share the Gospel with them the first time you meet them, that's great....but you're probably never going to see them again. They need to know that they can trust you and that you really care about them. Australians inauthenticity, so they would not be receptive at all to Americans trying to force something on them. American doesn't have the best conotation to it - they don't idoloize us at all, like we hear other countries may do. In fact, since they watch American TV, they pretty much know everything about our culture. It's important for us to not act better than them, etc... Americans and Aussies are the same in that they both think their countries are better than the other.
We're also learning a lot of terminology - like "good on 'ya" means "good job/way to go"..."Uni" for "university"..."major" is acutally more like a "speiclization/emphasis"....they have first-year, second-year, etc. not freshmen, sophomore, etc....So I would be a fourth-year student at Uni with a degree in Psychology majoring in Disaster relief and response.
Everything here is about twice the price that it would be in America. A box of mac and cheese is 2.50...ehh. Some things are the same though, like pasta is still 50 cents. I was eating cream cheese and a bagle a couple of nights ago and I noticed the cream cheese was a little bland, so I looked and saw that it was actually a "cream cheese/cottage cheese blend". AKA - it was mostly cottage cheese. Australia is also in a VERY severe draught, so we want to be cautious of that. Very severe meaning 10-12 year draught. Brisbane is at a 10% water supply level and they aren't allowed to wash cars, water their grass, take more than a four minute shower, etc.

Our Brisbane Holiday Village (BHV) is GREAT! The cabins (units) that we live in are really, really nice. They're small, but super cute. And the staff is great...we've gotten to know our housekeeper pretty well. She's originally from New Zealand and is the nicest lady. Actually, everyone here is MUCH nicer than Americans, as a generalization. The people are great, pretty much.
I've been blessed with really great roommates, they're great. We're getting along really well, so far.
We'll be actually starting ministry on campus tomorrow, so I'd love your prayers for that! We're all excited to actually start the reason we've come for. Hopefully next time I blog I'll have a lot more to say about that.
Well this is getting really long - thankfully one of my roommies just let me borrow another $2 coin to extend my internet time so that ya'll can have a very comprehensive list of what's up with me :)
Dan and Jordan are doing well, too! (I think anyway) I don't see them most of the time, usually only during group activities, but they've been doing all of the same things I have, so they'll probably just agree with everything I said.
Thanks for all of your prayers and support! Love you all! Please leave a comment and say hello :) (I would actually prefer this to facebook....less Internet roaming for me)