Have and Have Not

Because today is laudry day, I get a few minutes on the web. I was walking this morning and praying and thinking about something... I feel more clarity and peace than I have felt in a LONG time. And it made me think about things I am doing differently.

In the last month, I have not:
Watched television
Drank any caffeine (save two coffees at this internet cafe)
Had longer than 3 minute showers
Had more than about an hour every 5-7 days on the internet
Had a cell phone
Driven
Set my own schedule

I have...
Gone to mass everyday
Prayed 2-3 hours a day (an hour in the morning and at night, and sometimes in between)
Studied my faith and what it means to live as a Christian
Spent a LOT of time in community activity, prayer, living, etc.
Written and journaled A LOT (I am half way through a composition book)
Read a LOT of scripture.

Kind of interesting to think about as my prayer life was not that great before I came here, but I was on the cell a lot and in front of a computer 8-10 hours a day. Just some interesting observations. With all my freetime not busy with the cell or net or tv, I have actually spent some time in thought and alone. Or getting to know others. Or praying or exercising. Or just being. For those of you who know me, this is a challenge. I am a doer! But it has been awesome. So, just something for all of you doers out there to contemplate. :)

I found out today... I AM GOING TO LEARN TO DRIVE THE HUGE VAN. Which is awesome as we currently only have 2 drivers. To top it off, it's really great since I found out that we have a 7 DAY DRIVE across Australia. Yes, a full week of 12 hour days of driving. :) I am actually looking forward to it as our schedule is a bit insane and we can ride in our PJs. :) Pray for me as I learn how to drive a manual (which I am average at) van pulling a trailer on the opposite side of the road. God help us all. :)

Hit the Road Jack!

Well... BIG NEWS since I last wrote. The way things are set up here is that we are broken off into ministry teams. There are two local teams that work with a specific church, two diocesan teams that are working with a diocese and on World Youth Day, and one National Team that travels all around Australia doing retreats at churches and in the schools. There are 2 guys and 3 girls on the local and diocesan teams and 5 girls and 5 guys on the National team. Each team has many different roles to fulfill. The first that is chosen is a male and female team leader. So, as of three days ago, I finally knew what the next year would hold for me. A few days ago, my supervisor approached me and offered me the position of Female Team Leader for this year's National Team! I was sooo honored, humbled and excited. This meant I would be traveling all around the country promoting WYD, praying with young people and putting on retreats. God really humbled me the other day, reminding me with conviction once again that this ISN'T about me, but about me laying myself down that He can work through me. My dad's best friend was praying with me before I left. I keep his words in my heart... "Lord, please help Mary Lee not get in the way." Even in all my feelings of unworthiness, insecurity and fear, I keep trying to not stop his works!

So, two days ago, they announced the rest of my team, including my male co-leader. His name is James and he is a 29 year old Canadian from Ottowa. We have 1 kiwi, 4 Aussies, 3 USAers, 1 Canadian and 1 Nigerian. Our ages range from 17-29. These are AMAZING individuals, and I am so thrilled to be sharing this journey of a lifetime with them. Oh, and a little sidenote... as of right now, only 2 of us know how to drive the van. Hopefully they will teach us, since we are meant to travel over 50,000km this year! It's kinda insane!

James and I have been in team leader training for only one day and I am already certain that it is only by the grace of God and NOTHING that we can do that we will make it through this year with our sanity. We work everyday doing retreats, with only one day completely free of obligations about every 4-6 weeks. I think we may get team days every two weeks or so too where we just get to be with the team and not working. The role that James and I have as far as I can understand is to be the point of contact between the team and staff, to organize the daily/weekly schedules, to contact and help with setting up host homes, to follow up with those we are doing retreats with, and to provide pastoral care for the men and women on our team. It is definitely a servant role. Please pray for me that I can continue to die to self and be the best servant I can be.

I wanted to especially thank all of you who have emailed, written, or chatted with me. You don't know how comforting it is to know so many beautiful people are thinking of you! I miss you all so much but carry you in my heart. I will let you know more as I find it out. The next two weeks are intense training and figuring out all the logistics. Keep me in your prayers! :)

Much Love!~ Mary Lee

I realize it's been a while since I have written anything meaty, so here you go! I have a bit of time as I am at an internet cafe. We have had a free day most of today so we took two vanloads to the beach. It's absolutely gorgeous here today. But the sun here is HOT. And hot in a way much different than Florida. There is a hole in the ozone layer over AUS and NZ apparantly, and the rays here will fry you up in no time flat. Hence, the sunburned country. I know it sounds wierd, but I have noticed the difference in my eyes. I can get by without sunglasses in FL, but man, I can't even open my eyes outside without sunglasses here. So they say, slop, slip, slap, wrap. Slop on some sunscreen, slip on a shirt, slap on a hat, wrap on some sunglasses. :) And I have been!

Right now, this is all kind of surreal. We are on the Sunshine Coast. I started in Brisbane, and we drove about 90 km eastish to the beachy areas. We have been going to the beach about every other day for our free time during training. If you want to find me on the map, we have been at Noosa Beach, now I am at Coolum beach, and yesterday night we went to Mooloolabah Beach for a special ceremony.

I think its all surreal because we have beaches in FL, so its similar but also very different. The waves here are 3-4m high and the rip (pulls you out into the water) and pull (pulls you sideways in the water) are full on (means intense here). Seriously, you cannot hardly fight them and swimming is a MAJOR workout. Plus, all around the beach are mountains with pine trees, but not like ours. The pine needles grow up out of the bark in little patches. They grow up towards the sky. There are lifegaurds here and they have signs up that say, "messy seas, possibly blue bottles (jelly fish), strong rip, etc) and you have to stay between these two flags to be rescued. Leave the flagged area and you are on your own. And you want to stay in the flags because about 1m on either side of them a wave will hit you and pull you 5m out to sea before you can even find your footing. One day, there was waves crashing in from the left and right and when it hit it pulled me under and it felt like a washing machine. Wicked wierd!

Other things... they have no stop lights in these smaller towns. Only roundabouts. So all 4 roads come to a round about and they slow to about 40 while whipping around these roundabouts. And bigger intersections have several connected roundabouts, so you'll be lean to the left, left, left, then to the right, right, right. Praise God I am not carsick yet! The vans we are in are very old (165,oookm on them), have no AC (it's about 80-100 degrees F here right now), and are manuals. So it makes for a wild ride. Not to mention there are 12 young people in them and they are being driven by 18 and 19 year olds. Let me just say, the singing and dancing are lovely and I have some video I will share when I can. :)

Other things... we are staying in a campground of sorts, almost like girl scout camp. I am sleeping in a bunk bed and we have community showers. We have an awesome cook who prepares us meals. They eat a LOT here... Brekkie (breakfast), morning tea (around 11 a.m.), Lunch, Dinner (the evening meal at 6 p.m.) and then Supper (an evening snack of biscuits at 9 p.m.). It's been very structured which has been nice, but they have also given us a good bit of free time to get to know each other and spend in prayer. This first week has been a retreat for us, and the upcoming 2 weeks will be training on how to do ministry/their format of ministry for the upcoming year. This week, we get up, go to mass, have breakfast, do an hour of personal prayer, have a session (teachings, etc.), Morning tea, another session, small group, Lunch, a bit of free time, two more sessions, then dinner, then some free time and a session or evening prayer, then supper. Then do it all over again. :)

This week has been amazing. I am not a live in the moment person. I am a planner. And I have really enjoyed everything being planned for me and me truly having NO IDEA what comes after this week, or even after the next three weeks, as I don't yet know which team I will be on. God has really been using this time for me to be fully focused on him and where he wants me. The retreat has focused on God and his incredible love for us. How he designed each of us. He created us perfect in his eyes, and we are the ones who he has to convince to allow him to love us. That is our struggle. So a focus on his love for us, and then on the gift and relationship we have with Jesus, and finally a day on the Holy Spirit and how he is sent to change us and bring us closer to the Father and Son. Let me just say that the gifts and healings from those three days were incredible. I thank you all for your prayers for me, and please know I have been lifting you up, as a group and as individuals as well.

So after the Father, Son and Holy Spirit days, we spent 2.5 days in Sisterhood and Brotherhood. The girls and guys separate discussing how God made us different but equal and celebrating the gifts of our femininity and masculinity. It was beautiful. And we discussed that much of the challenge of this year will come from having to live and love in community. So we committed to our sisterhood to love unconditionally and always be honest and to serve and honor each other this year. Today we joined back with the guys and it is beautiful to appreciate the gifts God gave us as men and women. He is truly the perfect designer. :)

Other random things about Australia...truly, almost everything here is poisonous. The toads, spiders and snakes at our camps are poisonous. The kangaroos are very similar to deer. They come out and graze at dawn and dusk. Crazy! The majority of the trees here shed their bark, NOT their leaves. There are lots and lots of lizards here, including LARGE ones called Johannas that look like snakes when you see them in the grass. The birds (kookaburra in particular) are LOUD. And they have this laugh that sounds like tribal worship going on. And they make it all night. It hasn't bugged me, but some of the folks have been having a hard time sleeping. Praise God it has actually rained a good bit the past week, as they are on water restrictions here. It's their summer, so we have eaten a lot of fruit similar to FL. The land around here is beautiful. I think Jurassic Park was filmed here, and if it wasn't, well, it looks similar to the land from that movie.

So, I hope that this brings you a little bit up to date as to what all we have been doing. Can't remember if I told you or not, but our team is 3 short this year, so we are 29 large... 4 americans (me, one from Massachucetts and two from Texas), 2 NZers, 8 Canadians, 1 Nigerian, and 14 Aussies. I love the diversity. :) So please keep praying for me. Right now I don't have internet access, but I have been writing a lot of letters. It takes 10 days for them to arrive, but hopefully I will get to send them soon. Thank you Alexis-- I got your letter and it totally made my day! :) I can use the phone some, but the hours are 15 different, so it makes it hard to call when its not the middle of the night.

Love you all and miss you so much. :) Please let me know how you are doing and if you have any special intentions. You are in my heart! MLC

Prayer!!!!

At the laundromat right now. So i am at a kiosk. This training is so incredibly intense. i don't think i have ever gone this deep with God before. It's exciting but scary too. Makes me wonder how difficult this year will be or what he wants of me. :) I will write and mail letters as that is more easily accessible than the net right now. i love you all, miss you very much, and thank you for your support. I have been praying for all of you daily! (I have a list!) Keep praying for me. :) MLC

Today was Orientation. I met my NET family for the next 315 days (yes, I counted it!) I will have to show you a picture of the van later. Insanity! Anyway, we got to know each other-- played some icebreakers, had small group time, went to mass and ate together. We also had our photos taken and signed a code of conduct. They discussed our upcoming training, which is about 5 weeks long.

The purpose of the first week is simply to be with Christ. To come before him acknowledging the person we are and the life we have lived, and then lay it all down at the cross. Then look up and ask him, now what? Essentially, who do you want me to be? What do you desire of me?

We discussed how our whole lives are our mission, and this is just part of what God ultimately has planned for us. I really loved this concept of being completely transformed. I have had so many wonderful experiences in my life, but I have also made very many mistakes. As challenging as I know these next 5 weeks will be, and in particular, this first one that is coming up, I am excited to lay it all down. I am a major worrier and have a need to feel in control, even though I often know deep down I am not.

There is so much freedom in just giving it all up. This is something I have desired to do for many years, but I always get in my own way. My special request for this time would be to have all of you pray for me that I can "let go and let God." I feel selfish asking this of you all, as you have already been such an incredible support to me. But I also have seen the power of your faith, and I truly believe that with so many of God's children requesting this special favor, I may actually finally be able to achieve this goal.

So please keep me in your prayers. And know that all of you are in mine. And I cannot tell you how touched I have been by the emails, comments on my blogs, etc. that I have received. I also have to thank my amazing host family who has cared for me in my sickness here, gave me a warm bed, a shower, and delicious food everynight. They have even taken us around to see the sights. An amazingly beautiful family!

I am blessed beyond measure, and I pray daily that you would be overwhelmed with God's love and blessings. I am not exaggerating when I say every minute you are in my mind, prayers and heart. You and God have made this possible, and I spend all that extra time I used to on the phone and internet reflecting on how blessed I am by each of you and praising God for you.

Thank you for loving me. And know I am loving you across the miles. :) Mary Lee

Yes, that is a real Kangaroo

Or Roos as they call them here. They had a bunch of them at the sanctuary and we got to play with them and pet them. Very gentle in captivity but aggressive in the wild. And yes, they are in a severe drought, so we take 3 minute showers (they have a timer on them) and there are water conservation signs EVERYWHERE. And no, the water doesn't get hot in that 3 minutes. And yes, they drive on the other side of the road really fast (I am fighting car sickness). Their sense of style is much more eclectic and funky-- especially among the young people. And the food is a bit different (see the jerky?). And many things are named differently here. But... other than that and the awesome accent, they are surprisingly similar to Americans-- so far. But I have only been here 2 days. I will keep you updated. It's 4 am here and I am sick and jetlagged so unable to sleep. I will miss you all dearly! Please write and I will write back. Be sure to include your return address! Love you!

I'm in Oz (Australia)!

Hey everyone! I miss you so much! I am sorry it has taken me so long to write. This is the first time I have had internet access since we got here. Things are going really well. The flight was not too bad, considering I was in transit 40 hours. I did catch cold, which I am trying to shake off now. I had two days in Brisbane before we start training tomorrow. The woman we are staying with has been amazing. She dropped us off today at a Koala Sanctuary where we got to pet a koala and a kangaroo. Crazy fun! I am exhausted much of the time getting over this cold and being jet lagged. We leave tomorrow morning to go to training for 5 weeks, and I just found out we will have very limited access, if any, to internet during that time. We can send handwritten letters. The address is:

Mary Lee Cunill
c/o- NET Ministries
PO Box 2453
Mansfield, QLD 4122
Australia

I am sorry I haven't had a chance to catch up with the sponsors and everything else. But I will do my best to keep this updated. Thank you again to all of you who made this journey possible. I can never thank you enough. Pray for me as the next 5 weeks will be a challenge... but that is part of the purpose of the desert. Love you all and God bless. MLC

And then a voice from Heaven called down, saying, "Attention all Control Freaks-- Let Go!"

I leave at noon today and woke up after going to bed at 4 a.m. in a panic as I don't have everything done. Then I saw my daily devotional, and I know HE is in control. I love you all and I will miss you so much. Pray for me!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Live the Life, Inc. < devotional@livethelife.org>
Date: Jan 7, 2008 3:52 AMSubject: The Purpose of the Desert
To: Mary Lee Cunill <prism98592@gmail.com>

Live the Life, Inc.

The Purpose of the Desert
Monday, January 07, 2008
by Os Hillman

Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. ~ Hosea 2:14

If you have an important message to convey to someone, what is the best means of getting the message through? Have you ever tried to talk with someone who was so busy you could not get him to hear you? Distractions prevent us from giving our undivided attention to the messenger. So too, God has His way of taking us aside to get our undivided attention. For Paul, it was Arabia for three years; for Moses, it was 40 years in the desert; for Joseph, it was 13 years in Egypt; for David, it was many years of fleeing from King Saul.

God knows the stubborn human heart. He knows that if He is to accomplish His deepest work, He must take us into the desert in order to give us the privilege to be used in His Kingdom. In the desert God changes us and removes things that hinder us. He forces us to draw deep upon His grace. The desert is only a season in our life. When He has accomplished what He wants in our lives in the desert, He will bring us out. He has given us a mission to fulfill that can only be fulfilled after we have spent adequate time in preparation in the desert. Fear not the desert, for it is here you will hear God's voice like never before. It is here you become His bride. It is here you will have the idols of your life removed. It is here you begin to experience the reality of a living God like never before. Someone once said, "God uses enlarged trials to produce enlarged saints so He can put them in enlarged places!"

He brought me out into a spacious place; He rescued me because He delighted in me (2 Samuel 22:20).

It's 3 a.m., I must be lonely

Actually, it's 4 a.m. And I am sitting in my parents living room after a small going away get together. Thank you mom, by the way, for orchestrating such a beautiful party. I fly out Monday. 30 hours til I have to be on the plane. I am sorry I haven't written in so long. On Monday, I have a 10 hour layover in LAX before taking off for Sydney. I plan to catch everyone up on all the amazing things that have happened in the past couple of weeks. There will be LOTS of pictures.

But, I just wanted to take a second and say... Thank you. To everyone. At my church. At my work. My friends and family. All of you who saw the article in the paper and wrote to me or called me. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for your support-- in every form. I am so abundantly blessed by you. YOU. You are my blessing.

Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
1 John 3:18

Thank you for being a blessing to me. Thank you for sharing your gifts with me. Thank you for loving me. My prayer for each of you this year is that your blessings be returned to you 100 fold and your cups overflow. Praise God for you!

Keep me in your prayers for a safe journey. Til Monday, MLC