Reflections...

Hey Guys

Just thought I'd post an ACTUAL blog for once ... completely honest, unedited and typed way out in Whyalla while I'm away training staff up here for my current job with Mission Australia



As the majority of you may know I have been offered an unpaid position as a roadie with Invisible Children for their Fall Schools tour in the USA. And whilst I am really excited about the opportunity - it has been a MASSIVE time of lack of direction, patience, tears, anxiety and relying on God.

Let me first fill you in on the lead-up to being offered this opportunity:

Back in 2008 I was in my second year of my youthwork degree, of which my first year in 2007 I TOTALLY loved. 2008 was an interesting year: from loving youthwork at the very start of the first semester to completely burning out and running away to Melbourne for a week in October to escape everything, to coming back for the last half of second semester and totally HATING my degree, questioning why the hell I was studying youthwork and contemplating scrapping the whole degree despite being well over halfway into it.

I had about two months break from study over the Christmas holidays, scored my regular Christmas casual job back at JBHIFI again which allowed me to save some money and also just do a job that was completely unrelated to my studies and my five youthwork jobs that i did throughout the year. .... January came and I was still unsure whether I would go back to my studies.

In the end I did ... for about four weeks, hating every minute of it, not putting any effort into my assignments, and just generally being miserable. Now I'm the type of person who hates quitters and always strives to finish whatever I start and despite virtually EVERYONE my fellow students, church friends, parents etc telling me to keep going with my studies, I knew I was not doing it any justice in the headspace I was in ... so I deferred.

During that time Esther, a friend of mine had told me that some 'Roadies' from Invisible Children were coming to Australia and looking for some venues to screen their latest film, I was pretty pumped they were coming to OZ as I had been following the cause for about the past 4 or so years. I don't know what made me so passionate about it but probably since grade 11 in 2001 I've had a massive heart for social justice, particularly children exploited and forced to work in sweatshops etc, somehow back in 2004 I was made aware of the organisation Invisible Children and their documentary they made about the plight of the abducted child soldiers of Congo, Sudan and Uganda, and one day stumbling upon it at my local christian bookshop, buying it, watching it, and feeling really compelled to do something about it, yet not really knowing what I could do but create artwork and educate people about it. So when I found out about this potential Invisible Children tour of Australia I got mega excited and sent through an email asking what sort of venues they were looking for and I'd be more than willing to sort out a stack of screenings for them in Adelaide.

I had no response ... so I was pretty disappointed!

... Until Mid march, which also coincidentally was a week after that I deferred my studies at college. They had already been in Adelaide for a week once I had received a response via email but was told they were there for one more week, which made it MEGA hard to organise a screening in such a short space of time and resulted in just a screening at my house with about 10 people, but it worked out OK as the majority of places I was going to recommend had already had screenings booked.

Watching the latest documentary 'The Rescue', hearing about the massive international rally with the same title and speaking with the roadies about their screenings all around Australia, I felt really compelled to actually do something about these passions of mine in regards to the whole child soldier issue. I went to the screening at the YWAM base to see my buddies up there, see the film again, sign up for the Tri program ($3 a week) and chat with the roadies more about the Roadie program.

Within a week of these events I started putting together my application for an Invisible Children Roadie position.

So here I was: a College dropout, burnout, searching for some sort of direction, unemployed and applying for an unpaid position where I needed a stack of money to do it.

I started organising the handful of friends who came to the screening of 'the rescue' at my house some sort of way to get over to Melbourne for the Rally April 25th, which then pretty much ended up with myself combining with four other guys to have over 80 + people from Adelaide travel for 10 hours in two buses to Melbourne, to sleep out overnight in the rain in order to bring awareness of these abducted children that the media and the world simply do not know about or overlook.

During this time I was organising my roadie application, the group to go over to melbourne, doing my required daily jobsearch training and doing interviews .. crazy times! I ended up being told about a fulltime job with Mission Australia that was only contracted until June 30th, which to me seemed awesome as my roadie tour started the end of July and would allow me to save some money and do some youthwork.

APRIL: - Working fulltime for Mission
- Attended 'The Rescue' in Melbourne
- After over a month of interviewing people and editing footage for my video application and other application forms, I submit my Roadie application to Invisible Children.

MAY: - Still working fulltime with Mission
- Late May send an email to IC begging for some sort of idea of if I have any chance of getting into the program as visas can take 6-8 weeks to get approved for the USA

JUNE: - Get a response, have 2 interviews, one at 12.30pm one night and another at 6am on a saturday morning
- Within a week offered the roadie position in the USA
- Start dealing with visa internship Host company Intrax - who end up being based in Germany! (yeah i know!)
- After communication with IC and Intrax I work out the only reason I am dealing with someone in Germany is due to USA/AUS time difference, fork out 800 euros to join the program which covers VERY basic medical insurance and the posting of Visa application form to me


....Which brings me to now ..... Within four weeks I will be due to commence my internship with Invisible Children, I have still yet to recieve my visa application form which then I have to organise an interview with the USA embassy in Melbourne which could take an additional 2 weeks, then once I have the interview and it is approved could take up to 5 business days to process the visa, get my wisdom teeth removed this saturday, STILL waiting on this flippin visa application form AND being away for all of this week training staff for work in regional south australia.

I will be resigning from my job within the next week, I have made a deposit on my flights to LAX which I will need to purchase soon before they get WAY too expensive .. all of which is likely to cost me at least $4000 YET STILL with no guarantee of getting my visa approved in time! ....
It seems rediculous right now, yet still seems right and what God's wanting me to do at the moment ..... Proverbs 3:5 is really resonating with me right now coz i sure as hell am quite anxious!

Sorry about such a massive rant! .. but hey at least its an ACTUAL blog for once!

Your thoughts and prayers would be REALLY appreciated at the moment!

If you would like to give financially please follow this link

And if you would like to join my group on facebook, click this link

Love you guys HEAPS!
Chad