So I finally feel like I’m in Australia, today we went to Litchfield National Park and spent the entire day hiking and swimming in waterfall-fed springs. We left our apartment complex and drove off to the park. There were 20 of us in the group, it definitely felt more touristy than Africa but at that point I didn’t care. About 5 minutes from getting to our first stop, we had our first interesting moment of the trip. We were on a lone road heading into the park following a small car in front. Everyone had been out late the night before, most were still drunk or hung-over, and so they were all sleeping. All of the sudden the car in front of us slammed on its’ brakes because a small bird (which is equivalent to pigeons in the US) ran in the middle of the road causing the car to come to an immediate stop. Our driver, who was driving a large van type thing and driving quite close, had no time to stop and slammed the car in front of us. However, because we were with a tour we were prepared, and had a bush-guard on the front of our van. A bush-guard is essentially large metal piping that is indestructible. So we smashed the back of the car pretty good, the trunk wouldn’t even shut anymore. Everyone described the event as very sobering, and from that point on we were all awake. We spent a few minutes on the side of the road as the drivers talked things over, and then soon we were back on the road.

A little bit down the road we stopped at a termite mound spot. We got to stand beside termite mounds that were at least 15-20 feet tall. It reminded me a lot of Africa. From there we went to our first falls. We spent the first 45 minutes hiking around the falls and then a little bit of time swimming underneath them. There was a hidden pool near the one waterfall with a warm spring. It was kind of like a small Jacuzzi in the side of a rock wall. After we got out, we grabbed lunch and went on to the second waterfall. On our walk down to the base of this waterfall we came across a rock wallaby which was hiding in the rocks; naturally. It was my first official Australian wildlife spotting! Once we got down to the pool, we jumped in and swam around again and then we decided to get out after being attacked by a school of fish. A few days before a bunch of us went out and played sand soccer with a few of the locals and some Irish guys we had met. From the game I had lots of cuts and bruises on my leg. I guess the fish were attracted to it and suddenly I found myself in the middle of a school being bitten by the fish all at one spot on my knee. I don’t think I could say it was the most fun thing ever. So we got out and hiked back to our car-smashing tour van. We went off to our last pool which turned out to be a set of about a dozen small pools formed in the rocks. They ranged from 20 feet to 1 foot deep. There was a small (less than 2 feet) waterfall at the top pool and the guide showed us how to swim behind it. There wasn’t much room and from outside it didn’t look like it was possible to swim behind it, so we had a good time playing around behind there. We spent a few minutes in each pool and eventually made our way down to the bottom pools. Apparently I’m not only a fast walker, but also a fast pool-skipper. One of the guys, Raj, and me continued exploring down the pools and finally came across a fairly deep one. As we were swimming in it, an older lady was walking across the rocks crossing the water and slipped falling back on her head. We ran over to see how she was and it turned out she split the back of her head open quite far. Blood was running down into all the other pools and we had to get a bunch of guys to lift her out of the pools. We then realized that we were more in the way than helping so we went down onto the last pool. There we found the deepest water and hung out there with the rest of the group for a bit. After we were done there, we went back to the van and took off for home. We stopped on the way an aboriginal store with didgeridoos and original paintings. The locals there were rehabilitating a wallaby so we got to pet it and play with it. One of the local parrots there seemed to also think it was a wallaby and would follow it around and imitate it. It even walked around and ate grass. I got to talk with the shop owner and she explained aboriginal art and traditions to me. By that point I was pretty exhausted and from there we went home. All-in-all it was a great day and I’m finally seeing the beauty of Australia.

I’m beginning to realize that indigenous people really had things figured out before we came and invaded all of their land. One thing different about Africa from Australia is that in Africa the tribal aspect is still very prevalent, and it is something that the people are extremely proud of. However in Australia the aboriginals have been outcast much like the Native Americans of the United States. I started thinking about the church and how much of a role it has had in disrupting these people’s way of life. I think the neat part about Africa is that the church was still present, but it didn’t get rid of the culture of Africa. So many times the church has come in to a place and felt that if it was going to be a good missionary, it needed to convert the people to become like they were. If we are the church we must have things figured out and surely people want to be like us. But the Gospel is not the same as the American dream. In Africa, I would have people from the church talk to me about how they were apart of the Masai tribe, or the Arusha tribe, and they loved their culture and their history. Yet the church was still a crucial part of their life and what they centered everything around. It seems nowadays we don’t feel like spending the time to get to know the people we are going to and instead just try to shove the Gospel down their throat. I don’t see how that strategy would ever work. We serve a God who has created thousands of different cultures for us to live among. We are meant to learn from different cultures, not change them all to the same thing. I think I’m beginning to realize why the rest of the world says that America is the country that needs a lot of prayer. I used to think that Africa and other third-world countries were the ones in need of help, but America is facing an even bigger challenge in front of them. We live in a quicksand-like culture, we must be careful not to get drug into the mess surrounding us. But if we can learn to live outside this world, outside of the mess, we find that it truly is a beautiful creation that God has placed us in the middle of.