Ever since we found out our outreach teams at the end of week 4 many of us had been wondering what it will be like when everybody gets back. Will it be awkward, will it be joyful, indifferent, or what? Some of my fears came true, some didn't. I was afraid I'd sort of fall back into feeling disconnected from everyone and just start to fade away, especially when I was the only student girl in my team, and hadn't really managed to build rock solid relationships with the guys who ended up disappearing once the other teams arrived. But I realised that I just had to decide not to let the feeling of not fitting in to take over me but to walk in the opposite spirit and stand against the awkwardness. So I chose to fight and I ended up finding the person who I'd become on outreach. Feels like that sad timid girl that had taken over me around christmas is now gone and I'm actually starting to be myself again. It's awesome.
We had a couple of days of just relaxing and hanging out. It was weird being back at the base - it felt like I hadn't been gone at all, yet at the same time it felt like I had been gone for years. The February schools (Beach to buch dts, sports dts and Frontiers dts) had invaded the base and my old room was now full of people I didn't know, and our old classroom was now used by the Frontiers dts. We didn't even have a chance to get back into the routine as we were sent to the town of Toowomba for our last little step into missions - Easterfest.
Easterfest is the largest Christian music festival in Australia, and all the schools available from our base (excluding the schools that were still on outreach) were helping out as volunteers. All of us were still exhausted from outreach, and having heard only horror stories of last year's rainy and muddy festival, none of us were too excited to go. I had absolutely zero motivation for this last crusade, but was truly surprised by the experience in the end. It ended up being the most gorgeous weekend the festival had seen in years. And the jobs I got were easy and the teams were sweet. The food was amazing. Worst part of the weekend were the nights, as the temperature dropped down quite a bit, and my superthin sleepingbag was pretty useless. Getting barely 6 hours of sleep, working 9 hours a day, I was pretty nackered afterwards. And I also didn't shower for 5 days, which I think is my personal record during the dts. I didn't really get to see any of the bands that I wanted to, and wasn't bothered to go see the once I could've. I did see a little bit of sanctus real, but I didn't really like them. I did see the guys from Hawk Nelson in person, though not on stage. I said "excuse me" to one of them, as he was blocking my way in the music store. I'm so cool! The headline artists weren't really that good anyway. I did see a couple of artists on the smaller stages, and I thought they were actually better than the ones on mainstage. But in the end it wasn't about the music at all. What made Easterfest so great for me were the randomest times when I got to witness things like a 3-metre teddy bear being pulled up to a tree ( I have pictures) or random guys playing guitar for us while we were just sitting by the gates checking people's wristbands. And most of all discovering my confidence again. Even though I hadn't showered in 5 days, hadn't slept more than 6 hours each night for just as long, I still felt beautiful and confident in who I was, and I still had the strentgh to push all the way till 2am the last night, as we were taking down the chai tent. It was an awesome experience, and really showed me how much outreach had taught me.
Coming back from Easterfest on Monday we were even more exhausted. We were going to go to Harvey Bay on tuesday, but it got postponed till Thursday, which was really good. We had 2 extra days to just relax and hang out, and that's basicly all that we've been doing - absolutely nothing. Now we have ahead of us a week of debrief with the MAD school, it'll be good to have entire school in one place once again. We'll be sharing stories of outreach and also ust processing the stuff that's been going on for the last week. It's gonna be good, Im sure.
Now it's getting late and I still need to pack up all my earthly posessions on this side of the world before going to bed, so it'd better be going then. Keep me in your prayers still, especially as the Re-entry depression is lurking at my door trying to get in. See you in a week!
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