What a great big God we have! And what an amazing landscape we have in Australia! It was incredible to look down on the vast red land of the “outback” as well as the bright green mountains of Blayney and think that our great big God made all of it.

On my first ever Outback trip with Quiz Worx we flew in a big loop through the middle of Australia. Starting in Lightning Ridge, we then flew into S.A, visiting Maree, Andamooka, Leigh Creek, Hawker, and then back through NSW via Broken Hill, Menindi, Wilcannia and Ivanhoe.

While there was much about the trip that was awesome, it was not without its challenges. Most of the schools we visited were very small and it’s much harder to get a group of 20 kids up and jumping to a song than it is with a group of 200 kids.

It’s particularly hard when half those kids are older than our normal audience age. Many of the towns only had one school, with students from K-12, so we often did our show for the high school kids too. But although it’s a challenge to engage with the older kids, it’s wonderful to know that they got to hear the message of the gospel as well.

This trip was also the first time I was confronted with the fact that our message won’t always be welcome. One school, although knowing we were going to do a “Christian” puppet show, didn’t expect it to be overly religious.

So after explaining the content of the show Chris waited outside the principal’s office (that’s right!) while the principal asked some more questions.

I remember praying while I was waiting. I was very nervous and part of me was hoping that the show would be cancelled, but then I realized how important it was for the kids at that school to hear the gospel, since it didn’t seem like they had any teachers who would tell them about it.

Yet again, our great big God showed us that he was in control. They did let us do the show, so praise God that these kids heard that Jesus is the way to the party in heaven.

The outback trip also brought opportunities to meet other brothers and sisters in Christ. Their hospitality and generosity is always an encouragement.

One such encouragement was when we stopped in Broken Hill. We weren’t even doing a show there, we were just stopping over, but we were invited to a Bible Study dinner. One of the people there was actually one of our supporters!

They were encouraged by hearing about our ministry and we were encouraged by their prayers for us. Don’t you love how our great big God is at work in every moment of our lives!

It is a privilege that Quiz Worx gets to travel to such remote communities as part of our work. And it’s awesome to know that Australia is a great big land. But most of all, it is encouraging to know that our great big God is Lord over it all.