Cont'

The second story that I did not get around to telling last week was about a Finnish guy I met in Airlie Beach. Joona (a variation of Jonah), had been backpacking through Australia for a few months at this point and stopped in Airlie to see the usual sites. He had been traveling with his girlfriend of 3 years and they had started in Sydney and gone all the way south and right up the middle through the outback, than down from the North through Cairns and stopped at this point in Airlie. This is a fairly typical backpacker route.
On this journey Joona and his girlfriend had made many friends from all over the world. And at one particular stop his girlfriend got a too close to one of these friends and cheated on Joona. Now Joona had to travel Australia with this girl and this guy or at least stay in Airlie with them. I won't go to into detail about what he was going through, but needless to say it was a tough situation for him to be in. Being in a foreign country on your own away from support or friends and actually immersed in a culture (backpacking) that tells you to escape your sorrows. Leave home, drink, do drugs, find false intimacy. People around him were challenging his character and suggesting that it was because of who he was that he lost his girlfriend. Telling him he had to be meaner and aggressive and angry. He was a great guy, but he was broken.
I was praying moment before I met him that God's presence would be so thick on the Chai Tent that people would walk in and just fall to their knees in tears understanding their need for Jesus and desperation in life. As I was praying Joona walked in and broke into tears and one of the girls asked him what was wrong and if he needed someone to talk to, then grabbed me to come and have a chat with him. We talked for a long time I prayed for him and encouraged him in who he was and to keep being who God created him to be. He just kept remarking that the wisdom I was giving him was completely contradictory to what everyone was saying, but he knew it was the truth and REAL wisdom. He asked how I could have so many answers if I have only just met him and heard his situation. I told him the bible has a lot of answers and God knows him deeply and intimately and its just a question of whether he wants to know God. We talked for many more hours and really got close. I took his mobile number and when he comes to Brisbane on his travels he is going to stop at our house and take a break from backpacking, hang around the base and plug into our community. Although he hasn't received Christ YET, he is only going to continue feeling empty on his journeys and will eventually get to the base and feel alive. God will definitely do something inside of him.

Praise God, please pray for Joona! He needs the prayers in this time. Yes that he would come to know jesus, but also that he would have strength in this tough time and meet REAL good friends.