Our Adventures in Queensland!!

Well it has been a while since our last update. We have driven many kilometres and have once again seen God show his incredible faithfulness and provision for this ministry.

After a great time in Sydney we headed north to Brisbane where we were welcomed by the lovely warm Queensland weather. Following a 12 hour long drive along the beautiful coast, we arrived in Brisbane where Sean was able to play at Nexus Church to help promote his CD launch which was held at their venue 1 month later on August, 28th. We had a great time at both family services and were blessed by their hospitality and incredible generosity. The following few days we visited a conference and large primary school at which Sean was very well received.

Next we headed south to the Gold Coast for a week packed with fun and many performances. God did some amazing things here and answered many prayers. Sean performed 7 times at a church, several schools, as well as a concert and a live radio interview on Juice FM. Our time in the Gold Coast was organised by Nicola, a lady we met earlier this year at Citipointe Church. As a part of the concert promotion we also visited a few public schools for the first time. The kids and teachers all loved the songs and around 240 people came to see Sean’s concert on the Friday night.

We also made some time in our hectic schedule to visit Movie World and Sea World which was awesome fun!! As you will see Sean did most of the rides as I was in charge of the photography, but he did trick me into doing the “not so scary” Scooby Doo ride, which I will never fall for again as I screamed the entire time! Sean also took me to watch the Australian Outback Spectacular where we enjoyed a great performance and a quality 3 course meal!

From here we headed back to Brisbane to stay with my Mum’s lovely 2nd cousin and her family. We had a great time catching up with them in between a week packed with Lutheran Schools, another live radio interview on UCB/Vision Fm and a family service at Gateway church.

By now Sean’s voice was a little sore, so we took a week off and headed to the stunning Sunshine Coast, where we stayed in Caloundra. Sean spent his last 3 years of high school here, so it was nice for him to reflect on some memories and show me around. We shared some romantic walks on the beautiful beaches, delicious lunches and icecreams in the towns of Mooloolaba, Maroochydore and Noosa, as well as catching up with some of Sean’s old school mates. I also made a Masterchef's recipe with chocolate brownie, vanilla bean icecream, fresh raspberries, crumbled fudge, chocolate sauce and tried to make spun sugar - sorry Gary, it does not look as good as yours, but it was very yummy though!!

Following a great time on the coast we headed 3 hours north to Maryborough where we stayed with our amazing friends and the major sponsors of our tour – Graham and Amanda Waterson of Riverlife “On the move” Ministries. We had such a wonderful time catching up and getting to know their beautiful family more as we only got to briefly say hello when we met them in Brisbane at Citipointe Church in March.

After having a relaxing afternoon with their 3 daughters Laura, Danielle and Brittany, and enjoying some amazing food we headed off together to Hervey Bay to see gospel singer/songwriter Steve Grace and his band live in concert. We had a great evening and thoroughly enjoyed his performance. After chatting with Steve for a while and making some new friends/contacts, we headed home.
The next day we performed at Graham and Amanda’s church Tinana Christian Fellowship and had a fantastic time. We were extremely blessed by their generosity once again and spent the afternoon catching up with some of the crew from the church.

While we were in Maryborough, we were also fortunate to catch up with Rina’s cousin Lawrence Eckard and his lovely wife, Steph, for the first time in many years. After saying our farewells, we left the caravan in Maryborough and headed 9 hours further north to Mackay where we spent 7 days visiting one of our best friends Luke and Vanessa Harrison. We had such an amazing time catching as we had not seen them in over 3 years. We were treated to incredible food (Chilli ginger mud crab, incredible fresh fish, homecooked gourmet pizzas), wake boarding on Luke’s new speed boat and Luke blessed us by servicing our Troopy and building Sean an amazing sign made out of lights for his Melbourne DVD concert which was going to cost us over $5000 to get made!! Thank you Jesus : )

One of the funny things about Sean and his mate Luke is they are complete opposites. Sean is mister safety and Luke is mister go get em crazy!! Everytime Sean goes to visit, he always manages to hurt himself and this time was no different (see pic). Sean was pushing the boat off the concrete moaring when his foot slipped and he fell head first into the water and onto a large sharp steel pipe sticking up out of the river!!! Thank goodness it didn’t get his face….He would never stop looking in the mirror : )
While we were there we also visited 2 schools, did a newspaper interview and played at Luke and Vanessa’s Church, New Life Christian Centre, where the pastor told Sean that Mackay is the hot spot of Australia and we should move here asap : )

After saying a sad farewell we headed 2 hours inland to visit our cousin Gerhard and Anita Eckard in a coal mining town called Moranbah. It was so lovely to meet their gorgeous little boy Gerhard Jr and spend some time getting to know them better and also catch up with his parents.

Following a 2 day break there, we headed all the way back down to Maryborough to pick up the caravan and drove to Brisbane for a very busy few days including a school and Sean’s Brisbane CD Launch. After much prayer and very little advertising or promotion, Sean’s Brisbane concert was a great success. Over 120 people came which was amazing considering he had never played in Brisbane before and everyone loved it!! God is so good : ) Several kids and their parents came from schools Sean had played at, and one little girl loved Sean so much that she brought 10 of her friends for her birthday party instead of having one at home!!

The next day Sean performed a concert at another big church in Brisbane to over 500 people. Many of the children there had seen Sean at their school and were very quick to tell their parents that this was the awesome guy who came to their school and that they have to get a CD!!!

The following day we headed south to the Gold Coast for a few days to perform at All Saints Anglican College and finish Sean’s brand new website, which bye the way is now up and running!! http://www.seanwsmith.com/ – check it out!

It was lovely to see my other cousin, Franciska as well, and we had a real nice South African "braai" with her and her boyfriend!
After chilling, sleeping in and visiting Wet and Wild where we ran into some friends from Busselton, we packed our things and headed 12 hours south to Sydney for another amazing adventure where I’m sure God is going to blow us away again!!

Until next time guys...take care!

Love

Sean and Rina

NSW - Here we come!!

Wow - how time flies!!

After nearly 3 months on the road, we have almost reached the halfway point of the tour and as you can see from the expression on Ned's face, we are sooo excited about what God has done and what He still has in store to come!

After an amazing few weeks in Victoria, we hit the road on June 14th to perform and explore our nations capital - Canberra......or as we now refer to it.......Canbrrrrrrrrrra : )

Due to bad planning on my part, Rina and I have spent much of winter touring the bottom half of Australia where the weather is delightfully wet, cold and FREEZING, instead of up north where the sun shines and the sensible people go : ) Although it was a little chilly, we did manage to take advantage of the cold weather hitting the ski slopes at Perisher and visiting 2 amazing schools during our few days in Canberra. (See pics)

After a bit of shopping, catching up with Leighton and Hannah's family, looking around, losing my wallet, being pulled over by the police for a license check after losing my wallet, explaining to him that I just lost my wallet but I haven't reported it yet, having the policeman reply - "How convienient", searching all that night for my missing wallet, coming to the realisation that I now no longer have a wallet, we decided it was time to head for Sydney!!! God is still Good - Romans 8:28

About halfway between Canberra and Sydney we stopped for a night to visit our best friends parents Ken and Izabel Harrison in Mittagong, about 2 hours South West of Sydney. It was great to see them again after so long and they even arranged for us to visit their church the next morning so I could play a song. After performing and staying for a coffee, Ken offered to do a little bit of maintainence on the caravan which was a blessing as I am about as handy as a 2 cent piece when it comes to fixing stuff, so we stayed fo another hour and then set off for Sydney.

We arrived at our caravan park early evening which was beautiully surrounded by lovely bushland, yet right smack in the dead centre of town - Literally!! The cemetery was right next door : ) How thoughtful of them...After settling in for a day or 2 we were back performing again at several schools all across the city which was amazing as usual!

During the evenings when we could be dragged out of the caravan and into the cold, we ventured out to visit celebrity chef Pete Evans restrauant from My Kitchen Rules called 'Hugos' in Manly. While Rina went back home for a couple of days over the end of finacial year, I took the chance to do a little exploring of my own and checked out Bondi Beach, Olympic Park, ANZ Stadium, The SCG, Fox Studios and of course the Harbour Bridge. After several days of eating the same meal, showering very little and wearing the same clothes, I decided to clean up my act and go and meet with Hillsongs main Children's Pastor Nathan who was really keen to catch up for coffee. This was a really great chance for me to get to know him before the craziness of the conference began and to find out a bit about how they do their albums and DVD's as well as of course - talking about me!!

After picking up my gorgeous wife from the airport we headed for an incredible week at Hillsong Conference where we caught up with Sarah Durell and Steph Kara as well as hearing from TD Jakes, Tim Hughes, Andy Stanley, Judah Smith, Stan Walker and heaps more. Because we were VIP's we got to go back stage and hang out with all of the Hillsong crew in the breaks as well as chat to a few of them which was very cool. There was probably about 15000+ people there each night so the evening rallies were incredible.

Over the course of the week Rina and I performed 3 times at Kidsong which was amazing! We played on Tuesday at the night rally to over 600 kids which was absolutely nuts and they loved it. On Thursday we played twice in an outdoor ampitheatre to another 600 kids and had a heap of fun. Over the 2 days we performed God totally blessed us by selling lots of merch, as well a having loads of kids come and say how much they loved it and saying that they have even seen me at their school!


Well thats all for now. We leave for Queensland now which Rina is very happy about and know that God is going to continue doing good things.
Thank you to all those who pray for us and please keep in touch.

All our love and God bless

Sean and Rina

Sean W Smith Rocks Melbourne!

Well, here we are in Melbourne - home of the AFL, great shopping and PEAK HOUR TRAFFIC!! We have been incredibly blessed during our 3 weeks here and are excited to be able to share with you some of what our awesome God has been doing. But before we get right into the good stuff....lets first make you slightly jealous by telling you about some of our relaxing and exciting adventures!!

After a fantastic time in Adelaide, we packed up the caravan and set off toward Melbourne along the Great Ocean Road for a week of eating, sleeping, sightseeing and relaxing. Sean took the opportunity to rest his voice which was greatly needed and I did all the talking...yay : )

Our first stop was at a small town on the coast of SA called Robe. We grabbed fish and chips and settled back to watch some quality Tuesday night TV, only to discover our antenna wasn't working...so we agreed on an early night and snuggled instead! We'll leave it there : )

After packing up we headed for the seaside town of Warrnambool where we stayed for 2 nights. On the way there we visited an old volcano crater called Blue Lake (see pic above) which was spectacular and managed to polish off a whole box of Cheezels! Impressive : ) The next day we found the local mini golf park and I insisted that we go head to head in the 18 hole championship as I was fairly confident that Sean was hopeless at golf...as it turns out he was pretty good. He ended up winning by 2 points and scored a hole in one.....but unfortunately for him, I walked away with the real victory as I scored the best score any woman from WA has achieved and got my name on the Hall of Fame. (check out the pics)

After our 2 days there we headed down the Great Ocean Road which literally is all the way along the water - it really is breathtaking. Stopped to check out the 12 apostles which sadly now look like 5, but anyway was worth a look, before stopping at a tiny town called Wye River. What an adventure to get to our camp site...we had to drive across this tiny man made bridge that looked like it was built 200 years ago! The caravan made it over without any damage, but only just. The next day we headed to Geelong where we checked out Robin Hood at the movies and treated ourselves to Noodle Box for tea. After spending some time at the foreshore praying and looking around, we headed for Melbourne where a very busy 3 weeks was about to begin....

We arrived at our amazing friends Chad and Carla Smit's Sunday afternoon, who very generously invited us to come and stay with them and their gorgeous little 10 month old girl, Lacey for our 3 weeks here in Melbourne (See pic below). We have had a great time here with them...thanks guys for everything, you're so awesome, love ya heaps and can't wait to see you again in October!

The tour officially began again that week with 5 school performances. Sean did a mission at 2 very upper class grammar schools and spoke on honouring your parents which the kids loved and finished on the Friday with a combined schools concert. The kids enjoyed the songs and Sean's illistrations really connected and showed how much God desires to be in relationship with each one of them. On the Saturday, Sean took me down to Skilled Stadium in Geelong, home of the Cats to watch them play verses the Melbourne D's...Apart from the rain and Sean forgetting to print off the tickets.... it was great fun : )

On Sunday - MY BIRTHDAY - Sean convienently booked 2 concerts at a couple of big churches in the area and even managed to get us invited to an early morning breakfast to get out of making me brekkie in bed!!! Anyway, we had a great day and God blessed us incredibly with a great response at both venues and lots of fun!

The next week we played at 4 Christian Schools across Melbourne and then played 3 shows on the weekend at New Hope Baptist Church, which is where Sean will be filming his live DVD in October. To say we were blessed here is an understatement!! God looked after us incredibly and undoubtably went before us and prepared a way.
We got to meet Phil Gaudion from the Paul Colman Trio who loves Sean's music and really encouraged us to keep going and that we have a great gift. He and his lovely wife Tamara kindly invited us over to their home for dinner where their kids asked Sean to do a mini concert before they had to go to bed!! We had a great time talking about their journey and life on the road with PC3 and Third Day and were able to get some good insight into the Christian Music Industry. We had lunch with one of my YWAM friends, Manori and her hubby, Matt, and it was great to catch up after not seeing each other for 6 years!! Thanks guys for your hospitality, bless ya! Finished off the week at Etihad Stadium, good game...the Doggies made a great come back in the last quarter against the Pies, but not enough to beat them, unfortunately! (see pic below)

Finally, this past week we had a few days off before playing at a school yesterday and 4 shows over this weekend at CityLife Church which we are really excited about. As well as cheering for the Eagles tomorrow as we are going to see the game at the MCG, hopefully they will win as they play Ricmond : )

Have met some incredible people who have encouraged us and given us wisdom and offers to help whenever and however they can. Everyone truely believes Sean has an amazing gift and that God is going to do great things. Have had lots of good feedback about the new CD and are very excited about recording the live DVD in Oct. Met an amazing christian guy who used to work at Channel 7 who is going to head up the filming side of things for Sean and another well known Melbourne singer who has been able to help Sean vocally with some voice training. Had one of the Children's Pastors from the church randomly ask to meet with Sean and gave him an amazing word that confirmed some things that we both have felt God lay on our hearts, so that was awesome!! We can't begin to even explain how amazing it is that God has brought the right venues, churches and people across our paths....so the only thing we can do is rest in the knowledge that He has this all in His control!! Off to Canberra on Monday for a few days before heading to Sydney to play at a few schools and the Hillsong Kids Conference!!

Sean's voice for all those wondering is much better and we really believe God is completely healing it!

Until next time....please keep us in your prayers and love to you all.
Sean and Rina

The Journey Begins

Well we have finally become bloggers!! Rina and I figured this was the easiest way for us to keep everyone updated with all our exciting adventures and life on tour as we seem to meet more and more people who want to journey with us and it is becoming increasingly difficult to remember everyones email addresses!!

So, this is where we will post all of our news, photos, videos and general useless information we feel inspired to share....and perhaps some things of interest because we would hate to bore you with our stories of relaxing, sightseeing, eating and sleeping in till all hours of the day : ) We're sure no-one wants to hear about that....

Anyway, we want to start this blog by thanking everyone for your prayers and support over these past few months. Life on the road has been an amazing adevnture so far, and we want to share a few of the amazing things God has done since we arrived here in Adelaide, South Australia.

For those of you who have journeyed with us for any time will know the challenges we have endured just to get here today. Losing my voice, needing to sell our house and 2 cars, finishing the new album, organising a 6 month national tour as well as buying a caravan and 4wd all before we left seemed like an almost impossible task 1 and half months out before the tour. Luckily our amazing God has great plans for us and His promises never fail - 1 Thes 5:24.

Now 2 months on we can testify of Gods incredible faithfulness!! The album is finished and is now available Australia wide, Sean has been overwhelmed with bookings to churches and schools great and small (Hillsong, Edge Church, Citylife...), God provided a beautiful 18ft Caravan and 2004 Landcruiser Troopy for us to borrow free of charge (see pics), We sold Rina's Audi just 1 day before we flew out to Adelaide and have slowly been getting my voice back day by day!!! God is sooo good.

Now to the here and now - Since arriving in Adelaide we have been incredibly blessed by Adelaides warmth and hospitality, as well as seeing God open some amazing doors and opportunities for us and His Holy Spirit to move.

We have played in numerous Christian and Lutheran Schools as well as a few conferences and Churches with great response and feel God has given us a timely message to help Connect Children with God!! Have spent a few days exploring the coast and hills as well as catching up with new friends for lunch and dinner. Off this weekend to AAMI Stadium to watch Port Adelaide vs Carlton which is the other unofficial reason why we are touring Australia - to visit every ground around the nation!!!

Anyway, we are really excited about what God is doing and the seeds He is sowing through this ministry. Please keep us in your prayers as we finish our time here in Adelaide and head off to Melbourne for an extremely busy and highly anticipated time ahead! God has opened some incredible doors and opportunities for us to play, however we are aware the enemy is not happy as my voice is still really quite sore and desparately needs Gods healing power. On a week break so please continue to uphold us and this minstry in your prayers.

Until next time - God Bless

Love Sean and Rina