Darwin and East Timor... major outreach all wrapped up

WOW! What can I say?

I have fallen in love with East Timor and I pray that God would make a way for me to come back to East Timor!

From the start.....

We arrived in Darwin and we got picked up at night time and taken to the YWAM base in Darwin which is the sister base to YWAM Townsville. While we were in Darwin we got to work with the aboriginal community alot.
We went to a church called the 'Longrass mansion' where we would serve food to the people who would come, and we would spend time getting to talk to the people who came to the church. We did that a few times while we were in Darwin adn we also joinjed in on there church service on Sundays while we were there but we never were asked to lead the service - just to join in.
In Darwin there is a community called 'Bagot Community' where our team went and we would go talk to the people in the community and then find all the kids who lived there and take them to this water park in the afternoon and for a BBQ dinner.

When we first arrived at the community, we turned down the drive way and the first thing we see is a car on the side of the road that had been destroyed somehow - it had smashed windows and it was in really bad condition. To add to that, there were not many people in the community walking around so it was really quiet and it reminded me of a horror movie almost because it was so eery when we first arrived there.
We were working with two people, David and Isabel, who have been helping in the aboriginal community for ten years already. They do such an amazing job and are so obedient to God in doing this work - they are amazing people of God!
Each friday we went back to Bagot community and we rounded up all the kids in the community and piled them into the vehicles and we were off to the water park.
What amazed me the most was that this water park was free and it was pretty cool! In New Zealand you would have to pay to go to a place like this...
While we were at the park our team would give a short skit and message and share the gospel with the kids who came. Isabel said that they needed to share the gospel each time because they didn't know how many of the people would be alive next week... crazy!

(Making sandwiches for the homeless at vinnies)

(Making sandwiches for the homeless at vinnies)

(Longgrass Mansion church)

On Sundays we would go back to the community at night time and be apart of leading the church service. The difference with church at this community was that there was not a specific time for church to strat because even if you set a time, the people who came would come at their own time anyway. That meant that we could have a late night. We had to go walk around the community and invite people to church as well as people would be picked up to come to church.
Each Sunday some of us would share a testimony or a short message to the people and Katie and Hannah did an amazing job at leading worship! They are really good at singing and Hannah plays the keyboard beautifully!!

Other opportunities we got given in Darwin were to help serve other churches by doing some cleaning and maintenance around the property and some of the people in the team also got to go to a detention centre and hang out with the kids there and also we went to a middle school and hung out with the kids on their lunch break.

We also got to be apart of the  lectures and prayer and worship time with the DTS students and staff that were at the base at the time and help out at 'Vinnies outreach centre' serving lunch to the homeless and cleaning up around the property - the ladies we met there were so cool! They gave us a certificate so we could remember our time there and the also shouted us  a trip to 'Crocydylus park' for the day to go feed the crocs and hold baby crocs and have a look at all the other animals there too! It was a really good day!
We had a team photo holding 2 baby crocs :):)

Darwin is a really beautiful place and we got to have a few BBQ dinners as a team and with everyone at the Darwin base one night too. We had a really cool worship night at the beach the night we had the BBQ with the Darwin team - that was for Easter weekend.
The team at the Darwin base are all so nice - I loved getting to know them.
There was Tara, Ryan, Andrea, Ron, Shelly, Kurt, Becky, Wendy, Joel, Jordan, and others but I can't remember their names - we have met so many people!

Now to East Timor - WOW WOW WOW! I love it soooooooooooooooo much!
The kids, the adults, the village, the staff who helped us - what amazing people - I love them so much!

We went from Darwin to Dili on the plane which took 1 hour - Dili is the main city of East Timor.
Roberto and Anabel, some of the staff at the base came and picked us up from the airport and took us back to the YWAM base.

(Dili, Eas Timor airport)

(Arrival in Dili, East Timor)

(Part of the YWAM Base Dili)

(Our room in Dili)

We got to sit on the back of a truck and drive through the city!! And it wasn't illegal! :):) It was so much fun!
As we drove past, lots of people would wave at us and say 'malai' which means 'stranger or foreigner'.
It is nothing like the western world of course but regardless of that it is such a beautiful country! The traffic is crazy - there seems to be no rules really but that made it kinda fun whenever we rode in the back of a truck.
We got to the base and got settled in to our rooms and had lunch. In  the afternoon some of the team went to this place where the staff of the base taught a kids service and also 3 of the people who came went for a hike up to a village where they got to meet people and pray for them I think ... soemthing like that.
The kids service was taught in Portugese I think so none of the kdis understood english. That meant we couldn't understand but we still joined in where we could like playing a game with them :)

When the service finished I got to get a ride back to the base on the scooter with Elizabeth I think her name was! It was cool because she needed to stop off for some food on the way back to the base so I got to see some more of Dili. It started raining a little while we were out so we got a bit wet but it was ok :)

The next morning was the morning we would leave for the village we were going too. The village was called 'Seurtulan' and the language they spoke was 'Tatum'. We got to learn some of their language while we were in the village - it was so cool!
As we were driving up to the village, we were on the back of 2 trucks. It took about 4 hours to arrive in the village and the road was full of potholes so it was a very bumpy ride. The drivers had to beep their horn when they went around a corner because the roads were narrow. The people we passed on the way to the village would call out 'malai' too. 
We got to see so much on the drive up to the  village and it was amazing to see the markets set up on the sides of the roads and the houses and how different they all were compared to the western world!
We stopped in a city called 'Manatuto' which was about an hour away from the village and it was so amazing to see the way it was all set up - it was nothing flash like the western world but at the same time it was so beautiful!!! I LOVE EAST TIMOR!

(View from our drive to Seurtulan)

(View from our drive to Seurtulan)

Anyway... Some of the team had their first experience shopping in East Timor there, even if it was just a small purchase.
When we arrived in the village, the kids of t he community came chasing after the truck to the house where we were staying and they wanted to help us get all the gear inside. They would tell us their name but it definately took a few days to remember them because they are so different! We got to play with them that afternoon and it was so much fun! I was playing with a ball with some of the kids there as soon as we got there basically.

(Beautiful Seurtulan kids)

(Beautiful Seurtulan kids)

(Beautiful Seurtulan kids)

(Beautiful Seurtulan kids)

(Beautiful Seurtulan kids)

So much happened! So I will not right everything but just some things...
-We would help teach english and health to the kids in the community
-We would lead a kids service and teach them about God more
-We would have worship with the community almost every night
-We helped build some of the houses in the community for the people who will move in
-We had intercession and team time alternating every morning
-Our leaders helped deliver a baby
-We came to see the baby be baptised
-Build and rebuild a temporary church for our time in the village
-We prayed for people, and the village itself
-We got to walk to a beautiful waterfall and go for a swim
-We got to walk up to see the big Jesus statue
-We got to go to a memorial place in Dili
-We got to go to a museum and see the history and even recent history of East Timor
-We got to go to a BEAUTIFUL beach and have lunch there
-We got to play volleyball with people in the community in the vilage
-We  got to play with the kids everyday in the community in the village
-We got to have movie night with the community in the village
-We got to have campfires with the community in the village
-We got to lead church each week in the village
-We go to to go Manatuto and have a look around the markets and eat out dinner at a  restaurant there
-We got to go to the markets in Dili and go shopping
.... and sadly enough, the East Timorese coffee beans we bought to bring were taken off of us at the airport because they hadn't been roasted yet and wern't allowed into Australia :(:( between our team we had payed $150 or about that for 140 cups of coffee beens that had to then be destroyed :( it was really sad because we were going to give some as gifts too... Oh well

So much happened!!! We were blessed back to so much!!!

It is good to be back in Townsville now and too see everyone again and my parents are here too for graduation week which is really good! :)

I hope you enjoyed this blog - the last blog I will write. I could have written more in detail about East Timor but that would make the blog even longer so I hope you get the idea a bit of what I got to do :)

Godbless <3
God is so good - I never would have had this opportunity without him!

Right back into it!

This week just gone past was our first week of lectures, after being on outreach for three weeks.
The topic that the speaker spoke on was 'Missions'.

It was a really good, inspiring week of lectures that we went through.

When the week started out, we looked at a whole lot of different statistics about christianity. That was encouraging because there was a lot of people who were Christians. After that we looked at statistics for the world, where people haven't been reached with the gospel.
There was a lot of people in that group too! It was kind of overwhelming all the statistics we saw I thought.

We were encouraged to read Deuteronomy, or Leviticus, because those books have a lot about the law that God put in place for how to live righteously and be blessed in the way we live.

We also had a look at the scripture Matthew 5:17-20 which says:
¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. ¹⁸ For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. ¹⁹ Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰ For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

It says that when we don't obey the least of these, and teach others to disobey the least of these, then we will be the least in the kingdom of heaven. One thing off of that, is to learn to read the bible and not think everything is being pointed at us individually when we read it , because it was written for  reason in a certain context.

When we look at the scripture as relating to nations, even today, because at the same time as this was written in history, it still relates to our world today; I saw it in a different light.
The law is not only about obeying God to tell people about how he is the worlds saviour, and he wants relationship with us and things about od along the same lines as that, the law is also the practical things like how to keep healthy.
When you read in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, there are alot of differnt laws, and some of them are about how to keep clean and healthy, and about being a generous nation looking out for the poor and then the nations would not be the least in Gods kingdom.

I had a thought during the lectures about how there are so many christian nations in the world, but at the same time they are still living in poverty. They have heard the message of salvation and that God is their hope, but God doesn't want it to stop there. He wants us who are rich to give to the poor and teahc them how to have a better life that is more blessed then what they are walking in. Even in the western world too.

This is a challenge to me too. So many times, I have walked right past people who are needy and poor and not done a thing to help them. We have to get out of our comfort zones and lay down our plans for God, adn I know how hard that is to do, even in the small things; but that is how we are going to make change in the world!

I know that even after writing this out, so many times I am still going to find it hard to surrender fully to doing what God asks of me, but I do really want to improve in that area of my walk with the Lord.

We were encouraged to think about the way we help people who are poor and needy to though. We don't want to create a mentality of welfare when we help the poor and needy, but teach them how to take responsibilty for their lives.

This week was so encouraging and refreshing too because it wasn't about us, but it was about helping other people!
One of the biggest challenges I have being back at the base is that I get comfortable and get into the mindset almost that I don't need to reach out to people while I am here, because I am not on outreach, and because there are so many distractions.
It is a challenge to get over that mindset while I am at the base.

_______________________________________________________________________________

This week outside of lectures, I have been hanging out and watching movies a few times because we have had a few nights where we havn''t had anything to do!
We watched Miss Congeniality, and Miss Congeniality 2, and City of angels.
When we watched City of Angels, I decided that the angels were not a good representation of real angels :)
But of course it is only a movie... :D

I have been thinking about my home in NZ alot lately - I have missed home so much lately!
I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again, and seeing my family again, and my church again too!! It is going to be so good to be home! But of course I don't want the rest of the time here to go too quickly either, because I have such a cool group of people on the school , and so many cool closer friends made with people in the school!

Other things that are going on is that not long ago now, the April ship DTS has started. They have been here for about 2 weeks now. All the people in the team are really nice too!

This week has been another really challenging week, and I am learning to lean on God more and more!

In a week we will be leaving for our major outreach, our first stop is Darwin. We will be going on the plane to Darwin, with a couple of different planes to board, and we get to Darwin after 9pm. I don't remember what time we leave
I am so excited especially for East Timore. We got told that when we get to East Timore, we go on the back of the truck to the village we are staying at, and depending on what village you go to, you could be on the truck for up to 10 hours. I don't think where we are going is going to take 10 hours though.
It is going to be such an exciting, challenging adventure!!
I can't wait!!!!!!!! :D:D

Minor outreach wrapped up in a blog :)

So our journey started off from Townsville one afternoon, we all piled into a van after packing away our 3 weeks’ worth of luggage, on our way to Ayr.

And we were off.....

It took us about an hour to arrive at our accommodation which was a little Burkendin Baptist church.

As we arrived, we were surprised and blessed to have a welcoming note written on the sign outside of the church.

As soon as we arrived, we also found some really yum pikelets that had been prepared for us, sitting on the table inside.

We had a snack, found a spot for our gear and then piled back into the van to go to ‘Coles’ to buy food for the first couple of days.

We arrived back at out accommodation, and were met by Gwen and her husband. Gwen was a huge blessing to us the entire time we were in Ayr.

She took us to Rotary Park which is a small area up a really steep drive that you can look out across the city. It was beautiful and the moon was amazing up there!

We were visited by Rock wallabies while we were up there, and one of them tried to eat our cake that we were eating for desert.

The rock wallabies were really cute!

There were several times we were blessed by being invited out for dinner by people in Ayr, and being given morning tea and things like that! There were so many hospitable people we met at Ayr.

On our schedule in Ayr, we visited several primary schools, to hang out with them at lunch time, and at one primary school, we helped by serving in the brekky club for the kids at the school.

At the primary schools where we hung out with the kids, we organised some games to play with them on their break.

It was so cool because all the kids just love you and want to hang out with you J

EAST AYR BREKKY CLUB



At one of the primary schools we went to, they held an after school programme called ‘Kids club’. Our team got to take part in helping lead that, and share a short message creatively about God to the kids.

The first time we did it, we shared the message that God has made us all different for a reason, and that we are all special in our own gifting and talents.

To share this message, some of our team members performed a skit.

There was a theme of ‘clowning around’ at the kids club for the two times we went.

On the first time when we shared about how we are all unique, we did a skit about a boy who wanted to join the circus, and he tried to be different things, like an acrobat, and a lion tamer, but he couldn’t do it because he wasn’t talented in those areas.

He picked up some balls (fruit) and began juggling, and he found an area where he was talented, and the ring master said that they needed a clown.

It was really simple, but it brought the message across really well to the kids.

After our skit and short message, we joined in on what else was organised for the kids, which were short skits that each group would do in front of everyone.

The second time we went to the kid’s club, we did a carry on from the previous skit.

We shared the message that sometimes we need help to do things, and we can’t do things in our own strength. We really need Gods strength, and that can come from God directly, or from God through other people.

To show this in a skit, the same people from last week came up.

The boy who was accepted to be a clown in the circus had his own show. He was trying really hard to prepare, but he was really nervous. The rest of the circus team would ask to help him, but he wouldn’t let them help.

The more he tried in his own strength, he kept failing.

Finally he went and asked for help – they suggested praying for God to help him and showed the kids that when he asked God for strength, he was able to do much better.

Again, after we had shared the message, we joined in on the circus activities that had been planned by the other leaders.

We had some really cool family dinners at the church we were staying at. One night, we celebrated Katie’s 19^th birthday as a family dinner and it was a really cool night!

One funny dinner we had was the very first night we had a lot of bugs everywhere in the church.

We were sitting down for about an hour, eating a really nice dinner – for the whole hour, bugs were flying at us, and on the table, and on our food! Big and small!

It was so funny that night because we were all up and down and moving around off of our chairs because they were everywhere!

After that it just became annoying! The bugs stuck around for a few nights, but when the weather cooled down, they started to leave which was really good.

Next though, we had baby frogs inside, and then I think one bigger one, AND... One night a mouse was inside – right after we had just watched a movie with a whole lot of rats in it!

What a coincidence J - I don’t think it was ever found either!

Luckily it ran up by the boy’s beds so we girls had nothing to worry about hehe J

While in Ayr and going around primary schools, we helped lead R.E classes – Religious education classes. This part of the primary schools is the only chance the kids have to hear about God openly, and it was a really cool opportunity to be used by God and speak into the lives of the kids Gods truth.

We had some really cool planning times as a team, praying about what God wanted to do, and then getting inspired and working on skits.

Some of the messages we shared with the kid’s were about, ‘loving your neighbour’ and we explained who the bible says our neighbours are. For that we did a ‘Good samaritan’ skit for the kids.

Another skit we did was about a class going on a school trip, and the teacher loses one kid, and goes to look for him. It was as simple as that, and the reason we did that was because we wanted to share from the parable of the lost sheep in Matthew.

We encouraged the kids that God chases after us when we wander away from him, because he loves us.

All of the R.E classes went really well. We had to think about how we could share the message God placed on our hearts in a way that they could understand, because they were only primary school kids, so some were quite a bit younger.

We also helped at a special needs school in Ayr. They were celebrating Harmony day, which I think was about celebrating people’s differences, and being all equal.

We helped lead some of their class by performing to them one of the circus skits, and helping by painting their hands so they could make hand prints on a piece of fabric that said ‘harmony day’.

It was a really cool time hanging out with them!

Other things we did in Ayr was help lead churches and youth groups, by either sharing testimonies, or what we have been doing;  or leading a whole service or youth group.

Everybody in the team did so amazingly in sharing testimonies and messages.

I got to share a message to a youth group, it is the first time I have ever really done anything like that – I have spoken in front of a church small group and lead the time, but not a youth group.

It was a challenge, but I loved being able to bring God glory and be used by him, and encourage people.

Each of us in our team had a go at speaking and either sharing a testimony of what God has done for them, or shared a short message.

Oh... and we also went to one high school and joined in on  some of the classes like P.E  and Science and Ecology – the science and ecology was very interesting because I didn’t remember anything really from when I did science at school that could have helped me.

Our team had 15 minutes in a primary school assembly to share and encouraging message about God to the kids, and at the same high school, Malloree and Erin shared their testimony to a few girls who came to a self-esteem class and it went really well!

From there we went to Airlie beach.

Airlie beach was a lot more relaxed in the sense that we didn’t have a full planned schedule.

We had a lot of time to do street evangelism – whether it was through walking around the street and  listening in to how God wanted to encourage somebody or speak to somebody, or though the BBQ’s we were able to hold by the beach.

The BBQ’s were really successful because we made simple flyers to hand out to people on the street and invite them to come, and we had a lot of people come too!

We got to meet a lot of people from different countries, because Airlie beach is a really touristy place and there were a lot of back packers!

We were able to learn about the people’s lives a bit and bless people, which was so rewarding to do!

We all got too meet some really cool people in Airlie beach too!

The house we stayed at, which was the YWAM base in Whitsunday (Airlie beach) was a really cool house. It was in the middle of a lot of tree’s, so it kind of felt like being in the middle of a rain forest.

We also would help around the house, cleaning and yard work to while we were in Airlie.

The funny thing about the house was that a creek ran through the drive way, and because it had been raining it was flowing over the driveway. We had to carry our gear through the creek to get to the house, but thankfully the water was only ankle deep!

It was so amazing to be used by God so much on outreach, even when it wasn’t necessarily talking directly about God, but just by being a role model to the kids at primary school, or by directly encouraging people with Gods truths, or meeting new people and blessing them with free food.

It was cool because when we had the free BBQ, people were like, ‘Why are you doing this?’, and we just really wanted to be a blessing to the people in the hope that they could see Jesus through it!

This outreach was really amazing and I loved being able to be used by God in this team!

God is so amazing and so good!

Nothing we will ever do could separate us from his love – even when I fail so many times, his love for me remains forever and until the end of eternity with him in heaven which thankfully has no end!

This love is promised to everybody who believes in God and all he has done through his son Jesus; that no matter what, if we keep coming to God with a repentant heart we will be forgiven of our sin, and his love for us will remain forever!

As crazy as it is to believe, when we let God reveal himself to us, it is more and more believable – it just takes faith, which always has room for growth.



Eyes off of us and on to God

Last week I didn't write a blog update for the week because it was a bit different to all the other lecture weeks we have had. It was a really encouraging week though.
We had lectures on 'inductive Bible Study' and we had a speaker who runs the Bible Core Course here at the base.

It was really good because we had a look at the book of Philemon which is  letter written by Paul in the New Testament. It was so cool because we got given tools for studying the bible and one thing we learnt is that it is really important to know the context of what was happening the time when the letter was written...because through knowing the context and culture of the time, you know the significance of what the church and the people involved did, because if we read it relating it to our culture, you can really misunderstand how much of a big deal the choices that were made were.

Also a cool not along the lines of that is that the bible wasn't written to us, but it was written for us. When we study the bible, we won't be in the same culture and context of the time the book was written, but there are principals that we can observe in each book that we can pull out and learn to apply to our lives.

It was such an encouraging week to start studying the bible more, because during that week of studying Philemon which is 1 page long, we god so much out of it! It was so incredible!

___________________________________________________________________________________

This week our lectures are on evangilism and the speaker is Steve Ahern. So far the week has been really good because we have been getting small homework assignments to do in lectures the next day, so that we can practice what we have been learning during that morning in lectures.

On Tuesday night (so last night) we had another lecture, but it was so cool! It was a time of being a blessing to others by giving encouraging words to people who God may have highlighted to us, or giving a physical gift to someone! It felt so rewarding to give to people without expecting anything in return.  It was not just a one night thing though, but this is something we should always be willing to do, and it can be a really simple way of expressing God's love to people.

BUT!!!!! The most amazing thing happened last night that I have never seen before in my life!
This is to testify that we can trust God, he is a provider, and he is real!

Some people still didn't have all their outreach fee's and altogether, the total amount needed for outreach cost was over $10,600. I can't remember exactly how much.
But when the night first started, everybody who still needed money stood up the front and we had music playing and had a time of giving to people financially. That lasted about maybe 10 minutes or something and then everyone added up how much they got given in that time.
In that short time, the amount needed went from over $10,600 to needing a bit over $2,000!! It was amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And then we did it again! And we went for another maybe 10 minutes or so and then after the second time was over, everyone added up what they recieved and this time when they finalised how much they got...........................................................................................................................................

Everybodies outreach costs were covered! It was s amazing! God is amazing! Why dod we keep not trusting him to provide?! Its so stupid!

And then we had a time of testimonies at the end of the night to really testify to what God had done for us personally through the time of giving.

And one last huge, exciting thing! This Saturday, my outreach team is going onn our very first 3 week outreach!
WOOHOOO!
It is going to be an amazing and challenging time!


Godbless
This has to be one of my shortest blogs at least lol :)

Goodbye civilisation...Hello nature, Goodbye nature ... hello my second home

BEWARE: THIS BLOG MAY BE LONGER THEN USUAL AS I AM UPDATING YOU ON TWO WEEKS OF BEING AWAY!

Two weeks ago now, we ventured in vans and buses up to hidden valley on a treacherously bumpy dirt and gravel road. It took about two hours to get up there but I was reminded so much of New Zealand as we drove past all the bush and tree’s, which I found really comforting.

When we arrived at the campsite, people had already set up tents because some of the people who were coming camping had come up a day earlier to clean up the site.

Because of the cyclone Yasi, tree’s had been blown over and were rotting, but some still remained standing – apparently before the campsite had a lot more green from when all the tree’s were standing.

Behind the grassy field where we pitched our tents, a creek with running rapids flowed downstream. Not far from the creek was a water hole. The water in the water hole and creek was so nice and cool and not salty – the complete opposite to the beach water here in Townsville which is salty and warm J - but still I really like the beach here!

Another night that I was reminded of home while being here was when one night when me and Maddie and Erin walked to the beach. It reminded me of home because sometimes at home I had gone to the beach at night because it was so nice!

Anyway...back to camping...

The very first night was a Sunday night there and the afternoon of that Sunday we were getting all set up in our tents – I shared a tent with Asta and Rachel which was so fun because I hadn’t hung out with Rachel a whole lot before that and she is so cool! :D

On Sunday night, we had an amazing worship time around the camp fire! We eventually had all of the lights in the shed turned off and we were all singing to God around the fire and I remember one line of a song that we sung that stood out:

‘Your love never run’s dry’

That was cool because so often we seek after love from other things and they will always have a limit and eventually fail us but Jesus never does!

After that night we got into lectures from the next morning, and Mark Parker was speaking on ‘Lordship’.

I don’t always remember what the speakers say shortly after they say it because they say so much – especially Mark because basically every day we went over time in lectures.

But when I write notes, I write what I get from it and what God speaks to me through it too, so I definitely learn still even when I forget things! One thing that was said was: ‘being a Christian is hard, but not impossible’ – so in the times of persecution, whatever it will look like we need to learn to lean on God fully because he will give us the strength to walk through it and gain all we can through it.

One thing God has shown me is that we have greater strength in God, the more knowledge that we have of him in our heart, through experiences and through reading the word and letting God reveal himself to us.

Another really cool thing that was said in the lectures was about sin and when we struggle. When we struggle if we pay more attention to God and where he is wanting to take us and what he is wanting to do in us and what he wants to say in us then our sin and our circumstances won’t be as much of a problem, compared to focusing on the struggle or sin and be overcome by it.  I am by all means not good at doing all these things I have written about in this blog and in all the other blogs too, but I really want to tell whoever reads this about all that God has been teaching and encourage you with it as well as me trying to walk in this better myself too.

I sometimes think about how I don’t want to be a hypocrite and say all these things when I am not

even practising them myself, but I am going to keep growing in these area’s in my life because I want to practice them too.

On Thursday and Friday we had a really powerful time of ministry and God was really there with us and it was so good!

We started on Thursday night and had a time of praise and worship and then we had a time of thanksgiving.

We were encouraged during the day leading up to Thursday night to prepare ourselves ready for the night of ministry, so we weren’t just thanking God for the sun or for things like that that aren’t very deep but to be truly thankful for things God has done in our lives personally.

 It was really cool to take time to be thankful because God truly does so much in our lives – even in the lives of people who aren’t walking with him because God truly desires all to be saved from the powers of darkness and to come into the knowledge of the goodness of God because he is soooooooooooooooo good!

I know this for myself so much from so many times! But I know that God wants to use me to tell other people who don’t know that too and that is a huge place where I need to grow way more in and display God and his beauty and love to people who need him even more- it is going to take getting out of our comfort zone sometimes which is the hard part!

After we had been thankful we had a time of bringing things to the light, like a guilt offering which they did in the old testament to be forgiven for their sin they had to sacrifice animals. Except now we don’t need to do that, and when we bring things into the light, the darkness must flee – except I don’t have internet connection to find out where it says it exactly in the bible. When we bring things to light the enemy has no hold over that part of our life if we give it to Jesus and have the support of our friends and family.

Through that, God really took me to a deeper place with him in my relationship with him –and I am so thankful for that because I don’t want to just stay in one place with him.

It was a really amazing night to see God move in the lives of everyone who stood up!

We ended that night with a time of worship again, I think because Mark really liked music.

On Friday morning we came back into the same kind of thing of bringing things into light and then we had a time of making commitments to God, but we were really encouraged to consider the cost before we made commitments and prepare for the commitments we were going to make.

After that we had another worship time – we had a lot of worship times which was at times really challenging because it was really hard to really focus and press into God all the time. It was so worth it though when we really got into it!

‘God’s love never run’s dry’. :D

I know I talk about God a lot in these blogs more than anything else but I can’t help it JJ

The next week was more of a relaxed week, because we had two days of lectures learning about ‘hearing God’s voice’ and then the rest of the week was hearing the testimonies of our staff and leaders of the DTS. Our leader spoke to us about love too and that was really cool too!

__________________________________________________________________________________

Other stuff we did while camping was go swimming at the water hole several times and then one day as a DTS excluding some people who didn’t want to come we floated down the creek. There were also waterfalls around hidden valley and a gorge where you could also go swimming but I never went there while camping.

When we were camping, we still had duties to do too – I wasn’t very good at getting to dinner prep on time though which was my second duty I had on the second week camping.

The weather most of the time rained apart from maybe 5 days (not in a row) that were sunny. The sunny days up at hidden valley were definitely not as hot as being in Townsville, but the thing I like the most about being back at the base is being able to have a shower and stay clean after for longer than 1 minute after getting out of the shower.

While we were camping, if you had a shower as soon as you got out, you usually stepped into mud again because we had so much rain that the ground was mostly muddy rather than dry.

One night me and Asta and Rachel were sharing a tent with a baby frog...that was exciting that’s for sure, and then after that we were paranoid that there were heaps of frogs in our tent.

One thing I am glad about is that I never saw any snakes or scorpions or giant spiders – the only spiders we saw we still a descent size.

Oh! And two other main things we did while we were there was we had a love feast! We had a day where we were really encouraged to love on each other and then at night we had dinner together and all the lights were turned off in the shed but there were heaps of tea-light candles set out and we all sat in a circle together eating a stir-fry meal which was sooo yum!

We had to bring love offerings which could be anything to give to other people, so I gave notes to a couple of people!

That night was such an amazing night and when I sat outside under the starts it was even more amazing because it was such a clear night and you could see sooooooo many starts – the sky was beautiful! And you could see lightning in the distance flash every now and then!

In the shed people in our DTS were having a dance off and it was so funny to watch some people because they were going crazy!

Another cool thing was on Saturday night, the last night we had there, we had a talent show, and there were some really cool and really funny talents people brought to the stage!

AND...another fun thing me and Rachel and Asta would do ismake up stories each night before we go to sleep - Rachel and Asta were really good at killing off the characters we made, but I admit I started off that way...but then I had a change of heart and wanted to let them live - thta could have influenced the way I started this blog because it sure did sound like a start of a story to me :) 

Over all the whole camping experience was so amazing and it was a really good time to be away from distractions and to get to know more people, even from the ‘not for sale DTS’ and some people I don’t talk to a whole lot in my own DTS!

Again I really hope that whoever else reads this blog can be encouraged!

Godbless

God is not an eight ball with a limited amount of answers...God is alive!

What can I say but what an amazing week once again! God is doing so many things in our lives and teaching us so much as we open up our heart to him!

This week our lectures were on 'Intimacy with the Lord, fear of God and the Nature and Character of God.'
What I learnt from this week was to learn to desire God more and to desire to go deeper in a relationship with him... and if we don't feel our desire in our heart for more of God, to ask for it and he will help us to want him more!
The scripture that God highlighted to the teacher 'Kevin Norris' this week was Ephesians 3:17-19:

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,
may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,
and to know this love that surpasses knowledge— that you may be filled to the measure of all the fulness of God

I don't understand this yet but we were really encouraged that God loves us so much! - so much more then we can fathom - but God does really want everyone in the world to know how much that he loves them!

We looked at who God is and what we get from him and what we give to him: (these are not the only things but some)

CREATOR:
What we get:
Origins, purpose, creation, gifts

What we give:
Stewardship, worship, glory to god, diligence, gifts

MASTER/LORD:
What we get:
Forgiveness, mercy, grace, eternal life, inheritance, freedom

What we give:
Confession, life, respect, honour, submission, thanks and praise

SAVIOUR/JUDGE:
What we get:
Guidance, security, protection, provision, direction, orders

What we give:
Service, gifts, Glory,

FATHER:
What we get:
Comfort, wisdom, strength, teaching, inheritance, discipline, identity

What we give:
Respect, honour, love, time, obedience

FRIEND:
What we get:
Encouragment, support, loyalty, heart to heart, advice, fun , love , trust

What we give:
Encouragment, support, loyalty, heart to heart, advice, fun , love , trust

HUSBAND:
What we get:
Love, intimacy, romance, fun, adoration, captivation, gifts, commitment, unity , security, protection, joy, vulnerability, trust.

What we give:
Submission, faithfulness, adoration, captivation, vulnerability, trust, Love, intimacy, romance, fun, adoration, captivation



There are so many more things you give and recieve through our rlationship with God and some of the things you receive are the same as what you give. God desires a love relationship with us - the intimacy side is not like the physical sexual stuff that you get in earthly relationships like between a husband and wife - it is pure and God desires to love on us - even as I write this I don't fully understand this or have this in my life yet but it is something that is worth chasing after and being willing for!
God can help us to be willing if we arn't willing in our life right now.

As you go down the list of who God is you see that as we come to father, friend and husband, it is more intimate and personal.

Another way we can recognise a glimpse of the love has for us is by looking at the desires in your own heart , e.g when you desire marriage and you get flutters in your stomach sometimes whenyou are with a guy or girl - God sayes he feels that way for us but a million times stronger then what we could feel towards anyone else.
The earthly marriage is an example of how God desires to have relationship with us - the love that is shared between a husband and wife is an illustration of Gods love he desires to share with us.
Even as I write this I still barely know what this is like but I want to want to desire it more and experience it mroe and walk in it more!

Here are some scriptures that talk about us being the bride of Christ and his friend:

ISAIAH 62:5
HOSEA 2:19,20
JEREMIAH 31:32
EPHESIANS 5:31,32
LUKE 5:33-35
SONG OF SONGS 4:9

It was really cool this week to because Kevin Norris explained the significance of the way Jesus lived and did things on Earth and the illustration of the church being the bride of christ and marriage:

-Jesus first miracle was when Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding

The jewish wedding planned out like this:

-Selection of the bride - God chose us
-Mohar (price paid) - Crucifixion
-Engagement contract (wine) - Passover feast, being saved and waiting till the 2nd coming
-Mikvah (ritual bath) - Baptism - (holy spirit)
-Groom leaves to prepare a place - John 14:1-4
-Groom arrives - Jesus second coming
-Wedding ceremony
-Wedding feast

We were also encouraged to read the bible like a 'love letter' because that is what it is - it is testifying to all Jesus has done for us so that we could be forgiven and have relationship with oru heavenly father, and saviour.

We also were encouraged about he God is a relational God and we looked different scriptures abotu how he related to people. God gave me an illustration to do with this that...'God is not an eight ball with a limited amount of solutions to our sturggles and problems and questions, etc... but he is alive and we can have a relationship with him like we can with our freinds and family and we can talk to him and hear his thought and his heart' JESUS IS ALIVE!!!! :D

God wants us to be genuine with him in that.
Sometimes in worship we get encouarged that it is a choice - and that isnt wrong but if you are genuinly struggling, or you are mad with God because you feel he didn't answer your prayer or something like that, God wants us to tell him how we are really feeling, but then not just focus on our frustration, but also remember who God is from things he has done in the past and who the bible says he is and even how you have seen the goodness of God in other peoples lives.

Proverbs 18:21

The tongue has the power of life and death,
   and those who love it will eat its fruit.

Hebrews 10:23

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

It is ok to struggle, but in those times it is powerful to confess our hope in God and hold fast to it in those times because there is power of life and death in our tonge and the words we speak.

When we focus on who God is, then we can find strength in him to choose to worship and follow him all the days of our life - even when it is hard! God will be our strength if we just trust him!

We have had realy cool ministry times this week too :)
We had a time of talking about the being given the gifts of the spirits , specifically tounges and we had a time of just experience the holy spirit move in our lives and it was really cool seeing the spirit do diffenent things and showing his Joy, peace and love to us!

God is an exciting God and we don't have to understand him because it is not possible, but we also don't need to be scared of what he wants to do through all of our lives of everyone in the world! If we let him.

God is continuosly at work here and it is really cool to be taught everyday by him!

_____________________________________________________________________________________

More exciting news.......Tomorrow morning we are going camping for 2 weeks!
It is a place called ' hidden valley '  and I have heard it is really beautiful!

I know that we are making Dampa and apparantly there is only one bathroom for 26 girls lol but I don't really know a whole lot more.

That means that I won't be able to be in touch with anyone for 2 weeks but I will write an update when I am back!
We will still be having lectures during camping and it is going to be so cool!
We will be being taugh on 'Lordship' for the first week - I hope we have campfires :)

I am sharing a tent with two other girls, Asta and Rachel so that will be really fun!
My bag is all packed and I am basically ready to go camping now - just have to make sure I don't forget last minute things :)

And I hope we can go swiming too lots! :D

We also had our first evangilism night this thursday night - I peered up with Katie and we got to talk to one couple and they were really nice! We got to share about YWAM a bit and just get to know them!
I hope there will be more opportunites the more we do it :)

Godbless :)

4 weeks down already - crazy!

Suprise suprise, we have had another amazing week :D

This week the lectures were on 'relationships'.
On the first day we were really getting encouraged strongly that it starts with God. To have healthy relationships with others we need to seek God first. God is love and in that comes all other characteristics like mercy, patience, grace, generosity, selflessness, and all things like that that make a healthy, lasting relationship.

"Our relationship with others will only go as deep as our relationship with God."

During the week, we talked about about dwelling in the house of the Lord.
"Imagine if you had a friend that when you were with them, they would talk all the time and you couldn't get a word in."

It is good for us to as we spend time with God to meditate on who God is, instead of talking all the time - take time to think about the characeristics of God and dwell on the goodness of God through the ways he has helped us out. God is worthy of all our time - but that is especially hard to give up sometimes if there is something that you really want to do but God is asking you to do something else for him.

As an illustration of relationships in our life was compared to like a building:
"God is our rock and FOUNDATION of the building. Next you build the WALLS on the building which is our relationship with God, and the INTERIOR is like our relationships with others.  You dont have to do these step by step to get good relationships, but God works on these things in you at the same time in a way - when you let him help you.

Another thing that came up this week was 'pride' again.
This has been a huge revelation in my life - pride is the source of all sin-I wasn't convinced at first about this ... but now I believe all sin does come from some source of pride.
For example: It is prideful to not believe who God says you because you're saying that God is wrong and you know more then him
It is prideful to punish yourself more when you have failed rather then accepting God's forgiveness, and mercy and grace, because it is like you are saying what Jesus did was not enough for you.

I am not trying to be condemning by the way...

There are so many different forms of pride, and I know for me God's mercy has been a huge blessing to me for a while now. I have been recognising more about how much I really need it and then his forgiveness and then  his help to overcome the pride I feel inside and his strength not to walk in it. God has been so good to me everyday and I know I am not the only one because he is good to everyone!

We looked into King David and in Acts 13:22 which says: "......I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, he will do everything I want him to do"
But when you look at King David life, he did so many things wrong like commiting adultery and murder amongst others. But King David would come before the Lord brokenhearted and repent of his wrongs; sometimes he still had consequences, but in order to be made right with God we do need to face those consequences.
He also was contrite and sincere about what he had done wrong when he repented, and he was open about his wrongs; when you bring sin into light the darkness must flee.
And he brought restitution to the circumstance if there was an action that needed to be taken to restore the situation.

We were also encouraged not to push away our trials all the time but (James 1:2-4) "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

"Don't wish away the trials we face, but use them to press into God more", and know that you can't walk through them the way you can with God. Sometimes God allows us to be tested because he wants to teach us something and stretch our faith, but other times we can face trials that we don't have just because we have made silly choices.
We dont always have to struggle, and we don't have to seek trials so we can press into God more, but in those times where we do feel God is wanting to teach us something through those trials, count it pure Joy because when we stay strong to the end of it our faith will be increased and we will trust in God more.

This week we also watched a part of a series of a marriage DVD about understanding the way guys and girls think, because God made us different for a reason and when we don't understand the differences, you can get into stupid arguments over nothing.
Another thing we talked about is marriage and sex. we talked about how when you get married, a switch doesn't get flicked and everything becomes good together, but we need to prepare ourselves for that day by learning to walk in righteousness now, and learning patience and generosity and selflessness and grace now, and all the other things you need to know and when you get married you keep learning these things - but basically preperation starts now.

There were so many good things in this week and I have only said a little bit about them :)

A cool thing that was said was the definition of 'insanity':
INSANITY: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Sometimes things in our life require us to make a choice to change to get a different result.

We had a really good ministry time to this week and we just got prayer for the area's of pride and dwelling in the house of the Lord and other area's that were spoken on throughout the week and it was really cool again to see God working further in the lives of everyone!

One other cool thing that was said was:
"Be the one and stop looking for the one"

_______________________________________________________________________________

Outside of lectures today we had a 'Sunday Funday' at Naomi's house and we had pancakes and just hung out and played games - I ate waaaaaaaaaaay to much this morning...:)
And then after the 'Sunday Funday' a group of us went to the beach and we played rugby in the water and it was really fun - we also went swimming and the water was so good!

It may sound like we get alot of free time here and we kind of do , but at the same time we do have to take time throughout the week to work on our workbooks and journals and we are strongly encouraged to spend our own time with God because a huge amount of growth comes from what time we put into God on our own as well!
I think and strongly believe that our quiet times with God strongly effect what we get out of each lecture we have!



I hope you enjoy this blog :)
God bless