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.

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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.