Change of Plans

So we were suppose to be leaving this Thursday, April 1st, but it's be changed to Monday, April 5th that we are now leaving for Port Hedland, there are different reasons for the change, one of which being fundraising opportunities on the weekend so that's awesome.
Everything's been going really well, the last 2 ish weeks have been great. It's been a lot of fun catching up with friends and processing outreach and what's coming up next.

Thanks for everything.

Mi Dios Es Bueno

My God is Good.
Just a quick update about what´s happening.
Our leaders met with University head people and we will be meeting with them next wednesday to potential work out times for us to go in and teach seminars and english and their classes.
Yesterday we were reading our last books of the Bible in the govt bilding area in Neza and this man, Ricardo, asked if we wanted to go and meet the receptionist or something of the building and talk to them about helping in Neza, totally random, he approached us.. hours later after the 3 of us students sat outside half asleep after finishing reading the bible, our leaders come out and tell us they just met with the assistent to the president and got all the contact info of all the churches in Neza and then then we got set up to work with flood relief in the northern area that flooded when a river over flowed. It was devistating but the opportunities that we´vebeen handed are amazing.. I cant believe what God has done.. it seems like we´ve done nothing but pray and God has opened every door for us.
mi diaos es bueno.

Bienvenido a Mexio

Well that is pretty much the extent of spanish.. haha and I had to look that up on google translator haha. So yes I am in Mexico .. in an area we like to call Neza because the actually name is much more complicated and lengthly than that. It´s a relatively dangerous area we are told .. the church pastor and his wife pretty much cringe whenever we tell them we´re going outside but hey, thats what we have Jesus for.
On the way here we said good-bye to one of our teammates who is going home for cancer treatment. It was really hard for all of us but we´re praying for her healing and I know she would appreciate your prayers as well if you get a chance. She´s a trooper and we love and miss her a lot.
For the first 3 days of us being here we will be reading through the bible, Genesis - Revelation, out loud in a public place .. and yes we go straight through the night taking 2 hour shifts with our little groups so it´s pretty exciting.
For 3 days after that we´ll be doing prayer walks around the area of Neza and then diving into ministry after that. We currently only really have 1 contact in our area with no real ministry set up. Please be praying that we are given the opportunities to do what God has for us here and maybe for the weather to warm up :) haha.
We´ve been eating tacos a lot .. Joe is loving life (he´s half mexican) with all the food he grew up on in the truest form of mexican cuisine. I´m enjoying it aswell.. he´s been packing us full of tacos for the last few days so we´ll probably all need some new pants or just some maternity pants to wear lol.
We´re doing really well so far, lots of laughing and crying and giggling and loving life. We´ve met a lot on new people and are working on our spanish by the minute.. my favourite word is gracias becuase it seems to suit everything.. that and bueno (good), como esta (how are you), hola (hello), and buenas noches/dias (good night/morning).
It´s chilly here thats for sure. I´m actually wearing 4 shirts and a jacket, tights and track/sweat pants and I can still say im very very cold. But it´s good.. winter in north america is like this. I´m just glad I dont need snow shoes haha.
I trust that you´re all doing well and keeping warm in the cold of the Canadian winter!
Thanks for everything..
love Becca

The Learning Curve ...

God's really been showing me growth in my life I think over the last few weeks. It's been a really really difficult couple weeks, but He's really used people around me and just different moments when it's just me and God to really let me know where I've come from. One of the things He's said was in a time when things were the hardest and I had just been told really bad news about a good friend and there was a lot going on. I was walking back home, not having a quiet time or anything and He basically says, "You're not blaming me" and I realized .. like wow.. I think a few months ago that would have been an entirely different statement like "STOP BLAMING ME" haha, but the fact is He's used SO many things to bring me to a point where I know He's good. He never changes. He never stops being faithful. He always brings us the best regardless of how it may seem at the moment. I just really feel Him around. As I'm even writing this out I'm realizing that God speaking at that moment wasn't only powerful because it was Him who said it .. but it was powerful because He wanted me to realize that He will speak to me as obviously as He needs to when I know I need Him and I dont have to be in a quiet time or not doing anything. I guess I'm just at a place where I know that if He needs me to know something He's going to tell me and He's not going to wait for me to be sitting in a park, alone, with my Bible open to such and such a passage, and my notebook on a new sheet, with my pen in hand and hymn music playing softly on my Ipod. If He needs to/wants to, He'll speak when I'm on the verge of a breakdown in a dodgey area of town because He loves me.

Better Plans

So today we went chocolate selling in 35+ degree weather. Good times I know :). It was pretty good. We got kicked out of the train station, the city and a mall.. but all in all it was okay.
The best part was that before getting kicked out of the mall but after getting kicked out of the city, we met back together to decide where to go and we asked Christine how it went and she replied, "Didn't sell a lot of chocolate but I saw a salvation" and we were all like stunned. This 13 year old foster child got saved! and all because we were there selling chocolate.

He might even come and join us for the SOS training days. Thank you Jesus!

Passage of the Day

FAITH

So God told me to go to the city today and sit so I could see the city square, so I did. I went and sat down with a drink and read some things from Psalms. We just hung out for a bit and then I started to pray for people that were walking past. Whatever popped into my head I prayed about.. for individuals, types of people, genders, ages, children, adults, a lady that was feeding sea gulls... etc. The last few days have been super rough for me and I'm learning to push and rely on God. While I was sitting in the city I was thinking to myself about where my faith had gone. I just wanted to believe in it all again and just know that it was going to okay. Then I read this:

Mark 11:12 > 26

The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry.Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs.

Then he said to the tree, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples heard him say it. On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, "Is it not written: 'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it 'a den of robbers.' "
The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching. When evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city. In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!"
"Have faith in God," Jesus answered. "Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and do not doubt in your heart but believe that what you say will happen, it will be done for you. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins."

I dunno. I guess I've read this a lot.. but for some reason this time it was just different.

Hope you're encouraged.

Peace and Love

Whoops

Okay, so the reason I haven't been blogging lately is because I'm a slacker so I want to say I'm sorry for those of you that are keeping posted via .. well this.
I'm doing really well right now. We only have about 2 weeks left of lecture phase before we start prepping for Summer of Service, the 3 week missions trip we lead during summer break with high schoolers. Cecily and I are going to Darwin (northern territory in Australia).
We're very excited, I'm a little wearing about the heat. It's gunna be pretty intense.. like 50s probably so who knows what that entails.
I'd like to continue to ask for your prayer support as the finances were due last Wednesay and commissoining is coming up this week. I still need about $5830.45 which means I only have $330.45 left of lecture phase and then $5500.00 for outreach. As you may or may not have known I started off needing over $2000 for lecture phase and it's come down so much so it's pretty awesome to see how faithful God is in finances. It's cool too that on both sides of the track, me going and those that are financially supporting and making it possible that God sees both people the same. Both individuals are being obedient and letting God use them .. it just looks different. So thank you for being in on it with me.
It's been a great 10 weeks - still can't believe it's been 10 weeks. I still have about 7 months to go which is shocking when I think about it. I started thinking about how by the time I get home next June I would have been in Canada for just over 2 months in a year and like 4 months. SO weird.
Anyways keep the prayers coming, they are very needed and they do make a difference.
Much love.

I'm Sorry, What?

I'm going to start this my saying God's faithful and trustworthy not just to state what to me is obvious head knowledge but as a reminder that it's heart knowledge as well that will be put to the test in the month.
This week our speaking is Maureen who is the director of something and something else and DTSs' all over the place. She's a pretty big deal in YWAM apparently. Now you know.. anyhow the topic is basically Leadership with the Holy Spirit so we are learning a lot about Him and just today I've gained a new understanding of not just the Holy Spirit but the trinity and differences between the Old and New Testament/Covenant. I think the biggest thing that I took away from class today was just that it's not just the Father and the Son that have thoughts, emotions, and wills and a desire for relationships and closeness but the Holy Spirit is in on all of that aswell, and just the fact that He is bound to our spirits and we have all of Him is so mind blowing. I don't know, I guess I'm just really looking forward to this week and what we'll be talking about.
After class, for the first time we discussed outreach. Which is divided into 3 parts this quarter. Part 1 - Summer of Service (SOS) where we lead teams of highschool students to Vanuatu, Cambodia or Darwin, Australia. Part 2 - 25th anniversary of YWAM Perth and 50th anniversary of Youth With a Mission as a whole. It's a pretty big deal and the founder is coming and it's gunna be great.. a week of awesome :). Part 3 - Mexico City from Feb 1 - March 14 (I think). So the bomb as officially been dropped and the cost will be between $5 500 - 6 500 AUS (Aussie dollar is sky rocketing right now unfortunately). I'm not going to lie, I wanted to vommit and scream and cry and do a whole bunch of other things when I saw the number, but the first thing I remembered was that God clearly said for me to do the YMT - which is all of the course, not just lectures, and to trust Him. So here I am.. trying my very hardest to not freak out but trust and give it to God.
Just thought I'd throw that out there and ask you guys to pray for the release of these finances not just for myself but for every student in YWAM Perth right now, and especially those that are in the same boat as me, who are not used to trusting God with time time frames and deadlines.
Thanks for everything guys.
Much love.

Youth Culture - Sarah McCutcheon

(just wanted to say quickly that I absolutely love this comic - laughed so hard.. yes kinda morbid but still funny.. it's okay it's just a comic)

So this week in class we were talking about Youth Culture and Youth Subcultures. It was incredible. I absolutely loved it. It was amazing to be studying my generation and realizing why I think the way I do. I was super stoked about some of the info that we talked about so I'm going to share some psychology and some Twilight facts with ya'll... yes that's right we spent like 2 hours discussing the infatuation with Twilight. I love YWAM.
Age 14 is one of if not the most vulnerable year where everything is very inconsistant. I can't remember where, but Sarah, our speaker, has this friend on the east coast I believe, who's in uni studying psychology or something along those lines. One of the things they watched or looked at was this brain scan/video thing of a teenage brain (14 or 15) and his father and they compared them. The result of the test was that there was no activity going on in the back of the teens brain (which is where logic and reason is thought through) where as in the adults brain, it's totally normal, firing like it should. Not only does this explain SO much when it comes to teenage boys and their complete lack of danger radar but it also explains the emotions. All of the weight that would normally be distributed between logic & reasoning and emotions all on emotions. HENSE THE EMOTIONAL BREAKDOWNS LIKE EVERY DAY. my mouth literally dropped when she told us this. Our brains at like 13 or 14 start to shut off 30 000 neurotransmitters in the back of our brain PER DAY. That is an obnoxious amount. So parents can't say, "what did you do that for? do you not have a brain!?" and guess why? because the teen literally can't think it through logically. Amazing right? anyways, moving on. We talked a lot about MTV and advertising and how we need to be very deliberate with what we do because businesses target young people because of the influence young people have on families. If they can draw them in (cell phones) they can draw in their parents and siblings etc.
Get this, over 1/2 of the world's total population are under 25 years old. 19/20 choose to follow Jesus BEFORE the age of 25. AFTER 25 the chance of those between ages 25 and 35 that chances of them turning to Jesus changes to 1 in 10 000, between 35 and 45 the chance drops to1 in 50 000 and shockingly after 45 years old the chances of that individual turning to Jesus is 1 in 200 000. So why youth? Why be deliberate? Because it's the best time for them to accept truth before they become "stuck" in their ways. They're still moldable and not desensitized. Everyone else wants them, MTV claims they have them, we need them back. MTV says their goal is to remove logic and hit their emotions and by doing so they've caught them.
Which is where TWILIGHT comes in :).
Why Twilight? ---- escapism: everyone wants a savior and no wants to fight or endure hard times.
---- extremes (emotionally): yp (young people) dont thing rationally or logically (brain scan thing I was talking about earlier.. putting more emphasis on emotions). They make permanent dicissions (like sex, drugs and alcohol which have permanent concequences) and dont see concequences clearly, family ties (Bella has a broken family, shes invited into Edward's strong family unit and protected).
Edward and Bella
----- Bella is "different" and wants to figure her out
----- Edward unconditionally loves Bella even though she doesn't deserve it
----- Bella is the one that doesn't necessarily fit in.
----- Edward makes her feel significat
Why is it popular? Reaches their needs. Emotionally of course.
Mindsets affecting Teens:
1. Changing Moral Foundation -- chaos and confusion. no stability.
2. Changing Family Structures -- look at all the step parents and then ex step parents - point made - no stabilitiy.
3. Media is their mentor -- parents are being friends to their kids and the media is "raising" them. They say the average person by 18 has watched 18 000 hours of TV.. many watch more.
4.Technologically Sophisticated -- information available at their finger tips.
5. Disillusioned and Skeptigcal -- being let down from #1-4
6. Instant Gratification -- no waiting.
We talked about how 12 year old girls are dressing far to "sexy" for their age and what that's doing yet some still think boys are "yucky." They don't actually understand the vibe they are giving off from what they are wearing and they wonder why they get all this attention.
Anyways this week has been oober fascinating and there is way more where all that came from so feel free to ask questions.

As Christians we are the most capable of helping because we are the only ones with the actual answers even if youth may not think so, it's because they haven't experienced emotionally, therefore it cannot be real. They want it instantly and are not willing to work for it or change if they don't see the possibility for instant results.
"Those who are the most capable of helping, are most responsible to do so."

Friday Night Meeting - Christian Education

Last night was Friday Night Meeting (church) at the base, and our speaker was the same speaker that we had in classes this week. He was great, really challenged and made us think. He's very intelligent and is determined to change education and the worldviews that are being taught in school. It was actually shocking some of the things that are being taught in Christian schools but anyhow these are some note I took that I thought were really interesting. Hope you enjoy it!

*80% of all Christians are eduated in non-Christian universities
* between 30% - 50% lose their Faith while in university
Colossians 2:8-10 "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority."
*Christians need to understans where world view comes from before getting overwhelmed and devoured.
* UNI = to unify VERSITAS = truth
----- brought together for Christian purpses (first university was created in Italy)
----- all aspects of educations - law philospy, psych, sociology, history, maths, biology, economics, politics were all taught with God being the centre of it. God = all truth - was the basis of education in the first universities.
----- once they take God out of the centre it all becomes human opinions.. the professors opinion - which means they take out truth.
----- philophy used to be theology. now philosphy aims to prove there is no God.

4 OBJECTIVES OF BIBLICAL EDUCATION

#1 Promote Critical Thinking
----- teach importance of the mind & critical thinking.
----- recognize assumptions
----- all humans live by faith either in reason (human conclusions or in revelation (biblical propositions)

#2 Cultivate a Hunger For Truth
----- keep asking why? how do you know? what proof do you have?

#3 Demolish "Fortresses"
----- 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."
----- you can't grow to love Christ by being taught evolution and reading books of flat out lies, so focus on the truth .. focus on the Bible it is the book of truth and the worldview we have should be entirely focussed on reality - on the truth
-----scientism -- scientific language used to sound like truth (even though human opinion)
ie - the claim of genetic determinism (you're born gay) (the APA (American Psychological Association) in 1998 started the argument that your are born gay by saying they thought there was a link genetically but in 2009 they put out another article that completely detroyed it saying that there is no gene that will make you gay proving themselves wrong that you aren't born gay.. you're not born with a passion you learn about it.. and what scared some of us was that they are trying to say - you're born a murderer or a pedofile - so this has killed those ideas though some still live by it.)
----- if everything is genetic then we are robots/machines with no free will = no God.
- climate change is man made - lie? global warm isn't actually happening. polar icecaps have actually been growing and expanding in the summer season between i think its 2007 ad 2008.
----- medievel warm period then the "little ice age" and now we are warming up again. theres no connection between CO2 levels and warming its between the sun and the earth not the CO2 and the earth (we looked at graphs CO2 and temp .. weak AS correlation)
----- you throw out Genesis and you throw out Jesus Christ. If Genesis was a lie (like evolutionists may claim) then why in the world didn't Jesus say "oh btw guys the hebrews messed a while ago.. they were just really confused" .. becuase its true thats why.
----- more non christians are dropping the idea of evolution while christians are jumping into it.
Naturalism - changing definitions of marriage. everything has to change because everything evolves so we must make new laws to change our world. stupid.
Relativism (law) no absolutes except what they say.. also stupid.

#4 Teach comprehensive Biblical World View
----- need to learn to think so we can cancel out all the lies that create our world view.
----- God is SOVEREIGN over ALL life (Psalm 24:1)
----- God has PURPOSES in history - discipling natiomns (Matthew 28:28-20)

Outreach

Our outreach has 2 parts to it. the first part is SOS (summer of service) which we lead in either Vanuatu, Cambodia, or Darwin (N. Australia) then Mexico City for 8 weeks. Because we will be travelling so much they estimate the cost to be around $6000 which was a huge punch in my stomache, but since I now know what I'm facing, I would love you guys to be on board praying with me for this money because I don't know where or when this money will be seen.
Thanks for the prayers guys.

Character and Nature of God

This weeks topic was about the character and nature of God and Tom Hallas was our speaker. He's great. He is definitely not a traditional speaker and he caught us off guard many many times this week with very unexpected comments haha. Pretty interesting. He really challenged a lot of things that I believe. One of the things is God knowing everything and that He can be surprised which I'll comment on in a second.
Something that I thought that was really cool was that the trinity, out of perfect love and unity, created us and that if one of them decided they'd had enough the entire world would cease to exsist. In that Jesus was sent for different reasons and one thing we pulled out of that this week was that by Jesus becoming fully man, they (the trinity) showed us how precious human life is. That they would send God down to walk as one of us. And to now be seated in heaven as a human with God. I can't really explain it that well but just the thought of how highly the human race is thought of my God is mind boggling. And then how that love is transfered to us individually is just so much more intense I can't even imagine.
Anyhow .. so our speaker said this week that it is impossible to know everything in the past, future and present and still be in relationship with someone because it removes the surprise factor.. or grief or whatever. As a class we started to think about what He really meant that as and I guess we kinda came to a place where God can be surprised by us you know. In Isaiah? .. Jeremiah? dang it can't remember, anyhow it says somewhere something a long the lines of 'it never came to my mind that they could do such a thing.' So we tossed around the idea that because God is fully good and has no space for evil in or around him, we as humans have in a sense surprised God with evil. You know when he created us it was to be in relationship with Him, which means we needed to have complete freedom to chose and by doing that he put himself at risk to be hurt (by evil/sin/etc). Which in my mind is incredible.. for Him to have put Himself out there like a spiritual dart board you know? It's just so crazy to me that forever He will be taking hits from AND for us.
Something else that we talked about was that forgiveness was available before the cross, without any sacrifice. Different times in the old testiment God says he just wants someones heart and they didn't need to sacrifice.. in the New Testement Jesus forgives people - the man and the mat and the woman with the perfume and more. I always kind of thought in the back of my mind that sending Jesus was plan B.. Adam and Eve messed it up so God had to clean it up. But we talked about how Jesus was always plan A. Jesus was going to be coming either way. When Jesus died, in a way humanity died we all died with him and now we have the ability to live beyond ourselves in heaven. Plus Jesus came to bring a different level of relationship. So even if we had never sinned Jesus still would have come to bring that. There are other things in there as well that I'm still kinda trying to understand so a lot of this is unexplainable but they're things that are interesting to me and challenging to wrap my head around. I obviously haven't fully grasped any of this considering the lack of explanation I've given but ya, just a few floaters I guess.
Please keep praying for health and safety while we're hear. Just told today that this biker gang is coming to northbridge which is like a subburb over next week and I guess they causes mass chaos and fights on the east coast. Not a safe bunch of gentlemen to be around. So just a covering in that sense. Also I just found out today that I only need 1500 more for the covering costs of lecture phase so you if you could join my in continual prayer for not just the 1500 but and abundance outside of that for outreach and the internship and generosity to others that would be great. Thanks so much. Much Love

Prayer Requests

Hey guys, so I thought that I'd do a little shout out for those of us here that are sick.

Seriously I'm pretty sure that at least half the girls that live in my house (total of like 14 or 15 I believe) are sick or are getting sick or are getting over being sick. So I was just wondering if we could just nab a few quick prayers just for over all health. Waking up at 6 am everyday and dragging yourself through the day and slapping your sinus filled face in class to stay awake isn't fun and it can really start distracting us from what God has for us here. So if you could just, as your reading this just shout out for a quick covering on us that would be amazing.

The other thing is finances.. If you feel a nudge to give, chances are it's God calling you on generosity, but please please pray about it and get a solid word. There are lots of us YWAMers in need of lecture and outreach phase funds so we just want to ask, again, as your reading this, to just ask for gots provission on the matter of finances that He'll bless us abundantly so that we may be able to bless others generously aswell. Thanks so much for the prayers and what you've done already. God bless.

Mexico Research

So today we, as the YMT, had a few hours of research / homework time dedicated to our main seminar project. When we go on outreach to Mexico City in February, we have to have made a 5 part seminar each one 45 minutes about youth culture in Mexico. It is a huge huge project all about research and statistics and stuff.
So today we started to do that, and my role for today was researching problems in the youth culture like suicide, alcoholism, abortion, drugs etc and collecting it all to then choose one topic and eventually we will, in depth, research it more and make a seminar on it.
That being said, if any of you have any knowledge on Mexican youth culture I would be more than over joyed to hear what you have to say.
Thanks so much.

YMT - Never A Dull Moment

(this is what Natasha slid down - could be bad if she had gone down far enough :S)

So today was our team / school hang out day. Started off great. We met at the base at 11.. which meant I could totally sleep in.. not that I did but the potential was nice haha. Anyways, so we went to the national park in the hills. It was beautiful. We BBQ'd lunch (sausages/hotdogs) and took lots of pictures. We also had an orange peal boat race down the stream haha. We all made our little boats out of orange peals and made sales and stuff out of sticks and leaves. Jules' (Joe's wife) totally dominated .. mine took the path less travelled and literally didn't move. I think I'll stick to working with people and not so much orange peals .. and engineering. Miriam was trying to make a lagit little boat out of leaves and stuff and so she went to pull a twig off a branch I guess and she got bit and she freaked out and was in a lot of pain so when Joe and James looked to see what it was there was a spider hidden in one of the broken branches and so after like 10 minutes of trying to get a good picture of it, Joe took Miriam to the park ranger and James eventaully got the spider into a water bottle to take up and find out if it was serious - necessary considering where we were haha. So they didn't think it was serious and they didn't recognize the spider which is good so we moved on and hiked over to the falls. If there was a species of ants called antious mammothose.. I saw it. It was HUGE and it was so far off the ground because of how long its creepy legs were and Joe was like "ya that thing would make you swell up really bad" and I was like great.. so I left haha and then I saw a centimede the size of leg and then I left again. Eventually we did reach the falls which were stunning. They were so beautiful. oh my stars. Anyhow, because the YMT cannot do anything without something unexpected happening, Natasha slips and falls and goes on a little trip down the falls and gets all dirty and slimy. yum :)
When we got back to the rec. are, cecily and I were behind them all, and so when we caught up they were all gathered by the railing and so we went over and there were like at least 8 kangaroos just chilling and hopping around. and a few of them had babies in their pouch. They were SO close it was insane. Like literally feet away from us and they didn't care. It was awesome. Anyhow, good day. I'll be posting pictures on facebook later probs.
Peace outttttt.

Evidence of Truth in the Bible

So we covered a lot today and one of things we talked about is why the Bible is accurate and therefore, it should be an absolute truth in our life.
I guess there are something like 15 manuscripts of ancient texts that researchers use to compare accuracy of other ancient text ie the Bible. Here are some facts (its kinda confusing.. sorry):

Julius Ceasar - Gallic Wars - written in 100 BC - earliest document found in 900 AD (1000 year gap between the time it was written and the time it was found)
Plato - (in general) 400 BC - earliest found 900 AD (around 1300 Years and 7 different manuscripts)
Homer - The Illiad - written 800 BC - earliest found 400 BC, 643 copies

Those texts, apparently, are considered completely accurate. Now the New Testament.

New Testament - written around 50 - 100 AD and the earliest copy found was written 114 - 325 AD. Meaning that because the date it was written and the date it was copied are so close the accuracy has to be much closer - consider the gaps in the dates of the other texts - much more spread out. Also there were 5366 copies that were the same found in that time and 2500 had different translations.

So I dont know if any of that made sense it's kinda hard to understand if it's not explained right. But basically the Bible is accurate and experts can't even argue it. The process for copying the Bible was intense aswell. They didn't copy it word for word, it was letter for letter so that not even punctuation could be missed. Before the wrote out the word "God" the scribe would bathe and get changed. After every line the copy got checked and when completed the Bible was stamped and the old copy was burned. It's said that you could burn every bible in the world and still be able to put it back together because of all the times its been quoted in other texts.

"There is more evidence that Jesus was real than there is for Julius Ceasar"
there are 60+ prophecies in the old testament, that forsee the coming of Christ. These are 6 of those that were unable to be influenced by Jesus himself - he had no control over the following.
1. place of birth - Bethlehem
2. Time of birth
3. manner of birth - by a virgin
4. His betrayal
5. manner of death - cross
6. Pierced - hands and feet
Yet all came to be, right? Right .. all these were written about 250 years BEFORE the coming of christ and every one of them came to be. Some very dedicated person worked out the chances of Jesus accidentally fulfilling every prophecy and it turned out to be 1 in 100, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 ... that's beyond a slim chance.

Anyways I just foud these things to be really really interesting and totally give me a new way of thinking.. it changes how you think about telling Christ to people...

Chris said something today that I found entertaining, ".. (to an atheist) find 100 people that have been transformed by atheism. (he can't) And I'll find 100 people that have been transformed by the Bible" - speaks for itself huh.
I love learning :)
hope you found this interesting.

5 Keys For Dealing With This Generations Self Idolatry

These are just a few of the notes from class this morning that I thought were interesting:

1. Lordship - reliquishing our rights to God
*we talked about how even the smallest form of matter.. like atoms or whatever.. all make a vibration that creates some sort of sound. And then talked about how the universe is made by, for, of and through Jesus Christ and His words speak life .. and so it's kinda like all those sounds are Jesus' you know? Like everything in this universe is just borrowed from Jesus.
*lordship is what will set this generations free
*rebellion is directly allowing Satan access into our lives
2. Holiness - being seperated from all known sin. We are accountable for everything we know and understand.
*God's interest is removing sin from our lives, not our comfort, he wants to remove sin and in the process it may hurt but it's necessary.
*need to seek purity as a leader because those following you will see right through you and disqualify any influence you could hold.
*deal with sin by hating it - this generation acts on emotion - therefore if you don't like it, you won't do it.
*fear of the Lord - is caring more about what God thinks and feels than anyone else our yourself
*fear of the Lord keeps us in relationship with Him
3. Dealing with Dualism - compartmentalizing your life
*God only sees one person - you can't only have sin on one side of your life - affects all of you.
*integrity makes you influencial & trustworthy
4. Dealing with Passivity - always taking the easy road
*we aren't motivated to do great things because the world is telling us that we are machines, with no meaning, only created by chance
*self control counter acts passivity
*passivity will kill any and all relationships .. need diligence
5. Be An Example - If you're living the life God intended people will want to follow you, you won't have to try and convince them.

Didn't See That Coming..

Yesterday afternoon I had my first one-on-one which was actually a two-on-one because 2 of my staff where there with me haha. But anyways we got together to start talking and we talked about how it was being home and what I did and where I was at and just got to know eachother a little bit. I was with James and Miriam and I know James from last time so that was cool having him around. But one of the things they asked me was "What are your expectations for this school?" and I didn't really know apart from learning about this generations youth and being a good leader and everything that kinda comes from that but ultimately I was kinda expectation-less and pretty open to whatever. So James and Miriam just encouraged me to really seek and ask God what expectations and goals I should have for this next 9 months and really fight for it. I was like.. okay.. I don't really see how this will change anything but I'll give it a shot. So Last I came home and got on my bed and started talking to God and asked Him what I was to be in expectation for.. and just randomly out of know where He says "I love you" and I was like.. "ya, I know I love you, too" and He responded, "No really, I want you to understand what I would do for you." And I was like.. "um I don't know what to say to that what do you mean that's not what I asked ... what are you talking about? that means nothing to me right now." (little did I know I had it coming) Eventually I fell asleep and then class rolled around this morning and literally the first thing the speaker, Chris, talked about what how far God would go for us. He supported it with the story of the prodical son and how the lost son just didn't understand why he was welcomed back, much like the pharasees didn't understand why Jesus only hung out with sinners.. and then Chris said that this generation just doesn't get it. And I was like omg.. I get it .. but at the same time I don't get it. And I was literally in shock that God had said that to me just the night before and then thrown it in my face the next morning lol.. Moral of the story - I'm expecting to discover how far God will go for me.. how far He'll go for my generation.

Why Do You Do That?

Today was our first official day of class and Chris Adams, who's in his late 20's, was our speaker. He's a great guy. He leads another school and is one of the worship leaders on base here. His topic for us was the history of this generation and holiness. I learned so much today oh my goodness. It's crazy to see him stand up and then speak out what we think to our faces and be so bang on and then go back to 1200s and start explaining why we act and think the way we do.
One of the biggest things that I had never really thought of was the whole idea of science and how it got twisted and started kicking God out of the picture. What I got out of it was that science was never meant to influence the spiritual side of things. The Bible doesn't tell us everything about the universe - but because God is a rational God, we are rational and therefore can begin to research and understand how things work - ie our bodies, stars, planets, growth, molecules etc. And that was all intended to make us obviously stand in awe of who God is that He could do that so quickly - which for many of us it does. But before this type of science came into the picture I guess Greek philosophy started getting integrated into religion when the Romans took over and that's a whole other story - but anyways - basically humanism is thought up. Where we think that we are so much greater than God because we discovered something.. it's like wow I just found a new fish.. and now I'm smarter than God - fools anyways. So humanism starts affecting science and therefore this conclusion is made: since we now understand that the world revolved around the sun, we don't need God there anymore. (which doesn't at all make sense but basically that happened to everything I guess and we totally "killed God") I had never thought of it that way before. How science was meant to find what God never told us in the Bible you know.. and then somehow we twisted it to eliminate Him. Anyways.. we also talked about the strengths and weakness of our generation and where they all come from which I find incredibly fascinating because I like to know things haha. But basically we concluded to that the sole issue with todays youth in this generation is self idoletry. Which comes from us being told so many lies about having no purpose and since we have no purpse we can do whatever we want because it doesn't matter. And since nothing matters who's to tell us what we can and cannot do. Anyways I'm gunna stop there but I'm getting so excited to keep going - if I've learned this much in 1 day I can't wait to see where God's going to have taken my by next June. Sorry this was kinda boring... but I'm excited because I also learned that I like to learn! haha

Back In Australia

On the last leg of the flight I was sitting beside a French girl named Amandine who barely spoke English. I helped her out with finding her bags and getting through customs which made getting otu of that airport take a little long but it didn't matter she was a sweet heart. Once I got through, the first person I saw was James! He's so great. He's one of the staff of my school so it was great to see him. I live about 5 minutes from the base in a house. In my room there are 3 other girls .. I'm on the top bunk :). The rooms like bright yellow craziness and the light has no shade on it so I'm kinda being blinded hah. Anyways, it's great being back - a little weird but it feels farely normal. Still seeing people from being and getting lots of hugs. I didn't realize how much I missed some people from before until I saw them so being around them is great!
Almost completely settled in now .. definitely miss home more than last time but that's normal. I can't wait to get school started and get busy!
Anyways I haven't eaten yet and I'm starved so I'm out.
Keep praying .. love, Becca