Thanks

Every morning for the last like.. I dunno, say 3 - 4 weeks we get up at 6 am which is normal and instead of exercise we pray for finances for outreach. And this morning as we were praying for the remanding 2 people that still are waiting on God for finances I just felt it necessary say thank you, again for the support you've given me, not even just financial. God really showed me this morning how big of a part you guys are to reaching the nations. There's a different role for everybody - not everyone is called to go out, we need supporters.. emotional, financial, spiritual. So this morning when God brought that to mind I was like wow, I am so blessed to have all these people behind me, fighting for and fighting for these nations. Again, thank you so so much for the encouragements, prayers and overall support of me being here. This is experience is probably the best thing that's EVER happened to me and I know God is going to bless those who followed His leading to back me up on this. I don't know how to thank you enough for what you've done. It means so much, thank you.. that's really all I can say.. thank you.

What Will You Do When Worship Is Over?

So ya, spiritual warfare is the topic this week. The speaker sounds exactly like Mr. Cairancross (sp? my bad). So ya it's pretty crazy ... well it's kind of a cross between him and Bob the tomato from veggie tale YA VEGGIE TALES! But anyways.. no crazy exciting news to update you with, although I did have this crazy experience today but I'm still going through it all.. so more on that later.

Anyways so last night, well yesterday was the due date for finances for outreach, and so last night we had worship and prayer (normally it's our free night but we did this instead). It was incredible. I have never in my life experienced worship so powerful. Chenaniah lead worship incredibly.. a lot of fun a lot of God .. a lot of awesome. i absolutely loved it.. every minute. As so I've always struggled with hearing from God and as we were worshipping I just prayed out to hear from Him and a little while later I got a few words in my head and I was like ... "okay well what does that have to do with anything.. is it for the group? just mean.. details please!" so then as we were praying in our outreach teams after worship I found myself repeating it as we all yelled out to God .. and I was like.. wow okay. So I said, "God is this You? Give me something .. please!" so Matthew stuck out in my head and then like as fast as anything I got 14:27 and I was like.. k this never works but I'll go for it. And it says "Have courage.. it is I... Don't be afraid" I read it like twice before I was like.. oh geez, it worked lol so then I was like "sweet okay so its you, but what am I not suppose to be afraid of?" and i was praying into that for a while and didn't get a lot so I was like.. I'll keep it on the DL for a while .. I found out what that reason was today - at least I think I did and it was terrifyingly awesome. Anyways so later on I was sitting in the corner just watching in awe of what God wad doing as we were all encouraging eachother and worshipping and I was like 'wow this is amazing' and then Zechariah of all books pops up and I'm like.. "wow random" right? So I open it up and the first verse I see is 1:10 and it basically says thats these are the ones I am sending into all the earth and I was like.. yes yes they / we are! and then I kept reading and it got a little negative so I continued hoping for some prophetic word to encourage someone with and by 14 or 15 it says that He was angry with some nations or something .. and that he was angry with otheres because they were living too securely or something.. so God just really layed it on my heart that we need to be willilng to be uncomfortable on outreach to be used in the way He intends us to be used.. So ya it was really neat. The last like 2 days have been 2 incredible God days.

Shout out to Aggie for helping me get through today..

anyways so my challenge - go make yourself do something uncomfortable - see how God's going to use you.

Random and Insignificant.. Except in YWAM

(our oatmeal usually looks better than this sludge.. but whatever)

OATS! We finally got our oats back - it feels like they've been gone forever. Okay so to clear up any quesitons, quick cooking oats (to make oatmeal in the morning.. or whenever we're hungry) is the driving energy force for YP. So for a long time we didn't have any - like 2 weeks .. so we were dying from straight toast.. plus in no way is it good for you so a lot of us just "fasted" breakfast .. skipped it really. Anyways, so yes we have our precious oatmeal back - so happy. I walked into our room and Iben said, "THE OATS ARE BACK!" and I literally left at that moment and got a bowl - I was so stoked. Anyways, yes .. well on a more significant note we had our FIRST small group in our outreach teams tonight - it was awesome.. loving the team.. getting pretty excited. Still waiting for approx $6000 to come in so if God is laying it on your heart to donate towards my team you can definiltey donate at ywamperth.org.au (I believe, or you can just type YWAM perth into Google lol)


Hope everythings peachy - I'm going to go bask in the feeling of a full stomache of OATS! God is so good, woot!


Peace.

Baptism

So this is a Jelly Fish. They infested the river we were baptized in. This was one of the "bigger" ones that I saw, or that came this close. It was probably around the size of a hand. The biggest I saw was maybe 2 - 3 hands.. ish. I dunno.. but they are hidious.

Here we have Holly (friend and room mate - love her!) and Landry (one of the co-leaders of my school) chilling before the baptism actually started. Landry I believe was testing out Holly wicked sweet new camera.

DOLPHINS! I so badly wanted to see them and then God was like.. here you go. It was so cool, they surfaced like this like 6 ish times, and they wre really close too. Like maybe, I dunno up to like 100 m maybe? not really good with distances. but the closest was like 5 m from the stone steps a little farther right. It was sweet. I was pretty stoked.

This is Cailtyn (friend and roomie) getting dunked... or baptized whatever you prefer. This was a split second decision for her so I'm tres proud! The Samoan man is out speaker Peni Patu (leads Island Breeze in Kona for YWAM) and then Quenton (faithful leader of my school) is in the reddish shirt and Chenaniah/Chucky is in the yellow (school staff).

Today way really good. I got baptized as well - it was amazing. After I felt so good, so close to God .. just so awesome :). Thank you to my staff and David for talking me through it because I was talking in circles, but I'm so glad I decided too! I love God.. I'm committed - why not show it?

Father Heart of God Lived Out

Peni is fabulous. He's awesome.. He's like a massive teddy bear.

Anyways so this weeks topic is the Father heart of God. So instead of just talking about what that means, he is living it out. And so last week he had been praying about us individually. Through that, I guess he got words from God - so he wrote / typed them up and had bible verses designed for each of us. Most of the girls started crying, the guys just either got a little choked or they were like in awe of how exact it is. It was seriously crazy though how bang on the letters were to us. They were exactly what we needed to hear - well at least mine was - so dead on. My passage was Isaiah 40: 26 - 31.

Look up into the heavens. Who created all the starts? He brings them out like an army, one after another, calling each by its name. Because of his great power and incomparable strength, not a single on is missing. O Jacob, how can you say the Lord does not see your troubles? O Israel, how can you say GOd ignores your rights? Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. 30 Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion. But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.

So I'd write down what the letter said but its a mix of I'm too lazy and some other stuff so I won't, but basically it's about God being there, God guiding and speaking to me and it's just fabulous so I love it.

1/2 hour of Amazing!

We had an offering taken up during class today initiated by our speaker, Peni Patu. at the start we had $112 705 collectively as a school for outreach. All that money is due this week or next, I can't remember anyways. So we are really just stepping out and trusting God for it.

So they counted up the offering after less than 1/2 an hour of waiting on God for direction on donations and they counted it up and told us after class that $28 642.70 was raised. That's right, just under 90 people, in half an hour plus God's ability to multiply and spread that farther raised just under $30 000 for outreach. Who's worrying about anything when a God that faithful has their best at heart. Not I....

You In?

Week 8 - Kristin Williams. He was amazing. I can't even believe how changed I feel inside and the frustration that I feel from wanting more of God. Feeling the Holy Spirit physically on you is the most motivation, powerful, peaceful, intense, ... words don't do justice - it's just so unbelievable. I want it 24/7.. only not because then it woulnd't be as valued I guess. But anyhow, you get the point. If people could just feel it and see for themselves .. they couldn't not believe.
A few things that Kristin had talked about really hit me last week about how we, as young people behave. A lof ot if was about why young people are they way they are:
* we don't have short attention spans, we're allergic to boredum because God created us to find excitement in Him. Highs only last for a short time - God last FOREVER and that's why its never enough, that's why material things don't satisfy, because they aren't nearly as exciting as God's plan is for us. Give him a chance.
* frustration towards injustice - abortion .. stats say that 1/3 of my generation were killed in abortion, if that doesn't upset you.. read it again and again until you understand how many people that is.
* we were built to fight for what's right
* we were built to have a relationship with God - that's why so many young people feel like somethings missing - because something is missing - GOD. No wonder so many young people have problems that are going unexplained.. there's a massive missing ink.
* there are many more things .. but basically we are built to warriors of God, we were built for relationships, we were built for seeing justice, we were built to stand through the hard times (he explained it like turbulance.. its not normal but we will survive)
Another thing that was funny / motivating was how he described the devil and that he should definitely be mad, because he got thrown out of God's presence, he can't ever get that back because of one mistake.. so really, he's trying to torture us and get us as far from God as possible, but God banished him to be tortured by us -- so go for it, torture him by choosing God everytime.
I'm just.. overwhelmbed by how obvious God is. Nature is screaming at us that Jesus is coming back. The earthquakes.. the floods.. the trees.. clouds, wind - EVERYTHING. I dunno, I was just really inspired to go out and let these people know why they are hurting and striving towards finding an answer they can't find yet. I'll bring them the answer, who else is in? Anyways, there is a lot more where that came from.. but take it as an encouragement - fight for it. He is worth it.