growth.

As of this week, we are about half way through the DTS, it's hard to believe. I feel like so much has happened during my time here, so much growth.

Growth is such an odd thing. When you're growing, it's so difficult to see the changes on a day to day basis, especially inside yourself. Sometimes it's easy to point out growth in others, but when it comes to ourselves, we are blinded. In order to see growth, we usually need someone else to point it out or we can look way down the line at our old self and compare it to the self we see today. I love that only God has the power to make things grow. 1 Corinthians 3:7, "so neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow." Growth seems to happen when we feel stuck, when we think we aren't learning anything or that God just forgot about us. Normally, those are the times we seem to grow most...funny how life works like that:)

So today, as I look back on the garden that was planted 3 months ago, I'm presently surprised by the growth of the plants. In the beginning, it was only a bed of dirt, waiting to be cultivated and planted, now there is so much fruit, so much goodness coming from it. As I look back on my own journey over the last 3 months, I see growth, even though it was difficult to spot on a daily basis, people have helped point it out to me. I am beginning to see the fruit of what God was doing, even when I didn't feel like anything was happening and He had forgotten that I still needed to grow. Paul says in Philippians 1:6 "...being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." I celebrate the growth today, but I'm also confident there is more to come and Jesus is not finished with me or you:)

Do you see growth in your own life? Is there someone you have seen grow recently who you can encourage and point it out to them?

it's not about me.

It's been so good to be on base for the past 3 weeks, I feel like I've been able to get into some sort of routine, if that's even possible in YWAM:) God continues to teach and grow us in some amazing ways, I love that He just wants us to know Him and that He will continue to reveal more and more of Himself. It exciting to me that God's character will never disappoint. We will never be able to get to the end of God and think 'that's it?' God is full of mysteries and surprises and I love that about Him. Who wants to serve a god that we could understand and wrap our minds around? No me:)

Last week, we had teaching on Lordship. The week was pretty intense to say the least, but so good. Our team was so hungry for God, so hungry for more of Him. We spent the week discussing what it looks like to make God Lord of your life. 2 Corinthians 5:14 says, "..those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised again."

On Friday, we had a ministry day and worshiped God from 8:30am-11:30pm. We spent the day going through the Tabernacle, declaring who God is, confessing, giving, praying, anointing, and sharing communion together. The day was not about receiving, but about giving of ourselves for each other and ultimately, for the sake of the nations. In our western way of thinking, it's easy to get wrapped up in the mentality that God is a God for individuals. He does care about individuals, be His concern is for the masses, His perspective is for the nations, not just me.

This past week was about relationships. I loved the quote by C.S. Lewis:

"Love is not an affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good."

There are so many broken marriages in society today. People think they can fall in and out of love, but love is not a feeling, it's a choice. It's a choice we must make at every moment of every day, not only in romantic relationships, but in every interaction.

"Every act toward other human beings is either a sacred or profane act. It either treats them with dignity or it dehumanizes them. We have no other choice."-Duane Elmer

The picture is of a Bottle Tree, probably one of the coolest species of trees in the country:) Thanks for your continued love and support, I appreciate each of you!

YWAF.

Youth With a Farm! It's not official, but it begins here at the Brisbane base. YWAF includes chickens, compost pile and a garden. The project is unofficial and run by students at the base. The chickens and compost were started before I arrived. Upon arriving, I was put in charge of the garden and compost, because of my previous experience in both areas. We planted lettuce, tomato, cucumber and green beans before leaving on the road trip. After returning, the garden has grown immensely! The warmer weather is helping the process too.

I love the verse from 1 Corinthians 3:6,7 "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow, so neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow." The growth does not depend on us, but on God. No matter how hard I try to stare at a plant and want it to grow, I cannot make it happen. Growth comes from God. The same is true for our walk with Him. We can try so hard to make ourselves good and grow in maturity, but it's impossible on our own. It's only God who makes things grow, and He promises "the good work I began in you will be carried out to completion, until the day of Christ Jesus our Lord." Philippians 1:6. It's so cool to see how God is able to make something so beautiful, and fruitful, from almost nothing, from something as small as a little seed.

I love the song "Beautiful Things" by Gungor that says "You make beautiful things out of dust. You make beautiful things out of us."

home sweet home.

It's funny to be able to call a place home after only living there for a total of 4 weeks, but when you've been living out of a backpack and traveling around the country in a van with 24 other people, you say a lot of things you wouldn't normally say:)

We are back at the base in Brisbane after being on the road for almost a full month. We spent the last week of our road trip doing outreach in an small town called Roma. Roma's economy is driven by a large oil rig in the city. Our team was able to speak at a high school chapel service and we ministered to the same kids later in the week at a youth group. Our team also helped out with a local women's conference and attended church with them on Sunday. It was another good week of service and team bonding, especially for our outreach teams.

Once arriving back in Brisbane on Wednesday, we started a mission simulation on Thursday which ran through Friday. We were in our outreach teams and they tried to cater our experience to our outreach locations so we could get a taste of what life would be like during that time. It was cool to see how our team stepped up and worked together, the simulation also pointed out some areas that our team was weak in and needed to grow.

This coming week we are going to have a speaker come in and teach about Bible Study, which will be really good to learn and grow in. Thanks for all your support and prayers, I am praying for you as well.

Here are some of the pictures I've been promising:)

-1st picture: Kids ministry

-2nd picture: me with Kangaroos:)

-3rd picture: Student baptism

-4th picture: Team Vanuatu

-5th picture: Springsure Ranch

-6th picture: Airlie Beach

from beach to bush.

hello friends!

Sorry it's been so long since the last update, but we've been pretty busy and have limited access to the internet. We have been traveling all throughout Australia learning and teaching.

So, 3 weeks ago we left for a 16 hour road trip to Airlie Beach to join another DTS at the YWAM Whitsunday base. The other school has a large house they are renting in the middle of the rainforest. It was beautiful, there were so many cool animals with jungle snakes, big lizards and spiders. I spent the nights in my hammock and it was great. We had lectures on the Holy Spirit by the YWAM base director, Jeremy. We discussed gifts of the Spirit, who the Holy Spirit is as a person and had incredible times on ministry. People on our team were given the gift of speaking in tongues, others were healed of allergies and others were healed of a lifelong struggles with depression. God moved in so many ways. We did outreach in the city and did evangelism, worship and prayer walks. During the week, the outreach locations were announced. I will be going on a team to the island of Vanuatu. At the end of the week, we had a BBQ downtown and someone was led to Christ. We also had 3 people get baptized in the ocean while we were there too. The other DTS only had 4 students, so it was fun to get to know them and be a part of their base. Over the weekend, our school had an opportunity to go out and see some of the islands and go snorkeling. We saw some cool fish and coral and the islands and beaches themselves were breath-taking.

After leaving Airlie, we traveled to Springsure, to stay out in the outback with a family who owned a 25,000 acre ranch. We learned about life on the ranch and had a fun time learning and growing. After a couple days we left for Emerald for our first week of outreach. Emerald is a small mining town in the outback. We set up our tents in someone's backyard and over 35 people shared one toilet and shower, that was a fun experience:) We split up into our outreach teams and our team did evangelism and prayer walks. On one particular day, we did a walk throughout the city and after praying we felt a heavy spirit over the whole town, a Spirit of exhaustion and apathy. We decided to do worship and games in the park to walk out in the opposing spirit. During worship time, we met another Christian man and prayed healing over his back. After talking with him he bought our team KFC for lunch. During lunch, we were told that the school we were supposed to be speaking for in the afternoon wanted us in 10 minutes instead of 2 hours and we needed to go immediately. We arrived at the elementary school just in time to do our prepared skit and games. We discussed friendship with the kids and talked about how important it is to treat each other with love and respect.

On Friday night, our group was in charge of leading a high school youth group. After playing some games and worship, I presented the message of focusing on God's promises instead of our situations or fears in the midst of trials. We had an opportunity to attend the same church on Sunday and talk to the kids again and they seemed to receive the message well.

After leaving Roma, we traveled to the Carnavron Gorge for a couple days of lectures on worship. We were able to stay and camp for 3 days in the Gorge. It was breath-taking and beautiful, but beyond the Gorge, God showed Himself in amazing ways! We had the chance to hike and explore the gorge in the afternoons. God spoke to us throughout our time there that worship is about acknowledging Him in everything. Worship is about living out our relationship with God. It's about being who He created you to be, giving the gift of life back to Him. Worship means to resolve not to settle for anything less than who God created you to be. "Our life is God's gift to us, what we do with our life is our gift to God." I read in a "Desiring God" that "the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever." We were created to be in relationship with God, to enjoy Him and explore His characteristics and follow Him. In Genesis it talks about Adam and Eve walking with God in the cool of the garden. We were created to walk with God in the garden, to spend time with Him and depend on Him like little children. Thank you God for the ways that you speak to us and desire intimate relationship with us.

Yesterday, we arrived in another country town called Roma for another week of outreach. We will be staying here until Wednesday before ending our first road trip and heading back to Brisbane. I will add pictures when we return and I will try to add more stories and details. Thank you so much for your support and prayers, I appreciate and thank God for each one of you.

it's all about relationship.

As most of you know, this week we decided to go without any outside communication including phones, internet, email, snail mail, etc., so that we could use that time to spend with God and limit the distractions in our lives.

Our topics this week included 'Intercession' and 'Hearing the Voice of God.' We had a speaker named Brian come in to talk with us about intercession for two days. We learned that intercession is about standing in the gap, not as one individual, but as a community and body of believers to affect change. Not that God cannot work through individuals as well, but God chooses to work through community because He understands that we were built for relationship, with Him and with each other. The basic principles of intercession include: Praise God, ask God to bring up sin, Invite Holy Spirit, Address the Enemy, Silence: ask God what He wants us to pray for, pray for the things He lays on your heart, then praise God and walk out in faith that He listens:) One of the things that stood out to me during his teaching was when he asks us each our name and had us tell him if we gave him permission to speak into our lives. This was a big eye-opener for me, because I feel there are many people I will listen to, but don't give them permission to speak truth into my life. Will you give others permission into your soul?

'Hearing the Voice of God' was taught by Jason, the leader of the film school here at the base. Jason emphasized over and over again that hearing God's voice is not the goal or the main point, but relationship with God. I was convicted that so often I come to the Lord with selfish goals of what He is able to do for me, how He loves me and wants to bless me. Now, those desires are not bad, they are God-given, but when we strive to want the things of God above God Himself, that is when we are wrong and hurt God. Ephesians 4:30 tells us that we have the ability to grieve the Holy Spirit. What submission God shows us! That the God of the universe would put Himself in a low enough position that we have the ability to hurt Him, I cannot even imagine.

When I was in college, the Lord began to whisper to me and teach me the sound of His voice. As in the story of Elijah, the Lord does not come in with big thunder or howling winds, but He chooses to speak to us through a position of intimacy, through a Lover's whisper. God is talking to us all the time, the problem is that we are too distracted and too busy to take the time to listen. The God of the Universe wants to talk with us, and yet we tell Him that we don't have time, how selfish. God is speaking, are we willing to listen?

This week one of my biggest prayers was that the Lord would show me where He was at work, that I may join Him. About a year ago, I had people begin to tell me that I had the gift of discernment. I have been trying to figure out what that looks like and how to use it for awhile now and the Lord began to fit all of the pieces together this week. The Lord has given me eyes to see things of the Spiritual realm that not everyone sees; this is not for my sake, but for the sake of the community. For instance, this week the Lord told me about a guy on my team and what He was inwardly struggling with, so I was able to bring that insight to one of my leaders and they could pray through those walls more specifically. The next day, one of the leaders was led to go pray for the same guy and received a vision regarding the insight I had. I love how God works through community! The gift of discernment also includes insights into Spiritual Warfare. The Lord gave me countless opportunities to minister and pray for other students on my team. It's feels so good to be involved in Kingdom work, when you know that you are storing up treasures in Heaven that moth and rust cannot destroy, treasures that will last forever!

Thank you so much for your prayers this week. God is moving in incredible ways here:) Love and miss you all.

Character and Nature of God.

This week we began lectures and studied the character and nature of God. It's amazing to me how the Lord continues to teach you things, this week was no different.

It's easy to say "God is good," but it's something completely different to believe it. We need to allow the Lord to define what is good. When we look at a situation with our eyes, if it brings us comfort and happiness, then it must be 'good,' but if something brings grief or pain, then we categorize it as 'bad.' When we have determined that a situation is bad, our immediate reaction is to bring it under our control and turn it from bad to good. If we are able to trust that God is good and everything He does is good, we no longer have a reason to control the situation. Therefore not defining in ourselves what is 'good' or 'bad,' gives us freedom from control and freedom from ourselves.

On Wednesday afternoons, we have 'Go Days," where we go into the city and form relationships with people. Our team helped out in various places in the community including doing yard work for an elderly woman, helping a single mother and befriending mentally handicapped men at a facility. It's great to be able to make an impact here, not only during outreach. We also have Sports in the Park on Thursday afternoons where we go to the nearby park at the same time every week in hopes that kids will come and join us.

This weekend we have a break and we went to Cedar Creek nearby which had a bunch of bolders and a COLD creek running through it. We had a fun afternoon relaxing and getting to know each other better. We also did a bit of swimming:)

Here are a few more pics. The first is of our school on a bus ride, the second is Nele and I at Cedar Creek. I hope to get more up soon. Love you all and I'm so grateful for each of you.