safe arrival.

Thank you to everyone who is a part of my life.  You are each such a blessing, whether you offered an encouraging word, listening ear, prayer, or financial gift, I thank you.  I arrived safely at the base in Brisbane yesterday morning.  My goal was to stay awake until 9pm, but I was in bed by 8:30pm...jet lag.  The weather is beautiful and it's so good to be here and to see so many familiar faces again.  I feel like I am returning from my home away from home.  Thank you so much for being a part of this journey and I look forward to what the Lord has in store!  I pray the Lord surprises you with His goodness today and reminds you how much He adores you:)

flipping omelets.

A couple weeks ago, I decided I wanted to learn how to flip omelets.  I shared by goal with a friend at work and we discussed the art of flipping omelets.  We discussed how you cannot try to do a half-flip, there is no 'playing it safe' when it comes to flipping.  In order to get the desired results, you must go all-in, you must fully commit, or you will end up with a giant mess and no omelet.  In order to come out with a good omelet, there is an element of risk involved.

This is very similar to our walk with the Lord.  Jesus asks us to walk on water with Him, to do the impossible.  I think that so often we try to put one foot in the water at a time before we commit to saying 'yes.'  We want to test the water to see how it feels, if it's comfortable and safe, we choose to focus on the water and our own well-being, instead of our Savior.  But Jesus never called us to a safe and comfortable life, He said 'follow me.'  End of story. God says in Revelation 3:16 "So because you are lukewarm- neither hot nor cold- I am about to spit you out of my mouth."  If we are following Jesus, we are either in or out, there is no middle ground.  Yet just as with flipping omelets, the more risk involved, the higher the potential reward.  If we risk everything for Jesus, He promises we will be rewarded, if not in this life, but in the life to come.

This morning, I went for it and my omelet was a complete, delicious success:)

less than 2 weeks.

The date of departure is quickly approaching.  I am so blessed to have such a wonderful community to support me, both in Michigan, South Carolina and all over the world.  Thank you for all of you who pray for me and give financially, you are so essential to this journey and I'm thankful for you.  I've had a great time scooping ice cream again at the Junction for the past couple months and catching up with family and friends.  I feel more ready to go as each day passes, but I'm still trying to drink in my last few days of Michigan summer.  The Lord is teaching me so much about learning to trust Him as my Provider.  I am learning more and more how important it is to "take every thought captive" and continually recite scripture to fill my mind with truth.  If our minds are filled with truth, there is no room for fear and anxiety to take over.  This has been one of my guiding verses over the past month.

"The Lord will guide you always.  He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land.  He will strengthen your frame.  You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails."  Isaiah 58:11

I am a little over half way with support raising, praise the Lord, but I still have a ways to go. If you're still interested in partnering with me on this journey, feel free to give even after I've left.  If you have not received any information on how to give and would like to, please email me at laurindarapp@gmail.com.

where you lead me i will follow.

After much prayer and soul-searching, I have decided to commit to staff in Brisbane, Australia for 2 years.  I am realizing more and more how much I love young people and have a desire to mentor and disciple them.  The program I will be involved with to staff is called Basic Leadership School.  During this school, we get to practice leadership hands-on, staffing two DTS's and leading outreach teams, as well as serving for a season on base.

All positions in YWAM are support-based, so I am in the process of trying to raise support to head back.  I will be leaving June 15, 2012, until then I am enjoying time with family and working at the Ice Cream Junction...again:)  Thanks for all your support!

unanswered questions.

Hey yall! I'm down in South Carolina visiting friends and family down here. I forgot how beautiful and hospitable Charleston is:) I'm down here until March 30th, then heading back to Michigan to start work at the Junction Ice Cream Shoppe again...big surprise! I found a great quote on my friends' cupboard,

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live you way into the answer. -Rainer Maria Rilke

As I continue to pray over my next step, and wrestle with the question of "what's next?" I realized a reoccurring pattern in my life. I allow unanswered questions, unresolved issues to paralyze me with fear. It's like I wait to start living again until the answer comes, as if I hold my breath while waiting for an answer, even if that means turning blue in the face and close to the point of passing out. When I do this, I am refusing the freedom God offers me. God has seen the past, present and future, but He is living with us in the present. So often we allow our minds to wander to either the past filled, with regret or we get stuck on the future and what's happening next instead of missing out on the today. "This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24. So I am going to choose to live in the present, the today, breathing deeply, thanking my Savior for each breath, trusting He has a plan and He's watching out for me and I pray you do the same.

there and back again

Wow, it's hard to even begin to explain the past 7 months. God has exceeded my expectations over and over again. One of my favorite quotes is by C.S. Lewis;

"It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

I have seen this ring true in my life so many times. We come up to the king's table, not even really sure if we are invited to dine with Him. So, we end up asking permission to eat the leftover crumbs on the ground when God is inviting us every day to dine with Him at the King's table and share a feast. We are so afraid of being disappointed, that we're afraid to hope. When our hope is founded in the person of Jesus, we will never be disappointed; we will never get to the end of His person. God is always giving us the invitation to go deeper to let go of ourselves and sign up for a life of adventure, but it always comes with a cost. There is always a level of risk involved and we must choose to accept the risk and overcome the fear if we are to live like Jesus.

After DTS, I had a chance to go to New Zealand for a couple weeks with Nele and take some time off to process and debrief the past 6 months. It was such a blessing, so beautiful and so much fun! I have been home for almost 2 weeks now. Life is always changing, always moving, like a river and we must choose to adjust and move with the change, or we will be swept away by the current. I am still in the process of trying to figure out how to make Discipleship Training School (DTS) a lifestyle and not an event, but I'm sure I'll be trying to figure that out for quite some time. I am currently in the process of praying over my next step and taking some time to rest and visit with family and friends again. I am looking into doing a Biblical Leadership School (BLS) with YWAM in Australia or New Zealand, which includes staffing the DTS and taking a few classes of my own.

Thanks again for all your love, support and prayers!

changes.

As most of you know, I'm not the best at change. I like to be familiar with people, surroundings and the schedule; I like to have everything in control. But if you look in the Bible, when does someone actually have their life under control? The Bible is pretty unexpected and full of change if you ask me. As I've gotten older, it seems like I've been put in more and more positions where I need to be okay with change; this is no exception.

On the last road trip, we traveled to 5 locations in 4 weeks. We started in Byron Bay, a hippie, backpacker town where we were able to talk with a couple from Belgium about God and help them with some physical needs they had. Everyone was so open to God in that town and it was so relaxed; it was great! Plus, we had a chance to go surfing at sunrise one day.

From there, we went to Fingal Heads, which is Aboriginal ground. We stayed at an Aboriginal church and led the service for them on Sunday. We also got to take a hike and see the actual Fingle Heads, which were pretty cool.

Then we traveled by car ferry over to Stradbroke Island for Spritual Warfare teaching and 'Survivor' games. The beach was beautiful and it was a great weeks for teams to address strengths and weaknesses. We also saw so much wildlife! We saw a koala, bald eagle, shark, sea turtles, dolphins and schools of fish. I got to pet and pick up the koala:)

We went from the Beach to the Bush once again and headed to a ranch in Toowoomba where we learned about missions for the week. The weather turned warm very quickly, but there was a mud swimming hole at the top of the hill we cooled off in almost every afternoon. It w

as great just to be out in nature alone with our school again. I had the privilege of spe

aking the sermon at a local church on Sunday afternoon. God moved so much throughout the service and we got to pray for people afterward.

Our last stop was Chinchilla where we did a week of outreach. We helped out in churches, schools, and did manual labor at the local Boy Scout Club House to help with repairs from the floods that hit Australia last year. While we were there, I got to hold someone's 9 month old Wallaby:) We also saw people healed of back pain!

We had a week to get ready for outreach; teams have been leaving over the past 3 days for various countries. Our team is the last to leave. Internet is not very prevelant in Vanuatu, so we've been having a difficult time communicating with the base there. We don't know exactly what we will be doing, but we will be helping out with kids ministry and church services. 2 days after arriving, we are going to go backpacking into a bush village for about 10 days.

I love that God does not change, that He is the same yesterday, today, and always; that truth gives me a place to rest in the midst of so much change. It's normally in times of immense change we grow most. If we refuse change, we refuse growth. Life is about change.

Thank you so much for all your love and support, you are so much a part of what God is doing here.

Pictures:

Top right: preaching in Toowoomba

Top left: date to the city with Nele

Bottom: team Vanuatu