six months.
most everything that the students on this school have gone through, i experienced only six months earlier. almost to the day. sometimes i forget how recent my own discipleship training school was. i had the incredible opportunity of baptizing two of the girls here, almost exactly six months after my own baptis
m that took place this past september. God has done so much in my life this past year and i feel so lucky to be able to pour out to these students as i'd been poured into six months ago.
the lecture phase of this discipleship training school ended on friday. i cannot believe how quickly this has all gone by! after our evangelism-focused week, we had a week on inductive bible study, taught by our own base director. the week after, we had a speaker from new zealand come, along with a DTS from the brisbane ywam base that sat in on our lectures with us. the speaker, mark parker, spoke on fear of the Lord. none of us knew what to expect, and any preconceived notions of what that week would look like were completely blown out of the water. it was a full-on week, but definitely one of the most transform
ational weeks we've seen.
on thursday, we started the day at 8am and didn't go home until 11pm - fifteen consecutive hours of ministry. the time flew by, and before we knew it, we had just seen fifteen hours of life-changing experiences. with both our students and the brisbane students, our speaker cleared the lecture room with nothing but the cross in the center of the room. the day was filled with hours of worship in between sev
eral ministry times. at the beginning, everyone gave an offering. one thing that mark really taught us was that there should be pain in the offering. it should sting a little. some people gave up snow mobiles, ipods, money...others gave up things like future plans or their desire to be
near their family. one of our stu
dents stood up from across the room and said that God had blessed him so much and he went on to tell the room of when i told the students about my sister and her financial prob
lems. from the second he mentioned my name, i just started shaking my head 'no.' but he walked over to me and handed me an envelope of money. i just cried into his shoulder, helpless in trying to find the words to say to appropriately thank him for his generosity. i felt so undeserving of that...this entire school, i've just felt so undeserving of the love and generosity that the students have shown me.
during our morning tea break, another student from wales approached me to say two things: one, he wanted me to have his sweatshirt. its a huge, oversized, comfortable sweatshirt that i love to wear during lectures and he wanted me to have it because when i feel the comfort and warmth of it, he wants me to feel God's comfort and warmth. that, in itself, was enough. but then, he said that before nick (the previous giver) had stood up to give me that money, he had already decided to give cori and jeff half of his birthday money. "overwhelmed" is an understatement.
one day before, the girl that had first given cori money a few weeks ago approached me and gave me a little bit more money. she said it was the total amount that she had wanted to give, but she couldn't afford to give it all at o
nce. a painful offering. i know all three of those people will
be blessed for their painful offering. i just wish i could do more to bless them.
there were a lot of tears on that long day. a lot of breakthrou
ghs. near the beginning, one of my one-on-one girls approached me during worship and said she was having a hard time getting into it and really worshipping. right as she said that, before i even had a chance to respond, the speaker asked if anyone was having a hard time worshipping, because he felt like there was someone struggling. my actions went faster than my brain, and i found myself throwing this girl into the center of the room. we were both shocked that i did that, but i just KNEW that it was her that callout was for. she just fell into tears
because she knew it, too! two guys ended up lifting her up onto their shoulders and she worshipped God from the top of their shoulders.
another one of our girls was just feeling spiritually cold. this girl is a incredibly strong, but i think she'd been bottling up a lot of emotions. the entire room gathered around her to pray, and she finally broke. the tears poured and healing took place and praises rang loudly.
several people stood up in front of the group and confessed deep things & repented of them publicly, and then knelt at the cross to pray. males lined up to apologize to a female that had been hurt by guys in the past. we prayed for healing over one another. we had a time where those suffering from a fear of man could get over that fear. they all stood at once side of the room, and everybody else stood at the other side. as staff, we prayed for all of those living in that fear, and then one by one, they had to get to the other side of the room in whatever way they felt led. i saw one guy dance michael jackson's 'thriller' dance across the room, i saw a girl dance her way to
the other side, a guy sang 'amazing grace' in front of the ro
om, there were cartwheels and running high fives and screams of 'FREEDOM.' it was seriously amazing to watch all of those people break away from fear of man.
the staff went around and anointed people with oil, praying for them and encouraging them. there was a time when all 60 or so of us gathered all around the cross and put our hands up to it and shouted out who God is to us and sang 'Awesome God' at the top of our lungs in our tightly formed circle around the cross.
the 15 hour day ended with dancing and jumping-filled worship. it was an amazing day. probably one of the most amazing days i've ever lived. i was exhausted and tired from crying and overwhelmed with emotions and wishing that the day would never, ever end. i've never been in a room so boldly filled with the presence of the Holy Sp
irit before. it was the most powerful day i could have ever imagined.
--christi (chelsea's one-on-one) and i baptizing chels!!
the next day, i was honored to baptize two of the girls here. chelsea is a girl from the sunshine coast in vancouver that i have grown really close with. sarah moes (aka 'moes,' aka 'mozambique') is one of my one-on-ones that i had struggled with so much at the beginning. i asked several people to pray for her as i spent many nights crying for her because her heart just wasn't in the right place
here. she saw it as a vacation and a social time, rather than a discipleship school and a time to grow closer to God. she has changed SO MUCH!!! it has been incredible to see God work in her and she has totally stepped out and strived to grow in Him and began dedicating much of her day to quiet times with God. i've loved spending one on one times with her and just hearing her talk about her personal experiences here. it gave me so much joy to be able to baptize her in the ocean on friday. courtney, the school leader, and i took her out in the water. she was the last of eight baptisms that took place on that beautiful, sunny day. courtney prayed for her and then we baptized her. afterwards, i prayed for her and it must have been seconds after she came up out of the water that it started DOWNPOURING. it rained so hard and we just stood in the water as i prayed for her and just laughed and cried because it was such a powerful showing of God's presence in that place. something like that only would have happened during Moes' baptism...she has been completely transf
ormed during these past three months and it was so appropriate that the floodgates of heaven opened up right after she came up out of the water. it was unbelievable.
-----hugging sarah in the sudden downpour after her baptism
the next day, saturday, we had an optional day of deliverance. several people showed up for a morning of teaching and an afternoon of ministry, delivering people from struggles and experiences of the past and present. there were mixed emotions about the day: many people felt truly freed while others felt truly uncomfortable. but, either way, it was an interesting day and i felt that i learned a lot.
this past week, our lectures were on missions. unfortunately, i wasn't able to sit in on any of the lectures because i've been so frantic in putting together last minute details for our outreach trip. we leave TODAY. yeah. today. how did this happen so quickly? seriously.
Team Cambo-land in Noosa!!!
we have eight students - a total of ten people with endre and i. three of our school's outreach teams are flying out together to bangkok. from their, we'll split up and our team will fly to phnom penh, cambodia. we'll be spending the first two weeks in phnom penh, working at a church there. we don't know exactly what we'll be doing there, but it will most likely involve teaching english, playing sports, working with kids, and preaching.
from there, we'll travel about an hour outside of phnom penh where we'll be working at an orphanage for AIDS children (it houses about 90 children with the disease). we will be there for two weeks.
on april 25, we'll fly back to bangkok and then on down to hadyai, in southern thailand. there, we'll be working in schools and churches - preaching, encouraging, playing sports with the kids, leading bible studies, sunday schools and church services. there is a possibility that i will leave about a week or ten days early and up to pattaya with the girls, where we'll be involved in prostitution ministries. we're still not sure if that will become a reality or not, but are praying for direction on that.
i'm excited. i'm really, really excited. scared out of my pants, but really excited. we've got an amazing team that i think will really come together and serve in incredible ways. endre and i took the
team to noosa heads a couple of weeks back and could already start to see how each one will be used to serve the team and the people we meet. i'm so happy that i have endre as a co-leader .. we've grown really close the past few weeks and are able to share our fears and weaknesses with each other and encourage each other through those fears and weaknesses. neither one of us has lead an outreach before, so we're walking into this pretty blind, but know that God is leading us and that allows us to breathe many sighs of relief! especially when i think of handling the budget with endre. budgets make me sick.
as far as my post-outreach plans, i can't really think that far ahead yet. i need to survive these next two months first. but i have the amazing opportunity to travel in new zealand for two weeks when i get home, along with many of the other staff members on this school. then, i think i'll be back on the sunny coast for a couple of days before going down to brisbane for a two week leadership certification training course. i'll be going home in early july and will most likely come back here to staff the DTS that begins at the end of september. i have no idea what God has in store for me, but i'm open for anything and i really enjoy seeing what's next because it's NEVER what i expect. and i like surprises.
thanks so much for all of your support during these past three months! it has been the most rewarding months of my life and i feel so lucky to have been here to be a part of these transformation these students have gone through! at our last worship time, i just stood at the back of the room and looked around and saw a room full of completely different people than when we first began in january. and THAT is worth the money and the miles. more than worth it.
i'll be in touch...please pray for our team if you think of it. for safety, health and unity.
love you all so much!!!
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