See ya later, Australia!

Hello everyone! Wow, I'm so sorry it's been such a long time since I've updated you. The last few weeks have actually been really crazy. I don't really even know where to start filling you guys in. The last few weeks of lectures have been really amazing. Our topics were Calling and Vision, Missions, and Relationships. I'll just give you major points I learned from each week :)

Calling and Vision:
-God spoke to me through Ezekiel about my future after DTS. I know He wants me in Germany within the next few years doing missions work, and He wants me to learn the language. I'm super excited about that!

Missions:
-Ignorance isn't always bliss. There are thousands of unreached peoples that need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can't ignore that.
-I am praying about whether I am supposed to go to a unreached group of people and share the gospel. Pretty pumped about that :)

Relationships:
-God taught me that even having guy friends who fill up my "comfort tank" can be sinful if I am going to that person for comfort instead of God.
-God's also been speaking me to me about being content with being single for a while, while He works on my heart and calls me to  do different missions opportunities.

God's also been using His word to clearly answer questions I have for Him and it's really amazing.

So we're getting ready to leave for outreach! Instead of leaving the first of January like we thought we were, we're leaving Australia on the 14th, and we won't be able to go to Amsterdam. Flights were too expensive so that's the reason. Another curve ball we got thrown our way was our leader, Talea, isn't coming on outreach anymore due to health problems. So our other leader Kathryn is stepping up to lead it. When we found out, we were pretty bummed, but we know God's got it under control. We are going to Sydney on the 4th of January until the 12th to do ministry there. Probably a lot of prayer ministry, but we're not sure yet. A lot of this outreach will sort of be based on what we hear God telling us to do. Lots of praying, interceding, and worshipping.Should be amazing!

Me and my Swiss friend, Manu, are in charge of food for outreach, so we will be planning meals, grocery shopping, and cooking for everyone. It's going to be so fun! We're pumped about it.

I'll just give you guys some stuff to pray for if that's ok!

-Finances for the whole team, as a whole we need about $4000 I think.
-Unity within our team on outreach
-My obedience in God's calling for me after DTS
-Homesickness
-Safety on outreach

Thanks guys. Love you heaps. Can't wait to see you all again.

xoxo,
Laura.

Cheers and Prayers!

What up everybody!


So, I thought I would just spend some time on my blog today just saying things that I'm thankful for and stuff that God has done and then put some prayer requests up. Gonna do things a bit different today. Love you all!

I am thankful for...
-the family I have made here
-a place to rest my head at night
-3 square meals a day
-enough water to drink every day
-a normal shower and toilet
-speakers who spend time hearing from God and speaking what He has told them to
-God's grace
-God's ability to use me even when I stuff up
-Authority God has given believers to rebuke Satan and sickness
-Friends and family back home that care about me and what I'm doing
-God's word
-Opportunity to pray for people who I meet on the street
-the beach
-kangaroos
-bread bin
-chai tea
-my desire to travel and see the world
-different languages
-people who are patient in teaching me German
-cool pictures
-hearing from God
-intercession
-music
-air con
-$.59 vanilla creme wafers
-chocolate milk
-humour


Prayer requests:

• Finances! I need another $1400 for outreach
• God to use our team to reach women and men in the sex trafficking industry
• Injuries here on base that I believe the enemy is trying to use to bog people down
• Distractions to leave and to focus 100% on Christ and His mission for me
• Guidance and direction in what to do after DTS
• People of Moldova and Latvia to be ready for our team to come and invade with Christ's love!

Love you all! :)

Submission and Homeless Expedition!

Hey friends.

Lots to fill you guys in on. This last week of lectures was over Submission and Authority by Robert Puyu, who is the Director of YWAM Bangladesh. He was this short little man with a huge heart and a great knowledge of the Word. He also looked like Bill Cosby so that was cool.

Yeah, so this week he just shared with us a lot of biblical principles of how to submit to authority and how to use authority as well. We went through a few different bible stories and picked out the submission in each one and how each one executed authority well or not well. This was a great topic to teach on (it was an bonus week of lectures actually!) because in a few weeks we will be going on outreach and I'm sure at some point it will be difficult to submit to our leaders and to each other as well, so God really used this week to prepare our hearts for outreach. He also spoke about being willing to die for the sake of the gospel whilst on outreach and also being willing to stay back in the country you serve in for more ministry and missing commission. The latter one hit me hard and God I know is asking me to be willing for that to happen, even if it won't actually. God's just been molding and shaping my heart into more of His for the nations and I'm becoming more and more willing to do whatever He asks of me. So that's been really cool as well.

So, this weekend our school did a 24 hour homeless project! We split up into 5 different groups, equipped with at least one male for each group (mom and dad, if you're reading this, no worries, all of us were completely safe! haha) and nothing but the clothes on our backs and a bible, notebook, and pen. So, our team was basically the dream team. Such an epic team. Before we even left I knew that our main mission wasn't going to be finding an abundance of food or a warm place to sleep, but our mission was to get divine appointments from God. And we did! At the beginning of the project, we sat by this massive tree with gigantic roots springing up from the ground. Before, one of my teammates found a 5 dollar note which we ended up blessing someone else with. But as we were laying by the tree, we decided to hear God about what scriptures he wanted us to read. So one of my teammates got the verse Proverbs 3:18, having no knowledge of what the verse spoke about and thinking that she just made the verse up in her head. But when we read it, we were in awe as this is what it said: She is a tree of life to those who embrace her; those who lay hold of her will be blessed. So, we decided we should embrace this tree so we all gathered around it and held hands and sang Come Thou Fount. It was amazing! After that, we read some more scripture and then some of the group decided to wander off to find some food. We ended up getting two bags of expired chips, 3 oranges, and an expired Pepsi. So we had a feast and thanked God for providing for us! After that we went to the beach and on the way, we stopped in this tunnel and sang a whole bunch of worship songs. It was pretty epic. We went up to the beach and while we were talking, we saw this guy a ways off doing really weird stretches and stances, which peaked our curiosity so we decided to go down and talk to him. I can't really describe this guy to you but I'd say he was new agey and definitely spiritual, but wasn't a believer. I'd say he was probably a genius because he knew so much and just had a unique way of talking. He was south african and was living as a homeless person for about 20 years in the Newie area. He was also incredibly built but he was only about 54 years old or so. He talked a lot about his childhood and crazy stuff happening which seemed impossible and really out there to believe, but it wasn't our job to judge or correct so we just listened. At the beginning of the conversation we asked if we could pray for him and he was pretty adamant that we couldn't. But at the end, he told us we could pray for him anytime so we did! It was sweet. So then our group left and we went and sat by the tree of life again and were just debriefing from the conversation we had, and one of my teammates said that God had spoken to him about this man we met (David) and he didn't share it with him. At that exact moment, he rode by so we urged him to go talk to him and share the word. So he did and it ended up being something that David connected with. David told them that after they prayed for them a second time, he felt God say to him, "this is me, David". So that was really awesome. After that, he ended up giving us 2 bananas and some crackers for us to share which was incredible because he had very little food himself. It was an amazing blessing. The rest of the evening we spent praying, walking, singing, praising and talking to random people. We ended up sleeping on a train for about 4 hours and then we went to the beach to watch the sun rise which we didn't actually get to, but that's ok. Then we went to this homeless shelter for breakfast and the owner recognised us as YWAMers and invited us warmly in! The breakfast was amazing after not eating a proper meal for a day. David ended up being there again so we got to talk to him and then we invited him to come to our church service this week. So we're pretty excited about that.

So, all in all, the last week has been pretty eventful and God has done so much! I'm excited for this week as the topic is spiritual warfare! It's going to be amazing.

I'm going to leave a video here for you guys to watch of my outreach team and our need for finances! Love you guys so much and see if you 3.5 months!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=l0kl2O5AM6I

Give me some more Holy Spirit

So this last week was Holy Spirit week and our speaker Raf Shaw was amazing! He shared a bunch of stories about healings he'd seen and miracles he'd been apart of. He talked a lot about speaking in tongues and what the Bible says about it so that was really interesting. At the end of the week he prophesied over each of us and part of mine was having the gift of faith and healing. And they prayed for both me and Alexa and they said that Kansas would never be the same when we got back and that we'd do market place ministry together. I'm not quite sure what this all means but I'm praying about it still! So yeah, last week was super cool.

This weekend we had CityFest which was a city wide festival with Luis Palau and there was a kids zone and extreme sports and food vendors and concerts and then gospel messages presented at the end of each night. So cool! My job was to dress up in a gorilla costume and have fun with the kids! It was great. I had a ton of fun. Then I got to pray with a few people to accept Christ which was incredible! I loved it.

Not much else is happening except we are planning more for outreach and I'm super excited about that! Me and my good friend Manu(from Switzerland!) are in charge of food! So that's exciting.

Ok, sorry this is such a short update but here are some things to pray for:

-I need still about $2000 to come in for my outreach funds!
-The rest of my team needs to see financial breakthru as well
-That I'd be growing so much in Christ and having a heart for His people
-To maintain patience with people!

Ok thanks. Love you and miss you all heaps.

xoxo,
Laura

Holy Spirit: WOW!

Hello friends. From now on, we'll just assume that I am writing the blog unless Alexa says otherwise :) So, it's Laura! Haha.

So, I'll just give a quick update about this last week of lectures. The topic was Lordship and we had an incredible speaker: Mark Parker. He's from New Zealand and is a great man of God. The lectures were incredible, which actually might be an understatement. He first emphasized the importance of repentance and how much we need to do it as Christians. Not because we're getting "saved again" every time, but because it's good practice and it makes us right with God and makes us aware of what we're doing wrong and how we can change it. Another big point he made was just about pure obedience and devotion to Christ as our number one.  One really cool thing he said was that God uses the natural to bring the super. Supernatural. Cool, hey? In all honesty, there was so much that we talked about this week that I can't put it in an "orderly" order if that makes any sense at all, so I'm just kinda scatter my thoughts all over this blog for you to read ;)

As I was looking through my notes, I saw the word "KINGDOM" written in bold about 5 or 6 times, so I'm thinking that was an important word to me during this week. God's kingdom is here on earth and it's in each one of us and I'm so excited to see what God is going to do in and through us! Also I wrote down KINGDOM=BEAUTY. That's the truth, hey? So good. Another thing he said so much during the week was to "Follow Him, fix your eyes on Him, and remember your baptism". That was super cool as well. Oh, one thing I learned this week that we each have a spirit, a soul, and a body. (Well, obviously I knew about the body, but I always thought that the spirit and the soul were the same thing). The spirit is intuition, communion, conscience, identity, value, destiny. The soul is mind, will, emotions, personhood and ability to relate. The body is for food, defense, reproduction, and the ability to love and serve. So, that was cool to learn. Also, everybody, ALL AUTHORITY IS IN JESUS! And then the last thing that really hit me was that I have to relinquish my rights because really, I have none. So, yeah.

The last day was a day of, um, I guess I'd say amazingness. We started out the day in a circle outside just reading scripture and praying, and the people who thought they had a hard time hearing God's voice got in the middle and the rest of the people walked around us and prayed that God would totally just reveal himself to us that day. So that was cool. Since our speaker is from New Zealand, he introduced us to a Kiwi tradition called "hongi". It's a greeting you do and basically you just do like an eskimo kiss kind of. You grab one hand and then with the other you put your hand on the back of the other's head and then touch noses. So, he had us get in a line and then I started off the line and went around to everyone and did it which was kind of awkward but really cool. It was just a way to start off the day with closeness and love with our brothers and sisters. Then we went inside our lecture room and it was all decorated with a cross and stuff and it was sweet. And then we just worshipped our brains out for a while and people prayed for healing over one another and some people got healed from like back pains and such.And people were crying and just enjoying the Lord's goodness. Then after worship, we got in a circle and just shared a story of thankfulness to what God has done in our lives. That was sweet. Then after that we worshipped some more and then the day before he had told us to bring a random physical object with us and see if God had anything to tell us or others through it. So I brought an empty water bottle and I felt God was telling me that He was just going to overflow me with His Holy Spirit. Some other people brought like string, a loaf of bread, flowers, books, etc. So we just had a time of praying and asking God what He wanted to show us that day. Then after that we went into a time of offering God things in our lives. So everyone one at a time went up to the cross and shared with each other what thing they were giving up to God. I gave up my life essentially, so I brought my scrapbook from home which contained pictures of friends,family, memories, travel, etc and then I gave up my purity ring which obviously symbolizes purity but I wasn't giving up my purity. I was giving up my desire to be married one day and have children, because really I just want to do what God wants for my life. Some people gave up passports (just figuratively, don't worry haha), pictures, letters, clothes, shoes, hair straighteners, etc. A lot of people gave away clothes and food and stuff to other people which was amazing. One girl gave up her hair (meaning she cut a TON of it off) because she felt that she was idolizing her self image and putting that before God. She looks so beautiful now. So, that was really powerful. Then we had a quick break for lunch and after that we came back and did "guilt offerings". So basically people got up and shared again just sins in their lives and what they needed to give to God and a lot of people asked for forgiveness from everyone and then we went to the cross and prayed between us and God. A lot of people shared incredibly deep and personal things that was so beautiful because they were vulnerable and really wanted to turn from their ways. I really respect everyone here so much more now BECAUSE they shared things they struggled with and its just so amazing how much freedom it brought. After that, we broke up into groups of guys and girls and just prayed for each other. Then we had some more worship, and after that, people put things in a bucket, like letters from exes, pictures, books, and different things they needed to completely give God and repent from and we burned it all! While we burned it, we sang a few worship songs as a group which was cool. After that, we went back inside and worshipped while the leaders anointed each other with oil and then they came around and anointed the students and the Holy Spirit just filled us up completely. It was amazing. After that, we got into 4 lines facing back to back without knowing who was behind us and Mark asked us to ask God for a word and then turn around and tell the person behind us. Then we did the same after we switched people and asked God for a picture for the person and then shared it. That was sweet. So, prophesy is a pretty powerful thing and God uses it to edify the body of believers and it's incredible. After that, we ate dinner together and shared back what we learned and then worshipped our hearts out again and then that was the end! It was incredible day full or worship, prophesy, laughing, praying, crying, fellowshipping, and loving! God really spoke to me and touched my heart in a very personal way. 

This morning we found out the 3rd location and it's Bangladesh! So cool. I'm still deciding between Amsterdam/Latvia/Moldova, Thailand, and then this one.  If you guys want to pray that I'd pick the one I'm supposed to go to, that'd be amazing! 

Ok, that's it. Sorry it's so long but God is SO GOOD!

Love you and miss you heaps.

XOXO,

Laura

 

WAIT.

Hey friends! It's Laura.

So so so sorry  that I haven't updated in such a long time. We have been really busy here at the base and time has gone by so fast that I don't even realize that it's been 2 weeks since my last update! Forgive me. After my last post we had another full week of lectures and then we went straight into a full weekend of celebrating 20 years of YWAM Newcastle and then we had another week of lectures straight after that, so as you can see, I've been really busy! But it's been a good busy. I've finally just had 2 days off and it's been wonderful! I went to the beach yesterday with friends and then watched a movie last night. Then today I just hung around the house and relaxed. It was great!

Well folks, I suppose I should give you an update on what God is teaching me! The first week of real lectures was over the Father heart of God, and it was a good refresher for me to know that God sees me as His beloved  and precious child. It was also a really good bonding week with my school and the other school. I've made so many friends here and it's amazing! The second week was over the character of God. This was a challenging week for me in the matter of doctrine and theology. We talked a lot about the Trinity and kind of how to relate to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. That was really interesting. Another hot topic we touched on was what it means that God is an all-knowing God. This discussion I had never had before with anyone so it was really good to be challenged with it. The speaker kind of gave us two viewpoints on this. The first one being that God knows every single thing that has happened to us, is happening to us, and is going to happen to us. So basically God knows every action I will take and every word I say until here on out. Our speaker kind of explained this as a "fatalistic" view (which I don't think I agree with necessarily) and that if God knows everything that is going to happen and is complete control of it, it doesn't matter what we do, kind of like "what will be will be".  The second view (the view that he holds) is that God just knows all the possibilities of what will happen and that is why in the scriptures it talks about God being disappointed and being angry and such. Because if God already knew what was going to happen, then why would He be disappointed in a bad decision we made? That sort of view. After thinking and reading scripture after this week, I think I have come up with my conclusion. If you want to hear more about what I think, feel free to send me an email at evanslaura31@gmail.com and we can discuss :)

This last week wasn't as challenging (or really not at all to be honest) as the week before. It was on the fear of the Lord, and I don't know if I can really say I got anything out of it to be honest. But God did speak to me this week and gave me the word "wait". After thinking and praying and asking God what He means by this, I think I've figured it out. I think He's telling me 3 things by this. One is that I need to wait on my future plans for after my DTS. I've been thinking about other missions opportunities and biblical studies to do, but I need to wait and focus on my DTS now instead of planning for the future already. The second one is to wait for my husband. There's a lot of great guys here at YWAM  (in fact, one of the funny nicknames that YWAM gets is "Young Woman After Men" haha) and it would be very easy for me to lose my focus if I allowed myself to, so I think God is just reminding me to let Him write my love story! And then the 3rd one is to wait for God to reveal Himself to me in a big way. I've been praying that God would just show me His glory in an obvious way, because I want more of Him. But God is just telling me to wait for that moment and be content with Himself showing me just bits of Him at a time.

So yeah, that is what I've been learning the last few weeks and I'm excited for the weeks to come! Next week's topic is Lordship, and I hear the speaker really gets in your face and challenges you and I'm SUPER pumped for it.

I'm planning on going to Sydney this weekend to the live recording of Hillsong's new CD and then staying the night there with some friends. Should be an amazing time.

Love you and miss you all! See you soon.
Cheers!
xoxo,
Laura

Lord, teach me.

Laura here. (you guys should encourage Alexa to blog more haha ;) )

Well, first week of lectures is almost over for us! This week we have been talking about the Fatherheart of God. Some of the main points have been that normally our perception of God is inaccurate. For instance, if someone's father left them or abused them, they tend to carry this attribute over to our heavenly Father. God is a God of love and comfort and protection and is incapable of ever hurting us or leaving us! That has been refreshing for me. Another thing we've touched on a lot is restoration of our earthy relationships with parents. That's been good as well.

We went camping this last weekend and although I don't particularly enjoy camping, I had a good time connecting with people and I'm glad God pushed me out of my comfort zone a bit. One thing I really thought about a lot this weekend is how important prayer is. Not just throughout the day when it's convenient or when I casually think of something to talk to God, but intentionally setting aside time every day to talk to Him and come to Him with requests. I think that sometimes our prayers reflect how big we think God is. So I've been challenged with that in asking God for big things. I've been praying ever since I got here that God would speak to me in a huge and radical way that is totally undeniable that anyone else could do the same thing. So far nothing really has happened and I've been slightly disappointed because during prayer and worship I'll look around and it seems like everyone but me has been prayed or prophesied over but then I'll realize that God could totally speak to me in other ways than that.

So. yeah. Also I've been thinking a lot about outreach and I'm still kind of thinking that Latvia/Moldova is where I'm supposed to go. I just feel it in my soul. But I am asking that God would totally and completely make it real to me! One thing about that location is that it's another $2000 or so that I didn't budget for so I will need to start support raising some more. So, if you are feeling led to donate or donate more, let me know! my email address is evanslaura31@gmail.com. 

Well, that's about all, folks. I'll try to update once a week or so for you guys. Love ya heaps.

xoxo,

laura

I'm here!

Hey mates!

Laura here.

Alexa and I have made it safely down under! Our plane ride was problem free and looooooong! Total travel time was about 24 hours. We are currently staying with our friend Emma who lives halfway between Newcastle and Sydney. There are about 7 of us DTS girls staying with her until the school starts on Tuesday. We are super excited for the school to start!

So far we have been to the beach and had a authentic aussie barbeque! It was heaps fun. Today we are going to the Reptile Park which is basically like a zoo with all aussie animals. I might be able to hold a koala bear! Pretty excited. So, I guess I'll just leave  a few prayer requests for you guys until I update again. Also I will say I miss you you all a lot and I'm excited to see you again soon :)

• Pray that our team would continue to bond and grow close and that the enemy would keep away from our relationships.
• Pray that God would grow me and stretch me in an uncomfortable way!
• Pray that I would still make time to do my devotions even though I will be spending a lot of time in scripture and prayer with school.

Love you all! xox

-Laura

The Countdown Begins

Hey friends. It's Laura here!

So sorry I haven't been keeping up with this blog. I do promise to update it frequently while I am in Australia so you guys can check up on what I am doing and learning! 

God has been moving in my life more than ever, and it's mind-blowing to think that if He's worked so much in my heart before I even get on the plane to go to Australia, that He will work immeasurably more than I could imagine in my life while I'm there! God has taught me a few things that I'd love to share with you all if that's alright.

• Submission to God's will for my life doesn't always come easy--but that's what God desires and asks of us: to submit to His perfect and magnificent will for each of our unique lives. It's hard to be okay with whatever God wants you to do, but in the end, it's so incredibly rewarding.
• When you trust God with every part of your life (and I mean EVERY), that's when He starts working the most, in my experience. 
• God chooses to reveal Himself and give us deeper understandings of scripture a little bit at a time, because if He decided to reveal all there is to know about Him and His word all at once, we would be completely overwhelmed!

Well, those are the few things that God has taught me the last few months. I've also learned that it is vital to spend time in the Word and in prayer daily. Sometimes I feel that we think that spending time with God is for our own good, but He truly desires and longs to spend time with us even more than we want to spend time with Him. There's been times this summer where I've gone one or two days in a row without doing devotions, and I can definitely tell a difference in my thought patterns and my behavior towards situations. 

19 days and counting until Alexa and I leave for Australia. It's still freakishly surreal to both of us that we are leaving the country for 6 months! Words cannot describe how excited I am to go and grow and change in my relationship with Christ and in my life in general. I would covet prayers for both Alexa and I and the team as we embark on this life-changing journey.

I would also like to lift up Alexa and ask that you would pray for the rest of her finances to come in. She has about $1500 left to raise. She's been so gracious in helping me get together my finances for the trip and now it's my turn to help her out. Please pray for her and if you feel led to give financially to her, that would be a huge blessing.

Keep looking for more updates from me as I get ready to leave and while I'm there.

Love you guys!

-Laura

In awe of Jesus

Hey followers. This is Laura! Sorry I haven't kept up with the blog lately. There's no excuse!
I would love to share with you guys some amazing news :)

First off, let me start out by saying how great the God is that we serve. His faithfulness is overpowering and overwhelming. The Lord has taught me so much in the last few months than I have ever experienced before.

So, my deadline to get in my funds for the trip was this last Friday the 20th. Me and Alexa hosted a benefit concert to bring in funds (we both decided that the funds that were raised that night would go to my trip since my deadline is shorter than hers). A while back, I was talking to my good friend, Justin, about how the funds were coming and I told him I wanted to find a band to play a "gig" for us so we could raise some money. Well, it just so happens that Justin is in an amazing band called Herbert and Brothers and I asked him to talk to the leader, Daniel, and see if they were interested in doing a concert for us. When I heard back, I got a eager "Yes!". So, me and Alexa started planning with the band for a concert and I had to explain the situation to Dainel about why my deadline was in July. He was incredibly understanding and the support him and the band showed towards our trip was incredible. He wanted to pour himself into something and just really show the love of Christ, which he did. Anyway, we met the night before I left for a church conference for a week, and we had not set up a date or had a venue for this proposed concert. We had plenty of ideas, but nothing else. While I was gone that week, I really trusted that if God truly wanted me to go to Australia that he would first provide a place for us to have this concert, and from there provide the rest of the money I needed to go. Surrendering my desires and my future to Christ wasn't a one time thing. It is a constant battle that I struggle with. Anyway, when I came back from the church conference, I got word from Daniel that they had found a venue! I was ecstatic. So, we started hardcore planning for the event and while we were planning, I was having some major doubt if I should go. Not because I couldn't see myself there or because I didn't believe God had incredible things stored for me; but because I did not have enough faith in God that He would provide the funds I needed to go. Once I got back from the conference,  and up until the concert date, I had received about another $2,000 from people in donations. Anyway, the concert approached and I was eager to see what the outcome would be. I was totally okay with whatever God wanted to do with my future (which took me a long time to get to that point--probably a good 6 months!). That night, instead of the 5-6 person band they normally have play, the band gathered up about 20 people to play along side of them to bless Alexa and I. It was a breathtaking night. I mean, this was like a full- out orchestra playing for us. Well, not really us. Only Jesus. (See picture!). At the  concert, we had an art show and a bake sale, and after the music was done, people came out and started buying things and donating money and telling us "thank you" and "God bless your trip" and "your stories are inspirational" and "I'll be praying for you"and all sorts of encouraging things. That night, we raised over $2000 for the trip. And I am incredibly happy to say not only am I going to Australia and have bought my plane ticket with Alexa, but that God is faithful and His power and beauty shined so brightly that night and continues to throughout my life. Even more exciting than the funds I received is the fact that God is working big time and He never ceases to stop providing in radical ways.

I still have about $1500 to raise and it could possibly be more depending on where I go for my outreach portion of the trip. But I know God will provide and I have some money saved up that I plan on using if I don't get any more donations. Anyway, we will try to keep you all updated as we continue on this journey.

To Christ be all the glory!

Love,
Laura

Movie Night: Success!

Laura here.
Well, the movie night went well! We had about 15 people there and raised about $100! I am still trying to raise another $6500 by July 15. The other $500 came from some paychecks and graduation money I hadn't deposited yet. I am learning that even if I am not able to go because of the money, that God has an even bigger plan for me. Obviously, my heart aches and yearns to be in Australia and do a DTS and see a different culture and help with the "least of these". But ultimately, I want to do what God wants for me. So, whether that is here or in Australia, I will be content with that.  I would appreciate your prayers especially the next couple weeks as I am waiting for money to come in and to see what God does next. Pray for Alexa as well. We love you all!

Hey guys. Guess who?
It's Laura.
Well, today I am going to be really honest with all of you (does anyone read this? haha) and say that I am really discouraged today. I spent some time this evening talking with friends and family about whether this decision to go to Australia is the right one or not. I don't know financially if I will make it (I still have $7,000 to raise)  in a matter of about a month. A bit less than that now. Me and my parents decided that for me to be able to go, I needed to have this money raised by the middle of July. So, my deadline is July 15, 2012. That's pretty crazy, guys. $7000 raised in less than a month? Seems impossible. But I am clinging on to the hope that God has a plan and if I am supposed to go, He will make it happen. So, I'm sitting back and letting God handle this one. I cling to this verse. "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go" (Joshua 1:9). So, with that being said, I covet your prayers.
Love and hugs to all,
Laura.

Laura signing in!
Well, me and Alexa have been working hard on fundraising things, planning events, meeting with people, writing support letters, etc. It's so much work! It's very easy to get discouraged (at least for me), you know, since we each have to raise $10,000 in just a few months. But I believe that God is completely faithful and will provide. I don't have much to say today but I do want to say that God is good and He keeps His promises. I hope someone reads this today and needed that reminder.
Love you all and I covet your prayers!

Lexxxxxxa here, ello mates!!! I thought I should say a little something so Laura's post didn't look so lonely :)

I am so excited for this DTS. It's weird knowing that in four short months I will be in Australia. Sometimes it doesn't feel real, but tonight it does. I got to skype with Dukes for the first time. Dukes is the lovely lady who will be leading our Compassion DTS. I suppose she's kinda like our principal...maybe? Anyways, she told me a little bit about the school and things that she is doing now to prepare which I can now share with all of you!

Every week we will be on a different topic. We will have guest speakers every week from all over speaking about those certain topics. Along with those speakers we will have study guides to guide our studies. I know, it sounds pretty bomb.

That's actually pretty much all Dukes told me about the schooling while we're in Australia; the rest of our convo was about her and a little on the outreach. I just love learning about new things and cannot wait to be able to go there and learn more about God, different cultures, myself, and I'm sure so much more!

Thanks to everyone who is following us on this journey!!

Love, Alexa

Hey all! Laura here.
First blog post, whoo! Me and Alexa are organizing fundraising and support raising right now and we are so excited! I need another $7000 to raise and Alexa is starting from the beginning! Oh! And I got my visa granted today, so that is really awesome! Not much to talk about but we would love it if you guys would comment and leave us feedback and pray for us! Love you all.