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