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 $4000 I think.
-Unity within our team on outreach
-My obedience in God's calling for me after DTS
-Homesickness
-Safety on outreach
Thanks guys. Love you heaps. Can't wait to see you all again.
xoxo,
Laura.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Friday, December 7, 2012
Cheers and Prayers!
What up everybody!
So, I thought I would just spend some time on my blog today just saying things that I'm thankful for and stuff that God has done and then put some prayer requests up. Gonna do things a bit different today. Love you all!
I am thankful for...
-the family I have made here
-a place to rest my head at night
-3 square meals a day
-enough water to drink every day
-a normal shower and toilet
-speakers who spend time hearing from God and speaking what He has told them to
-God's grace
-God's ability to use me even when I stuff up
-Authority God has given believers to rebuke Satan and sickness
-Friends and family back home that care about me and what I'm doing
-God's word
-Opportunity to pray for people who I meet on the street
-the beach
-kangaroos
-bread bin
-chai tea
-my desire to travel and see the world
-different languages
-people who are patient in teaching me German
-cool pictures
-hearing from God
-intercession
-music
-air con
-$.59 vanilla creme wafers
-chocolate milk
-humour
Prayer requests:
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! :)
Monday, December 3, 2012
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!
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
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