A bunch of new pictures are up!

A Challenging Week...

This past week we had Dalton Lifsey from the Tauranga House of Prayer (THOP) speak on intimacy with Jesus/Kingdom and last week we had Aaron Walsh, also from THOP speak on the character and nature of God. Both of them were so wise in what they were teaching and so knowledgable about the bible. I don't even know how to explain what they spoke on because it was so rich and God spoke through them so much. That's pretty much what lectures are like, God is throwing tons of information at us and by the time you begin to really process it He's got more to throw at us. It's awesome to just keep receiving all the time. Every conversation I have with people around me is meaningful and intentional or just fun and building up relationships.
Seeing the way God's been moving in my life and the way He's been moving in the lives of my schoolmates and leaders is awe-inspiring and such an honor. Looking back to when YWAM was a possibility and seeing everything that's happened so far is just mind blowing, to see how much I've grown, how much God has been moving and speaking to me, I can't thank Him enough for bringing me here to really just pour into me. That's definitely what it's been like, just getting poured into over and over and over, and no matter how full I get there's always more room for Him to pour in more. God is so good and so loving, and that's the one thing I've really been learning and holding in my heart.
If you could keep in prayer my good friend Joanna who went home to Canada because of her sick father who died, probably a couple hours ago. We're all hurting for her and praying for her and asking for God's comfort and peace for her and her family and for her return to the school which I really believe is what God has for her. Continued prayer for us and just everything we're learning and experiencing, that we would just keep seeking after God and becoming more and more hungry for what He has for us. Thanks heaps!
Here's picture from lecture with Dalton the other day... that's me on the right and then Gabe, one of our school leaders and my outreach leader to Laos! He's really been a blessing to me this past week. All the way across in the purple sweatshirt is my bunkmate Megan, who is one of my best friends here, another complete blessing to me. This is our classroom, and the temp wall in the back folds away to open up to the dining hall. Get to spend mornings in lectures here and occasionally afternoon programs or nightly lectures here as well!

TEAM LAOS

I'll be backpacking in Laos starting in December with the most amazing as team God could give me, Gabe (USA) as a leader, Loriah (USA), Beatrice (Switzerland),  Simo (Finland) and Joe (Denmark). God is truly just blessing me this whole day, I'll do a full update later today or tomorrow but I'm going to worship and pray with a friend who's going to Thailand! Please please please continue to cover me and my team in prayer and pleaaaase do not hesitate to send me encouragement, words from God, scripture, anything! God is SO good!

All Blacks

We had the privilege of watching the All Blacks win the rugby world cup tonight against France 8 - 7.... incredible, nail biting game.

Outreach

We found out our outreach options today and had a half hour to pray and ask God where He wants us to go out of India, New Zealand, Laos, Thailand and Morocco. We handed in a list of our top 3 with whatever honest reasons, even if they were it sounds like a sweet place to go. I have my top 3, more like top 2, but please pray and let me know if God puts a certain place or scripture or anything on your heart that could be affirmation for me. Thanks!!
Please also really lift up us students, our staff and leaders as they put us into teams and determine where each student is going to go and put us with a leader or maybe even more than one leader! Please just cover this whole process in prayer because this is all about how and where God is going to use everyone, not where we want to go or our own agendas.

National Gathering

We're on the last day of the National Gathering which has been pretty sweet. Leaders and staff from all the New Zealand YWAM bases and other associated organizations came here for fellowship, to share what's going on with them and to discuss vision for the future. It's been really cool to see and hear God moving in these organizations even while they're talking. Yesterday morning we started out with worship which was just so good. The guy playing guitar broke 2 strings so he stopped playing, flipped his guitar over and started drumming on the back of it along with the 2 people already playing djiembe and Joe on the drumset. Someone prayed long enough for him to pick up a different guitar. Some people spoke, then a guy from New Caledonia tried to teach us a little bit of a dance which made the whole thing turn into a dance party when he started tearing up the floor! It's just been a great time (other than being sick...) and so encouraging and eye opening to see how other christians are responding to God's calling.
Speaking of sickness, like I said in a previous post I could really use prayer for a stuffy nose and throat, but our whole base seems to be passing that around along with what seems to be a stomach bug causing a couple people to be throwing up. Please keep everyone's health in your prayers, especially our leaders. I think Gabriel, one of my backpackers DTS is sick. It's not fun. God is healer though and I know He'll bring healing to everyone on base!
Alsooo France won against Wales in the rugby world cup semifinals last night!! Tonight is Australia vs All Blacks. We have one Aussie on base so it's her against pretty much everyone else who is cheering for New Zealand!

Climb

We listened to this the first day of our lectures, when Kent (backpacker staff) and Gabriel (backpacker leader) were teaching on prayer and intercession. Let it move you.

Prayer Request

I'm not feeling great this morning so if you have a minute now or later during the day please pray for me! My nose is getting runny and it's getting into my throat and I'm realllllllly tired, and the Gathering is beginning today so it's a couple days of just crazy not normal schedule stuff, so pray that I would keep up and if I should stay back and rest I would do that. Thanks!

Life so far...

This is going to be quick because it's late and I'm tired. Last night I felt my first New Zealand quake/aftershock! The couch I was sitting on was suddenly rocking and my first thought was cool! it's one of those couches that rocks! and then when I tried to rock it, it wouldn't... and then the other 3 girls in the room realized it was a quake. Cool as!
Today we started our first real lecture series, with Femi Oni as our speaker. He's very direct, and he's teaching us on destiny and calling. Already the 3 sessions we've had today have just been really awesome. I can't wait for our lectures the rest of the week.
Today we also started getting ready for the national gathering that is taking place thursday to sunday. We had 3 lectures today instead of 2, because we'll be ending lectures thursday instead of friday so the gathering can take place. It's basically leaders and staff and other people from YWAM bases in New Zealand all coming here to Oxford for some sharing, envisioning for the future and whatever else God has planned. We're learning a song tomorrow to take part in a traditional Maori greeting, and there will even be some guys there doing a traditional Haka dance!! I got to see the All Blacks (NZ national rugby team) do the Haka before the quarter final game against Argentina last night, it was intense!
I also got a pretty rad haircut... some of the guys bought a buzzer friday night and then the next morning a couple had shaved heads, mohawks, whatnot, so saturday night I decided to get a haircut I've thought about for about a year... I love it!! It's super fuzzy!

All is well in New Zealand and I'm still super stoked for everything God is doing and revealing in this season!

Words

Last night we had our first night of community outreach into Christchurch. They played it like a treasure hunt; We asked God for words of knowledge, things to look for, people's names, specific prayer requests, what people would be wearing and then we had to go out and look for those in groups and talk to the people, listen to them, pray for them if they let us. So my group of 4 went out and we were with some other kids who got separated from their group, and after a while my group got separated and I ended up with Chris, a kiwi and Nicole from Canada. We couldn't find anyone on our lists, and eventually we went into this store because Nicole and I were looking for beanie hats. We started talking to the sales girl, then she walked away and Chris and I were like, we need to pray for her. So we struck up conversation again, on everything from dying hair, to rock climbing, to family background and tons of other stuff. We asked her what her future plans were and she was totally open to praying with us about her future with nursing and paying for it, and how she is great at connecting and talking to people. We walked out really encouraged even though she had nothing to do with any of our words, it was definitely a God thing. Sweet as. So if you remember, keep Ethna (say it with a kiwi accent, and I don't know if that's how you spell it) in your prayers as well as her nursing future and finances!

Not Many Cities Like Christchurch

We watched this video today when talking about community outreach and the earthquake. It's crazy to go into Christchurch and actually see some of the damage still there.

Sweet As

Today we had a talk on community living and worship and then some sweet as time to just worship. Fyi, adding 'as' to the end of a word is just sort of a way of emphasizing something, similar to 'really', like instead of just saying 'that's really sweet' you can say 'that's sweet as'. I like it.
This morning we had base intercession, so everyone on base comes and we split up into random groups and all pray on a certain topic. I was with Sonya, Laura our cook, Nathan a grounds guy and such a man of God, and Gabriel one of my BDTS leaders. We prayed for human trafficking in Nepal and specifically for a girl, I can't remember her name, who was abducted about a year ago and probably brought to India for sex trafficking. It was sweet to see how my group prayed and how other groups prayed and what kinds of pictures and words of knowledge people/groups got.
Soo it's my birthday and everyone here has been just so nice about that. Seth, one of the Justice leaders started a round of happy birthday at morning tea, and in the morning when I came back from brushing my teeth my roomies all sang to me as well! Jane, another Justice leader was so sweet too, while I was doing dish crew duties aka washing down the dining tables insisted on not letting me finish because it was my birthday and Carmela was the same way, but Jane was soo funny. I got a great birthday card signed by a bunch of people on base, I think a random mix of students and staff but their messages were so genuine.

Don't mind my sopping wet hair, I just showered.  Time to start reading for my first book report due in a little more than 2 weeks!
Also sorry for the lack of pictures so far, it's been freezing cold and rainy since monday so we've been inside or running from building to building. Pray for better weather!

Chores

My parents are going to laugh and put me to work when I get home, butttt I love doing my chores around here. In the morning from 8:15-8:50 I clean the bathroom in the upstairs main house which I don't even live in buttt my roomie Ainsley cleans the shower room next door so she helps me out. This week after lunch I'm on dish crew so my part is putting away leftover food and washing down/spraying down the tables and counters and sweeping. I get to work mostly with Joanna and today we got to clean to a couple people worshipping in the classroom which was just awesome.
Yesterday afternoon we started student testimonies which was cool, and we did staff testimonies the night before. In about 2 minutes I'm leaving and we're going to hopefully finish the student testimonies. It's interesting to hear people's backgrounds, some are just following God so devotedly and others have had a really hard time but want to dive so much deeper. It's just really awesome and God brought together a really great group of people, both in just the backpackers, but also backpackers and justice combined as a big family.  I love it!

Tim Tam Slam

So tonight we had 'initiation' which was a tim tam slam and they said we can't graduate unless we can successfully pull it off (not really, but it was funny). so you bite off the opposite corners of a tim tam, then use it like a straw to drink hot chocolate, coffee, whatever and then once you feel the liquid get up to your lips, you have to eat the whole tim tam without using your hands. let me tell you, it was entertaining and sooooo delicious.
We also had our first meeting as an almost complete backpackers DTS, I think we're missing 1 student. It's still so unreal that after alll of these honestly 2 years of preparation for DTS, I'm finally here. It's unreal.

Early Morning

Oxford and YWAM are both amazing so far. The first night I went to a park with some girls and we went on the coolest playscape and then talked on the swings for a while. Last night a bunch of us walked up this trail to the 'lookout' and you can see the lights from Christchurch wayy far off in the distance. We were hoping to see tons of stars too but there were too many clouds. The people I've met, I don't even know where to start. ok so they're from alll over the place. My roomies are from Oklahoma, Germany, California and 2 from Canada. There's other people from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Canada, the US, Australia, England and so many other places it's crazy. It's awesome too because we already have this connection of a relationship with God so our conversations are just so easy and we'll end up talking about deep things or cool times in our lives and I'm just thinking, this would never happen with new people I met at school or something like that. I met a Justice leader, Seth yesterday who was using the makeshift climbing/training wall they have on base. It's like 3 sheets of plywood, plus an overhang, plus fingerboards going across the ceiling plus 2 hangboards, it's sweet.

My birthday is in 4 days!! That doesn't seem right because when I was still in CT it was like ohh my birthday is so far away, but then I had 30 hours of traveling, plus skipping thursday so it put me a couple days ahead so now it's much closer! I love the age ranges in people too, my roommates are 17, 18, 19, and 2 are 24 and then me. A Finnish guy is 28, a Justice girl is 33(met up with her at the airport in LA...) and a couple other kids are taking time before college. 

Sooo basically I already love it here, some parts are definitely still intimidating,  and I know I'll have a lot of homework once school actually starts, but I know God put me here so I know I'll be fine. We have an option of 2 churches for this morning, and then nothing scheduled but meals until tonight, when welcoming starts!
Alsoo I got a couple pictures yesterday of the house and the mountains outside, so check out the picture page!!