Happy As Can Be

It is such a beautiful Sunday afternoon. This morning two of my roomies and another girl did church here on base in the classroom. We listened to a sermon and then blasted worship music for around 2 1/2 hours, it was so good. Then I had 2 great conversations with Carmela and Jessie and lunch and now I'm writing this! The past couple days, the past week, God has been just pouring out His love on me so that it completely overflows. He's bringing things together from middle school and all I want is more of Him. It's such a good place!
I got baptized on friday! I was baptized as a baby and I really honor my parents in that. I wanted to confirm a new life in Christ and the way that I live and giving control of my life to God. It was a lot of things and it was really good! When I came up out of the water I had this cool revelation of the name God gave me, Anneli meaning favor grace and just the love that God has for me. It's so powerful!!
Here's a couple pictures:

Everyone lined up! Nate joined in later too.

Rachel explaining what her baptism is for her

Mark talking to us and reading from the bible

In the river at Ashley Gorge with Gabriel, Mark and Nicki!

So yea, that was a really sweet time for me. All of friday was really good! Mark doesn't teach on fridays and they're used as a ministry day. One thing I did was get on top of an interesting stack of 4 picnic tables to tell Jesus how much I love Him. It was definitely one of the best things I've ever done in my life! That's up there with caving, climbing and all that kind of cool stuff. So good.

Prayer is always always always appreciated, especially right now for our outreach to Laos. I'm so looking forward to it! I miss all you guys at home and I can't wait to come home and see you all! 

God is soo good!

Manifesto - The City Harmonic

Mexican Mustaches

Weekend Warriors made bangin burritos for dinner tonight... here's some of the staff dressed for the occasion...

You also weren't allowed to eat unless you had a mustache... here's my bunkmate and I representing!

Oh theme nights!

Land of Narnia

We had a sweet teaching on the Word of God this week with Paul Childers. Really chill but still so much insight and information from the Lord. It was really good to have a week of good teaching but not mindblowing to the point of needing like a month to process information. We have Mark Parker this week speaking on the Lordship of Christ and I guess that he's intense as which will be sweet but definitely challenging.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to go boulder and explore at Castle Hill and then go caving at Cave Stream! They were both sweet as!! There were a ton of hard boulder problems but it was fun to climb around and just get on top of these 20 foot boulders and then try problems and just get no where! Then cave stream, it's this 500+ meter underground cave with water running through it, and you can walk/wade from one end to the other. We went from the end, where the water came out to the entrance, where the water came in by a waterfall. It was so sick, and my van wasn't planning on going there originally so I didn't have anything with me but I just went barefoot and in my clothes and one of the Montana boys, Cody, let me use his headlamp. We walked for 45 minutes to an hour seeing NO sunlight, just headlamp light. About halfway in I ended up in front of my group which was trippy! I had to figure out where exactly we were going, granted there was only one path but sometimes there were outcroppings that looked like they went somewhere but didn't. It was sick! So good to just explore and be awed by God's creation and how creative He is!

Congrats and shout out to Per who got his brass this week! so awesome.

Friday night my outreach team got to meet with this guy Andy who was a missionary in China for a long time until about 20 years ago. It was so cool to hear his stories, advice, concerns, encouragement, everything! He confirmed a lot of feelings and thoughts I've been having about being cautious but also stepping out in faith. I know for absolute sure that I'm supposed to be going to Laos, God has confirmed that over and over so I have very little fear or worry about going there. I know we will be walking cautiously but also with boldness in the Lord becuase He's called us there and He's going to use us there.
I could definitely be using your prayers, I'm so grateful for them! Please be praying for my outreach team: myself, my leader Gabe, Beatrice, Loriah, Jonathan and Simo. Also what God's been really putting on my heart has been the underground church in Laos, just to raise them up and just increase the fire for the Lord burning in their hearts. I'm so excited to fellowship a little with some of these people, they are so inspiring! Yea, also just blessings on the base, on the other outreach teams to Thailand, India, Morocco and here in New Zealand. Please let me know if any of you need prayer for anything! I would definitely love to lift anyone at home up in prayer.

God is so good, and He is just continuing to bless me. I'm so at home here! Here's a picture from me at Sumner Beach when I went with my small group on thursday. Yay for spring/summer!

Loved

So Faith Weekend, or Luke 10 Weekend, whatever you want to call it.  I don't even know where to begin. I'm not going to write out everything that happened because it's a story that needs to be told in person and I'm down to skype or talk when I get home or even email you the story or highlights of it. A general overview, we stayed and were fed at Kaiapoi Baptist Church thursday night, then New Life Church in Timaru where one of our speakers, Gordon Rosewall is a preacher, and then at a Catholic church in Methven. I had a roof over my head and a couch or a cot to sleep on every night. We had breakfast and dinner every day and were provided with food for during the day. I wrote out a thank you note to each of the people who put us up in the churches and we were able to leave $10 with them as well, spending no money on ourselves and giving it all away.  On November 24th we will hopefully be heading back to Kaiapoi Baptist to help serve their community Christmas dinner, which is going to be such a blast to see everyone there again. I was never in any dangerous situation and I know that if I had been all I needed to do was call up our leaders with the phone card they gave us and they would come get us.
The thing about this weekend was it wasn't meant to test God. It wasn't like let's go out with nothing and see what You give us! I entered the weekend with the mindset of I want a chance to really focus on serving people and blessing the world around me.  I know that I'm a daughter of the King of kings and that I already am provided with so much, and that I would be well taken care of. We had the option of participating in this weekend or just going and serving at some churches and staying at base and God just gave me the assurance that I don't need to worry about food or shelter and if I went out wanting to bless people He would provide for me in that.
Walking in Timaru and again when we were at the church we stayed at in Methven, I realized that I have never felt so loved or cared for in my life. I've always had a home, always had food, clothes, whatever I could possibly need. When I'm traveling and not knowing where I'm going to sleep that night or if I'll be provided with more food than what we have in our backpacks, I had this core knowledge that God would provide and I just had this strong trust in Him so I had no reason to worry about that stuff. It made me realize how blessed I am and seeing His provision, I've just never felt so loved or safe or cared for. It's really a strange thing. I would never go out with the intention of challenging or testing God to see if He would provide. I really wouldn't. What made me go out was the knowledge that a father gives their child what they need and that's what God would do. There was no doubt in my mind that I would have a place to stay or food to eat. It was a fact that I would, and the details were just unknown to me. I really hope that this makes sense.
There were definitely a couple times where I struggled this weekend but even as I say that and know that I struggled, I still knew God was there and He was working. The sweetest thing was, when we were struggling and we actually listened to the small voice in our heads or really turned to God and came to Him with open hearts instead of 'You need to provide!' He would almost immediately pour out His blessing. I think that was the coolest thing to see, was how small our human minds are and all we see is what we're faced with and I feel like He was sitting up there, kinda giggling at us sometimes just going, 'be patient, you have nooo idea what I'm going to give you next!'
I really learned how God is my Father, my Daddy. I will never be in a place where He can't help me, I will never really be in need. It may seem like I don't have a lot, or my life sucks cause I'm not living comfortably, but He will provide what I need and even more than that. I have no doubt that this weekend was a huge learning experience, and it was definitely not a waste of time. I have no desire to challenge God in His role as a provider because I know He doesn't respond in that, He doesn't respond to 'I want this, give me this thing.' He responds to 'this is where I'm at, You know what I need so I won't worry about that, I want to work on serving You and the people around me.' God is so good and so sovereign and He's never going to leave us or let us down. That's the biggest gift and blessing ever.

Again, prayers are always appreciated! Life is busy with lectures and work duties and homework and outreach prep!! I am so stoked for everything that is still to come! One big thing I could definitely use prayer on is just finding the time to process and work through everything we're learning and experiencing. God's just doing so much and then there's just the things in life and there's just so much going into my head at once. God's provided me with the best people to talk with so no worries, they definitely help with the processing. Like I said, God is so good and this is where I'm supposed to be at this point in my life. I'm so thankful for every blessing and I'm just in such a good place right now! Thanks for everything :]

Hitchhiking by Faith

We leave for faith weekend this afternoon and my team is heading in the direction of Queenstown. I had this revelation yesterday that yea, I have faith God will bring us to Queenstown and we'll have food and shelter and everything we need, but the thing is, I am a daughter of God and Joe and Grant are sons of God and as His children, we will be provided for. God is faithful to the end and He's not going to leave His kids out in the great unknown. We may not find what we're expecting, but there will be enough, there will be provision.
Please please please lift us up in prayer this weekend by name, and ask for specific things if you want, but really just thank God for the way He's going to provide for us and the way He's providing for you at home. He's a huge God and He still chooses to love us and care for us. He's so great!

Long Overdue

This past week has been really good. We had Gordon Rosewall speaking on the Father heart of God last week and this week is Patrick Dodson on relationships. Gordon was good and Patrick is the most controversial speaker we've had so far. One of those things where you take his words and consider them and apply them to your life and see what God has for you in them.
We have the snowboarders back this week! Super stoked, they're so fun. A couple of us backpackers played ultimate frisbee with them yesterday. Last night after lecture we had a big game of ninja and wah in the dining hall... fun as with a big group of backpackers, justice kids and snowboarders. They add some fresh air I think, it's good to have faces that are new to us on base.
This past friday night I got to go for outreach to a church in Christchurch and help out with their 'sausage sizzle' and play games and watch a magic show. Saturday, 8 of us wen climbing at the YMCA in Christchurch which was a blast! Their walls for top rope are high as and their bouldering room was sweet. It was great to be active again and climb with 2 noobies and help show them the ropes... hahaha!
Yea, life here has been sweet. God's been challenging me with a lot of things and sometimes I feel like I'm drawing away a little but then all I can do is step right back in, deeper. God is definitely working in crazy ways here and it's just amazing to see everyone around me going deeper and learning more and everything.
This weekend we're doing faith weekend. We divide up into small groups of 3 and they drop us off on the side of the road far away from base and we hitchhike. We leave thursday afternoon and have to be back on sunday between 2 and 5. I'm with Jonathan, who's in my outreach group and Grant from Minnesota. We all got a word from God about heading down to Queenstown, which is quite a ways away but I know we'll be getting there. I'm so stoked to just do it and to see how god works through it. Please be praying!!
One other thing you can be doing is praying about finances, some people don't know where their money is coming from and for others of us it would be great to have more provision from God. We know He'll provide!
Also one of the Justice school leaders and a good friend, Seth, is heading home monday because of some personal things. It's definitely a God thing and it's definitely what God has for him, it's just hard to say goodbye and see him go. Just be praying that he keeps walking so closely with God and that we would all be able to say goodbye and deal with it healthily and trust God with it.
I guess that's it for now, so much is going on. Keep praying and trusting God!
Here's a picture of my outreach team to Laos! There's Jonathan, Simo and Gabe, and then Loriah, Beatrice, and myself. I have such an outstanding team and God definitely put us all together for a reason!