Like a smack in the face, here I am less than a month away from leaving for China! I leave December 5th. It so close I can taste it. I am soooooooo excited to be able to get back. I think about China about 1000 times a day, and it only gets worse the closer I get to it. My team cannot wait to get on that plane to go to the mother land.
Life goes really fast on the last few weeks of the (Discipleship Training School) DTS. It seems that you wake up on Friday everyday wondering where did the week go. I am really busy with meetings with the teams, local outreaches, lectures, practical discipleship, leadership meetings, and accountability times with all the guys on my team. So I am feeling pretty tired from the craziness of the school, so today I took the day off to rest and also to update you guys on what is happening with me.
Some really cool news from the school is our outreach. Most of the students on my local outreach to the university are very excited to go on campus and just do what ever God asks them to do in prayer before we go out. This is awesome because most of the time when I am have led outreaches that have been more about meeting people on the street people have most of the time been very timid to do so, but these students are awesome and go for it! Anyways, a girl on our team felt the lord speak to her to go to a certain building on the campus, obediently she went for it. she didn't know really if it was God, but she just thought she would take the chance. So she went up to the building went up stairs and felt like she was supposed to talk to this girl. She did, and led her to Christ! The girl is now being discipled by one of our students! It is so cool to see fruit through her obedience! We are excited to see more!
My team is so great, we are very much there for each other. I love how we are becoming more and more unified. God totally put each and every member on our team. At first I was kind of sick of my team, but the more and more I get to know my team the more I love them and am glad they are on it. We are learning skits and dances for the outreach, which stretches me and my team a ton because it is not really something we are very comfortable with, but we are learning to enjoy them. We have decided to fast every Friday lunch to pray as a team for our outreach and for each other, which is vital for the health of our team, for hearing from God, and keeping us focused on the goal. The more I pray the more I realize that God does answer prayer and how important it is.
I am always up and down with my life. Some weeks I am up and I love YWAM, and some weeks I am down and want to quit, I am glad God is not like me in that way. This week has been a pretty tough week even though it is Tuesday. Discipleship is tough. Its tiring, but worth it. This week is a hard week because I am tired and the constant demand of the school is wearing on me. We are seeing major break through is a lot of our students. Jesus never said it would be easy. I am learning lately that being faithful and doing what you say you are going to do isn't the most exciting, but its the most important thing. I am learning more and more that the christian life is mostly about hearing from God and stick with what he tells you to do despite how you feel. That is what I am learning. I know this is a simple concept, but with ministry from what I have seen with me and other people in it, that when it gets hard people quit. I no longer want to be that way. I want to be faithful to what God has called me. I hope you enjoyed my update. Pray for me. I need it.
Here is some practical things that I need/want to share.
1.Being on staff at YWAM I am not on salary, so I have to raise all my support from churches and members of the body of Christ like you.
2. I am in desperate need of people to partner with me in prayer. I have people that say they are praying for me, but I never hear from them. It would be great to get people to be committed to praying for me and staying in contact with me to encourage me in the hard times. people that I can be honest with and them pray for me.
3. I am leaving for Bangkok on December 5th where I will be helping one of our students get his visa to China. It turns out that Norwegians cannot apply for visas to china by mail they have to go face to face with a person at a consulate. There is not one in Hawaii. So we are flying to Thailand then flying up to China after we get his visa. (if you have questions about why this is the most practical thing send me a email)
4. I need about 1700 dollars more for my plane ticket and visa. I would love it if you would pray and ask God if you are supposed to give.
