THE PEOPLE
The first week was an interesting one.. Having to remember so many new names and faces, getting use to a new schedule in a new environment is a unique feeling! Luckily the people that I have in my school are AMAZING! Every single one of them are the most awesome people you could imagine! We all bring our own unique personality from a completely different part of the world! As cheesy as it sounds we are just one big happy family, that are held together by an awesome group of people which we call THE STAFF! These unreal people help us stay positive and not kill each other.. They are so relatable and so trustworthy that it makes it so much easier to tell them honestly where you're at! Which helps a lot when you're not at a place of peace.
God and I
My relationship with God has been like a roller coaster.. One second I'm understanding and loving what god has for me then the next one I'm thinking how easy it would be to just get on a plane and go home.. But yet I'm still here because I know how good God truly is! I've learned soooo much while I've been here and at times it's hard to really get all of it but I know God will reveal the stuff to me when it's most important! But here are some of things that have effected me the most since I've been here! I hope they help you and your journey with God!
The first thing I learned that really effected my time here was to lead by faith not by feelings! If you really think about that it's what we all do! If you're life is good or if your life is bad then it's how you treat God.. And that's not how it should be at all! If we truly had faith in God then we would love god no matter what season we are going through, and the sooner you realize that the easier your walk with God will be! Trust me I found that out the hard way!
Another thing I've learned is that it's okay to ask questions and wrestle with things people say about God! I actually thing that it's SO much better for your faith! If you just believe everything someone else says about God then you wont get to experience you're own relationship with God! We have all been created in such a unique and beautiful way! So why have the same relationship with God as everyone else..? Since I've been here I've questioned so many things that Gods done and people have been saying, because I don't want to be one of those fake Christians that just agrees with anything anyone says! Also God loves when we ask questions because then we give him a chance to show us how good he truly is! So ask the tuff questions and have faith that he will move and I promise you will see an amazing thing happen in your life! It did for me!
Something awesome that God has done is he has given me dreams!!! I've been praying since I got here that god would give me dreams because that's the best way I can connect with him and when we were out evangelizing one night one of our leaders randomly said I feel gods saying he wants to give you dreams and I was like wait what... Because I literally didn't tell anyone that. So that was nuts! And I've been having dreams since, how awesome is that?? SO AWESOME!
Lastly, we had a week called hearing Gods voice! Which in this week as you could guess we were trying to hear Gods voice! Our speaker was a guy named Jason who's on our base, at the beginning of that week I was thinking about going home because this was not what I was expecting it to be.. Jason didn't know it but at the time there was a lot of pressure on him.. But as you know since I'm still here he killed it! He was so relatable and just a true man of God! He would tell stories after stories that would be exactly what I needed to hear, he wasn't sugar coating it either. He was being completely honest and upfront about who God is and what a walk with him would look like! Through him I realized that gods not going to do everything as how you want it to happen! Which took me a while to be okay with.. I would keep going back to this one question:
Why would this all powerful god not just show me it this one way? If he's so big and so good, why would the just do it this way?
And the answer is because a true relationship with God isn't about how we want it.. If you think about a relationship with your best friend if they just wanted it their way the whole time would you stick around in the relationship? Or would you leave and think that person is selfish? That's what our relationship is like with God if you think about it! We just ask for it in our way and if we don't get it then we say god doesn't get our love.. How dumb is that? Just ask for a true relationship with him and stop being so selfish with it and I promise you will get what you ask for! It's going to be hard and a long process but SOOOOOOOOOOOOO worth it!
Adventures
You're probably wondering about something's I've done in Australia and the things I've seen!
2 weeks ago I went to the Sunshine Coast and saw Kenzie Rhodes! For those of you who don't know who Kenzie is she's this really awesome girl that I went to high school with and is also doing YWAM in Australia!
Brisbane is known for their city so we go to the city once a week at least and they have street performers and a Ferris wheel and crazy awesome shops!
Most recently we've been going up into the mountains that are just 30 mins out from our base that are seriously crazy! It's the most crazy drive ever and we saw a baby kangaroo! (Awhhhhh)
Next weekend we leave for Byron Bay, which we will be doing schoolies! It's like our senior spring break where everyone gets trashed and we go and make sure nobody gets hurt and make them pancakes! That'll be interesting!
