Jesus, Outreach and Me

Hello my beautiful people! It has been a while so I have a lot to update and catch you up with, which means it's going to be a longer post. I'll start with what happened in Indonesia and Malaysia.


OUTREACH:

As most of you know, I went to Malaysia and Indonesia with a team of seven students and a co-leader. About a week before departing to Indonesia I remember sitting in the office with Rachel (my co-leader) as we were trying to figure out how she was going to get $1,000 in seven days to be able to come. I honestly was preparing as if I was leading the team alone because I didn't know where her money would come from. I would pray and be in panic as I tried to figure out how I would lead a team when I struggle to take care of myself at times. But God would just respond and say, "Relax man, I have this." As the week went on I realized that God actually did have this; Rachel got all of her money in no time. After this, we were sitting pretty. We had all the money we needed and I was getting really excited that this thing we put so much prayer and time into was actually becoming real! But, two days before we were going to leave, I found out that the accountant made a mistake so I owed $900... I went straight to my room and started praying, questioning if I was actually supposed to go... Otherwise why would this have happened and how would I get this money? Keep in mind we already had our plane tickets but I couldn't leave the base until I had everything paid off. In the midst of this all, God spoke very clearly to me and explained basically that it was my choice. I could either stay on base and He would teach me what true intimacy with Him would look like, or I could go and He would show me what it means to be a true leader. For some reason I felt I was supposed to fight for it. So I posted to Facebook and in less than one day I got all the money I needed and next thing I knew I was on my way to Indo.

When I got there the air was dirty, there were dogs running around, and motor bikes everywhere. We took a 10 hour bus ride to Living Waters Orphanage where there currently are over 500 orphans. We did a lot of service projects like cleaning and helping move things. Also we had the opportunity to run the Sunday church service where I was able to give a testimony and small encouragement about not letting society tell you what your future will look like. Through our time there, our team learned a lot about the importance of vulnerability and that our team wouldn't be able to be a family until we actually got real with one another. After about six days we left on another 10 hour bus ride to Pontianak and when we got there we quickly realized the difference in culture. We were greeted by some breakfast... And then a second breakfast an hour later... Then lunch three hours later. And in Asian culture it's very rude not to eat everything that's given to you so we learned to push ourselves spiritually and physically. In Pontianak we taught a lot of dance classes and blessed them with photography for their base. After a few days there, we left the base and went to some villages that took a day's travel to get to. The villages that we went to had never had foreign visitors, so we were the first white people they had ever seen! When we came driving in, it was pretty evident by their reactions. People were following us on motorbikes and staring at us. It was about 6 p.m. when we arrived and as soon as we got there we were told by our contacts that we would be giving a sermon and testimonies in one hour. But first they said we needed to shower then go and have tea and then dinner. So Rachel and I looked at each other like who's going to give the sermon, where do we shower and how's all of this going to happen in an hour? One of our students felt that they were supposed to give the sermon and another a testimony so off we went to take our first bucket showers, but not without a struggle. Originally they were going to take us to the river, but they were slaughtering a pig there so instead we went into a really dark hut with two tubs. David (the only other guy on the team) went to the one where there was a fish in the tub that you grab water from and I went to another one where the water wouldn't shut off as my shirt fell in the toilet.. As this whole process was going down, David shouted to me, "Does yours have a door?" And I said, "Yeah, why?" He replied, "Mine doesn't and they're all watching me shower." Needless to say, we had quite the experience but the night went on to go really well, no regrets. Over the next few days we did a lot of house visits where we went to the houses of people who attend the church and prayed for whatever they wanted us to. Also we taught dance and English classes for the children which they loved! During one of the house visits there was a man who said he couldn't go to church because of his foot. We looked at it and there was huge cyst that looked really gross. We prayed for healing but nothing happened right away so we went on to the next houses. The next day, our last night, we were doing a church service and I saw him in the crowd. At the end people came up and thanked us and the guy came up and said that his foot was completely healed! He said that normally those cysts take two months to go away! The coolest part is the fact that he actually went up and shared, not because anybody asked him to, but because he felt compelled to since he got touched by God! SO GOOD!

We moved to another village and it was about a 20 minute drive. The first night we had another church service and afterwards, the woman who was running the service asked if we could pray for the sick and the old people. We were like yeah for sure, we love to pray, that's like all we do! So we started praying. I prayed for this old guy and man was he old... So I prayed that he wouldn't die right there and that he would be blessed. As I was praying, I looked over at a girl named Lacey who was on my team who was praying for the girl who was leading the service. This lady was on the ground in the Spirit...

This is probably a good time to tell you that these churches don't believe in the Holy Spirit and it's actually really dangerous to talk about it because of the churches they belong to.


So this lady was on the ground for about 10 minutes crying when the pastor came over and was telling her to get up because they had never seen this before. But she couldn't get up... Finally she got up, went to the podium, and started preaching. She said, "I have cancer and when this girl prayed for me I felt a hand come in and take the cancer out and it was so painful. But then I felt this warm soothing hand come and I just felt loved." And she started preaching to them and everyone in the audience started weeping. Our team was sitting there looking at each other like what the heck just happened... It was a great way to start our week with this village and we continued to see God's hand moving every time we stepped out. During an English class, as our translator preached the Gospel and sang, all of a sudden all of the children started crying and singing to Jesus and it didn't just go for 10 minutes but for over an hour these kids cried out to God. There are some more crazy stories from this village but if you want to hear more just ask and I'd love to tell you!

Our next stop was Kuching, Malaysia where we stayed for three weeks hanging with the youth and building relationships. What I saw in these youths, and how much they wanted God, pushed me so much to actually cry out to God and not ever become complacent. All they did was call out to God and want more of Him. We had the opportunity to go and help out at a youth conference where we got to pray for them after the service. I saw a swollen ankle and a back healed and many of the youths touched by God. It was such an amazing time and they were all so hospitable; they would often take us out to lunch and show us new places.

We took a 10 hour bus ride to Mukah which actually took more like 12 because our bus lost a tire... So that was interesting. During that time I found out that my whole team wants to get married and how many kids they want... Anyway, in Mukah we did a lot with the youth as well. Two of those girls had a sickness. One was a dancer and she couldn't dance anymore and the other had a problem with her mouth. God healed them both but also spoke to them really clearly and as we asked how they were, both of them couldn't talk but just started crying. Finally they told us and we were all blown away by God. A lot of our time in Malaysia was teaching prople how to hear the voice of God because they all love God but don't know how to walk with Him. So it was an amazing time and we saw God move SO MUCH.


That's a really rough overview of what happened. If I tried to explain everything that happened it would take a lot of time and you wouldn't have time to read it.




PERSONAL GROWTH:

During Malaysia and Indonesia and even up until now, God has been doing things in my life that is honestly really hard to explain but I'm going to do my best and be real.


A lot of Indonesia was learning what true fear of the Lord is and why it's so important. A huge prayer of mine was that I would hear God's voice so clearly and as I would hear Him, I would have to step out in that. And through that I would hear words like "tell the pastor of this random village that God's going to give her a sink" and "tell the other pastor that God's going to give him a grill." Now as I said these things the first pastor said that she has been praying for a sink so I knew clearly that was God. So she got a sink. But the second pastor would ignore me; I knew that's what God was saying so even though he ignored me, I didn't get discouraged. I still walked out and said whatever I felt God was saying. When our team wasn't being vulnerable with one another, God showed me what to say, how to say it, and when to say it and our team had a lot of breakthrough. I learned that it's absolutely nothing that I do... All I do is say yes and God does the rest. When I went to Malaysia honestly my relationship with God was not a fun time. I would struggle to get up and spend time with Him in the mornings, and the hardest part is that I know God doesn't want me to come if I don't want to. It's not like He NEEDS me to come and spend time with Him. So it was a war in my mind over the future and decisions I had to make about my relationships back at base and I just couldn't hear anything. Finally one day in the Kuching house I was spending time with Him and He spoke so clearly about what I'm supposed to do with our relationship. He didn't answer one thing about the 12 questions I had but instead He spoke about what I needed to hear in that exact moment. He told me about how I pick up on other peoples' revelations of Him and then base my relationship with Him off of their revelations. I constantly cry out that I want my own relationship with Him, one that's not like anyone else's, but as soon as I hear something that sounds good about God or how someone else lives their life with Him, I add it to how I should live mine. So He told me to go back to the things I knew He has spoken to me and I found out that there were only 3 things... I truly only knew 3 things that God has spoken to me that is our own. Basically God invited me to a place to restart; not to do-over everything, but to begin in a new spot where the very thing I desired would happen. Intimacy is what He promised would happen if I walk by only what He tells me to believe. So I sat there with what felt like nothing but so much hope of what He's going to do in the future. That's when He started speaking about all of the questions I had and how what He wanted me to do would lead to intimacy with Him and although it's the harder and more awkward choice, I won't leave empty-handed. Now today, this very second, I'm living out those choices and man is it difficult. Each morning I'm faced with a new struggle and awkward position but the amount I know God now doesn't even compare to what it was before. When I look back I honestly wonder if I even knew God, because He has now revealed so much and done so much in me that I'm not the same person. God is changing and forming me into who I was created to be slowly but surely and He's not missing anything. My worship now is real, my prayers now are real, my relationship with Him is actually real. It's not anyone's but my own. He's calling me to learn guitar and to sing, He's calling me to start working out and so much more that I can't say yet. But if I've learned anything, it's that God's not boring when we step out. If we stay within the boundaries of society He is boring because we were never meant to live there.

He also taught me what it means to step out in my authority of victory. I saw so many healings because I realized that Christ already won that for us. If they're not healed yet then we keep fighting. Two of our girls were REALLY sick. We were in the middle of the jungle and one had a temperature of 102 and the other girl hadn't ate anything in a week because whenever she did she threw it up. So I sat there thinking "what the heck are we going to do." We took one to the hospital and the doctors said that they didn't know what to do so when we got back to Kuching we had to bring her to the hospital but that's all they could do to help. We weren't going to be in Kuching for another two days, plus a 10 hour bus ride... So our team got in a circle and we put them in the middle and prayed. We decided we weren't going to move until they were healed or we had to go. Keep in mind we were supposed to be doing ministry soon so they all thought we were crazy. But they started coming over and praying and next thing we knew Madison got healed and didn't have a fever anymore and Sydney started eating food and kept it down. We as Christians have so much authority but we rarely choose to access it. God's showing me how crazy this generation is going to be for Him. He's releasing things over us at such a young age. But we have to choose it! And also be willing to learn what it looks like to steward it. Let our cries to God be such a loud YES. Yes to what He says, yes to what He's doing, and yes to letting Him love us! Cheesy but yet sooo true. The only way we will ever be at a place of knowing God is by letting Him first know us and that's where I'm at. It's messy too, because I have a lot of pride, but praise God that He's bigger than all of it.

So my school ended this week, what a season of life this has been... I have met some of the most amazing people and I'm excited to see what they do in this life. Be praying for them that God will have His way and they will stay yielded to Him.

Lastly, thank you so much to everyone who donated and made this journey possible. I would have never had the opportunities I had unless I had your support, especially with the finances so last-second. Everything that happened through our team happened because of your support. You play a bigger role in my life than you will ever know and if you ever need anything, don't hesitate to ask! I just want to give a little shout out to my parents for their support above all else. Through this journey it has been so hard to be away and they don't always understand it but yet they are supportive through it all! PLEASE pray for them because they deserve to be blessed immensely for all they do. Love you Rob and Trac.

That is all! Thanks for reading and I'll be home in June!! CANT WAIT!

New Beginnings

It blows my mind to think of how amazing this past year has been.. All the things God has taught me, all the relationships I've made. How many hours I have spent in a plane, and how many hours I have spent lying awake trying to get use to a new time zone. This past year has definatly revolved around stepping out into things of the unknown and trusting God won't leave me abandoned and alone. The things that I have learned might not bring me closer towards a degree but they have definatly taught me what purpose and persistence means. When I think of this past year I can't help but to think of how fast the years come and go and how they seem to keep going even quicker the older I get. So with that, I want to share some of the things that influenced the way I see life to make you think deeper then surface level and to get you to step out in some area of your life this next year!

1. Going to Peru-  So as many of you probably know this past year I got the opportunity to go to South America for my 7 week outreach trip. There I experienced and saw things that are hard to explain but something I realised is how blessed western culture truly is.. Now I know that's the cliché  Christian missionary statement but then I also saw something even deeper. The amount of brokenness that's in the families there because of big things that we just take advantage of daily. For example we went out with a group of doctors from Virgina and helped them run their ministry with the Kechawen people. It's about an hour drive out from Cusco to them and when we got out there I realised that their houses were made out of mud and straw bricks and most of the people that were coming to us are about 65 to 70 years old still doing manual labor and they could hardly walk. What we would did is have the people go through and get glasses and medicine and then after we would have a prayer area where people could come get healed. Now when I was sitting there in the middle of Peru in a hut with this 90 year old man named Reese, never seeing a healing a day in my life I couldn't help but think this has got to be a joke. And to be honest the first day it kinda was... 30 different people would come and we would pray and he would always ask them if there's still pain and their response was always the same.. yes.. So at that point I was sitting there really discouraged and doubting God but I just remember watching this 90 year old man continually pressing in and praying and especially for this one woman who was about 50 years old. She came to us and right away she was pointing to her lower stomach right around the bladder and she was crying. So Reese did what he always did and would pray but this one really stood out to me. Now on every person that came by I remember him just crying as he was praying for them and I thought that was so interesting because I knew he didn't know them... He had to have 2 translators just to communicate with them. So why was he crying..? This women though he could not stop crying.. and she kept saying there was pain and he kept saying there's nothing I can do for her she needs to go to the hospital. She was so balloted that her stomach had a point on it and she said that the hospital couldn't do anything for her and that he needs to heal her and he kept praying but nothing happened and it got to the point that he had to ask her to leave so others could get prayer.. I remember just sitting there watching how heart broken he was telling her he couldn't do anything to help her. We had to leave soon after that and I remember thinking "wow.. I have to do this all week.." Sure enough we were back in the mountains that next day but a different village and their Reese was.. He always asked me to sit next to him and pray with him. Now this day I remember people were actually starting to say that they felt better and it wasn't visible stuff so I couldn't help but think that they were saying this because they just wanted to move on to get their free medicine. But then people started coming who had bent backs, limps, and even blind eyes. Guess what... THEY. ALL. GOT. HEALED. I saw it with my own eyes, and if that wasn't good enough their reactions after each one got healed was the most amazing thing I have ever seen.. They couldn't stop smiling and some couldn't stop crying. I knew it was real because they couldn't fake that and the best part was after Reese prayed for them he would be like "Yup, they're healed.. Next" and I would just be like how do you know.. And sure enough they would be healed. They were all getting healed every body part where there was pain was healed.

Now to be honest, I still don't know why that 50 year old woman who had the bloated stomach didn't get healed and I probably never will. But what I do know, that I know, I know! Is that God can heal. That God is aways good and that I don't need to know in order for God to be God. No matter how much we doubt, no matter how much we question His goodness, no matter how much we believe in him guess what. Hes still the same God. And that's what blew my mind.

p.s. I feel like God wants to heal some people via skype, so if you have pain let me know and we can skype and get that healed.

2. Wayzata Community Church- Upon arriving home in May I was wondering what I was going to do for work and I remember getting a random phone call from this wonderful women named Hillary Flynn. She was calling to ask if I would be willing to staff at her camp for a little over a month and I remember just thinking wow God.. I don't do camp... And Him saying, "You do now..." 

And that was that, next thing I know I'm in my car on my way up with diarrhea from the medicine I'm taking for my pneumonia. You could say praising God was one of the harder things on that road trip... But none the less there I was, looking at all these new faces and thinking this is where I will be for the next month! Now by this point it would probably be good for you to know that I don't like new things. When I go to the original pancake house I get the cherry crepes, when I get gas I go to BP, when I have to drive places I will take the way I know even if it takes a half hour longer. I get that from my grandpa I think.. But anyway I hate new things... So jumping into a summer camp that was going to take a month of my summer when I have been gone from my family already, you would think would be hard. But guess what, it wasn't!! Not one bit. Wanna know why? Because that's where God wanted me to be and as soon as I stepped out I felt at peace about my decision, that's how it works! Wanna know the even better part?! I had fun too! WCC (wayzata community church) was such an amazing experience for me, I learned how to love people no matter what they look like or act like! I have never seen such a church include everyone and make everyone feel so valued and that's something that I had to learn at that time of my life. Especially as I'm going into ministry! So I saw that even as God calls you to the unknown and it's only a 2 hour drive away that he's still going to show up! Honestly, that's where I truly started to fall in love with God on a personal level. It wasn't in Australia, it wasn't in Peru. But just a 2 hour drive away from where I grew up. And it's because I'm constantly pursuing Him. If  you knock he will answer. You draw near He will draw near. You choose Him He chooses you! You just have to make the first move. But don't worry if you miss this one or even the next one because He's always pursuing you. You can run, but you'll never escape Him.

3. BLS- Okay, last one. There are tons of more things that have happened but you'll just have to message me for them! So with coming back to YWAM and choosing to do the Basic Leadership School it was probably one of the harder decisions I've ever had to make in my young Jesus career. I'll give you a quick back story. Just in case you haven't read my earlier blog. So there I was crying out to God in the shower, asking him, why do I feel so uneasy with where I'm at/heading in life.. And as I was at about the end of myself... Literally it was to the point where I didn't even want to follow God anymore because I felt sooo lost! Which quick side note is because you're walking in disobedience to Gods plan. That's another tangent though.. So I was in the shower like God what do you want me to do, I lay everything at your feet, have your way! (best prayer you can pray) Right away I just heard MAD DTS October... So saying yes was the easiest part.. Then came finances, friends and families opinions.. A.k.a college, and a visa! So I did what any smart christian would do... I prayed and said God if you want me to go you will make the way! Guess what happened? You got it! God changed the hearts of my parents, gave me the finances to go, silenced all my haters and gave me a visa within 2 days! So I quickly realised that I thoroughly enjoy when God makes it easy for you to step into a vision! Here I am now. Discipling 5 young men, still doing homework (ugh), preparing to lead a team on outreach to Malaysia and Indonesia, and still constantly finding time to hang out with the one who created me and calls me by name! My God. Oh and also, with finances I felt God saying that the funds will come in for outreach and I got my whole outreach payed off on Christmas Eve and I even had a little extra money to buy my first pair of hipster skinny jeans. 

AND FINALLY

This past week we had a speaker on "destiny" which basically just gets you to dream with God! I know what I want with my life and it's this: I want people to experience the true presence of God and in that experience true freedom. I want to know true intimacy with God and I want to be a true man of God. I know I'm called to lead people into something bigger and greater then anything we have seen before and I know I'm called to be a revivalist for Jesus Christ.                                

Whats your calling?

                                 

INTIMACY

Hello dearest friends and family! While praying about this blog I really felt like God wanted me to just be completely real with you guys about my personal relationship with Him and I really feel like he wants to speak to a lot of you through what I have been going through. So here goes:


This past month has been a really challenging time for me with God. I can't tell you how many times I found myself so upset and irritated with where I was in my relationship with Him. Normally I would wake up and have about an hour just hanging out with God, whether that's reading my bible listening to worship or just praying. But as the month went on I found myself waking up and choosing to scroll through facebook and instagram instead of waking up and spending quality time with Him. In my journal on November 6th, I wrote:

"Truthfully I haven't been spending much time with You and I can see how that's been effecting me. During worship I was struggling to look to you and not be distracted."

And it wasn't just during worship but throughout the day I would struggle to look to him. I would be half way through my day and completely forget that God has been right next to me this whole day, even when I have been faced with situations that I have no clue how to handle... Something I didn't understand though was this whole time I have been struggling with my time with God I would be forcing myself to spend time with Him because I know that I'm suppose to. But everyone would say you should enjoy your time with God it shouldn't be something that's work. For three weeks I would battle back and forth between 'should I even spend time with God if I'm not even enjoying it?' I would find myself asking questions like, "Is this because of something I'm doing wrong? Where are you? Am I just not hearing you? What am I missing?" Over the course of these weeks people would tell me that Gods trying to teach me how to rest and I would get even more frustrated because I never knew what that looked like and I knew that all I could do was trust in Gods character, that he wouldn't just leave me where I was and that He was actually doing a work in me. 

Fast forward three weeks and in my journal on December 3rd, I said:

"Today I was reading the book Drawing Near and it was talking about how important it is to keep a hunger for God; that when we lose our hunger for God that is when we get bored with our relationship with Him and we're on the verge of spiritual death. I need to be learning how to be patient with God when spending time with Him and not discontent. To make sure that there's nothing going before him including my calling or destiny. And that I'm loving out of Him and not myself, while I'm going through a hard time or waiting" 

I soon realized that I have such a negative mindset over my relationship with God. I have this thinking that I cant hear him and whenever I ask him questions for myself he wont speak. Basically I'm setting myself up to be shunned by God. It's like us going up to our fathers and asking them if they will help us but already having a mindset that they won't so we ask just to walk away before they answer.

Lastly, God has been showing me the importance of being obedient and how when I step out in obedience its the beginning of intimacy. More and more I find myself hearing God asking me to step out in things that seem strange or are uncomfortable but when I do them I see myself becoming closer to God. I see that I'm actually stepping out and spending time with him because my heart just longs to be in his presence! I see the true joy that is sufficient and I see the actual love that God has for me more and more as I stay in this place of trust and hunger. I'm realizing how simple a relationship with God is, it has absolutely nothing to do with how hard I can pray or how holy I can be but all that matters is that I'm obedient to what he speaks and that I stay patient, knowing his character is faithful and good! Each day I struggle with something new, but as it says in Romans 5:2-5

"2 And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand - out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise. 3 There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, 4 and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. 5 In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary - we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!"

My new challenge I'm faced with from God is something I just found out about myself last night, which is how dependent I am on being wanted by others. This isn't just with people but with God too and I see that its a root of a lot of my insecurities and I know that I've been created to not strive for Gods love but to just receive it. I'm continually growing and being molded by God to be who He created me to be and its for sure a journey, but one that I'm glad I don't have to do on my own!

I hope that my message can be encouraging to you wherever you're at in life and know that God is constantly pursuing you no matter how far off you feel you are from Him. He's relentlessly pursuing you. If you want to hear any crazy testimonies of what happened during our Holy Spirit week, message me and I'd love to share with you!

Please be praying for me and my team as we are preparing to leave! Pray that we will get all the finances we need! I personally still need about $2,500 so please pray about supporting me and being a part of my journey!

PEACE, LOVE, AND ANNOINTING!

"M A L I N D A"

OUTREACH
Its so crazy to look back at where I was at before I knew God.. I was planning on doing 2 years of community college and then transferring to a university and graduating with some kind of degree. I just picture God looking down and saying "dude you're crazy if that's all you think I have for you in this life, just wait." So here I am about to lead a team to MALAYSIA and INDONEISA A.K.A MALINDA doing the very thing that brings me the most genuine happiness in the world. Serving the most amazing God who just seeks to pour into me to have it overflow on to others.


While we are there, we'll be on the Island of Borneo the whole 7 weeks and for the first 3 weeks we will be working with the YWAM base out of Pontianak, Indonesia. The first week we will be helping out at an orphanage called "Living Waters" where they have over 450 orphans and they completely trust on God every month to provide the food and finances they need! After that we will be lead by our translator into remote villages for 2 weeks to share the gospel and provide help wherever needed. We then will take a sketchy bus 10 hours to go into Kuching, Malaysia where we will spend the remaining 4 weeks. The first week we will be doing more village ministry and the last 3 weeks we will be in the city of Malaysia doing a lot of church and youth ministry. Along with teaching dance, art, and photography classes! So as you can see we have a crazy packed schedule and that's just an overview of what our time will look like there. Usually some extra things will be thrown in there by our contacts.


We have a team of 9 including me and my co-leader and we have met twice already! In those meetings we have been praying for Malinda and asking God what we should expect and we really feel like God is going to do some CRAZY things through us! God was saying that its so important that we're all looking to Him and not at what other people are doing and that we are moving out of love, not to see miracles. We also feel like He's saying he's going to use us to bring them back to God. So as you can tell we have some big expectations for God to move!


THE SCHOOL
In these past weeks our school has experienced a lot of freedom from our pasts. We had the Father Heart of God lectures with our base leader Dave Neibling and he was talking about the reasons we can't experience Gods love towards us. Even non-Christians know the saying that God loves them but the reason why its so hard for us to experience it is because we have so much wrong with our identity. God never changes, he always wants to shower us with his love and to move in our lives but the thing that does change is how we act day to day. But even more then that a lot of our identity is conformed to what has happened to us in the past. So for me, I realized how manipulative I am to receive peoples love. I'll get people to do what I want so that I know they love me but even after, I don't receive their love because that's not actually who I am. I'll just act a certain way to get what I want. A lot of that comes from our peers. We have to act a certain way to fit in and be a part of a group and if you actually show something that you're passionate about then you will automatically get ripped apart. So instead of having a lot of people being themselves we get people who think they're individuals but actually are conforming in their identity. It's really sad to be honest and that's why people will never truly experience freedom in their lives. For the students and staff these past weeks have been crazy! We're finally getting to a place where we can be ourselves and not experience any judgment but instead be lifted up closer to God.


Also, we're at a place where the honeymoon stage is over. At the beginning its so easy to love God and the people around us because everything's new. But now you start to see the things that piss you off about people and you notice that some days you don't feel like worshiping God or talking to Him. But that doesn't matter because Gods the same as when you felt him in that crazy worship time as when it seems like everyone's out to get you! So it's really cool to see what they will do, if they're going to be "feeling based Christians" or "ALL in Christians". I'll let you know that they choose!


PRAYER POINTS


-That they will choose God everyday!
-That we will be unified as an outreach team as well as a school
-Experience a greater level of freedom
-That we will be completely obedient to God


I appreciate all of your guys support and thank you for reading! Message me if you would like to catch up or have any questions!


PEACE AND LOVE

So It Begins

Just like that the Music, Arts, and Dance school has started and these students are SO hungry for God! Last weekend we had testimony weekend where all 39 of us went north about two hours and shared our lives with complete strangers. What started out as an awkward weekend playing get to know you games and making small talk quickly turned into pouring our hearts out to one another and at the end becoming a close group all seeking the same thing, Gods heart. Seeing this DTS compared to the one I was on a year ago is crazy... I feel like they came in and were just ready to get as much as God possible as fast as possible!

We had our first week of lectures and it was on "The Bible" with one of the elders on base. She went through the whole bible in the first four days and then on the last day she showed us the proper way to study it. Something that stood out to me on the last day that she said was that we don't need to defend the Bible, if we live out what we read then The Bible will speak for itself through us! SO GOOD! Also we had a time to serve locally where we went out to a farm and put up a fence to hold up to 100 horses. So we had quite the first week!

I also had lectures with the leadership course I'm taking (BLS) and we had one of school leaders here on base speak about how to work in unity and God was bringing so much correction but also was pointing out things I do well. After he was done with the lectures I just could feel how bad I needed God in my everyday life.. It was to the point where I had no choice but to go into my room and cry out to God asking for more of him through out the day. He showed me that apart from him anything I do is pointless and you'd think that's depressing but you realize that there is nothing greater on this planet then when God uses you to love.

The amount I've grown since I have been here has been crazy.. God keeps showing me new things to work on spiritually and my classes are giving me things to work on constantly. So as you could imagine time management has been huge so its a trial and error time. 

Lastly, I just want all of you guys to know how much I miss you back home. I'm always thinking about you and how badly I wish I could take you on this adventure! You guys mean so much to me and it seems like not to long ago I was in high school making some of the best memories! I miss and love you all!

Prayer Points:
1. More of a love for the students so I can see them how God does.
2. That my quiet times will be more intimate with Him and understanding what he wants to use me for each day!
3. More unity in the school so we can just be a place for God to move freely!
4. More finances, I'm still in need of a lot of money so just support me in prayer with it please!!

F I R S T || M O N T H

Hello everyone! I just wanted to give you guys a quick update on these past few weeks down unda! The first two weeks we were apart of a Training and Assessment (TAA) doing a lot of the government side of the school and how to create assignments and assess them! And this past week we started the course called the Basic Leadership School (BLS) which we have brought in different speakers to share with us what it looks like to be an effective leader. During these courses we had/have a great amount of assignments to make sure we're competent in becoming leaders. This time has been very stretching in a number of different areas, and I'm really learning what time management looks like. We still have 2 weeks of BLS and then we will be meeting every Tuesday when the school starts.

Since arriving back at Brisbane God has been teaching me a lot of different things. One of the biggest ones is how to rely on him on a daily basis. When coming back I realized how easy it is to depend on God when theres no other option. For example needing a great sum of money and a visa all in 3 weeks. So right away when I got here he showed me that I need to learn how to love more.. And not on my own strength but on his, and in order to do this I have to rely and trust that he's going to love through me.

The other thing that I always heard was that leadership reveals a lot of faults that you have in your character. And that is scary true.. Since being here Gods revealed a lot of things that I have to work on but he's also shown me how much grace he has over me and that he doesn't want me to focus on them but to just look to him and spend time with him!

I've gotten to hang out with my staff team almost everyday this past week and I'm really excited to get to spend these next months together discipling the students! The students will get here October 1st and I also found out that instead of staffing the photography school I'm staffing the music track! Which brings me to my next point, PRAYER REQUESTS:
1. Discernment, it's been difficult to hear God recently and so especially when the students come I will need a lot of discernment!
2. Relationships with the students and staff around base and that we can be unified and move where the spirit leads!
3. And lastly finances! I still need more monthly support, so if you could pray God will call obedient Christians to donate that would be amazing!

I will be giving monthly news letters via email when the school starts and so if you would like to be in the loop then just go a head and shoot me a message and I will put you on the list! I also got a new number since being here which is:
+61 413 219 973
And my email is:
Connor.field@goywam.com

Thank you for your guys's support and I miss you all!

Support Letter!

            As many of you probably know, this past year I had the privilege of being a part of the organization called YWAM (Youth With A Mission). To give a general idea, the school that I was a part of is called “DTS,” which means “Discipleship Training School.” A DTS generally consists of two parts – lecture phase, which is four months, and outreach phase, which is two months. During lecture phase, we all met in a lecture hall and got to learn from various speakers and preachers from all over the world about different topics. For example, we learned about the “father heart of God,” “the character and nature of God,” “hearing God’s voice,” etc. That time was dedicated to building a foundation for us students in order to be able to reach out to other nations on the “outreach phase.” The main motto of YWAM is: “To know God and to then make Him known,” which fully sums up DTS as a whole – putting both lecture and outreach phase together. For my outreach phase, I went to Peru with a team of nine other people. To give a brief overview, we served at an orphanage in the jungle as well as Cusco, did service projects at local churches, and worked with a medical campaign for the local natives. Although outreach was difficult, I grew so much and the Lord taught me what it means to serve with a joyful heart.

            That being said, the staff members on my school were a huge part of my personal growth, which poured out into the ministry that I was a part of during outreach. At the YWAM Brisbane base, staff members are a part of a school as well, which is called “BLS” – Basic Leadership School. The name explains exactly what the school is all about. This is what I feel the Lord is calling me to be a part of this upcoming fall. A BLS has three phases: Phase one is six months of leading a DTS school (lecture and outreach). Next is Phase two, which is a logistical phase that is five months long, where I will serve on base and in the community. Phase three is six months of leading another DTS school (lecture and outreach).

            In order to get there, I need to raise $5,000. On top of that, I am in need of $600 per month – living expenses, school fees, etc. This money will mostly be going towards the outreach phases that I’ll lead. Because I’ll be on a student visa, I can’t work, so I will be relying on donations and fundraising. Above all, I would be so grateful for your prayer support, and if you are able to donate and feel led to, thank you so much! It’s going to be a time of daily relying on the Lord, which I know will be difficult, but so fruitful. Through it all, I’m excited and expectant for how God will use me to show love to others and to continue to grow in faith and love for Him.

If you’d like to donate, follow this link: www.connorfield.weebly.com

OR: mail to 4860 Minnesota Lane North, Plymouth, MN 55446

Also, I will be updating my blog (the above link) to share stories – the results of your donations!

I love you all, thank you for your support!

Connor Field