God is good

Outreach in South Africa is almost over! I am leaving for Italy in just a couple days. It is crazy to think of leaving this place because we have really been able to get to know and love people here. We have been so fortunate that our ministry has been very discipleship-oriented. What I mean is that a lot of people (the majority) we talk to here are already Christians, so we have the chance to encourage them and challenge them in their faith. I thought that outreach was going to be a time when we would lead a lot of people to the Lord, but there has only been one person who has become a Christian from our ministry here. His name is Jeremiah, and he is just awesome! He is recently out of prison, where he spent most of his time reading the Bible. When two of my teammates talked to him on the beach, he was so ready to accept Christ, but he didn't know how. But now he is the most on fire for God person I know... he just doesn't stop talking about God - like, we literally cannot get a word in. He was homeless, just sleeping on some rocks near the ocean, and didn't have anything at all really. We were able to get him a Bible (which we all had to sign and write our countries so he could show people how missionaries came from overseas to lead him to Christ) and we also got to buy him a house!!!!! It is actually only a small garden shed, but it was only $50 and he has a roof over his head! He is also now connected with the pastor here, so he has someone to mentor him. So maybe we aren't leading hundreds of people to Christ, but if Jeremiah is the only reason we came to South Africa, I am ok with that!

God is doing lot's of other awesome things too. We have been experiencing something I have never witnessed before - healings! God heals people when we pray. Today we were at this woman's house in Delft, the township, and she told us about her legs that have been sore for the past 6 months and it is difficult for her to walk. We prayed over her legs, asking God to heal her and when we were done, she stood up and was able to jump up and down and move all around. God literally healed her before my eyes. It was so amazing! God still does miracles today! Then she invited us in for tea and we watched the royal wedding. So good.

Outreach is going good. I can't believe it's a third of the way through, but I am excited for the rest of it! My team is doing well. We have been getting along well, although I have realized how hard it can be to live with and hang out with the same people all the time. It's all about patience and not letting people get on your nerves. It's good though, it really is. We have a lot of fun times together and we all work well together. Continued prayer for unity and safety over the team would be awesome! Thanks!

Outreach...

I love this place. And these people. And everything! I am really enjoying myself here. It is hard to believe how fast it is all going - only two and a bit weeks left! It is going to fly by. We have been keeping pretty busy here, mostly just going different places and talking to people. We spend a couple days a week in a township called Delft. We mostly just go door to door talking to people. In their culture, an open front door means "come on in, we're ready for visitors" so we can literally just walk into someone's house, sit down on their couch and start chatting with them. They are very open people and will tell you their entire life story - what's going on with the family, health concerns or troubles finding a job. We usually just chat a bit and then spend time praying with them. It seems like most people here believe in God and absolutely love prayer, so our role is to really encourage them in that and help them grow in their faith. I remember on the first day as we drove through the townships, I jumped to a lot of wrong conclusions about them and the the people who lived there. I now know that they are a beautiful group of people who are friendly and open and welcoming. I feel very secure and welcome in Delft and just love spending time there. I also got the opportunity to preach in the church there last Sunday. It is a pretty small church, but it was my first time every preaching! It was definately a great experience. The congregation was so welcoming and really put me at ease. Just imagine a bunch of black mama's amen-ing and hallelujah-ing after everything. LOVE IT! We are running the entire service on Sunday, so that should be interesting! I'm not speaking at all, but I'm just excited to go back there.

We also spend a fair amount of time at the beach evangelizing. Just as people are very open in Delft, it seems that South Africans are very open in general. It is becoming so easy for me to just sit down next to someone and have a conversation with them. They love chatting and sharing about their lives. I have met a lot of really interesting people who have crazy stories to tell. I have talked to quite a few homeless people, but also to a lot of the surfers or other people who hang out at the beach. I have noticed that these people are very spiritual, just in general. Mostly everyone I have spoken with have some sort of belief in God and have stories where God has supernaturally showed up in their lives in miraculous ways. However, there is this disconnect when it comes to living a daily walk with God. So I think that our role here in SA is not to necessarily preach the gospel and lead people to Christ, but to encourage people who are already Christians and disciple them and help them grow stronger in their faith.

I am still loving this beautiful country. Today we went for a hike up a mountain near where we live. It took a pretty solid 1.5 hours to get up and it was pretty intense. But the view from the top is amazing! So worth the hike :) Every time I am struck by the beauty of this city (which is quite frequently) I remember how awesome God is. He made it all.

I don't really know if anyone reads this blog, but thank you to the ones who do! Your support is greatly appreciated, as are your prayers! Some specific prayer requests would be for safety for our team, as Capetown can be potentially dangerous, and also that God would open up so many opportunities for us. Pray that God would direct us to specific people or ministries or situations that we need to be involved in. Thank-you for your prayers! I hope everyone is doing well!

OUTREACH: Capetown, South Africa!

I still can't believe I am here. It is so surreal to me. The base we are staying at here is so awesome. It's an old hotel, so it has all these neat staircases and stuff. I share a room with the three other girls on my team and we seriously have way more room then back in perth. And we have a shower between the four of us versus two showers between like 30 people.. This is like luxury living here. I feel almost guilty.. ahaha I actually don't mind at all.. it's really nice.

Yesterday we went into the actual city of Capetown (we are living in a suburb called Muizenburg). It is about 45 minutes on the train to get there. The train is pretty cool.. really rustic and old and crowded! We go in the first class just because there are less people who ride in it but it was still so full coming home during rush hour. The doors don't close automatically so there are people holding them open and hanging out of them, or they are outside in between two of the cars. It's a cool experience for sure. We walked around the city for a good while - it is so interesting! This is the most polarized city I have ever seen in terms of money distribution. Walking down the sidewalk.. you look to the left and there are poor street vendors and on your right are high end clothing stores. The contrast between rich and poor is everywhere. We all really enjoyed walking around, lot's of cool stuff to see. However, we did get a sense of the city and the darkness and danger that is there. There were a lot of people who came up to us begging for money and stuff or just hanging around us. We have been given many tips on how to travel safe, so if we are smart we will be totally fine. That being said, Capetown isn't the safest city ever, so prayer for safety over my team would be awesome! Because our team is multicultural (7 countries represented!) we look more like tourists.

Today was an even better day. We went into a township today, called Delft. We went there with the pastor of a church there who is going to always lead us when we go. Basically we visited his church (it's just a square building with nothing in it) and then we visited some of the people he knows. The township is like a slum area. It is a huge area or these super run down shacks. The government actually makes really nice (comparatively speaking) houses for them and gives them to the people for free, so that is good. But a lot of people live in terrible looking shacks made out of scraps. But when we went inside them, they are actually homes. They have furniture and electricity and it is a home. I was really surprised at how comfortable they are...at least the ones we went to. And the people we met were all soooo friendly. Very welcoming and just loved it that we were there wanting to help out and everything. And the children! Oh my goodness. My heart feels complete. They are just so full of joy, it is incredible. A whole swarm of them came up to us and just jumped on us. The climbed all over us and we gave them piggy back rides and swung them around and everything. And the cutest thing was that they kept on grabbing my hair and sort of stroked it. They actually took it out of the braid I had and were playing with it and said they loved it so much. It was so sweet. We are going back tomorrow and I can't wait. I loved it there.. I felt safe and comfortable - the people are awesome.

So basically, I love it here. I am excited for everything that is to come and all the opportunities we will have to talk to the people of this amazing city and share Jesus with them! So excited for the next month :)

The end times..

I am going to be in Capetown in exactly a week. So crazy to think about. I am ready to go!!! I am getting so excited, but also quite apprehensive because I don't know exactly what to expect with everything. There has also been a bit of a change to my team. Due to finances (or lack of..) three people on my team, one is our leader, won't be coming but are instead doing and outreach in Indonesia. So my team is down to seven students, one leader. At first I was pretty upset about this change, but I'm ok with it now. I really believe that God is going to use whatever situation and work it all out for the good. With a smaller team, we will be able to get super close and work really well together. It'll be awesome no matter what. And I also had to realize that I'm not going for a vacation, so the social part shouldn't be my number one priority. God is going to use our team to do so much awesome stuff! I am excited to see what happens!

Last week's topic in class was Missions, with Paul Childers. Such a good week! I wasn't too excited going into the week because I didn't want to sit there and listen to a big sales pitch on why we should become missionaries and stuff, but it wasn't like that at all. Paul was such a great speaker - so passionate and real. He presented us with like a billion ways we can get involved in missions, and showed us how a missionary doesn't have to be someone who lives in a grass hut in the middle of Africa. There are a lot of opportunities and they all seem pretty sweet. We talked a lot about areas of injustice in the world and what we can do to fix them. I don't know exactly what my future will hold, but I do know that there is no reason to live a boring life. There are so many opportunities, so many things to be involved with! Definately an inspiring week! This week we are learning about Spiritual Warfare, which should be interesting. The speaker is really good, so we'll see how it goes..

I don't know what kind of access I'll have to a computer in Capetown, but I'll try and update as much as possible. I hope you are all well!

Fathers and dance parties

Such a good week. I can't believe that we just finished week 10 and there is only two weeks left until I am going to CAPETOWN!! But it's still two weeks so I need to focus on being here. This past week of classes has been so good - one of my favourite weeks for sure. Our speaker was so cool. He was kind of all over the place when he talked - super energetic and crazy. He also had a really unique way of teaching. He would ask us to tell stories from our lives and then use them to teach or illustrate a point. He was really personal and gave everyone individual attention. Our topic for the week was "the father heart of God" so we talked a lot about our earthly father's and how that affects our view of God as our heavenly father. So I was reminded this week of how awesome my dad is. I really gained a whole new appreciation for him.. and now I miss him andw my whole family a lot. How awesome would it be if they could just come visit me here? Or if anyone could come visit me for that matter... I really liked this week because I feel like I got a glimpse of how much God loves me, and loves me personally. I feel like a lot of truth was spoken into me about how God sees me and how he is proud of me and has an awesome plan for my future. A good week, for sure.

To totally change the topic, we had the most epic dance party last night. The theme was jungle fever so we all got dressed up as either animals of just crazy jungle people. I teased my hair and then smeared heaps of dirt all over me - so good. The classroom got all decorated up and we had food and everything. And then we just rocked out for hours and danced it up! I love how comfortable I feel around these people that I can just totally let loose and have fun. I think that we are all so close to one another that it doesn't matter how stupid of weird we look because we are all just having so much fun. I cannot dance at all... but it doesn't even matter! I will definately look back on this as a great memory!

There is something I just wanted to throw out there. As you know, we are leaving for outreach in two weeks. There are still quite a few people who don't have the complete finances to go. As a class there is still the need of just under $70,000 that needs to come in so everyone can go. We know that outreach and missions is all a part of God's desire to see us go into the nations and proclaim his word, but we can't do that without the finances. As a school we have been doing some fundraising and have been really committed to praying for the money to come in. Individuals have also been sending out support letters and contacting their families and friends, asking for support. Now here is the thing. I have all the money I need. God has been good and has provided for me fully. So I don't need any more money, but I do have team mates who do. If anyone wanted to financially support our school, that would be so much appreciated. An easy way to do this is to go to the website: https://www.ywamperth.org.au/007/payonline.asp and pay online with a credit card. All you need to make sure to do is specify that you want to donate to the Young People's dts outreach fees and it will go into the pool of money which will then be dispersed among people who need it the most.

I don't want anyone to feel any pressure to give, but I just wanted to put it out there. As we go into the nations, we will be learning so much about ourselves and so much about what God has for us. We are going to be partnering with other YWAM bases, and with schools and churches. We will be heading into slum areas and serve them practically. We will also be doing a lot of street evangelism, bringing the word of God to the people of the city. It's an exciting adventure for sure and I want everyone to be able to come! If you don't feel led to financially support, PRAYER IS JUST AS IMPORTANT!! We need prayer for finances, for unity in the teams, for the leaders, for safety and for so much more. So that would be awesome too.

Thank you all so much! I love you guys and hope you are doing awesome!

Week 9!

I seriously can not believe how fast time is flying here. In a month I will be in South Africa!! So crazy to think about. I am really really excited. We are focusing a lot on outreach now... especially the finances part. There are quite a few people who do not have all the money yet, so we have all been praying about it on a daily basis. There has been really cool stories already about money coming in, thousands of dollars for some people! It's pretty cool to see how God provides and will continue to provide.

Although I am excited about outreach, I'm still here for a bit and there is a lot going on and a lot more to come. This week's teaching is on "authority and submission" so basically all about leaders and what makes a good leader and how we need to submit to our leaders. For me it is interesting because I have been in a leadership position at camp and stuff and hope to be doing that in the future as well so I am learning a lot. Also our speaker is hilarious! He is really great. I laugh my head off every lecture. I feel like the past few weeks have been super intense, so this is a nice little break. I can't believe how much I am learning here. Every week there is more to learn, to process and to grow in. At times I feel overwhelmed because I can't process all the information that's in my head. I still have stuff to think about from week 2... However. I do believe that outreach is going to be a time where I can practically apply all I have learnt. It will be cool to put it all in to practice.

I don't really know what else to say except that things are still going good. I have been so blessed by my roomates. We all just get along so well and are so close. I thought, at the beginning, a tiny room full of 10 girls would be drama central, but it hasn't been at all. We get on so well and I really feel very supported by them. And we have tons of fun.. last night we all stayed up way too late (considering we are up at 5:30am...) telling silly stories and just laughing so hard. It was pretty great. I just can't believe there is only a month left with all of them before we split into smaller groups for outreach.. I am going to miss my roomies for sure.

Anyways, I've got to go.. do homework! We actually have homework, yes, but it isn't too bad. I hope you are all doing well!

Birthday!

Happy Birthday to me :)

This was the first birthday I have had ever being away from home and it was also probably one of the best. I am just amazed at how amazing all my friends here are. Everyone went out of there way to make it an awesome day for me. I really appreciate all they did. I woke up in the morning with this big sign hanging down by my face saying happy birthday. Then I opened the package I got from home (which I got almost two weeks early so I had to wait!!) and it was great!! There was a lot of food in it.. so good. And the best was reading the cards from my family! And I also got a card from Grandma and Auntie Diane.. also really great to read. I also got a special birthday table at dinner... I had to choose 7 people to sit with me which is impossible! So to be fair, and because I chouldn't choose, I did a random draw of my roomates. I got a couple presents - a travelling mug from the whole school and then a novel from two of my close friends. And then later in the evening my roomates through me a surprise dance party, complete with tim tams and other food. And then a bunch of people went in to town with me to get bubble tea to celebrate. I really couldn't believe all the effort everyone went into to make it a special day for me. I am so greatful to have such awesome friends! I definately had a good 19th birthday :)


This week in classes we are covering the topic of Lordship, so basically the idea of giving everything over to God and giving him control of your life. I know that I really like being in control, especially over things like finances, so this is a challenging topic. But challenging in a good way. I think this is one week that will be really beneficial for me looking into the future and the great mystery that it is.. I have been thinking a bit of the fall and if I'll be in school or whatever and I am really not sure. Being here I feel like there is a lot more for me to experience and a lot of possibilities and directions to take. So I don't know what I am doing.. but I will trust that God will lead me in the right direction.

I here it snowed today back home.. that's so crazy because it is smoking hot here! It has been hot (we're talking 37, 38 degrees) and humid for a while now. I just sweat so much everyday.. especially doing dishes in the kitchen!! But the past couple days have been less humid, so not as much sweat. I was actually cold in the air conditioned class this morning. So nice. And I shouldn't complain. I love the summer and the sun and being in Australia for it all. I'm pretty sure we are going to have a little late night swim tonight :) Should be good!