Hervey Bay and the Holy Spirit!

Sorry I haven't written for a few weeks! When life gets going, it doesn't stop! Lets see, I've got quite a bit to update on, so be prepared for a long post! :) Last week was spent away at a place called Hervey Bay. We went to this town (which surprisingly has like twice the population size of GP somehow, I couldnt tell though) because our YWAM Brisbane base is going to try and pioneer another base there. We stayed at a small house they have rented there, about a five minute walk from the beach. It was really small, but I enjoyed being so close to everyone because I think it really helped us to bond together even more. The topic of the week was Holy Spirit; wow, what a powerful, transforming week! Some things we covered were the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit (prophecy, serving, teaching, encouragement, giving, leadership, mercy/kindness, speaking in tongues, translating tongues, faith, wisdom, healing, discernment,evangelists, etc). We didn't cover much specifically about all of the gifts, so this is something I plan on going into more depth for myself personally. Being baptized in the Holy Spirit means the Holy Spirit is filling our lives so that we can overflow onto others. John 7:37-39 says 37On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." 39By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified." In order for this, we must 1)Ask (how simple, right?! lol) [Luke 11:9 "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."], 2) Believe [John 7:37-39, as said above], 3) Obey (which includes things He has told us directly/personally, and things He says for us to do in His Word) [Acts 5:32 "We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him."], 4) Laying on of hands [Acts 8:15-17 "15When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, 16because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into[a] the name of the Lord Jesus. 17Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit."], and 5) in unity [Acts 2:1-4 "1When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[a] as the Spirit enabled them."]. One morning during that week we were given an opportunity to be baptized in The H.S.(Holy Spirit)if we wanted to, with following those things I talked about above. I wanted that! So as I was prayed over, I could feel The Holy Spirit! Everyone else that was prayed for had similiar experiences in what we felt, of course, everyone's experience was also a bit different. Some began praying in tongues, but since it was just between them and God (not like they got up in front of anyone or something), it was what is called prayer language. It would be hard to explain all that I felt, but it was just an incredible thing! Other awesome things happend that week as well; transformations and break throughs for me and others also! Just one break through I will share, for the most part I've enjoyed everyone on my DTS, except a few people that just kinda irked me. Something just didn't mesh with me, or I felt they weren't being real. I knew this was not the right kind of attitude, and it bothered me that I felt that way! So I took it to God, and during the week in Hervey Bay, He opened my eyes! He changed the way I felt towards them, and He gave me "His eyes" in a sense, because I was able to see everyone in the way that He sees them; instead of feeling frustration towards them, I felt an overwhelming love! I saw each person for their strengths, and their uniqueness, and just really had a humble appreciation for their personality. I love how God does that! This is just one break through that I felt like I should share, but I really had others that were so very meaningful for me! (and by breakthroughs, I mean by revelations of how Satan has been spiritually attacking me or has in the past, and not letting him hold me in bondage by those things anymore, but giving them up completely to God! :) ) It was such a week of healing, I know for me personally, and for many other of my friends here on DTS. It was so great, being able to share some of these things with others, and then being able to pour into their lives and pray for them, as they did the same for me. :D
Lets see, what else?! One of the nights in Hervey Bay... I'm going to post a few pictures to help show you guys things I'm talking about! Here is a picture of us on the roof, which I'm going to talk about in a sec, and also a picture from the beach that was nearby to us.

Back to what I was saying, one night some of us girls decided we wanted to go up on the roof and look at the stars; WOW. I'm sorry, but our stars back home don't really compare! The Milky Way Galaxy was right above us and SO GORGEOUS! We also could see Mars (I'm pretty sure thats the one). It was just so incredible to sit and let it sink in how much in control He is, and how powerful He is, and how incredibly big He is! It's kind of something that will leave you speechless if you think about it really. We also read a bit of Song of Solomon outloud, and it was just so cool to read some of it as God's love letter to us!
Some girls got up really early and watched the sunrise one morning and said it was spectacular (the sun rises over the ocean here), so I decided to join them one morning! Which meant getting up and being down at the beach at 5:53... But I did it! But, it was cloudy... and windy and a bit rainy :( haha So that was a bit of a disappointment, but it was still fun.
Gosh, there is still so much to write about the week! The reason we were there as I stated before, was to help in Pioneering the new base there; which for us meant praying over the city and the people, etc. From our first day in the house, many people got the feeling of apathy,or tiredness or lazyness. We felt like maybe that was a problem in the area. Come to find out, through the local contact there, those are problems for Hervey Bay! We could feel these attacks of these things on us throughout the week, and we really had to seek God and pray that He would give us the energy and the alertness! One day we did what we call a prayer walk; different groups of about 5 or 6 would be dropped off at different parts of the town, and we were just to go and pray for the hearts of the city, and the apathy to change, and whatever we felt God put on our hearts to pray for. One of the girls with us felt we were to do a "treasure hunt." A treasure hunt goes something like this. You pray and ask God to reveal clues to you about someone He wants you to talk to; so He might give you something like a name, or a color of a shirt, or a location, etc. As we prayed as a group, we got a list of certain things. Later in the day, we ended up at a location that was on that list. Tai (the girl had the idea) saw a lady that fit the description we had gotten!(a white v neck, flowers, and a hat; she had flowers on her white vneck and was wearing a hat!) She was able to talk to the older woman for awhile and just encourage her and keep her company so it was a really cool ministry time! Later, we felt like we were aimlessly walking around the town, so we started to pray again asking God what He might want us to do. A few people felt like we were supposed to go minister to backpackers (Hervey Bay is a large backpacking town as Frasier Island is near), so we got up and headed in the direction we thought we might find some. We had walked maybe 20 feet when a man came up and invited us to a free 'sausage sizzle' for backpackers! We then explained to Him who we were, and asked if we could help out and come hang out with the backpackers (it was a Baptist church that put it on every Thursday). It was so awesome for us that God led us in a direction, and then gave us what He wanted us to do! And so quickly nonetheless!

Well, I feel as if I've just written a novel! lol and that was only one week; I have more to write about for this last week! :O But I will leave that for another post, its almost 1 in the morning and I'm supposed to be up at 7 tomorow. (We are randomly having a "Christmas" celebration, as decided by some of my fellow DTSers early today haha :) ) So goodnight!

I dare you to move.

This weekend while I was looking for information on China for my project, I stumbled accross the following video. Please take a few minutes and go to the link to watch it.
http://www.asiaharvest.org/audioVideoFiles/TearsOfTheSaints.html

I don't know about you, but that inspired me so much! It brought back to memory what was said in a video during our week in Stanthorpe; "How much must you hate someone NOT to tell them about eternal life?!" That was said by an athiest. If even an athiest can recognize this truth, what have we been doing with our lives?! Honestly, think about every person you come in contact with; the guy pumping your gas, the lady at the bank, the kid bagging your groceries, or maybe its even a friend that you know does not know God. If we don't desire with every part of our being to share with these people God's love and grace and gift of eternal life, we need to come before Him and beg that He would instill that in us! Just imagine the difference we could make if every single Christian held on to what we have and treated it like the incredible gift that is is, wanting to show it off like our new bike at Christmas?!
So here's my challenge; don't hold back the precious gift that you have. Share it with everyone by sharing [God's] love with everyone you come in contact with! Ask God what He wants you to do in this world to make a difference; what role do you play in advancing God's kingdom?

I think my posts keep getting longer? Stanthorpe and outreach!

This last week has been spent in a tiny tiny town called Stanthorpe, about 3ish hours away. There wasn't much to do there the first half of the week, because we couldn't find the backpackers anywhere it seemed. I found a nice rock (at the church we spent the majority of our time at) and sat up there for my quiet time; it was so beautiful! It overlooked the creek and was just really serene :)We did have lectures this week also, which were on Evangelism. Yan, I can't remember his last name, from England was our speaker, and he was pretty awesome! He made a really good point, that you don't 'go out' to evangelize, but that evangelism is a lifestyle! His lectures were filled with really good information, and really great humor as well :D This week was definately a great learning time; we had one excercise during lectures where Yan chose one person, gave them a random topic, and told them that they were to talk about that topic and get it to Jesus, all in one minute. It was really a good excercise because it brought to our attention if we work at it just a little bit, we can easily bring Jesus into ANY conversation! With that in mind, we went out into town to talk to people, and invite them to the huge "Chai tent" we had set up(free Chai tea for everyone). Quite a few people were able to talk to backpackers and invite them to the tent. One night we went out to talk to backpackers, but I think the majority of them were hiding somewhere because we hardly found any haha some of us ended up talking to a few people in some bars though, so it was not an unsuccessful night! Friday night, the first day of the festival, we had quite a few people show up! Alot of people went into the English lessons the church was holding, and then came in to the Chai tent afterwards for our little magic show/testimony that Yan gave. We ended up hanging out and talking to quite a few backpackers from France and Italy for quite a long time! It was pretty sweet. Afterwards, there was also some wonderful bonding time with a few of the girls from Beach to Bush, singing and dancing to songs like "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" ♫ ♪ haha

Outreach locations!!I found out where I'm going! I'm going to that Russia/other country choice! (we're not suppose to post all over the internet the name of the country, well that's what we've been told so far until we know if it's ok or not. but you can guess what it is, it starts with C and is a large Asian country!!) I'm so very excited for outreach! I know that this was the place God wanted me to go for outreach. A few weeks before leaving for YWAM, Russia was put on my mind as a place I want to go to (later realizing that was God putting it there!). I've had this list of different countries I want to go to, alot in Europe, but Russia has never been one of them. So before I even came to YWAM I had decided I was to go to Russia! When I got to base, there was chatter about where we might be going for outreach, and the news going around was that it might be Russia or that other place. I was so pumped! I knew where I was supposed to go on outreach because God had put it on my heart beforehand! We have an assignment called "Adopt a Nation", basically we have an hour to give information about an unreached nation, and also included in that is a time of intercession for that country. First thought of what country I should do was China (hint hint), which was kinda odd because I love Africa and I always love to choose an African country when given the choice on projects. We partnered up, and Laila and I chose to be partners. She told me that China was on her mind for the project. I told her I had been thinking the same thing! So that was pretty sweet! A few days later, I was wondering if maybe we should change it to Russia, since I already knew I was supposed to go there! But no, I knew that God wanted us to do China, so I never thought anything more about changing the adopt-a-nation country. Then when they announced to us that the outreach location was BOTH of those countries-I was SO COMPLETELY STOKED!! I KNEW that that was where God wanted me to go! It was so encouraging and exciting. I'm not sure yet what we will be doing there, but when I find out I will let you know. I do know that in Russia we will be staying in the city of Vladivostok. Ok so I also know the name of the city in the other country, but I'm not going to post that haha Now I just need to come up with the $4500 for outreach and then I'm all set! :) God is so good!!