Pictures

Beach Soccer Outreach

Aboriginal Dancing at the Barbie

Beach Soccer outreach Barbie

 

Just a beautiful view of Newcastle Beach

Character of God

So week three of my lecture phase focused on the character of God and how we need to be able to live within that character as the disciples of His Kingdom.  We talked about Gods character, nature, and ways that help us to have a better understanding of Him and what He does.  Our teachings can be summed up in one statement, “God is a personal God with a distinct character and nature. He is a spirit which transcends the entire world order through the order depends totally on Him.”  This means that we need to live out the truth as Christians because as we look to God, the world looks to us.

To start the week we talked about having a relationship with God and what that means, this really is the foundation of Christianity and everything that we learned this week.  We talked about how one comes to believe that there is a God and that no matter what we believe we have to believe that something created what was the beginning.  It is interesting to think about how people believe in evolution yet don’t think about who created the things that makes the theory of evolution possible, where is the beginning.  Self-image is a huge part of how deep a relationship we can have with God as we believe what we are told and see in ourselves.  With our self-image we have three parts; our spirit, soul, and body.  Our spirit is our conscience and our ability to know God as our soul is our personality which includes our mind, will, and emotions then we have our body which is the physical self including the senses, appetite, and desires. 

The Godhead or Trinity is the three parts of God that we know and as we are constructed in his image we also are a triune being.   This is something that we don’t necessarily talk about a lot in the church and is something that is very complicated to understand.  The basics is that God is one and is indivisible, yet God is three and distinguishable.   This sound to be very contradictory, however, the trinity is the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.  The Father is God and he is the beginning, the designer, the promise keeper and is the 1^st mode.  The Son is Jesus and he is the mediator, the redeemer, the eternal word that we can find in the Bible.  The Holy Spirit is the comforter here on earth that God has sent to us to be the revealer, the teacher, and the communicator.  To understand the Trinity is really impossible because we have nothing here on earth to compare it to.  The closest thing that we can find is a triangle, because each side is valuable and equal yet if you take any of them away it is no longer a triangle. 

To understand the character of God we have to break them down into two sets of attributes, essential and moral.  Essential attributes are that God is eternal and that God has and will always be around because He is the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega.  God also is self-existent because He exists in and from Himself and He creates us out of an abundance of who He is.  God also is immutable which lets us know that He is eternal and unchanging yet the way He communicates with each of us will be different.  God also is all powerful, all knowing, all present, and has infinite understanding.  Those are the things that make God who He is, perfect.  The moral attributes are the characteristics that God has that we can have as well as we are moral beings.  We are called to perfect Holiness, the ability to be set apart from the rest of the word because we are disciples of God.  We also are called to be in Perfect Righteousness as we need to understand justice and take action against sin, which Jesus can take away as He died on the cross from our unrighteousness.  We also are to have Perfect Love, to love so much that we can be the spirit the soul and the body in one unity to love as the Trinity is love.  We also are to have Perfect Faithfulness as we are to be trustworthy, reliable, true to His word and be able fulfill the purpose He calls us to.  Our purpose at YWAM is to go into the world and to make disciples of all nations and with being able to understand this we will be able to exemplify these same characterizes as we reach out to the unchurch people.

During an activity in our lectures we were instructed to go outside and see if God will reveal anything to us and then to come back 30 minutes later and discuss.  In my walk I came across a flower, a yellow flower that had fallen of the tree that it had come from.  There were several of these flowers that still remained on the tree, but there were also several that had fallen to the ground.  These flowers on the ground had not yet blossomed and still were beautiful although wouldn’t be able to grow as they no longer had roots.  This is how God spoke to me saying that the tree is the Kingdom and many of us had fallen from the kingdom and all of us at different points.  The only true way for us to fully blossom is to be a part of that tree or Kingdom and stay intact to the nutrients or else we won’t be able to receive the true beauty.  The tree also needs three things to be able to survive; the sun, soil, and water.  These things can be seen as the Trinity and if we fail to understand these we are unable to blossom to our full potential or beauty.  So also the color of the flower, yellow, demonstrated the core teaching of the week which was relationships and yellow flowers symbolize friendship.

So this is a lot of material to take in and yes I know I just tried to sum it up in a blog post, yet that is impossible as growing is God should be a process that never ends and one in which we continually make ourselves vulnerable because those are the times when we will hear God the clearest.  So with all this character and being able to hear God we were able to stand out and as we should be different as Christians.  We went to the mall here on Thursday night, which is the big night for shopping in Australia as it’s the only night the shops are open until 9pm.  We were able to talk to heaps of people about our Youth Street we run on Saturdays and just start relating to others.  This was a good start for us to prepare ourselves for the things that we will have to do when on outreach.  The people in the mall were eager to talk to us as we asked them questions and as Americans we really have an advantage to make a difference as we are seen to be very interesting and everyone loves to talk to us about things that happen in the states. 

This next week we are going up to Tahlee, a resort/camp that the owners are going to be giving to YWAM for free in the next couple years.  They have had a ministry up there for decades and last week it hosted a youth conference for 800 youth that are a part of Hillsong Church, which is the largest church in Australia.  We will be having our lectures up there this week with the other two DTS’s that are a part of this base and will be learning about the Fatherheart of God. We will focus on forgiveness and coming clean with God, which is an extension of our second week, Clear Conscience.  This will help us to see the love of God as a perfect father and many of the other DTS’s haven’t been able to go through our experiences so we will be continuing in learning about forgiveness, which is growing in our faith and that is a never ending process.

Week 2 - Clear Conscience

This week was our topic was Clear Conscience and we had a speaker, Ken Mulligan, come from Townsville.  There he is a part of another YWAM base, where he is also in charge of the Mercy Ships.  These ships go into counties like Papa New Genie and other third world countries that have severe health issues and they try to give free medical treatment to these people as a way of evangelizing.  Our typical week starts on Tuesday and the speakers speak on the topic each day until Friday when they wrap everything up.  So Ken spoke on the basics of ways to help us develop a Clear Conscience and how to maintain it to help us strengthen and have a deeper relationship with God. 

My Sports DTS program has been great and I have developed a very close knit relationship with everyone here and I have already grown to know all of them very well.  We have only been her two weeks and I already feel the community atmosphere that YWAM creates and I feel like I have a whole other family here. 

This week we primarily dealt with the topic of true repentance and how conviction is a good thing.  We also learned how to apply the Ten Commandments to our live to help us to clear our conscience.   To me I have always thought and been taught that conviction is something that condemns us for our sins.  Well we were informed that conviction is a good thing and is a correction to help us better see into the light, which is Christ.  We also learned that to be condemned is to be casted into darkness and not to be able to see the light.  It is very interesting that we as Christian see conviction as a bad thing yet it is something that we should rejoice in because it is how God shows us His love, like a parent correcting their kid’s behavior to make them a better person.  We all sin and we also do things that are undesirable and undesirable to God and He wants to convict of things that are good and bad because if we are just convicted of things that are sin then we have only received negative love.  This week I have been convicted of things of not fully trusting in God with my heart, living an impure life, and also not being a proper disciple of Christ.

The Ten Commandments also go with conviction and Ken primarily focused on the fifth Commandment, which tells us to honor and obey our parents.  This is something that was very hard for me to understand as I only had one parent through my childhood as most of you know.  It is not that I am resentful of my life because the events have led me to where I am today and I think I am at a great spot.  But it was hard for me to understand how I am to honor or respect and obey my parents when one of them hasn’t been around my whole life.  So here I was judging my mom for not being there and not taking into account the things that have happened in her life.  Not condoning anything that she did yet 1 Corinthians 4:4-5 says,” ⁴ my conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. ⁵ Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God.”  So here I was battling forgiveness and not understanding what it was all about and how it was so difficult for me to forgive yet still I was forgiven for my sins.  This verse put things in perspective for me and I was able to realize that not only was I hurting my relationship with Christ by not forgiving, but I was also judging and that is not my place as it is God’s when we come before Him.  So today I have chosen to forgive my mom for the things she has done or failed to do and have started forgiving her each and every day.  Forgiveness is like a cut on your arm and you have to first start to disinfect it, bandage it, then it begins to heal and scabs over and piece by piece it starts to heal properly.  It is a constant battle to forgive and I have found that each day I have to choose to forgive again and that is how we give our hearts over to Christ.

The best thing that happened this week was that we got to take time after lecture and a few of the people in my class were called out to pray for someone who God had on their heart.  Daniel, one of my classmates, prayed for me as he was spoken to by God and told that I was struggling with issues of childhood and getting over a barrier.  At this point God spoke to me through him and told me to put my hands out to Him and to look up to the Him.  This was something that was a little different from me and yet seemed to just bring everything that was on my mind and heart into the open as I spoke out to God those things.  My stomach then began to start to pump and almost seem like it was rolling and then I began to cry and while tears ran down my face it went numb and so did my hands that were still extended out to God.  This was the weirdest sensation that I had ever felt and after thinking about it later that night I knew exactly what had happened, I had been filled with the Holy Spirit.  For some of you it may be something you have experienced and yet some of you may never experience it, but it was something that made me realize that it was okay to be weak because God is strong and will fight for us.

We also got to go to the beach this week and have a Barbie, that is a BBQ, and have sausages and play soccer on the sand with kids who are of mental handicaps or older guys who were once on drugs.  This was something that was amazing as we got to interact with people in the community and have great fellowship with them.  Later that night we had another Barbie at one of our Youth Street crew’s house and we got to play some cricket and enjoy some indigenous people doing their cultural dances, a true Aussie experience.  I also got to experience my first Vegemite and cheese sausage, which too much of the Australian people surprised I liked. It was amazing food and it is great for parents of our Youth Street crew to open there homes because they appreciate what we are doing, that is the evidence that we are making an impact.

This past week was one that was very intense and according to our speaker, Ken, and our leaders and staff we have far exceeded expectations.  We are extremely engaged in topics and have great class discussions and times of sharing that most DTS’s don’t exemplify.   We are far more advanced in the second week than any other DTS classes and I think that is amazing and as we continue it will only get better and make our sports DTS group closer.

Week 1 of Sports DTS

So I got here on Monday, which was the day before classes actually started as most of you know.  I adjusted really well to the 17 hour difference here and I have also begun adjusting to the hot humid days here and the no air conditioning.  It is amazing that when we serve God we can take all our material possessions away and focus solely on him, which is what I am doing. 

The first week of orientation and lectures is over and I am currently enjoying my first day off.  Our schedule is one that is very busy and hectic.  In the morning we wake up and have to have our breakfast eaten by 8 am because then we have tidy time at 8 to 8:25 am.  Tidy time is the time in the house when all of the missionaries living here pitch in and do a specific job to keep the house clean and organized.  Then after tidy time we go directly into lectures with my Sports DTS team until 1 pm, which is lunch.  Then after lunch at 2 pm we have work duties, these are specifically for the DTS students and they just teach us how to be humble and to work in the name of the Lord to help things run smoothly here.  For my work duties I have been assigned to do housekeeping, this is where I get the rooms ready for the speakers who will be staying here the following week and sometimes even making grocery runs to help out our kitchen staff.  There is a total of four of us on this housekeeping staff and we work from 2 to 4 pm, everyday accept for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.  Then we have a break until 5:45 pm, which is supper and then at 7 after the assigned people do dishes we have lectures until 9:30.  We then have a little time to write home or get on the internet before curfew at 10:45 pm.

So this week included a lot of orientation to the program and what we are expected to get out of it and also what are goals are for this program.  My leaders are Jeff and Ann, they are a married couple that is about 65 years in age, but they act like they are about 40.  That is very entertaining as they bring a lot of energy to the messages and get us involved in what they are teaching us.  The staff that is leading my school is Zach and Faith; they are both from the states.  The come from Pennsylvania and New Jersey respectively and are both 22 years old.  The age difference in our leaders in staff is one that I think is incredible because we can see how they have a view of God that is different in some issues.  This is encouraging for us to find the best way that God can work in us as they don’t push us to find their way, yet to find our way to let Him work.

The lecture topics that we got to listen to this week were about hearing the voice of God, quiet time with God, and praise and worship.  Each of these was a great introduction into the relationship that we will develop over the next couple months.  Hearing God’s voice can be tough for us at times because we need to take ourselves completely out of the equation and hear what He has to tell us or show us.  God can speak to us in so many ways and they explained to us how to come before God and totally surrender to Him and then in doing that we can hear what he has planned for us.  We also learned about how we need to have our one on one time with God where we tell him our struggles and lay all our worries on Him and ask Him for guidance in how to deal with those particular struggles.  In this time we can also hear God’s voice and we can solely focus on God and hear what he has planned for us.  We also talked about praise and worship and what it means.  This was one topic that was very new to me as praise and worship to me was only something that happened in a church.  Well praise and worship is a time that we can come to God with our love and express our love to him by singing praises to His name.  With this we can also give thanksgiving, which as Christians we seem to ask for thing more often than we thank God for the things that he has provided us with. 

In our praise and worship time however we learned a new form of prayer, which is something that YWAM firmly believes in.  This is prayer called intercession; it is different from normal prayer as intercession is a prayer on the behalf of others as a prayer is typically based upon personal worth.  So as most of you know Queensland has been flooding and that is just north of where we are and we interceded on behalf of those people.  In intercession we are to pray for the Holy Spirit to come into the place, to ask ourselves to be removed from hearing God’s word, to confess our sins, to rebuke Satan in the name of Jesus, and then to thanks God for the things He has given us.  Then we take a moment and pray and listen for God to tell us what He wants us to pray about in regards to the floods in Queensland.  Once God has spoken to us or has spoken to a few we then all pray a prayer in the circle for what God has told us to pray about.  This can be done for anything and is not just specific to one thing.

On Saturday we then had Youth Street, the thing that actually brought me to the Newcastle YWAM base.  Youth Street is for those between the ages of 12 to 17 and we have different activities that they can join in to make it more organized and enjoyable.  They have activities like, dance, skate, scoot, surf, and sports.  I was on the sports team as many of you can imagine and we got to hang out with the crew, that’s what we call the kids who attend, at the swimming pool and then play rugby.  Then we come back and eat supper and then head into Youth Street Live, where we have worship time and then a speaker comes and talks about something that is prevalent in the crew’s lives.  After worship time we have After Hours where the crew can dance, play video games, or chill out in our café.  Then at 8:30 pm the crew leaves and we have tidy time, where we clean the areas of the house in which we used.  This is the longest day of the week as we are continuously going and don’t get any break until 9pm.  However, it is awesome to see how the crew and staff are able to interact and the ways in which you can see the Lord in the crew’s life.

The start of something great

Gday mates, that's what they say here so thought I could bring a little of my new experience back home to all of you.  Well, my travels didn't go as well as I had hoped because I had an 8 hour layover in LAX stuck in the United Airlines terminal, which isn't very big.  I then finally got to board the plane at 9:30 or so and then me and 600 other passenger sat on the plane for 4 hours because of mechanical issues.  Then the airline decided that we would not be flying that evening so we all had to get off the airplane and get vouchers for a hotel room.  Well after an hour I got my voucher and they split all the passengers between two hotels.  So I stayed at the Hilton and had to wait in line for an additional 2 hours before I actually got a room and then I had to notify the Newcastle base as well as my ride from the airport and I got to bed about 5a.m. PT.  So you can imagine hot exhausting that was, however I then got to leave the next evening which is Saturday back in the states and I was able to arrive safely here at 6 a.m. Australian time, that is 12 p.m. back in the states and it also was already Monday here.  So I got to meet my leaders of my DTS and my 3 roommates and I already can tell that it is going to be amazing, because we have already connected with all of our sarcasm, which is a good thing in Australia.  Two of my roommates, Micheal and Matt, are from Australia and the other one, Daniel, is from California.  Upon arriving I was informed that a package had beat me here and was waiting for me.  I had a package full of candies, lollies here, and cards for each day of the week as well as a scrap book filled with memories of me and my girlfriend Rachel.  I am blessed to have her in my life and cannot wait to begin tomorrow here as it will be my first day in the Sports DTS program.  Well, until next time.