International Loveeee

Sorry for not writing my blog on Friday night or Saturday night to Mom and Uncle Brian! Because I know that you two read my blog every morning with your coffee... You must have been so bored without my stories!

Last time I left off, I thought that I would be going to T-HOP (Taurunga House of Prayer) but the trip got called off! So instead I watched a sweet movie with Kat, Sarah, Aleisha, Carly, and Rich. It was called 'Father of Lights'. It is a documentary about evangelism and stuff. It was so cool. It made me super excited for outreach! I can't wait to find out where I will be going! One thing that really stood out to me was how simple a prayer can be! There is this evangelist that lives in Israel, and he has the gift of healing. He just goes around on the street and asks people if he can pray for them. And all he says is "Pain, get out. In Jesus name." That's it. And people get healed! So cool! I will do this one day!

I also had my 1 on 1 with Carly! It was so much fun to catch up with her! It is crazy, I have already been transformed so much, just since she has been gone! One thing that she said to me that hit home: I told her about how all of the staff at the fake-baptism had told me not to try to change myself and to just be myself because God made me perfect. Carly said that maybe God is telling me to keep on being myself. Because ever since I have been here I have been making myself super open and have been trying to peel off all of the layers and masks blocking the real me, and I feel like I am finally me. So I think God is saying - never go back to the way you were before you came to NZ! And I hope that I never do go back. Ever since that night at THOP, I have felt so filled with joy. I feel like I need to steal Marit's identity because I am JOY! (Every time Marit enters a room she says 'Joy is in the house!' haha and I feel like saying that too!)

On Saturday, A guy named Josh Kinkenberg came and talked to us Mus-O's (Music and Worshippers) about Prophetic and Effective Worship. It was pretty awesome. He was a tall dark and handsome Kiwi man, who is unfortunately happily married! Him and his wife run worship schools and such. He taught us some stuff about worship, and how to effectively lead. But the coolest thing was that he made us all prophesy over each other. We each got a piece of paper and wrote our name at the top. Then we folded it over so that you couldn't see who the paper belonged to. Then he mixed up the papers and handed them back to each of us. First we had to ask God for a word to write on the piece of paper that he wanted to say to that person. Then we passed the papers one person over and asked God to make an object in the room to stand out to us, and explain it's significance for the unknown person who's paper we had. Then we had to get him to show us a picture and explain it's significance. Then show us a scene and it's significance for the person that the paper belonged to. Then another word. Then a bible verse. So we wrote each of these things on different papers. Then he unfolded the papers and handed our own papers to us. And it was so crazy. All of the things on my paper totally made sense to me! Wow. Every day I experience things that make God so much more real! Man, God is so cool!

After supper yesterday evening I planned a little hang-out in our room time for my roomies and me. So Kat and Anne and me played Apples to Apples for a little while. It was really fun! It is nice to bond a bit with the girls in my room because I find that they are kind of quiet and keep to themselves quite a bit! So I am going to force them to be my friends, Mwahahah!

After Apples to Apples I went down to the outdoor pool where everyone else was having a bon-fire. It was such a warm night and the moon was so bright and beautiful! Oh man. Just so awesome. Fire and beautiful sky!!! My favorite things. But seriously. The moon down here in NZ is SO BRIGHT! Like I can't even believe it. It is insane. It lights everything up. Crazyness! And it is tilted funny, like sort of upside down/side-ways. So weird. I also miss the big and little dipper... but I have become friends with the southern cross instead...

During the bonfire I thought it would be fun to try skateboarding. Kyle has a skateboard and the 'pool' is not actually a pool, it is the remains of a pool. So it is basically a big cement pit in the ground with a rail and half pipe in it. So I went for a skate. I am such a skater chic. I was so good at it. Except there is this gigantic hole in the ground that I didn't see, and it made me fall, but that was totally not my fault... :P Brent came and joined me and we were super cool boarders together. Van tried to teach us how to ollie, but we already knew how... no big deal. But then I biffed so hard. I ollied in the air and instead of landing on my board with my feet, I landed on the cement with my elbow. I laid on the ground for a while and fake laughed, but I really wanted to cry. But Van was so cute, he was like "Aweee, are you OK!?!?!?" What a little gentleman. So cute. So this morning I discovered that my shin and elbow are quite bruised, and my ankle is all scratched up from my fall. Also, I have discovered a large goose egg on my head. I guess I hit my head too when I fell. Ohhh man. But I am such a pro skater. Just wait till I get back to Canada. I will show you all!

Then we decided that we would love to sleep out on the trampoline. But it was already occupado when we got out there. So I jumped on and squashed Brent over. It was really uncomfortable. But then Schnegg switched him out and it was better :) And Jacob was on top of Jacob and Hannah was on top of me. It was not the most comfortable. But then we just started tickling the boys and they got scared away. Probably the most awkward thing that has happened so far: While we were tickle waring I somehow got pushed on top of Matt and it was so inappropriate. Oh man. AWKWARD. HAHAHA

Anyways, once the boys finally left us alone, we slept. It was so lovely. I LOVE sleeping outside! Until I woke up at 5 AM soaking wet! It had rained on me. I was drenched and frozen! So I hung up my sleeping bag and crawled into my warm bed until breaky!!! I had my yummy oatmeal for breakfast. I love breakfast... and yes I had a giant spoon of peanut butter on my apple, Henk!!!!

The mus-o's got to go to Hamilton today. It was nice. We just chilled and walked around the mall and shopped and such. I was a bad person and bought a pair of shoes, and a pair of shorts... and a pair of Van-man-jeans. And some man tee's. There were some really good deals! I got 10 nail polishes for 10 dollars at K-Mart! And I got the man jeans for 20 dollars. and They were the skinny kind, so they look like girl jeans! And it is a miracle because they are actually long enough for me!!!!! I can even roll them up and they still reach my feet! So exciting! Matt and I also got some bonding time and walked all over the place looking for a cross necklace for him... we didn't find one though. All of the Christian stores were closed because it was Sunday. Why did we go to town on Sunday??? Lame. Oh well. It is kind of funny because he had a sad girl story about a girl named Steph that broke his heart a bit, and I had a sad story about a guy named Matt that broke my heart a little. Awe bonding <3

Then we went to Hamilton Gardens and looked around a bit. It is a big garden with a bunch of different areas. There are gardens for each country pretty much. The Japanese and Chinese and Indian ones were the coolest. The American one had a picture of Marilyn Monroe. Lame. We took so many pictures. It was like a giant photo shoot surrounded by pretty scenery! And it was SO NICE out today! Oh man. Spring is here and it is so wonderful! So many flowers blooming on trees everywhere!

This week and next week is Circuit Riders! I am SO EXCITED! There are two other DTS's that will be joining with us for Circuit Riders. We really have no idea what is going to happen, but it sounds so exciting! There will be lots of evangelism happening in Taurunga. So cool. We will be commuting from our base to Taurunga for this week, but next week we get to stay at the Marine Outreach base which is apparently beautiful... So that will be fun too!

Yay!

Jonah Rap

Jonah Capter 1: Running Away

Yo I got a story to tell,
About Jonah. He got sucked up in a whale

My name is Jonah, but you can call me Jonizzle
God told me I should go to Ninevizzle
But I said 'Yo God, How about this:
Instead I'll hang with the bros in Tarshish'

So Jonah went and got on a ship
He went down inside and had a nappie nip
Things outside were getting pretty crunk
The wind was blowin' and the ship almost sunk

The captain came and woke me from my slumber
'Yo this is all your fault, we gonna throw you under!'

As soon as Jonah was at the bottom of the sea
The storm stopped and the ship was free to be

I said 'Yo God! I got all this seaweed up in my grill
Save me please, c'mon take a pill!'

CHORUS:
I'm a whale (what what?)
I'm a whale (what what?)
etc.

Jonah Chapter 2: At the bottom of the sea

Whale: Yo, I'm a whale!
I eat peop-ale!
mmmmmm Jonah!

Yo G- I'm in the belly of a fish
C'mon man, get me out of this!
I'm sorry that I bailed and went to Tarshish
I promise if you save me I'll go to Ninavish!

Then Jonah felt a rumble
... a rumble
... a rumble
... and the fish

CHUNDERED!!!

CHORUS

Jonah Chapter 3: Maybe God will change his mind?

God told Jonah to go to Ninavizzle
and preach that word, yeah the gospizzle

'Yo homies, what up with this?
Change yo ways or you'll be in the shiz!'

Once the people had repented of their sin,
God decided to call of the drive-by shoot-in!

CHORUS

Whale-zilla and Jo-nizzle are in the House!

Yesterday was Thursday. Frank has been warning us about Thursday all week. He says that things always happen on Thursday. So I was excited/Nervous!

He started off by talking about orphans. We are all orphans. The original orphan was Lucifer. At the beginning, there were three anointed angels – Gabriel, Michael and Lucifer. In Ezekiel 28: 11-18, it describes Lucifer and his great beauty. But Lucifer decided that he wanted the glory and worship for himself, so God cast him out of his presence to the ‘dirt’, to Earth.

When God made man-kind on Earth, Lucifer decided that he wanted them to worship him and not God. So he fooled the humans. In the original translation of Genesis 3, the serpent was actually not a ‘serpent’ it was ‘the shining’. It was referring to Lucifer and all of his beauty. He glamoured Eve into eating the fruit.

Frank talked about how God created Adam and Eve as one. They were both referred to as Adam, together, until after they had eaten the forbidden fruit. The bible doesn’t ever refer to Adam as two separate beings until after Adam places the blame on Eve. This separates them from one another, this is the beginning of conflict between humans. God then had no choice but to cast them out of his presence too. And they became orphans. Lucifer succeeded.

But! Jesus came to tell us that he will not leave us orphaned (John 14:18). God is a Father desperately seeking His lost children. He is and has come to find us.

Then we had a ministry time. Frank got us to ‘lay down’ something that we want to have washed away. I laid down my intellect, so that my mind might be opened to all of the things of God that my education has blocked off. I also laid down my will, so that I can let go of fear and doubt about my future. So that I can trust Him and trust that He has plans to prosper me.

He ‘baptized’ me and then gave me a big daddy hug. It was the best hug ever. And afterwords, all the staff prayed for me and told me visions and such. The neat thing was that all of them, and Frank, told me that I should not try to be someone that I’m not because I am perfect the way that I am – the way that He made me. Obviously God wants me to know this. And I don’t really know why he is telling me this. I don’t really feel like I am not being true to myself. Maybe he wants me to stop letting go of everything that I have been up until now… I don’t know.

But Tiff had a cool vision last night when Beryl was praying for me. Tiff saw me covered in cobwebs that had accumulated slowly over my years at University. But then she saw God blowing them away with his spirit. And then she saw me in a white dress, giving off light. And Aleisha confirmed the prophesy that I received through Mal Maloney, that I would bring people to God through my testimony, like the woman at the well. And probably one of the coolest things that happened was when I hugged Tasia. When I hugged her, I just started to tell her how much God loves her. And I felt His love for her. He was so hurt in his heart to see her feeling rejected and upset. He loves her so much! And I felt that! I started to cry. Man, he loves us all that much! So cool.

Also worth noting – Brent and Dan are tied for the second best hug – after Frank!

Also yesterday we did local outreach and I went to the Old Folks home. I forgot how much I love talking to the senile. First I talked to an old man who told Brent and I some hilarious jokes. I wish I could remember them so that I could write them in this blog! Maybe in a future blog. There was also this old lady who changes personalities every day. Yesterday she was a teacher, and she was from Wales. First she told me that she moved to new zealand when she was 50, but then about 10 minutes later she changed her story and said she moved here when she was 20. She also sounds like quite the world traveller. She has lived in EVERY COUNTRY - Canada, America, Enland, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and NORTH AFRICA (BAHA!). I never got to ask about East and West Africa, but I am sure that she lived there also! Hhaha. She was hilarious. She also requested that we form a chior, so we sang a song really horibly that only 2 of us knew the words to. She told us to practice more for next week. Bahah. Old people make my life.

Last night we put on our talent show. Hannah R and I were Jo-nizzle and Whale-zilla and we rapped a mad story about Jonah. We also managed to get some pretty sick gangster clothing. We borrowed Matt's pants, and his hoodie and Brents Jacket and Vans hats. Also we had lots of bling and I had a whale on my back. It was awesome. I will post the lyrics later! One of my favorite moments this week, 'Hey Matt, can I have your pants?' hahaha. Also, Schnegg and Noemi had to make a 'musical' genre song for the 12 guys that went to Canaan. It was hilarious. They dressed up in sheets and towels and sang 'We are 12 guys going to Canaan, to see what we find...' etc. It was probably the most hilarious thing I have ever seen in my life.

Also.......... bum bum bummmmmm.... CARLY CAME BACK YESTERDAY! We still haven't had a chance to 1 on 1 because life is so busy, but I am looking forward to it!

This morning was Frank's last lecture. We did the baptism thing for the staff this time. And he got Tasia and I to be the first 'towels' so we got to hug and pray for people first after they were dunked in the river. Frank heard our story from yesterday of how I felt God's love for her and such and said that we are a great team! And that we are both healers. It was cool.

Also, I got so many Frank hugs today. I love him so much! He is like a big teddy-bear. You can just feel how much God loves you when Frank hugs you! He said, 'Steph, you have such a compassionate heart. You will be a great lover of orphans.' It really touched my heart. I feel like this will be true in my life. And I am surrounded by orphans! There are so many people everywhere waiting to find their Father... and I can show them - like the woman at the well.

Man, God is so Great.

Now I'm in town. I have stocked up on glutie snacks! I am so happy. I put myself on a diet last week and decided not to buy any snacks for myself. That was a bad idea. I almost starved. Hahah. I am looking forward to T-HOP tonight! And to my 1 on 1 with Carly, whenever that happens!

It seems like all I do is fast...

This morning it was super hard to get up! I stayed up too late last night in the prayer room! But luckily it was 'sleep-in' day so I didn't have to be in the A-frame until 7. And there was no early morning prayer this morning because we were starting an all-day fast at breakfast this morning, so we had prayer instead of breakfast. Today we were fasting for another person. So we had to choose one of the other people here and pray for them all day. For some reason I felt like I had to pray for Noemi. So I did.

There was lots more mind-blowing with Frank this morning in lectures. I still need to process though. One of these days I will be able to write about what we are learning. He sort of talked about how everyone tends to wait around for a 'wave' to start, but we need to start the waves ourselves - we need to be the wave! We need to stand up for what we believe and fight for it. Then he made us fight each other. Kyle got to fight off four guys - each of them resembled one of the things that men face in the world today and have to overcome in order to live a Christian life - these included Pride, Anger, Lust and Fear. He beat them. Woot. And Hannah D fought off 4 girls marked with Pride, Unbelief, Rejection, and Identity. She fought them off fast too!!! And then Marit and I had to touch the top part of the wall, where the wall meets the ceiling. First we had to do it with our hands. It was super easy. But then we had to do it with our feet! It was super fun. All of the other girls came and helped and lifted me upside down so that I could reach the top of the wall! HAHA so fun! This was to demonstrate that sometimes we have to ask for help, either from God or from others, and also to trust and to work as a team.

We worshipped over lunch. And then had the afternoon off. I was so tired. I slept. Until 3:30 when I had to go do dinner prep. It was torture. I was so hungry, and I had to cook. But luckily kitchen Rick let me and Jacob leave at 4:30 instead of 5:30. So in my extra hour I started reading my next book! I am reading Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. I read most of it before I came here, but it is the kind of book that you have to read more than once. So I am super pumped to read it and write a report on it! It fits perfectly with everything God has been teaching me lately.

We worshipped again through supper. It was awesome. I surrendered everything to God. Everything - My pride, my will, my insecurities, my jealousy, my anger, my bitterness, my fear, everything that I thought might be holding me back from hearing God's voice. And then I asked him to reveal anything else that it may be. And Johanna came over and got me to go pray with Beryl (the base director), and she told me to lay down my intellect. And she prayed for me about that for a while. I feel just filled with Joy now. I don't know if that has anything to do with it. And then Johanna got Beryl to pray for me to anoint me with the ability to heal in God's name, so that if I do become a doctor I will have that gift. Pretty cool.

I went back to the cross to pray more, but something drew me to Noemi. I normally don't go and pray for people during prayer times. I feel awkward and such, but I felt like I had to go over and pray for her. So I did. And it was awesome. She started crying and it was beautiful and Hannah R came to pray too and it was so cool. After Noemi was like, "I didn't think that I was worthy enough for anyone to pray for me... I didn't think that anyone would." And I was so amazed. God was trying to show her His love for her and her worthiness of His love. And my fasting helped in this break-through. It helped her realize her worth. So awesome.

After that we got to EAT! Soup has never tasted so good. And gluten, egg, dairy free bread has never been so deliscious either. Now we are watching the Passion of Christ. GTG!!!

The Father Heart of God

Some of the things that we talk about at YWAM:

This morning, Hannah D, Hannah R, Rebekah and I named our boobies. Hannah R already had named hers Serena and Venus Williuams. Hannah D decided her's should be called Itsy and Bitsy. Rebekah's are Mary-Kate and Ashley, much to her dismay. Mine are Freckles and Buttons.

Also, Bongo boobs. Apparently little children like to play this game. Need I say more?

Today we started the Father Heart of God with this amazing guy named Frank. He is big and cuddly and just like a Dad. So perfect. He is hilarious and just plain awesome. He already blew my world today, so I can't wait to see what happens by Friday! I will post about what I learn maybe tomorrow. It is currently really late and I want to go to bed.

For work duties today I got assigned to help Rewai again, the same as last week... except this time he did not reject me and I got to help! Yay! And guess what!!! I didn't have to weed. Woot. But we did move a lot of heavy things and I kind-of sucked as a helper. I basically just was in the way. But then we got to sweep out the shop and I was quite the expert at that! And Rewai is such a sweetheart... he is this big, round Maori guy, so he looks like a teddy bear... and he gives everyone candy! And as a reward today for helping, he gave Dan and I each a pop. How sweet :)

And again, I was on dinner prep and got to cook my own food :) I just had steamed veggies because I am majorly on carb overload. And then I got everyone to sing the Row Row Row Your Boat grace. It was fun :) But graces here are so chaotic. It is my goal to get them more under control by the end of this week because I can't stand it. No one is ever even quiet for grace. Children are still screaming and adults are still chatting. It is just plain disrespectful - not only to the person saying grace, but to God. Needless to say, everyone was quiet during grace today. Mwahaha.

After supper, Hannah R and I worked on our lovely Jonah and the Whale rap. It is so good. I can't wait to perform on Thursday!!!!

One of the assignments that each person has to do during the DTS is a creative presentation on one of the core values of YWAM. So far I have given the majority of people an idea of how to present their topic. Pretty funny haha, but ironically I can't think of one for mine! Thank goodness mine isn't until one of the last weeks. But tonight I helped Van make his puppet show for tomorrow. I suspect it will be quite funny. :)

Also, tomorrow we are doing our monthly day of fasting tomorrow. So wish me luck! (I just fasted on Saturday!! It is so soon to do another one!) But also please pray for break-through in my understanding of God and in my ability to lay it all down and give everything to God. I want so badly to surrender everything to Him. So pray for me please!!!

Life is Good, God is Great

I was just reflecting on the last couple of weeks today, and I realized that ever since the experience at THOP I have been feeling so joyful. I have not been feeling down or depressed at all. I know that God has been and still is making major changes inside of me. I can feel myself getting stronger in my body, spirit and soul. And I am so ready to push so hard through the rest of the DTS and then go even harder on outreach. A particular outreach is really on my heart and I am going to be majorly praying over this for the next while. I am so excited.

Today was a good day. We had Papa Tups talk about God's Power. He basically just prayed over everyone. It was neat, Marit and Tasia were laughing hysterically the whole time. Ever since THOP Marit has just been filled with joy - overflow from what I got maybe!? Today she even referred to herself as Joy. I love her.

We are all getting excited for the weekend off which is not this coming weekend, but the next one. Some plans have been flying around. It seems like we will all be sticking together and heading up to the Narnia beach Friday night, camping overnight and hanging there for the day, and then hitting up the hot water beach on Sunday. We are all getting excited!

Today I was supposed to finish my CIR and my Book Report. I finished my CIR, but I didn't have time to finish the book report because I am on dinner prep this week which takes 2 hours from my afternoon in which I was planning on writing. But it's OK, I'll hand it in tomorrow. I also made a pretty sweet title page for my book review. I'm excited for it.

In my CIR I chose to do my Character study on God as destructor. This trait really popped out at me this week. I think that it is because Dave talked a lot about Calamity. He asked some pretty sweet questions, like, since there are so many problems in the world, why doesn't God just fix them? And why does God allow bad things happen to good people?

There are no straight-forward answers. But what we can conclude from scripture is that God is slow to anger. He does not just jump right in and fix things at the first sign of trouble. He does not just execute people at their first sign of misbehavior. He gives us many chances. He is perfect in everything he does, so he executes judgement perfectly.

We also know that God can change his actions based on people's decisions. (ie. Jonah 3:10 and Exodus 32:10-12,14) God was very upset with the people, and was planning on punishing them, until they asked for forgiveness and he changed their mind.

Natural disasters often bring up the questions of whether it was an act of Judgement by God. Regardless of whether it is or not, if we humble ourselves in response to a catastrophe, God will respond with compassion.

So, God is a destructor. He does use destruction to get our attention, test our faithfulness, or to stop us from going down a wrong life path. But if we are faithful and walk closely with him, he will not have reason to send destruction down on us. During the Great Flood, God flooded the Earth because it was filled with sin, and he saved the one righteous man (Noah) and his family. God rewards the faithful.

Sunday September 23. Woah. So great.

So last night I momentarily lost my internet code, so could not write my blog. But it was such an amazing day yesterday that I am writing the blog now!

Sundays we get to sleep in a bit and go to breakfast between 8:30 and 9:30, so that was really nice. And there was nothing going on for the music and worship people, so I had the whole day ahead to relax and get some assignments done. Marit thought that she had the whole day too, but then at ten minutes to ten she found out that her and the outdoor pursuits people were going zorbing, at ten. She was so mad, but got ready in time to go!!!

It was so sad being split up for the day! All of the Music peeps stayed at the base and had a cute little lunch picnic in the field. It was so awesome! The sun actually came out and I could wear a tank-top! Spring is definitely here! The sun is shining, there is less rain, there are pretty wild daisies all over the place, the birds are chirping... So beautiful!

Anyways, the picnic was super cute! We just relaxed and had some guitar, and made some daisy chains, and I taught everyone to do a headstand. It was a pretty productive afternoon, but I didn't get any homework done! Haha, always the procrastinator.

We also found out our Music assignment for the week! We got paired up and drew from a hat a genre of music and a bible story. We have to write a song about the bible verse in that particular genre for the base open mic on thursday. I am super excited! I am paired with Kiwi Hanna! The blondes in the back are reunited! We get to write a rap about Jonah and the whale. It is gonna be so epic, complete with costumes!

Also, on this coming weekend we get to have our first Music and Worship session where we learn stuff. I don't remember the speaker's name, but we will be learning about worship and such things! I am really excited! And we also get to go to Hamilton on Sunday. Hamilton is a 'big city' so we can actually do some real shopping and go to Starbucks! Woohoo!

During the afternoon, I thought that it would be wise to go for a run to burn off some of the carbs that make up my entire diet. It felt so good! And the sun was shining, but the breeze was cool - perfect running weather! And when I was done, I did some yoga outside looking onto the green pastures and rolling hills. It was so serene and magical. I also got up into a headstand all by myself without the aid of a wall! It was SO EXCITING. Because my cousin Jordan and I had this goal that we each would be able to do a headstand by the time I get home! Yayyyyyy

The big exciting story about Zorbing from the other group was that Marit hit Rebeka's knee with her forhead! HAHA. In the giant zorbing balls, you have to take a running dive through a little hole to get inside of the ball which has water on the bottom of it for you to slide around more easily. Rebeka dove in first, and didn't get out of Marit's way in time and her knee collided with Marit's face. She now has a large goose egg on her forehead. Oh Marit... <3

Last night we also learned that from October 1 to 12, we get to attend this thing called Circuit Riders. Josh Cole is having it in Taurunga and invited us to join! It is basically a really intense DTS that is crammed into 2 weeks. It will be very evangalism-focused! We will probably be staying somewhere in Taurunga for those weeks, so that is new and exciting! And there will be about 1 hundred other young adults there too! So exciting!

We also learned about the Outreach locations. Man, I hope that God sends me to India!!! Please pray about this for me!!!

I had a really bad migraine last night before bed. But I haven't had a bad one since I've been here, so I guess it is bound to happen a little bit! But it made me a little loopy and crazy, and then Tennessee Hannah gave me some strong pain killers and I went to beddy-by. And this morning I am so chipper and happy. It is so strange. Those of you who know me well know that I am not a morning person at all, and I generally resemble a zombie in the mornings. I even think about eating other people's brains if they try to talk to me in the morning. But today for some reason I was so happy and energized this morning. I skipped to breakfast. I don't ever skip. What is happening to me!?!?!

Anyways, I'm off to do some work on my CIR and book report!

Until tonight,

Steph

Break-Fast

Fasting is so cool. I think all 20 of us fasted for the past 24 hours. It amazes me how much deeper in worship you can get from fasting. The past 24 hours have been so weird. Like I was in another world for a few days or something. I went to the worship room at 8 PM last night and stayed till 4:30 am. Crashed into bed until 8:30 and went back to the worship room until 8 PM tonight.

I lead the worship at 12 noon this afternoon. It was kind of a gong show, but still super fun! Except I made Matt sing one of the songs in a weird key, and I made Elisa play the piano for songs she had never heard before! So it was pretty good considering the circumstances.... and the fact that we were all tired and hungry!

I also finished the book 'Is that Really you God?' by Loren Cunningham today, and I have to write a report on it by monday... and do my CIR by Monday. Maybe another sleep-less night is in order....? I hope not! I will have lots of time tomorrow!

I had one revelation... Hannah Douglas told me about her wonderful revelation that she got while reading Isaiah about how she is beautiful in who she is and what she looks like, but also is beautiful in what God can use her for. I have to admit I was a bit jealous. It was like 2 or 3 AM and I was tired and hadn't heard from God yet. (But I did paint a sweet painting on the banner). So I got out my bible to see if God would tell me anything through the word. When I got to James 3:9, I couldn't get past it. I kept reading it over and over again.

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. (James 3:9)

So I didn't really know why I was stuck on this, so I just sat and thought for a while. And then a conversation from lunch on Friday came back to me. I had been talking with Hannah and Rich about swearing and if it is OK to swear or not. I said that I thought it was OK in certain situations, and I told about how I had told a certain guy to F*** off when he hurt my feelings. I felt like that situation called for it. But after reading the verse from James, I felt really bad. In telling any other human to F*** off, I am cursing God and his creation. It made me realize that this guy was having struggles and the Devil may have been causing him to do those things that hurt me, but I shouldn't be cursing him for it. I should be praying for him and for his release from his inner demons and struggles and that he will find God. So I repented for what I had said and prayed for this guy.

Also, I don't know if I have talked about this in my blog yet or not, but this guy named Matt who is on my DTS is exactly like one of my best friends from home, Wilson. He talks just like him and his voice is the same. So when he says "Steph!" I always think, "Ohhhh yay, Wilson is in New Zealand!" But then I realize that it is just Matt. So I facebooked Wilson and told him this. And today I got a heartwarming message from him. But apparently he has been going through some trials and tribulations recently. A recent bicycle accident has left him with a broken jaw and eating from a straw, and then said bicycle was stolen. He seems down. So pray for him!

Anyways, Marit and I are having a cookie and chip chow-down and everyone else is watching us eat! Mwahahahhaha!

Pce out yo, I'm off to get an awesome sleep!

BURN NIGHT

Yo Dawgs. Tonight at 8 PM burn night will commence. I am super stoked! Burn night is basically a really long prayer/worship session. We will be worshipping from 8 pm tonight to 8 pm tomorrow night. It isn't mandatory to go for all 24 hours, only 4 hours are required. But I think I will try to do as many as I can! I am also going to fast for those 24 hours. I am expecting amazing things to happen! So I hope they do!!! I get to lead between 12 and 1PM tomorrow afternoon. So that'll be pretty sweet.

Today was just a normal old day at YWAM Crystal Springs. I went to morning prayer and had my usual oatmeal with cinnamon and sugar and milk-free nutella.. yummmm. And of course, my classic apple with a spoon-full of peanut butter.

I got to be part of the worship team that lead Pursuits worship this morning. It was sort of frustrating putting it together, but during worship God took charge and it flowed quite nicely. I love creating music for God. So awesome. And I got to teach everyone a children song - we did Rock, Sword, Shield. It was awesome.

David Cole finished off his last lecture on the nature and character of God. We talked a lot about more theoretical stuff like why catastrophe's happen in the world. It was very interesting and really made me think. Maybe once I have processed it I will post more about it...

Since it is Friday we got to have our town trip today and I got to see the fam on skype. It was nice to see them all :) Vicki (my sister) even chatted with Anne and Johanna in German because she is such a German speaker! I hope that next week she can chat with Noemi and Marit because they are my beloved Germies (even though Noemi is Austrian, she speaks German so she's a Germie).

After each family member had their turn to skype with me, Matt, Hannah R and I went to visit our favorite Dublin Del for some yummy lattes. This time Schnegg tagged along. He must have felt like such a fourth wheel. So awkward! (Hahaha just kidding Schnegg, Je t'aime)

That's about all I have to update on. I am currently stuffing my face full of junk food before I start fasting.... is that cheating? Oh well.... hahahhaa. Maybe I will post again during Burn night/day!!!

Peace and Love

Beautiful

I just came back from an hour in the prayer room. It was lovely, nothing really spectacular happened, but I got to hang out with God. And the last song that came on my ipod was You're Beautiful.

I see your power in the moonlit night
Where planets are in motion and galaxies are bright
We are amazed in the light of your stars
It's all proclaiming who you are

Then when I stepped outside, the sky was clear and the stars were bright and shining. They really are spectacular here. And the milky way is so clear too. God is so cool. I couldn't help but me amazed in the light of his stars.

It is hard to believe that the 3rd week is almost over already. Time is going way too fast. Things need to stop being so fun so that time will stop speeding by!

Today was local outreach day. I went to this thing called King's Kids. During the week, the staffers from the YWAM base go to this school in a poor Maori town and do a breakfast program. And on Thursdays for outreach we go and clean up the school and evangelize door-to-door. So today I went and I got to weed one family's garden. It is interesting how I keep on getting assigned to work outside weeding. I wonder if there is any significance to that... Anyways, it was relaxing and it was pleasantly cool outside which was perfect for working outside.

I also met one of the children that is part of the program. His name is Taumata. But I called him tomato. He loved it. All of the children are so hilarous there. They hang off of the van and try to keep up with it on their bikes when we leave. Oh man. Also, this large girl was attempting to tackle everyone... we called her 'bruiser'. She almost knocked me over.

Tonight was a much needed night off. I have to finish this book 'Is that Really You God?' so that I can write a report on it by Monday. Always procrastinating. So now I am about half way through it. I should finish on time I hope. But despite the fact that I have reading to do I could not resist an impromptu dance party in the GAP, there were strobe lights and everything (well, a flashlight on strobe setting). It was all fun and games until the light made me nauseous. But it's ok, the light got turned off before I threw up.

My new German phrase for the day is Ich bin dick. This means I am fat. :) Such a good phrase to know :P

Marit learned what a toe is today

I got to prayer so early this morning! Woohooo!
It was wondrous, except for when I bent down my head to the floor to pray and snot filled my entire head. But I blew my nose and solved that problem.
We got to sleep in for a bit today and it was nice. :)

This morning before lectures was creative presentations and sermonettes. Kat did a sweet white-girl rap and Schnegg beat-boxed. It was pretty epic. Also, Marit did her sermonette on Joy. I helped her write it in good english, and I wrote her opening prayer! haha!! She was so nervous to talk in front of everyone in english. But she did so awesome!!!

Dave finished off the last few character traits of God... These are:
- He is LOVE
- He is LIGHT
- He is HOLY & RIGHTEOUS
- He is MERCY & LOVING-KINDNESS
- He is WISDOM
- He is JUST
- He is FAITHFUL
- He is PROVIDER
- He is HOST

It is nice to have everything God is listed out for me. It helps me to understand Him better. I am excited to learn more tomorrow!

This afternoon before rec, when I was getting dressed into my sporting gear, I said to Marit "I hope these pants don't give me a camel toe."
And she said, "What?"
"A camel toe"
"What?"
"You know, camels have two toes..."
"Camel?"
"The animal with humps on it's back..."
"Ohhh...." Still looking confused "what is toe?"
I pointed to my toes...
"Ohhhhh..."
And then I had to explain how a 'camel toe' can happen when you wear stretchy pants.
It was funny!

Then later Marit got to use her new vocabulary. She kicked the ball and was like "Owwww, I hurt my... what was it?? TOE!!!" I was so proud.

At rec we played volleyball. It was pretty awesome. It was really funny because for some reason everyone thought that I had played college volleyball. (BUT I SUCK AT VOLLEYBALL) Somehow though, I got a bunch of points serving really badly underhand. It was pretty funny! Haha! And I got to wear bare feet in the grass and it was so wonderful. Now my feet are super mucky. So much for having foot washing this morning at sermonettes!

Then I did some sweet yoga and I am so close to being able to get up into a handstand without using a wall. I am so excited :) But it was funny because I kept falling over and making crashing noises and Kat heard me and thought I was dying.

At supper Van came and sat with me for a 'date'. Yay!

After supper I had a substitute one-on-one with Johanna. It was nice to chat about life, laugh a lot, and talk about God and goals. We also just sat and listened to Matt's beautiful voice singing from the next room for quite some time. Johanna is so funny! She challenged me to accept complements with a polite 'thank-you' rather than brushing them off. This will be difficult. Also, She challenged me to work at connecting with the few people that I don't know so well yet. And I still have the goal for praying better and such, and she added that I should accept God's love, rather than just brushing it off like all of the complements. Because I tend to think "Oh God loves everyone, therefore he must love me.", rather than "God loves ME!!!!" So I guess I am still needing a bit more of a revelation of his love!!!

I have just written a new song asking for my eyes to be opened to God. I think it's pretty swell. I am excited for my hour in the prayer room at 10 PM!!!!!

I stepped on the gross pen!

Today was so wonderful!! I think that starting the day off in prayer makes such a difference! I managed to not sleep in this morning and made it to prayer for half an hour before breakfast. It went so fast. I wish I could make it for a whole hour! Oh well, I will try for tomorrow!

During our intercession session this morning, our focus was on abortion. We watched this really cool video. This reporter went around asking people how they felt about Hitler. Most of them said that he was an evil evil man. And the reporter asked 'If you had the chance to kill Hitler would you?' And they said 'Of course!'. Then he asked 'If Hitler held a gun to your head and told you to use a tractor to burry a pit of living Jews using the tractor, would you do it or would you take the bullet?' There were a few mixed answers but most people said that they would take the bullet. And when asked 'If Hitler gave you a gun and told you to shoot all of the Jews in the pit would you?' And all of the ones that had said that they might drive the tractor to burry them alive said that they would not shoot them. And the reporter said 'But wouldn't shooting them be more humane than burying them alive?' And this made the people think...

Then he moved them onto thinking about why Hitler was so bad, and how it is wrong to take any human life. Everyone agreed that this is morally wrong. So he brought up abortion. 'How do you feel about abortion?' Most people said that it was something that should be the woman's choice based on her situation. If the baby would be born into a bad environment, then it would be best to abort it... etc. So he asked 'At what point does a fetus become a 'life'?' And lots of people said 3 months or whatever, and he sort of argued that it is a potential life and a baby the whole time it is in the belly. So he asks 'Under what circumstances is it OK to kill a baby in the womb?' And they say, 'Oh if it is born into a bad situation... etc.'

And the reporter ties a parallel between abortion and the holocaust and taking innocent lives. All of the people changed their minds and said that abortion was wrong, and under no circumstances would it be OK to kill a baby. If the circumstances would not be good, then adopt it out.

It was a really cool video, and it really made me think.

Afterwards we interceded for all those who are considering abortions presently, for all of the people who have had them in the past, for all of the innocent babies that have been taken as a result, for governments and media and schools and churches and doctors to stand up against abortion... It was so powerful.

Later, David Cole came again. He talked more about the character and nature of God. God has both natural attributes and character (how he chooses to use these attributes).

If you are choosing a life-partner, do you simply look for a super attractive man that can run really fast and lift lots of weights? Or do you look for a man with good character that will treat you well and other good things? Probably you want the one with character... or one with good character that is also really good looking... :P

So God is like this too. He has these really awesome natural attributes, but we don't worship him because of those, he is great because of how he uses these things!

Some of his natural attributes are:
- He is triune
- He is spirit
- He exists in eternal time
- He has a personality
- He is powerful

Some of his character attributes are:
- He is LOVE
- He is LIGHT
- He is HOLY and RIGHTEOUS

... To be continued tomorrow!

It is really cool to learn all of these things about God. It is helping me to understand Him better, and it is helping me to grow stronger in my faith in God.

For lunch my kitchen buddies Rick and Abraham, made me some yummy soup! This is such a nice change from rice, rice and more rice! (But, surprise surprise I got rice for supper...) HAHA

This afternoon was work duties. I got assigned to do maintenance like mowing lawns and such with this awesome Maori guy named Rewai, but he rejected me because he didn't actually want that many people to help. So I got to be in charge of litter collection and weed pulling. Oh joy. First I got to brave a treacherous, steep hill filled with pokey shrubs and pick out all of the garbage! It was intense and I thought that I might die. But I made some new friends, Emily, Maya and a little boy who's name escapes me right now. He was 4 and the other two must have been about the same. He showed me his rock which is decorated with pirate stickers, and we chatted about eating dirt and worms. I think we will be besties for life now.

Brent came along after a while and helped me finish up garbage picking and gave me a refreshing sip of water. Then we went to weed. Schegg, Henk, Rebekah and Van also came to help in our plight. We may or may not have pulled out a few helpless flowers.... oops. I am pretty sure that Henk got bitten by some mysterious insect, because his hand swelled up to twice the size of his other hand, and got super warm compared to the other one. But he persevered and we got the job done.

It was really nice to be outside today! The sun was shining and I actually stripped down to one layer! Woah! I also love playing in the dirt and chatting with small children :)

While all of this yard-work was going on, my lovely roomy Hannah was in the kitchen baking. She made cookies and brownies, and even baked a pen! (on accident) it is now on display in our cottage.

Also today, I wrote encouragement notes to EVERYONE today and posted them on the little board. I think it made everyone happy and encouraged! YAY! I like everyone here SO much :)

Looking forward to another day on the ends of the Earth (that's what the Kiwi's call New Zealand)!

Gute Nacht!!!!

(Also, To est magnifique ce soir!!! - That's for you Schnegg!)

Sock Wrestling!

Today was pretty great :)

I think that Rich's prayer yesterday worked some magic, because I was feeling like it was the beginning of what would be a sucky cold, and I feel wayyyyy better today, only a slight cough. :)

We started a new topic - The Character and Nature of God. The speaker is named David Cole and is Josh (from last week) 's dad! He mostly just did intro stuff today... But we spent a lot of time in Job. And learned that we should really trust in got and have faith in him even in hard times because he is faithful and will stick with you and such things.

Oh, I guess one cool thing that I never thought of before was that the Devil is only finite. He can only be in one place at one time, but God is everywhere always. So God is just so much better than Satan. And if you are faithful to God and live completely for him, then God will protect you from Satan. This is because Satan has to ask God for permission to touch us, and if God says 'No' then Satan has to listen. Pretty neat, man.

Also, hilarious. Today, after breakfast I came back to the cottage at 8:30 (breakfast is at 7) and I saw Noemi laying in bed. I thought she was just napping, and I said "Awe Noemi." And she looked so lost and confused and was like "What time is it?" And I was like "Did you miss breakfast?" And she was like "What???? You are kidding!" etc. and it was hilarious. She missed breakfast and had to fast involuntarily until lunch! HAHA

During the afternoon today I finished up my CIR (journal thingy) and handed it in to Johanna. I feel kind of bad because I was like "... but won't Carly read it?!?!" and I think she got insulted. But I love Johanna and I am excited to see what her feedback is! (But I also want Carly's feedback!)

Then I lead a bit of a yoga class in the GAP. It was pretty awesome.

After supper was the best though. We had small groups and all the girls were together. We met in the lecture room, and when we came in all of the tables were pulled to the side and music was blasting and we had a little dance party. Then we ate a tone of food and played charades. We also had a marshmallow roast in the fire place! And had a sweet devo in which we chose something in our lives to surrender to God. We wrote it down and burned it. I really hope that I can fully give up my thing that I surrendered!

BUT the best thing was that we had a sock wrestling match. This is where you have to try to pull the other person's sock off before they pull yours off. It got pretty intense. I beat Marit. Then Miranda wooped my bum. And then we had a little cottage 3-person match between Me, Hannah and Noemi. I won. I'm pretty proud! HAHA

Then we had another dance party. Then we yelled and screamed the whole way back to the cottages and the boys came out of their cabins. I am sure that they were jealous because they didn't have nearly as much fun as us!

Finally a new Post!!!

Hello all! I would like to appologize to my regular readers! For some reason my computer isn't allowing me to add new blog posts!!! I am so lucky that my lovely roomy Anne is allowing me to borrow her computer!!!

So, yesterday was Saturday, which meant that we got to have our first Music and Worship assignment. The assignment was to write a song using a Psalm, or to write your own Psalm. For inspiration, we took a nature walk. We were driven to the start of a path, and dropped off, and we had to space ourselves out so that we could walk alone, in silence with nature and God. It was such a beautiful walk. It took about 1.5 hours. I stopped along the way to write and eat my lunch.

The walk started off in a sort of farm resembling area, along a stream. There were feilds and rolling hills. The path just followed along this beautiful stream. And gradually, the environment started to become thicker with trees. The trees were all sorts, pine trees, desiduous trees, palm trees, etc. And everything was so nice and green. The water was beautiful and clean and blue. There were a few waterfalls along the way, but my favorite part was that it started to rain towards the end of the walk. I love rain. Even though it rains all the time here, I still love it.

The walk ended at a natural spring. The water is so clean and pure coming from the spring. The water that comes out has been underground for 100 years. It is REALLY COLD. I know this because I jumped in it. It was around 10 degrees celcius. And it wasn't much warmer outside! I literally jumped in and jumped right back out. But it was worth it to swim in that clean water.

I got my water bottle filled with the spring water. There is really expensive bottled water that you can buy here in New Zealand, and they get it from that spring! Cool!

As much as I am happy that I experienced the freezing cold water, it was probably a bad choice, as I was coming down with a cold! OOOOPS. When I got home, I wrote my song and went to bed early.

But to no avail, when I awoke this morning, my head felt soooooo sick. My throat is in pain and it has moved to my ears too. I have been having heat flashes all day. Not fun. But I got to have a nice long nap this afternoon when everyone else was making their songs beautiful. Then before supper we got together and presented our songs to eachother. Some peoples songs were SO AMAZING. I have to admit that I am kind of jealous! But I will get better! And my song was actually pretty good I think, minus the fact that my throat can't handle singing!!!

After dinner, one of the staffers Rich prayed over me for healing from this cold. So I'm hoping it will be better by morning!

Also, hilarious thing that happened today... Hannah D (from tennessee) decided it would be funny to bundle me up nice and warm. So she tightened all of the draw strings on my thrift store winter coat. This made me look like the michelin man. And then she wrapped her scarf around my head. I couldn't see anything! And then she paraded me around and put my hand on everyones face so that I could guess who they were. It was hilarous. And I did really good!!! I got everyone!

Also, shout out to my wonderful cottage mate, Marit! She brought my laundry in for me from the dryer while I was napping so that I didn't have to go out in the cold <3.

And my Carly (my one on one) went home to California yesterday morning. :(. I miss her already! She will be gone for a week and a half for her sisters wedding! I already can't wait for her to return. But she is so cute. She gave me a little notebook to write everything that I would normally want to talk to her about down, so that she can read it when she gets back! She's the best :)

I am excited for tomorrow and the start of a new week!!!

(Also, I will try to figure out why my computer won't let me update my blog!)

Healing

So the mystery of the noisy cows has been solved. The cows are preggers and the babies kick them from the inside, so they moo.

The stars are still beautiful. The weather is still freezing. The heater in the bathroom is still the greatest thing ever. I am still coming down with a cold. But I think I am different.

I came here knowing that I needed spiritual and physical healing. God told me that it would be my spirit first, and then my body would heal after. (Mark 2: 1-12). I have been waiting and waiting. Ever since I have been here, I have constantly been asking God for healing, and others have been praying healing over me. But things didn't really start to happen until today.

This whole week, I have been getting really nauseous during worship and prayer times. Carly told me that that sometimes happens when you need deliverance from evil spirits. Yesterday, I had the revelation of Jesus' love and I was overcome with tears and I felt SO SICK. Today during worship I had the same feeling. Carly came to pray for me and my stomach got all cramped up, and her hand was burning and shaking. She could feel something fighting against the prayers.

Tonight, we went to T-HOP. No, not IHOP, T-HOP. Tauranga House of Prayer. Josh Cole started this place and they were having prayer and worship tonight, so us Matamata folks went to visit. I was feeling so sick for the whole time. At the end, Josh asked for people who need healing to stand up, and people would pray for healing. So I stood up. All of my YWAM friends placed their hands on me and started to rebuke the evil and prayed for healing. My stomach got all cramped again. Then suddenly everyone started praying for God's joy to enter me. My stomach stopped cramping, there was a release and air rushed into my lungs. And I felt happy. It was so beautiful and powerful having all of my friends (who are now basically family) around me praying for me and loving me. It was so exciting.

But now I am so exhausted. Praying so much can really take it out of a person.

Bed, here I come!!!! I am so ready for my sleep-in tomorrow morning!

Oh the sniffles

This morning our whole cottage managed to miss our alarms, so we were all late for 'breakfast'. Now there is a new rule that if you are late for breakfast, you have to do the dishes... I hope I don't miss my alarm too often!

I say 'breakfast' because we didn't actually get breakfast today, as this morning was a fasting morning. Today we fasted for a revelation of God's intimacy. So instead of eating, we pray. I read a few verses in the song of songs... i think it was chapter 8 verse 1-8... something like that. Anyways, I prayed hard. I have been praying so much here, and yet I never feel anything. I have been prophesied over, and prayed over and have been praying so much, and I have yet to hear anything in response from God and I have yet to feel anything in my body. I see everyone else falling to their knees weeping, or laughing hysterically while in prayer, and I feel nothing. I have been getting so discouraged because I just want to feel something or see something or hear something so badly to prove that all my prayers are not going unheard.

One of the first things Josh Cole said this morning was 'wether we feel God or not, he is still worthy of our praise and worship. The motivation of prayer and worship should not be for some amazing revelation, it should simply be that God is worthy. Any revelation is a bonus that may or may not happen.' Ok, fine. I can handle that. But then Josh got us to get a partner, and he gave us 60 seconds to listen to what God had to say about them. Ummmmmm, ok? Well, needless to say all I saw was nothing. What a disappointment.

I was feeling so discouraged and angry and frustrated with myself. I don't know what I am supposed to do in order to hear God, and Josh is supposed to be teaching me just that. And I still have no clue. I told Carly that I was so frustrated and such and she said 'That's good! Get fired up! That is what God wants!' Gah! Jeeze. Ok fine. I will just keep trying.

But at the end of the lecture time, Josh put on the song 'Favourite One' by Misty Edwards.
'Jesus, here I am your favorite one
What are You thinking, what are You feeling?
I have to know
For I am after Your heart
I'm after Your heart
I'm after You'
I kneeled on the ground and put my face to the carpet. I sang the words to the song. I thanked God for his love. I told him that I love him. I told him that I am ready to give everything to him. I am ready to love him as Mary did. I am ready to give him my inheritance, my life. And I thanked him for his love, because I do not deserve it. 
Suddenly I got this image of Jesus and I started to cry. And I just cried. And said Thank you God, I love you. 
God finally gave me a revelation of his love and how it feels to be intimate with him. Finally. Finally I heard him. Praise God. He is so Beautiful and his love is so Amazing.
What a morning.

After that we broke-fast with a lovely meal of noodly stuff, and....... GLUTEN, EGG and DAIRY FREE MUFFINS! YUMMMMMMM! Finally something delicious to eat :)

After lunch, for community outreach, Hannah, Jacob, Henk and I went to a coffee shop in Matamata and serenaded the coffee loungers. It was so fun :)

Noemi went somewhere else on outreach, and they made her clean a toilet. Apparently she had never cleaned a toilet before (even though her duty last week was to clean the one in our cabin!). She got caught. And God payed her back for skipping out on her duty, because the toilet on outreach was WAY grosser than the one in our cabin. Ha!

Also, so exciting, we finally finished Start Trek, the Prince of Egypt and Tarzan! So now we can start a new movie without feeling so overwhelmed with unfinished movies!

Instead of star gazing after the movie, we went star spinning. It was hilarious. You just spin fast while looking at the stars and then when you are good and dizzy, someone flashes a flashlight in your face and you collapse. It is hilarious :)

The only downside of today is that I think that I may be coming down with a cold. My nose is sniffly and my voice hurts lots. I also am sort of grumpy. Some old lady tried to tell me how to wash the dishes and I was so mad! Ughhh. I know how to wash dishes. Geeze. Anyways, I think that my anger was a result of illness or exhaustion. Not sure which... either way I should really get to sleep! And hope that I don't sleep through my alarm again in the morning!

The cows are also still having loud, disgusting sex. Or dying. I have not seen any baby cows, so I am thinking they are not giving birth...

Another Day Done

Oh what a day. I started the day off with James 1:1-4, and a lovely bowl of porridge and an apple with peanut butter. Yum Yum.

Today was also sleep in day, so I got to get up at 7 instead of 6 :) bahaha.

Also Josh Cole was crazy awesome again today. He talked about God's beauty and what God looks like. We went word-for-word through Revelation 4. It was awesome. God is awesome. So beautiful. He sits on a throne in heaven and there is a river flowing from it. I wonder how huge this throne is. God apparently looks like jasper (a diamond-ish stone) and another red stone. So he is pure and multifacited in his beauty, and also resembles fire and love. There is an emerald rainbow all around him, and a crystal lake at his feet. This throne must be so amazing. And all his beauty is comparable (but probably wayyyyyy better) to nature - greens, reds, blues, water, etc. There are elders surrounding him, and they keep getting knocked off of their feet as more and more aspects of God are revealed to them - and this happens forever because he is infinite. The saraphim sing "Holy Holy Holy..." Holy means weighty or heavy - his weight continues to astound these saraphim who sing this for eternity, and the elders continue to worship for eternity, and everything is shaking because of God's holiness. And man. Wow. Holy macaroni. (Holy macaroni would probably be so delicious and so bad for you!).

After learning all of this, there was prayer/worship. I don't know what it was that came over me, but I got really hot and really sweaty and started to feel SO nauseous. It was crazy. I had to sit down and collect myself. I don't know what that was all about, but I think it is a reaction to God's beauty.

Also, the cows outside of my cottage must be dying a slow and painful death because they are making quite the racket out there. I think they must be giving birth, or maybe mating? Or dying. Those are the only things that it could possibly be.

This afternoon we had rec. We played rugby. Kiwi's love their rugby. Rugby makes no sense whatsoever. I don't think that I have ever actually watched a game of rugby or played anything remotely similar to it. I was just running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. I sometimes caught the ball and ran, but I really had no clue what was happening, but it seemed fun. Maybe next time it will make more sense. After rec, I was super healthy again and went for a quick run with some of the other girls, and then me and Merit and Elisa did some yoga in the Gap. I was quite the yoga instructor I have to say. HA!

I also had to trade my dinner dishes duty with one of the guys for his lunch dishes because I was signed up for the prayer room from 6-7. On Wednesdays, the whole base works together to pray non-stop for 24 hours. So there is a sign-up sheet with 1 hour slots and everyone has to sign up. It is pretty cool. I was so happy to just snuggle up in that room by myself and listen to some Jon Foreman and pray. It was a cool experience. And only felt like 10 minutes, not a whole hour! So cool :)

Henk and I signed up to go for open mic tomorrow afternoon, so we worked out a few songs this evening. It should be good :)

Our movie tonight was finishing the Lorax, and then since we couldn't find Star Trek, we couldn't finish it so we started another movie - the Prince of Egypt. Which I have never seen... CRAZY! The movie is good, but it is freezing in the Gap, so it was quite uncomfortable to watch. It is SO COLD here. There was frost this morning when I got up. And apparently it had snowed in the southern parts of the North Island which NEVER happens EVER. So thankfully Van brought his blanky and I forced him to share it with me, so the only part of my body that froze during the movie was my nose. Also, we watched the movie on Henk's computer, and warnings kept popping up in Dutch. So funny. We have no idea what kind of viruses his computer has now because he wasn't here to interpret the warnings, so we just pushed the OK button. Oh well! HAHA

Highlight of the day: the stars. You can see the stars SO WELL here. They are SO bright. And tonight they were awesome. Like, indescribable. Wow. And the milky way. Wow. After the movie on my way back to the cottage I saw 3 shooting stars. That has to be good luck. Doesn't it?

Anyways, Guten Nacht ( I don't know how to spell in German, but I do know how to say good night!!!)

The Bathroom is my favorite room

The only room in my little cottage that has a heater is the bathroom. So I am currently sitting on the toilet blogging. It is far too cold everywhere else!

Today was such an awesome day.

I started my day off with prayer. Carly had given me one of her daily devotions that she thought I should read, so I went through that. It was all about suffering in order to become closer to God. Once one stops fighting against their state of suffering and accepts it and stops pleading for it to be taken, that is when God will answer. I feel like a big theme for me in this season is healing. But first I have to submit to God and let go of everything so that He can be in control. God has been preparing me for a few months, even before I came to NZ, and I have been gradually letting go of all of my plans for my future. Yet still something still has it's hold on me. I am praying for God to show me what that might be. That is what today has been about.

I think that one thing that I was holding onto was a yearning for acceptance by my peers. And I found myself constantly worrying about being cool and sitting with the cool people, whoever the cool people are, and worrying about whether everybody liked me. I was craving acceptance and reassurance from my peers. But the whole point of this DTS is to understand that the reason I feel the need for acceptance is that I was born with a yearning for it, but the only way that it can be filled is by God. Today something changed in me and I just let go of all of that worry and today was so awesome, and I was able to just be myself and not care what anyone else thinks... and guess what! They like me anyways so I shouldn't have been worrying.

I did yoga today and it felt awesome. I really need to get back into doing it every day. My mantra for the next while is going to be something to do with submission to God and release of everything that holds me back.

Today was our first day of work duties. I got to be in the kitchen and bake. I made some delicious lemon squares, that I cannot eat.... Dang. Oh well, everyone tells me they were delicious.

Josh Cole is the speaker this week. He is talking on 'hearing God'. This is totally what I need right now. Today he absolutely blew my mind (and everyone elses). He talked about the human heart and all that it yearns for. There are 7 things:
1. Longing to be enjoyed by God
2. Longing to be fascinated
3. Longing for beauty
4. Longing for greatness
5. Longing for intimacy without shame
6. Longing to be whole-hearted
7. Longing to make a deep and lasting impact
All of these things HAVE to be satisfied. They cannot be ignored, denied or pacified. And the only way to have them fully satisfied is through God. But the Devil is the master of counterfeit, and time and time again we all are fooled by his tricks and we become addicted to sex, drugs, alcohol, affirmation by peers, the list goes on... but these never satisfy, they are only finite. But God is infinite.

Man, God is working in me. He still has a lot to do, but my faith is becoming stronger by the minute and as that happens then I will start to really change. I am still praying for a revelation of the Fathers love. I know that that is what I have been craving desperately. And I think that I am finally starting to understand Him and understand how I can get closer with Him.

Monday Funday

Today started off like any other, I woke up and went for breakfast at 7. I ate lots of peanut butter and some coffee. Then I had a glorious nap because I was feeling sort of down in the dumps and tired. Then we had base worship and lectures.

The lectures this morning were on fasting, prayer and intercession. The lecture was given by two of the staff members. Tiff talked about fasting. Fasting is actually super cool and can allow for increased intimacy with God and more time for prayer since you don't have to eat!! I think I'm gonna fast through breakfast tomorrow because I am feeling like a bloated glutton. Rich talked about prayer and intercession. I am learning so much about the power of prayer and the power of prayers of intercession. This week I am really going to work on my prayer discipline.

After lunch the afternoon was free. I finished my homework pretty fast. Each week we have to write in a journal which is called a CIR. In it we have to write the memory verse for the week, what we learned that week, and do a character study of God. For my character study I chose Healing. Because God is a healer and I believe that he has brought me to this place for spiritual, physical and mental healing. I kind of had a revelation of sorts while doing the character study. I had always understood that Jesus performed miracles and healed people and raised them from the dead and stuff. I thought it was cool but didn't really see the application of this in my own life. Now through the study of the Holy Spirit last week, I am starting to see that the healing power of God is relevant today - God heals through the power of the holy spirit. I am so ready for the spirit to work in me, man. So ready.

After handing in my CIR, I took a little nap on the trampoline.

Then I found Henk standing by the clothes line reading. It was so funny. He was guarding his undies from flying off the line in the wind! Haha

Then I ran into Carly, my one-on-one. I have been feeling pretty low the past few days, and it was so nice to talk to someone. I don't know what she said to me, but something she said made all of the doubt and worry that had been bringing me down go away. It was really cool to have a time all about me and to seek advice from someone that I can relate to and that can understand me. I am so excited for mine and Carly's time together, I believe that God has brought us together purposefully.

One of the things that I really struggle with is spending time in the Word, but Carly gave me some pointers and challenged me to just pick a few sentences every day and ask God to show me what that verse is saying throughout the day. So I am going to start in the book of James bright and early tomorrow morning for morning prayer at 6 or 6:30 ish. I'm so ready.

So after my chat with Carly I was refreshed and the rest of the day went smoothly. Some hilarious moments happened today. Marit is a girl in my cabin and she is from Germany. She is so funny, but sometimes she doesn't understand some English words, so things can get funny. This afternoon I was telling her how my body feels like poop because I have been eating so much and feel all bloated and stuff, and she was like "What is poop?" and I responded "The brown stuff that comes out of your butt!" and everyone in our cabin bursted out laughing. It was hilarious.

There is also this guy on our DTS that is named Kyle, and this afternoon at the same time as the poop conversation, Marit was standing in the kitchen in our little cabin and said "Go away Kyle, I cannot help you!" and I was like "What?? why is kyle by our window?" And Merit had actually said "Go away cow, I cannot help you!" HAHA! Because there is a farmers field right by our cottage and the cows can come up really close to our cottage. Oh man. So funny.

This evening was ended off with our first small group meeting. It was awesome. My small group is lead by Johanna and Alicia. And Me, Katherine, Tasia and Hannah D are in the group. It is so funny that all three of the girls from Calgary got in the same group, and then there is Hannah from Tennessee, but we will adopt her into our Calgary family. We just had girl time, and snacks and shared photos of our family and friends. It was really awesome!

And now I must sleep because morning will come all too fast. Peace out!

The joys of a dryer

So today when I woke up, the clothes on the line had blown to the ground for like the 4th time and got all muddy. I got fed up. I threw them back in the wash and then figured out how to work the dryer so tomorrow I hope to have clean dry clothes.

Today was Sunday, and I could choose between two churches to attend. There is a Baptist church and a Charismatic one near by. I decided, what the heck I will try the charismatic one. I was quite impressed with the worship music part of the service. The band was awesome and the girl singer had a super cool deep raspy voice. But then the lady that preached really turned me off. I did not like what she was saying and it didn't really seem like she was preaching on any topic, she sort of just ranted... for like 1.5 hours. I was not impressed. I don't think that I will be attending that church again while I am here.

Today I realized that I am attending school and actually have homework to do. Yuck. I had to memorize a verse, so I made it into a song with my Ukulele. That was fun. But I also have to write about everything I learned this week and reflect and such things. I guess it is easier than neuroscience, but for some reason I am having a hard time motivating myself to write anything, or read anything. I am supposed to read 3 books while I am here. I haven't even looked at the first one yet. Maybe I should get on that...

While we were in town yesterday there was a scavenger hunt involving taking pictures and videos of random things. There was a competition between two teams. We showed our pictures and videos today, and my teams were definitely the best, but somehow we lost. So sad.

I was kind of in a mood today. Sort of grumpy, sort of sad, really restless. Anyhow, isn't it funny how no matter what, when you are having a bad day it can always get worse. Well I fell in the mud. Yup, I was just walking on some sloping grass down to the laundry room in the dark, and I slipped in some mud and got my whole foot and pant leg all muddy... guess who gets to do more laundry!!! This guy!

On the bright side, it was pretty sunny for most of the day today. But now it is thundering and lightning out.... which I can't really complain about because storms are my favorite things in the world!

Wish me luck on finishing my journaling homework by 5:30 pm tomorrow!