From 10 degrees C to 45 degrees C

Oh !ndia. Here I am again. Round three in my city of hyderabad. A small part of me feels like I could almost claim parts of this city as like my neighborhood because I have come so much. I am excited to be back to the smells, color, and life of India. It was quite a shock to the body though, to go from London 10 degree weather to Hyderabad 45 degree. =) Goodbye rain, Hello sweat! 

So not to jump ahead, lets talk about London! What an experience to live in one of the most influential cities in the world for 7 weeks.  I feel like I just got a taste of the history, culture, and creativity that lies in this city. 

We finished up our time in the city with a bang! We were able to take several churches out into the city to have some pretty epic evangelism times, then we were able still continue to meet new churches and join in with their ministry, and even saw two churches come together for the same evangelism time. (they both have churches on the same major street - so it was exciting to see them join forces for their community and area.) 

One of the best times was one Saturday night. We had a church that got fired up to go out and share Jesus, and do evangelism. They had 45 people that volunteered to come out with us one night. Since we had such a big group of people, we decided to do a flash mob, draw in a crowd, and then do an “open air” (public proclamation) of the gospel and testimonies. This church, despite their nervousness, joined in and were champs doing this silly song that I’m sure you have heard at any american highschool football game... The cheerleaders usually say something like “let me see your ...” and the crowd responds “whats that you say?” then you act out the appropriate actions... 

So our last line for the song is “let me see your dead cockroach” then we respond by all lying on our backs with our hands and feet in the air, waving them franticly like a dead cockroach. Pretty ridiculous, but always a good crowd catcher... People think it is funny to watch you act stupid. 

So after the evangelism time I was talking to the pastor, who is this 50 yr old asian man, thanking him for letting us join in with his church, for his hospitality, trying to be very professional when he inturrpted me saying “did you see me?” I was a bit shocked, and stuttered “um um see you?!” smiling proudly he said, “yea did you see me? I did the dead cockroach!” It was the best moment of the night. This pastor was amazing at leading his church out into the street to show the love of God, but also leading out in how to be a dead cockroach! 

My team and I said goodbye a week ago. I gave up four of my student to other teams and picked up four different students to take a new team to India. Confusing, yea I know. I get confused and I am leading them! =) 

So my new team and I are here back in my neighborhood of hyderabad working with some amazing people at their HIV/AIDs clinic. We are doing things like praying for the patients, playing with the kids, teaching the patients, teaching the staff, praying for the clinic, worship, and some street evangelism. 

We have already seen God show up in might ways. This clinic is an incredible story of how to be obedient to God and serve and love people. The couple that started the clinic are incredibly obedient and just trust. They know God has it all under control. The more I read the promised God has for us, His intention for us in creating us, and how His heart delights in those that draw near to Him, I wonder how I could ever doubt and not trust in Him?! This couple here are such inspiring examples of it, and really challenge me and my words matching up with my life. When talking about God, His character, the plans and purposes He has for me, do I live out of that or am I still trying to do it all on my own?! What a silly way to let the enemy steal from us, to not trust in the magnitude of God - just because sometimes we don’t see it with our eyes. I never saw myself coming to India - here I am again for the third time. 

you are blessed to be a blessing

Is it Spring or Winter?!

I think London gets confused on what spring weather should be. okay google defines spring weather as:
Warmth cause by the turning of an axis (something something, blah blah) WARMTH... ha.

We have not had much warmth from the weather, but we have had some fabulous days here in London. Even though it isn't warm and maybe for three of the days we have been here has been warm, the flower still continue to come and bloom. So spring is underway, fighting past the cold and rain.

We have finished up almost five weeks here and have only two weeks left! I can't believe it.

London is incredible with it's activity and people. It has exciting things like the 'tube' which I currently have a love/hate relationship with. We as a team, have to take the 'underground tube' to get from point A to B all the time. It saves us a lot of time and walking, but it costs us heaps, and does not sit well with my claustrophobia... haha.. This is why we are on a love/hate basis. I love getting places quickly. I hate being in that tiny tube underground, especially when it all the sudden stops and you just sit there and all you can see out the window is the wall about 10 inches from the outside of the tube. We are literally in a tiny hole running through the underground world of tunnels. It is crazy. I try not to think about it to much.

We have been working with 6 different churches in the borough of westminster. We have really been able to build relationship with all of them. It makes me smile sometimes when I think about what God is up too, and I hear people talk about how it is impossible to work with so many people, in such a short time. Praise the Lord, God is a big God!

We have been going out in the streets to meet people. It is amazing the different people you can encounter and it has been sad and hard to see all the loneliness amongst so many people. It is interesting that in such a busy, big city, where in some parts of the city you have thousands of people constantly pressing in around you, there are people that are lonely. They have no one. They have no feeling of acceptance, family, or love.

It has been a challenging thing, and one of the things that God has spoken to us about to combat this is to share about God's father heart for people. The acceptance, and love He has for them. I got the words before we ever came to London that we would "paint the town red for Jesus." So we have printed off this love letter that is from God on red paper and we literally 'paint' the town with these letters. What it is, is a bunch of scriptures that talk about His love towards us. If you want to see an example you can click here:
http://www.cse.ust.hk/~scc/KnowingGodasFather.pdf

So we printed off hundred or so of these letters and have been putting them up in the city, giving them to people, putting them in postboxes. Painting the city with the truth about God's love for people, his acceptance, of them. It was so funny to me the way that God spoke about this and then developed the idea a few weeks later. I love it! We have so much fun putting these out everywhere.

Well, many more stories to share. We have testimonies we put up every week on our website. Go here for more stories from our time here:
http://www.facebook.com/megacities

More to come later. =)

you are blessed to be a blessing

Finally back in a country that has Dr. Pepper! 

Going into the deep abyss of the underground! I mean I think we go like miles underground.. :/

We pass by Ben on our way around a lot =) 

This was a big youth event that ywam was asked to help run. It was commissioning out 2012 young people to the streets to do evangelism for the 90 pre-olympics. So we had 2700 young people show up to worship together, share in scripture, and then be prayed over to share Jesus for the next 90 days. This was a picture of all the people helping with the head bishop of the anglican church of England. I'm in there somewhere in the front row, only a few people from the bishop. FUN.

okay I can't resist sharing a story - this event was incredible. They held it at the st. paul's cathedral, which in and of itself it incredible. Then you get Tim Hughs leading us in worship, and all these young people singing praise to Jesus, ready and wanting to say yes to what  He has called all of us to do - share. It was incredible to be apart of this event. Yah Jesus and yah London for seeing God move! 

London

A place I have never wanted to visit or thought i would have much interest in. It is incredible. I have loved cities in my life, but this one has something that is so attractive.
There are so many people here, and the hussle and bussle is not that attractive, but the architecture, the language (yes I know it is still english, but the accent!), the people, the fact that everything is here! Music, art, history, and theatre. Of course I have only really see the buildings that advertise all of that... haha.. i haven't actually been in any yet. But how cool is it that it is all here. London is an epicenter, so even say for the whole world but definitely for all of europe.

We have had some amazing times already here on the streets of London and with the churches. Since we got here, we have done the following...
- the first four and half days we read through the entire Bible out loud in major parts of our borough and also around were we live. (like at the Queens palace, west minster Abby, Parliament, and Trafalgar Square...all these sight seeing things are in our borough... crazy!)
- We also did things like worship, intercession and helping our host church with all their Easter activities.
- second week we did things like free prayer stations in Trafalgar square, joining with a church to do free coffee and conversation in the red light district, prayer walks all around the borough, meetings with pastors and churches, worships, intercession, doing homeless ministry with our host church, and so much more!
(we have not been not busy!)

God has blown my mind with how faithful He is to show up in people's lives when they are ready and asking for it. We have endured and had so many different looks, and reactions from people on the street, but my team has been so great in persevering through and really searching and being ready for the people God has to touch that day.

We have seen so many people receive truth through the gospel or personal testimonies, we have prayed with several people, and we have see two people healed! My team is so ready to just seek people out and share with them and there willingness is always an opening for God to show up and rock people's world!

We have 6 more weeks here in London. We are ready to keep going strong, although a few of us are battling a bit of sickness. Prayers for that are welcome!

Here are some pictures, just for fun! Enjoy!

you are blessed to be a blessing.

airport...

Yes, here we are...
IN the middle of our long adventure to get to London. Hong Kong airport has been our home for the past 12 hours and will continue to be for another 14...

So far we have been laughed at a lot (because of our "camp site", we have taken showers in the sink, ate LOTS of burger king, slept on floors and chairs, and some have even read whole books already!
Here we are all asleep last night...

=)

I am leading two of the three compassion teams to London. ONe of the teams is mine and the other team will meet their team leader in London. We are having a good time with this adventure of lay overs and plane rides, but we are all very ready to be in London and see what lies ahead. What will it be like where we stay, what is the city like, and how can we make a difference... Jesus these are all our questions.

I am stoked to be leading this team, and pray for God to come in big ways in our borough. My team and I will be staying in West Minister for seven weeks, and working with the churches in this borough to reach out to the community and people that travel through this borough. here is a map of London.. in the very middle is the "city" - pretty small in blue .. west minister is a little to the left...

When I first was asked to lead this team to London and then to India, I was really nervous. I am leading a lone and I kept thinking who is going to be around to help me make decisions??
The next day I woke up and was in John 14 for my Bible reading.
I got to verses 25-31 and this is what it says...


 “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. ²⁶ But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. ²⁷  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. ²⁸  You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. ²⁹ And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe. ³⁰ I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, ³¹ but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.



I have a helper. I always have a helper, but with God's grace and goodness in this next three months, He is extremely vocal, and I can hear so clearly HIs voice. This is the way, this is okay, this is good, you can do this. Thank you Jesus! I love the end as well... "I do as the father commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here...

well here we go. people from all around the world, all different ages, rising to respond to the call of God. To answer the proposition and say "here I am Lord, send me."

The thing I love about this is, you don't have to go across the world. I realize that I use that example because that is what God is calling me to in this moment, but last week in Perth I was walking into the city and I walked past a young girl who God said, "her, i want you to stop and talk to her."
Um what was my response... one of many "lord is that you? No, couldn't be..." Oh wait yes it was...
So here i am Lord, use me. I went and talked to her. nothing to fabulous happened. She was on the street, young, begging for money. I gave her a bit and got to talk to her a bit. I got to pray for her and that was it. I don't know what God is doing in her life, and I don't know if she choose to open up her heart a bit more to God that day or not, but I believe that He was giving her that opportunity. He was beckoning her saying "I'm here, I will always be here." So what if I hadn't stopped. Would that have been a missed opportunity for me or for her?! Both I suppose. I would have missed the opportunity to be obedient to what God was saying and not have met her, and she might not have had the reminder that God is near her, that He sees her.

Oh how did I get off on this?! Who knows, but man I love this dynamic life that Jesus sets us on when we open ourselves up and say okay you pick, you guide, you lead.

Next post via London! Exciting stories to come!

you are blessed to be a blessing.

Face lift?!

Well I just tried to give my blog a "face lift" ... it looks okay. I will have to keep working on it. I know for some of you, your thinking is "it is so easy to change this or do that, or find that html code and place it there to make this special"... umm yes.. well it makes my head hurt =) 

I have been walking around for the past week feeling like parts of my brain were falling off every where. ha. I am getting ready to go on outreach with my students. We are heading into the second phase of DTS where we take the students into the world and "make God Known". We love people, help people, share, and testify of God's goodness in our lives and in who He is. I love it.

I am currently getting two different teams ready. We are doing things a bit different. Usually I would just have one team for the whole 11 weeks of outreach but this time I have two teams. I take one team to London for 7 weeks and then I take a different team into Hyderabad, India for 4 weeks. Whew.. what does that mean... lots of visa work, finance raising, preparing teachings, skits, prayer for the nations, and me feeling like my brain is scattered all over perth! =) In a good way! I can tell that I am growing in my ability to take on responsibility and that is a good thing, even when I feel my brain and mental capacity being stretched! 

We are headed into London for Megacities. This is something the base here at Perth does every other year. I will post a link below to give you a little idea of what that means...

http://vimeo.com/11801013

We are settling into our new base! It is so beautiful! I will post some pictures below. We are moving in slowly and still working on design projects (making it all even more pretty!) A small prayer request answered... we have a lot of glass in our new building... it is pretty much all glass.. so we needed to revamp our cleaning supplies and techniques to learn how to clean glass. One of the students on a school this quarter was a professional glass cleaner for 3 years before he came to australia. SO we have him training us on glass cleaning and man is he good! He was one of those high rise glass cleaners. Funny to get so excited about seeing someone clean glass, but when you see someone do it so well, it is inspiring! 

you are blessed to be a blessing.

 Auditorium

 Main entrance

 New office desks

 New staff office

 Stairway

 Outside area

My roommate debora and me! 

Australian Bush...

Well we took our students camping last weekend. It was a good time, with lots of work and fun. We went down south to a camp ground that but us out in the bush next to this river. Apart from some killer biting flies (yes some flies here bite you) we didn't run into much trouble!

We had such a good time, just relaxing, swimming, canoeing, enjoying the quiet, and sleeping under the stars! We had a few extra friends that decided to join our group - one was a kangaroo with her joey that kept scoping out our food (we had really good food!) and the other was a lizard of some sort ( i have no idea what it was but it was longer than my arm! ).

We are about to start our 8th week of lectures! crazy... only 4 more after this before we head out on outreach! We are on the down ward slope now!

Tomorrow is the first meal at the new base! We have been moving in, cleaning, and getting the kitchen ready for the past two weeks. We have been having worship in the building and lots of people are fearlessly working long hours to get things like all the technical (lights/internet/cabling) working in there, and also the kitchen set up. So tomorrow is it.... first meal in the new building! One top of that we are also going to have a cafe... dangerous yes I would say so! It launches tomorrow night as well! oh coffee how I love thee! I will post some pictures of the base soon, but for now.. camping pic's!

you are blessed to be a blessing

Our new home...

Here it is! Our new home...
After months of waiting, expecting, maybe this week we will get it, maybe next, Perth city council finally came and said it's usable! We are IN!!! 9 Robertson is YWAM Perth and it open, livable, usable, and absolutely beautiful!

Thursday we got our official letter from Perth city and that night we were in the building dedicating it to the Lord with prayer, oil, worship, and leaders from the aboriginal community giving us formal welcomes onto the land and prayers for what God is going to do in this facility. It was such a incredible time together and with Jesus.

On top of all the excitement of the new base opening up, we are still in full swing in our school. Finishing up a week on submission and authority, we learned about God's anointing leadership and how to have submission in our hearts, not just in our obedience. It was powerful with lots of world views changed.
We are headed into week 6 of the school! Only 7 more weeks to go before heading out on outreach! We learned our outreach locations this week and drum roll please...I will be headed into London for the first 7 weeks then on to Hyderabad India for 4 weeks! I am leading different teams to both locations by myself and am soo excited. I have never experienced London and I am very familiar with hyderabad (this will be my third time to go!) so I am ready for the newness, challenges, and all that God is going to do in both places. I will be focusing on health care in India and will be working closely with an aids clinic that I have worked in and taught in during previous visits.

well i will leave you with a few pictures of my small group, and some school activities! We are taking the students camping this weekend (so fun!) and I have a small video post coming that you can be anticipating. I filmed my day in full the other day to give you a quick preview of what exactly do I do... haha in case you ever wondered! Be looking for it in the next week!

you are blessed to be a blessing

I drive this giant van once a week to take some of my students to volunteer at a pregnancy crisis center in the city - i call it the whale. 

Some of us enjoying nice drinks for our small group!

The aussie teaching us how to do a tim tam slam!  

Helping my housemate set up her new bed in her new house =( she moved out of out house into the new base... 

My roomie erika!  

Hayley and I making our students bday cake! It tasted great... didn't look as pretty as expected.. oh I have a lot to learn about baking!