DTS Wrap Up

Hey, guess what?!?! I’m coming home, I’m coming home, tell the world I’m coming home!

The past six months feel like a dream, my mind can hardly comprehend that this incredible season of my life has come to an end. I’m coming home. After six amazing months living in Australia and PNG- I am coming home to Santa Cruz, to California, to the States. It doesn’t seem real, and it’s both bitter and sweet.

Let me just preface this DTS wrap up with a few things. I am aiming only to share my experience with all of you. For me, being a part of YWAM and doing a DTS has been life changing, but I in no way want to come across prideful in what I’ve learned or experienced here. I have been incredibly blessed and I’ve come to understand God in a much deeper way than I did before DTS- but I don’t at all think that DTS is the only way to know God, to love the nations or to be transformed- it’s just how God worked in me. So please hear my excitement, my passion and my thankfulness for the opportunity to do this, but don’t hear that YWAM is the only way to God, because God is God, and it’s all about the way He chooses to transform our hearts- and He does that in a million different and unique ways. DTS isn’t THE way, it’s a way, one road in a world of never ending roads, the chapter in one book, DTS is a piece of my story, one that I am thankful, God is the author and creator of.

Although I’ve have experienced a fair bit of things in my life, looking back on myself before YWAM I would say that I put God in a box, and my perception of the world was very self centered. God was in a box, on a shelf with all of my other boxes: School, work, church, friends, social life, past, present, future, etc. But God isn’t a piece of my story, God is my story.  God is no longer a “thing” that I devote some of my time to in order to fit in all of my other interests- but God is the umbrella over everything that is me. I’ve  learned that He loves me, like actually loves me, knows me, hears me, provides for me, wants me to be happy and answers even the tiniest and silliest of prayers. He has input on the decisions I make, He has plans for my life, and even if I don’t always know what is next, He does and He lets me know when I need to know. He’s my buddy, my love, my life, and call me obsessed, but God is greater than anything on this planet and from times life is perfect to the minute my whole life falls apart- God has me- and I can rest in His peace.

A few years ago I was walking down many dead end roads trying to find one that lead to happiness- but I certainly never for a second imagined getting to spend six months abroad, but God did. And now I sit here reminisiciing about the last six months- and I am completely blown away. Every time I put a limitation on God, he completely exceeded any expectation my imagination could come up with. When I left California, I was afraid of being homesick, I was afraid of being honest, and I was afraid I wouldn’t make friends. But I can tell you, that even though I do my best not to walk in fear, I’m afraid of how homesick I will be for this place that has become home. I’m afraid of the far less people I will have within a room’s reach to be honest with. I’m afraid of the reality that most of my best friends will now be thousands of miles away when a couple of weeks ago we shared an address.

God has blessed me in such incredible ways. It’s the hundreds of notes Tori left on my bed, it’s the countless kisses on my cheek from wee Lois, it’s the one on ones with Lea that turned into an epic friendship, it’s the times Hannah would imitate pretty much anyone, it’s my other half Emily Kwai Ying Lam being everything you could want in a best friend, its moments with Haley just laughing at the most inappropriate moments, it’s Kim and Nomes asking for feedback, it’s Ruby batting his eyes pretending to be the hottest guy at school in all of our dramas, it’s Beth being totally an opposite of me but being able to read my love in an incredibly unique way, it’s Britt having so much grace with my inability to remember anything she ever said, it’s Cass laughing at anything even remotely funny, it’s Maddy being ridiculously hilarious at the thought that someone stole her fruitloops, it’s Mickey saying the things that should never be said, it’s Aly hiding in a fort we referred to as the womb, it’s Mariah’s encouraging words…. It’s the finances that came, it’s the people who prayed for me while I was away, it’s the opportunity to be here in Australia doing a DTS with YWAM, and it’s the family and church I get to return to in less than 48 hours. And that was just to name a few... because God has seriously blessed me so much.

DTS has been an opportunity to walk through things of my past- to experience healing, forgiveness and freedom. DTS has been an opportunity to get a heart for the nations, to experience the love and support of my family in such huge ways, to develop lifelong friendships with people from all over the world, to travel, to serve, to play with adorable little children with the biggest smiles, DTS has been an opportunity to live life to the fullest, just as God desires for all of us.

It’s near impossible to put this experience into words, to encapsulate the entire experience – it was difficult, it was scary at times, it was incredible, it was life changing, it was full of love and laughter, it was challenging, it was fun, it was joyful, it was hilarious, it was a little bit of everything and now that it was over I just have nothing but the utmost appreciation for the opportunity to be here. Thank you for your prayers, for your financial support and for your love towards me. All the glory to God, but thanks for being generous and taking part in my journey. I promise you, it was worth every dollar. I am better because of it, and not only have many nations felt the love of God because of those that support us, but really it’s about the hundreds of little faces full of joy that were able to catch a glimpse of who God is, because we came, because you gave and because God is good.

And although this chapter of my life has come to an end, it only means that another is about to begin. God is good and I know He has so much ahead for me in this life.

Love to you and your families.

May God bless you all like He has used you to bless me and many others.

You are all legends!

A couple faces I will NEVER forget... love you guys so much more than I ever thought I could!

The graduating girls of Jan RTO/NFS DTS 2013

We love Australia!

We represent nations of young people, with hearts for God, hearts for the world, and hearts to see people's lives transformed by the undeniable love of Christ!

God has given us the nations... what we do with that is each our own choice, but it sure is a beautiful thing.

Like I said... I'm coming home, I'm coming home, tell the world I'm coming home!

An amazing chapter has ended, and what is next only God knows...

Youth Adventures!

Hey all!
Hard to believe I will be home in less than two weeks... But even in the next 12 days here I know God still wants to move and do amazing things!

The last four days have been spent at the YWAM base... We have twelve 14 years that we have been leading through worship, prayer, lectures and games! Today(right now in fact) we are on a boat headed to Palm Island- outreach time! We will be spending time with the aboriginal community and building relationships with the people there- to share with them Gods great love and grace! Pray for us as leaders and pray for our youth. May God use us in every way possible, and may we always step up and always be bold!

Be back from outreach in six days and home in twelve!!!

God Bless!

PNG- Hisiu, Waima and Delena

Sorry that it has taken me so long to get this blog up- as you an imagine it has been a crazy last couple of weeks as we prepared for graduation and good byes! But I wanted to share with all of you a bit more about our time in PNG.

Port Moresby and Hisiu

As soon as we landed in PNG I knew that I was exactly where I was meant to be. The first few days we lived in a house in the main city- Port Moresby. During this time we basically prepared for our next four weeks in the villages- stocked up on food, caught up on sleep and spent some time in prayer and worship. The first village we went to was called Hisiu- we arrived there around 6pm and quickly set up our mosquito nets as we got to know our translator and the people we were living with. We instantly found ourselves being stared at, and entertaining beautiful little children! During our time there we made relationships with the people of the village. We did one school program where we each got to teach our own class and then did a program in front of the whole school. We also hosted many night programs- these consisted of introductions, skits, testimonies and teaching. I was in many of our skits and I also shared my personal testimony of God's faithfulness in my life zoning in on John 10:10 and how true that verse is. Our time in Hisiu was awesome and definitely a time of adjustment to living in a culture so much different from our own. 

Blessed to be on this AMAZING team.

This is Port Moresby: view from the house we stayed at!

They call me the baby whisperer... and this one loved me! Here I'm having a village spa day...head and face massage in coconut milk... so amazing! And this is Puni...our village momma in Hisiu!

What can I say? We're a good looking team :)

Lessons on how to use the PNG potty.

Our FULL room of mosquito nets! It's definitely as bad as it looks haha

This is me teaching my class at the school!

We love and adored this boy!

This is a sign the church hung up for us- welcoming us to Hisiu!

One of the places we passed while driving to Hisiu

Here is our first night in Hisiu playing with kids!

This is basically what our lives looked like for our whole time in Hisiu and we loved every second of it!

Waima
As we left Hisiu to travel three hours to Waima we were warned by many people to be careful in this dangerous village. Going into it we felt quite a bit of fear and were not sure what to expect. Apparently days before our arrival a convict had escaped prison and was shot and killed by the police in the place we were going to. As we drove into the village we could feel a spiritual heaviness and were surprised by the intensity of the interest in us and staring as we drove in at sundown. We soon learned that the last time white people had been there was fifteen years ago and that most kids have never seen white people- it began to make sense why they stared so much. As they days went on we realized that there were great people in the village and that it wasn't as dangerous as we had initially been warned of. In this village we were able to do health teachings- where we would use flip charts to teach on things like antenatal health or how to notice the signs of a sick child. We also ran many night programs as well as spent time in two different schools. School programs were generally my favorite- they always laughed about our skits and we just had a really good time being around the kids. I got really close to a girl named Alice and just looked forward to seeing her everyday. The English in this village was pretty limited so it was hard to communicate sometimes- but we def loved the people. One of my favorite experiences we had here is when a couple of the mommas took me, Emily, Amelie and Beth fishing with the nets. It was so fun to get to bring the nets in and pull out all the little shrimps and fish- then eat them for dinner! When we left this village we were told that after years of attempting to get a youth group started- one started as a result of us being there. God is so good to be able to use 12 normal people to show people who He is and how much He values them!

In one of our school programs we are doing a skit and here I am pretending to be a dinosaur that is dying. So funny!

This is us in the mud during our fishing adventure!

This picture demonstrates the "splash zone". I'm the one sitting down in the blue and I'm sick as...and they are all standing just outside the "splash zone". AKA where they will get splashed if I happen to throw up!

This baby hated us! It was hilarious.

Children!

more skits! here we are being frogs!

yay for team photos!

Fishing with the mommas!

Just walking to our next adventure...

This is Alice! She's a wonderful young girl!

Delena
This village was probably the most incredible week of outreach. First of all, it's in a beautiful location on the coast, so despite the poverty the land itself is absolutely gorgeous, and the people were awesome. We had our best and worst moments in this village- but through it all we had our eyes focused on God and He was so faithful to us. When we arrived in Delena we were actually meant to get on a boat and head to a place called Yule Island but because of safety concerns it was cancelled at the last moment. Our team was devastated and frustrated but we decided to walk in the opposite spirit and have a good attitude. We chose to dive into all that God had for us and trust that keeping us in Delena was part of His perfect plan- and clearly it was. One the first day there, we went around the village and prayed for the sick- the next day we found out that people had been healed. This set the tone for the rest of the week as people got to see God's goodness in the physical they began to come to us for prayer. One big struggle we had during our week here is everyone got sick at one point or the other- we would plan programs and than have to switch things around at the last minute because someone else was sick... some nights our programs absolutely sucked, but God's faithfulness was so apparent as people were greatly moved by programs that we knew lacked a good execution. In our willingness God used us, even though our preformance was sometimes week. Every time we did a program we got to pray for people. We saw many people- young and old give their lives to God. It was a blessing to be a part of everything God was doing in these people. We also spent a lot of time investing with the young poeple of this village- holding sports days and youth programs. I got to share a testimony about the importance of having good friends in your life and the people who have really encouraged me in my walk with God(aka Bianca and Erica!). In this village, I also got the chance to get really close to a family- a mother and her four kids! It's hard to sum up everything about this week and a half- but overall it was amazing and we saw God's faithfulness in our good attitudes work in huge ways. The most evident thing that showed us all that God had used us to do was the fact that the first week we were there...the church was about a quarter full, and the sunday before we left it was overflowing. God is good, and many people came back to His love while we were there! Glory to God!

Red Hot Chili Peppers! 

One of our school programs- so fun!

We got lobster for dinner! They caught it fresh for us and we met it when it was still alive, then we ate it dead!

See it's a live lobster!

And crab! So cool!

This is when the kids chased after us when we left...such a sad moment for us!

PMV rides!

Sickies! 

The shore of the village

Our team with the village leaders right after we did village assessments to determine the needs of Delena and how YWAM can help in the future! 

Baby Teresa!

Water days!

Team photo right before we left Delena!

This is when I first met baby Teresa and her mother.

This is the family that hosted us in Delena! Such wonderful people!

I loved the kids climbing all over me in the water!

Most gorgeous sunsets ever!

Love these PNG kids!

Baby Teresa again..

woohoo for PNG!

And that's all folks! Outreach summed up! Love you all! See you in a couple of weeks!