Wrapping Up in Mexico

Hola from Mexico! Life has been so crazy here we haven't had a chance really to be on the computer. Plus my faithful computer finally called it quits; the temporary super-glue surgery that was performed on it in October has reached the end of its temporary life-span and my computer will no longer turn on. I will try to bring it home so maybe my files on it can be salvaged and kept, but let's have everyone praying that in the airports no one will ask me to turn it on, because it won't turn on! Hopefully no over zealous airport officials think I am trying to transport a bomb! So yeah, basically I am having to borrow computers and when we don't have any free time, people generally want to use their own computer when we do have free time. So I will say that this is probably my last update before coming home!

As for a quick update into what we have been up to lately . . . well we have done a lot of evangelism and seen a lot of people come to know Jesus, which is awesome! We also have still been working with a LOT of churches. Not this past Sunday, but the Sunday before, I preached a sermon at one of the churches . . . very interesting, but it went well. It still blows my mind that these people here invite us to preach at their churches just because we are in Mexico as missionaries! It's been great though, and God has really moved and spoken through so many of the sermons that us young people have preached. Also this past Sunday, here is some news none of you will believe! I was at this one church with Everett and one of our leaders David, and David preached the sermon. After the sermon the pastor had us come up to the front and pray for anyone who wanted prayer. After that the pastor invited us to do worship with the team, but only David went up since Everett and I (thankfully) don't play instruments. After one song David and the worship team were trying to find a song they all knew to play another song and David (the person I am no longer talking to after this night) asked them if they knew this one song called "Dios Poderoso." They were like yeah, we totally know that one, do you? He says, "No, but Leah does!" So long story short the whole church is chanting my name wanting me to go up and sing this song with the worship team, so what could I do??? I had to go up on stage! I sang "Dios Poderoso", in a microphone, in front of 75 people! Yeah . . . did I mention I am not a huge fan of David's anymore??? Oh and to make matters even more interesting, David videotaped everything! So yes, life has been super interesting and I have been far outside my comfort zone repeatedly!

As for other things we have been up to . . . we have continued to work in this one community called San Miguel and done art with kids in the community a couple of times. Art and kids . . . it was pretty much my favorite day! We have also been visiting this one orphanage and hanging out with the kids there. That one was really sad, but I still really enjoyed it! So we have done a ton of work with kids and had super amounts of fun, but also worked hard. Please keep praying for us as we endure numerous goodbyes in the coming weeks! And I will be home soon.

Miracles, MIracles, and More Miracles!

So pretty much the title sums up what has been happening here in Mexico since I last blogged.  We have seen miracle after miracle and it has been amazing to see how God is at work here in Mexico!  If anyone had any doubt that God called YWAM Perth to Mexico City for exactly this time the doubts should be gone now unless the person is totally blind because God is moving massively here!

Last week we did a bunch of evangelism which is always awkward when you don't speak the language, but fortunately we did have translators most of the time which made it a little bit easier.  I am still not a huge fan of approaching random strangers and asking them if they want to know about God . . . it's really not my style!  I know I know all thinking what a shocking revelation that just was!  Why wouldn't Leah enjoy approaching strangers and sharing the gospel with them?!?!?!   Well I will reiterate for those of you who still can't believe it: I do not enjoy evangelism!  However I do like it better here in Mexico than I did in Perth simply because the people are far more friendly and open than people in Australia.  In one month in Australia going out on evangelism 2 times a week we only saw 4 people come to Christ!  Here is Mexico City we get at least 4 every time we go out!  On Sunday a our church here Iglesia Cristiana de Bethesda went with us to do evangelism.  There were about 50 of us who went out for 1 hour and we saw 57 people come to Christ!  It was actually ridiculous!  It has been like that every time so far.  It is incredible how God has been moving on hearts here in Mexico.  People are ready and willing to hear about Jesus and what He has done for them.  After being here for 3 and a half weeks we have led more than 100 people to the Lord!  It is crazy and definitely a miracle for a first wave of a Megacities project!

And that is definitely not the only miracle!  On Saturday night we went to a place called San Miguel which is filled with altars worshipping and celebrating Santa Muerte (Saint Death).  It is a cult that at in the Catholic church, but they have now excommunicated it.  It is a cult that is running rampant in Mexico City and has many people deceived.  This area of our region Azcapotzalco is really into Saint Death so we knew it was going to be a hard region to go into.  We spent a lot of time in intercession prior to going, but we were still shocked and amazed by what happened and how God moved.  When we were there we performed that drama we have been working on for weeks and it was really powerful.  We also shared testimonies and a sermon and saw probably 30 people come to Christ.  But even that wasn't the biggest miracle!  At the end we had an amazing time of praying for those who asked for prayer.  During that time a little 9-year girl in a wheelchair come forward asking for prayer.  We prayed for healing over this girl who had never walked before in her life and by the end of the night she was walking!  It was such a miracle and we are all still in shock and awe of what happened!  On Friday night we are going to a hospital to pray for people who are sick, so hopefully God will continue to move and we will see more healings!

Now finally for the miracle that hit the closest home for me!  It is tempting to not share this story since I know my parents read this and they are probably not going to be very impressed with me!  On Wednesday night last week our team went to see Avatar in 3D at some movie theatre here in Azcapotzalco.  The movie was alright, but the experience was fun!  Anyhow the movie didn't start until 9 and it is a 3 hour movie so it was super late by the time we were finished and all slightly delirious with exhaustion!  Well in my exhaustion I found out later that my wallet fell out of my purse sometime during our time at the theatre and I didn't notice.  Because I didn't need my wallet for several days after the movie it took several days to realize that my wallet was not in my possession.  It didn't have much money in it, but it had pretty much everything else: bank card, credit card, driver's licence, card card, SIN card, absolutely EVERYTHING!  I was slightly stressed out when I found out it was gone since I am in Mexico after all and my wallet had already been gone for several days.  Everyone on my team started praying immediately that it would be found unharmed.  I didn't even really know for sure where it disappeared so the situation seemed rather hopeless.  However the pastor's son works near the movie theatre so he said he would stop in to see if it was there, but having grown up in Mexico he said there was pretty much no chance my wallet was there.  Even if it had fallen out at the movie theatre and some one found it, they would probably just take it, not turn it in!  So I was trying to remain hopeful and believe that God had the power to protect my wallet until we got to it, but the situation was looking dismal!  So Monday night after a long hard day I was relaxing in our room when suddenly one of my leaders bounded up the 4 flights of stairs to our room and told me to put my shoes on.  I was super confused and asked where I was going and he said I was going to get my wallet from the movie theatre; it had been found!  Needless to say I was super excited!  When I got there and picked up my wallet I discovered the little money I had in there was gone (not that I really care) but all of my ID was there, and both my credit card and bank card were still untouched where I had left them in the wallet!  It was seriously a miracle!  Since then I have had even more Mexicans tell me how amazing it was that I got my wallet back!  They were in shock that it came back basically untouched in Mexico of all places!  All I have to say is God is moving in Mexico and performing both huge miracles like healing little girls and smaller personal miracles like bringing my wallet back safe!

So God is seriously moving!  He is hearing and answering our prayers and yours, so please keep praying!  As always please please pray for health for our team.  This is an area the enemy is attacking us big time!  This week we had one girl on our team pick up tonsilitis, one girl dislocate her shoulder, and our leader have huge stomach pain!  So prayers for health and healing are so vital!  Please keep praying!  We really need and covet your prayers!  We have lots going on here for the rest of this week and into next week.  Lots of kids ministry which is fun, lots of worship and evangelism, and on Sunday I will be giving my first ever sermon in front of a whole church!  Crazy!  So pray for our ministry because we need it and definitely keep praying for energy because we need that too; our schedule is crazy!

Where does the time go???

Well as you may have noticed it has been 2 weeks since my last post! That has nothing to do with lack of internet access, it is simply because of lack of time! Our time here has been absolutely crazy so far, but I have loved every minute of it! First of all I should comment that everyone arrived in Mexico safely although there were certain travel complications for a few of the people on my team who missed connecting flights. They were a little bit frazzled once they arrived, but it all worked out fine and we were all reunited by Thursday of our first week here. My flights went off without a hitch and even going through customs was amazingly easy so thank you for all your prayers on that end . . . it is definitely the customs/immigration part of travelling that stressing me out more than anything else! By far the most difficult part of our arrival here was sleeping that first night as it was absolutely freezing! The Mexicans themselves told us that our first 3 or 4 days here were unusually cold . . . it is pretty much never that cold here and on top of that we were coming from 40+ heat everyday in Australia, so it was COLD! I wore my toque for 3 days straight, day and night!

During our first week we spent 24 hours a day reading through the entire bible aloud here in our area. It was really neat to do that and it was great to see how much the church we are staying with really rallied around us and helped us with this. The youth group came 3 of the nights and read with us for 2 hours each night and I would just like to point out that the first night we were reading Numbers . . . not highly interesting . . . and the second night we started 1 Chronicles which if you don't remember the first 9 chapters are just lists of names! So we would read a chapter in English, then they would read a chapter in Spanish and it was just name after name after name! Highly amusing and I must say those Mexican youth are troopers! I also just need to point out that here in Mexico the age for youth group is 18 to marriage so we are pretty much working with and leading and teaching our peers! Not exactly what I had anticipated when I found out we would be working with the youth group here!

After we finished our bible reading on Saturday we celebrated by going out for lunch at a Chinese food buffet here . . . go figure. The food was great and it was a lot of fun, but I was also coming down with a cold, so I didn't enjoy it as much. Saturday night we finally met the entire youth group, but my leader made me lay down and rest because I had no voice because of my cold. The next day we went to 3 church services and introduced ourselves to the church . . . very interesting when I still had no voice, but it was good and our church is amazing! I love it here. Sunday was pretty much the best day ever because after church the youth group made us an authentic Mexican lunch and dinner! It was the best food ever. I was still feeling sick with my sore throat and my nose and chest were very congested but fortunately nose was not so congested that I couldn't taste anything! It was unfortunate though that my leader decided I wasn't well enough to go with my group and the youth group to the Zocolo (the center of Mexico City with all the history). They all went and interceded for the city and worshipped, but I stayed back and rested again.

The next week we did a lot of prayer walking in our area which was amazing since locals were leading us around and could give us tips about what to pray into in each neighbourhood. We also ate lunch out and the locals kept insisting on buying lunch for us. That was hard because we know they don't have a lot of money, but they absolutely refused to let us pay! The food was so great though. Since it was locals taking us out they knew the good places to go and it was amazing. We also did some evangelism this week which is always interesting when you don't speak the same language, but it was still great! It turns out I know the second most Spanish on my team though I haven't taken Spanish in 4 years, so that's interesting because my leaders keep asking me for help with translating and I am so NOT a translator nor do I know enough to be a translator, but I am doing my best to communicate with people!

Finally this weekend we were super super busy! We went to 6 different churches from Friday through Sunday and were busy at each of the churches. They wanted us to run kids programs, give testimonies, lead worship, and even preach! Two people in our group preached sermons at 2 churches and that is only the beginning! Everyone wants us to preach! At our church here they want a different one of us to preach at each of the 3 services so we will all probably have the opportunity to preach at least one sermon if not two . . . who would have thought it??? I didn't preach this weekend, I ran kids programs. It was a ton of fun, but super interesting when again you don't really speak the language. It is hard to control the groups of kids when you don't know how to say be quiet and listen to me! But it really was fun. And we were fed even more authentic Mexican food! Last night we ate so much food! We had BBQ chicken, tamales, flan, jello, cake, fruit parfait . . . it went on and on! And you have to eat all your food or else it offends the Mexicans! So they just feed us and feed us and feed us until we feel like we will explode, then we have to keep eating so we don't offend anyone! At least the food is fabulous.

So our first couple of weeks have been busy, but so great! We do need so much prayer though. And definitely the main prayer issue is for health. I have been the lucky one so far just having a cold and no voice for a few days, but a lot of people have been throwing up and making constant trips to the bathroom. We have also had to have a couple of people go to the doctor and one guy is restricted to the church for a week because his illness killed his immune system temporarily. And our team isn't the only one suffering from multiple illnesses. One Thursday morning we had a time of prayer claiming health for all the teams here in Mexico which was coordinated by the base in Perth because they have been receiving word from all the teams here about multiple illnesses, so it really is an area where all the teams are getting hit hard. By far it is the area where we need the most prayer! Of course we also need prayer for energy and openness here in Mexico. So keep praying for us, and I will keep trying to keep you updated on everything that is going on!

End Act 1 . . . it's time for a scene change!

Well you heard it folks my time in Australia has now come to a close. It is all very sad since I don’t know if I will ever make it back here again and I would sure love to. It’s weird to be in a place for 4 months and then suddenly it’s time to leave. Perth has really felt like home and it is strange to be leaving it behind and knowing that I will never walk to the train station with the lovely skyline in the background, or go to Mount Lawley for a 50 cent ice cream cone from Hungry Jacks. Four months is a long time to be somewhere, but now that time is over and it is taking some getting used to for sure! Luckily I have the excitement for Mexico to tide me over and help take the edge off the sadness. And I am very excited for Mexico . . . the city is supposed to be super pretty and I think it will be a ton of fun! Plus we get to fly again! There was a time when I first got here when I didn’t think I would ever want to fly again, but I am super excited again and pretty much am ready to go right now! I don’t want to wait another few hours . . . it is currently 1:30am right now and I am just staying up all night since I have to leave for the airport at 3:45am. I am the only one up here and don’t actually have internet access and am just writing a draft of this blog, so life is pretty boring and boring is not good for staying awake! Oh well, just another 2 hours before I should get my stuff together to bring to the base . . . I can manage that!

Okay now for blog entry part 2! I am no longer in Aussieland! It is crazy! I have been sitting in the LA airport for about 4 and a half hours now and I still have another 4 to go. However the biggest part of the journey is over now that I am back in North America. It seems so odd knowing I am on the same time zone as everyone at home right now. I have been 16 hours ahead for so long that it is going to be weird to actually be only 2 hours ahead for the next 7 weeks. And then of course after that it is time to head for home where I will defintiely be on the same time zone as everyone at home, but entirely different time zone from many of my new friends! However, yet again it is something I will have to get used to. Life goes on and changes come so all I can do about it simply adapt.

Now for a recap of the past week and a bit! It was the 50th and 25th celebration week which means it was a week like no other. We had lots of teaching and worship, but also a lot of free time which was quite a shock as we have no had much free time at all since outreach started. We received a lot of teaching from Loren and Darlene Cunningham which was quite a treat since they are so famous in YWAM circles, and I know many of received very valuable insights and revelations from God during those times. The 50th celebration only lasted from Sunday night until Tuesday afternoon and then we spent Tuesday evening down at Swan River to watch the fireworks for Australia Day. Then starting Wednesday is when I found the real fun began. I loved the 50th celebration stuff, but sometimes it got repetitive and difficult to listen to for too long, but with the 25 celebration of YWAM Perth they told lots of stories, did skits, showed videos and pictures, etc. There was a lot more to keep people captivated so it was easier to enjoy which then made it easier to listen! On Friday afternoon they even had a fashion show demonstrating how fashion has changes since the founding of YWAM Perth 25 years ago. It was so funny! The clothing from the 80's was obviously hilarious, but I also love the stuff from the 90's because I could remembering wearing those clothes but they looked so odd! Another great part of the week is some of the entertainment we received during the different evening sessions. I took videos of this amazing didgeridoo player, the Island Breeze team performing Polynesian dances, and even the fireworks for Australia Day and I will post them as soon as possible because they are pretty spectacular, but it isn't working right now.

So yes, that's what life looked like last week, and I have been travelling for nearly 30 hours receiving no sleep the night before I left and only about 4 or 5 hours during that time. I still have another 10 hours before we land in Mexico and then we still need to go through customs and immigration there, so it will be ages still before we get to go to bed, but definitely the hardest part of the trip is over and I am looking forward to finally being in Mexico. For the first week we are there we don't actually do much (if any) ministry. For the first 3 days in Mexico we will be alternating between people in our team and spending 72 hours straight of reading the entire bible aloud in a public place. I'm looking forward to this part because I think it will be really cool! Then for the 3 days after that we spend a lot of time walking through our area and praying for it asking God for strategies to reach the area. So there is a lot of bible and prayer for the first week which I think will be amazing! Then we do a lot of our youth group work and street evangelism after that. It is hard to say exactly what life will look like once we reach Mexico, but I am excited to find out!

Moving onto prayer points for this week I would ask for continued prayer for health and definitely for strength and energy for everyone as we try to recover from our 40 hours of travelling! There have been bad colds and even a stomach bug travelling around my team so we really do need a lot of prayer for health! Also just pray for safety while we are in Mexico City and for open hearts in the city. Now for some exciting news regarding prayer! Thank you to everyone who joined with us in prayer for our Asians to get into Mexico. We received word on Friday morning that the visas had been approved! We sent a representative over to Canberra with all the passports on Sunday morning so he could get the visa stamps on them all Monday morning and the Asians could all leave on time on February 2! It really was a true answer to prayer as we didn't want our teams to be separated for a week as it was looking like might happen. Also it would have cost about $1000 per person to change the tickets to the week later so it was also an answer to prayer financially as well! It is very exciting news because we weren't just fighting for our Asians to get in, we were fighting for missionaries from any country to be able to get in to Mexico. Mexico is a very closed country especially to South America, Asia, and Africa, because it is considered an easy entry point into the States, but now the country has said any missionary from any country can come into the country for the year 2010 (which is the duration of Megacities). So it really was amazing news and we were all very grateful to God! So thank you for standing with us in prayer and lifting us up in all our travels and ministry.

Did I Mention I Hate the Number 700???

Well this has been quite the week! We certainly did not work as hard as we did in the previous weeks and we had a TON of fun, but we also had a very sad goodbye. One of the guys on our team, Joe, decided to leave without completing outreach. He is leaving for home on Monday and leaving behind a rather large hole in our team. When you have lived and worked so closely together even for just one month and then someone decides to leave, it is a bit like losing a member of your family. Our outreach team truly is our family now and we have become quite a close family, but now we must go on down one family member. It was a hard decision to make I'm sure and we are all very sad about it, but at the same time my team knows that God is not sitting up in heaven wringing his hands thinking, "Oh no now what I am going to do??? Joe wasn't supposed to leave, this ruins EVERYTHING!" It is sad and we do have a hole to fill now but we know that Joe's decision did not throw a monkey wrench into God's plans. God still has amazing plans for how He will use our team and His plans will be fulfilled with or without Joe.

Speaking of God's amazing plans for our team we finally received information this week about where and with whom we will be working in Mexico. My team will be located in zone 6 of the city (Megacities has divided the city into 30+ zones) called Azcapotzalco. It is connected to the central zone of the city (Centro Historico) which is where Mexico City was originally built around and houses all sorts of interesting things! There are ancient ruins of an Aztec temple in the center of the city with the government buildings all around it as well as the first Cathedral built in the city which was started in the late 1500's. Centro Historico is the center of everything in Mexico City and I definitely want to visit it so I am very glad to be so near to it! As for the zone I will be staying in it seems to be one of the nicer regions in the city. There isn't a whole lot of information about it, but it is the section of the city where a lot of Italians settled in the late 1800's so that is where the Little Italy of the city is with a lot of Italian restaurants and bakeries, so that's interesting. We will be staying and working with La Iglesia Cristia de Bethesda and one of our main obs will be to work with their youth group of 120 students and provide discipleship training to them and mobilizing them and giving them a heart for missions. I was super excited to hear about that since I love working with youth! It will be interesting though since I have never been a part of a youth group that big before! Plus I'm wondering how big this church is if only the youth group is 120! Apparently one of the other groups from my DTS will be working with a church of 6000 people! It absolutely blows my mind!

As for what we actually did this week, well it was a lot of work on the base and bonding as a team. We did a bible study Monday morning and went up to King's Park Tuesday morning and did intercession and proclaimed scripture over the city, so that was all fun! In the afternoons we worked on base and did a variety of jobs. I used a paper cutter to chop and neatly stack 737 name tags, a large group of us put together 730 cookie packages to give people at the celebration which contained a total of 2190 cookies, and yesterday I helped to stitch the edges of about 700 meters of shade cloth! Hence the title of my blog . . . because yes after all this work with 700, I am truly sick of that number! It was good though! I had fun doing all of the jobs and certainly enjoyed them more than scrubbing oil stains off the parking lot which is what I was prepared to do. All the preparations for the celebration are going well though I think. The base is really starting to be transformed and is looking really nice. The celebrations officially start on Sunday after lunch which is Saturday night your time! It will be amazing! I am really looking forward to it. Loren and Darlene Cunningham (the founder of YWAM and his wife) are coming for the celebrations and should be arriving either tomorrow or Sunday morning. It is very exciting for all of us DTSers to be able to meet him since we were all required to read the book he wrote describing the process of how YWAM was established. It was a great book and I am excited to see him and here him speak. Plus Tuesday is also Australia Day (basically the Australia version of Canada Day) so there will be national celebrations going on as well as our YWAM celebration. We are all going to go down to the river and watch the fireworks show and it supposed to be phenomenal! I am so excited for this week!

AND after this week of celebration is over we leave for Mexico, so that is a pretty sweet deal! Celebrations end on Friday night, Saturday is our free day, then Sunday we pack and prepare to leave for Mexico since we all need to be at the airport sometime in the night between Sunday and Monday morning. It will be crazy, but good I think! I am definitely going to take a ton of pics of the celebrations and I will have hours of free time in various airports to post them all! Speaking of time in airports though reminds me of our prayer requests for this week. First of all we still need prayer for the Asian visas to get into Mexico. We had breakthrough in other areas this week where one guy who lost his passport and was really starting to stress about whether his new one would arrive in time for him to go to Mexico received the passport on Wednesday, so that was a total praise item. Also my Swiss friend Joanne suddenly found out this past week that she needed to get a visa to go to LA for the layover on the way to Mexico because she had an older Swiss passport that didn't have the biochip the new ones had to allow for easy access to the country. So that also was a major stressor since it had to happen fast, but she went for her interview at the American Embassy on Tuesday and received the visa in the mail on Wednesday, so again praise God! But we still need breakthrough for these Asian visas. We also need prayer against discouragement since many of them are finding it harder and harder to trust God when the day they are supposed to leave keeps coming closer and closer. Another prayer point is for safe and smooth travel with no complications between connecting flights. I am only in the Sidney airport for about 2 hours and 20 minutes which is cutting it close to make my next flight since it is an internation flight, so I need prayer that my first flight is not delayed and that God really works out the connection between these two flights. Other than that again please lift up everyone's health as we go into this busy, hectic week of celebration and for amazing rest in the coming week and on the way to Mexico that we don't arrive there already completely burnt out!

I'm not planning on coming into a coffee shop next weekend to write an update, but I will be in the LA airport 9 hours on February 1 so my plan is to use internet for much of that time and I will try to get in an update there. Once we actually hit Mexico I may cut back to every 2 weeks if at all just based on the ease of finding internet access. However whether I have internet or not I will take a lot of pics and can catch you all up once I get home at the end of March.

Hard Hard Hard Work and Some Well . . . Not So Hard Work

Well you'll never guess what I was up to this week! On Sunday we went to church and our outreach team split into 2 groups and went to 2 different churches. I went with a group to a Metro Church and it was very interesting. I'm pretty sure the building must have been a movie theatre at one point because we were definitely sitting in movie theatre seats! And a lot of the time it felt like it was still a movie theatre because everything was so high tech! There were probably 5 big screens at the front which showed the videos of the worship team and speaker just like in a concert. Actually it reminded me a lot of being at CreationFest . . . the only difference was they used the screens at CreationFest so the thousands of people could see what was going on at the front since everyone couldn't see. Let's just say there were not thousands of people at Metro Church . . . there were barely hundereds! I would be absolutely shocked if there were more than 250 people in the building! So pretty much the screens weren't so necessary, but hey whatever floats your boat, right!??? Another thing I noticed about Metro Church which I wasn't a huge fan of is that they have about 20 people at the front leading worship in a church of only about 200 . . . huh??? How does that ratio work??? It didn't make a lot of sense to me, but hey who am I to judge??? I can safely say though that I miss The Forge! I like our style of worship and life in general much better! There was one thing I really loved about Metro Church, however, after the service we were all invited into the visitor's lounge since we were first timers and they had amazing food to feed us! Brownies, springs rolls, mini quiches, orange juice! It was fabulous! With nearly 500 people on base right now and the kitchen used to cooking for only 300 let's just say there hasn't been an abundance of food lately and the food we are eating is mostly bread and rice so the food in the visitor's lounge was such a treat for us!

In the afternoon we had an evangelism time, so we waited on God to see where He wanted us to go and what He wanted us to do and it turns out God wanted us to evangelize at the beach! Sweet deal! So we headed to the beach and we drew prophetic drawings on the sidewalk in chalk and had a great time talking to different people about what we were doing and why we were doing it! And we got to do it all at the most beautiful place ever . . . Fremantle beach! It was pretty awesome!

For the rest of the week we were working with ARMS again, but we just did that during the morning. In the afternoons we were working on the base helping to get things ready for the biggest 50th and 25th celebrations that are coming up in a week! So the ARMS work was pretty much the same as last week . . . lots of yard work in the hot sun, but we also had a couple of days when my team had indoor jobs and I cannot even believe some of the places we went to! My last ARMS case was Saturday and when my group walked in the front door we all looked at each other in disbelief and were thinking, what are we supposed to do with this??? I know you are all probably thinking that it must have been a huge mess to stop us dead in our tracks that way, but in reality this was the cleanest house I have ever been in! It is cleaner than our house at home and we were called in to clean it because the woman was suffering from post partum depression and couldn't manage on her own. So we did clean her bathrooms and kitchen like she asked us to, but we felt it was pointless because they were already pretty much clean! So that was interesting! But usually the places are much more of a mess and we work really hard!

And of course we work hard on the base as well although this picture may hide that fact well! It turns out that for 2 days we were working on the base I got to be on the baking team! We had to write down any special skills we had so they knew how best to use us so I wrote down that baking and cooking were 2 of my special skills and I actually got placed on a baking team which I didn't really think would happen when I wrote those down in the first place. So that was nice! On Monday night we got to bake chocolate chip cookies which really didn't even seem like work, and then on Thursday we baked bran muffins! It was quite a daunting task to bake those though because for the cookies we only baked 410, but they need about 1400 and that is just for 1 afternoon tea! There are going to be about 700+ people on base for the celebrations so there is going to be a lot of food happening! It is madness to even think about since it took us 3 hours to bake those 400 cookies and it was only a third of what was needed! But it was still fun, so that was good! It was definitely far more fun than the job I had on Tuesday afternoon (which was a hot day I would just like to add!) On Tuesday afternoon me and 3 other girls were dressed in coveralls and sprawled on the super hot ashphalt car park to scub oil stain off of the ashphalt! We worked for 4 hours in the sun pouring degreaser on the stains, pouring sand onto them, and then scrubing at them with scrub brushes. It was terrible! And of course we were working with stains and stains by definition are messes which are not easily removed so it felt sort of hopeless as we were worked because at times we were literally pouring our blood, sweat, and tears into our work and the difference was barely noticeable! And by far the most discouraging part of that job was as soon as we were finished they parked all the oil leaking vehicles right back where they were so it was like what was the point of it at all when the mess will be right back??? So yeah that was fun!

This coming week we will be solely working on the base getting life ready for the celebrations. There is only 1 week until the celebrations and the transformation that they are planning has yet to be implemented so I have a feeling we will be worked just as hard this week as we have to pull everything together and get the whole base decked out and decorated before people start arriving next weekend! Hopefully I will get to do more baking (the not so hard work) and not have to do anymore oil scrubbing (the hard hard hard work!), but it is outreach so I just do what I am told and try not to complain because I know how much it irritates me when other people on my team complain; it just brings everyone down and doesn't help anything! I do have to say though that I am pretty much counting the days until we leave for Mexico! I am so excited to get to Mexico City that I can't even stand it! We had a Mexico City orientation at the very end of December so got to see pictures and hear more about what we would be doing and the whole time they were giving the presentation I was just thinking about how I wanted to leave the next day not wait a month and then get there! However, I did have to wait a month and now that month is coming to a close! We leave in 15 days and I am stoked! I never thought I would want to get on an airplane again when I got here, so I am looking forward to being on a plane again and I feel far more confident going back than I did coming here because I already know that I can make it through all the hoops you have to pass through in airports and all that jazz! Plus eventhough a lot of us (those from North America) booked their own flights back to LA I am on the same flight as a bunch of people from my school so I won't be travelling alone this time which will be far more fun! I do have to say I am not really looking forward to the 9 hour layover in LAX before we board a flight for Mexico City, but even that won't be so bad because I will have people to explore with! Yay!

There are some points of prayer for our travel, however, that I would love for you all to keep in mind. First obviously is safety while travelling. We have about 40 hours of air/airport time before we get to Mexico City which is a lot and we will need lots of prayer for energy and safety as we go. My flight from Perth leaves February 1 at 5:45am and I arrive in Mexico City at 11:43 pm on February 1, but we cross the international day line and since Australia is a day ahead of North America we pretty much get to live February 1 twice . . . either that or it is just the LONGEST day in the history of the world! Also we are still having issues with receiving visas so the Asians in our group are allowed in Mexico. If the visas do not come through my team will be short Malaysian and the other 2 teams will each be short 2 Indonesians. We are really trusting God for the visas to come through but time is growing short so we really need everyone to stand with us in prayer. Other than please continue to lift up the health of everyone on my team especially as we are soon off to Mexico the reputed land of intestinal discomfort!

That is about it for now I think! Just one more post in Australia and then who knows what internet will be like in Mexico. Hope everyone is enjoying being a part of my Australian adventure and is ready for the next chapter in Mexico!

Dirt, Sweat, and Birthday Bliss!

Well we have just wrapped up our second week of outreach and it was sure an interesting one! We began work this week with the ARMS ministry of YWAM Perth. ARMS provides different services for families in crisis, so our role to play is to do the yard work services the families need. Since ARMS only has about 10 people as a part of the ministry and there are lots of families in crisis there are often waiting lists for an ARMS representative to actually be able to provide whatever it is the family is needing and as is to be expected yard work is of low priority so it gets pushed way down the list until ARMS can get to it and there is often a 6 month waiting list for people to get the yard work done that they need! So my outreach team has been able to tackle that list for ARMS this week and it has been great! This is exactly the kind of thing I love doing: serving people and showing them God's love with my hand rather than having to tell them about it with my mouth. We also do a lot of street evangelism so I still have to do the speaking of God's love thing, but I enjoy working with ARMS much more! So yeah since the temperature ranged between about 32 and 40 degrees Celsius this week and we were doing physical labour outside in the sun we certainly had our fair share of sweat and we were always covered in dirt! It was great though! And what I really love about ARMS is that once you have worked for these different families and done nice things for them for basically no reason they are so much more open to hear about because they want to know what drives us to do what we do so we still get to share God with them; it just isn't as forced!

It was definitely a busy week though! We would work with ARMS all day and we had some pretty huge jobs so we didn't always even make it back to the base in time for meals, so we had pretty much no free time at all this week, but apparently that's what outreach is! It takes some getting used to, but I think it will be fine. The only issue with no having free time this week is that yesterday it was the birthday of one of the girls on our team so we were planning a birthday party for her and had to figure out how to do all the stuff for that when we had no time to even shower some days (and boy did we need to shower!). It was definitely hardest on me because each person on our team has their own job like accountant or nurse or whatever and my job is hospotality so I was the one who was having to do all the details for the party like buying and wrapping the gift, making a card and getting everyone to sign it, making the cake, etc. So that was stressful just trying to make the time to fit it all in, but in the end her birthday was really great and she was so blessed by all the effort we all put in! So it was definitely worth it!

Next week we will be working with ARMS again but apparently we will just be working with them in the morning and then in the afternoons we will be working on base trying to get life ready for the big 50th anniversary of YWAM celebration which is coming up at the end of January. It is because of this celebration that we are staying in Perth for the first month of outreach . . . usually outreach teams go to 2 places, but even if the first is in Australia it is in another part of Australia. So it has definitely been interesting being in Perth for this month because I know for a lot of people we feel a bit ripped off like we are missing out on our real outreach because we are stuck here in Perth until the celebrations. But really God wanted us here in Perth because He has really been moving. So far my outreach team is the only one to see anyone come to Christ and we have actually had 2 salvations already! Plus God has asked different ones on our team to pray for healing over different people in Perth and some people have received at least some degree of healing. So even though my team had a pretty bad attitude about being in Perth for the first month of our outreach, amazing things are happening and I think this time in Perth is preparing us for what we will see in Mexico because the word God has spoken to everyone on my team is power: He is going to move in power through us in Mexico City and we are getting to see glimpses of it here in Perth as well.

Team unity is still somewhat of an issue since we do not really do much as a team right now. Even as we do our ARMS work we are split into 3 different teams so only ever work with 4 other people at a time. We are definitely doing better in terms of unity this week because we voiced our concerns to our leaders so have been using our evenings to do team things where we are all together, but unity take work and prayer and we definitely still need more of both! We also need continued prayer for health (I don't think that prayer request will leave until my DTS is finished as health is always an issue). We have been fairly lucky healthwise so far, but we have had issues of car sickness this week as we have been driving to the different ARMS cases and some of them are quite far away. So prayer for health in general would be fantastic. Another issue which isn't for me so much, but definitely affects my team is the issue of visas for getting into Mexico. On my outreach team we have a guy from Malayasia and the other teams have Indonesians and Mexico is being very difficult about providing visas for them because they are very strict about who they let into the country since many people view Mexico as an entry way into the US. So far all our attempts to get visas for them have failed and we are definitely running out of time. Already they are having to take different flights from everyone else because they were denied access to the US even as a layover location to fly into Mexico so are having to fly the opposite way around the world through Singapore, Germany, etc. We really need all the prayer support we can get on this one as our teams just would not be complete without the gifting these amazing Asians bring!

I think that is about it for now. We officially only have 3 weeks left in Perth which is crazy! I'll be off to Mexico before I know it and leave this beautiful country and amazing people behind. I will still try to update weekly for those 3 weeks tho I may not be able to, and who knows what internet will look like in Mexico, but until then I hope you continue to enjoy my updates about my amazing (though stretching!) adventure!

Busyness, how well I understand you!

Well regardless of where I am and what I'm doing, the holidays always have this nasty habit of sneaking up on me and flying past. Surprisingly enough the same phenomenon continued here in Australia! The week leading up to Christmas was filled with food, fun, and friends, but we also managed to squeeze in 3 days of lectures in there too. The topic for our last week of lecture phase was Evangelism which is quite applicable seeing as we were about to launch into Outreach which is basically 24/7 evangelism! It was a good week of teaching from Steve Ahern the national director for YWAM Australia, but it was challenging as well. It is funny how some things topics and teachings can be both encouraging and challenging at the same time. Probably the biggest thing I took away from the week was the knowledge that when we go out and do evangelism our number one goal is not to get people to accept Christ. Every person we meet will be at a different stage in terms of their knowledge, understanding, and acceptance of God, so our main job is just to get them to the next step of that knowledge, understanding, and acceptance of God. Steve Ahern gave us a nice number scale to represent this. If zero is where someone accepts Christ, there is a set of negatice numbers previous to zero and positive numbers after zero. If someone is at a minus 10 spiritually, it is completely unrealistic to expect them to accept Christ because they have pretty much never been exposed to any part of who God is and what He has done. So that was encouraging because there is a whole lot less presure . . . all we are responsible for is being obedient to God and bringing them to the next number. Of course that still involves speaking to people which for me is definitely the challenging part :-S

So our lectures ended on the 23 of December and we had a nice Christmas Eve breakfast for our DTS the next morning as a celebration of our time together before we all get split up and spread out across Perth and later Mexico City. It was quite a nice breakfast and lots of fun for everyone. After that we had the rest of the day free and I spent the entire day completing the Christmas gifts I made for everyone and the encouragement cards to accompany them. And when I say I spent the entire day doing that, I should clarify that it was the entire day and on into Christmas morning! I got about 2 and a half hours of sleep the night before Christmas because we had breakfast at 8am and I was at the base until 5am finishing Christmas gifts and stuffing stockings! Sometimes it almost feels like God tricks me into doing things, because He gives me these ideas to bless people, but He fails to mention how long it will take! But it's all good! Everyone I talked to was incredibly blessed by both the gifts and the notes so it was all worth it! Even on only 2 and a half hours of sleep though, Christmas was a lot of fun! After breakfast we all opened our stockings then we had a couple of hours of free time until lunch at which time we all came together for a Christmas feast! Meat is sometimes hard to come by here since it is so expensive and the kitchen here feeds probably about 300+ people for every meal, but we had platters piled high with meat and potatoes and then a buffet line filled with all sorts of salads and other yummy side dishes! We all ate so much that we didn't even go to base for dinner because we were so full! After lunch was a nice gift exchange which was a lot of fun, though absolutely crazy when it is for 300+ people! Then we had more free time and later watched Christmas movies and ate yet more food like chips, cookies, and cake at the Christmas cafe!

Boxing Day was much more low key, but fun all the same. We spent the day at the beach and it was absolutely gorgeous! The water was so warm (which is quite rare since the current along Perth brings water up north from Antarctica BRRR!) and the weather was perfect. We even had lunch at the beach, but it was no ordinary picnic food! We had barbeque chicken legs and wings, ice cream, Thai noodles, etc. It was very yummy and a nice way to spend the weekend. Sunday was very low key, but we did all have to pack :-S Monday was the first day of outreach so we had to pack up all of our stuff and leave our cushy rooms! Since everyone is staying in Perth for the first month of outreach most people are still staying on base, but there is a whole crew of new students coming in for the January quarter (which is the biggest quarter here at YWAM Perth!) so accomodation is quite interesting at the moment. Every girl on outreach is staying a giant warehouse YWAM owns and is turning into several classrooms. The room was are all staying in has not yet been worked on or transformed and is seriously just a giant warehouse room. It is currently housing 68 women and is packed with bunkbeds! I have heard several people (who don't even live there) say it looks like an Asian orphanage or even a concentration camp in there! It is fun though . . . of course also a challenge since I came from a room of only 4 girls and didn't even have the experience of sharing a room with 24 girls like most of the girls on my DTS did. The only real drawback about where we are living is that it has no air conditioning and gets SUPER hot since it can get to about 40C during the day!

So yeah we started outreach this week and oddly enough I realized this morning that since week 1 of outreach was done, we only have 11 weeks left which is really not much time! My outreach team starts work next week with a ministry called ARMS here on the base which is Australian Relief and Mercy Services. Basically they provide assistance for families in crisis, so we will be doing lots of housework and yardwork for people who are in crisis and cannot manage it on their own. It will definitely be interesting, but I am very excited about it! Serving people is far more up my alley than approaching random strangers on the street to ask them if they know Jesus! Of course we will be doing our fair share of that as well both here in Perth and in Mexico City, so that will be interesting. This week though my team did a lot of preparation work like learning dramas and listening to God to hear how He was wanting us to spend the time we have outside of our ARMS work. Then on New Year's Eve all the outreach teams here on base got together and did a huge open air worship session in Northbridge (a suburb of Perth) and witnessed to people on the street. I have definitely never spent New Year's Eve like that before but it ended up being a lot of fun and we had some really good conversations with people.

Oh, and I forgot the most exciting news! Last Sunday we were supposed to do a bunch of carwashes because we were still missing a bunch of outreach fees and those people who didn't have all their money in couldn't start outreach with everyone else. On Christmas Eve at our breakfast we were still short about $10,000 and saw a little bit of movement over Christmas but we were still short thousands of dollars by Boxing Day. Then on Sunday (the 27th) just as my group was getting ready to do our carwash timeslot we received word that all our outreach fees had been paid! No one knows how or where the money came from, but we received about $10,000 in 3 days and everyone was able to start outreach on time! Plus we didn't have go carwashing, so it was SUPER exciting! So thank you for standing with us in prayer for our finances! And thank you to everyone who supported us through the trashathon and helped us to collect all of our outreach fees!

Speaking of prayer, now that we are on outreach we will need a ton of covering! It has only been one week, but we can feel the difference already. There have been major spiritual attacks on our team this week, and everyone is feeling the fatigue from the increased pace and workload of outreach. We need prayer that we will adjust quickly to all the changes and that our bodies will adapt to the changes in our routine as well. We also need continual prayer for health as outreach is notorious for bringing illness upon people especially once we get to Mexico and have to adjust to different food, climate, and even elevation! We also needed continued prayer for bonding as a team. Since everyone is on base together there is not much time with just our team where bonding can take place, but we also don't want to waste time trying to build our bond once we get to Mexico; we should be bonded already by then. Unity is really important for outreaches and is one area the enemy loves to attack! So with the odds already stacked against us because of the nature of this first month of outreach we need a lot of prayer for unity!

I think that pretty much wraps things up for now. As I have mentioned before I don't know how often I will be able to update my blog on outreach, but I will do my best to keep you all informed and let you know how you can continue to support me!