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!
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