please remember to pray for team BANGLADESH

Things to Pray For:

Safe Flights: We leave for Thailand on December 10th. Then we leave for Bangladesh on the 18th. We come back February 19th. Recently there has been unrest at the airports in Thailand. It is peaceful now but pray that it stays that way.

Unity for our team. Bangladesh is a very oppressed country towards women. Please pray that this does not affect our team especially the girls.

Divine Appointments. Pray that God gives us wisdom on where to go and what to do. Pray that he gives us the words to say and speaks through us.

Good Communication is hard because of the language barrier. So please pray that God will find a way to communicate through us to share his truth.

Culture Shock. Pray that we adjust quickly to the culture and that we don’t get overwhelmed.

Pray for peace to come over us.

Health. Please pray for our health. That nobody gets sick during this time. Pray for protection over our bodies and immune systems. Pray that we always have a good attitude about things even in tough situations.

Safety during election time. On December 29^th Bangladesh is having elections. This hasn’t

happened in 7 years and is said to be very dangerous because of the protestors. Please pray for safety over our team especially during this time. Pray for peace to come over the nation and that any terrorist plan or act will be stopped.

Please pray for an openness of the people in Bangladesh. Pray that God will open their hearts to receive the words that He is speaking to them.

Pray that we get good rest and have energy to do the tasks that God wants us to do.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support. It really does make a difference. We appreciate it so much. We all can’t wait to get home and share with you in person the amazing stories of God working through us to share his love to the people of Bangladesh.

Thanksgiving weekend

As many Canadians know Thanksgiving in the US is a BIG deal. We celebrated by having a big dinner Wednesday night with the entire school - YUM! We had a 4 day weekend b/c of the holiday so a group of us rented a car. We drove the road to Hana which is a twisty 35 mile road along the ocean that has lots of beautiful waterfall stops along the way. At the end is a black sand beach, a red sand beach & the 7 sacred pools. The next morning we woke up at 3am & drove up to the top of haleakala, the biggest dormant volcano, to see the sunrise. We had great McDonalds breakfast after. We were planning on going to the beach after but it started to rain :( so we went to see Australia instead - AMAZING!! Overall is was an awesome weekend. Here are some pics & more can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2388970&l=8b98b&id=48904047

Flying out Wed!

Here's my flight schedule for the next few months:

Wed. Dec. 10 @ 6:04am Maui, HI TO Honolulu, HI TO Tokyo Narita, Japan TO Taipei, Taiwan TO Bangkok Suvarnabh, Thailand Arrive @ 1:10am Fri. Dec. 12

Thurs. Dec. 18 Bangkok to Dhaka

Wed. Feb. 18 @ 1:40pm Dhaka TO Bangkok TO Taipei, Taiwan TO Honolulu, HI TO Maui, HI Arrive @ 8:57am Thurs. Feb. 19

vintage 21

2 weeks ago our speaker spoke on our identity in Christ. He spoke on who Jesus is and his life on earth. We discussed how big & important the challenge is to represent Jesus in the world b/c of how many misconceptions there are about God. To illustrate this point he showed these hilarious videos created by the church vintage21 on what many parts of the world think Jesus is like. I think they are super funny but be warned you could find them offensive. Also this is NOT who Jesus is; the videos were created to show how corrupted the worldview is of who Jesus actually is. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQeFG6Q87uA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAb8qoXraGw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCTAgxsLE3Q&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hUaMahxXi8&feature=related

Baptisms - with video!

Thurs. Nov. 13 our group went up to IAO Valley to do Baptisms. It's an amazing park with a dormant volcano & waterfalls. I was baptized along with 9 other students. You can check out my baptism video on youTube @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rYZsO0U0uE

Wondering why i did this? Baptism illustrates a believer’s identification with Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. The action of being immersed in the water illustrates being buried with Jesus. The action of coming out of the water pictures Jesus' resurrection. As my friend Chris Lopez put it "It's outward expression of an inward experience" Basically it public shows that I'm following Jesus.

VIDEOS

check out these videos that my creative friend Gus made. They capture some moments from the DTS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAMXETxRzHc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRMq5uVjjZg

Blessings!

The boys on my team to Bangladesh surprised all the girls on the team with brunch! They even dressed up & served us! They are so nice! After brunch the guys washed our feet to show they are here to serve us & work with us on Outreach just as Jesus did for his disciples to show his willingness to serve them. They then gave us encouraging cards with their prayers for us on them. :)

FUN IN THE SUN

A few weeks ago a bunch of us helped out at a Maui marathon called Xtera. We were on the road at 5:30am heading to the south side. After the race Amy, Christin & I went to hang out (or maybe it was sneak in) at any amazing hotel called the Grand Wailea with gorgeous pools & hot tubs. Then on Sunday we went to twin falls where there are waterfalls & rope swings to jump into a natural spring water pond. 2 weekends ago we had a base wide "marathon" where we ran from our place in Haiku to another base in Paia which is 11.4km away. & I ran it & as most of you know this is a big thing for non-athletic me! Last week we went to Big Beach which is on the South side of the island. It’s of course beautiful but really touristy.

PICTURES -- http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2379515&l=9a774&id=48904047 -- http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2379478&l=64439&id=48904047

Lecture update :)

Oct 13-17 we did a week on relationships which was surprising enlightening for both the guys & girls. We had an amazing speaker named Abbie who’s gone through a ton of stuff in her life included loosing her husband after two years of marriage; she has so much wisdom & discernment.

Then we did a week (Oct 20-24) called New Hearts which was taught by an amazing couple - Vince & Lesa. Vince & Lesa were the Maui base directors for 7 years & have recently moved back to Alabama. They came over to Maui with their family – 3 girls, 1 boy & Grandma who all helped out. The week really brought to light issue from our past. Vince & Lesa taught us about surrendering people, events & issues from our past & present over to God & how to accept his healing. I’d never really contemplated how much we hold on to small things from our past & how they shape the person we are now. We often think we have it all under control ourselves. Vince, Lesa & family also helped out with our outreach prep teaching us dramas that we can use on our outreaches & filling us with advice from their 30 years of Missions work. They are such an amazing family who took the entire week to pour completely in to us.

Oct 27-31, which was also media fast week, was a Bible overview. The base director Tom Osterhuss was our lecturer. He concentrated on the Old Testament, discussing the covenants & prophecies of Jesus. He really enlightened me about how the Old Testament was recorded 1000’s of years before Jesus came to earth & there are 332 prophecies that were written down about the birth, life & death of the Messiah & Jesus fulfills each & everyone one. Plus these prophecies were very specific for example the prophet Zechariah predicted that the Messiah would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver & when Judas gave info to the soldiers about Jesus’ whereabouts they paid Judas 30 pieces of silver. This just blew my mind that people were writing down predictions & claiming they were from God & then they actually ALL happened by someone who claimed to be God. It’s just amazing how big this world is & how little I know.

Last week (Nov 3-7) was on leadership & what it means to be a servant leader. Last week was also the US election & it was really neat to be in the US for it. Our base did a 24hr fast & pray from Mon to Tues. I loved that I was able to be apart of such a historic moment.

This week we have a couple from Texas speaking on Identity in Christ.

media fast!

Sorry it’s been a few weeks since I last wrote. Things have been pretty hectic around here, busy schedules with some heavy stuff. PLUS 2 weeks ago (last week of Oct) we went on week long corporate media fast. Meaning no computers, music, tv, movies & cell phones. Not the must fun but we did hang out together a lot more & learned how we turn to them for comfort instead of God or each other. I’ve leaned it’s a good thing to check in with ourselves & see if we can go without things in our lives. More to come but my internet is being cut of ...

LOVE 146

This morning in intercession we prayed for the trafficking and rape of children for profit. This is one of the most horrific offenses that is taking place in our world right now. My heart broke for these children who are sold & made into prostitutes at the age of 4 or even younger. This morning we watch an eye opening video made by the organization Love 146 who work towards the abolition of child sex trafficking and exploitation. Here is the video link: http://www.love146.org/media_player.asp?type=large&messageID=9691 ... you will not be the same after you see this video.

I really felt compelled to share this with all of you as it moved me so much this morning. So if you can pray for these young innocent children you'll be making a difference in their lives. thanks. www.love146.org

UPDATE!

We just found out that we get to go to THAILAND for 6 days before we head off to our separate locations. All 3 groups are flying to Thailand for 6 days to do prep in Bangkok & then we will split up. woo hoo! & for everyone who's been to Bangkok let me know how it is!

SEEK TRUTH

This past week was on Worldviews which discussed how we view the world around us and TRUTH. I wanted to share something I learned from the week because it really sums up my world view for my entire life up until last year. Wil the lecturer (who looks like a Harley Davidson biker) had an interesting point. I use to be a person who said “everyone can believe what they want to believe as long as it’s not hurting anyone. Why should you tell someone how to live their life?” Basically what I was saying is that all truth is relative or that there are no absolute truths. But could I be absolutely sure that there are no absolute truths? I just cancelled out what I said earlier that there are no absolute truths. & if everyone can believe what they want, can someone believe that they can shoot you? Before I would have responded “no, you can believe what you want as long as you’re not hurting anyone.” HOLD UP where did that rule come in? & where did that rule come from? I had never even though about this statement I constantly made for 22 years. I put my western worldviews onto my previous believes without even thinking about what I was saying or that the foundations of most of these believes are Christian. Two people cannot always be right with what they believe (ex Jesus said he is the only way to Heaven & a Hindu person says the world is just an illusion); someone has to be wrong with what they believe. After thinking about this I just feel so ignorant to the fact that I never even really questioned my worldview or if what I was saying made any logical sense. I feel in the west we’re so open to accepting what others believe that we feel bad for questioning them & we don’t even question what our worldviews are based on (ex why is it bad to shoot someone, why should you be nice to people?) but TRUTH is important and knowing the TRUTH of your life and why you believe what you believe is essential if you don’t want to live in ignorance to the rest of the world and allow others to tell you what you believe, like I did for so many years. SEEK TRUTH

80's what what

This week was really different b/c we had lecturers on inductive bible study. Last week was more self reflective where this week was a lot more like school. We had an awesome speaker named Paul who is a former YWAM Maui student & he gave us lots of amazing ways to get more our of our bibles. It was also neat b/c we were with the School of Biblical Studies & Missions, another YWAM school that is taking place at a base just down the road from us. We all met at a church in Haiku called Hope Chapel for the lectures.

It was also a great week because we went to Lahaina & Kaanapali beach on the West side of the island which is the more touristy section. First we rented surfboards in Lahaina & we actually all got up! Then we headed to Kaanapali beach where you can cliff jump off of black rock & snorkel in the most amazing water! There are fish & sea turtles swimming all around you, so beautiful! After the group went back to Paia & met up with more people for some yummy crepes :) We hitched home & it was the craziest one so far! The guy was driving all over the road, a bit freaky. Don’t worry he was just having fun & usually the hitches are really nice locals with neat stories.

We also had a bonfire on base this week, went body surfing at P-bay in Paia, went shopping @ Queen K mall and had a crazy 80’s party that everyone got super dressed up for. Plus every Sunday night we head into walmart/starbucks/borders (chapters) for a town run so the students can pick up things they need. We are kept super busy at this base!

Tomorrow we start a week on worldviews.

More pics @ http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=43227773&l=e68b2&id=48904047 & http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2362955&l=cf654&id=48904047

WEEK 2

It’s the official end of our first week of lectures & boy has it been a week! Each week a new speaker comes to the base to give lectures on a specific topic. This week our guest speaker was Maria Daughtry a brilliant lady who’s been with YWAM for almost 15 years. She’s had an extremely eventful life & has amazing stories to share about God’s grace in her action-packed life. This week lectures were on “Hearing God’s voice”. I guess I wasn’t complete sure what to expect from lectures but this blew any ideas I had out of the water. We were learning & questioning our lives in ways I had never even thought about. The week was learning about our amazing God’s character, about the true meaning of what salvation brings to each believer and the power in following God’s voice (now by voice I don’t necessarily mean audible voice. It could be a verse in the bible, a song, nature, a vision or lots of other things that God speaks to you through). The lectures were also fascinating as Maria prayed for many of the students & was able to really open them up to God’s plan for their life.

This week we also began intercession, which we will be doing twice a week. Intercession is when you stand in the gap between others or country, praying & pleading on their behalf. Now I’d never even heard of this & was a little clueless to how you pray for a country or person you know nothing about. However as we learned the power of praying for others & standing in the gap & taking the arrows being thrown at them I started to realize what an amazing privilege it is that I even have the power to do this. We’ve only had 2 intercession times so still lots to figure out but I am super excited to see how it all unfolds.

We also had a few meetings with our outreach teams to get to know each other & our countries a bit better.

It’s my bunk-mate Amy’s birthday on Sunday so tomorrow (Saturday) a few of us are heading over to the South side of the island to the town of Lahaina to go surfing, shopping & go out for dinner.

"Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you all the desires of your heart" Psalm 37:4

outreach locations revealed

We were given the choice of 3 spots for outreach - We were given less then 24 hours to pray about it & decide where to go without talking to anyone else. My gut reaction was Bangladesh because of its high population of Muslims (85%). After taking an Islamic studies course, in my last year at York U, I have such a heart for the religion & how they live. SO … I am going to BANGLADESH! A team of 10 students & 2 leaders will be taking off the first week of December to pour out to the nation of Bangladesh for 3 months. As of now we are unsure of where we'll be staying or exactly what we'll be called to do, these details will be worked out over the next couple months!
My team consists of:
Jill from Seattle
Amber from Pittsburgh
Ellisiv from Norway
Tara from Vancouver
Christin from Nashville
Grant from Minnesota
Paul from Australia
Chris from Washington (state)
Kyle from Minnesota
Brandon from Florida
Rachel from all over the US
& me!

A FEW DETAILS ON BANGLADESH:

- Declared Independence from Pakistan on March 26, 1971

- Bounded by India from the North. East and West by the Bay of Bengal & Myanmar from the South.

- 7th most densely populated nation in the world (130 million ppl)

- Muslim 85%, Hindu 14%, Buddhist 1%. Christianity is only .4%!

- The national sport of Bangladesh is Kabadi: a 7-a-side team sport
played without a ball or any other equipment. Taking turns, a player must try and tag a player from the opposing team, without taking a breath.

- Bangladesh remains among the poorest nations in the world with nearly half of the population living on less than 1 USD a day- Cox's Bazar, in the south, has a beach that stretches uninterrupted over 120 kilometres, making it the longest unbroken beach in the world.

-Rickshaws in Bangladesh cover 29,000,000 million km a day (twice the distance covered by the London Underground).

- The official language is Bangla, also known as Bengali

- The left hand is considered unclean so only EAT (yup eating with my hands), pass dishes or drink with the right hand

- Currency is the Taka.

- Bangladesh is a parliamentary democracy with Islam as the state religion.

Schedule

Here's my schedule for my 3 months in Maui:
Monday
7am – breakfast
7:45am – leave for worship
8am – worship
9:30am – chapel talks
10am – lecture
12:30pm – lunch
1:30pm – work duties (hospitality)
5pm – dinner
6pm – house meeting/cleaning
7pm – lecture
9pm – Base quite time
Tuesday
7am – breakfast
8am – missions moments
9am – quiet time
10am – lecture
12:30pm – lunch
1:30pm – community outreach
5pm – dinner
6pm – DTS intercession
7pm – growth group
9pm – Base quite time
Wednesday
7am – breakfast
8am – apologetics/basic Christianity
9am – quiet time
10am – lecture
12:30pm – lunch
1:30pm – outreach prep
5pm – dinner
9pm – Base quite time
Thursday
7am – breakfast
8am – base intercession
9am – quiet time
10am – growth group
12:30pm – lunch
1:30pm – work duties
5pm – dinner
7pm – lecture
9pm – Base quite time
Friday
7am – breakfast
8am – base worship
9:30am – chapel talks
10am – lecture
12pm – processing
12:30pm – lunch
5pm – dinner
9pm – Base quite time

Exodus duh … duh … duh

Saturday night was the official kick off of the Discipleship Training School (DTS) & of the School of Biblical Foundations for Missions (SBFM). We got dressed up & headed into a church in the town of Haiku for a reception. It was a great way to meet everyone & to see who was staffing what & what everyone’s roles are. In the DTS there are 28 students – 11 boys & 18 girls. We have 8 staff 4 boys, 4 girls. Near the end of the reception all the DTS students were handed a piece of paper that said to pack 1 pair of long pants, one pair of short pants, 1 shirt, 1 sweatshirt, 1 pair of runners, 1 pair of sandals, 3 pairs of underwear, 1 pair of socks, bathing suit, camera, sunscreen & sleeping bag (& this included what you were wearing).
We were told to be ready by 6:30am. At 6:30 we were up and eating a pancake breakfast – YUM! We then all pilled into the vans, driven to a park, split into teams & given a team egg. Each team had to create a name & cheer – TEAM OSCAR. Then we discovered what we were up to … a MAUI wide scavenger hunt where we had to hitchhike every where as a team! The rules were to take pictures of everything on the list with the team egg & be at IAO valley ball 12:30. Our team booked it around the island doing crazy things like handstands in church ground, putting Mumu’s on in Wal-Mart, building sandcastles & that’s just a few. Our team lucked out & hitched rides with awesome people who waited for us & actually drove us to multiple locations. We arrived 1 hour before deadline & won the race!
In IAO valley we had our packed PJ sandwich lunch & did an hour of quite time. From the valley we piled into the cars & waited to see where we were taken. We stopped at a horse ranch where we walked down to a “campsite” on a cliff by the ocean. We all proceeded to make a campsite some people got fired wood, some set up the tarps for sleeping & others made our bathroom (eww!). We quickly discovered that we were not sure how long we were going to be stuck on exodus, that we were only eating oatmeal & Chinese noodles the entire time & we could not swim in the ocean b/c the waves were too big. Thankfully our exodus was only 2 nights, 3 days but let me tell you it was hard. We played icebreaker games & one of the afternoons walked to an amazing rock garden where we could swim. It was also great b/c we were able to hear everyone’s testimonies which was such a blessing. However a lot of the time was sitting around hungry! Plus there were HUGE centipedes that came out a night - so gross! The last afternoon the leaders got us all to play duck, duck, goose but with pouring mud instead of patting the head, this just ended in a huge mud fight. We were all convinced that we were leaving after this but the leaders were trying to trick us into believing we were changing camp sites. They went as far as to go to another beach have us all pile out with our bags then say there was a mix up & we have to go to a local church for dinner & to figure out where we will stay the night. At this point we were filthy, exhausted & so hungry (see pics). We were not impressed. When we arrived at the church, upset, we entered & all the staff was there with a huge feast for us. It was amazing!
Over all we learned tons about each other & tons about how great we have it on base. But I don’t want to do it anytime soon! See all the pics here -- http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2364620&l=47a60&id=48904047 Plus more pics are posted here -- http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2362955&l=cf654&id=48904047

phone number & mailing address

Mailing Address: Paia: PO Box 790237, Paia, HI 96779
UPS & FedEx ONLY: 1920 Haiku Rd. Haiku, HI 96708

house number: 808-575-9463
Office: 808-575-9460
Fax: 808-575-9476

Arrived!

All my flights were good. I had a an extra 2 hours in San Fran but while i was waiting I actually met a girl who was coming to YWAM also. We were picked up at the airport by a few staff memebers & then drove back along the gorgeous ocean to the base.

The base is great, super relaxed, a little messy and filled with awesome people for ALL over the world. The room I sleep in is a bit crazy because it's 18 girls in the one room with bunk beds that are three beds high. I luckily am on the bottom of a bunk! My bed is beside a girl from Winnipeg and her name is actually Amy! The school officially starts tomorrow evening so Thurs & Fri people were arriving & settling in. Since I arrived Thursday & I was able to unpack right away I had all of Friday free.

There was a group worship service at 8 am & then a few girls & I went to the beach. The beach is about a 10min drive from the base. There are a few beaches (obviously!) today we went to Baby Beach which is just outside of the town of Paia. & you will never guess who we saw there …. Chris Noth (Mr. Big from sex and the city) so random. He was there with his fam & just strolling around. Also a few people from the base ran in to Owen Wilson in Paia a couple days ago. Apparently Im living in a secret celeb getaway spot. The area im in is quite secluded & not very touristy. There was only about 10-15 people on the beach. But so beautiful, it’s exactly as you picture Hawaii. Also to get back from the beach to the base we had to either take a bus or hitchhike & so of course we did as the Hawaiians & hitchhiked! Such a cool thing to do; just sitting in the back of a pickup driving beside the blue ocean.

Saturday we all woke up super early (6am) and went out and played a game of volleyball. Then a few girls went in to the beach again. Tonight is the official opening night. We will be going into the Haiku church for the opening night party. It's exciting that we will be able to meet & see everyone involved with the DTS. Images don't want to seem to load on here so you can check out pictures at this link - http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2362955&l=cf654&id=48904047

Taking off!

For those of you who aren't exactly sure what I'm running off to Hawaii to do here's a short rundown of what I've signed up for (& it's not just a beach party). OR if you'd rather see it visualy you can check out the youTube video -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIcPfueUCxQ

I am doing Youth With A Mission’s Discipleship Training School in Maui, Hawaii(http://www.ywammaui.com/) My program begins Sept. 13 & runs until Feb. 27, 2009. I will be spending 3 months on the north shore of Maui in a small town called Haiku & will spend another 3 months in another nation which will probably be South East Asia.

The first three months are called “lecture phase” in which staff and visiting speakers teach on evangelism, world missions, spiritual warfare, Bible study, prayer, worship, Biblical counselling, relationships, and Christian identity and perspectives. I will attend lecture seminars, and be involved in studies, small groups, local outreaches, community service projects, sports and recreational activities, share in work responsibilities and receive personal discipleship and counselling.

The second part of the program is a field assignment known as “outreach” where I will travel with a small team overseas. I will be putting into practice what I have learned, doing hands-on missions work which may include street evangelism, “open air” crusades, counselling, music, performing arts, children’ ministries, first aid/medical assistance, teaching, construction, and church/community service projects. Outreach destinations are not finalized until after the school is in progress.

If you can spare 3min I highly encourage you to check out YWAM Maui’s promo video on youTube -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIcPfueUCxQ
It’s an amazing video that shows the heart of YWAM Maui and shows you what is expected of me while I am away.

Thanks so much for all the amazing support & encouragement as I was getting ready to leave.
I will be sure to post pics & info as soon as i arrive & get internet.

Ash