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