This is officially my very last week of lecture phase. Only 3 days till we leave for outreach! I can't get my head around this, I mean all the anticipation for going on outreach has been building and building over the last 3 months and that was built on the excitement I had before I came here! Next week at this time, I will be in Kolkata, India!
Every week on DTS we have had journals that we had to write with a bunch of questions in relevance to the week. Which is fantastic because it gets us thinking of how we can actually apply the weeks teaching to our lives. Last week (week 11) we had our last journal entry to complete and one of the questions was 'Why do you think God brought you to DTS?' That question man! My answer was very lengthy... CRAZY! (You may have noticed I use the word crazy a lot, It's just emphasizing my enthusiasm haha). I have learned so much about myself, God and I didn't think I will be saying this but I learned a lot about the devil too. Man oh man have I learned about him and his evil schemes... but I also experienced what It's like to really be victorious and defeat him, of course I could not do it on my own, I have also learned that I cannot do anything without Jesus. There is nothing I can do in my own strength! I am completely dependent on Him. It will not work any other way, I have to keep putting myself in a position of complete surrender because I can't do any of it in my own strength. It is so discouraging when we look at ourselves... so small and insignificant! But when we fix our eyes on Him we all of a sudden have no limits, nothing is to great for Him, nothing is to big for my God, In Him I am more than a conquer!
It's going to be difficult on outreach, I'm not expecting an easy time. It's going to be really hard, however I belong to the King of Kings, My Father in heaven is far greater than any problem or circumstance. My heart is going to break I know that full well, but I also know that, the Lords heart breaks and hurts so much more over the brokenness in the world than anyone could ever comprehend, I'll only be sharing in the smallest fraction of His pain over His lost people. This guy that spoke a few weeks on evangelism made a really good comparison of what it is like when we go out and share the gospel. He compared it to someone really close to you that has children... now one of those children go missing... so you drop everything you are doing to help that person find their lost child, and you will not stop searching until that child is found. We should have the same mindset in our lives when we think of God's children. God's children are lost and we need to help God in finding them and bringing them home to Jesus. I really liked that comparison! Our main purpose in life as Christians is to tell people about Jesus, and to let our life be a testimony of His goodness. Whether we are in full time ministry, in the workplace, school or at home all of us have the same purpose, and that is to make Jesus famous.
I had wonderful weekend last weekend. It was very relaxing and I went shopping for a few outreach things, I almost have everything I need!I had a lovely pancake breakfast on Saturday morning with my awesome small group! Ahh the people in my small group are so cool!! They are so much fun to be around! I then went to a cafe on Saturday with a friend who is doing a second level school (Birth Attendant School) and we finished our last journal entry for the lecture phase. That was really nice, just to reflect on the time that we have been here and talk about all the things we have learned and all the areas we have grown in! Then on Sunday I went shopping for outreach stuff at an outlet mall in a place called water town!
Here's a few pictures of a trip to the beach we went on:


Last night was commissioning night and we all dressed up and got lots of pictures together. We were commissioned to go out preach the gospel to the nations! All the Discipleship Training Schools of the July quarter and one second level school all got together and shared a bit about what we have learned and the about the transformation that has taken place over the last three months, then we prayed for each other and our leaders. We have 5 Discipleship Training Schools in our quarter - The Music DTS, Sports DTS, Adventure DTS, Priceless DTS, and the Medical DTS. We also have the Birth Attendent School which is a secondary level school that trains up midwives for developing nations, theres a huge need for trained midwives in these nations! Most importantly God fearing midwives. Anyways, here is a photo of commissioning night!




Lecture Content:
We are learning about Relationships and unity this week! Which is perfect coming up to outreach. Our speaker is Peter Brownhill who pioneered YWAM Perth and is an amazing man of God. We have just been learning about the different things that can cause disunity in a group and looking at what Jesus' attitude was when serving others. Then we looked at the trinity and how the Father, Son and Holy Spirit operate so perfectly together in complete submission and deep love for one another, and that is how we "the church" and for us "our outreach team" should strive to be like! Theres so many things that can cause disunity, we did a bit of a vote in our class as to what we thought was the biggest things we thought caused disunity in a group was gossip and exclusiveness. There were plenty of other things, however, they were the biggest! We are very blessed as we have an incredible team of people who are very inclusive and love each other very much, however the real test will be on outreach. If the enemy can't get us from the outside he will try come on the inside and cause division, hes tricky like that. Buuuut, theres always lots of Buuuuts when it comes to Jesus, our God is so much bigger! It's hard to submit to one another and lie down our rights, and to serve one another and put others needs above our own, but that's the best way to function as the body of Christ and for us to be most effective! If we look at the life of Jesus we see that he humbled Himself and layed down his rights and selflessly served those around Him. It's a challenge... goodness me YES! However, God never promised easy. He did promise us that He will be our strength and that all things are possible through Him!
Prayer Requests:
SAFETY! I have asked for this in most of my blog posts but it would be really awesome if you could keep praying for God's protection over myself and my team while we are traveling and going to these developing nations. Also it would be awesome if you could pray for unity in our outreach teams and that we will follow Jesus example and be able to stay strong in that. Then maybe you could pray for the people in the nations we will be doing ministry in that their hearts will be softened to hearing the gospel and that each of us would be really in tune with the Holy Spirit and accomplish His purposes for this outreach, and to be lead by Him and only Him.
Thanks so much for all your prayers and support! You probably won't be hearing from me for a while as I mentioned in my last blog post that we will have very limited access to internet.
Bless you!