Fighting the Good fight

WEEK 10
Two weeks away till I'll be leaving for outreach! Weeeeow it's starting to feel real now! We have got a lot more information on out outreach so that was exciting hearing more of the details. The first few weeks we will be learning to set up medical clinics and having training days on specific medical skills and we will also be doing some evangelism and running youth groups, and speaking in churches and all that kinda cool stuff. So lots of different things! I looked into getting a roaming plan over there, but it will cost me about $190 aussie dollars a month to do that, and there's not much point in getting an Indian sim card and another sim card in Bangladesh so I will only be able to get WiFi once a week. Hehe, what an experience... only WiFi once a week! I'm so spoilt in the western world!

 I have a redemption story to tell you all! But first I must tell how I got to that point of redemption (yes the story is about me haha)... I shall be really honest with you, this week has been a real struggle! For about four weeks I have been struggling alot with being anxious and worried about the unknown and ahh you name it I probably worried about it. I was worried about my future and whether I had heard God's voice right in the first place and I was going in the right direction, I was worried that I wasn't being pleasing enough to him, I was worried that I wasn't ever going to live up to the standards that were expected of me as a so called "good christian". I was worried about being in Gods will for me. I was worried also that God might ask me to leave my family forever and do something that would make me miserable. I was worried about what It would be like on outreach and whether I could handle it and fear of the unknown there. All this fear keep building up over the last four weeks and this week I couldn't handle it, It became far to much for me. I couldn't eat properly I felt so burdened and on top of all that I was intensely homesick. I felt as if I was in a pit and I couldn't get out. I was then worried about going on outreach and I said to Jesus that I couldn't possibly go on outreach when I was in this place of sadness and despair. I was also so frustrated that all these fears were robbing me of precious time I had in Perth and distracting me from my teachings and everything as I am only here for three months! Anyways last night I was at the end of my rope, and for our Friday night meeting a performing arts DTS from Kona Hawaii did a performance on the prodical son, it displayed the fathers love so incredibly! At the end of the service they asked everyone to bow their heads and close their eyes so that the people that hadn't experienced Jesus' love before could raise their hands and would get prayer. Anyways so during this time I had this vision kinda thing. Jesus came and knelt before me and said "Natalie, I haven't overlooked you, I love you just as much as all the rest of the people here and I want to show you my love just as much as I want to show the people that haven't experienced my love before, I'm not going to let you go on outreach feeling like this." Then he put His hand on my heart and I felt the love of the father so greatly, He then took my dream of becoming a nurse and my family and said "I am not taking these from you, but I am taking all your worry and stress over them, I will carry them for you, it wasn't meant for you to have to carry alone." Then he held them close to his heart and said that he was going to always keep them close to his heart. Then he stood to his feet and put his hand on my head and said "I cast out all fear and replace it with my perfect peace." After that I felt him so close to me and he showed me a picture of me walking down a street in India and he was standing right next to me, He then reassured me that this closeness that I felt now is what its going to feel like that whole time I was in India and that he would never leave my side and he would protect me. How incredible is that??? God is so amazing!!!!

I was very much under attack from the enemy over the last little while but I know that I am more than a conquer in Christ. His perfect love drives out all fear. He didn't give me a spirit of fear but of Love power and a sound mind. There is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. The scripture is so powerful! One scripture that really stood out to me this week was Genesis 3:1 - (Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?") It made me realize just another way Satan attacks... recently he was constantly questioning my every move... "Does God actually want you to do that? are you sure you heard right?", "Maybe you heard wrong." I'm not falling for it anymore! Nope, Jesus has already won the battle! I am on the winning side!
This video by Jefferson Bethke really helped me with this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klhh2o88jAs

Jesus is so loving in all his ways, he loves us more than we could ever imagine we must never loose sight of that!

I am so thankful for all my friends here at DTS, they have all been so good for me, all praying for me and taking me out for coffee dates and dinner dates trying to get my mind of things and missing my family. I am so blessed to be surrounded by such amazing people!

This week my dear friend Anette from Norway got engaged! It was so exciting! She is one of my fellow DTS classmates and her boyfriend came over from Norway because he was really missing her and popped the question! Oh it's so nice to have something to celebrate and be excited about! Totally lifted my spirits! Heres a photo of Her and I!



Another one of my friends Kassie and I decided to make the most of this weekend and to do some fun things! So yesterday morning we went out for brunch and went to see the movie War Room in the evening! It was so amazing! It was a movie done by the same directors as Fire Proof and Facing the Giants! I would totally recommend you to see it. It portrayed just how powerful prayer is and how we are in a battle and we need to fight the good fight! Our fight is not against flesh but of the powers of darkness, we are more than conquers in Christ! Jesus promises to fight for us, He is for us completely and he has already won it all! We just need to commit to letting him fight for us and surrendering our worries and everything to Him, we cannot do anything in our own strength. That is something I'm learning more and more!



We got our visa photos this week and these photos made me laugh so much, I just had to share them, Embarrassing as they may be.


We have also had quite a few nice days this week! Getting up to 30 degrees :D So nice for spring time!


Lecture Content:
This weeks topic was on Evangelism! Which was very good! I was really looking forward to this week. Just learning the importance of sharing the gospel with others and not keeping our incredible God to ourselves but to share him with as many people as we possibly can. That can look different how we share Him depending on what we are doing and who we are sharing Him with! It might not always look like going up to people on the streets and asking them if they know Jesus, there are many different ways of evangelizing to people. I feel much more confident in talking to people about my faith now and I'm sure I will just get more confident in it as we will be doing a lot of evangelism on outreach. It can be quite awkward at times and it feels very un-natural but we came to the conclusion in class that the worse thing that could possibly happen in evangelism is that we get rejected and we can deal with that I mean Jesus was rejected, he understands and can help us get over that haha. It's better that we try than not try right! Because we don't know, that person that we didn't go up to because we were afraid of rejection could have accepted Christ or was wanting to know more or had ask God to send someone. We don't really know what the outcome will be unless we try. It also takes the pressure off to know that God is the one that does all the work, we just have to be obedient to His promptings and to deliver the message of Christs love. We could talk to someone until we are blue in the face but they aren't going to believe if they haven't experienced Christs love right.

Prayer Requests:
This week it would be really cool if you could pray for me to get the most out of my last two weeks of lecture phase and to not be fearful of anything haha. Also just for protection as my team and I go to India and for the spiritual warfare that we will be up against.

Thank you for reading my blog! Bless you!