Some of my Favorite Photos

GYO

The greatest conference of all time! The youth were so on fire,the worship was intense and lives were ultimately changed forever....what else could you ask for??

The conference consisted of worship each morning, lectures and seminars all aimed at helping the youth understand their calling and purpose in the kingdom of God. We had an amazing time together praising God with our Hawaiian and Samoan musicians from Perth. Our international dance team performed powerful hula and tribal New Zealand dances and everyone had fun. We also saw many salvat.ions and lives changed at the realization of what J-esus did for them. I learned a lot as well and was so blessed by how much God showed up and how the spirit moved throughout the four days. On the fourth day we went out for the "Day of Compassion," in which we lead teams of students into the slum areas and to bring love and practical aid to the people. The students really stepped it up and there were salvat.ions and healin.gs!! My team went into a mostly Musli.m area and met some wonderful people. We met a woman who had 34 grand children and 14 great grandchildren! She lived in a home with four families and she herself cared for 5 of the children because their mother had died. We were invited into her home and we played games with the children and had a lot of fun! At the end, we were able to pray for her and she squeezed my hand very hard the entire prayer. Even though I believe she was Musli.m she knew I was Chri.stian and still invited me back. We took alot of pictures and I said that I would love to visit again. We were also able to pray for babies and just create relationship within that slum. It was a real learning time for the students to see that they can be used in their community to reach out and change their nation! It was beautiful and we had a time of celebration that night with everyone. (there were about 1500 people at the conference.)

A little more Info.....

So I'm here and it has been two crazy weeks. Indonesia is an incredible place. The people are very sweet and fascinated by westerners. I am quite popular because of my supposed "long nose," which they seem to love. The children are gorgeous and there are very many babies. When we arrive we were quite culture shocked. The city is so huge! 12-13 million people on just one part of an island! SO you can imagine that there is a lot of pollution unfortunately. On the first night off the plane, we came outside into 100% humidity and it looked like it was raining. I thought it was mist but we quickly found out that it was just that the pollution is that thick. It's not just a haze, its a full on fog basically. The smells and sites during our hour long bus ride at 2 a.m. was a wake up call to, "wow, we're not in a western nation anymore, are we?" Twenty of us live at the back of a mechanics garage in two duplexes. We have one regular shower and one "bucket shower." If you're wondering what a bucket shower is, its exactly what it sounds like. Luckily we have a western toilet but in many places our only option is a squatty potty. (Also exactly what it sounds like.) The first time using one of those, we lets just say, was interesting. haha Our first week here we finished up the rest of our lecture phase and did a full bible read through. We drove to the place were we will be doing most of our minis.try and took shifts reading in a small church one of our translators was kind enough to put us up in. The drive over there (our first taxi experience) was an eye opener! They do not obey traffic lights or white lines....they use their horn. And i think everyone owns a motorcycle or moped. Its wild!! Death is close every time haha They actually amaze me how close they get to accidents approximately every 20 seconds without actually getting into one. It is sort of like being in Grand Theft Auto or on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Always an adventure. After we were finsihed with lectures and bible reading, we prepared for GYO which stands for Global Youth Outreach. It's a conference that my base was putting on for the Indonesian Youth to mobilize them into their nation and other nations for God. It was INCREDIBLE!! I'll write about it in my next blog down........------>>>> KEEP READING :0)

Here I am in Indo

So I made it! I'm here and I have already gotten some great shots and met some beautiful people! Everyone is very hospitable and God is really moving here! Loves to all! And please pray for our safety and our impact on this amazing Nation!

What God is Showing Me

God has been really humbling me before Him and honestly it has been such a hard lesson to see how prideful I am. I let my pride get in the way of almost anything God wants to tell me. Sometimes when I get to worship on Monday mornings and I just don't feel like worshipping I have to look at myself and ask, if I really believe that God is the creator of the universe, and that He saved my soul, then why don't I stand in awe of Him all the time? If I REALLY truly believed this with all my heart AND understood it, then I would want to be worshiping all day long. This whole teaching time has been a time of understanding though and as I have been learning more and more about who God ACTUALLY is, and not leaning on my own understanding, I am seeing how great He is TO be praised. I am seeing how I have let myself place blocks in my relationship with Him. HUGE blocks. I have allowed sins like pride, unforgiveness, resentment, ungratefulness etc etc get in the way of God speaking to me and of God being loved by me. Now, I am not saying this because I am sitting here in a place of condemnation of myself because I have also learned that thoughts of condemnation come from Satan. The devil wants us to believe that we are a disappointment to God, that no matter how hard we try, it will never be enough. When these are ALL LIES!! It's amazing how many things we take in our minds as truth and start living out of that are actually lies that were created to drive us away from the father. If I see these areas of sin in my life and feel conviction of them, it is simply God letting me know that He desires for me to let them go so that He can work in and through me. This even encompasses working through grief. Earlier this week I was struggling because I had been hearing God very clearly and then all of a sudden I felt like my quiet time wasn't getting much clarity from God. I could feel Him there but I was upset because He was not speaking to me! (or so I thought) So i brought this up to a friend of mine who I consider wise and she said that in times or seasons of her life when God is quiet or not seeming to give her direction, it usually means that He has given her sufficient things to work on at that moment and that she should focus on those. It was so true! God had given me enough on my plate to mill over, think about, and work through that I didn't need more revelation at that moment, I just needed to know He was there for me as I walked through it in faith.

Photos!

Here are a few Images I have taken since being in Perth!