a struggle in the process... remembering Julie

Last week in the midst of my thursday I heard some terrible news. A friend that I had reconnected with, a few months before I left for Australia, died in a tragic death at the Temperance River.

The last 7days have been rough. I've struggled with many thoughts... such as... I didn't know her as long as some, why am I so upset? Of course I'm upset, she was an amazing woman who connected with others and was intentional about where she invested her time. I was honored to be invested in, and invest in her in return.

As I type this, images of her run through my mind. I think we connected on a deep level without even having loads of deep conversations. I just knew she cared about our friendship and where it was going... I think we both knew that it was going to be long lasting. I think that's where the hit comes so hard, I was so looking forward to spending time getting to know her more. We were supposed to counsel together in a couple of weeks at the jr high Angel Tree camp, which happened to be held at the same camp we both counseled at back in the summer of 1999. At that time, as I've been sharing with others lately, Julie and I never really spoke much and the only reason I can come up with is because my best friend was counseling with me that summer. I really wish the circumstances back then were different, but in this last year it was our joke that "we never spoke back then, not a word."

Switching topics for a moment... you notice that this isn't an "aussie tale"... but it has definitely affected my journey of processing DTS... as it should, it's just hard.

I brought up a question or struggle last night as I was posting on a wall of a friend on facebook... i said,

"i've wrestled sometimes with knowing what/how to pray... except for comfort and peace. sometimes, truthfully(- using in tribute to julie) i tire of praying it over and again, i want there to be something else to say".

And also, truthfully there are more words to say to my God in heaven, my abba father, but the words are just my struggle and i want to have words that feel like they are "helping" in some way or something. I know God knows my heart, and he's not interested in my exact wording... I guess just showing up is even enough sometimes. But then, sometimes I struggle saying "I'm praying for you, or my prayers are with you" to others because in this specific situation I really don't have the words to pray. Can you pray for others without words? Or maybe it's that I really don't give it as much thought, i give up with the words. i don't know... just processing this as i type. any thoughts out there?

I'm going to post this on my "Random Thoughts with Lisa" blog as well. I suppose it's time to go back to that one. But, I may still write more on this one from time to time about job updates or new revelations of what this new time in life is revealing.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings tonight.

not the last

so, i guess that last post wasn't the last you'll hear from me. i don't have a lot of time now, but the question lately for me has been, "what are you doing now that you're back, and don't have a job yet?" my first reaction is always "um... well... " pause to think of what interesting thing I can say because the job search was quite depressing.... and then I'd say something like "i've been meeting up with friends a lot... looking for coffee shop jobs... and then go into the story of how the economy stinks and it's hard to find something right now.

all of that usually came out because behind all of that answer is this huge feeling of guilt, that i should have a job and be occupying my time in the meantime with long lists of many things i've accomplished in my spare, jobless time.

i had a chat with my parents a week and a half ago... they reminded me and affirmed that it's okay that i don't have a job yet. and that was really helpful... and today i was again affirmed that yes, Lisa, enjoy this time you have now. so, this is me doing my best to make the best of my days, yet not be burdened to "do" things.. just to "do" them.

i want to be available for people and help out where i can because i want to, not because i feel like i should. i want to ask God who/what/where He may want me to be present to the next day, and maybe it's just being present to Him... and just alone with Him.

all that said, one of the wonderful things i've been doing is watching my nieces and nephew. every now and again we(my parents and i) have them overnight. for some reason, my youngest 15mos old niece decides she can't sleep all through the night on some of these nights. it only makes sense for me to be with her since im not working, so i've had a taste of sleepless nights with child in toe(or in arms in this case). she will fall asleep in my arms while rocking, but won't stay asleep when set in crib... chairs are not comfortable, so if she doesn't go down after a half hour i bring her to my bed and "sleep" with her by my side and her hand nudging my chest every once and again or her foot in my stomach.
i've also been reading books to my older niece and nephew... it's fun. and interesting because i've been reading a classic, "Where the Sidewalk Ends" by Shel Silverstien, and in reading realizing how some of them are really not very uplifting. i'm not an english major, so i don't have an awesome word to describe them, but i was definitely surprised as i was reading them aloud. If I didn't catch it when I was younger, I guess I can only hope the same happens with them... they'll get the good and funny stuff out of it and drop the rest.

Three Weeks at home... already!?!

(Grad dress... a bit better pic of it, although

still not my fave cuz it puckers in an awkward spot, but owell.)

The title for this post was originally "two weeks home..." and this week just flew by without taking time to sit and type. My original plans for tonight and tomorrow changed, so I have some time now to sit and think about how to write one last post.

ooh, wow... I just got this tinge of saddness wave over me... the same one I had when I finally purchased my cell phone on thursday. It's these steps that make the experience more and more distant. It's still hard to put into words... it's like closure is happening and I want it, but don't want it.

Closure seems like the wrong word because of the finality of it, but really I am ending the YWAM part of my life... or the DTS part of my life. I don't know if I'll join with YWAM again, but really once a YWAMer always a YWAMer whether I'm active or not. So... yes.... closure... the end... BUT a new beginning as well.... so..... here we go.... I am going to give you my promised "update" from a couple days at the end that I didn't really follow up with... sorta seems silly at this point, but owell... maybe it will help me continue to the "closure"... haha.

Okay... So, that last week... on tues and wed. morning my outreach team ate breakfast together... the same kind we'd have when we were in Czech, dark breads, fruit, veggies, and yummy coffee... it was fun to come together again after our aussie outreach and have fun together. Wednesday afternoon/evening my small group met one last time and made chocolate cookies together. We ate cookie dough and laughed and just had a good time with each other... then at dinner we ate together in the community room and ate the freshly baked cookies... we talked and reminisced of our fun times over the last months. One thing is for sure, our small group really knew how to have fun and laugh with each other!

Mary-Kate and I.... Jules and Kayti... mmm... coooookie dough....


This is a picture taken from Mt. Cootha, a look-out over Brisbane. We came here as a school on thursday night as one last "hurrah"... or just one last outing and fun time as a school... just the school, no parents or staff/students who weren't involved in MAD. It was fun, except we had to go in two different groups, and we weren't altogether for the whole time. Following the time at the look-out we had a "dance party" and then a slide-show and some songs that some of the musicians had planned to perform during graduation. Although, there were too many apparently and it had to be cut out, so they played them for us on this night instead.

Up at Mt. Cootha.. (upper) me and Hannah-Claire... (lower) me and Laura!



Me with some wonderful "staff"/friends(upper).... (lower) laura, senja (j=y), Pauliina and Heikki

hmmm... what else... i think that's kind of it... oh, maybe briefly share about AFTER graduation. Well, the big thing was to go out to a "chill-club/bar" and have drinks and dance, if that was your thing. The info we got on this club was that it wasn't your typical dance-club techno packed type place. The thing we forgot about was that it was ANZAC day, which is like our memorial day. Everyone was out that night and partying because, well.. it was a holiday. Needless to say, it wasn't the "cool chilled out" place we thought. I actually went to this coffee shop called "The 3 Monkeys" before going to the club, which was nice to relax. Although, when we decided to meet up with the others at the bar, they were done with the club because it wasn't what they were expecting. The groups were going in different directions, one to the coffee place again and another to a place called "the valley." I decided to go to the valley, in which there were bars with dancing, etc. It was an adventure that normally isn't my "ideal scene" but fun none-the-less to do something out of the ordinary. I mean, come on, it was my last couple nights in the great land of Australia, I had to live it up! And, I did... ordered a white russian and was appalled by the price tag! Shouldn't have been a shocker though, when the cheapest beer in the city was $6/7! What ya gonna do? owell... I've got a story tell! :)
We found the cheapest deal in Brisbane though, a 1/4 slice of pizza for only 3bucks!! Now that, was shocking... i s'pose it's good business, keeping the drunks fed! haha... and the poor ywam missionaries! hahaha

I'm home... can't quite believe it.

This is Brisbane at Night... atop Mt. Cootha..



A long sigh of relaxation just came out of my mouth.

It is good to be home. (arrived sun. night, april 27)

Yet, it is hard to not be in Australia, with the people who I was surrounded by for 7 months.

The grass is always greener... You don't know what you've got until you loose it...

Those are things that have been running through my mind for the last week. I got home on Sunday night with a flood of emotion, even as I was walking to the elevator to get down to baggage claim. I saw Caribou Coffee and almost lost it... after travelling for over 24hours and having not been home for 7mos, your emotions are quite volatile. And, it's amazing how a laptop bag can gain in poundage after carrying it around in three airports. Needless to say, I was a bit exhausted.

The following days were filled with lots of sister, nieces and nephew time, as well as MUCH sleep. I developed a cold that hit me Wed. morning and couldn't be bothered by getting out of my bed much of the day. I called my mom at work to bring me some throat drops of some kind, and started nursing myself back to health with those, some fruits and veggies and lots of water and this new V8 Fusion stuff. Well, new to me atleast, it may be 6mos. old for all I know!

I haven't updated in awhile, I should back track and fill you in on the last weeks of my time in Aussie-land. I think I mentioned my parents came, and them driving on the left side of the road drove me a bit crazy. :)

It's almost hard to recall those last two weeks. We didn't do a whole lot, and actually, I wrote about Byron Bay that Saturday, and there really was only a week left after that, so I don't have much to update. It was a lot of time just spent at the base with my friends, spending time doing things together... all those "one last time" things.

We had lectures two more times with a man named Dave Way, and then had a few other morning lectures with the base director's wife, Jenni. Every morning we had a "chapel" time... worshipping and praying. To some, it would seem overkill because it was every day, but I think it was different and unique each time (and really we only did it 3 times as a school, monday and fridays were a bit different). The prayer times were most important, really seeking the Lord for peace and readiness as we headed back into life after DTS.
Friday was the big Graduation Day! Woo hoo... nothing was on the schedule except Worship and Intercession in the morning with the whole base. I found out the day before that a friend, Krista, and I had the same flight out of Brisbane to New Zealand and then NZ to LA. What an amazing blessing from God, especially for her as she is younger and her dad was just praying for good people to be sitting next to her on the flights. So, we went down to the phone after Intercession and confirmed our flights and had them cross-reference our information so we could get seats together.
My next plan of action was to get a pedicure done because my feet have been much neglected over the last 7 months, but because it happened to be ANZAC Day, everything was closed. If you don't know what it is (and I wouldn't expect you to), it's like Memorial Day for us... look it up if you want more details :). The rest of the day I spent finishing the last things to pack in the suitcase my parents were bringing home. At about 2pm, my small group all went to Mary Kate's place to get ready for the Graduation. The graduations are like formals or prom in the states, so everyone gets all dolled up and puts on fancy dresses. Tammy did my hair and I painted my fingers and toes, did my make-up etc. I was ready to put on the dress my parents brought from home, but was thoroughly disappointed to realize it didn't fit quite right anymore. The better thing would have been to try it on right away when they brought it, but I wasn't that smart. It didn't dawn on me that maybe after not wearing it for about 5years, it may be too small. The girls at the house tried to give me some options, but I just didn't feel comfortable with any of the suggestions, so I left and quickly made my way back to the base.
Upon getting back, I was pretty broken up inside, not knowing what to do and not wanting it to be a big deal. I searched through my clothes and threw on a skirt and tank top, knowing it wasn't that great compared to what everyone else had on. A couple of friends noticed and Hannah-Claire came through for me... without me even asking. What a life-saver, she had this white dress that looked great, and another sweet girl had a necklace that looked perfect. THANK THE LORD! Problem overted, and just in time!

Me and Ing (my 1:1) and the dress! :)

The graduation was really surreal, it really didn't hit me that we were done, until I got home, I think, actually! It was a good time of eating and chatting and getting our certificates, etc. I won't go into detail because it isn't that exciting for those who weren't there.

I will post more later.... there are some more stories of after graduation party and I also remembered the night before graduation, there's a little bit to tell about our last night as just our school together.
It's just WAY late in the night... I meant to have this done an hour earlier, but my ipod was and still is acting up. Anyone have suggestions of what to do if your iPod doesn't respond to anything and is stuck on the "Do not disconnect" screen?? None of apple's suggestions work for my situation... grrrrrrrrrrr.

I've been reflecting and processing a lot today. Before the end of the week, our school leaders will be meeting with each of us students to process some and discuss what we'll be doing next etc. I met with Leah (obviously, one of the school leaders) today and had a chance to think back a bit about the things I've learned and why God brought me here on this journey. At first, it was a bit hard to know where to begin, but then I just started babbling and often times I didn't even know if I answered her specific questions, but it was just so great to process some things.

It's really interesting to see how God puts different people in your life at different moments, but for really specific things. I actually didn't have a whole lot of time during this DTS to really get to know Leah, but I told her today that she just had this presence that brought peace to me... or a sense of stability of some kind. For some reason, she also reminded me of my sister... but I can't exactly say how... it was just that comfortable feeling like you're in the presence of someone you can trust.

One thing that I really gleaned from lectures tonight is that it is wise to be discerning of who and when to tell things to.... that verse about not casting your pearls to swine was mentioned. I tend to want to share everything with everyone, but then in the midst of all that I realize that not everything is meant to be shared with just anyone.

The last thing I want to share with you is the verse that I have on my header bar... Psalm 37:4.... the first line I got was actually verse 3 which says "Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture." and then the verses later go on to say things about how when you commit yourself to the Lord and trust in Him, he will make your righteousness shine like the dawn... etc.
I just thought it would be interesting to read the rest of the verse to see how it might apply to me coming back home. It was interesting that the beginning of the verse that I didn't originally write spoke about dwelling in the land and enjoying safe pasture. That really did happen here, there is a certain safety here away from the reality of home and real life responsibility and issues. I wouldn't want it forever, but it is a time of intensity where you need the shelter. I've realized today that there are things that I haven't had to deal with at home, that I'm not really looking at with enthusiasm. I don't want to get into the details, but I just know that this whole passage of Psalm 37 really applies well to the things I have encountered, and the things I am about to go into coming back.

Oh, Minneapolis... here I soon come....

Where to begin... or end for that matter.

I have just one more week of this Aussie-land/YWAM adventure that God has taken me on. The feelings are very mixed at the moment as I'm sure you could imagine. I miss many things about home, the conveniences, my own room and queen bed, less expensive food, food whenever I want it instead of scheduled meal times, Chipotle, Guacamole and Tostitos, Pita Chips and Hummus, Campbell's Thick and Chunky Soups, Oreos that don't cost an arm and a leg, Cookie Nook Cookies ;), a shower that a few ppl use instead of 20 girls, ranch dressing, not paying extra for more sauce at restaurants, Caribou Caramel Coolers, Dunn Bros., Sebastian Joes, and so much more. AND of course, I miss all of my lovely friends and family.

My parents came into town last tuesday and will be here until I leave. It has been good to see them and travel a little bit the last few days. I have to admit though, it's strange to have them here in my life as I've known it for six months, a life that they have never experienced with me. It's really surreal because I flip back and forth between thinking so much of home while I'm with them, and then coming back to base remembering that I'm still here and want to spend as much time as I can with these friends I may never see again. Mom and Dad are really good about it, and they are actually on their way to Sydney as we speak... in a rental car, driving on the "wrong" side of the road.
We went to Byron Bay yesterday in the rental car, and boy was that an experience! Dad did really well, but I guess the roads here are a bit more narrow than at home AND the car needed an alignment job. Mom kept having to tell him he was too far to the left.
The time in Byron was nice, except it was rainy all day and we had to alter our plans a little bit to accommodate for the weather. In hindsight, it probably would have been better to stay overnight there, but there was one last performance of the musicians back at the base in the evening that I wanted to see.
No use worrying about it now.. while in Byron, we decided to first eat lunch and following that we shopped a bit, and grabbed some ice cream. Eventually the rain stopped enough for me to show them where I was baptized. We then went up to the lighthouse and looked around for a short bit until we could see a huge wall of rain coming toward us.

I will be writing more later... atleast that is the plan. But, it's very possible that it doesn't happen, unless I have any sleepless nights. We shall see...

Without further Adieu

Hello my faithful blog readers. I apologize for the long delay in updates, the last couple weeks and a half have been filled with many things, not to mention the internet in Hervey Bay was WAY expensive. I couldn't be bothered by writing much while I was there, it took enough time just catching up with emails the two times I checked (over a two week period).

We got back this past sunday, but I haven't updated because it seems like a daunting task... until today... when I looked at my fellow DTSers blog, Laura, who wrote up a WONDERFUL overview of what we did the last two weeks. So, if you happen to read this before I tell you, thanks Laura... you are a great writer and I also couldn't be bothered by writing all that you did so well!

Here's what she wrote... and then maybe I'll elaborate on some things in further posts!

Okay, so for some reason, Safari won't cut and paste text in this box for some dumb reason. Here is a link to the blog instead:

www.beyondmystudio.blogspot.com

Cheers!

More Aussie outreach

Hello there.
It is Saturday morning... my day off! yeessssss.

So I left off with painting at a church on wed. morning. That evening we went to a homeless feed at a church just outside Brisbane city. It was really uncomfortable at fist because the majority of our team is female and most of the people there were male. It also seemed to me that a lot of them were either drunk, on drugs, or had a mental disability. After we started serving the meal, I felt a bit more at ease and eventually sat down at a table to chat because there were too many of us serving. I began speaking with a man who asked me about where I came from and what I do for work, etc etc. Eventually, since I am from the States he had to ask an inevitable question.... he prefaced it with "You don't have to answer this, but I'm curious, What do you think of George Bush?".... I knew it was coming... and I just said, "well, I'd sure hate to have his job right now." Kept it really general because I'm not really into debating politics anyways. He was polite, and we just speculated that this coming election will be very interesting, no matter WHO gets voted in... AND, especially if either of the democratic runners get in. I really haven't done enough research myself yet, to make an educated decision on the subject. I'm sure this next statement will raise some eyebrows, but honestly I'm at the point where I'm just not worried about who gets in. Above all else, God is my ruler... don't get me wrong, I'm going to vote and do what I can and what He has empowered me to do, but the rest is out of my control.
Okay, so that took a turn to politics.... anyways... the conversation was good, I took a step out of my comfort zone and invested in a man's life for just 20/30mins. I left knowing that if I give God what I can, He'll do the rest.
On Wed. night just before falling to sleep I was feeling a bit feverish. I finally fell asleep and woke up in the morning feeling average, so I got ready and met my team to go paint at a new recording studio. Painting at this place was not as fun as the other one... could have been the fact that my fever came back and I actually ended up sitting in a room unoccupied by anything for about an hour. Owell... later that day we were going to have "team time"... but Kate cancelled it because there was too much other stuff going on and our team members had work duties on the base anyways.
Yesterday my team went to an old folks home and performed a concert, but I didn't go because I needed rest. There wasn't anything for the artists to do anyways. Laura said there wasn't even an opportunity to talk with the residents because it was a concert and when it was done they all left within 5minutes!

I've been feeling much better today. It was a pretty lazy day... but nice because I got to chat on gmail with my sister and talk to mom and dad as well. Good times.

Leaving tomorrow for Redcliffe.... these next weeks are going to fly by.
Here are a few prayer requests..
1. That I'll focus on my time left here and really pour myself into these last weeks.
2. Details when mom and dad come will pan out... (yeah, fyi. my parents are coming to see me here in a couple of weeks!!)
3. For my mom and dad as they prepare to come... low stress levels.... etc.

Thanks mates!

cheers.


(sorry about the lack of pictures... the security in this place makes it mega hard to upload photos!!)

Outreach in AussieLand

Last week our "outreach" activities involved working at a music festival called "Easterfest." I had the great job of manning the art gallery. It really was a sweet deal, the others had really odd jobs around the festival.
Being at the festival was interesting, as I've only been to Sonshine in Wilmar, MN... it definitely was different, less space here and a lot of different things to do and check out. Like, our tent for example was the "Chai Circle"... we served hot chai and had little concerts. One of the days we actually had Geoff Moore in our tent talking about, well I don't remember actually what the topic was, but he talked about an experience in Haiti so I of course was hooked!! If you don't know who Geoff Moore is.. he's a singer from the mid 90's... "I've Got a Friend Like You... (and you, and you an dyou and you)....... Oh the days of Youth Choir....
Anyways... that was one funny highlight... since it's not like he's my favorite by any means. Other highlights were, well... okay highlights is not a good word because it wasn't like the best music festival ever... BUT watching the Newsboys IN Australia, where two of the original band members (who are still with them) are from was pretty cool. They were telling stories about how when they first started out they sold these things called "Lamington's" to get money. Lamington's are along the lines of a "Snowball" cake thing... but they are in strips and small... they actually remind me of this thing you can get a gas stations... usually raspberry with coconut covering them. I miss Phil Joel being with them, they're just not the same anymore.
Jars of Clay also performed, but I wasn't that impressed with them either... I think I prefer them on albums rather than in concert. Some of there new stuff almost harkens the sound of the 80s... ick... for those of you from work who may read this, I was really thinking about Shofar during this one song... it was so strange!! They did do some of there old stuff, so that was cool, but they just didn't have a good stage presence... I've seen them before and liked them better, maybe they had an off day. :)

We got back on Sunday late night, then woke up early on Monday to go to a city called Ipswich to help out with their "Easter Monday FUnday"... I painted faces of children for about 7hours with only about 30mins/less break!! It was insane and intense... and actually went pretty fast surprisingly.
Tuesday (yesterday) was our day off and then today the Czech team went to a church and painted a chunk of a wall outside... it was really fun! Hot and sweaty, but we all worked together and had good conversation, etc. This is something I think we lacked on our outreach to Czech, I think we would have done much better to do some of these types of things before leaving. It really cultivates comradery within the team.
Tomorrow is unknown to me at the moment, but I think tonight we'll find out our schedule for the rest of the week.

That's about it for now.... One month and a day to go until I am back in MN!!

Cheers

Post Outreach

Post Outreach...

We've been back at the base for a whole week now. I was one of the lucky ones who got to stay a couple days longer before heading to our next destination which is called Easterfest. It's a music festival and we're hosting a spot called the Global Village... it will have musicians and dancers and an art gallery. It should be a good time, we leave tomorrow morning. I still have to pack.... as usual.

I've been feeling my own pressure to post a blog of reflections about outreach, but it has been really hard. I don't feel like posting because there still so much processing going on in me at the moment. I'm wrestling with God about why exactly our team dynamics were so frustrating... why I couldn't seem to figure out how things should change.

I won't be able to post much in the next few weeks, possibly next week, but other than that I'm not sure. I think with more time I'll be able to process this better later anyways.

Thank you for your continued support!!

Cheers!

Wrap up in Prague...

Right at this moment, while typing, I am in Germany at Andy's family's house. It is very nice, we all have our own mattresses to sleep on and a huge open area with a kitchen, big bathroom with nice tub and separate shower, and a couch/sitting area with TV to watch movies.

Last blog that had a schedule update, I left off on Thursday... first I will update on the rest of the time and in the following blog I will add in my personal thoughts on the whole thing.

Friday, Feb. 22nd...
In the morning I led a time of worship and prayer with music I picked from iTunes. It was mostly instrumental, to get us into a time where we could just get out all the stress of the last week and lay it at His feet. We then went out into the city and did prayer walks in all different areas as we chose, walking in 2's and 3's. After about 45mins we met back and ate out for lunch.
In the afternoon, the musicians practiced for a gig at a Pub/Hostel called Sir Toby's which started at 8ish that evening. Unfortunately, the place was a bit cramped and didn't really offer opportunity for us to paint while they played. It may have proved to be awkward in that setting anyways.
Sat. Feb 23rd
Our DAY OFF! I took my time, for the most part, waking up and getting ready. A few of us planned to meet at the castle around 2:00, so Laura and I started out earlier and grabbed lunch at a little "Portaviny" (food market) on the way. Originally we wanted to find a little sandwich shop, but the way we were walking didn't cater to our plan. We got to the castle early and went into the cathedral... it is huge and pretty amazing, so much detail in everything. If I remember correctly, I think they said it took 900 years to complete, I can't even wrap my head around the enormity of that fact. We met up with Tammy at 2:00ish, went back into the cathedral a bit and then went on to the Charles Bridge, which is the "famous" bridge in Prague. We walked ALL around the old towne and eventually ate dinner and went to Noah & Andy's to watch movies. Tammy and I had never seen the movie Chocolat, and the others didn't mind seeing it again. I really enjoyed it!
(these re-caps have been long, I'll try to make the next ones shorter)
Sun. Feb 24th
We went to New Beginnings Christian in the morning, had lunch with Jerry and Carol, chilled for the afternoon (which included some "tourism") and went back to our place. Mary Kate planned the evening group time which consisted of dinner and then everyone watching the movie "Transformers." It was a good time to just hang out and have fun... the movie was courtesy of iTunes ability to now rent movies! Very convenient.
Mon. Feb 25th
This was the day I posted the last blog of events... I was at the Laundromat. Upon getting back we ate lunch and then went to a park that overlooked Prague and worshipped in A Capella. We then went into the city and attempted "faith" courses which meant doing a "random act of kindness" or having attempting to speak english with someone and give them an encouraging word. (this is something I will talk about in a later post)

Tues Feb 26th
This morning we had two hours planned quiet time, we could go anywhere and journal, process, etc. I enjoyed this SO much! I just sat in a coffee shop, ordered a pastry and coffee, read my bible and wrote in my journal. I finally took the time to stop and listen to my Father... I found it so hard to do this while on outreach, and wish I had made the time to do it more often. For me, I like when I don't feel rushed because I have to "be" somewhere soon after, and every other time I felt that way. We met up with the rest of the group at noon, ate lunch and went to a museum of the History of Communism in Prague/Czech Repub. Following the museum, we discussed many things about what we saw. It was a great processing time! I may try and expand on the discussion in another blog, if I remember :).

Wed Feb 27th
We went to Andy and Noah's again for a team meeting, we played games and went over the schedule for the next week. There was more free time and then in the evening we went to a young adult home group. It was laid back and casual, we mostly just attended and chatted with the people there, most of whom spoke english. Eryn shared some verses about faith and we discussed and shared about experiences we've had in that area.

Thurs Feb 28th
I woke up early this morning and felt really sick, not specifically nauseous, but still a stomache ache. We had the choice to spend two hours again on our own or sleep in and relax and then eat a nice brunch. I slept. Still felt gross when I woke up later, but didn't want to miss the art museum we planned on going to in the afternoon. It was an exhibit of Salvador Dali's artwork, and actually was pretty disappointing. You'd think for an artistic place like Prague, they'd have a lot of his most famous works, but the ones that were his famous were only copies. We had another really good discussion about the museum... asked the question "What makes someone an artist?" and "What is art?"... Another long discussion that really made me think. Later that day I went to the IHOP prayer night again and then upon returning home Tammy asked if I'd want to go for a walk later. I jumped at the idea... oh yeah... and the rest of that story was shortly explained in a blog or two before this.

Fri Feb 29th (happy leap-day)
During the walk I took with Tammy(last night) we decided that we'd share the "sermon" time we had to do at a chapel this morning. The chapel was for an int'l school of kids that ranged from grade one to grade twelve. There were only about 50 kids total, so that was really nice. It's amazing how much easier it is to speak without an interpreter. The rest of the day we rested up for the IHOP Night Watch, as we were most likely going to stay up all night. The IHOP people wanted us there at 8, so we got there, set up and prepared for the night. It officially started at 9:00pm with worship... well, the whole night was worship with all different bands. Andy started off painting, then Noah joined and I started a bit later. I have to be honest that I still felt very disconnected from the focus, which was the youth in Prague. I mentioned a bit of a struggle in the post I wrote just before I left for the night.
At about midnight, Andy and I had our one on one and discussed a lot of things, since we hadn't met since Plzen. That was really the highlight of my night, being able to be honest with her about how I was feeling about outreach and specifically our time in Prague. I even told her about how I didn't really agree with some of the things that were taught during the lecture phase. It was good to have someone in leadership recognize the things that I was feeling and tell me I'm not alone in feeling some of the things.

Sat Mar 1st
We got back at about 7am and went to bed! We slept for about 5 hours and woke up slowly... ate a bit of lunch then Laura and I went into the city to finish some last minute purchases. Went to a coffee shop and waited until 7:00 to meet up with two others from the team and find a place to eat. We then wandered around Old Town for about 50mins, just when we were about to give up, we found a place on our way to the metro. It was sooooo good! What I ordered was so simple, yet so satisfying... a delicious salad with feta cheese olives and other veggies AND bruschetta. It was sooo great, and reminded me of Angela (my long-time friend and roomie for 2years) because she loves it... and once we ordered it at Green Mill and it was just NOT as good as what she had eaten while in Europe. I didn't know how it could be different... until now :). I miss you Ang!!

Sun Mar 2nd
Ever since getting to Czech I knew there might be an opportunity for me to meet up with Tom and Debbie Johnson (Tom used to be a pastor at Open Door, and now him and his wife are doing missions in Slovakia) as they are only about 2hours away from Prague. We had been in correspondence and earlier in the week they decided it would work best for them to meet me Sunday. Plans were set for 11am, and so we connected up... walked around old town and found a little place to eat lunch. It was so great to see some familiar faces from "home"... they had actually seen my parents just a month earlier as they were in the states for the Holidays. It was also nice because they were people on the outside, I felt like a "normal" human being for that 3ish hours. I don' t know quite how to explain it... but it was really refreshing.
That evening we went to Prague Christian Fellowship for church, following the service I talked to a couple different people, one czech and one american. We then got together as a group and planned for our school cultural presentation that was taking place Monday morning.

Mon Mar 3rd
We had to wake up early and get to our meeting place by ten to eight. The program started at 9 and went over really well. Each country represented shared about their culture. It was hard to choose exactly what to say since America is huge and there are really many different cultures within the country. One of my fellow Americans spoke on the Amish culture and the kids were really interested and had lots of questions. I spoke about the animals and national parks, and also touched very briefly on Native Americans. The last half of the time we actually did the art and music workshops, similar to the ones we did in Plzen. For the art one we had the students draw something from their culture and then share it with us in the end in english. We also had them listen to different styles of music and paint to the music. They really got into this more than I thought, the explanations at the end were very interesting. After our workshop we ate lunch in their cafeteria. I couldn't tell you exactly what it was we ate, something like sweet bread with pudding and a bowl of potato and meat soup.
Later that day we also had an English Club to help out with at New Beginnings, where we had the highschool hang-outs the first week.

Tuesday we had one last time with the highschool group and then we came back, ate lunch and packed everything into two vans that brought us to Germany. Andy's brother in law and friend came to bring us to her family's house. It was about a 3 hour drive, and I was in the middle seat... could've been much worse. :)

Int'l House of Prayer

In just a few minutes I'll be leaving for IHOP Night Watch. We will be in prayer for the youth of Prague and during the whole night all different bands will be performing and doing worship. During this time I'll be painting... it's actually ALL night, so it will be a long night but I am looking forward to it.

I will report more on this later, as for now I just wanted to leave you with a story.

Lately I've been feeling really low, for lack of a better description. I don't really know how to put it, but here in Prague we just haven't had as many events that we've been able to connect with locals. I have a hard time just walking up to someone and starting a conversation, let alone having a language barrier. All this to say.... I was talking to a friend from home yesterday night about all of this and during it, my teamate/friend Tammy asked if I wanted to go on a walk. I automatically said yes, without hesitation. It was about 10:00pm, and it was exactly what I needed. Sometimes in life you just need someone to listen to you, someone right there in person. We didn't have any grand answers for each other's situations, but to just talk about it without any expectations from the other was so refreshing. I really want to take in those moments, and remember that just because I wasn't ministering to someone from Czech, doesn't mean I'm not doing something.

God was with us last night, and I will treasure it for some time.

I can't say that I'm feeling 100% better... but I know God is doing something in me... and I'm not giving up.

Prague

As I said in the previous blog post, Monday was our day of travel to Prague.... and now I believe my laundry is soon to be done.... here are some thoughts of the beginning of our week in Prague...

We've been here for about a week so far and have had some challenging times going through some conflict within the team, etc. It's never easy learning the hard way, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

Actually, the dryer needed two dry cycles to be really dry. It's kind of expensive too, 60 crowns for each washing and drying, but I suppose it makes up for not having to pay for laundry the two weeks in Plzen and not really doing it anyways for the last week and a half. I didn't wash much in Plzen either, because the washer was about 1/4 the size of a normal US washer and there was little room to hang stuff and 7 other people who had to do small loads every now and then in between. So, yes, this outreach has definitely been an adventure!

This past tuesday was a pretty crazy day. We are teaming up with two different churches here. One is called New Beginnings Christian, and the same people run a Highschool outreach program that runs during the lunch times of the students. They are welcome to come down to this cafe type place and have pizza's, coffee, tea, etc. They've got ping pong and music videos going on during the time as well. It's a pretty cool place, but I guess they just run it on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I was talking to one boy who told me he wishes it was everyday. I haven't had a chance to ask the main guy who runs it, why they can't do it all week. I played ping pong with all the guys, it's that kind where you play all around the table.. I forget what you call it. That way, everyone can play and I actually like it better I think! :)
After the High school thing, we all went back and had lunch at our place. Which I must mention is a tight squeeze. The shower is actually in the "kitchen." We're actually really living in an office of the other church we're partnering with, Prague Christian Fellowship. There are two rooms we squeeze everyone in, the beds are all tight together with no space in between.
During lunch, we had a "family meeting"... and that's how it turned out... like the "typical" one would go... it was not good. We learned lessons about how to approach conflict... that's really all I'm going to say because, well, there's no reason to re-tell it. We came together again for a meeting with all the leaders the next day and things went much better.
Tuesday night we sat in with a youth group and shared some testimonies and heard some testimonies from the youth that attended. It was a small group and they ranged from 16 to about 22. During the time that we were praying at the end, we were pick pocketed! I guess the doors to outside weren't locked and someone came up outside our room and looked through the hanging jackets. They took the equivalent of about 40 US dollars from Laura's wallet and two other pairs of shoes of a couple of the guys of the youth group. (sorry, that was a jumbled mouthful!) Atleast it wasn't any identification documents or anything worse. How odd though, I actually think they took chapstick our of my coat pocket! How stupid, chapstick... I mean, it is good stuff... Chapstick brand and strawberry, my favoriite. But, come on.... how lame. I'm so glad I had the sense to keep my purse with me in the room!! That turned out to be a late night, we hadn't eaten dinner yet, so at like 9pm we went to a Chinese restaraunt for dinner. I had lemon chicken, and regretted it... not quite what I was thinking. Owell.... it was food and mostly edible...(had to be careful of bones).

Wednesday we went to Noah and Andy's place and had our meeting... it was good. We all got on the same page with things... Noah and Andy explained some changes with their leadership, which explained a lot of the confusion and frustration we were having.
The rest of the day we got to look around town for a bit and relax before going to the same youth group place from the night before. This time, it was younger kids, more about junior high ages. It was a lot harder with them, because they have only learned english for about 2 or 3 years... and probably the same kind of understanding that I'd have with french after only studying after two years or something. I still enjoyed observing and trying to communicate... I told them that I used to help out with youth at home and that no matter where you go, youth still all act the same way (you know, like body language, giggles, etc.). I so had wished I could have a good conversation with them, but even the interpreters were a bit hard to communicate with at times.

So... I still have more days to report about... and this is a long blog...
Thursday we had the highschool group again. The people who run it are Jerry and Carol and Jerry's sister and her husband. I forget their names... oops... they both have daughters, so during the outreach time I volunteered to watch them so they didn't get in the way of the kids playing ping pong. They were fun... gets me excited to see my nieces and nephew... I miss them so much. The girls' names were Sophie and Grace, Sophie is a few months older than Grace and talks a bunch. Grace was a bit quieter, but liked to randomly scream out at the top of her lungs.
After it was finished, the musicians practiced and we made and ate lunch at the center. We had some "chill" time and then Julia, Mary Kate, and I went to an IHOP evening of prayer. If you haven't heard of IHOP it stands for International House of Prayer... not Pancakes! :)

The rest of Plzen... updates

(get comfy, cuz this is a long one!)

Today is Monday, I am currently sitting at a Laundromat in Prague about 5/6 metro stops down from the one by our residence. Prague is definitely a DIFFERENT place than Plzen, not better or worse... for the most part. It is a bit more sketchy around here, you really have to keep watch over yourself for pickpockets, etc.

Quickly I'll re-cap what we finished the week up with in Plzen... I shared about Valentine's night the last time I wrote. ACtually, I forgot to write about the day before... it was wednesday and the artists had the task of finding ways to decorate a "marriage" booth for a Valentine's market in the square. A couple from the YWAM team are involved with an organization that is all about marriage. I don't know how to describe it, but at the last minute they were able to get a booth at this V-day market in the square and they asked us to decorate it. For me, this task was super frustrating because we didn't have a good idea of how things were going to look, etc. Not to mention, we only had a day to plan it, with little resources available. We ended up getting some fabric to match the colors of the logo for the organization. Once we finished with that we went back to the villa and had lunch, and the rest of the afternoon was spent cleaning and practicing, as the musicians had a concert for a cafe night at the Villa. The artists prepped canvases for that night and finished some decorations for the Valentines night as well.
The cafe night went well, although I had a headache the whole time, I painted one of my best paintings. I actually struggled with it the whole time, not knowing what it really "should" be, etc. I've always had a hard time painting while the musicians perform, I think because it also feels like a performance for me as well. But, I fought the urge to just give up on the concept... and at the end as I was just letting myself do my thing, the song title of one of Matt Patrick's songs came into my head. It's not on any of his recordings, but on his myspace page, it's called The Mess Inside of Me. I added words to this phrase and wrote it on the painting. Here's the painting:

Friday was a pretty good day, although the market was still on and the same people wanted the artists to do portrait drawing at their booth. In the cold. Let's just say, only two people had portraits drawn, and one of them was me! Because I don't do portraits on the spot, and we needed to attract the people, so I was the example :). Andy and Laura are fabulous portrait drawers! That evening we went to a Plzen Jr. Hockey League game for something fun to do... it was, except it was very cold and we left the game early in three shifts. Actually, the last group to leave stayed until the end, but I left after the 2nd period.

Saturday was a long day. We had a creative arts workshop to run at 2pm, but had to clean the villa again and then get the rooms ready. There was one room that Laura taught, it was how to draw a portrait with the correct proportions, etc. I was running a session with Andy that we called "creative expression" where you didn't necessarily have to have any talent. The first part of it we had them get a partner and draw them as a "tree." Sounds strange, but it was cool because for instance, I drew Andy and the tree that came to mind was a birch. They are tall, skinny and strong... I drew fall leaves that were changing because I know there are changes and have been changes in her life lately. Stuff like that, others drew trees with big roots if they knew that person was really grounded or had deep connections with people, etc.
The second part of ours involved the musicians... they played three different kinds of music and the "artists" were supposed to paint according to what the sounds made them feel like painting. I really liked this time, it brought me back to times when I'd just paint with my niece and nephew and not really think about anything I was painting, it would just come out.
After the creative workshop we went to our housing and had dinner with a group of catholic young people who were at a leadership training weekend. They asked us about missions, etc. It was a pretty good night, but I was disapointed that we couldn't drink the Pilsner Urquell they offered us (it's Plzen's beer, the brewery is right in the city) because of the no drinking rule of the YWAM Brisbane base. I'm not much of a beer drinker in the first place, but at the same time it was something from their culture etc. that would have been cool to experience. Owell....

Sunday we woke up stinking early and met Kaja (the pastor we teamed with the whole time) at the cathedral in the square at 7am! He goes to the top every sunday morning to pray for the city, which was pretty cool... both the view and his prayer time. It was also STINKIN' cold!! I think the coldest I've been this winter season!! My toes took forever to de-thaw. Immediately following that, we went to a church service at a Methodist church. We did a couple testimonies and I painted... being that I was cold and tired, my inspiration was really lacking and I really have no idea what I was painting the whole time.
That afternoon we went back to the villa and ate lunch and killed time before the second service we were going to run. This one was at a Gypsy Church... it was really freeing and I really enjoyed it. We had a few people share testimonies, two people painted (not me), and then musicians did the worship. During the worship time I set out paper for the congregation to come up and express worship through words or pictures. The mistake I made was letting the kids come up first. I have nothing against kids, but it didn't quite work well because none of the adults really participated and the kids were really loud so it was hard to completely enter into the time. I didn't let it phase me though, because maybe the distraction of the kids was okay...
Later that night we had a fun night with the YWAM team as it was our last night with them. We talked about what we had experienced the last two weeks and what we'll take away... or different impressions or thoughts. I really enjoyed the YWAMers in Plzen, their approach to missions etc, really resonated with me.

Czech Republic captured on camera...

This is the YWAM Plzen Villa

Before having a jacket... waiting at a Tram stop

The YWAMers had bunnies... salt and pepper :)

This is the spot where I painted my first painting in Plzen... during a concert teaming with the KS church

In Progress...
(honestly, i think I like this shot better than the final product :))

Sorry, I will upload the final later, I didn't get it in this bunch of photos

This is a photo outside a church on a hill... it's near the Teen Challenge center we went to a couple weeks ago. (I'm so behind in my updates... sorry)

This is me... duh... my new hat that i really like :).

Streets in Plzen.

We're now in Prague and had a long week... we had some "family" conflict arise, but worked it through and I believe are stronger now because of it... I hate learning the hard way, but it's learning none-the-less... and that's good.

Beware of Staples

Note to self: when testing stapler, move finger from spot where staples come out.

Happy Valentine's Day everybody... a day late. Last night the church put on a couples night which had our musicians, the churches musicians, Laura and I painting, and then Czech's stories about marriage. While getting ready for the event Laura and I had to stretch our canvases... we ran out of staples and had to load more in, but when we tried to use it again it didn't work. It wasn't closed right, so I was messing with it to get it shut and managed to stick a staple into my index finger. I didn't realize that the staple actually stuck into my finger until I looked at it. I promptly told Laura to pull it out because I was too afraid to do it myself. I can't imagine what I'd do if I ever got stabbed with anything bigger, I really would have to make someone pull whatever it was out. Strange thought of the day for you. :) It only bled for a short bit, I ran it under cold water and stuck some tissue over it, but then it got a bit bruised. It's feeling better today, but it was just so strange.

I am going to leave you with a short bit of info that Julia, my fellow minnesotan on the team, wrote to our families this week. It's an update, she sends out emails... and does a good job a shortly summing up our activities. I don't have the energy to do it this time. :) (p.s. it is written starting out from LAST friday)

I'll have to share more about yesterday another time. It was a rather interesting day.

Love to you all!

last post cont'd

I didn't really finish explaining why I painted a lighthouse... but the vision he had was of a lighthouse... that his church was a lighthouse and that people were drawn to it, so in the picture I painted circles to represent people.. and the circles were different colors.. black, browns and yellows to represent all different denominations.
That was the first time I had something planned to paint... it was good and bad. Good because I had direction and knew what and how to paint it, but bad because it's not really my style of painting... some of it was, but the other part just wasn't working for me (the detail parts). I can do detail sometimes, but I didn't have a picture or anything to go by, so that's what made it harder. Owell, it was a good experience overall.

Outreach post #2

Last post I left off with tuesday night... it is now the following week. We've had a full schedule of events or ministry opportunities. This is a much different missions experience for me because 1. We're a pioneering team (which means, there are no previous relationships built here) 2. We're musicians and artists 3. We're in a Westernized country.... these are all things that make the way I've done missions in the past, very hard. I'm not going into a place where I'm known because of a church that has a relationship with this place. I'm in a western culture where they are independent and don't need your help with physical needs. As artists and musicians, we're meant to use our gifts in some way, so that usually translates into a concert performance. Often it is in a church setting running the service, having the musicians lead worship someone sharing a testimony, someone speaking on a topic and then an artist or two painting in the background during the whole thing.
These have been good opportunities for us to start relationships, but it is hard because sometimes it feels like we are constantly "performing." It's not really "performing" per se because we are seeking God to minister through our creative expressions and He meets us there. I think it's the fact that we are doing the same thing so often, sometimes that wears me out more. I don't want to sound so negative, but I guess that mid week stretch is getting to me.
Last night there was a cool thing that happened. We were running a youth group here, one of the girls lead worship a couple girls shared testimonies and there was a dance in between the testimonies. At the end of the last testimony our leader felt like we should have a time where we spoke words of encouragement over the students. Our team members got into pairs and the youth came in pairs or one by one and we prayed with them and gave them encouragement and words from the Lord. There was this one girl we prayed with who was dealing with depression, and Tammy (who I was partnered with) started praying and God spoke to her about a specific thing in this girl's life... without going into detail it turned out that what Tammy heard was confirmed by this girl. I think we were all encouraged, seeing how God spoke to each of us.

I've skipped a lot of things that went on last week, the one day that sticks out that I haven't written about is Thursday. We met with the pastor of the church we've been connected with and he spoke to us about Czech culture. I really enjoyed this time, because in it we were reminded about the fact that we didn't just come to just give give give what we have, but there is a lot that we can get from them as well. Or, rather there is a lot we can learn from them as well. Although the language barrier is tough to get through, I want to challenge myself in speaking more because though they say they can't speak english they do way better than they think.
Later on Thursday we performed at an event and I painted a picture during that time, of a lighthouse. The picture I got was from a vision the pastor spoke about of his church/the church in general in Plzen. I guess here (not sure if it's specifically plzen or not) churches are not stuck to their own denominations, or there just isn't as much line drawing. The vision Kaja (pastor) had was of many many people coming to the Lord, though not only his church, but through the christian community. I'm doing a poor job explaining his vision correctly, but the main thing is that it really resonated with me.
The rest of the weekend was filled with tooling around the city, etc. It was nice.
I have to go now.... more to come as I can give it! :)

Finally...

This is not as much as I really would have liked to post, but my time here has been busy, and the access to the internet isn't as accessable. (i know bad spelling)... so here is a part of what I've blogged... it's only partially finished...

Hey Blog world...
It has been awhile, hasn't it? My time here in the Czech Republic has been interesting... I love the sites, the buildings and rich history, but it is a cold country both realistically figuratively speaking. The cold temperature doesn't bother me, I bought a great new coat, but the fact that the people here are hard to communicate with is discouraging. It doesn't help that I don't speak their language, but at the same time, it's harder to communicate non-verbally because they don't smile as much. There is a very stand-off-ish feeling, and even when they do speak english you have to be cautious in how you say things.

I'll give a bit of an overview of what we've been doing here so far....
On Monday we had an orientation of how the two weeks were to go while in Plzen with a schedule. Each day we've had some type of event, whether it be a concert or planning meeting, youth group event, etc. Later that day we got settled in at our "home" for the two weeks. I don't know what exactly it's called, but it's a Catholic run place with nuns on a couple floors and a place in the basement where a "youth" group meets on Tuesday nights.
On Tuesday there was a concert at a shopping mall and then just a short while after, we led the "youth" group thing I was just speaking about. That morning the band practiced and upon finishing some tension rose up about not feeling like they were gelling as a team, etc. It was a bit tense during lunch and on the way to the mall for the concert.
Once at the mall, the sound guys were having trouble getting everything to work, so the artists got together to pray. The things we prayed for were unity and peace, because it was obvious that those areas were really being attacked. The sound never really was great, but we also prayed that though it may not sound perfect it really wouldn't matter.. that the heart of why we were there would really come out strong above the music itself.
Immediately following that was the youth night, which we had very little time to prepare.

Last lecture week in Byron Bay!!

This week has been pretty irregular as far as schedule and lectures go. There was a mis-communication between our first lecturer and our second lecturer wasn’t planned to come until Wed.
On Monday, we worked on our workbooks during the morning, had lunch and work duties, then headed to the beach and downtown Byron Bay. I laid on the beach and continued working in the workbook because we had 3 sections to finish and I hadn’t started until earlier in the morning. It was not too productive, seeing as there was a beach behind me beckoning that I come. I really enjoy Byron Bay beaches the best out of the 3 I’ve experienced so far. (I don’t remember if I wrote about my time last weekend at a beach near the Gold Coast, it was fun, but definitely had intense waves. I don’t know what the actual beach was called.) Monday night we had dinner and then more hang-out or workbook time, so you can guess what filled my evening.....

Tuesday was a very chill day. It started out with Intercession and Worship as normal, and during that time one of our staff handed me a sealed envelope and told me to open it after Int./Worship. I continued to worship, we then were instructed by some fellow students to break up into our outreach groups to pray and discuss the strengths we thought each of us brought to the group. As we were ending I noticed the absence of staff in the room. I then opened the envelope and read, “Please read aloud for everyone”- “WELCOME TO NO STAFF DAY”.... with a list of particulars. They gave us $82.50 to spend on food and whatever else we might need. It also said to be productive and some other things we had to follow. I don’t remember exactly, but basically we had a day to relax and just make sure work duties were done and making meals for ourselves. At first, there was some chaos about who was going to do work duties because they took our work duty sheet that already had it planned out, but most of us already knew what we were on that day. Our meals turned out really well actually, about 6 ppl volunteered to do the shopping and they split themselves and the money up for lunch and dinner.
I think the staff wanted us to learn some profound lesson from it, but honestly being that I’m 27, it really wasn’t that big of a deal. It’s not like we couldn’t function as a group, I mean sure, at the very beginning I observed some people wanting to take control and “lead,” but in the end we didn’t have any huge specific task to achieve, so it wasn’t an issue.
Though we didn’t do anything particularly productive as a team, it was a day we all needed. I finished our DTS tshirts, chatted with people, and rested. Throughout the day I reflected a lot on leadership... specifically my transition from leader to student and then that day where I felt a bit empowered by being given the envelope to read.

During the time I led the youth, I grew a TON... starting out, I was very insecure. All I could remember was how much I LOVED my first small group leader and the impact she made on me. I wanted to be that to my small group girls, to show God’s love through me, but in the beginning I tried way too hard. My first few years were some of the hardest and I almost threw in the towel. I was persuaded to continue, and started back with a new fresh group of 7th graders. During the 6 years that followed, I went on a journey... through leadership, but of course just through life, which in turn affected the way I led. I learned that it wasn’t always what I said that mattered, but being present and available to listen and pray is what meant the most. I finished leading last spring with a confidence that I couldn’t have spoken of 9 years previous. It was a hard thing to leave, but my time of leadership was coming to a close.
Going back to being a student here was(is) hard, while talking to a good friend here who is also a bit older than the rest(25), we laughed about how we sometimes catch ourselves acting un-characteristically immature. It’s a strange phenomenon, but I think has some to do with the fact that I have no responsibility to anything besides me, my own personal space, and my work duty(which, lets face it, is a pretty simple thing for me). To not have anything outside of myself to be responsible for is a bit debilitating. At first, I had a hard time knowing where my place was, but time and again I was reminded that my time here is to be a student. Another reason for the struggle is that the last time I was a student, I was in high school. Being a student as an adult is different, not to mention the age of most students here is between 18-21. These girls (and a few guys) still struggle deeply with their identity and comparing, etc. It was a bit of a “culture” shock for my system because though I do have my own issues with comparing, they are not on the same level as the freshly graduated from high school girls.
So, all of that to say, I struggled with the fact that I had just come from a pretty confident place of leadership, to this new world of being a student amongst these majority of freshly graduated students and no "stated" place of authority or leadership. I'm having a hard time explaining myself, but think my point about saying all of this, was that on Tuesday, I had a small taste of the leadership aspect again.

This post is getting rather long, and we have a busy week before heading to outreach. So, I'm going to wrap up the rest of the week very quickly. On Wed. we had lectures both morning and afternoon, and in the evening we went into town and had coffee with our small groups(well, some of us did). It was a nice, relaxing time to just hang out and chat. Thursday, we had lectures in the morning and team building activities at the beach... this was awesome... especially because THE CZECH team won!!! Woo Hoo... and I must add that we are all female (besides one of the leaders)- so it was pretty sweet!



Friday morning was an early one, as we were ready to go to the Lighthouse for worship at 7:30am. It's so beautiful there, although it was raining when we first arrived it stopped by the time we were done. This was great because then we all walked down the path to the beach where we had the baptism service.
It was pretty informal, really, so to say "service" sounds a bit funny. We all gathered in a circled cluster and listened for a few minutes to Gunny talk about baptism. When he was finished each of us getting baptized shared a bit of why we made our decision. Gunnleik then prayed and one by one (there were three of us), we went into the water and "got dunked" (as I like to call it). I really don't know what I was "expecting," but when people asked me how I "felt" I couldn't really respond. It wasn't like there were fireworks or butterflies or anything, and really I don't think it mattered. It was a statement and act of my faith being put into action and a declaration in the physical and spiritual realm. After the three of us all came back out, we stood in different spots and people prayed over us. That was the most impacting time for me, just sealing it all in prayer.

Thank you all for your continued prayers as outreach creeps closer. The next two days we have outreach simulation where they take you through many ridiculous scenarios to prepare you while travelling. (saying ridiculous, knowing that it's not at all far from reality)...
It should be a good time.






Also, if you think of it... the school needs prayer for finances to come in. The total for our school that is needed is $59,000... i think Australian, but still, that's a lot of money. Not more than God can provide though, so if you think of it send out a prayer. And if for some reason, God lays it on your heart to give, email me as soon as possible. I personally have my lecture and outreach fees paid. But, I did miscalculate and didn't leave much room for money to use for things like toothpaste, shampoo, etc. I am using money of my own, but if you feel led to give extra, please let me know. Or, if you attend Open Door, you can fill out a blue card at the missions table put it in an envelope and drop it in the box. (just make sure you fill out my name on the blue card) I strongly hesitated writing this last bit, so please know it comes from a place of humility to ask.

Baptism

Tomorrow morning I leave for Byron Bay again.. this time just for a lecture week, our very LAST one, actually! In two weeks I'll be in transit to Czech Republic, and I am sooo excited!
I really loved Byron Bay, so I am really excited to be going back. One thing I am looking forward to is that I am being baptized there this week.
It may come as a surprise to some of you that I have not yet been baptized, but it is indeed true. No reason specifically, I just hadn't felt a strong pull to take the plunge...(pun intended). It really has a lot of symbolism for me here. This journey that I'm on right now is a turning point in my life... full of new revelations of God's love, restoration, and renewal. It just seems right to mark it with a choice of commitment to go deeper into His love and be baptized. It is something I have been thinking about for the last year, and then when we were in Byron last time I saw a student from the base there get baptized. It was such a beautiful thing that took place, I remember thinking to myself, "why haven't I done this yet?"... and I believe God spoke to my heart and said something like "well, no better time or place." Okay, so I don't remember the exact words... but I just knew in my spirit it was time.
I just wanted to let you know before it happens... I'm not sure what day it will be, it might actually be one of the mornings.

Take care this week, bloggers!

Miracle and Lordship

I am meaning to update you on last week's lectures and goings on, but first I must report an amazing story, actually I'll call it what it is, a miracle.

At this YWAM base there are multiple DTS groups going on at one time, they all begin and end at different times and have different durations. When our MAD (Music, Art, Dance) school started, there was also another school starting called Frontiers. Though not in our same school, I've grown to know a few of the students on that school and consider them part of this YWAM family. Their outreach phase starts tomorrow and lasts until after we get back from our outreaches.
For the past month or so their outreach teams have been fighting for their fees to come in and knowing this I decided I wanted to give. I withdrew money the other day and prayed about who should get the support.
This morning(written on monday) we had our community meeting and there was a report of how much money was still needed for the Frontiers. I should mention that if all the money doesn't come in before they leave, they don't leave (or the individuals don't leave... they wait until it comes in). They had two teams going, one to India and one to Thailand, and three weeks or so ago they needed around $30,000 as a whole. The report this morning was still $8,000 to go for the India team (thailand received all of theirs)... and as I said earlier, their flights leave tomorrow.
One of the elders on the base suggested we take an offering right away, not pray and give during the day, but take time right then to pray and then go and get the money you have right away. I knew then it was time to just put in what I had to give. Many people went to their rooms to get money, and put it in the box... I did so, and then just prayed continually as others put theirs in that it would be multiplied. We all were praying and praising God as a few people gathered and counted. A few people had some words to give to the team and some from the team spoke some as well. As they finished the total was told to us.... $7,500+ ... PRAISE JESUS...
Honestly, I believe it was a miracle... this was a room full of ywamers, students, missionaries... I fully believe that God did multiply the money. Later we found out the total rose to $8.000+...
I thought it was worth blogging because I have never witnessed such a huge need being fulfilled in such little time. What a testament to God's faithfulness, love, and peace. He comes through and blesses in ways we cannot comprehend. It gives me that much more faith that He will provide for me in all of the ways I need as well.

Lectures last week were on the topic of Lordship, which we defined as having a heart like Jesus... surrender, yielding, obedience, releasing and empowering, giving up our rights to Him, It was good stuff... and it's commonly labeled the "intense" week because it's a time to examine the things/areas of our lives we put in place of God... or things we want to control or feel we value more than Him. On Thursday we learned all about the tabernacle and the meaning of each area. If you don't know much about the old/new covenant and about the old and new covenants, etc. It's really interesting, something I had never really studied before. If you haven't, I'd suggest reading Hebrews, that's where these things are explained. On Friday we were brought through the "tabernacle"... our meeting room was set up as such and we entered the the gates with thanksgiving and His courts with Praise! When we finished with that we went on to fellowship offerings... which were things like career/future/family/money... and then to burnt offerings, which were repentance, asking forgiveness or forgiving someone, confession of sins.
This was a very powerful time of brokenness before God. For the first offering I brought my laptop and paint brush as a symbol of my future career/plans. And then also later I realized that I hold on to my family (specifically my sister and her kids) and sometimes I worry too much about them. The burnt offering was harder... I know God has been showing me the ways I have an inferior pride.. about my artistic abilities and not feeling like I could ever compare to the designers I deem the best, and also in the spiritual sense I compare myself to other christians in my age group and see how much I think they are more spiritual because of this or that and somehow see them as better than myself. I also decided it was time to speak out loud forgiveness of my grandma on my dad's side.
There are many of you who don't know my family history, but to make a long story short, issues were revealed and she chose to not believe them and somewhere in all the crap we (mom, dad, sister) haven't spoken to her since I was about 12 years old(except maybe 2 or 3 conversations my dad had with her). What hurts the most is that I feel she picked death over life. It's hard to say that, because I have no idea where her heart is or the other family on that side is either. I don't think they are a lost cause, I just see how much life there is when our immediate family with Karen, Pat and the kids are altogether and having fun, I see all that she's missing out on and wonder what my grandma was thinking.
You can imagine the things that our whole DTS were bringing... it was a day of victory over darkness... strongholds being broken and new life being breathed over everyone. After the offerings we prayed over the individuals who had confessed sexual sins (either done or been done to them) and then prayed over others around us. And then, we were anointed with oil by the staff.... had a time of communion and then ended again with praising God for the things he had done that day.

What I've been learning lately is to hear God in the ordinary times, when I'm not overwhelmed with emotion. Not to say it's bad to move on emotions, but sometimes my emotions get in the way of what He really is trying to say to me. I don't know if that makes sense, but as in life as well, we can't just always make decisions based on our emotions.

Czech Republic Outreach Prayer Requests

In just over 3 weeks my outreach team and I will be embarking on our journey to the Czech Republic. This just blows my mind, the lecture phase has flown by so quickly!
We leave February 2nd... our first destination is Plzen (a city in the western part of Czech) and from there we'll be in Prague for the rest of the outreach... our debriefing will be in a small town in Germany that one of our leader's parents lives in. Apparently it is fairly close to Rothenburg, a town with a Christmas Gift Shop that is open year round and is well known for it's affinity to elf culture. (bahaha... okay, that last line is actually from the movie ELF, I have no idea it's affinity to elf culture :)) I've actually had the honor of knowing about this store because of a valued client at Vision Van Gogh... his name is David Young, a man who can play two flutes and once. It's pretty cool, even though it may sound a bit odd at first. :)

On to the prayer request points:

• Finances- I have my outreach fees taken care of, but the three leaders are still in need of their finances to come in. I'd love for you to join with me in prayer for my team, that the money would be released and brought in. I am taking this on because we are a team, and it's just as if I'm the one needing the money.

• Team Bonding/Unity- We haven't done a lot of "bonding" yet... having times to just hang out and have fun getting to know each other deeper. We're a group of all girls and one young married couple the couple and one girl our our leaders. I feel like we're sort of a mixed bag of artists and musicians. I'm pretty close to two of them... one musician and one artist... the others I know pretty well, but it could be better. SO... I feel I a rambling, so I will leave it at that... the song that keeps running through my head is "Bind us Together"...

• Passion for the people of Czech Republic- I feel like I'm behind in praying for the desire to have a passion for them... to really want to know the history, trials, etc. of their nation. I want to be informed about the place I'm going into... but facts and history have never been my strong point, so research often turns me off. I know it is important though... so yeah... passion for them... and for the Holy Spirit to speak into the places and things we should be praying about.

• Our "Production"- I don't know what to call it yet, but we've just started brainstorming and first beginnings of writing a production that includes music, art, drama... a kind of personal narrative that uses an individual's life story. At this point we're basing it around a girl in our group's testimony of trials and tribulations and ultimately finding God and redemption etc.

This last point is really a big one on my heart right now... I'm excited about it, but nervous because there are only a couple of really strong leading personalities on the team. We're such creative types, so at times it is hard to figure out if everyone is on the same track creatively and working in the same direction. I don't know how to describe it well. But, I just know that this could be very impacting if done right... and it really excites me because it's a tangible way I really know I'll be able to create on the outreach. Before now it was never really explained what we'd be doing with our art, besides maybe setting up and painting while the musicians play at a coffee shop or something, even then I didn't know if that would've been possible. So, we have that production/narrative thing and also we found out we'll be leading an Art Workshop for some artists while we're in Plzen. I know there will probably be other opportunities, so I guess just pray that other opportunities will arise as well.

Thank you all for all the prayers you've been lifting up on my behalf. I am so encouraged to know there are even many others who I don't even know who read this blog. To all of you I say hello and bless you!!

Happy New Year at Coff's Harbor!

This post comes out to you tonight (this morning) in Coff's Harbor... and it's New Year's Day! It's the beginning of 2008 and I'm living in the first hours of it before any of you in the United States (assuming only Americans are reading this)... Boo yah! ...

On this outreach we have what is called "The Chai Tent" where the musicians jam, dancers perform, and the artists create and possibly sell their paintings. All the while, passers-by have the opportunity to come in, grab a free Chai Tea (served cold in the day, and hot at night), chill-lax and converse with others in the tent.

Today was very windy and a tad on the cool side of things... I have to be so very careful saying it's "cold" because most of you are currently in lands of tundra. But, being that I'm in Australia, it's not the typical weather... in fact last week on Christmas they set a record for the coldest one to date! I couldn't tell you the official degree, especially because they use Celsius instead of Fairenheight (sp?). Why does the U.S. have to do EVERYTHING different from the rest of the free world?! That's a WHOLE 'nother can o' worms though.
On to the day... besides being cold, it was SO windy, I was pretty sure the tent could blow down. Upon getting to the tent (we sleep at a church in nearby.... the tent is set up just off a creek that flows into the ocean), we went on prayer walks around the park that surrounded the tent and then came together again to worship. It was a powerful time, I felt like God led me to pray (during the walk) for the people of Coff's to be able to see the glory and beauty of God's creation. I thought about how easy it would be to take for granted such a beautiful place if you're living in it day to day. I'm the first to admit I rush through the day without enjoying the beauty He has created, even at home in Minnesota. So, I prayed that His beautiful creation would draw them closer to the one God who created it and us all. The cool part was when another girl shared that she too, had the same leading. Some would write that off as just a coincidence, but I believe that it really was God speaking into what He desired us to pray.
After our worship time we opened the walls and began the day reaching out to onlookers, etc. I intended on painting, and ended up adding to a painting I had started yesterday by just drawing with pencil what I was going to do next. It ended up that I never did paint over the pencil because lunch was soon and then after lunch i never made my way to the art corner. Instead I decided to sit down by the "kids corner" and from that moment on I was captured by the attention of Gunnleik's daughers (the school leader), Linea (5) and Rose (9). We colored in a coloring book for a good 45mins/hour and then I had my arm "tattooed" with art from Rose, she did very well for her age! Such sweet girls... they are norwegian and know both their native language AND english, but have an australian english accent... it's quite funny(the aussie accent). That time was pretty much the highlight of my day... sounds a bit strange as I sit here and read that, being that I'm an adult and it is New Year's.. the fact that it brought me back to being at home with my niece and nephew could have a slight bit to do with it.... but really it was finally being able to be with kids again as well. For 3mos. I hadn't had much contact at all with little kids and had started to wonder if I'd ever!
We had a big party for New Years Eve, the best part of that were fireworks on the beach. They were far away, and the end was very anti-climactic, but better than nothing... I can't say I've ever watched fireworks over the ocean before. There were some really cool ones, too, that looked like lava shooting out of a volcano! I tried to take videos, but whenever I'd start recording something that looked cool, it would end because they didn't have it timed very well.

So, what will 2008 bring my way? Hmm... well, this whole DTS thing is one big new beginning for me.. not to mention that I've had many people speak words of newness over me... which relate to many aspects of my life. It's not like I'm going to have a whole new career or anything... but new creations and ways to create and blend together the passions that are inside of me.

Another year I dedicate to the Lord... I believe that you will do great things in me and those around me.... Amen