I am so sorry that I haven't posted on my blog since arriving in Townsville! It has been crazy! There's no good excuse, and I'm sorry. Please forgive me!
If you haven't heard yet, I've arrived!
I'm currently on my fourth, and possibly most challenging, week of lectures. Each and every week I am being challenged more and more. It's as if I've spent the last four weeks in open heart surgery. I know that it's completely good and needed, but at times, it hurts and is super draining.
Ok, so open heart surgery is a bad analogy. Maybe a better analogy would be standing in one of those boxes that throw money at you and you're trying to catch it all. If you're in that box for four weeks, I'm sure it would get pretty tiring. Still a bad analogy, but you get the point. I seriously am learning something completely new and life changing every single day. It's awesome! However, now that it's the beginning of week four, I am so tired!
So... I suppose you're wondering what I'm doing while I'm here in lecture phase. Well, each morning from 8am-12:30 is lectures. We have a theme for each week and a different speaker. The themes thus far have been the following:
Week 1: Orientation and Hearing God
The orientation included laying out the expectations of us as students and learning about the vision and heart of YWAM. If you are curious, I highly encourage you to go to www.ywam.org for more information about their vision. Then Rebekah Hoover came in and talked talked a little about hearing God. What I absolutely loved about this talk was that it wasn't a magic formula to get God to talk to us. The main point was that God is always talking. We must learn how to discern His voice! I always was really upset that God didn't talke to me. Other times I thought that those who said that God told them something were crazy. Through these lectures, I realized that I've really heard God all of my life. I just didn't give Him credit!
Week 2: Identity
This week was all about realizing that God created us well. He has a purpose for those little quirks that we feel insecure about. We need to stop believing lies about ourselves and insulting God's creation and realize that it's not about us. It's completely about God and bringing Him glory with our lives.
Week 3: Clear Conscience
Week three talked about conviction, sin, and repentance. It was rough. It's not necessarily fun to be convicted of sins, but we need to learn how to appreciate it because it's going to bring us closer to our God-given purpose.
Week 4: Nature, Character, and Ways of God
Going into this week, I thought to myself, "Oh good. This week will be much more chill. I know all about the character of God." Boy was I wrong! Yikes! Yes I know that God is good, loving, just, etc. However, it's a completely different thing to completely live out of that understanding. For instance, if I completely understand that God is good and loving, why do I feel the need to be in control of my life?
After class, some people have ministry placements, which are like chores. My ministry placement is dinner clean up, so I have the afternoon to do homework and have a quiet time. After supper, I help clean the kitchen. Some nights after I'm done cleaning, we have more lectures, learn about our upcoming outreach, have worship, or go down to the beach and meet people!
So... that was a long and possibly unnecessary description of what I'm doing here. All that to prove to you that I'm not just vacationing here in the sauna that is Australia. :P
If you would pray for me, that would be awesome. I have the following prayer requests:
1) For refreshment and rejuvenation.
2) On Sunday, we are leaving for two weeks of camping "in the bush." Today, we spent an hour talking about safety, which included what to do if you get bit by a snake or spider. Then they showed us pages and pages of snakes and spiders that can be found at our campground. They haven't had any problems before, but your prayers would be much appreciated. :P
Thank you all for being so loving and supportive. I am overwhelmed by how awesome my friends and family are.
