honestly… i think i might talk too much…

so, here i am in Byron Bay Australia to be part of a staff team on a 6 month long course called a Discipleship Training School. this past week, all of our students arrived to the base & began to get settled in. i can’t even begin to explain how excited i have been for the past month or so, just waiting for them to finally get here! i felt kind of like i imagine a long-lost relative might feel in anticipation of finally meeting someone they’ve been thinking & praying about for ages.

it’s been so cool to watch too, cuz for the most part there seems to be a tight knit friendship growing quicker than i would have expected.
It’s been amazing so far, exceeding my expectations. this group has a wisdom & depth that i’m incredibly thankful for because it encourages & challenges me in my own walk.

i don’t see myself in a typical hierarchal leadership position, but one of servant leadership. i am just here to be used as a processing tool for the students, which lifts a huge weight off my shoulders, to know i’m not responsible for imparting incredible amounts of wisdom on my own… where the only difference between them & me being here on this school where we learn all that God is pouring out is that i’ve already done it once.

anyway, during this last week as we’ve all been getting straight into the school & getting to know one another, God has really been speaking to me. speaking truth into my heart, melting the lies that i’ve let take up residence there since before i can remember.

unworthy, deserving of rejection, never good enough, incapable.

this has been and still is a difficult process for me, since these lies, & more importantly my utter belief and reliance upon them, has shaped the way i make decisions and think of myself my entire life.
i’ve let these so called ‘truths’ dictate how i go about making friends & keeping them. let them determine if i could even try to push for my dreams to become reality. i’ve never allowed myself to believe that i deserve anything, that i am worth anything more than someone’s opinion of me. that anything i do or think could actually be declared exceptional.

it was when we were sharing our testimonies that some of this started to become evident to me. i would be listening to people share their stories, & i would just cry. even the people sharing were dry eyed, but not me. and i didn’t really have an explanation for it. i just figured ‘i’m too empathetic, i need to stop emotionally putting myself in that situation.’ and although it is true that i’m empathetic, that was not the reason i was breaking down.

i don’t know when this happened but i realized the reason i was crying was because i still felt second rate. all the points in the testimonies i could relate to the strongest were ones of unworth or rejection or fear, etc. but that unlike the people sharing, i didn’t feel any kind of victory over my issues. i thought “damn, i’m supposed to be a leader, but they are way ahead of me. i’m not even good enough to be here doing this.”

but Jesus’ strength is made perfect in weakness, and a friend reminded me that my appointment as a leader comes with an anointing from God, and not to despise that. so i came home and read my bible, looking up scriptures that challenged my false beliefs of who i am. because the Word is truth, so to not believe what it says about who i am in christ is to call God a liar. to not agree that i am fearfully and wonderfully made is to call God a liar.

on saturday night i was prophecied over, very specifically, and it did 2 things: 1) strengthened my flimsy faith that God indeed cares about little old me, very much. so much that He would use complete strangers to talk to me & respond to specific phrases in my heart. and 2) i have been given permission to kick insecurity’s arse. the dreams, oh the huge dreams growing in my heart, were placed there by God & He is big enough to help me accomplish them. I am no longer allowed to believe the things the enemy has been whispering for a lifetime.

they say the people who come back to staff are back because God wasn’t done yet… i’ll second that.

so. honestly… i guess you could say i’m growing.

this is pretty spot on for my current headspace and i read it in the devotional ‘My Utmost For His Highest’ by Oswald Chambers…
go buy it. now.

If we obey God it is going to cost other people more than it costs us, and that is where the sting comes in. If we are in love with our Lord, obedience doesn’t cost us anything, it is a delight, but it costs those who do not love Him a good deal. If we obey God it will mean that other people’s plans are upset, and they will gibe (mock) us with it, “you call this Christianity?” We can prevent the suffering; but if we are going to obey God, we must not prevent it, we must let the cost be paid.
Our human pride entrenches itself on this point, and we say ‘i will never accept anything from anyone.’ We shall have to, or disobey God. we have no right except to be in any other relation than our Lord Himself was in. (see luke 8:2-3)
Stagnation in spiritual life comes when we say we will bear the whole thing ourselves. We cannot. We are so involved in the universal purposes of God that immediately we obey God, others are affected. Are we going to remain loyal in our obedience to God and go through the humiliation of refusing to be independent, or are we going to take the other line and say ‘ I will not cost other people suffering.’? We can disobey God if we choose, and it will bring immediate relief to the situation, but we shall be a grief to our Lord. Whereas if we obey God, He will look after those who have been pressed into the consequences of our obedience. We have simply to obey and to leave all consequences with Him.Beware of the inclination to dictate to God as to what you will allow to happen if you obey Him.

This is sorely behind schedule, but it is what is, nonetheless…
I’m in Sanlo til January 2nd as long as i recieve my plane ticket. any day now. i think. why am i leaving? because God was speaking to me during my outreach and led me to return to Byron Bay as a staff member. why so soon? i mean, i only got to texas in november… because the next Discipleship Training School (DTS) begins in february and my staff training begins January 5th. soo… what am i doing in the “down time”?
glad you asked
i’m actually going somewhat crazy. I’m struggling with knowing who i am. i learned and changed a lot in the past year or so, much of it while i was overseas. so being home, this whole “re-entry” thing is really…
different.
difficult.
lotsa people don’t really understand why or what i’m doing. they think i’m ridiculous for going without all the $ i’ll need. and they usually tell me so. (albeit nonverbally, often through raised eyebrows… ya know, ‘raised’ doesn’t quite do justice to the action i’m describing.)

i don’t know how to be myself anymore and i still put the expectations of others over my life. i am a silly & insecure little human being.

also, i’m in the “post camp low”. you know. where you go to church camp and you have a blast, meet with God, learn heaps and are sooo stoked on Him. and then you get home. back to “real life”. and everything sorta shifts back. to the crummy decisions you’ve continuously made for what feels like your whole life. the same ol’ mistakes you can’t seem to overcome. the feeling of emptiness and confusion that has entered since you stopped meeting daily with the Creator.

on the other hand, i’ve been hanging out with family and friends, catching up and just enjoying people. loving every minute of it. makes me sad to know that as soon as i get used to it again, i’ll be gone. i’m in texas now, but thinkin about it all makes me homesick…
so, i’m supposed to be fundraising…. haha. i’m working on it. i’ll let you know how that goes…

got a tattoo


read`Hebrews 6:13-20

other than that, just missin my dts friends and counting down til i’m headed back to Oz… which, honestly enough, i am missing. it is a bittersweet downtime.
thank you Lord for all you have blessed me with.

uuuugghhhhhh i’ve fallen so far behind in my updates/ blogs/ mental capabilities. k, here goes the short version. i’ve been on the second phase of my Discipleship Training School (DTS) since August 11th? this second phase is dubbed “outreach” after 12 weeks of lecture phase in Byron Bay, Australia. The first 5 weeks of our overseas outreach was spent in various villages and provinces in Cambodia. Phnom Pehn, Battambang, Siem Reap, and Kampong Cham were where we made our temporary homes for those 5 weeks. ministry included everything from children’s ministry with formerly trafficked girls, devotions/ Bible teaching in bible college, english classes all over the country, feeding and teaching in the slums, feeding and teaching in the poor villages, feeding and praying for healing (and seeing some) in the AIDS wards of Kampong Cham as well as in the slums. we fed the hungry, clothed the poor, prayed for the sick and taught those hungry for the word. and in the midst of it i’ve learned more about myself than i could have thought possible. some fears, insecurities, answers that lead to more questions… and i was blessed beyond measure to experience loving these people and being loved by them. i absolutely adore Cambodians and cherish the time i’ve spent there and i pray that the Lord will take me back sometime. For a week now we’ve been in Thailand doing ministry with The Well in Bangkok. The Well gives limited schooling,along with bible study and a safe place to earn money to former bar-girls who wanted a way out of that depressing and condemning way of living. Thailand is the # 1 destination for sex tourism in the world and the bars where these girls work offer more than just friendly hospitality. the girls who have chosen to leave now have income at the well for their handmade cards and jewelry, not their bodies or their dignity. we’ve been fortunate enough to do outreach in some of the craziest redlight districts in the world, with a former bar girl who works at the well leading us to her old place of employment to talk to some of her old friends. it was heavy but the conversations we had were good and i pray God continues to redeem His little girls out of this horrible situation that happens to be one of Thailand’s biggest cash crops.
at the close of this day i have 18 days left of outreach before i head back to Oz for debrief and graduation. it has been an effin rollercoaster up to this point but i wouldn’t have changed it for the world. God’s been speaking to me about my future and i’m stoked to get there, but for now i’m content to make it through today. pics later.
peace

haha so you should check out ‘The Mighty Boosh’- this ridiculously awesome british comedy… it is soo stupid! love it!
first, if you haven’t seen the video i made about DTS yet…. you should, it’s heaps good
it’s the first one i’ve made , it was fun… and it’s a little intro to the world i’m in for this season in my life. cool stuff &all my fave byronites at their best
copy and paste this link into your web browser… then enjoy!
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=37346937

anyway, that’s not the point of this blog. it has definitely been a while since my last post and unfortunately it wasn’t that cheerful of a post either. i’d be lying if i said i haven’t been busy or overwhelmed by life or God since being here, but i don’t always take it out on God like a bratty 2 year old… sometimes He bypasses my brain and drops little nuggets of pure truth straight into my heart and it just blows my mind… i’m starting to understand what the general connotation and wonderment behind the word ‘revelation’ really feels like. and THAT is what this post is about. just some sweet az revelation… the kind that makes you stop and go “oooohhhhhhhh. that’s what they’re talking about!
needless to say, some of you will read this and say “duh. did you really fly half way round the world just to find that out??!!” and my only answer is this: until you REALLY GET IT… you just don’t get it. so wherever, whenever, and however… i’ll be waiting. teach my heart, cuz sometimes my head doesn’t get it.

cool stuff straight from my notes
*real peace (shalom) nothing missing, nothing broken
*if you talk about someone more than you pray for someone it’s gossip. SHUT UP AND TELL GOD
*Christianity is UNITY in diversity. this means appreciating eachother’s strengths and covering eachother’s weaknesses so that WHATEVER happens will be overcome in unity. whether it be people within your church or other denominations, there must be unity
*worship (greek- proskuneo) KISS TOWARDS, John 4:24. how cool is that, when you worship you are literally blowing kisses towards God!
*God has given everyone a sphere of influence. Despite what we actually use it for, it is intended for Him to reach others through us.
*God thinks i am so cool! He LOVES being with me. i actually DON’T have to strive to gain His love… He just wants to hang out with me, be goofy with me, make me laugh. HE DELIGHTS IN ME
*you are allowed to hate Satan! Amos 5:15 ‘Hate evil, love good…’ freakin hate his guts for all the crap he tries to get you to believe, for all the dirty tricks he tries to pull. every thing he tells you that opposes the will of God is a LIE
*emotions are real… but they are not always true
*everything you do is either selfish or loving- to choose to deny selfishness is automatically to love
*GET THE BIG PICTURE… don’t get stuck on the details.
*God IS NOT, has NEVER BEEN, and NEVER WILL BE a liar… that’s Satan’s job. so listen to God and not the father of lies
*bearing fruit of the spirit should be effortless, you shouldn’t have to TRY to bear fruit… you ever walk by a tree and hear it grunting, striving to push out a couple apples?? no. that’s how it’s designed, what it’s purpose is. and so it is with the spiritual fruits… if you are in the true vine, taking sustenance from the Living water, and reaching up to the Light….. you will start pushin out some fruit
*don’t seek after God’s VOICE… seek after God
*YOUR WORDS ARE SO POWERFUL… mark 11:22-24, proverbs 26:18-19, so speak good things on others, not death and destruction
*Satan is the best liar that ever was… he will try to convince you that you are arbitrary, inferior, tainted, and that you should accept it. “a real man would…”, “a real woman would”, “a real Christian would” is all bullshit he whispered to humanity’s ear from the first conscious thought. and everything you do to try and prove yourself is evidence of the twisted perception you have believed… LISTEN TO THE FATHER who meticulously made you… God is love -1 john 4:8
*in the words of the beatles: all you need is love! matt 22:37-40

oh life… it’s definitely looking up
♥

it’s a new and sort of freeing idea to me, this one i’ve been grappling with for a little while… the concept that it is okay to be angry with God. i mean, He did give us emotions right? and this anger, it’s not because i don’t love Him. in 1 Corinthians 13 (tha love chapter) it gives me a list of qualities present (or supposed to be present) in love. vs 4-8 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking,it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always perserveres. Love never fails… hold up though. in verse 5 it says love is not easily angered. in all my times of hearing this passage i have missed a key point. anger is allowed. it’s not preferred i’m sure, but imagine that!- the bible lets me be human! i think so many times i’ve told myself that i am not allowed as a christian to be angry at other people. unless of course, i’m turning over tables in a temple in my righteous anger. because i definitely think there are 2 different types of anger: a righteous or selfless anger that comes from one being in tune with God. (i.e. i get angry at what He gets angry at) and then there’s fleshly or selfish anger. (i got ignored or left out so now i’m pissed off.) but mostly i guess the kind i’m talking about is best represented in the following picture: a screaming 2 year old, flailing her arms and kicking her daddy in his chest as he tries his hardest to hold on tight. and why? read on…anyway, something i’ve been learning as of late is about God’s soveriegnty, and i think that’s helped me come to this frame of mind about the allowance of anger. what is soveriegnty? dictionary.com defines it in it’s adjective form as this:
*having supreme rank, power, or authority.
*supreme; preeminent; indisputable: a sovereign right.
*greatest in degree; utmost or extreme.
*being above all others in character, importance, excellence
that pretty much sounds like God, no? well, i remember something that was said in a discussion recently about God (we seem to have a lot of those around here wink wink) where it was stated that the thing that makes Him the most sovereign is that He has given some of His sovereignty to us in the form of freewill. sovereignty over a robot is not really much to brag about. sure you have complete control and are above it, but only because there really is no alternative… but hear this. in the minute that God told adam he was free to eat of all the trees save the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God had given adam freewill. to choose God and His perfect decrees or to choose imperfection. sin. and being a descendant of adam, i also have freewill. (consequently i’m also born into sin…) anyway, long story short, devotion is only real and worthwhile when the opportunity for deviation is present. it’s out of this gift of soveriegnty from God that i even have a choice, have the capability to be angry. i am allowed to be human!! yeah, so back to that bratty little 2 year old from earlier… why so angry? because she doesn’t understand. and more than that, she would exercise her freewill in the form of anger at her lack of understanding rather than in the form of trust in her father. and for the icing on the cake, she doesn’t understand because she won’t stop screaming and writhing long enough to listen to her father’s answer to her question. dear God. get me out of my own way.

oh life. why does it hurt so much to grow

this was sooo amazing!! okay so the story is that Eastgate (one of the churches i go to here in byron) was given $1000 to spend strictly on ‘fun for the church’… cool donation, huh. so there is this circus training building across the street from the church, called The Big Top. its pretty dope and the students have been talking about how cool it would be to go there from day 1… anyway, this is where they decided to spend the donation $ so we rented it for a few hours and like 6 staff taught or supervised all the sections. there was trampolines. tightrope walking (like a foot off the ground.haha) unicycles. stationary trapeze that they taught us some cool moves on. those huge pieces of cloth that hang from the ceiling and you can climb them or wrap up in them (all i could do was make a cocoon or fall out of it). we learned acrobat stuff where you use body weight and resistance and someone can stand on your thighs, other crazy stuff i didn’t get pictures of. and of course, the flying trapeze!! it was so much fun! unfortunately my camera’s batteries died right as we got there so the only ones i have are from a friend’s camera oh well, here’s a couple
enjoy!

bryan flipping off the trampoline

this is the cool acrobat stuff using weight resistance stuff. there is another one that i got to do but i don’t have pics for… 2 people, each grabbing the others ankles and sit up to form a square where one is sitting on the floor and the other is “sitting” in the air. really cool, i was the one in the air

this is laurie, she is doing what i think is the inverted star or something like that

carson… i don’t really know what he’s doing, but he looks like he belongs in the circus, yeah?

yeah boy!!! that’s me on tha trapeze! the scariest part is actually reaching out to grab the bar because you have to lean way out off the dock and you have to trust the spotter to hold on to your harness… good times though. once you hook your legs on you let go with your hands and swing just from your legs once. then to get down you swing your legs off and do a backflip… waaaaayyy fun!

mojo seriously waited ALL NIGHT to climb this rope… i think he got told like 3 times to wait for mats and a coach. haha

basically we’re a bunch of circus freaks. and we all had a good time… i tried everything but the unicycle and it was seriously soo much fun. makes me want to join the circus!
yeah so more to come on lectures and whatnot later
♥

so, i thought it would be a good time to write a blog. it’s been a while. i think.
everything has been alternately blurring together because it’s passing so fast, as well as moving slowly. then i realized that i’ve done sooo much in only a month of being here. which means i have 5 more left unless i stay a little extra to travel, which i’m seriously considering (no offense loved ones!!). yeah, so there’s been a lot of really cool things going on. We are almost finished with our third week of lectures. The first week was on evangelism and i’ve written down heaps and forgot even more, but the best thing i took away from that week was this: evangelism is a lifestyle. the way you speak, think, act, whatever should speak Life into people. it’s an act of worship. if you are living your life this way, then you should never be surprised when people tell you there is something different about you… DUH! IT’S JESUS AND HIS LOVE!!
week #2 was on the character and nature of God, taught by one of the smartest men i’ve ever met, Neville Strachan. He’s the pastor at the church most of us go to and he used to be a scientist, i think a biologist. so he fully came at this topic with a scientific perspective in mind and i really struggled just to keep pace with his notes, much less understanding all he was talking about. but the bits i did get were gold. flat out gold. there is seriously like 1/4 alone of my journal that is taken up by notes from that week’s lecture. rev nev also had a main point on worship, how when we get worship wrong it will cascade and we get everything wrong. if you really want some of my notes & stuff just ask, im so down to re-hash. tons of notes on the sheer big-ness of God, which sounds really simple but… yeah. He is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, infinite, and eternal. basically He is always here, He knows everything, He’s all powerful, He has no beginning or end, from everlasting to everlasting HE IS GOD (Psalm 90:1-2 & other good stuff in that book we call the bible) also we went over His soveriegnty, The Triune God, The Almighty One… and more. seriously, just ask. it was FULL ON!

and this week we are finishing prophecy and healing ministry. so crazy. ok, not crazy. just something i’ve never been a part of before. and no. this healing and prophecying gig didn’t quit after the apostles died out. God never stopped speaking to us. it’s just that somewhere along theology, we stopped listening.
for the prophecy part of the week, which we had to squeeze into 2 days, we had like a 45 minute workshop. basically Rie split us up into pairs and told us to ask God about facts in our partner’s past. the whole point of it was to A) show that God still speaks, we just have to practice our listening, and B) practice this exercise in the future when we are asking God for specifics about a person we are supposed to meet and talk to. Phil and Rie said they’ve used this before to prove to people that God really does know all about us, even the “small things”. So, we sat back and asked God to show us things about the other person and write down anything that popped up into our heads. i ended up writing down 15 items and when i reviewed it with my partner i ended getting 7 1/2 right. and i noticed that the more specific ones, involving more than just one word, were pretty dead on. it was pretty cool… i’m still just trying to take it all in though.

i just try to process everything and i’m finding myself silent more and more. trying to figure out what God really is trying to tell me. what my purpose is here in Oz. here in LIFE. just searchin. lots of quiet days. prayer is always appreciated…

Couple quick cool stories about how God has really been good to me.

First story: there is another YWAM base along the sunny coast that has been spending the past 2 weeks here in Byron for the last segment of their outreach phase. Very diverse group with some cool characters in it. Anyway, Sunny Coast base has some cool shirts that their students wear with their website on a sleeve and REVOLUTION on the front, only the letters ‘EVOL’ are backward and in red to spell love. I’ve always liked them and especially the one that melissa was wearing because it was pink and had the outline of Australia on the back, it was just heaps good.

Well, this week was their last week before going home for debriefing so last monday our DTS and everyone from the Sunny Coast outreach team got together and put our names in a hat. Everyone drew a name and the only rule was that by the deadline at dinnertime, we were supposed to bless this person. Some people talked to the person they drew before planning their blessing and some just did it. a couple people gave favorite snacks and one girl washed her person’s feet!

I wasn’t sure what to do so while i was thinking, melissa pulled me outside to talk. She said ” uh… God told me to give you my shirt… do you even wear pink?” my jaw flippin hit the floor! so i told her the little story about my plan to make my own and how i especially liked hers, but then i told her the best part… i NEVER voiced that idea or the fact that i liked her shirt to ANYONE… cool huh. so God knows my inner thoughts. thats a little scary actually, but what a cool way to prove it.

Next story: wednesday i recieved a cashier’s check from my parents to be deposited in my account here in Australia. i opened this account with the idea of transferring all my funds from home into it so i could pay for school easier. long story short, nothing has worked out by wire so i got my parents to send this check. but when i got to the bank i was told they couldn’t deposit it either. basically there is stuff that gets lost in translation from american banking to australian banking what with routing numbers in one country and swift codes, yadda yadda. anyway, she said she couldn’t do it because it was over the amount she was allowed to process without approval from my bank. which means she had to send it back to the states to get approved and have them send back the money by wire i think, the whole process incurring up to at least $75 in charges to be taken out of my check. oh. and it takes 2 weeks at the quickest. so all my money is in this check which means i have extremely minimal amounts on my card i.e. i have no money. so i start crying in the bank… when does this story get good you ask?? well, as i was crying i told God that He could have this situation because there was nothing i could do about it and that He had to provide for me since He’s the reason i’m here. anyway, my teller ends up being a member of the church i go to called eastgate and she knows all about YWAM. she was tryin to tell me something confidentially but i didn’t hear her so when she nodded her head so did i. she left and came back with a piece of paper and told me to go to the other teller because she wasn’t allowed to process it. i was confused so i looked at the paper… she took money out of her personal account and just gave it to me to help me out til i get my stuff over. no questions, no strings. she just gave me a chunk of money! i couldn’t believe it!! Praise God! i still don’t know about my other money, but i know that even if it never gets here that i should trust God to figure something out for me… i’m completely blown away. thank you God

a href=”http://whatthamel.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/ywam-fam.jpg”>
from left to right:
Giles (my bro from England, student @ the sunny coast base), Jess (staff & my one-on-one she’s so awesome!!), Bryan (Canadian & fellow DTS student), Josh (from England, fellow DTS student), Shardae (staff/worship leader, all around awesome. oh yeah, she’s Australian), Amanda (from Chicago, fellow DTS student), Abe (Canadian/mexican y mi hermano)… he’s from the last school and just left for home and Carina (English, staff/ hospitality/ outreach coordinator for Gile’s team)

Tarnz on the left, her fiancee Carson in the middle, Amanda on the right… Cars is teaching us how to play this game he learned in Cambodia. it was gross, don’t ask.

Laurie, Amanda, and part of Josh (all DTS students)

Mojo (DTS student) and mr. snake (friend of the family)

Tarnz (DTS staff) & Kev (DTS leader & base director)