Armor Bearers

     Here goes round two from New Zealand! For those of you reading this who don't know much about what is going on in my life, let me fill you in. I'm currently serving with Youth With a Mission; YWAM  is an international, inter-denominational, non-profit Christian missions organization that has operating locations in 180 nations and trains 25,000 short-term missions volunteers annually. I'll be acting as a staff member for the Around the World in 80 Days Discipleship Training Schoo (DTS) that is run out of Oxford, New Zealand. (www.ywamoxford.org) The focus of YWAM is to know God and make Him known, therefore students come to a three month DTS to know God on a more intimate level and then make Him known by heading out into the nations to serve. The specific focus of our Around the World in 80 Days (AW80) school is to send teams to multiple countries all over the globe to work along side long term missionaries. Our hope is that by working with these long-termers we can get a feel for how to live, serve and show the love of Christ so we can ultimately do the same wherever we're called.  So now that you have a bit of a background I'll bring you up to speed on what's currently happening in my life.
     In the past month we, as a staff team have been meeting each day of the week to train and prepare for the upcoming DTS. One particular day we were discussing how important it is to communicate with supporters back home. A key theme of this discussion revolved around a particular piece of scripture from 1 Samuel 14. In this chapter the Israelites are at war with the Philistines. Jonathan, the son of the king and his armor bearer sneak to the Philistine outpost. Jonathan explains the plan of attack to his armor bearer and in verse seven the bearer replies,
   ⁷ “Do all that you have in mind,” his armor-bearer said. “Go ahead; I am with you heart and soul.” 

The two of them go on to attack the enemy and many fall at the sword of the armor bearer. The point of all this is to highlight the importance all of you have on my plan of attack. The plan is to defeat the work of the enemy in both young peoples lives and the lives of those unreached people all over the world. The number of those in this world who are trapped in the devil's many snares infuriates me! People trapped in addiction, sex-slavery, low self-esteem, unforgiveness, unbelief and the list goes on and on. Just like Jonathan was confident that the Lord's will would be done with his enemies in 1 Samuel 14, I'm confident God's will shall be done on this earth! I guarantee that this battle is fought so much more effectively with the continual encouragement and support throughout this body of believers so I THANK YOU so much for the prayers you are pouring into the mission of my life to know God and make Him known! I would specifically love it if you would pray against a spirit of poverty, sickness, and discouragement for our staff as a whole and our students who have started to arrive! Here we go!! Much Love and Blessings sent to you from New Zealand!
     
  

Is This Real Life?

     After reading the title of this post I bet you're thinking of that youtube clip of the little boy wigging out after a trip to the dentist. He's obviously experiencing/seeing some crazy things if he has to ask his dad, "is this real life?". Something about that clip makes me a little uncomfortable; I find myself thinking, "I know that it's necessary to give him drugs to make sure he doesn't feel the pain of a dental procedure, but this seems a bit much, a bit extreme; this kid has no idea where he is! He's looking at his own hand as if it's a lobster claw or something crazy like that!". And then I start to think, well, to what lengths would I go to make sure someone doesn't feel pain or doesn't suffer? Would I take into account how uncomfortable it makes me or other people or to how extreme it seems?  I didn't really know how to answer these questions until Team Africa travelled to Moshi, Tanzania.

Mt. Kilimanjaro

My favorite road to walk

   

Everything about Tanzania is beautiful: the people, the scenery, what God is doing there...EVERYTHING!

 

      Our team had such an awesome time working with the different missionaries who are set up long term in Tanzania, specifically Ryan and Stacey Helbling (http://www.global-effect.org/). From the moment we met the Helblings we were drawn to their passion for seeing God's will be done in Tanzania and I wanted nothing more than to be a part of it for the short time we were there. I had caught a glimpse of God's healing power in Namibia and wanted more of Him to shine through in Tanzania. Needless to say, He did and I'll share one incredible story with you... We had just finished up a normal day of ministry teaching English classes at a school in Moshi when our contacts asked if we would mind going to a different school to share a couple testimonies with the teens there. This being a YWAM outreach we were used to being flexible with our schedule and even grew to love these "disturbances" because they were so obviously orchestrated by God. We got to the school, shared a couple testimonies and invited anyone who wanted prayer and encouragement to come to the front--pretty routine. Our team dispersed among those that came forward for prayer and did our thing; as we are praying I notice my team leader Grace start to pray for a girl that had been plagued by severe abdominal cramps. As soon as Grace laid hands on her the girl hit the floor and began convulsing, foaming at the mouth, screaming-basically everything considered horrendous. My nursing instinct told me she was having a seizure, but when I looked again I knew this was no seizure..this was completely demonic. So now as this poor girl is being tormented the afore mentioned questions came looming in...To what lengths would we go to make sure this girl doesn't feel this pain? Would we take into account how uncomfortable the situation made us or the people watching?  At that moment the only thing I (and the rest of the team as well) could think about was helping this girl break the chains that the enemy had bound so tightly around her; I didn't care how crazy we looked and I didn't care that I'd never prayed over someone possessed by a demon; the only words that were running through my mind were, "HELP HER NOW!"
An hour later I found that there's this awesome look that comes across the face of someone who has been touched by God. Once the demon left, this young girl was completely transformed--beaming from ear to ear, laughing, and praising God! This beautiful girl was set free by our sweet Lord and He did what He does best through a group of young adults who were willing to throw aside fears and doubts and call upon His name to defeat the enemy! Sure, you've seen this sort of thing played out dramatically on the big screen, but to answer little dental boys question...Yes, this is real life! Needless suffering is happening all over the world and it is my prayer that more and more believers start walking in the authority granted them by Jesus and start fighting back!

Beauty in the Breakdown

 Oh Namibia...where do I begin?! The third country on our journey has come with it's ups and downs. A major down has been the dryness I've felt in this place, both physically and spiritually; my skin is dry and cracked and so was my spirit--notice the past tense, WAS. I'm pretty sure my mini breakdown was due to a culmination of intense traveling, a busy schedule, missing my family, and many spiritual attacks from the enemy. One day in particular will stick with me for the rest of my life. I started the day with a glass half empty feeling; it took a lot of effort to get through my morning devotionals. I felt like I was completely useless here in Namibia, that nothing I was doing in terms of our ministry was breaking through this dry ground. Anyway, on this particular day our task was to walk around the community of Katatura, on the outskirts of Windhoek, and check on and pray for families of a preschool associated with YWAM Namibia. The enemy was really coming at me hard with things like: "Your prayers are worthless" and, "You don't have the authority to call upon the Lord to help these people". I cracked and I started bawling declaring that, "this place sucks, it is so hard to be here"! One of the preschool staff members could definitely tell that I needed a bit of prayer before we continued on with our own scheduled prayer walk and he just prayed out that there is beauty in the breakdown; the breakdown means that God is stirring something up in you that needs to be addressed. I prayed right then that God would search me, reveal to me what needed to be worked out and then we could work it out together. I knew a few minutes later that it was my unbelief--I thought I had addressed that in Oxford, but obviously we still had work to do; I just prayed again that the Lord would continue to break me of my unbelief. I was feeling a bit better by the time we started walking again. We felt the Spirit leading us to pray for someone with a leg injury so we made a detour from our house visits to do just that. We walked up to a group of men and asked if any of them had a leg injury; they pointed us to a tough looking guy selling goods so we went and asked him about his injury. Turns out he was in a car accident four years ago and his hip was badly broken..he had been walking in pain ever since so we explained to him that we wanted to pray for him and that God wanted to heal his leg right there and then. He agreed to let us pray for healing of his leg. When we were finished we asked him to get up and walk around to see how his hip felt; he said that it felt a little better but he could still feel the pain when he walked. We prayed again as he was standing there and had him give his hip a little shake to seal the deal. All of a sudden he got this astounded look on his face and said something to his friends in his own language. His hip was completely healed, the pain was gone, he couldn't feel a thing and could walk normal! It was so amazing to see the Lord work in that way and I felt like a huge wall came down around my heart and my mind. God is just so much bigger that we can ever imagine--He is in the miraculous healings my personal struggles; what's even more amazing is that both are the same in His eyes! From that day forward my attitude was completely changed; I really began to see the beauty of Namibia!

South African Starfish

      Have you heard the story of the boy and the starfish? Even if you have I’m going to tell it =) One day a little boy was walking along a beach; he came to a section where hundreds of thousands of starfish had washed up on shore. He began the long task of throwing them back into the sea one at a time. A man who was also walking along the beach saw the young boy and called out to him, “What are you doing? You can’t possibly make that much of a difference for all these starfish!” Grabbing a starfish the boy answered, “You may be right, but it will make a difference to this one!” And with that he threw it into the sea.  

      There is such a big world of “starfishes” and I think it is so important to have the perspective of the little boy—if you focus on the enormity of a problem you can’t see past it to make any kind of difference. We met a man (we’ll call him Bhuti) living in a tarp house in Joburg, South Africa. Over a year ago he was mugged and his leg was badly broken, bad enough to need an external fixation device (metal pins screwed into his bone) attached to his leg for a few months. The problem was Bhuti couldn’t afford to return to the hospital to have the device taken off, so he walked around with this thing on for over a year!! Long story short, his leg became infected and he needed proper medical care and antibiotics to investigate/solve the problem. My team leader and fellow nurse Grace, our friend Joseph, and myself took Bhuti to a government hospital an hour away to see if we could get him admitted for some help. To someone who is used to a smoothly run hospital (shout out to the Mayo Clinic) this place was a train wreck. At first they refused to even let him past the front desk because it wasn’t an orthopedic day. They told us to leave him in the waiting room overnight and they could see him the next day. We weren’t keen on leaving him alone for 12+ hours in an uncomfortable hallway and we didn’t want to make too much of a fuss but we did look for some sort of authority figure to help us out. The admission nurse finally examined his leg after seeing us talking to a social worker. After a quick exam she sent us to the family medicine department so a physician could examine it as well. From there on out it was a waiting game- Bhuti was placed in a LONG line to wait for a doc to see him. Imagine three white marshmallows in a cup of black coffee and that is what we looked like in this hospital. The hospital workers looked at us like we were some pompous Americans just using our color to speed up the process for our friend. We waited in this area four or so hours and then were sent to radiology so Bhuti could get an x-ray. After another hour and a half of waiting the x-ray was taken and we were sent to the ER (a hallway filled with shabby beds, people yelling, and overwhelmed nurses and doctors—like I said, a nightmare).  Another 3 hours of waiting and the doctor flat out refused to see Bhuti; we had come this far and he wouldn’t even lift up Bhuti’s pant leg for a quick peek. What’s even more frustrating is it was the very same doctor who had put the device on his leg over a year ago! The only thing we could do besides yelling in frustration was to pray and pray hard. The Lord came through like He always does and Bhuti was admitted to spend the night in a warm hospital to be seen by an orthopedic doctor the next day.

      There are so many in South Africa with their own kind of need and people may say, “you’ll never make a difference in all their lives”, and they may be right but at least we made a difference in one.

    

**Check out Team Africa’s blog as well at: anytimetoast.blogspot.com

What the Haka?!?

     First off, let me apologize for not posting as often as I would like! I'm really trying to be here and present in what the Lord is doing in my life during this time (which is a lot!!); that being said it is on my heart often to let you guys know what is going on here! =) Hmm...Conundrum!
    Each week here in NZ has been amazing; every speaker has brought their own unique style of teaching and connecting with us. This past week we had the privilege of hosting Frank Naea, who was fantastic! He incorporated a significant portion of Kiwi culture, the Haka, into his teaching. The Haka is a traditional dance from the Maori of New Zealand. The Haka was originally performed before battle to proclaim the warriors' strength in order to intimidate the enemy.  It was such a powerful moment for our school when we performed the Haka because we called out loud the fears/lies that satan has placed in our life and proclaimed that they were dead to us; we are alive in the truths and promises of God.

                                                                  The Haka

      Another meaningful item we covered in lecture dealt with the potter and his clay. Jeremiah 18:1-6 says, "This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, 'Go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you my message.' So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him." I love symbolism like this--we are the clay and the Lord has and continues to form us as he sees fit; the potter also has to work out all the bubbles in his clay so it doesn't shatter in the kiln, ruining not only one pot but all the surrounding pots. This discipleship training school has been a process of the Lord working out my bubbles, preparing me to take his love and word to the nations..if my bubbles weren't addressed and worked on I could shatter and quite possibly break others around me. It's the same with everyone..there are tough times we all go through, but if we look at it as the Lord working out our kinks in order to make something beautiful it's that much easier to persevere. I'm so thankful for the process!

   We've had some great weekend get aways as well lately...pictures posted below =)

                                     Arthur's Pass on the way through the Southern Alps of NZ

                                    Pancake Rocks of Punakaiki

                                   Hi Mom and Dad!!

                                Sunset on the West Coast!

                                Lewis Pass

                                                            Camping at Lake Daniels

                               My good friends Courtney (left) and Jane

                             We hiked 2 hours through a beautiful forest along this river to get to our campsite at Lake Daniels--I love the color of the water!

News from New Zealand

      Lots of new things happening since my last post...the earth is shaking folks! The Northeast coast of Japan is in ruins with the death toll rising after their 9.0 quake and tsunami. Our group has dedicated a lot of prayer to the victims and I really feel like God can take advantage of these broken countries (New Zealand and Japan)  and rebuild them with a solid Christian foundation. Please keep praying for these nations!! We continue to spend time in Christchurch, NZ helping people clean up silt, move debris, and basically just spend time hearing their stories. I've found that most everyone I've come in contact with just wants to talk, a chance to tell their story...I love having these conversations; it reminds me of being in the hospital hearing patients tell me how they met their spouse, about their family etc. I LOVE IT!
     On another note I found out where I will spend my three month outreach phase of this journey...Africa!    I'm a mix between excited and nervous to work with an oppressed population; if you know me, you know I'm somewhat emotional and what breaks the Lord's heart will break mine I'm sure of it. It's better than the alternative I guess and I've come to grips with my tears because it's how I express the love I feel from the Holy Spirit. It's a good thing!
     New Zealand seems to get more beautiful everyday. A couple weekends ago we journeyed to Castle Hill (where they filmed the final battle scene in The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe). A team of us entered into a bouldering contest, which basically meant we had a day to roam the rocks and free climb! We didn't come close to winning the contest, but we had a great time anyway! Last weekend for an activity we traveled to Kaikora to try our hands at surfing. It was a bit chilly and the ocean was anything but calm. The only things I accomplished were 1. swallowing salt water and 2. crashing into the rocky beach. I'm not defeated however and I may give it another shot this weekend. Pray for me =)

                                         Castle Hill

                                          Kaikora

    

      Lectures each week have been emotionally challenging and yet so exciting. We've talked a lot about sin, repentance, and forgiveness as well as the Father heart of God. I can't even put into this blog how significant these lectures have been so when you see me next you'll have to ask me all about it! It has been awesome for me to hear again that I don't have to do anything to receive the love of the Father--We don't have to attend 52 prayer meetings and check them off our list of things to do to be a good Christian. The only thing we need to do is seek his face and open our hearts to receive his love! Chew on that people! =)

Here we go!!

      Picture this: I have my schoolbag loaded up and on my back, water bottle filled,  J-Rocks Auto Glass pen locked and loaded, and I'm patiently waiting to head into Day 1 of lecture here on the YWAM base. That was me this morning; and how great it was/is to have the feeling of embarking on a new learning experience, one that will bring me so much closer to the Lord.
     Prior to the official start of school we have had some time to relax and adjust to living a day ahead of you all. If you've ever gone to summer camp or experienced college orientation then you understand the first day awkwardness of meeting a bunch of strangers that you'll live with for a period of time. The main difference between those examples and this experience is that everyone is here for the same reason--to know God and make Him known (YWAM motto); that fact alone erases a lot of uneasiness because we already have something in common with each other! Another great thing is that most everyone shares a love of the outdoors and this makes the setting of this school that much better. Oxford is set in the foothills of the Southern Alps on the Southern Island of New Zealand and it is beautiful!

The view from a walk to base.

This quaint little park has the best view

Ashley's Gorge

**We'll do much more exploring of New Zealand on the weekends so stay tuned for pictures.

      We learned a brief history of YWAM yesterday and one of the most refreshing, encouraging nuggets that hit me was that some things never change.  Since 1960 people of all ages have gone out to the nations with YWAM to love people and spread the news of Jesus...and you know what's changed in the last 50 years? Nothing--YWAM is still doing just that! I'm so happy to be a part of an organization that has changed so many lives.

      This weekend we'll go into Christchurch to help with disaster relief..from what I understand we'll be shoveling silt and visiting with victims of the quake. I'm hoping to put some of my nursing skills to use as well. It is hard to imagine what these people have come through and the long road they will have to travel to rebuild their city. I know some of the citizens must be wondering where was God in all of this and really it's hard to give an answer. What I do know is that God's heart is breaking for them and the world's eye is on Christchurch; millions of people are praying for the city and it's residents--the mayor even went on public TV to tell people to seek refuge in the church and in prayer. I also know that there were hundreds of physicians attending a conference in the city when the quake hit and they were able to provide medical attention to so many...that right there is a blessing and proof that God wants nothing but good things for Christchurch. Please continue to pray for those still missing and those that have lost loved ones! I'll post some pictures after the weekend so you can get a taste of the destruction and cleaning process.

Until then, Much Love!

-Becky