Sri Lanka!

Hi everyone! It's been so long since I last had a chance to post. There's so much to talk about that has happened over the past month. Since we arrived in Colombo (the capital city) we've traveled across the country to Thirukovil, Maha Oya, and Mahiyangana staying a week at each one. I'll give a brief recap of each one.

Colombo
So the first week in Sri Lanka we stayed at the People's church which holds roughly 7,000 people. It has an interesting design, the ground floor is supposed to be a parking garage but its used for meetings because they need the space. Then there is the sanctuary which is big but not too comfortable. There is no a/c so they have a lot of fans everywhere but it still gets really hot in there. We stayed in one of the classrooms and slept on the concrete floor. I wasn't as thankful back then as I am now for the a/c. Being back in Colombo the a/c in our room is pure luxery! Anyways, we arrived on a Saturday and the next day we had to attend 4 services! They had services in tamil, english, singhali, and a youth service at night. That was a pretty exhausting day but being at the youth service was exciting for me. All of the youth speak english fairly well and I got the chance to share a testimony during the service. That went well and opened the chance for me to connect with some of them after the service. Oh and I should probably mention that the youth include ages up to 25. Just talking to them was very encouraging for my own faith in how they live for God.

The first week we spent our time at a nursing home ministering to them and doing practical work. It was tough work! We dug a hole in the back, chopped down huge weeds with a scythe (which was really a dull piece of metal 4 inches long attached to a pole that gave me blisters within 5 minutes), scrubbed and painted walls (their paint sure isn't like paint at home), did some landscaping in the front, cleaned their bathroom, and a few other miscellaneous things. What they really needed was just people to talk to them and something to do. So we did our best to exchange stories and spent time praying for them. We were definitely a blessing to them, but it was a difficult task for me. It was a struggle to be obedient and to give it my best when my heart wasn't there at all. I was shown that missions usually isn't so glamorous and exciting and that it's just hard work. That's a lesson that I continued to learn in the upcoming weeks.

Thirukovil
more to come, I need to sleep!

Goodbye

It's time for me to leave now. Before I leave I want to declare God's goodness no matter what happens on outreach. He is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness. So, Sri Lanka and Jakarta here I come!

I'll be having a friend update this blog since I won't be able to check it due to security reasons. If you have comments, questions, or encouragement feel free to email me. Please make sure to use 'code' when you email me substituting words like prayer, christians, and muslims with talking to dad, brothers, and people who aren't in our family. I'm sure all of you can think of better ideas so be creative! Some people decided to use star wars terms, maybe I'll try that out. :)

I'll miss all of you so much. I can't to go out to the nations, but I also can't wait to come home and see all of you again. I'll do my best to keep everyone posted. God bless you all!

Much love,
Andrew

Outreach is near!

The lecture phase is coming to an end and outreach is drawing near! We're leaving on Dec. 26th for Sri Lanka and then we'll head to Indonesia on Feb. 14th (estimate). I think we're planning to be back on Mar. 14th, spend a week in Perth and then head back home.

We received a contact in Sri Lanka and now have a tentative schedule! We'll be working with an orphanage, providing relief to where the tsunami hit 3 years ago, and working in a nursery home. I'm really excited to go to the coast where the tsunami and spread the love of God there. All the details are pretty slim as of now and I'll let you all know more when I find out. As far as Indonesia goes we'll be in the city of Jakarta but we're still working out what we'll be doing and what contact we'll be working with. I've heard that for Jakarta we have to be careful with any media so I won't be able to check the blog during that time. I'll find the most convenient way to update everyone and let you know later.

Anyways, this is going to be a quick update. This week our topic is Lordship and it has been awesome. Our speaker is Dave Gustafson from LA! he is the director at YWAM LA. Great man of God, hilarious speaker. One of my favorite things he's said was "God I'm bored, blow my mind!" I've been learning a lot about giving things. Imagine making a very, very tight fist as if it's something you're holding onto in life wheter it be your dreams, goals, desires, whatever. Once you try letting go you realize that it hurts because you've been making a fist for so long! But only until you open up your hand can God put His gifts in your life. Once that happens we tend to hold onto that again and God has to teach us to let go all over again. We not only have to trust God with everything but have a heart after His own so our desires are in line with His!

Some prayer requests:

• Healing for Emily and Petra. Emily has a inner ear imbalance problem which has made her miss a lot of class for 2 months now. Petra is our team leader who is still recovering from Dengue fever when she was in Jakarta during her last outreach.
• Health and safety for our entire team. We need God's protection beginning now from physical and spiritual attacks. Sri Lanka is still in a cival war and we also need to be careful in Jakarta. Spiritual warfare has been a big lesson to us. When we're doing big things for God the enemy is going to try to attack so we have been constantly wearing our battle armour.
• In Sri Lanka we're getting visas upon arrival so be praying on the day we arrive (the 27th) that everyone is able to get into the country without any problems.
• Last but definitely not least, that God will TAKE THESE NATIONS! God has given all of us a heart for these countries and we are desperately pressing in to see God work. We want these nations to be woken up and revived for the glory and kingdom of God, woohoooo!

Time has flown by so fast. I hope God has been growing in all of you more than He has been in me. And if not, I encourage all of you to earnestly seek Him with all your heart! He will meet you and He will "blow your mind!" That's a promise.

Blessings,
Andrew

Movember!

I have to start off by apologizing for not updating so long. Much has been happening here at YWAM Perth and things have been getting busier and busier as out outreach phase is almost here. First off with some outreach updates!

Our outreach fees have gone up, up, up! The original estimate was $4000 and now it is at $5200! Our staff has told us that it is the most expensive time to fly and airfare has gone up a lot. Thankfully to all of you who have supported me I have just enough now for all of my expenses (and a little extra which I've given to other students in need). The amount for the other two teams have gone up as well and it was really a test of our faith to trust that God would provide. Last week we still needed around 90k to cover our outreach expenses. Thankfully our God is faithful and he has provided all of that and MORE. We're now 3k over our need and waiting to see how God calls us to use the money. Praise God for his faithfulness and his ultimate provision! We we're doing what we could to bring in funds and God was faithful to bring in the rest. Every weekend we were washing cars for 5 hours praying that people would be gracious in their donations. One of the days we received 400 dollars from only 5 cars, needless to say we came across some generous people. We also went on a 16km (10 mi) walk last week to raise support. It was a long walk, but we saw a lot of money come in and it was great times all around. We were praying for God to release the money every morning and sure enough He did, on the day everything was due. There were so many stories of how other students got support it was amazing.

One day during lecture we were told to ask God if there was anything we felt we should give to one another. Things we valued the most or just something we knew someone else wanted to support and encourage each other. One student felt God was telling her to promise a large amount of money to someone else even though she didn't even have it. Sure enough the next day she received two emails of promised support that was over the amount she needed. We're not just talking about hundreds of dollars here, we're talking thousands. God is good.

To leave you off with a picture, I must explain this one first. Here at YWAM Perth November is also known as Movember, where a select group of guys grow mustaches for absolutely no reason other than to look awesome. So I had to represent the Asian brothers since the rest of us don't grow much facial hair and I've been blessed with that talent. So here's a picture after a month of not shaving, thank goodness it's over!

This one made it to the front page of www.ywamperth.org!

and now a close-up for your viewing pleasure :)

Thank you for your continued support and prayers. Please be praying for our outreach team. If you have been keeping up with the news you'd know that safety is a large concern. We trust that everything is in God's hands but need to keep fighting for health and safety. One of the girls on our team has had an inner ear imbalance condition for weeks now. Her name is Emily, please be praying for her. Also for all the people in Sri Lanka and Indonesia that God would soften their hearts because we want to see salvations! Nothing would bring us more joy than to see more people fall in love with Jesus.

Miss you all dearly. Sorry if I haven't got back to some emails, things have been so busy here as the outreach date gets closer. We leave early in the morning on Dec. 27. I'll work on returning all your emails and letting you know more about what's going on with me. Bless all of you!

With His Love,
Andrew

it's official!

I'm going to Sri Lanka and Indonesia!

outreach destinations!

So we we're finally given our outreach options! The locations are decided but the prices and type of work aren't for certain yet. The numbers in parenthesis are the danger warnings for each country. It's a scale from 1-5, 5 being the most dangerous. There are three different teams to choose from, here's the breakdown:

1. Sri Lanka (4) - 6 weeks
Jakarta, Indonesia (4) - 5 weeks
$4000 AUS

In Sri Lanka we'll most likely be working with the Assemblies of God church movement doing evangelistic work. Right now there are many evangelistic movements going on and many orphans as well. The dominant religions are hindu and buddhist. Currently the country is in a civil war so there is potential danger.

Jakarta has very open doors right now and an established ywam base. Ywam Perth has targeted Jakarta for an entire year now and has sent many teams already. The main focus is to work with churches to promote evangelism. There are also many slums there that we'd be working with. There is antagonism towards westerners and christians (and chinese!) from the high percentage of muslims.

2. Cambodia (2) - 5 weeks
New Zealand (1) - 6 weeks
$4500 AUS

This team will spend a week in Australia working with youth groups to prepare them for a 2 week mission trip to Cambodia. Afterwards they will take them with to Cambodia to lead their missions trip. Then the team will spend another 2 weeks serving there on our own. There is a ywam base already established and they'll be working with them.

After Cambodia they'll travel to the New Zealand which used to be one of the biggest missionary sending countries. They'll travel across the country promoting missions and encouraging youth to take up missions.

3. Ethiopia (4) - 6-7 weeks
Australia (1) - 5-6 weeks
$5000 AUS

In Ethiopia there will be lots of public proclamation and evangelistic campaigns. Possibly offering some relief to the people starving there. There are many Islamic extremists and the border reigions are extremely volatile (but the team won't be going there). There is an established ywam base as well.

Afterwards the team will head to northwestern Australia. The direction isn't very clear yet but it seems like the natives will be a target.

I'll need to make a decision by Thursday morning, which is Wednesday night for everyone back home. Please be praying for me! I'll be spending time asking God where He wants me to go and hopefully make the right decision. We've been waiting for this moment as a school for a while now and it's definitely an exciting time. We've been learning a lot on how much God loves the nations and now we finally get to set our hearts on nations once the rosters have been set. So please pray for me to hear clearly from God and soon! I'll let you all know once I find out where I'm going!

Bless you heaps,
Andrew

worship and intercession

It has been an exciting week of teaching. I'm just going to start it off with some cool things we've been taught this week.

• We want to hear from God because we want a relationship with Him!
• It should be normal to hear God speak.
• God's ability to speak to us is far greater than our ability to hear from Him.
• Every time we try to hear the voice of God it is a step of faith.
• Spiritual battle is real and we all have our own part to play!
• We have authority through Jesus while we are acting according to His will.
• We are living sacrifices, even if you're tired worship God with all you got!
• If you're distracted by other people during worship, stand in the front.
• Give your best years to God.
  

So those are just some great points that we went over during class. One thing I'd like to mention is hearing God's voice. In learning to hear God's voice we start off as infants and it's really hard for us to discern His voice. It's like when a stranger calls you on the phone, you can't tell who it is by their voice but as a friendship develops you start to recognize that person's voice. It works that way with hearing God's voice as well. That's why it can be so difficult to start recognizing His voice from the very beginning. We've been taught that God wants to speak to us and that it should be normal so we should be expectant to hear from Him. The application of this is that anytime we have any sort of inkling no matter how small we should go for it in faith (and humility) that it might be from God (assuming it follows His word of course). If we keep doing this we'll be able to strengthen our 'faith' muscles and learn to discern His voice. How exciting is that? God speaks to us concerning the big things and the little things in our lives. The speaker this week used a lot of stories and anecdotes to really get his points across. One of the examples he used was from the movie Wall-E. He compared the people to our ability to hear from God saying that it's normal for us to walk but since the muscles of the humans were so weak they could barely stand anymore. Makes sense to me. I'm going to work on those faith muscles and not be afraid to be a fool for God!

So last weekend we went camping! I volunteered for the camping committee and it was more work than I thought! Camping in Australia is much different than camping at Cabrillo Beach. The biggest different was bringing and cooking food for 50 people each meal. It was good fun though spending time out in the woods. We spent some time canoeing, cooking and cleaning, toasting marshmallows, playing some group games including capture the flag in the dark which was quite intense! The only part I didn't enjoy was the enormous amount of flies! I must have ate a couple that weekend that got mixed up into the food. We labeled the really big ones 'Goliath' and they actually pack a punch when they bite! Overall it was a good time to bond and spend some time outdoors. I'll put up some pictures at another time.

As usual, praying for all of you at home. Especially the youth group! I always think of the Philippians 1:3-5 whenever I think about you guys. Keep pressing on and deepening your relationship with him because He is so worthy of everything. Don't waste this precious time you have and set your eyes on Him! Love you guys so much. That goes for everyone, I miss all of you!

Blessings,
Andrew