Stephanie's Call to Missions: In Spirit and in Truth

Week of 3/08-3/14:

This weeks teaching on the Character and Nature of God was challenging, perspective changing, refreshing, and completely anointed by the Holy Spirit. Chris Twinn, a pastor of a church in Brisbane called Christ Ministries International, came and spoke to us this week. His love and passion for the Word of God was so evident in each and every word he spoke to us. I had so many heart revelations this week... God is teaching me so many things about himself and the authority given to me as a follower of Christ. I would love to share all my notes on here, but there are far too many! I am in the process of typing them up for you, and will post them as soon as I'm done :)

We had some neat evangelism opportunities this week. The base does a ministry called "coffee van", where we set up a table and give away free coffee, tea, and hot chocolate- providing an opportunity to have conversations with people and tell them about Jesus. We set up our coffee table on Thursday evening across from a mall. A good number of people came and got free coffee. The classic question is, "Why are you all doing this?" and that provides a great way for us to tell them about YWAM and share about our love for the Lord. I had some really good conversations that night. On Saturday afternoon, we did outreach in a park called Burleigh Heads. It was a beautiful day out. We had live music, face painting, and free coffee/tea. We had a TON of people stop by our tables and were able to have some good, meaningful conversations. I had a long conversation with a man who opened up to me about his life and asked me a lot of questions about my faith and I was able to share my testimony with him. There were a number of praise reports from this afternoon. The Spirit was definitely moving!

God is doing amazing things. I am growing so much closer in my relationship with him. One area that has been transformed during this DTS is my prayer life. My perspective on prayer has changed to where I pray in belief of who God is (what the Word says about his will and character), and wait in expectancy for him to move. I think I used to pray with uncertainty if God would actually answer my prayers. Now I know that prayer is God's opportunity to move through us and complete his will on earth as it is in heaven. How cool is it that we can be apart of that?? I am excited to be used by him in prayer to see his will be done in situations and in other people's lives.

Over the weekend, I went on a hike with Andy and Kerstin (2 staff members) up in the mountains. The hike was through a beautiful rainforest. We had such an amazing time together. Here are some pictures from the hike: