Perth YWAM

2005-12-04T19:26:00.000+08:00

Pre - YWAM

Well, I thought it about time for me to post the pictures from the two weeks that I was here before YWAM was in full swing. My mini vacation to Australia (pre - ywam) began with a surprise.. a 21st surprise birthday party that is...ha! This here is a picture of me with one of the coolest birthday presents ever... a surf board from one cool boyfriend!

Then, as you can see...

with a needed new wet suit from Joel's dad and step mom, to bear the fridgid winter waters, we were off into the depths of the aussie ocean. I quickly learned that most aussi entertainment was located around water.

Here, Joel took me to Penguin Island. An Island that you can walk to.. so we walked through the ocean for about 15min with the water never coming above our stomachs, and went fishing! Here I am with my first fish ever! It was a fiesty one, and I kinda felt bad for killing it, but I was still excited.

Then came a trip down south with Joel's mom, sister Shayela and brother Isaac. I ate my first emu pie (yuck) and we went to the amazing rock/ ocean overlook. Here we are for a kodak moment :-)

Then came another trip down south, this time with Joel and Shayela's friends in Shayela's Kombie. We walked the cape to cape trail..welll some of it, here we are at the beginning of the trail, and taking some stops on the way. While Shay and Ryan set up camp, Brionne Jame Joel and I walked along the western coast of Australia for the day. Needless to say.. it was great to be toured around Australia and exposed to the aussie culture for two weeks!

2005-11-28T19:09:00.000+08:00

Week 7

Wow the DTS lecture phase is half way done! Sloowww Down lecture phase... sloow down. ha. Well, the week our topic was the Father Heart of God and our speaker, John Bills from LA California really challenged our class each day. John walked us through the role God has as our Heavenly Father, and just poured out the depth of love God has for us as His children. This week was a pivital week for many in the class, including myself - many breakthroughs occured and many wounds were healed. People were delivered from strongholds the enemy had on their lives, and heavy spiritual baggage was left behind.

2005-11-28T18:42:00.000+08:00

Week 8

Happy Thanksgiving!

Though we had a thanksgiving dinner later in the week, I sure did miss a home cooked dinner this year!On Wednesday, Joel's brother Isaac had an art display that we were able to go to and then His mom and uncle treated us to a great Tai food meal. Joel said it was my substitute thanksgiving meal... ha!
Our topic this week was Authority and Submission and our speaker was Dave Cole from New Zealand. Lecture covered the importance and power involved in submitting to God's authority and to the authorities in our lives. We had an application time in which we had the opportunity to pray that any independant attitudes or manipulative tendencies would be broken off from our lives; that was a powerful time for many of us who have grown up in a world telling us that we don't need people for support, when we actually do.
We also found out our outreach teams for Egypt! That was a definate highlight of the week Joel and I were placed on the same team, whew, and we have seven other amazing people on our team (Trisha - our leader, Joe - our aussie co-leader, Daylene - Montana, Joanne - Scotland, Bethany, Stephanie - Michagian, Patrick - Georgia) . God is going to move in great ways.

Along with outreach teams, came the outreach fees. We are waiting for God to provide and being in prayer during these next 10 days. The fees are due Dec 7th, and I am short about $2,000 Australian dollars. I am learning obedience during this time, as well as patience :-)

The weekend brought a time of needed relaxation. To the beach we went, it's weird being in 80 degree weather in November, guess I'll just have to get used to it!

2005-11-10T12:16:00.000+08:00

Week 5 our DTS leader Ari spoke on "The Fear of God". Now when talking about the fear of God it is not a fear as in being afraid of God, but more of a certain reverancy for God. We learned a lot about how God wants us to live holy lives for Him, stoping temptations as they enter our minds rather than dwelling on them.

On wednesday nights we sometimes have some spare time which we will quite often fill up with watching a movie. We usually watch them over a big projector on the wall and set out heaps of matresses that everyone lays on.

On Saturday night there was a big dance party (No provocative dancing ofcoarse) where everyone had to dress up as either a Granny, or a Gangsta. Obviously Sally was a Granny while I was a bit of a hispanic gangsta. Anyways, a lot of fun was created just from everyone getting dressed up, and watching everyone else dancing was alright too.

2005-11-04T19:13:00.000+08:00

Week 4
This is still Sally... Hi! well... week 4's topic was Evangelism, and our speaker was Ross Tooley. Ross is one very experienced man in the area of evangelism. He has been involved with YWAM for nearly 27 years, and has led countless evangelistic teams. The amazing thing about the week though, was the way Ross broke down sterotypes of witnessing for our class and explained how simple talking about God really can be. The weekend brought open day. pretty much people from the city can come onto base and learn about what YWAM is all about. We were all assigned clean up jobs for the day, but really I think they just wanted us all on base to make it look busy ;-)

Saturday night Joel and I met up with his dad, Paul, and his Stepmom Jeneane, his sister Shayela and his grandma, nanny/veronica for a birthday dinner for his dad. We went out to a japanese resturant and then out for ice cream. I ate squid for the first time... it was interesting ha. We stayed the night over at Joel's and headed out sunday morning with Shayela for a road race she had entered to cheer her on. I must say... I was pretty amazed that the race started 30 minutes late (hint the watch and the line up for those still needed to get their numbers) however there were some complications, so the late start was semi understandable. It was pretty amazing to see a race right by the ocean.

We went to church later on Sunday and then hung out around Joel's until we had to go back to the base for dinner. And that was week 4!

2005-11-02T16:09:00.000+08:00

Week 3

well hello... Sally here. week three's topic was repentance and forgiveness. the class was blessed to have our base leader, Shirley Brownhill as our speaker. Shirley walked us through the importance of forgiving those who have hurt us, as well as asking forgiveness from those we have hurt. Friday was the day of application. our session began at 8:30am and continued on through the night until we concluded on saturday morning at 5:30am. For those 21 hours, each member of our class, including the staff, had the opportunity to sit before our group and publically pray... asking God for forgiveness and forgiving those who they needed to forgive. The session was powerful and broke people free from the bondage sin had over their lives. This cross has all of our lists of struggles and hurts symbolically nailed all over it.

After some much needed rest through saturday afternoon, we all gathered with the other schools on base and piled into mini buses for a game of capture the flag at Kangaroo Island. After two games of sprinting around for the other team's towel....'flag', we headed back to base for a movie night. These pictues show us pre-capture the flag (in our mission impossible poses & clothes) and afterwards.

Sunday, Joel and I were able to catch a train to his mom's house and have lunch with her and his sister Shayela, and brother Isaac. It's nice having Joel's family close by, I have really enojoyed the time I have been able to spend with them so far.

And.... that... was week three :-)

2005-11-02T15:21:00.000+08:00

Week 2
In week 2 our speaker was Steve Warren who spoke on Intercession. We learned how intercession is learning to pray for others that God leads us to pray for, and then waiting for God to speak to us. It was a new, but great experience and Steve taught us heaps.

At the end of the week Sally and I took Lucas and Cody back to Mandogalup (my house) to check some more of perth. While we were there we attempted to go crabbing with crab nets. For those who are unsure what this is, it is where you walk around in shellow water and sweep down some metal nets, trying to catch the crabs. After finding that there were no crabs around we decided to then go to the beach and just had some fun jumping off sand dunes and stuff. All up it was a great week.

2005-10-31T13:40:00.000+08:00

Week 1
During this first week everything was pretty crazy and hectic. The first thing I noticed was how guys are outnumbered 3 to 1, and as well as this out of 65 students there are 3 Aussies. It's only the night you get here at YWAM that they tell you where you are going to be living for the next 3 months. However for the first 3 days we were still waiting for a room to stay in as there was a family in our room that was waiting for their house to be ready. The picture above is usally one of the classrooms, but this doubled as a 12 man sleeping pad with no windows. Sally is living in a house just around the corner from the base which is very nice. On the 4th day here 6 of the guys in my DTS (Discipleship Training School) moved into our more permanent dorm room pictured below.

2005-10-31T11:51:00.000+08:00

G'day everyone,

At first what Sally and I (Joel) were going to do was to send everybody that we know the pictures, and tell everybody what has been going on here at Perth YWAM (Youth With A Mission). We will still be sending emails periodically, but this will a great way for all of our friends and family to constantly check out everything that is going on here at Perth YWAM.

Things are amazing here. I've just been having a great time, and most of all just learning heaps about God. We have both met many great new freinds, who we are getting along with great.

A typical day here during the lecture phase looks something like this:

6 am is morning workouts. Here, there is a choice between running, soccer, or arobics and walking for the girls.
6:30 am we then have time to get ready for the day, having breakfast, and spending some time with God.
8 am is when we do half an our of work duties which consists of cleaning the classrooms and auditoriums, washing the bathrooms and kitchens. 8:30 is the start of the base-wide activities. Depending on which day of the week it is, this could be praise and worship, or prayer time.
10 am is where our lectures start each day until lunch time at 12:30

12:30 is lunch time where over 300 people gather for a meal that is made for each table there.
1:30 is the start of work duties. Each person on the base works for a couple of hours a day, which is one of the ways that Perth YWAM is able to keep everything so affordable. Depending on your experience you may be assigned to work in construction of new property, in the kitchen, sewing, in an office, or in my case driving a delivery van for the food. Sally, with all her recent cooking experience is one of the many kitchen hands on the base.
At 3:30 we finish working and we get a couple of hours of spare time. For me this is usually used up with going over my notes that I have taken on that weeks lecture topic.
5:30 is dinner time which is always entertaining. This is where they make the daily announcements, and sing birthdays songs. This is also the place where we all get a chance to meet some of the other 300 YWAMers that are on the Perth YWAM base.
In the everings we either have more lectures, small groups, evangelism (On the streets of Perth), or have a service. Ofcoarse getting up at 6 am each day means that we try to get to sleep by about 10ish but this has only happened a few times so far. Weekends are free except for every third week we have a work duty preparing one of the meals.