Three weeks on the road... Week one: Easter Fest!!

It's been a while since I've written an update!

Week one of our long trip on the road, we had the privilege of helping out at a Christian music festival called Easter fest.  There was a lot of manual labor in helping set up, I was with the boys much of the time setting up tents, stages, moving crates and speakers, as well as decorating for shows.  This really taught me how to have a servants heart and just how far my body can go and be strengthened!  There was a separate crew area where we would hang out during breaks and meals, as well as wait to be recruited to the next job.  

^^ Here is a picture of our fashionable high visibility gear, taking a break from set up ;) ^^

When the festival actually started, we were shifted on for 8 hours a day doing various duties. I helped with security (checking wrist bands at the gates), setting up for certain shows (I got to help set up Tigertown's show complete with christmas trees and fake snow! Their performance later was absolutely magical, and they shot video for a music video they're working on. It was so cool to be able to be a part of something like that!), serving Chai tea in the YWAM tent, etc.  All of these opportunities led to good conversations with people, some of whom are now convinced that they'll join YWAM and do a DTS and even attend the University of the Nations!  God taught me a lot about how far my body can go with lacking sleep and constant energy output, as well as perseverance.  Some mornings I felt miserable, sitting out in the cold and rain near sunrise... But through that, I was able to have meaningful conversations and begin relationships with people, God's hand was all over those situations!

Ever since the beginning of DTS, Taco has been singing and playing this song on his guitar by Mark Lowndes, so its kind of become a theme song for our group.  We got to meet up with him after his show at Easter Fest, in which he didn't play the song! The funny thing was that his wife told him he had to play that song that night, but he forgot!  He said he would come to our crew kitchen and do a special show just for us.  That was such a cool experience, getting our group song specially played for us in our kitchen behind the scenes.  SUCH a special time!  Below is a picture of our YWAM group with Mark in the middle.

A huge praise: A girl's neck was constantly bothering her all week long, and God healed it as I prayed!  She said it felt better after that, and any time during the day it would spontaneously flair up again she'd simply pray again and the pain would go away, praise God for He is faithful!

Easter was absolutely crazy.  It dumped rain on us all day long, so that all of the walkways were just a foot of mud to sludge through.  Everyone walked around barefoot with their pant legs rolled up because any shoes would be demolished in the mud.  It made for an interesting adventure of a day!  Definitely not the typical fancy breakfast and dinner with the family, painting easter eggs and reading the bible together!  But I wouldn't trade the experience for anything, it was probably the most memorable Easter I've ever had. Not many people can say that they got to worship God out in the dumping rain and mud at a huge festival that they volunteered at on the opposite side of the world from their home!

Heading out, and a financial update!

Just a heads up, I'm leaving tomorrow for 3 weeks, so I won't be able to keep up the blog during that time. The video below describes what I'll be doing!

Financially, I have approximately $1500AUD to go for my first deposit for outreach, and then the final cost will be announced after the trip is all planned (about 1000-2000 AUD more.) I have no doubt that God will provide, He always does when he calls His children to GO!

Here is an update vlog for you!

GOD BLESS YOU TODAY!

TALK TO YOU IN A FEW WEEKS

Buzzing with Anticipation!

The outreach teams have returned from the September MAD DTS, and we've found our base has nearly doubled in size!  Things have certainly picked up here at YWAM, and there is hardly a quiet corner all through the base.  What a blessing to get to know all these new faces and hear their stories of how God has worked through them in growing the kingdom in the countries they've traveled to!  This is getting me all the more pumped up to go to Japan in a few months.

Our speaker is this week is going through and lightly dissecting the whole Bible with us.  We've split off into teams of four or five and have been given a section of the Bible to act out in a skit, starting from Genesis, going all the way through Revelation! It's so fun to see how creative telling the story of the Bible can be, and how interactive.  This is such a great tool for evangelizing in the world, as it becomes engaging, entertaining and meaningful at the same time.

MAD DTS on Brisbane base is buzzing with anticipation of being on the road for the next 3 weeks!  Week one we'll be helping out at Easter Fest, which is a large Christian music festival in Toowoomba, Australia.  We'll have a massive YWAM tent and be helping set up the festival, camp out, and do several activities during.  The following week, we'll be going to Byron Bay to study and do some outreach.  The third week is what we call the Pass It On tour, where we are given a baton and literally run from town to town in Australia, passing on the word of God to each town, then passing it over to another country where they will do the same thing.  During this week we'll also have outreaches in these towns.  I'm excited to find out everything that is planned through all this, and to see how God grows, stretches and bonds us all as a team and to be a part of watching His kingdom grow in Australia through this.

I cherish your prayers in these areas:

• Health.  Many of us have been coming down with sickness this week, so prayers for speedy recovery and that nothing else strikes us during out three week treck!
• Energy.  Several of us are really starting to be drained of the energy juice! Pray that God is our energy source and re-fills our cup.
• Openness. Openness of mind and heart to where the Spirit is leading us, as well as the hearts of those who we will be reaching out to.

Many blessings!

~Lilly

Boo Yeah!

Outreach teams have been announced!

After intercession on Thursday, our staff team had a little surprise game planned for us. They split us into two teams and asked us trivia questions about the different outreach location options (Japan; Finland and Sweden; Norway; Germany and Netherlands.)  When a person had the answer, they would run up and slap Lana's hand, and when the answer was correct a staff member gave them a puzzle piece with a part of a picture of their location. After everyone got a piece, each separate team put the pieces together, and we were together finally for the first time!

I'm going to Japan for a 7-8 week outreach in a few months! 

So excited to see what God's got up His sleeve, and to watch the kingdom grow through this ministry!

If you could please pray for the following points:

• God's will will be done and the glory will go to Him! That we'll be open to His Spirit and callings as we go overseas.
• Finances! I have a long way to go. I'll keep you updated when we find out the total cost!
• Unity in our new team
• Planning, that it will go smoothly, that we'll get the visas we need, all paperwork done, plane tickets, etc.
• Health! May we all stay fit and healthy to keep us kicking for Jesus name!

This below is my new team when we first found out from left to right: Davin, Micah, Lilly (me,) Essie, Sarah, Lindsey, Rachel, Kim, Lena, Anna. So excited to go with this wonderful group of people!

Exciting news inside!

So much has happened in the three and a half weeks of being here, I can't even imagine what will happen in 6 months! God's got a whole lot more greatness up His sleeve for us than we ever could have imagined.

A new speaker comes each week to lecture for us on a certain topic for 3 hours each morning. Our speaker was Jan Denharder for the first week, and he preached on the character and nature of God.   A couple highlights I learned are that God equips the called, not necessarily calling the already equipped, and how evangelism is about capturing people’s hearts, not simply preaching at them.  The second week, a new speaker from our own base taught us about hearing the voice of God.  It is so encouraging to hear the speakers' many stories from their journeys as missionaries, of how God has provided endlessly and protected them.

Every Wednesday morning, a pair of us is doing a presentation on a nation that is greatly un-reached in the gospel, a project we call “Adopt a Nation.”  This is such an eye-opening project; I’m realizing more and more how much I really have living in the western world, and how so many people survive on so little, as well as the shocking statistics of people in the world who have never heard of the salvation of Jesus Christ.  This is getting me so excited for outreach in a few months! 

*****

Our location options for our 7 week overseas outreach were just announced a couple days ago!  I'm not aloud to announce where I'm going yet until all the teams are firmly established, so wait for more exciting information to come, and I’ll keep you updated! Please pray for clarity and peace in the choices of where to go as all of the teams come together.

*****

We are also involved in local outreach. Specifically, every Wednesday afternoon we give a free barbecue to the community in the park, play sports, do art, and play music.  This is a great opportunity for us to invest in the people of Brisbane and Mitchelton and show them the love of Christ.

As far as music goes, throughout the week we have activities called “Creative Encounters” where we all gather as musicians, artists, or dancers, and share our creations with one another.  We discuss how we can best use our gifts to bring glory to God and make His name known.  

God is constantly reminding me that these six months are not the end of anything, but only the beginning of something bigger than I can imagine which God has planned.  I’m so excited to continue this journey by His leading hand!  Some prayer requests that I have are for continued unity within our YWAM family, as well as physical health, the courage to step out in faith when the Spirit calls us to do something outside of our comfort zones.  Also, if you could pray for the overseas outreach teams that are being put together right now, that as groups we can work together and hear clearly from God all the things He wants us to do, and for good planning.

Many blessings!

Adjusting to a new land

      This is a simple brief over-view of my first week and a half in Brisbane!

I said my goodbyes to friends and family in the Portland airport and awaited my flight.  As I boarded the Virgin America plane to LA for my first lay over, I was welcomed by airline background music, purple and pink lights all around, faux leather seats and television screens in front of each seat.  It was the perfect start of a sure adventure!!  The plane food was actually not bad, might I add…

I peaked out the window as the plane flew over Australia, my first glimpse.  Wow, I’m flying over my home for at least the next six months, I thought!  I arrived safely at the Brisbane airport after 3 long flights and a crazy layover in Melbourne in which I hardly made it to my next flight, arriving in a sweat as the passengers were boarding.  But alas, my first time flying internationally alone was a sweet success.  I was welcomed by YWAM staff holding a sign at my baggage claim to find me.  Australia! YWAM! I’m finally here!

Getting in the van to head to base, I had to do a double-take as the driver was on the opposite side of the car from America, and we drove on the left side of the road,  I quickly remembered I was in Australia before freaking out too much.

It is so wonderful to live with such an awesome community of people who are always here and available.  I love living close enough to town, shops and malls to be able to walk to them, and close enough to a train to ride into the middle of the city.  It’s so different from life back at home where I would have to drive 30 minutes to get anywhere!  Both ways of life have their perks, but I’m really enjoying getting used to this nice change.

I got some tours of the base on day one, and settled in a bit.  The following day, a lot of us students on base took the train into the middle Brisbane and walked through this gorgeous park, and got sushi.  While we were crossing the bridge, the floodgates of the sky opened up and poured wind and rain on us! I was the only lucky one who thought to bring my umbrella, but everyone got soaked. I felt kind of bad about it and wished I had enough umbrellas for everyone… Twas adventure number one.  Brisbane weather has been quite rainy, I’ve actually hardly seen any sun at all so far.  I count it a blessing though, it’s a nice way to gradually transition from my rainy state of Washington to Australia.  The city is so beautiful! I honestly would not mind calling it my home longer than six months.  We also went and crashed what seemed to be the biggest Valentine date hot spot in Brisbane.  It was an over-look of the city lights up on a hill.  We went in the evening on Valentines day, what a romantic place! We definitely made it less romantic with our numbers though, poor couples..
Friday night I believe we did a "bonding" activity with MAD, where we prepared a lip-syncing song in groups to perform infront of fake judges.  It was embarrassing  but a good way to break down ice barriers relationally, and a good time to laugh together.

Through the week we had orientation and get-to-know-you sorts of gigs.  We as a MAD (Music Art Dance) group all went to Redcliffe over the weekend, stayed in a mission house and shared testimonies with each other, played games, and went to the beach.  I also ate my first bit of kangaroo meat.  We weren’t even told it was kangaroo at first, I simply thought it was funny beef or some strange seasoning in the sauce (It was in spaghetti sauce.)  Then we were all told it was kangaroo, I was incredibly excited, as it was one of my goals before I left, haha! It’s actually quite delicious, and lean. We played and sang a lot of music, and danced freely quite a bit.  I’ve never been around so many people with my similar artistic mind at once! It’s a wonderful feeling, and we all meld together so beautifully, even though we all come from various backgrounds and cultures.  Speaking of which, all the different accents are beautiful! We all fail miserably at mocking one another, but hey it makes for a good mock and laugh.

Let me tell you, the food here is amazing! They’re so kind to keep separate gluten and dairy free things for those of us with special dietary needs.  It’s so healthy, we eat lots greens, lean meats and fruit everyday.  I’m so incredibly happy to be in a place where health is considered important.
As for wildlife, I haven't seen much.  I've eaten a kangaroo before seeing one, and only saw one very large garden spider in the city which wasn't poisonous apparently.  No poisonous snakes, spiders, crocodiles, or anything.  We'd have to be in the outback, or middle of Australia for that apparently, not the city.  I did see one jelly fish washed up on the beach though, which was neat-o.

Yesterday (Monday) we started our lectures. This week we’re discussing the character and nature of God. Today we’ll have our first “creative encounters” where we’ll come together as musicians, dancers, artists and create together. Yay. So excited to see how all of our talents come together to make something great (hopefully, haha!)

I know that God’s got great things in store for all of us here, and after this 6 months.  I am constantly reminding myself that this DTS is not the end of anything, only the beginning.

XOXO, many blessings,

~Lilly of Ozland

FLYING OFF TOMORROW!!

WHAT A COUPLE WEEKS!

2 Wednesdays ago, I could feel myself coming down with a bug, but I figured it was just a minor cold.  I did feel quite tired all through the day and didn't really feel like moving for some reason though...  But I shrugged the feeling off as laziness.
Thursday morning, I woke up with sharp hunger pains that I could no longer sleep though. So I got out of bed, analyzing the damage I felt inside my body.  I looked in the mirror in the bathroom, and realized I looked as bad as I felt... I tried to fake a normal, happy expression on my face that I could wear to work....Oof, wasn't looking too pretty.
I "hobbled" downstairs to the kitchen to get some water and food, where Jessica and Paul were getting breakfast. Jessica could sense my un-rest I believe, and I jokingly told her I felt horrible (it may have sounded like a joke...but it certainly wasn't one..) As I sipped my water, I could feel my head was not working right...Everything was going kind of black so I sat down and rested my head on my hands...Then the nausea hit me.  I got up to totter to the bathroom, and paused at the doorway crying out "Oh God...Oh God.." with my hand to my head.  Next thing I remember, I was in a crumpled heap on the floor with Paul and Jessica frantically standing over me.. "Did I seriously just faint...? I've never fainted in my life.." I said weakly.
Jessica ran upstairs to get mom, and Paul helped me up and walked to our couch, where I spent the rest of the day. "I don't think I can go to work today..." I moaned.  Rather, the rest of the next 5 days, no work, all couch.  Me and that couch became quite good friends.  My fever spiked that morning, and peaked at 104 degrees.  I haven't burned so hot since I was a little girl, when running high temperature fevers seemed to be one of my favorite hobbies! I was bed riden pretty much all of the week-which was a true in-convenience in getting ready for my fast-approaching trip!
A few days into my flu, I got word from Dad that this flu was centered in Sydney, Australia.  That made me laugh inside, perhaps I got this flu on purpose so that it wouldn't happen to me while I was actually in Australia, God moves in mysterious ways ;)  He can use any bad situation turn it for His good and glory, and our own good!


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In other news, a few days ago, I got a massive check from my church!  From this and other people's kind, generous donations for my trip I have enough for my second payment which is 2425 AUD.  I am so incredibly thankful and blessed! God provides for our needs when we follow His will!  So many doors closed on many different opportunities I've looked into, but when the YWAM one opened up, I've just watched everything fall right into place as if this is truly where God wants me!  All the money is absolutely no problem for God, He created the entire UNIVERSE after all!! Things seen and unseen. Wow, who can fathom our creator?!  I'm hopping on the plane tomorrow at 3:35! SO EXCITED, IT'S FINALLY HERE! FINALLY, I get to watch all that God has in store for this trip unfold!  Though being sick was an inconvenience, everything has come together in the end.  Stress is not worth it! In fact, stress NEVER helps!


GOD BLESS YOU ALL!

XOXO MUCH LOVE,

~Lilly of Ozland