One of the serious ones...

Hello everybody!

I can't believe it's already been 4 weeks here in YWAM Madison. So much has happened this week.
I would describe this week as one of the most serious weeks we've had so far. Serious because of the topics we have had teachings on and serious because of so many things happening.
I will start with our topics, we talked about this week!

First speaker for this week was Warren Keapprom and he spoke about our foundation. How we can't build our foundation based on others feelings, experiences. God doesn't have grandchildren, he has children. And here in DTS we have the opportunity to start over.
Kingdom of God is built by our loving God, on love and trust. We touched some bible verses like Matthew 7:24 where it speaks about building our house on rock.
Romans 12:2 "Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God - what is good and well/pleasing and perfect."
What I really liked from all that Warren was talking was the fact that a lot of times people want to go to heaven, but don't want to know God. Our goal should be knowing the Father, and heaven should be the place He happens to be.
So if there would be no Heaven, would you still live for Jesus?
Because what is the point of going to heaven when He is not there.
So the question is:
Are you living for Heaven of God?

2 Corinthians 5:15 says: "And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for ghem and was raised."

Our second speaker was Dawn Borschers and she spoke about Fear of the Lord.
I really liked the topic she was talking on!
She spoke about healing because of all the things happening with some of the people. More about that later..
So in situations like that (sickness, death...) we should ask God what do you want to do in this situation? Who are you in the midst of it?
In this life we are going to be dissapointed, but are you gonna go through these times with God or without Him?

Some awesome bible verses about Fear of the Lord:
Psalm 33:8 "Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the people of the world revere him." 
Revelation 15:4 "Who will not fear you, O Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed."
Proverbs 23:17 "Do not let your heart envy sinners, but always be zealous for the fear of the Lord."

A lot of times we want to bring God down to our standards, but we have to rise up to His standards and share God's value system!
Something God once told Dawn was : "Everyone else has opinions, but I have the truth"
So what matters, is what God is saying.
Isaiah 40 is also one of the coolest chapters we read this week.

Something what Dawn talked about the Fear of the Lord was that we need the Holy Spirit to break the bondage with our sin because we can't be in the presence of the Lord when sinning.. we feel unconfortable, when having junk in our heart.

So Psalm 86:11 says: "Teach me your ways, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name."
Some ways to move thorwards fear of the Lord:
1.Our choice (recuires both: me - God)
2.Get honest (you are so busy pretending who you are, so you can't really take the next step forward)
3.Ask for God ("but taste and feel that the Lord is good.." Psalm 34)
4.Diligence (pursuing Him. Don't be a "spiritual couch potato."    "I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for their own good..I will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul." Jeremiah 32: 38-41)
5.Dealing with sin (confession-repentance-renounce-restitution. Conviction from God, guilt a gift from God; Condemnation from enemy as well as shame, a lot of times. Because when you feel guilty all the time, about everything, than something is wrong. When you deal with sin, your guilt should be taken away. Guilt a lot of times says: I made a mistake but Shame says: I am a mistake. God in the other hand says: I'll take it as far as east is from the west.

So we all can't deserve His Grace, but we are worthy of it!


I wanted to share with you why this week has also been sad and serious for us, and why I am sharing this is so that you may pray for our team, and for their families.
This week there has been a lot of sad news for some of our team members. I won't say any names for the respect for their families and for their privacy, but some of our team members lost one of their close ones and it all happened this week. So you can imagine that it has been hard on them and a lot of processing has been going on throughout the week.
I ask you to pray for our team, for God's peace and protection against enemies attacks!

Thank you for being here for me and supporting me!

Also some good news.. whoever hasn't heard yet:
My outreach will be in India from January to February!
I will send out newsletters about my outreach and how you may be involved in it so if you would like to get one newsletter, please let me know!

Love you guys,
Liis

Weeks go by!

Hello my dear friends,

I haven't written anything in two weeks already so I am sorry for that! It has been quite busy for us and we haven't had a lot of internet time as well!

But I want to tell you of everything that has been going on here :)

So the second week we focused on Father heart of God and let me tell you something-it was an incredible time. I think the first day I could not hold my tears back, my face was wet from all the tears!
it was emotional for a lot of people and very refreshing and renewing!
For me at least. I was reminded of so many things about my Father, the God almighty! We talked about how we often see our God according to how we see our earthly dads, so depending on our relationship with our own dad, we see God the same way, uncomplete. 

The speaker reminded me that I need to know who I am in God, as his daughter in order to be helpful to others around the world!
I really enjoyed the time we had with the speaker, because he prayed for many of us and had revelations for some students. God spoke to us that week through our speaker!

We also started talking about dangerous territories - bible and what's in bible and how we know it's the truth and how we can use bible to speak to people with different beliefs! It was very awesome and I am so excited to have many more classes on those topics, cause the first one was a short one!

During that week we had to start praying for our outreach countries. We were shown precentations on different locations and had to take time in prayer to find out where we were called!
Our options were:
Thailand-Myanmar,
India,
Mexico,

Uganda.

The third week we didn't have many lectures, on Monday we had to write down the outreach country we prayed for and felt led to. Mine was ....!
I was so sure that .... will be the country where I am called but the more I prayed and talked to people about different countries, asking questions, my heart was set on ....! I was so moved by the video I saw the first week, of the street kids, aids kids, girls in brothels and how we are able to connect with them, serve them and love on them!
I am so excited to see how God will be using me there.. How I will learn from that culture and those people, and share God’s love with His daughters and sons.

 We left for survival camp on Wednesday - we had to get ready, before that take a test on how well we know South America.

But let me tell you what happened during out survival camp:

First of all,
We had a packing list, of things we could take, it was limited..
like 3pairs of socks, two pairs of pants etc.
We weren't allowed to take any toothpaste or any deodorant, no cosmetics and stuff like that.
We had four tribes and each tribe had to sit together in the bus.

When we got to the place we were dropped off in the middle of nowhere and we had to wait with our team for next instructions from a staff member! 

That night we had to go through customs with our "passports" . They also searched us, if we had items we were not allowed to take with us! Some of us had, and some didn’t. They tried real hard to be serious and harsh on us. Each of our team member was given a scoop of rice and beans and we were sent off to our campsite, each team with their own camp site! And the first night after putting our stuff down we had to play capture the flag. It was exciting and fun. Excitement caused by the darkness and the forest around us. Fun with different teams trying to take our flag!
The next day was a long day for us! We woke up on the sound of our „government signal“ and had to hurry to meet others. We missed our breakfast because of our sleep. The entire day was long and fun and freezing cold. We had team building games and we were able to earn prizes by winning the games. Our team got a second place in one game and we earned 5h of sleep for the next night. We got the last place in a canoe game and earned 6 slices of cheese. Also a second place for this another game and earned half a roll of toiled paper! FUn, FUN!!
We cooked some lunch over a fire, our team member bulit – we had rice and beans.. was that a good luch or what!
We saw a chicken-killing, it was terrible and made me not want any chicken for a while and were treated terrible, like prisoners, while getting our dinner!
Sadly our camp was over sooner then we hoped for- due to a bad astma attack, one girl had!
That night we prayed and worshiped God, praying that everything would be ok and no matter what, God will receive all the glory!
We didn’t know that one of the staff members got a panic attack as well. But God was great and took care both of them. That night we all slept in a warehouse and ended our survival camp earlier!
We survived, and everybody was ok!
Two of the girls who had attacks were not sent to a hospital but put on a bed rest for the next day. They joined us back at the base the next evening!
What a crazy week we had!

On Saturday we spent time in town, doing laundry and watching a movie with bunch of girls and a guy from our base. I think he got enough of girl time for the rest of the school program.
God took care of us this week,

And He will never stop loving us!

Love you,
Liis