DTS week 5-6

Well it seems I have gotten behind on my blogging so I am having to cover two weeks in one this time!  The last two weeks were on the topics of the father heart of God and relationships. Both were really good weeks of teaching but nothing that was particularly new to Jody or I since those were both subjects we have had lots of teaching on already. Since we are almost half way through our DTS lecture phase I thought I would use this blog post to sum up our experience so far and give a financial update. 

So far our experience has been beyond amazing. We both feel like this time is an incredible gift and we feel utterly humbled and privelaged that God would bring us to this place to teach us and reveal more of himself to us. It certainly hasn't been easy: from the very get go of getting on the plane and realizing just how trying traveling with 3 little ones can be, to strep throat, to stroller troubles, to adjusting to the heat, to our latest trouble of the cockroaches and centipedes that seem to think our apartment is a wonderful place to dwell now that the weather is cooling down a bit! I have never understood the people who are super scared of spiders, but now that we've had a few cock roaches in the house...I get it! Those things just throw me over the edge with creepyness! Anyhoo, I digress! 

In 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 the Apostle Paul says, " Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." Now let me be the first to say that the struggles of the early church and the ones that Paul were facing were far more intense than cock roaches and long plain rides, but I know that my Heavenly Father has meant for this scripture to be an encouragment to me even in my little trials.  Even though its likely our trials will intensify on outreach (as will the size of the roaches) I know that God is pleased when we step out in faith and trust Him to carry us through. God is such a good and faithful Father and he's more committed to our success than we are. And here I stand, still blown away that a simple "yes" to God has brought us to Hawaii to spend 3 months dedicated to growing in Christ and together as a family, to gain a fresh revelation of his crazy love for us, and to be reinvigorated to go forth and spread this crazy love to the ends of the earth or where ever God would call us. 

Every second Tuesday evening we have what is called "Inspiration Night" where we hear stories from different missionaries. On the last Inspiration Night we heard from Andy Byrd who is the co-founder of Fire and Fragrance ministries and has been all over the globe as a YWAM missionary. This man exudes the love of Jesus and both Jody and I were rocked by his passionate heart and his stories. I won't do it justice in re-sharing, but he talked about the story of Mary of Bethany- Lazarus and Martha's sister, who anoints Jesus feet with expensive perfume (John 12:1-8). The scripture says that the purfume was worth a years wages, but because of her love for Jesus she cracks open the jar of purfume and poors it on his feet. The religious people scold Mary for this wasteful act, saying that the purfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor. Jesus recognizes Mary's act of love and sacrifice and also sees that the heart of the religious people didn't care about the poor, but their own pocket books. 

Andy did a phenomenal job of making this often too familiar story come alive. He reminded us that the purfume was worth a years wages, so lets just go with an average and assume that would equate to around $50,000 today. So Mary made the choice that she was going to walk into that room with Jesus with $50,000 and walk out with nothing. She was going to "waste" 50,000 $1 bills on the one that she loved because she knew he was the one true Messiah and that he was worth it. Essentially Mary was willing to "waste it all" for Jesus. Everytime we love the unlovable we crack open the jar and waste our lives for Jesus. Everytime we hike into remote Himalayan villages just so that 10 people can hear about the goodness of Jesus we crack the jar and waste our lives for Jesus. Every time we follow the prompting of God to give a sandwich and a smile to the prostitute on the side of the road we crack the jar and waste our lives for Jesus. I am being reminded and encouraged that this is what the Christian life is all about- its about intimately knowing the radical love of God and then going out and sharing the fragrance of the love of God with a dying and hurting world. Will it cost us? Absolutely. Will it be worth it? A thousand times yes. 

 

A few updates: Sickness- thank you Jesus my strep throat went away very quickly all things considered. After starting the antibiotics my sore throat and fever were all gone within a few days and now I feel 100% back to normal. No one else got sick either and we are sooooo thankful for that!

Finances- I have been wanting to update on this for a while, but didn't want to talk about it until we knew for sure that everything was sorted out. Words really can't describe how greatful I am to everyone who has so generously donated to make this possible and how amazing God is for co-ordinating so many details. Before we left Canada we had over 2/3's of the money we needed for the whole 6 months, and that came together in one month! I was blown away, but God in his goodness and creativity brought another avenue of finances our way. Through a conversation with a friend we realized that we were eligible for paternity leave for Jody because Jonah is under a year old! This would not have even crossed my mind if it hadn't have been for my friend Rachel bringing it up. Since we live off of one income paternity leave is never really an option for us since it only covers 55% of your income, but since we were planning on forgoing Jody's income all together that money is a crazy blessing! We had to double check that you can receive it even if you are out of the country, but it turns out you can :) So the paternity leave money combined with another extremely generous donation that we recently received puts us at close to 100% of our expected funding goal. It blows me away when I think about it because when we originally thought of doing a YWAM DTS we thought we would maybe wait a year and save up, but then we really felt God saying, "no, do it now!" It was so scary saying yes to doing this on one month's notice, but I now realize that if we had waited a year we would not have been able to collect that paternity leave money.  God is so faithful!!! 

Well this has been long! If you stuck it out to the end, you are a champ! Here are a few pics- I am terrible at remembering to take pics- luckily Jody is better than I am, but we are both much less attached to our phones than before, but that means we don't get as many photos either!

Here we are at family time. Every Friday afternoon all of the families with kids that are doing a DTS meet to have a time of family bonding activities, games, songs, and prayer. Here we are praying for each of the middle school students as they crowd surf!

Here's a pic of Jonah taken by one of the photography students. Jonah is such a blessing and a sweet baby. He is famous on this campus. A few times now I have walked by a group of 19 year old girls and heard "oh there's Jonah, he's so cute!" and I had no idea who the girls were! The Koreans especially love him as well and are constantly taking pics of him and all the boys! I just love how much joy he spreads and I know that all of the boys will be an amazing blessing and way of connecting with local people when we are on outreach. 

Every Wednesday afternoon the local kids get out of school early and our DTS holds a kids activity time at the low income housing complex right beside the campus. A lot of the kid's families have been relocated to Hawaii by the US goverment from the Marshall islands when the governement did nuclear weapons testing there (uhhh, ok, not sure what I think of that, but none the less the kids are here!) and these kids are so full of life and joy. Here's a group of boys singing Jesus Loves Me at the top of their lungs. We do a song time and prayer time after we play games together .

It was our leader Cory's birthday so our DTS celebrated with cake and a selfie!