What happens when the Goodwin's hit the streets...

Honestly, you couldn't listen to this message from Todd White and not be compelled to go out on the streets and start talking to people and telling them about Jesus and praying for them. After dinner on Friday night Jody and I couldn't resist hitting up the streets even though we have been super hesitant to do this kind of ministry in the past. I've always thought it was super rude and abrasive to just go up to people and start talking to them about Jesus, but many many times in the bible this is how the disciples did it, plus we figured, what did we have to lose? Worst that could happen would be that people would tell us to get lost, in which case we would smile and tell them that Jesus loves them and move on.

There are too many stories from just one night of hitting the streets to write in this blog, but I will tell you about two. First night after being rejected by a few people and happly moving on, we spotted a lady off in the distance who had a cane and a visibly deformed foot. Jody said "great, let's go pray for her!" but I thought to myself, how can God possible heal her, she has a visible deformity??? Oh me of little faith! We were walking her direction anyways, but in my mind I was going to keep walking, but as we were walking past, she noticed Jonah on my back in the carrier and started talking to him and saying how he was such a cute baby. I knew then that I had to talk to her. So we slowed down to walk at her pace and began making small talk. She was a very sweet lady in her late 30's and let us know that she had had a stroke and that was why she walked with a cane and a limp. Our conversation quickly turned towards spiritual things and she began talking about her knowledge of Buddah and Mohammed, but that really all she wanted to do was to be a good person. I told her that the amazing and unique thing about Christianity is that it doesn't depend on the good that we can do because we all know that we have failed in our own human goodness at some point in our lives, but that it is because of Jesus's death on the cross that we can have a relationship with God even in our unperfection.  I then told her that Jesus is a healer and asked her if I could pray for her foot and healing from her stroke. She agreed and I prayed. As soon as I was done she burst in by telling me that she had a dream once of God as a heavenly mother and asked if I believed God could be a mother too (I think she was feeling the intensity of the situation and didn't know how to respond to the prayer). I said, "Yes! God has both mothering and fathering characteristics and he is neither male nor female, but encompasses both. I then looked her straight in the eye and said "Wow, I can really see that you are seeking God and I think that is amazing and I know that God is pleased with you and your desire to find him." At this point she said "I'm going to walk away now, only because I hate crying in public, but I really appreciate you guys and hope you have a great rest of your day." I truly believe she had an encounter with the Holy Spirit in that moment and didn't quite know how to process it, which is totally understandable! So she didn't get healed, but God still moved and met her where she was at! If you think of it, please pray for this sweet woman who we can call Samantha for now :)

The next night I went to another YWAM base down the road with a friend in her car and Jody walked there with the baby and Jonathan. On their way they met a man in a wheel chair with a dog. Jonathan remembered this man and his dog from another time that we had walked past him at that spot so he was very excited to see the dog! Jody began talking to the man and asked him how his health was and if there was anything he wanted prayer for. The man said he had bad knees and that was why he was in a wheel chair. So Jody asked Jonathan if he would pray for the man. Jonathan in his sweet innocence put his hand on the man's knees and began to pray. "Thank you Jesus for knees, and scooter rides, and airplanes, and doggies, and Amen." Jody also had his hand on the man's knees and when Jonathan was done his prayer Jody looked up at the man and asked him how he was feeling and he said he felt warmth in his knees! So with excitement Jody began to pray again. As he started to pray he heard cracking and popping in the man's knees and at this the man freaked out and began to wheel himself away. Jody could tell he was feeling overwhelmed by the crazyness of what was happening and just said, "Hey man, I'm going to be praying for you and I believe Jesus is going to heal your knees." He said, "thank you sir- I'll never forget you four! Its the 4 J's- Jody, Jonathan, Jonah, and Jesus!" Yet again, although Jody did not see a completion of healing in this man, he knew he was touched by the love of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Let's continue to catch of vision for the biggness of God and boldly proclaim his goodness and truth! Be blessed my friends!

Todd White Week!!!

Hello Friends! As seems to be typical with most novice bloggers I have fallen behind! I don't even know what week I am writing about so I have just titled this post Todd White week, because he was our speaker for the week last week and my oh my was I blown away by all that he had to share with us. If you haven't heard of Todd White before I highly recommend you look up some of his teaching or evangelism videos on YouTube. We had only heard rumours of him from Jody's brother and wife so we didn't totally know what to expect.

Todd is a man filled with the power and love of the good news of Jesus Christ and it seems to exude from every part of his being when he speaks or even walks into a room. A little summation of his testimony: Todd grew up in a lot of dysfunction, was in a bad relationship, had a child, and was addicted to drugs and alcohol. He had just gotten into a fight with his girlfriend and left the house with suicidal thoughts ready to give up on life all together. He ended up flipping open a phone book and a list of churches was the first page to open and he decided to call one of the churches in a desperate attempt to search for meaning in life one last time. He ended up getting saved when the pastor reached out to him and discipled him even in his addiction and dysfunction. At first his life didn't change and he continued to struggle with sin, even though his desires changed and he now started to feel conviction for his wrong choices. With the help of his pastor he realized that he needed further help in the area of his addiction and ended up going to Teen Challenge. There he had a radical encounter with Jesus where he was told in a dream that he would never struggle with addiction again and that he was to go home to his family and devote his life to serving God. Todd has never looked back and lives his life in a way that is completely devoted to serving God, loving others, and sharing the Good News with a powerful ministry of love and healing.

Todd is definitely a captivating speaker, but as soon as we heard that he had struggled with addiction and gone to Teen Challenge, our ears really perked up! The intensity of love and freedom that this man walks in is so encouraging and got both Jody and I fired up to return to our first love, Jesus! Here are some of the main points that stuck with me through Todd's teaching.

1. "I'm free from me which makes me free from you. I owe you nothing but a debt of love." Todd walks in an incredible freedom from the fear of man (christianese for "he doesn't care what anyone thinks of him"). He lives to please and serve God and he knows that that has the potential to offend people because the bible says it will. The amazing thing about him though, is the intense love that he walks in. He is a big burly guy with long dreadlocks- honestly, he looks a bit scary! But you can literally see the love of God in his eyes when he talks.  Jody and I have both caught a vision for what it means to love people with the fierce and awesome love of Jesus and living only for the approval of God, not of other people.

2. Identity!!! Even though Todd is well known as an evangelist, he told us that he doesn't really like to talk about evangelism much because that will naturally flow from a heart that know's who his heavenly father is.  I was reminded how essential it is to be rooted and grounded in our knowledge of the love of God- to know that we are chosen, adopted, beloved, children of the King of Kings, redeemed, forgiven, holy, blameless in his sight- and all of this because of the blood of Jesus, not because of any good that I have done! I realized that I didin't really believe a lot of these things. If I really thought about it I believed that God was just tolerating me but that I was never quite measuring up. I now know and stand on the truth that God loves me SO much and that he has chosen and adopted me into his family, not based on my own merit, but just because he wants to pour his love out on me and have an intimate relationship with me. It is out of this amazing revelation of God's great love that I can serve God and pour his love out on others with ease and free from wanting to receive anything back because I know where the love comes from in the first place.

3.  "I didn't learn God through going after the miraculous, I learned God through going after him every day in the midst of great persecution." -Todd White
Todd shared many amazing testimonies with us during his teaching time. He fearlessly shares the love of God with everyone he comes into contact with. This includes at the grocery strore, at the gym, at family reunions, you name it, the guy is just one ball of muscles and dreads exuding love for Jesus. He has a powerful healing ministry and will often ask people if he can pray for physical healing in their bodies and sees miracles all the time. Of course in this sort of bold evangelism he also encounters a lot of opposition and people who don't want anything to do with him. But as he kept reminding us, "I'm free from me so I"m free from you," meaning he doesn't mind if people mock or ridicule him because he knows the love of his father and lives to please him alone.

Tomorrow I will add an extra post telling some stories of how God moved when we hit the streets with our new freedom and boldness in the Lord! Friends, let's let God define our identity so we can be free from ourselves, free from others, and free to love and serve God in boldness and power! Jesus loves you SO much!!!

Todd White!!! 

My sweet big boys :)

Asa's class was learning about the armour of God and this is the adorable costume he made!

Todd White spoke at the open Thursday night gathering and he drew quite a crowd!

Asa's drawing of a tractor! Very impressive for a 4 year old in my opinion!

Me and our lovely nanny Katie :)

Bible Distribution in Thailand!

Greetings friends and family!

It is with great excitment that I would like to share with you about an opportunity to partner in bringing bibles to unreached people. In the next couple of months our YWAM outreach team will be heading to northern Thailand to partner with a group of long term missionaries. The leader has a vision to see the bible in the home of every Thai family in all of the villages of Chiang Rai provence. Our team will be adopting a village that could contain anywhere from 50-1200 homes and our goal will be to distribute bibles into every home in that village.

We know that there are two types of poverty: material poverty and spiritual poverty, and it is the goal of YWAM to aliviate both kinds of poverty. A specific vision has been given to leadership to bring an end to bible poverty world wide, with a push to have the bible translated into every language on earth by 2020. In Thailand the bible has been available in an antiquated version of Thai for a while, but that version was difficult for the average person to read. A new Thai bible version has recently been released in common Thai so now many more Thai people can actually read and understand the bible in their own language! We will be distrubuting these new bibles in our village.

How would you like to partner with us in bringing an end to bible poverty? Each bible costs only $2US, so if the village we are assigned to has 1200 homes we will need $2400US in order to reach everyone. If it turns out we have a smaller village and money is left over, that money will go directly to other teams to distribute bibles in other villages. As we go door to door bringing a message of hope and the love of Christ we will also be able to leave families with the gift of a bible but we need your help to make this vision a reality! Your donation of just $10 means that 5 families will get the opportunity to read the bible for the first time. Will you join with us and #endbiblepovertynow?

If you would like to donate, you can send an email money transfer to laurenmgoodwin@gmail.com and put "Bibles" in the memo line. Or you can pay through paypal at paypal.me/laurengoodwin

Here is our awesome team! I love these people so much! We come from Canada, USA, Korea, South Africa, and Brazil going with one heart and mind to serve the people of South East Asia.

Week 7- Lordship of Christ

I have to say, out of all our weeks this one has been the most intense and awesome so far! All of the weeks really have been amazing and we have learned something from the wisdom of each speaker, but this topic rocked both Jody and I. Here's our speaker, Mark Parker, who hails from New Zealand. This man is one of the funniest, most energetic, most wise, and most passionate men for Jesus I have ever met.

Here we are together at 1am on a Friday night...but I'll get to how that happened in a minute!

We learned so much this week, but here are the key points of what we focused on. 

1. Many people have a personal knowlege of Jesus, but have we really made him LORD of our lives? He talked about how there are essentially 3 types of people: Those who have heard of a historical Jesus, those who know Jesus as a personal savior, and those who know Jesus as King and Lord. 1 Cor 12:3 says "Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the spirit of God says, "Jesus be cursed," and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit." So knowing Jesus as Lord is something that can only happen when the power of the Holy Spirit is at work in us. The person who knows Jesus on a personal level, has indeed been saved, but hasn't allowed God to lead in their lives apart from their Sunday church attendence. They believe in Jesus on an intellectual level, but it hasn't necessarily transformed the way they live their lives. Upon salvation we do receive 100% of the Holy Spirit, but the difference between the person who knows Jesus personally and the one who knows him as Lord is when you submit 100% of yourself to him. You can believe in Jesus, but not have dedicated all areas of your life to follow him. So how exactly do you move from knowing Jesus just as saviour to knowing him as Lord? Its easy enough to say, "well just lay down your life for him" but there are actually several steps to go through to practically and tangibily lay down each area of your life. 

2. The Ten Stations of Temple Worship: In the Old Testament, God used to dwell with his people in a physical place- the tabernacle or tent of meeting, and later, the Temple. In the time of Moses, God's presence or the ark of the covenant was originally in a tent outside of the camp and Moses would have to leave the camp to go and talk with God in the tent. Later, God told Moses to move the ark of the covenant to the middle of the camp in a tabernacle:

Later God instructed David's son Solomon to build a permanent temple in Jerusalem, but each time the temple was built there were very specific instructions for how it was to be done.  But before the time of Christ, in order for the people to be able to meet with this Holy God they had to go through certain steps and rituals, and only certain people could enter certain parts of the temple. Christian, do we realize how amazing this is that becasue of the blood of Jesus we don't have to go to a physical place to encounter God? We have the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit living within us that we can boldy approach the thrown of Grace, enter the Holy of Holies because of the sacrifice of Jesus!!! I know I didn't realize how amazing that is until hearing this teaching. Here is a picture from my notes of the 10 different parts of the temple:

On Friday, our last day of teaching, we focused the entire day from 8:30am-1am on going through the first 4 steps of the temple, all of which have a new testament correlation. 

1. GATE: In John 10:9 Jesus says, "I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture." The gate he is refering to is the gate of the temple, so we know that Jesus is the gate. Psalm 100:4 says, "Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise" so we know that we are to enter the gate (who is Jesus) with thanksgiving. So that is exactly what we did for step one. As a group, we came together to worship and praise God and then we each shared a small testimony of something we were thankful for. It is awesome how much power there is in doing something as simple as sharing thanksgiving. 

2. COURT: from the verse above, we know that the court represents praise. During this time we were asked what God would have us bring as an act of praise. We were lead in different songs, dances, poems, all things that brought a praise offering to God. 

3.BRAZEN ALTER: The brazen or brass alter is to do with judgement. It was an alter that had a ramp leading up to it on either side made of rough stones, not man-made bricks. Bricks are a symbol of something that is man-made and stones are a symbol of the things of God- all made unique. Building an alter throughout scripture also represents cleansing the land that the alter was built on, so this step represents cleansing. The new testiment correlation of the alter is the cross of Christ. At the brazen alter there were different offerings given to God- the burnt offering and the sin offering are the ones we focused on. For the burnt offering we were to do 3 different things. First we were to give something away of value. We each were to pray and ask God what we were to give away and who to give it to in the group. This was such an amazing time! So many people were blessed! One of the students gave away his gopro and without knowing it he gave it to another student who had been praying for one for months. Other students gave away guitars, surf boards, money, jewelery, all different things that had significance and meaning and were truly a blessing to those who recieved them. Giving is such a powerful act and reminds us not to hold onto our possesions so tightly. It truly is more blessed to give than to receive. 

The next thing we were to do was to lay down specific areas of our lives not related to sin (that comes later) and to then pick up commitments related to what we had laid down. An example of this is laying down your family, your future plans, your passport, your education, your spouce. None of these things are bad in and of themselves, but often we can elevate these things above God and this was a time to submit them fully under the lordship of Christ and saying to God in the process, "I give myself fully to you, I lay my rights down before you." Mark (our speaker) reminded us that God is never a God who takes but always a God who gives so you can rest assured that even though you are submitting things to God he will always use them for good. He is always trustworth, always faithful, alwasy good. We were then to pick up tangible commitments to God- perhaps our time- to commit to reading the bible every day for the rest of the DTS, to commit to encouraging someone everyday, to commit to telling your spouce or your parents that you love them on a regular basis, or whatever the Lord would lead you to do. This was such a powerful time as we each took turns sharing the things God had lead us to lay down. 

Next came the sin offering. This was a time for confession of sins and committing to closing chapters of sin and new beginnings. This step must start with humbling ourselves. Humility is an acurate assessment of who you are and seeing yourself as God sees you. So we must not puff ourselves up or put ourselves down since both are pride. After humility comes repentance which includes confessing sins, and committing to change your mind and turn away from those sins. The next step is belief- believing God for forgivness, love, and the ability to turn away and stay away from sin. Self control will only keep you away from sin for so long. It is a heart devoted to God that will keep us away from sin for the long haul. The final step is submitting ourselves to God and we did this by kneeling at the cross which was set up and praying before the father about what we had just confessed to the group. This was the most powerful time of the night because each person had their turn to confess sin and break its power over their life.  Many people confessed things they had never told anyone before. Shame was broken from peoples lives when they brought things to the light that had been holding them captive for years. It is amazing how powerful it is go through all of these steps within a group setting. It really does break the power of the enemy when you bring sin into the light. It was also so beneficial to make committments in front of each other since we know that we will be holding each other accountable. 

4. BRAZEN LAVER: This represents the word. You can go through each of these steps in your own personal devotions and this would be the time when you would read the word and focus on washing yourself in the word. Just as we wash our bodies each day  we need to wash ourselves in the word of God each day.

5. GOLDEN CANDLESTICK: This symbolizes the Holy Spirit and the oil of the Spirit. At this point our leaders annointed each of us with oil and prayed a blessing over us. We then branched out and prayed for each other to encourage and seal the committments we had made and the sins we had confessed and laid down. 

6. TABLE of SHOWBREAD: This represents taking communion in the New Testament. By the time we got to this step it was 12am and we were all exhausted from pouring out our hearts in such a deep way. I cannot share details of what went on that night because it really was a sacred time and something I will not forget. I saw people enter into new freedom in amazing ways. I experienced the power of the Spirit move among us. We all took communion together at this point.

7. ALTER of INCENCE: This symbolizes prayer and intercession

8. VEIL: This symbolizes disobedience and alienation from God. But hallelujia! When Christ died he cried out on the cross "It is finished"and at that moment the veil was torn in the temple. Christ did what no animal sacrifice could do. He was the perfect, sinless son of God and he made a way for us to enter into the presence of God. We don't need a priest or a special building. All we need is faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and saviour and we can have access to the very presence and heart of God. Friends, this is a Miracle!!!

9. ARK of the COVENANT: This represents the Holy Spirit meant to bring comfort.

10. CLOUD of GLORY: This also represents the Holy Spirit but here he is to guide us and send us out into ministry.

Well this was one crazy novel, but I will finish with this. I feel like I have entered into a knew freedom in the Lord. I am so in love with Jesus and its really getting to the point where I can't contain it. His love is amazing, it is life changing, it is nation transforming, it is hope giving and I want the world to know about him. I want YOU to know that he can heal a broken heart. He can restore your Joy and breathe life into the dead places of your soul. Jesus is a good and loving father and he will never force his way in,  but he will stand at the door of your heart and knock, waiting to be invited in.  

"The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17

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Another awesome thing about this week is that several students got baptized! Here's a few of our group down at the beach where we did the baptisms. What a beautiful spot!

Here we are praying for each person after the came up out of the water.

Mark Parker bringing the word and explaining what baptism is all about on the beach. A bunch of tourists started to gather and watch what we were doing. They must have thought it was part of the Hawaiian experience!

Such a precious time of worship on the beach.

These are two of our really good freinds here- Rafa and Leilani. They have one precious little two month old baby and they are on staff for our school. Love these guys!

This is the view from the awesome little church we went to yesterday- Living Hope Church. They are a beautiful congregation in a beautiful spot up on the mountain over looking Kona.

I can't get over how much of a blessing Jonah is! Here is one of our friends Peter who heild the baby during worship at church and Jonah felt so at home that he just quitely fell asleep in his arms. Everyone loves to hold a sleeping baby. There's something about it that reminds us what really matters in life and reminds us how much the Father loves his children.

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!

Week 4- DTS Family Week

This week was called DTS family week which means that all of the DTS (discipleship training school- the entry level course that every YWAMer has to start out with) groups were together to learn from the co-founder of YWAM Darlene Cunningham and another old-timer David Hamilton. This week was filled with many amazing stories of how YWAM was founded and all that God has done to sustain and bless the ministry along the way.

Lorne and Darlene Cunningham founded YWAM close to 60 years ago. Lorne just had his 80th birthday and has officially traveled to every nation on earth and still travels and speaks today! His wife Darlene is a few years younger and is so full of energy and life! I want to share one of  the stories that and David Hamilton shared since I know it will build your faith, just as it did mine.

One of things that YWAM really values is that the ministry must be interdenominational and decentralized. There are bases all over the world run by people of all different church denominations. David Hamilton was in his early 20's and felt called to start a YWAM base and DTS in South America, but at the time South America was so poor that he didn't know how he would get enough students who would be able to pay the fees. He kept the fees super low so that it would be in the realm of possibility. Amazingly, God provided and there were many students who singed up and showed up at the first day of classes on the base. Everything was going along wonderfully until about halfway through the term they realized that funds had completely run out to provide even food for the students because they had made the tuition too low. The staff was discouraged because they knew that the Lord was moving in powerful ways to raise up new leaders in South America, so they all prayed that he would provide so they could keep the school running. The next morning a lady showed up at the door with hot buns and fruit for breakfast and it was enough to feed all of the staff and students. Everyone was blown away by how God had met their need for the morning, but still worried about where their next meal would come from. Well sure enough, at lunch time a different lady knocked on the door and brought a large pot of soup enough for everyone to eat lunch. Again at dinner a new lady showed up with more food for dinner. Miraculously, this happened for the next several weeks- not a single meal missed! No two people ever came twice and no one ever brought more than enough for two meals. Furthermore, no one knew before hand that the base had this need or had communicated with anyone else who had given meals and some of the meal-bringers had come from as far as 4 hours away to bring them food. God had supernaturally coordinated a meal train for this DTS and they got through the entire school phase without ever missing a meal!

Another thing that really stuck with me from this week is a concept that Darlene talked about called "The Grace Ticket." She re-told a story from the life of Corrie Ten Boom, a woman who with her family protected Jews during Natzi Germany and was eventually put into a concentration camp for hiding Jews in her home. At one point she realized how dangerous what they were doing really was because she had heard that people were getting caught doing the same thing and were getting taken away to the camps. She expressed her concern to her father saying she was scared to keep doing what they were doing even though she knew it was the right thing, because she didn't know if she was brave enough to face the horrors of the camps. Her father asked her, "When we go each week to amsterdam by train to buy supplies for our businiess when do we buy the ticket?" "Just before we get on the train," she replied. Her father then encouraged her by saying, "Just as we buy our ticket just before we get on the train, God will give you the grace to go through whatever situation he puts in front of you right before you have to go through it. He does not give you the grace you need in advance- he gives it to you as you need it."

This was such a good reminder to me because it is so easy to get caught in worry about how you will get through this situation or that. We try to reason or figure out what we would do, but the reality is we will need the supernatural grace of God to get through that situation and we will need to trust that he will provide us with the grace we need in the moment.

One of my worries right now has to do with traveling on outreach with the kids. There will be a lot of travel from one place to the next and we will be on planes, trains, busses and lots of confined spaces! Not gonna lie, but this is not my idea of fun with my 3 wild and crazy little boys! I'm not normally an anxious person but if I think about it too much, it really does give me anxienty! But I know that I need to trust that God is going to give me the grace ticket right before I get on the train (or bus or plane!).

Prayer Request: This week had some interesting challenges as well because I have come down with strep throat! I never had it before and man does it hurt! I had a fever of up to 102.5 on and off for a couple days. I am feeling much better now that the fever is gone and the anitbiotics have kicked in, but it made for a pretty exhausting couple of days. Lets just say having a fever in the tropics when you have no escape to AC is...interesting! Thankgoodness for my friend Suzanne suggesting to put ice packs under my legs and behind my neck! That really helped lol! I also had to rely on a ride from a friend to get to the clinic (which was such a blessing)! It has definitely made me thankful for how easy my life at home was. There are days when I really, really miss my mini van! But it is good to have to slow down, learn do do things a different way, rely on others for help, and of course rely on God! That was a huge motivation for us even doing this in the first place. And I'm sure this will continue to intensify as we go on outreach! Please pray for full and continued healing for me and that this doesn't spread to anyone else in the house. So far everyone else seems fine :)

Here are some pics of the week. Love you friends! 


Here is Asa passed out on the floor after a long days work at foundation school. He loves his school so much, but he is always so worn out by the end of the day that he just passes out in random places lol!

Here are my 3 cuties all dressed up for Halloween. We went to an event put on by a church where the kids get candy and can dress up in costume. It definitely doesn't feel like Halloween or fall here at all!

Just have to throw in a pic of one of our house geckos ;) Jonthan loves them so much but lets out high pitched squeals everytime they move! He is just a little bit unsure of them!

Occasionally we take a taxi to get to a really nice beach on the weekends. This is how we load up our workhorse stroller to get around after we get dropped off!

This is one of Asa's awesome teachers :) She is so good with all of our kids and often asks if she can take the baby during meals. Here she is wearing him in the carrier.

Here is Jonah sleeping through the session this week. Upfront is Darlene speaking and of course a translator since all of the large group sessions are always in English and Korean :) 

Jonathan loves to be silly! Here he is wearing some goggles that we picked up from the boutique- its a little wearhouse where you can leave things you don't need anymore and take anything you would like. The kids love it!

Week 3- Freedom

Week 3 has been yet another awesome week here in Kona. Our teaching this week was all about finding freedom and our identities in Christ. This was a powerful week for both Jody and I and an area where we have both had a lot of breakthrough. Here are a few things from this week's teaching that stuck out to me.

1- God loves us with his perfect love all the time! Obviously God is showing me a lot about his love because I seem to write about this every week, but this week was just a deeper revelation of how perfect and complete God's love is and how he washes that over us all the time. He is not moody and he doesn't hold grudges or offences at us. When we sin, that doesn't mean that he stops loving us or that we are somehow on the outs with God. Of course our sin saddens God, but his perfect and complete love is still loving us even in our sin- wow, that is a huge revelation for me.

2- Repentance is a joy and a gift from God! I was so reminded this week that I have freedom in Christ to repent and move on. The cross has done all the work in redeeming my soul and making me right with God. Therefore, when I mess up I have freedom to repent and know that God has wiped it away and casts it away as far as the east is from the west! I have let sin cause me so much separation from God- but I am redeemed and the cross was enough and I am no longer separated from God because of the blood of Jesus! So when I make mistakes and have a bad attitude for example, I can simply acknowledge it, thank God  that he revealed my bad attitude to me, repent, ask God to change my attitude and move on in freedom. I no longer have to go to bed beating myself up about how I had such a bad attitude today, yet not repenting and feeling like I am getting farther and farther away from God.

3- I feel like God reminded me this week that he has given me spiritual gifts that he intends me to use to build up the body of Christ and that he wants to see me walking in those giftings. I was reminded that he has given me the gifts of prophecy and encouragment and it was amazing to walk in freedom of using those gifts this week. It is amazing to step out in faith and pray for someone and see how God begins speaking through you right to the person and telling them exactly what they need to hear.

4- God continues to increase my burden and love for Southeast Asia and the countries we are going to. I am SO pumped to be able to share with people about Jesus who may have never even heard his name before. As I learn more about these countries and their culture I am just so excited to emmerse myself in their culture and learn from them as we also get to share the good news. In case you're wondering, "Why the secrecy?" its because one of the countries we are going to is closed to the gospel so it is not wise to say that you are going as a missionary to this country. We will be going to this country on a tourist visa to volunteer in a children's home and also to do volunteer language classes and friendship evangelism at the university. The other country we are going to is Thailand and we are able to talk about that openly as it is open to the gospel. There are however, many places in Thailand where people have never heard the name of Jesus so we will be able to hand out Thai bibles and tracts and maybe even show the Jesus film in Thai. We will also be serving in an orphanage in Thailand.

5- Another huge encouragement this week has been to see Asa grow in his own walk with God. He is in a preschool class called Foundation School and he absolutely loves it. He is becoming so much more bold in praying for people and talking about God. I'm so proud of my little guy and how well he's doing with everything here. Jonathan and Jonah are also doing great and loving life here on the base.

If you are reading this blog and thinking, "Who is this crazy lady and why is she speaking so much Christianese?" I would love to talk to you more about Jesus and how amazing he is and all that he has done in my life. I understand that there are friends reading this blog who follow Jesus and those who don't. So much of this journey for our family is about learning to seek God, hear his voice, and follow his call to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth. This does NOT mean that we will ever force anyone to hear or believe the message of salvation in Christ. We are only going to be a blessing to people and love them whether they are open to hearing about Jesus or not. I also understand that missonaries have done horrible and culturally insensitive things throughout history and I personally appologize for any acts done in the name of God that brought shame or destruction to any people group. We seek to go serve other nations and peoples with love and with the understanding that we have as much to learn from them and their culture as we have to give. We desire to lift up and celebrate the nations just as God does! Love you all friends!!!

Jonah is now 6 months and here he is eating his first bites of solid foods :) 

Here we are on our weekly walk to church. Asa loves having so many adults that love on him. That is me on the right and our awesome friend Lindsay on the left who is also from BC.

Stroller update!!! Last I mentioned I had ordered new wheels for our Phil&Ted stroller in the hopes that it could be fixed. Well, the craziest thing happened and accidentally switched the shipping and billing addresses when I was ordering them and the wheels ended up getting shipped to Chilliwack >:( After getting over the frustration and praying about it, we felt that the phil&ted was a sinking ship that needed to die lol! So we looked online for used strollers in Kona and this awesome BOB duallie happend to be for sale. The lady came right to the campus to show it to us and then gave it to us for $100 less than what she was asking!!! It is such a sweet stroller and it is SO nice to be able to get around again! Thank you to all who prayed because we feel like we got a major uprgrade with this stroller from our last one and payed very little for it! Thank you Jesus for your provision!

Now that we have a stroller again, we can get to the beach much more easily!!!

We had many amazing prayer times during classes this week. Here are some staff and students praying for each other and anointing each other with oil.

Monday morning all campus worship. Here the boys are colouring with some of their friends. 

Gotta end off with one more pic of the stroller since I seriously love this thing SO much lol! I can load all 3 on here and get anywhere!!! You become so thankful for transportation when you go without for a while! I miss my minivan, but I am also loving that we walk all the time here and how it seems to slow life down a little!

Week 2- The Character and Nature of God

We have completed the end of our second week of classes and it has been an AMAZING week. The topic this week was the character and nature of God. It was so refreshing to be reminded of basic truths about the essence of who God is. Here are the main things that stood out to me from the teaching this week:

1- God IS love. I find it is so easy to forget this, even though it is so basic and something I do "know" in my mind but I often forget in my heart. It is so much easier to serve and love others when my picture of who God is starts with love.

2- Our brains our wired to seek and find comfort and security, but Jesus in fact calls us to lay down our lives, count the cost, and follow him. We actually have to ask Holy Spirit to reprogram our minds so that we can fight the urge to live a life of comfort. Jesus has so much more for us if we would just step out in faith and follow him wherever he would lead us. Our speaker told a story about how he was a support raising missionary for years and years and had to constantly rely on God to provide for him and his family. He saw God move in amazing ways and was never let down by him, but also had times where he really had to wait on God and trust that God would provide- up to the 11th hour. Eventually he felt God was leading him to take a position where he would make a real salary and his first thought was, "Thank goodness I don't have to trust God anymore!" Whoops, he thought- that isn't right at all! We must always be reminded that we are to trust in God- trust him for his provision, and thank HIM for all his many blessings- never taking anything for granted.

3- This is something that God has been speaking to me about ever since arriving here on the campus: God really does want to speak to his children. The bible says "my sheep hear my voice" and I have been realizing just how much I have been over complicating this simple truth. God wants to speak to us, his children! He has given us his Holy Spirit and we need to trust that he does indeed speak and that he will do so in a way that we understand. This also comes with the responsibility of asking God to speak to us and leaving space in our lives to truly listen to him. This goes hand in hand with the idea that I believe God is also asking me to become more child like. To simply trust that he is my heavenly father, that he will speak to me and my family, that he will lead us where we should go, and that he will provide for us on the journey. It really is that simple, but we, in our adult thinking complicate things so much! These are basic bible truths, but if I am really honest with myself, I haven't been living my life as if I believed these things.

Another very exciting thing happened this week. We found out where we are going on outreach and who is on our team! I am so so excited for this because God has given both me and Jody a huge heart for these nations. We also have a fantastic team and I am so excited that we will be traveling and ministering with such great people! We are going to Southeast Asia! If you would like to know the specific nations I can tell you in a PM :)

A few prayer points- this sounds silly, but we could use prayer for our stroller! Right before we left I bought a used phil and ted's double stroller off of craigslist. I knew we needed something hearty that I could take on rough terrain and I found what I thought was a good used one on craigslist. Well, it turns out it had a ton of problems that I was unaware of- mostly that all of the tires are on their last legs and completely falling apart! Considering that we don't have a car here and use our stroller to get just about anywhere it is hard to not have a reliable ride! The wheels are all currently being held together with duct tape! We are waiting for new ones to come but if you could pray that no new problems pop up in the mean time and that these new tires make the stroller usable!

All of our stroller troubles have also illuminated a lot of Jody and my own weaknesses since we have had many a tif on the side of the road with a broken down stroller and crying kids in the heat of the day! It honestly is a good thing and a blessing since this is one of the huge reasons we wanted to do this as a family- to grow in God and learn how to truly have a Christ-like attitude in all circumstances. Well, we are certainly being challenged in this area so if you could just pray that God gives us amazing grace in stressfull circumstances to be loving and patient, to one another and the kids. I'm sure this is just preparation for some of the challenging circumstances we will encounter on outreach!

On a praise note, we are all getting more adjusted to the heat and learning that being hot and sticky all day is just a part of life here! This will definitely be good preparation for the even more humid Southeast Asia!

Love to you all! Grace and Peace :)

The amazing circle of nations. The love and honour for the nations is so strong here! 

Prayers for Kiwook on his birthday! Kiwook and his lovely wife Sohee are on our outreach team :)

Trailblazers DTS students and staff on family night!

Our awesome DTS leader was so thoughtful that he bought pumpkin pie for all of us at morning snack on Canadian Thanksgiving. Here are the 4 of us Canadians in our DTS eating pumpkin pie!

One of the many beautiful Hawaiian beaches. It takes us about 30 minutes to walk here and we try to go every weekend since it is pretty much the only way to stay cool here! God's creation is so amazing!

Jonah giving you the stink eye! Our kids are all learning to be such troopers!

We made it! An update of our first few days in Kona

We made it!

We are here in Hawaii on the YWAM base and have just finished our second full day of classes. What a whirl wind these first few days have been! Let's start with the plane ride...

Let's just say that flying with 3 kids 4 and under is not for the faint of heart!!! We have definitely learned a few lessons about flying now that that trip is over.

Tip #1- make sure you confirm your flight 24 hours in advance even if the app crashes after 25 minutes of you trying to scan your passports from a smart phone. OK, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, let's just say that united airlines has an app that lets you check in the night before your flight. It involves using the camera of your smart phone to scan passports but this is one of those annoying technologies that is just a little bit ahead of its time and doesn't quite work as smoothly as it is supposed to. I was trying to scan all 6 of our passports the night before and just gave up when the app finally crashed and wanted me to start all over again. Well, I should have persevered because when we went to check in at the airport we discovered that even though we had selected our seats when we originally bought our plane tickets, you must confirm them 24 hours in advance otherwise you just get randomly placed somewhere on the plane. This is not ideal when two of the passengers are a two year old and four year old who clearly cannot be in some random seat by themselves on an air plane! Luckily right before we boarded each flight a flight attendent took pity on us and even though the original airline people assured us this was a full flight and that nothing could be done, she rearranged our seats so we at least had 3 seats together and 2 seats together.

Tip #2- Make the children practice watching movies with earbuds before the plane ride. Oh my...that made for a few screaming fits when neither of the boys could keep the earbuds in and watch their show. Eventually we just gave up and used our tablet with a bluetooth speaker we had brought. Although it is "against company policy" according to the flight attendant to watch a movie over a speaker, we figured a very low volume movie was better than the constant screams of a two and four year old who had no idea how to handle themselves in an airplane for 5 hours!

Tip #3- give each other grace and understanding. I think Jody and I really learned how much grace we needed to give each other and the kids as we were running from place to place in the airport and dealing with screaming kids on the plane. That day was definiltey so hard as we had to wake up at 1:30am to get to our flight on time and our connections were very close so it felt like we couldn't catch a break the whole time. I think Jody and I both asked ourselves a few times on the plane "what were we thinking taking 3 kids on a huge trip like this?!?"

But now we are here and jet lag is gone and we feel so so blessed to be here. Hawaii is a place filled with so much of God's beauty and so many beautiful people. The YWAM base is such a special place filled with people from all over the world coming to seek God and serve him with all their hearts.

A few of the big things that have stuck out to me in these first few days.

1- there are SO many families and children here! It is so encouraging to see that we are not the only ones and that God calls families to missions ALL the time!  Even the leader of our DTS (who is SO awesome) has 3 young daughters and another little one on the way. Their kids are so amazing and have grown up traveling around the world and interacting with adults and other kids of all different cultures- what a blessing!

2- YWAM is an amazing organization that is serving the nations in so many more areas thanI could have imagined. On orientation day we learned about just a few  of the ministries that come under the YWAM umbrella. There are mercy ships that sail to remote locations that can only be reached by boat bringing doctors, nurses, dentists and supplies to people who may have never had access to health care before. Our base here in Kona has an aquaponics farm to train missionaries how to farm in this way that uses no soil but only water, fish, and fish manure to grow amazing, nutritious food. They can then teach people around the world to farm in this way which is highly cost effective. There are also schools of midwifery (that sure  got me excited!) and primary health care that teach essential medical skills to students who  can then bring healing and health to people who have never had health care or materity care before.

3- Living in community is so wonderful! Back in Chilliwack we have an amazing community of friends who support us and love us in our journey with God. But there is something unique in this place about the fact that everyone who is here has taken a time out of normal life to sacrifice a comfortable life to come and seek God and serve others. It is so amazing to have corporate worship services with hundreds of people all worshipping God in their own language from many nations around the world knowing that we are all here for a season and a reason. I love seeing Korean subtitles under the english worship lyrics and having our lectures translated into Portugese for one of the students in our class who speaks Portugese, Korean, and is still working on his English. I love hearing the incredible testimonies of how God has brought people here against all odds.

Well, I could go on and on, but I will stop for now. Jody has taken the kids to the aquaponics farm (one of their favourite places) and will be back soon. I didn't even write about the heat, but if you think about it, please continue to pray for us and adjusting to the heat. I am so far from a heat lover and I am a little sad that I am missing my absolute favourite season of fall in Cananda. I long for a sweater and a cool, crisp morning. Hawaii is HOT and we don't have any AC as electricity is extremely expensive here and we are missionaries, not tourists lol! I am still occasionally getting headaches from the heat but it is getting much better. Please also just continue to pray that our hearts would be completely open to recieve whatever God has for us. We are still in the early stages of diving into what exactly God has brought us here to do! Love to all of you my dear friends :)

This is Ohana Court on registration day. Ohana is the Hawaiian word for family. This is where we have all of our big campus meetings and worship times.

Jonah napping Hawaiian style- always gotta have a fan!!! He has gotten so good at sleeping through just about anything! 

Here is our classroom and the names of everyone in our DTS. That is one of the staff holding his 3 week old baby son! Awesome mama and dad doing missions with a newborn :) 

And here I am at my "blogging station." My tablet set up with our bluetooth keyboard and of course a fan!!!