We made it to Thailand!

Greetings from Thailand! I can't believe we have made it here! It really still feels surreal. As we flew into the Chiang Mai airport Jody and I both commented on how similar the landscape is to the Fraser Valley! There is a big forested mountain that looks just like the Sumas mountain in between Chilliwack and Abbotsford. So in one weird sense we feel like we are in a familiar place, but then in many other ways, we are clearly far from home! Neither Jody or I have ever left North America, so this is pretty amazing for us.

Here are my first impressions of Thailand. This place is filled with beauty! There are amazingly ornate temples and Buddhist decorations everywhere. There is so much colour everywhere and always something interesting to look at. The people are also so wonderful here. Everyone loves to say hi to us- especially because we have the boys, but just because their culture is super friendly. There are also some odd things that we westerners have had to adjust to! If you've traveled a lot I'm sure you'll laugh at me for some of these, but that's ok! Number one is the squatty potty! The first time Asa saw one was in the Tokyo airport and he was absolutely thrilled and said he wanted to pee in it- boys will be boys! I have actually yet to use one because the house we're staying in has regular toilets, but I'm sure my time will come. Next is the Tuk Tuk. We haven't actually been in a true tuk tuk yet, but that is what we call them and I forget the real  name. They are basically a truck with seats put in the back and an awning put on top. This is how we have gotten everywhere so far. Here is our team in the tuk tuk:
 

It's amazing how many people can fit into one of these things. On our way home from the airport we also stacked all of our luggage on the roof! We must have been quite the sight to see driving through town. I definitely have to pray every time I get into one because there are so many western safety rules being broken in these things. But the drivers so far have been very good so that puts me at ease a bit.

So far our times of prayer and ministry have been so rich and wonderful. I really sense God's heart to move in this land and touch the hearts of the Thai people. On our first day we had an orientation from the long term missionary who runs the house that we are currently staying in (which is beautiful I might add- such a blessing!). His name is Len and he is such a passionate South African man doing the will of God here in Thailand. He briefed us on many things about Thai culture. One of the saddest things that  I learned is that nearly 100% of the women and girls here have been sexually abused but because of the honour/shame culture it is rarely talked about. Thai's are all about saving face and putting on an exterior that is peaceful and pleasant and all put together. This is a beautiful part of their culture because they truly are kind and gentle people, but it can also be very harmful as things like sexual abuse can just continue on without ever being addressed.



On our first full day we went to the site of this and several other Buddhist temples. We came and handed out tracts and Thai bibles and just hung out with people. Len informed us that tracts are one of the most common ways that people come to faith in Jesus in Thailand. Many have never even heard of Jesus and if they have they assume that Christianity is the religion of the west. The saying goes here that to be Thai is to be Buddhist, so there is often a mental block in the minds of Thai's when it comes to Jesus. Every time we met with someone and began talking and handing out Thai tracts they were always so happy that we gave them something in their own language. After we left we would look back and see almost every person deeply enthralled reading the tract. I gave one to an elderly woman and her husband and in her very limited English she communicated to me, "No, no, we're Buddhist." But I communicated to here with actions and a few Thai words, "Yes, Jesus loves Buddhists!" She looked very surprised and began reading it!

We learned a lot about contextualization of the gospel in our last two weeks of classes in Kona. It was such a good reminder that Jesus has already been at work in every culture, nation and people group and that he created culture as a beautiful thing. All cultures have strengths and weaknesses and the goal of evangelism is not to make western disciples, but to make Jesus known among the nations in a way that makes sense to each culture. It's much less about making converts as it is about introducing people to the God who has loved them and wanted a relationship with them all along. We do this by being the aroma of Christ here in Thailand, or wherever we go. It is to be a sweet smelling aroma of love, grace, healing , and truth- not one of arrogance and judgement or condemnation. Of course this doesn't mean that we water down the gospel or present a picture that you can be both a Buddhist and a Jesus follower. Jesus is very clear that he is "the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the father except through the Son," but to become a follower of Jesus doesn't mean that you have to abandon your Thai culture or heritage.

I know this probably sounds very strange to those of you who don't follow Jesus. It probably seems even stranger that we lugged our family accross the world to tell people about Jesus. But we're compelled by the love of God that has the power to heal and restore all that is broken and hurting in this world. No true Christ follower will ever force the love of God or force a conversion on anyone- that is so far from the Character and nature of God. But we know that there are those in Thailand and in many parts of the world who have never heard of the life giving message of Jesus' death on the cross and resurrection to life that has the power to reconcile us to God, taking all of our bad choices, sin, bad karma and cast them all away forever, restoring us to right relationship with God, who fills us with peace, joy, and true love in the Spirit.

For those of you who are praying people, please pray for all of those who have received tracts in the last couple of days. Pray that the word of God would plant deeply in their hearts and that they would encounter the love of God in powerful ways. I am so full of expectation for what God is doing here in Thailand- and this is only my second day here!  Christian, be encouraged!!! We serve a mighty God who is alive and active on the earth today. Jesus says in revelation 3:20 "Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends."

Now for some pics :)



Here is Asa at his Christmas party where he and his adorable class performed to "Mele Kelikimaka" with a little hula dance. He learned so much in foundation school and is doing so well here in Thailand. He loves to pray and so does Jonathan :)





Here is our team (everyone but the kids) at our love feast- a special meal that we all shared together before being sent out in teams to the nations. These people are seriously amazing!!!



Because everyone needs a cute pic of a baby taking the bath in the sink ;)



On our last day of class we were taught by Danny Lehman who is a long time YWAMer and highly sought after speaker. He had a crazy past of drugs and alcohol abuse before he came to Jesus and Jody has been super inspired by him and his ministry.




Here is our team at a local Thai restaurant on our first night here. We were all delirious from jet lag, but it was amazing to have super delicious and cheap Thai food! It is very common here to eat out most of the time because the food is so inexpensive. Most Thai homes don't even have kitchens. We can eat out and feed our whole team for just over $10US :)

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!