So the adventure begins!

First of all, I have to apologize for not posting anything for so long!! I don't even have an excuse other than the fact I can't believe that time goes by this fast!! 

The last month has been amazing at YWAM! The speakers pushed me into a  deeper understanding of the love of the Father and they have been my favourite weeks of the past 2 months. I've been learning that God's love for me doesn't ever waver based on what I do, it is always constant, to walk in my sonship and not allow anyone else to define my worth but God. It's seriously been and life changing, crazy past couple of weeks leading up to outreach! 

I am now on route to Papua New Guinea with a 10 hour layover in Brisbane Australia! It's night here so we are basically camping out in the airport. The flights have been good so far, one more to PNG and then the adventure will begin! We are staying on a YWAM ship for the first week helping them get it ready to go out. We are on the ship for Christmas which will be really nice :) after that I think we are going to take a plane to a town on the northern coast and meeting up with a YWAM base there. No idea how long we are staying for or what we will be doing for sure, but I will let you all know whenever I can. 

I probably will have wifi once a week or every two weeks. If we go up to remote places I won't have wifi for the amount of time we are staying there. So communication will be sparse but full whenever I finally can give an update! 

I'm beyond excited for this part of the adventure and can't wait to see what God does and how He uses our team! People have prophecied that our team will see lots of healings, so I'm really excited to walk out in boldness praying for people and allowing God to work through me to reach these people that He loves so much! I'm still nervous about sermons so please continue to keep me in your thoughts and prayers in regards to that! Also pray for the safety and health of our team while we are there! That would be appreciated a lot!! 

I love you all and than you again for your prayers and support! Have a Merry Christmas if I don't talk to you until after! See you all at home in 2 1/2 months! <3 

More Pictures!!!

Adventuring to Queen's Bath in Kona 

So much fun looking at all the shells in these pools of water!

Love the lasting friendships that are forming!

So much beauty!

Two of my roomates! Teanna and Jenny, we all happened to be colour coordinating!

Girl's Dessert night!

Part of our water fun day!!

Bubbles!!

On the way to Mauna Kea with my outreach group!

On the top of Mauna Kea

In Hilo 

A super cool candy shop we found 

<3

Rainbow Falls

More pictures from Mauna Kea! The girls of our team <3

 

Oh the beauty!

THE GLORY TEAM

So much fun climbing these trees and exploring! So happy we have amazing photographers on our team

Love this family.

We had a little mishap on the way home, praise God for men who know how to change a tire while I stand in the background and watch...:))

End of Week 6

Again, it has been an incredible couple of weeks here in Kona!!

This past week we had a speaker who is a missionary in the middle east. He told insane stories of how God is moving and really encouraged me to think about how I can minister to people where I am at not just if I am half way across the world. To be bold in my faith and really seek God's heart in all that I do. He mainly talked about missions and evangalising to people around us.

Last week marked the halfway point for the lecture phase of my DTS. Up until now most of the speakers have been talking about things that relate more to ourselves and allowing God to work in us and know what He thinks about us. Now we will be talking more about missions and learning to apply our faith in the everday and on our outreach. So this week we have speakers who specialize in apologetics, which is basically specializing in providing reasons for the Christian faith and answering questions people of other religions or non religions may have(you could get a better definition by googling it if you'd like). This morning Andy Bannister talked about two main topics; Chistianity & Science and how religion isn't Christianity. He brought up common questions and arguments people have about Christianity in regards to those two topics and went through answering them. I am really enjoying it so far!! It is so eye opening and I am learning a lot from them  and it is only the end of day 1 :) I have another class tonight at 7 and Alycia Wood is speaking, she too is so good at what she does.

Now for what I have been going outside of class!! Last Friday we thought we were going to be working on the campus farm in the morning, which we were actually looking forward to, but it turned out it was just a cover up for the surprise water fun day our leaders put on for us! There were bouncy castle type water slides and fun team relay type games. So we had competitions between outreach teams and our PNG team faced a team that is going to the Himalayas in different team building games. Our team won 5 out of the 6 stations we went to! It was so much fun!!!! I am going to post another blog after this with pictures on it so you'll see what I mean :) Quite a few people on my team have really nice cameras and love to take pictures which I am not complaining about.

On Saturday my outreach team drove up to Mauna Kea (a mountain on the island that has a 4200m high summit)!! We got there in time for sunset and it was gorgeous! Up in the clouds on aBeauty! God is so beautiful! Then the stars started to come out and I was in awe. God made that! He loves us more than the amount of stars in the sky...and there are tons! He is so creative and I loved looking at everything. The Milky Way was SOO clear! When the saying about there being a blanket of stars...literally that's what it was! I've never seen the stars so clear! Every constellation was visible and they were all so bright! I saw MULTIPLE shooting starts! Praise God! Sitting here rememberingq makes me realize how truly beautiful my God is. I am so thankful to even be in His presence and bask in His glory! Thank you Jesus!
Our group had so much fun! Lots of laughs and just being with each other, not trying to make intense conversations. All huddled up together on the ground with tons of blankets (trying to stay warm) watching the stars. (Side note: it was actually really cold up there! I could kind of see my breath)
Then being able to pray to and praise our God as a team was such a blessing. He wanted us to sit in His peace,  not strive for any encounter...to simply be still in His presence and gaze upon His beauty. Literally to be able to gaze up at the beauty!  I love Him! He knows exactly what we all need.
Sunday we went to Hilo (a town on the other side of the island) and explored there a bit. Went to a place called Rainbow Falls, saw a beautiful waterfall and climbed some intense trees! So much fun! The car I was in got a flat tire on the way home, which made for even more of an adventure (praise God we had a bunch of guys who knew how to change a tire). Once we were on the road again we drove to Hapuna Beach and spent the rest of our day there. It is incredibly gorgeous there! We played frisbee, road the waves to shore, had a massive sand fight and took pictures! It was an awesome weekend!
So ya, that is a little glimpse as to what I have been up to the past couple of weeks!! SO much more fun and adevntures to come with this group of people and I CANNOT wait!!
God is so good and He has really been teaching me to lingre in His presence and not always feel like I have to be striving for something all the time. I learn so much it is sometimes hard to bring it all in and pick out what is standing out, but at the moment that is one of the main things.

OUTREACH :) I am still in need of around $750 CAD for my outreach that will be due at the end of this month, so if you feel like you would like to sponsor me, let me know and I will eexplain more! Or even if you just want to know more about what I will be doing in genereal please email me and I will answer you as best I can! We are starting to know a little bit more as things are starting to finalize, which is nice!
Also, if you want to know more specifics on how you can pray for me or want me to go more in depth on some of things im learning, you can email me about that too! I love hearing from you all!!

ALOHA!

Papua New Guinea Update

I know some of you are probably wondering about what my outreach will consist of and stuff like that. I am going to try my best to tell you what I know as of right now.

This is the first team from Fire and Fragrance going to PNG, so my leaders have a lot of freedom to plan but it's just a matter of everything coming together. I'll explain some of the things we are wanting to do. 

YWAM ships is something we are hoping to partner with for a few weeks. They go into the remote islands of PNG and provide medical care and stuff like that. So we would be praying for people and loving on them. We haven't gotten total confirmation yet about YWAM ships, but it is something we as a group are really praying about. So your prayers in the process of my leaders and our team foguring things out would be so appreciated!
My leaders have been talking about possibly running a mini 1-2 week DTS in a small village. We would teach on specific topics, lead worship and prayer times. I think that would be so cool to do because it would get us to really think about what we are learning in our DTS right now and then use what we have been taught to then go and teach other people.
We will also be doing some trekking to unreached people groups. So going through the jungle and living as the tribes do. So the guys are pretty excited at the thought of going hunting with these people!
Working with people in prisons is something else that had been brought up as well.

There are lots of possibilities since we are pioneering this outreach :) We will for sure be doing a lot of praying for people and really loving on them! I am so excited to have the team that I do and know that God put us together for a reason! My leaders are so fun and have done a great job so far at getting things together and planning on their own without anything to model, since Fire and Fragrance hasn't sent a team there before. We are really seeking God's heart for this country.

Since a lot of things aren't finalized yet, the amount of the outreach hasn't been set in stone. But they are aiming for under $5000 USD. Right now I have around $3800 USD, so when converted to CAD I still need $1500 towards my outreach. God provides, He always does! But if you feel like this is something you would like to support me with financially, please let me know! If you have any questions about how to support me or where to send it, shoot me an email (smith.dani12@gmail.com)  and I can give you all the details! All of the money towards our outreach fees are due at the end of November because everything needs to be paid for before we leave on December 18.

I'm sorry I don't have more specific information on what we will be doing exactly, but I will let you know more in the next couple of weeks as things get finalized. If you have any questions please text, Facebook or email me! We are doing group research projects on different things about PNG, so when we get all the information together and present to each other I will know more and be able to share it with all of you also!

Thank you for your support and I will keep you updated on my funds as they change. God is amazing,  I am so thankful to be in this season of learning more about Him and really loving Him!
I'll explain more of what I've been learning lately in my next blog!

Love you all! 

Encounters with Jesus and Hawaiian Advenures

It has almost been a month since I have been here and I am bewildered at how fast it has gone! These past couple weeks have been intense but so good!!

My roomates and I are having a lot of fun together and getting closer as the days go by. I went with a couple of the girls on Sunday to a snorkelling beach! It was beautiful! The sand is black because of the volcanic rock on the island. I had fun laying there picking out pieces of coral, shells, lava rock and other super cool things that were in the sand! We rented snorkel gear and went out into the water and I was not expecting to see so many fish! So many colours! I was in awe as my friend Danielle and I explored together. God is seriously SO creative! I wish I had an underwater camera to take pictures with and show you all. I am very thankful to have these opprotunities to do fun things like this while I am here :) I will post some of the pictures we did take when they get uploaded, so stay tuned!

This past week we had a speaker named Brian Brennt. He was hilarious and also so life changing in the things he spoke about. The main thing he spoke about was origional design. Who God says we are and showing His love to the people we come in contact with. We did lots of prayer times with each other, to hear from God and see what He says about each person in our groups. We sit in our outreach teams in class, so I have gotten to know my team more this past week through all the prayer we did over each other. There is so much more on the teachings of Brian, so if you are curious at all, email me (smith.dani12@gmail.com) and I can elaborate a little more for you.

We had a women's conference this past weekend on the topic of Brave Love. It was life changing. Brave love is loving people how Jesus loved. So they spoke into how Jesus loved and how Him dying for us is the bravest kind of love the world has seen. Then they went into talking about what brave love looks like for us individually. Some people's brave love was starting churches in their hometowns, being a journalist and bringing to light stories of those who don't have a voice, being a missionary in Africa and showing God's love or starting their own brave love conference. It was so cool to hear what God has laid on people's hearts and that He wants to dream with us! I have a brave love booklet that goes into depth what the weekend was all about so again, hit me up with any questions and I can share more with you.

This week is family week here on campus. Which means all the DTSs going on gather together for class instetad of individually like normal. We hear from Loren and Darlene Cunningham, who founded YWAM and live on the island, and other amazing people that do missions all around the world.  Michael Ketterer, who leads the band United Pursuit,  is leading worship all week. He is so talented and I can't describe in words the atmosphere of worship we had this morning! SOO thankful God has brought me here!!So that has been a glimpse into my life in the past couple weeks.

My outreach team has met up quite a few times I am loving this group of people that will become family! We don't know a lot of details still about our outreach, so if you guys could pray about that, I would appreciate it! My group leaders are amazing, I am beyond blessed to have them.  I will write another update specifically on outreach in the next week or so when they know a bit more.

I am having an amazing time here! Learning so much about God and who He says I am, it is so life changing. I have beautiful friends that I know will be life long frienships when we leave after these 5 months of being together. We are soaking up every minute of it!

I wouldn't be here if it wasnt for the people who supported me, so thank you!
 Please email/text/facebook me! I love talking with people!
Love you all, hopefully I know more about my outreach soon!

Pictures!

I know some of you don't have Facebook or haven't seen any pictures since I've been away.
Here are a few of my favourites!

These are a few of my roommates! (Left to right) Sarah, Sarah, Alex, Danielle, Teanna, myself and Abagail! 

 

 Frozen yogurt dates are a regular thing with us! Sitting along the sea wall makes it 10x better!

The Sarah duo and me at the Iron Man volunteer Mahalo (thank you) dinner 

Every Friday night is Ministry Night. Our DTS goes into the prayer room and the worship team ask God what He wants to do in that night. Last Friday we worshiped and prayed, allowed His presence to wash over us and give us rest. It was absolutely amazing and I'm looking forward to going tonight!

My view of the sunset from supper! 

Holly and I! She's such a joy to be around!

All my beautiful roommates except 2! 

Teanna Alex, Holly, Danielle, Me!, Sarah, Rayn and Abigail! 

Our Fire and Fragrance tent! Where all the magic happens :) 

The company here is so good!

One of the first beach days! 

A few of the many girls in my DTS! 

This is my AMAZING team going with me to PNG (minus the two leaders)! I am so excited to get to know them more and more over the next couple of months! 2 of the girls are my roommates which is such a blessing :) 

OUTREACH REVEAL!!!

Aloha! Yes, I am using Hawaiian lingo now :) 

I have already been here for 2 weeks and it has been incredible! My roommates and I are getting closer and closer as each day goes by. Much laughter, dancing, prayer times, deep conversations, frozen yogurt dates and beach days! It really is a blessing to be surrounded with a group of girls who genuinely care about you and know how to have a good time! 

Last weekend we had the privilege of volunteering at the Iron Man World Championships here in Kona! It was such a blast and it was so cool to see all the different athletes participating and how incredibly hard they worked to get to that point! There was a thank you dinner on Sunday for the volunteers which had good music, even better food and came with the company of some incredible people! 

We are in the swing of things in regards to classes which is amazing so far! Tom and Donna Cole, a couple who wrote Pure Heart, have been speaking to us this week on the book. They get to the roots of your heart and reveal things that have hindered your relationship with God that you didn't even know existed! There have been lots of tears, but of healing and then joy...and it is only the end of day 2 so the rest of the week can only get better right? 

We have times of intercession every other day, which are prayers that are rooted with a passion for others to have breakthroughs in areas they are struggling. Whether that being unreached people groups in the Amazon Jungle or family members who aren't saved. It has definitely been a learning experience for me but I am so excited to see how God increases this area in my own life! Ever since going to IHOP in grade 12, people there prophesied over me that intercession would be a huge part of my life. I had no idea what that would mean or what that looked like, but I feel like God has begun to reveal that to me since being here in a place that focuses on that. 

Sooo...now to the moment you have been patiently waiting for as I have been rambling about everything else! OUTREACH LOCATION!!! We had a scavenger hunt tonight to first figure out who we were going with, then they revealed where we were going and who our leaders are. In December I will be going with a team of 11 (or 12, I don't 100% remember how many) to PAPUA NEW GUINEA!!!! I don't know a lot of specifics yet, but I do know we will be going with YWAM Ships some of the time to reach people groups that cannot be reached by any other way than a boat. People will be giving medical attention and stuff like that, but our group will be ministering to the people being helped. I will let you all know more as the information comes, but for now I am super excited with where I am going as well as the people I am going with!! We all feel like we have a group of really strong people, who of which I can't wait to get to know better in the next few months! 

I am so excited to share this with all of you! I will update you on how much I will be needing for outreach fees when they tell us! Thank you so much again for all of your support and encouragement! It means so much to me and I wouldn't have gotten through the last week without it! I am doing a lot better in regards to begin homesick which is such a praise God moment! I feel way more at home and comfortable with the people and environment! So thank you for your prayers! 

If you want to ask me any questions, you can email me at smith.dani12@gmail.com or however else you want to contact me! I love hearing from you guys! 

Miss you all!! <3 

Day 1

Hello everyone :)
I made it!! Just finished our first day here on campus. It's incredibly gorgeous here and also very hot!
The people in my DTS are so friendly so getting to know people isn't an issue at all.

So today was basically an orientation day. We had a welcoming ceremony, Hawaiian style. It's amazing to see all the different cultures and nationalities God has brought to our campus. There's over 40 countries represented on the base right now, not including staff.
We had a little session with my DTS leaders today. There are about 150 people in my DTS which makes it hard to get to know everyone, but they are an amazing group of people hungry for more of God and wanting to make Him known. My leaders are also amazing and I can't wait to get to know them more. They gave us a rough outline of what our days will look like (very jam packed) and what speakers will be coming throughout the next 2 1/2 months.  Next week we start having a more routine schedule but we won't really get into the swing of things until week two.
We had a corporate worship service tonight with all the people on campus and it was such an incredible experience. I love worship and it's my biggest way of connecting with God so to be in a place that values worship and is so on fire for God is a really eye opening experience for me. All the people here encourage you to pursue The Lord and not to be afraid of opening up and being honest.
I have a couple girls I've been hanging out with most of the time and they're really fun and I can't wait to get to know them more!

It's been an extremely long feeling day that never seemed to end :) but I am so happy I'm here and I know this is where God wants me to be. Even though it has been a rough day in regards to being homesick. So please pray that I won't be homesick and dwell on the fact that I'm really far away from friends and family. It finally hit me that I am here and it's expanded into reality where before YWAM was more of an idea that I was preparing for. I know it will get better but it's been an emotional day.

Thanks again to all who have helped me get here! I am extremely blessed by all of you.
Much love :)

3 More Days!!!

Hello friends and family!
I leave for Kona this Thursday and I am beyond excited to start this journey!
I will try my best to keep everyone updated as much as I can with how I'm doing and the things that  I'm  learning. Thank you so much to those who have supported me not only financially, but through prayers as well. It means a lot!
Many Blessings to you all!