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!
