Christmas is not about the beaches.

I live on tea. I seriously feel like I drink four glasses a day, minimum. It's still been pretty rainy here. Sunday was probably the coldest day we've had. I hope that the weather is just like that on Christmas. It will make me feel more at home. We're doing Secret Santa right now and whoever picked my name is so awesome. They've been sneaking me Mad Libs :) Every time I get a new one, two of my English friends (Kezi and Emma) get together and laugh through the whole entire thing. I forgot what fun simple kid games, like Mad Libs, can be.

Mark Parker. Enough said. haha Two weeks ago, for lectures we had a guy from New Zealand come and talk to us. He was pretty blunt and harsh, but dang he had the love of God in him. He taught on the topic of Lordship. He kept talking about how Jesus is already Lord, but we need to decide daily to make Him Lord of our lives. A lot of the week had to do with surrendering and learning to walk in the freedom that Christ brings. And man, is that freedom empowering or what? We learned all about the structure of the Tent of Meeting in the Old Testament. Then, Mark took that structure and put it into practical New Testament terms and ways. Many of our lectures went on for hours after they were scheduled, but Mark didn't care. Frankly, neither did any of us. He was speaking so many absolute truths that it was all we could do to make ourselves get up and leave the classroom once he was done. At the end of the week, we took what Mark had talked about the Tent of Meeting and actually did it. This consisted of 4 hours of praise and worship Friday night and then 15 hours of praise, worship, prayer, intercession, confession, consecration, tears, laughter, dancing, communion and a lot of freedom on Saturday. To say the least, it was a little bit nuts. God did a lot in my heart throughout that week, including breaking off some ties that I still felt connected to from my past. One of the greatest parts of Mark was his constant looking towards God. People so often focus on their sin. "I need to fix this. I need to get better at that. I need to get control of this. I need to. I need to. I need to." Instead the sin seems to fall away and because much less burdensome when you simply keep your focus and eyes on Christ. When you praise God for who He is and what He is, has and will do, you find that many of your struggles seem petty. I serve a God is excited for breakthrough and excited for wisdom and understanding to come on His children.

Last week, Pastor Grant Windle, from a local church, came and spoke on the Holy Spirit. Even though it was tough to follow up Mark Parker, Grant did an excellent job. God knew exactly what He was doing when He gave us Grant for the following week. When Mark spoke, you listened. When Grant spoke, you had to be hungry for God. It was such a good way for us to continue to devote ourselves to God. I learned that when you allow the Holy Spirit to come in and overflow in your life, God's incomprehensible peace comes in tidal waves.

Friday and Saturday of last week we did "faith days". After they told us we were doing that, I quickly realized that it was simply "As We Go" days. :) It was nice to do something familiar. God worked through these days like crazy. A lot of serving and blessing others went on. Last night, I taught my outreach team how to play Telepictionary (only the best game ever.). It was so fun to play with people who don't speak English as their first language. haha We laughed and laughed and laughed. I was asked if we could play it on the long train ride into Darjeeling. :)

We leave for two weeks of outreach next Monday. We're doing this thing called Impact Summer on Byron Bay. It should be very cool. I don't exactly know what all will be going on (which I never do here haha), but we should be finding out more pretty soon. I'll be excited to come back and share all about it.

Christmas is on Saturday. That's less than five days away from now for me! So weird to be here, while the Holidays are going on back at home. This will definitely be a different Christmas for me, to say the least. I'm excited though. There's been a lot of baking going on around the base. We'll probably spend the day playing games, eating, laughing and enjoying each others company (there's even rumors of a beach trip on Christmas Eve). Even though I miss my family terribly, I'm so happy that I have a new family here to celebrate with.

Merry Christmas!

when it rain, it pours.

My feet clean during the week :) note: the lovely keen tan

our chai tent

my favorite place in australia so far: hervey bay :)

Schoolies was intense. like literally. It was a seventeen hour drive there. We stopped and stay in this place called Hervey Bay. It was the first time I'd seen the ocean in a couple of years. haha You should have seen me. My friend, Erica, just kept laughing at me and my giddiness. I woke up around 4:15 the next morning and went to the beach to watch the sunrise. It was absolutely gorgeous. One of the best mornings I've had in a long time. I sat and just worshipped and praised God for a couple of hours. I wish I was better with my words so I could give Him a small portion of the justice He deserves. haha I should probably actually be apologizing for my whole entire blog. Writing is not my strongest suit and this whole entire experience and everything that God is doing in my life can't be described through my mediocre writing. So, I'm sorry, but hey, something is better than nothing, right? :)

Saturday through Wednesday night we had the Chai Tent set up in Airlie Beach. The Schoolies would come in from 8pm-1am and get free chai and slushies. Our main ministry was just being a place of peace and of the Holy Spirit. You could feel a physical difference inside and outside the tent. I was on the tent floor four of the nights. I was able to create a really good relationship with these Schoolies, Brittany, Sam and Hannah, mainly Brittany though. She came back every night and we hung out for hours. God was so evidently working in her life. Now, she's my friend on facebook and we've continued to talk since I've been back. :) What a blessing. During the week, a lot of people talked to different kids who really broke down about their emptiness and brokenness. So many of the Schoolies talked about how immediately when they walked into the tent they could feel themselves sobering up due to the complete change in atmosphere. haha I drank a lot of the chai. :)

Other than the tent, we had a 24 hour prayer and worship going on back at the house we stayed at. People were always there doing all sorts of prayer and worship. During the hours of the tent, we had constant communication with the prayer room and had a white board at both places, sharing prayer requests and encouragement. The power of the 24 hour prayer and worship blew us all away! It was amazing how much God was leading the whole ordeal. Everyone's sleep schedule was all over the place, but God definitely provided. We also had to have 24 security at the tent and did Sport in the Park every afternoon for the Schoolies. It was a week full of lots of spiritual warfare, exhaustion, but also full of the Spirit moving in ways I had never seen. It rained almost the whole time we were in Airlie Beach. We all got used to living with mud just covering our feet almost up to our shins. We also didn't really shower much. haha We slept in tents and all of our clothes smelled like mold by the time we went home. But man, none of that really matter! God was so good and worked in so many lives!

The Airlie Beach base house that we stayed in was incredible. I felt like we were living in a jungle. There were SO many bugs and different types of wildlife! I loved it so much. It was something I had never even remotely experienced. I loved waking up every morning and going and having breakfast on the huge wrap around deck, spending time with God, and watching the rain just POUR down. Words can't express how much I love rain. God used the rain in really fascinating ways throughout the week. There was no doubt about it that He sent it. :)

Thanksgiving was a definitely different, considering they don't celebrate it. haha But my friends were really good about the whole thing. Last week truly was a week of thanksgiving in my life. Looking back through my journals, I feel like I spent the whole week just thanking God for what He has and is doing in my life. Thanksgiving still remains my favorite holiday, even if I didn't get to celebrate it this year!

I'm starting to think that God is going to do a lot in my heart involving discipline while I'm here. I know that sounds negative or unpleasant, but He is doing in a way that is making me passionate and just excited to create these habits! It's taking a lot of failure and time, but I know that this is truly changing the way that I will live the rest of my life. This week's topic is relationships. We're doing through a video series by Dean Sherman, the guy who started YWAM in Australia. He's SO animated and a little ridiculous, but man, he speaking straight truth. Here are some idea's that he's caused me to think about this week:

True forgiveness is relating according to value, not behavior.

Perfection is when you are committed enough to the truth that when you screw up you acknowledge and apologize.

Humility is the knowledge and understanding of TRUTH.

People have value. This knowledge brings a responsibility of LOVING.

Grace not only relates us to God, but to one another. It washes away not only our sin between us and God, but the sin between each of us.

Acts 20:35

I'm very passionate about all of these things right now, so if you'd like to talk to me more about any of it, let me know. :)

I've learned a new game, called Bang! I love it :) :) haha It's the best!