New blog!

I switched my blog to wordpress, so the url is now:
http://jeiblair.wordpress.com

so everything will go up on there now :)

Seeing Through God's Eyes

Today marks the 11^th day of outreach. We started out our ten week journey by travelling 10 hours up the east coast of Australia to a beautiful town called Byron Bay. We drove into what seemed to be a town filled with passion and excitement with the streets packed full of adventure hungry teens and adults. The anticipation of what we were about to step into was overwhelming. All we knew was that this town needed Jesus and we were the people who would be used to deliver this message to them.

Being in Byron reminded me a lot of a town back home called Paia. It was a town powered by a beach culture wildly mixed with hippies and careless i-don’t-give-a-crap individuals, along with genuine soft-hearted, Jesus loving, God fearing people. But the surprising thing for me was that when I first stepped into this town, I didn’t really see all of the hurt and pain that was going on. When I first laid my eyes on the people of this town, I didn’t see people who were “bad” or “crazy” or even “ungodly”. All I saw was a town filled with a huge sense of HOPE. Hope for redemption. Hope for a future. Hope to come out of the messy lifestyle that they were living in. It was like for the first time in my life I was seeing through God’s eyes. Don’t get me wrong… yes, I did see a generation of people who were finding satisfaction the wrong things. My heart broke for them. My heart broke for the people who didn’t know that they can find that complete satisfaction in a God who delights in them, and whose love NEVER fails. But, I saw a group of people who were so hungry for love that they were willing to find it anywhere. And they were soo caught up in finding that love and acceptance in things that would never deliver that.

It was mind blowing for me to talk to people in this town. The moment I brought up the name of Jesus or God, it was like a trigger went off in their brain and words just came spewing out. They were soo thirsty to hear about and talk about God. I was able to share the gospel and my testimony to a countless amount of people. I even got to share with a man from Italy about the story of Jesus for the first time in his life!

Throughout this past week and half of outreach, God has really just been reminding me of the verse in Psalm 46:10-

“BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD.”

Just to remind myself that even though it is awesome being able to be used by God in ways that I never thought would be possible… I still have to take time and just be still and know that God IS God. And without Him, none of this would be possible.

Today we travelled even further up north to Brisbane. We will be staying here for a couple days and then will be travelling inland to Toowoomba. On the 12^th we will then head back down to Newcastle for a couple hours and then head to the airport to go to CAMBODIA! I am so excited for these next two months, I can barely handle it. And even though I miss so many people who aren’t here with me, I can hold onto the peace knowing that this is exactly where God wants me to be right now. And I am so blessed to have the opportunity to do this, and to be able to see the fruit that is coming from our ministry time here.

Video Update:

Here are some pictures from our time in Byron:

and Jeremy Barry Randall took some more awesome pictures and they're on his website! (Click Here!)

What does God see?

This week, I have really been challenged with the word VISION. my vision, Gods vision, the worlds vision. what does it really look like to live out Gods vision for my life? how do i know if i am or am not living out that vision? i want to be a person that is so aware of Gods plan for my life.

Lately, i have been really frusterated that God hasn’t told me or let me know what he wants me to do after ywam. i was becoming impatient in waiting for Him to speak to me about it.

This past week in class we learned about the Holy Spirit. we learned about the Holy Spirit giving us strength, power, wisdom, knowledge and discernment. we learned a lot about how God is love, and when you find God you find love, and when you find love, you’ll feel it.

At the beginning of this week i was super skeptical at really opening myself up to receive the Holy Spirit fully. i didn’t see the point in receiving all of this power and strength and wisdom if i didn’t know what i was gunna be using it for. i didn’t want to receive all of this stuff and just keep it for myself and be like “ok god, that was awesome, but now im just gunna get on with my life.” and that was when one of my classmates came up to me with a vision:

She saw me standing ontop of my own heart, and i was reaching down into my heart pulling out all of these roots. these roots that i was pulling up were choking out my heart and everytime i pulled one out, my heart became more and more free. by the time i had uprooted all of the nasty stuff, i was just dancing with joy.

then it was like the vision continued on in my own head… i saw myself walking along all of these trees in a forest, which represented the world. and as i was walking, i was swooping down and pulling out all of these roots around me. and i heard

“you will rip out the roots of unrighteousness.”

and all of a sudden, i had this sense of peace overwhelm me. it was the revelation that even though i don’t know what God has in store for me… i know that it is good. And that he will use me if i am willing to let him use me. his vision for my life is so much greater and so much more impacting than mine could ever be.

Breakwall

Last week Nathan, Tatum, Brandon, Sam, Natalie and I all went down to the breakwall at night hang out. There was the most beautiful sunset that reminded me of home.

It was just a really fun night out, and we got some pretty fun pictures out of it too!

Natalie, Tatum and I

Me, Natalie, Sam, Nathan, Tatum and Brandon

Us trying to spell out YWAM haha

<3

Nate Stevo!

Muslim?

(Tatum Alexa Gordon Photography)

The Fear of the Lord

I fall more and more in love with this place with each passing day. The sense of community and family is seriously so amazing. I feel like ive known these people for ages, when in reality its hardly been a month. It just shows how when you are continually digging into Gods word and seeking Him, there is so much UNITY around you.

This week we studied the FEAR OF THE LORD, and it was amazing! (to say the least)

Our speaker gave us some definitions of the fear of the Lord:

“In scripture… In good men, the fear of God is a holy awe or reverence of God and His laws, which springs from a just view and real love of the divine character, leading subjects of it to hate and shun everything that can offend such a holy being, and inclining them to aim at perfect obedience.”

(websters 1928 dictionary)

and

“When we truly fear the Lord, we will recognize that He is the Creator and we are the Creatures. He is the master and we are the servants. He is the Father and we are the children. This attitude will manifest itself in our having a respect for God, His word and in our having a desire to do what He tells us to do in His bible.”

(sermonnotebook.org)

In the bible it talks about the fear of the Lord over and over again. It says that it’s the greatest commandment and that it is instruction in wisdom. It is Zion’s treasure, it leads to the hatred of evil, and it is clean, enduring forever. It lacks no good thing and it prolongs life. It is the BEGINNING OF WISDOM. It is made for all the earth, and is NEVER unjust.

The fear of the Lord is an aspect of a relationship with God; it’s the beginning of wisdom; it results in good things; it is respect; it is the fountain of LIFE; it leads to the knowledge of God.

Could you imagine the world if every single person lived and walked in the fear of the Lord? How much less brokenness, sin, pain, and heartache there would be? There would be such a greater understanding of how God intended the world to be.

I have been learning soosooososooo much here; It blows my mind.  I am really excited for what God wants to continue to teach me, i can hardly wait.

Sometimes I feel like a little kid waiting around all ancy to get something, but i think that is kinda how God wants to be. Yes, there is a balance between waiting patiently for what He has in store for you, but at the same time He wants you to get stoked on what He is doing and what He will be doing. I wouldve never thought that i would wake up every morning excited and just waiting for what God wants to tell me or show me. I love it!

Your Love is So Big

A Day on Darby Street

This weekend Tatum, Brandon, Jeff and I took the train down to Darby Street (its about an 7 min train ride away). Darby Street is a cute little strip of urban stores and cute little coffee shops. We went and ate at a restaurant called Three Monkeys, and then shopped around for a bit and ended the day by taking a nap in the park (which was super amazing to just sit still for a while without any noise or distractions).

Here are some pictures from the day:

The gang

Checking out some "save the trees" signs in the park

Eating at Monkey Monkey Monkey

Hanging out in the park off of Darby Street

Taking cheesy tourist pictures

Gotta love the failed self-timer pictures

Side Note: Jeff's mexi-stache is growing in pretty amazing