Seeking the Father

I have been here in Newcastle, Australia for almost 2 weeks now, and i am so in love with it here. The sense of community and family here is overwhelming. My dts class is made up of 15 students: 12 girls and 3 boys.

Back Row (left to right): Mary, Brandon, Jeff, Rachel, Dieuwke (leader), Holly, Kara, Camellia, Carina, Rebecca, Faith (leader), Daniel, Jeremy (leader).

Front Row (left to right): Ines, Tessa (leader), Jessica, Natalie, Tatum. Kara.

Our first week of lectures were on ‘Hearing Gods Voice’ and how its all about a constant relationship with God and continually seeking Him and His guidance and wisdom. Also we learned on discerning the voice that you hear, and how to stand in confidence that it is God that is speaking to you.

Its like when your Best Friend calls you on the phone; you don’t even have to look at whose name is on the phone, its right when you hear that persons voice that you know it is them. The familiarity of their voice gives you assurance that it is them that you are speaking to.

In the same way, we are to continually seek after God and talk with him and listen to His voice so that we may be familiar with it. That as soon as He starts speaking to us, we can know that it is Him.

This week we are learning about the ‘Father Heart of God’. For me personally, this is a really hard subject to speak about. But i am so excited for what God has in store for me, and for what He wants to reveal to me over this next week. A huge thing that God has been speaking to me is about HUMILITY. it says in Micah 6:8 “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

So that is really my desire, to walk humbly with God so that He can point out anything in my life that is not honoring Him; that i could be vulnerable in His presence.
The other day I saw a little kid and His dad. As the dad knelt down to pray with his little boy, he wrapped his arms around him. I saw this as a display of the Fathers love towards us. He is continually seeking us and wanting us to draw near to Him, if we would only allow him to. See, this little boy accepted his fathers love for him and through that, his father was able to pour out his love upon him.

As you probably know, Prayer plays a HUGE role in my journey here. So here are some things that you could pray for:

1.  Patience. Living in a dorm-style house, things get very up-close-and-personal… so if you could pray for peace and unity in our school.
2. For an open heart. I want to soak up as much as possible while im here, so if you could pray that my heart would soften in the areas that need growth.
3.  Finances. My team will be leaving at the end of December for Outreach. That means that all 15 of us plus our 4 leaders will need to raise a minimum of $3400aud (depending on what outreach location you are going to). We all believe that God has called us to missions, and that we are to fufill the Great Commission by going out into the nations and proclaiming the Word of God. So if you could pray for financial blessings on our team as we prepare our hearts for Outreach. If you feel lead to give financially, you can go to http://www.ywamnewcastle.com/donations to give.
4. Lastly, if you could pray for my best friend, Stephanie's Dad whom i mentioned in the last blog post. He just recently gave his life to the Lord (which is a huge answer to so many prayers), but we just want to continue on praying for healing for him. There is such a peace to the whole situation now, just knowing that his heart is held by an everlasting God, but we really want to press in and declare healing over his life.

(My friend, Tatum, and I in Mayfield)

We Prepare the Way

by: rick pino

"Oh Lord, Give us new hearts and new minds

for your glory

and may your name

be lifted higher and higher and higher

may your name

 be lifted higher and higher and higher

we prepare the way

we prepare the way

we prepare the way of the Lord."