Thai Team Update

Hello all of you Friends and Family of Hanna and I,
This is a quick update on what we have been doing here in Chaiprakarn Thailand. We arrived and were quickly transported on a 9 hour bus ride to the second most Northern province of Thailand Chiang Mai (Chiang is Thai for Elephant). There we were picked up by Pi-Lek (pi is a sign of respect to an elder and Lek means small, which Pi-Lek is by no means small, so its comforting to know that Thai's have a sense of sarcasm as well) and his daughter Ning. We have a translator named boy (and yes, hes a boy), we have become amazing friends with him and are able to disciple him a lot as he is still young in his faith! We took a 3 hour open truck ride (pick-up truck) through the cold hills of Chiang Mai province up to Chaiprakarn, specifically to an Orphange called Sila's Home Ministry. This ministry is a beautiful and extremely necessary safe haven for children. These children come from poor hill tribe parents who either died from HIV or some other cause, or who were to poor to keep the children and the children would have been left to die or sold into prostitution (even some of the boys risk this fate!). Rather than being left to fend for themselves or be sold into a future that emotionally tears them apart and physically abuses them, they come to this orphanage are provide an excellent education and are introduced to their Father. I don't believe one of the 27 children were Christians before they arrived at Sila's home. But they are all passionatly in relationship with God now. Getting up every morning at 5:00 for worship and prayer before they go to their 1st grade to 12th grade mission field...school. They are amazing little kids with an amazing spiritual father named Paw Kyiet (Father Kyiet).
As for our role in all of this we are taking them after school for amazing in depth english teaching. Because Thai does not have articles (a, the...etc..) or tenses (past, present, future), so we are having to really break the language down, it takes hours of preparation every day. Urs, from Switzerland and Oyvind, from Norway, are taking leadership of that. (Yes they speak english very well and have already have learnt as a second language so they can break it down well). We have been told, and have seen as we have gone to schools to teach english, that the teaching we are doing is far more systematic and productive than the way they teach english. The english we are teaching people don't receive in this area and that gives these little kids who would otherwise have a future in prostitution an upper hand in their education and in getting a career. Amazing or what?
Hanna and I have taken up the responsibility of teaching some bible to the older kids who don't want to learn english and doing kids games and skits for the younger ones. This is a tiring role. Its a global phenomenon the amount of energy that kids have. Hanna and I are learning young what it would be like to have 15 kids for a month! haha! The girls are also helping and learning how to cook their local foods while the MEN are using hoes to dig 1 and a half meter holes for fish ponds for them to keep the next months fish in! Hopefully in the next update I can have some pictures of this for you! We also are visiting pastors in the hill tribes, very very poor villages where their 10% tithe is actually the best 10% of their fruit crops because that is all they have. The pig farmer brings a pig and the fruit farmers bring fruit and they have a feast once a month (as modeled in the Old Testament!). Here we pray for the pastors, visit the schools where some of the kids have never seen white people and visit homes of the remaining family that the orphanage children have!
The Sila Home staff have become our family for the past few weeks and Thailand our home! We will miss them when we leave here in a couple weeks. But we are leaving them with many powerful things. Praise God that we can bless them with an education, and deeper revelations in their walk with God. Also please be praying for their ministry, if they shut down that is at least 10 girls who may go to prostitution and many other boys and girls who will be left to fend for themselves, many dieing. The ministry has just recently lost long term supporters and have a debt of 350,000 baht. A mountain of debt for them, but our teams plane tickets for us (about $12,000). For a church in the west that is not much! So please pray and if you know a church that wishes to support a mission project, please pass the word along! You can be a huge part of this ministry! These are real people and real children of God!
If you want their account details, please let me know at marshywam@gmail.com.

Peace, Love and Prayers!
Adam Marshall and Hanna Grossmann

Thailand

I'm about to depart in less than 10 hours to the wonderful land of Thailand, where I will be a vessel for the gospel and power of Jesus Christ in this nation. So far our schedule starts with us in bangkok. The girls will be helping teach prostitutes how to do practical things to make a living so that they can go through a process of getting out of prostitution. The guys are going to be going around to the sex tourists, mainly men and handing out packages. If we target the demand of this massive sex industry then we can cut off the need for a supply. The packages we will be handing out are 1 testimony from a previous "bar girl" (prostitute), who is now saved, explaining what this life has done to her and what she went through. Then a testimony of a previous customer from a western nation (as most of them are, they are called "sex-tourists"), this customer got saved and shares what he feels now in hind sight. There is also information on STD, stats on prostitution in Thailand and a gospel message tract. So we will be evangelising and loving on these "sex-tourists" some of which have moved to the country in retirement and married multiple bar girls. We are seeking to get them saved, redeemed and plugged into a church locally to cut off the demand for this "service"!
We will then be moving north to work with a church near Chieng Mai, this will involve running a conference and teaching on topics such as relationships, hearing Gods voice, evangelism, Character and Nature of God, faith, etc...leading worship, kids sports programs, orphanage work, etc...from there we will be working in some unreached people groups around Christmas, using the Christmas story as a spring board for evangelism to people who have never heard the gospel message! SO EXCITING, I love this stuff. God has warned me that it may be a physically difficult outreach for me, sickness, tiredness, etc... But that His grace is also going to be revealed to me in a new way, deeper and greater than ever before, so I am pumped for this. We will finally be stopping in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) for our layover on the way home to debrief the team on how the mission went and how to continue a missional life at home in that field as we are all called to do! Thank you all for your continued prayers and support! I am hoping to get home to visit you all if finances permit in February! But if not, your continued prayers on this trip would be powerful and NECESSARY! Thank you so much!

For a copy of my daily schedule for this trip please contact my mom at smarsh_6216@rogers.com . Peace, Love and Prayers! Adam

The Latest and Greatest!

I'm home again after two weeks on the road, and boy am I tired! We were in Roma and Stradbroke Island as a school. And it was quite an eventful couple of weeks! Roma was an outreach week in the small country town of Roma. We participated in RE classes (Religious Education classes) where we take an hour to present ourselves and our faith to the classroom. Its an amazing and powerful thing. One young guy (high school aged) got saved on the last day, and that one salvation made it all worth while. We also went to some handicapped peoples homes to serve them, mowing their lawns, cleaning their homes etc..etc..

While all of this was going on we have been putting the last touches on our outreach co-ordination for December! And I have another amazing story of God providing for me just in the nick of time. I got $1504 in 6 days or so and I needed the money for my flights to Thailand by the 22nd of October...TODAY...the flights costs 1700 and noone knew my financial status. One of the students on my outreach team came to me after I had the rest of the money and was waiting on the last 200 and told me his dad overpaid his outreach funds by 200 dollars and wanted to help support me by giving me that 200 dollars. So in the end I come out of the situation with 4 dollars in pocket change, haha. God is good and just in time...as usual! Having said that, the $200 is not the only money that has allowed me to go on outreach, thank you to all of you who have supported me in this trip to Thailand, I have amazing expectations that it is going to be an amazing and powerful 2 months. My final needs are just $720 for my ground fees, allowing me to eat and live in thailand for a couple of months.

Stradbroke Island is when we do our survivor week, the intense games and training to build unity in the teams and challenge them into confrontation (somewhat). Its always a week students look back on and say that they can't believe they overcame, or they can't believe they conquered this fear, or that fear...OR ate that food... ;) haha.

But it was a very overwhelming week for me, my job descriptions were stacking up that week, from mentor, to school leader, outreach leader, friend, boyfriend, and in this case also teacher for the week on body of Christ and unity. It just got to be quite draining with so much on my shoulders, but the way I handle responsibility without bating an eyelash is a way to really gauge my growth and maturity, God is doing amazing things in me, I feel it and am excited for the character and skills this season is giving me for further work in the future.

I hope to get another update out to you all, but I thought I would send an updated picture of Hanna and I, we are leading the Thailand outreach team together which is very exciting, our first chance in ministry together!! It will be a powerful thing! Many tough times as well I'm sure, but only to be learnt from, which is the important thing! I will let you all know our itinery for our Thailand trip in the next update!! Continued blessings on you all...

A Month to Report

Hey Everyone,



I have been off and on the road for a month now. I haven't had a weekend for that month, so it has been difficult to really contact or update anyone. But now is my chance to come up for air before possibly disappearing for another couple weeks. The school is doing swimmingly. We have had to outreach weeks as of late. One to a country town called Millmerran and the other to Byron Bay, a coastal, new age Mecca. Both weeks were absolutely amazing for the school and for the places we were in. So a story from each shall we?



Millmerran - In Millmerran our mission was to reach a town of 1500 people, haha. I love country town ministry, you can see half the town come to know Jesus and we make up about 10% of the population when we are there! So this town wanted us so badly to come and run "crusades", so we called them crusades, but I'm not sure what actually constitutes a crusade. Basically we went and did some relational evangelism and taught Religious Education classes in the school there, then set up an after school program for the kids to come to where they could come to the tent and hear our band play or they could play sport behind the tent! (volleyball, rugby, soccer, frisbee)
But I want to tell you one story in particular. We decided that we should go to the one street with shops on it and tell all the shop owners that we are interested in serving them for no pay! They were a little thrown of by that but decided they could find something for us to do for and hour and a half. So they invited us back the next day! I ended up going to a coffee shop where we were supposed to be gardening, but they asked us to paint. So we agreed of course and ended up painting all day, maybe about 6 hours, we finished painting the outside of their building for them. Afterwards I had an opportunity to talk with the man who owned the place about his son who was on drugs then went into rehab and is now trying to get into the Catholic church. He said that the church he was going to was making him feel condemned. So, I knew some people in the Gold Coast and gave them a good Christian friend of mines number for their son to call.
They couldn't believe that I actually cared about their son and wanted to help him. I also asked them if I could pray with them before we left. So I prayed for them and their business and the woman was a little teary eyed. Then I prayed for their son and the woman started bawling. She was very touched. I told them to come by the pub because our band was playing in the pub that night.
They came by the pub and because the Holy Spirit was ushered in by our band the atmosphere in that pub was amazing. She ended up crying out that she wanted the love that we had, she wanted Jesus. She had a counselling session for about an our from one of my mates and then she accepted the Lord and got plugged into a local church!

Byron Bay was a lecture week on Holy Spirit. This is always a week to break peoples boxes regarding what our Loving, Almighty God can do. And I can say that God yet again surprised our team with some amazing stories. One in particular involved one American guy on our team. He is a little bit unsure of hisself, but committed to stepping out and seeing what God could do through a willing vessel. So he actually felt like God was saying he should stay with me all night. I felt like I was just supposed to stay at the worship circle in the middle of the city centre and intercede for the students and their outreach that night. But against what I felt God was saying I went for a walk with Ryan. The farther we got from the circle the more I felt unrest, like I wasn't supposed to be walking around that night. So, I told Ryan what I was feeling and he said he kept getting the name Emily pop up in his head. I told him that he was probably going to meet and emily that night. We went back and hung out at the worship circle, and when we got there I immediately had more peace.
While I was standing there many people were walking by, but one in particular walked by that I felt God was leading me to pray for. So I pretty much chased him down and asked if I could pray for him. He said yes (it was a weird scenario, he was a pretty wacky dude), then Ryan again followed me and came over to talk with the guy. Now, like I said, there were MANY people walking around, guys and girls. But a group of I think, four girls, walked by and God triggered something in me and I looked at Ryan and said Emily is in that group. He was kinda scared, I told him just to yell Emily and see which one of them turned around. He didnt want to so he did something even creepier and started following them, haha. So I stayed with the man and prayed and Ryan followed those girls to a bar and just before he lost them in the bar (because students are not allowed to do pub ministry, for temptation reasons, we don't know their backgrounds etc...) He caught them just outside the bar and he asked one of the girls if there was an Emily in the group. She said yes and got quite freaked out, as you can imagine. The girls were also from America and were travelling. Ryan asked her to get her friend and she did, she said "Emily, someone is looking for you out here". Emily came out and Ryan smiled introduced himself and said "hey emily", she too freaked out and asked if she knew him and whether her friends had told him her name. He said no and continued on to say "I serve a living and active God who speaks and he told me I would meet an Emily tonight and he told me you were in this group, I found you just to tell you that the God of all creation knows your name, knows the hairs on your head and wants you to receive His love, it hurts Him when you don't". She freaked out, I mean its not everyday God tells someone your name and to talk to you! She got a little teary eyed, said thanks and then Ryan moved on.
Sure that girl didn't get saved, but Ryan stepping out of his comfort zone showed that girl that God loves and cares for her, she is so much closer to God than before that scenario. And I KNOW all night in that bar she was avoiding getting drunk, knowing that God was watching over her. Holy Spirit conviction was in the house and she will never forget those words!

Bless you all!

Lots of NEW'S

New Thing #1:

The school has begun and God has already fulfilled all of the prophetic vison He had given within the 4 months leading up to the school. The most prominent vision that God handed to us was being in the presence of God. I have mentioned this in blogs past. Basically if we can effectively lead this group into the presence of God, God will bring conviction, passion, empowerment, character change..He will speak identity, destiny, encouragement, etc.. And what we have found is that we have a couple amazing musicians, but not only musicians but ANNOINTED wroship leaders, who I actually believe when discipled and sent home are actually going to edify and transform the Body of Christ in many ways. I believe they will be names you will hear nationally and maybe globally. They have such an annointing and to have them looking up to me, and receiving mentorship from me, coming to me with prayer requests and questions is a humbling thing. But God is giving me wisdom and power to disciple these guys powerfully.

What has come from God giving us some powerful worshipers (in His grace) on this school, is we have never been short of the presence of God. And that is just one small example of God fulfilling prophetic vision. Psalm 84 is the specific vision God gave to the school, all about being in the presence of the Lord. The first weekend we had three powerful and encouraging Holy Spirit worship times, where the Lord ministered to us, but more than anything we lifted our voices and actually ministered to the heart of our Father.

As you can see I've attached a picture with some of the students on this school. This is on the bus to our first weekend road trip to get to know each other. This was a powerful weekend of sharing testimonies, hurts, pains and getting open and vulnerable with each other. It was beautiful.

New Thing #2:

About 8 months ago now I finished a relationship that had a lot of potential, but we analyzed it and decided that we actually were not heading in the same direction in life. She wants to be a school teacher...most likely in Canada, and I still feel heavily called into frontier nations, specifically India. We had not had time to get really very close at all, so this was a relatively easy decision based on the reality of what God has in store for us. Now eight months later I have met another girl and after 4 months of building a really amazing friendship and figuring out where exactly she is headed and what her heart is, we have decided to pursue a relationship. Her name is Hanna and she is from Germany. She is physically, emotionally and spiritually beautiful (as you can see). She has worked as a midwife in Switzerland for 6 months before she originally came here, and now wants to get some further training and take that education into the mission field seeing the need for it there. I feel called more to working "with the church" (meaning the body of believers) and she feels called more to catering to some of the physical needs of the people, although we will both be involved in both it brings an amazing balance and we are praying through possibilities for our future! Its an exciting and amazing thing. She speaks amazing english, and I speak three phrases in German, so I'm catching up to her. (We're working on it). Anyway, here are a couple pictures, one is from my Leadership School graduation and the other from a Beach to Bush road trip. I've also attached a picture of me giving the Leadership School graduation speech!

So thats the NEW's in this life of mine. The NEWEST thing in my role as school leader is that there is no such thing as rest. I'm sure pastors experience this all the time. But when I take my "rest time" I find my phone rings uncontrollably, and I am the only one with answers to some of the questions being asked and can not just ignore it. Its almost impossible to find refuge except in God. I'm learning a lot about drawing into God. I love it! Pardon me my phone is ringing as we speak! (actually happened!). Bless you all and thank you so much for your support! Its never taken for granted!

A Week and a Half Left

Hey everyone! I have been trying to get together a package to send out to everyone with some information and pictures in it, so I haven't updated in a while. My uncle has now taken that over and is putting together a brochure for me! Anyway, you can expect a brochure to be passed around eventually, and after that I am planning to put together a video with some of my friends around base, stating some of the different ministries they are involved in and maybe sharing an outreach story of their own or something!
Well, lately God has just been pouring out encouragement to me and uplifting me in everyway. Its really exciting and so needed in this season. I'm quite unsure of myself in a sense in the position I'm in now. I have to do many things I have never ever had to do before, staffing was hard, but most things I had encountered on a smaller scale. But school leading involves many dynamics that I have never come face to face with. But people around me are giving me words and encouragements in season all over the place without even really knowing what I am going through.
The other day at our monday morning worship and community meeting, we broke up into groups and shared some of the battles that have been standing before us lately. Dave (my base director) shared first about how David killed a lion and a bear before the giant and because he killed the lion and the bear he had the confidence to take on Goliath. Dave was saying how on staff we should be stepping out in faith, taking on challenges that seem to big for us and conquering in Gods strength. We should go home, to the mission field, to a new base, etc... saying "I've killed a lion and a bear, bring on Goliath".
As we broke up and shared the battles in front of us, I just shared how most of my friends are very heady and theological. I love knowledge and actually have a passion for learning. But wisdom does not drive my life, I just see the importance of it. Many people around almost have an idea that if you don't understand it don't touch it, but I dont live like that. I don't want to wait to understand everything before I live. I want to live and learn at the same time. But being around people who are very heady has left me watered down in my identity. I want to be able to get back to acting on impulse, because God has given me amazing discernment! Its a blessing!
Dave quoted the verse from revelation that says "I would rather you be hot or cold, but if you are luke warm, I will spit you out of my mouth." And said that he felt like God was saying a guarded cautious heart not willing to be passionate or bold for God is luke warm. But if you are willing to step out even if it may mean failure sometimes then you will always be hot or cold. And Gods grace can cover the cold and I will learn from the failures! That was an encouraging confirmation of my personality and character heading into this school. My leadership is far more indirect influence (modeling). I would rather model passion, intimacy and hunger for God than teach on it or explain it. So in preparing for this position God is really lifting me up and building me up.

I'm really excited to see these students head to India, Thailand, Burma and Solomon Islands and hear the amazing eternal stories of the blessings they pour out there! We actually have a couple students who have been heavily involved in missions. One guy from switzerland is 28 and has been in Africa for 5 years I believe! He wants more of God so is coming to this school to go deeper with God and get further clarity and vision for his life before he moves on.
Bless you all!

Almost through

I just finished (what I believe to be) my last page of homework for the course I am taking. Its been an intense couple of weeks, balancing homework, thinking and planning for the new school, processing lectures, time with God and keeping a good attitude in the freezing cold while sick and tired and homework from a boring (although very useful) course. It was not my favourite two weeks to say the least, haha. But my CHOICE to have a good attitude paid off and I got so much vision for the school and revelation for my life. God even did a lot of character developement through the circumstances, love it, kinda!
I have to do a simulated teaching session tomorrow, then I head home on Saturday to continue planning the school, preparing my staff team and training them for the school ahead. The school I am currently staff on will still be on outreach and returning home within the next month! I will also have to wrap things up with them. Specifically the three men that I am mentoring. I am quite excited for what God is going to do in the nations for this next outreach. I'm always excited about the individual growth and break through, but I feel like this school is going to be a school with momentum and we are going to be able to be very outward focused. I'm excited to be able to train people in and for missions rather than focusing on their relationship with God. I want that to be strong and it will be a training focus. But I feel like God is brining a school who is hungry and self motivated to know God, my job will be to train them to preach, teach and bring the Spirit of Christ to every nation they step on. Exciting stuff! I'm ready and more importantly WILLING. Here I am send me Lord!

Update soon from Brisbane. Blessings!

A Hello From Melbourne

Hey everyone. I'm down in frigid cold Melbourne at the moment and I have determined that I actually have less Canadian blood than I do Aussie, its probably about 10 degrees (maybe more and I'm just a wuss) and I am wearing long undergarments, tshirt, long sleeved shirt, jumper, scarf, touque, gloves sometimes...wooly socks...and I'm sleeping with a hot water bottle, its RIDICULOUS! haha. Anyway, in case some of you don't know I am taking on a new role on base of school leading, and I need to take a two week seminar on training and assessment that is basically designed to help me effectively transfer my passion and knowledge and funnel the speakers that we have passion and knowledge into the lives of our students. So far its pretty good, I have taken the first phase of this course and it was very boring, but also pretty useful, this course is supposed to be done over a year (the second part that I am doing now) but we are cramming it into two weeks and I will get a cerftificate for it.
It is a mandatory course so the tuition and the room and board are covered by my centre, but the flights and spending money aren't. It has been a while since I have really put a financial need out there, but this trip is actually setting me back quite a bit and support is becoming scarce at the moment, which is completely understandable and I thank you all for your continued prayers regardless of ability to give financially, its completely amazing! But I would just like to put a prayer request and a need out there that at the moment I am having to take care of some business for this next season of ministry that is requiring some financial costs and if there is anyway you would be able to help me in covering these costs I would really appreciate it and it would be extremely helpful so I could continue paying my bills with the rest of the support I am getting.
So if you could just pray for my financial situation at the moment and maybe ask God if you can fit it into your budget to help me in this specific time, that would be amazing! And if not, please help me through continuing to pray that God would finance what I do over here. I love doing it, I know its what I'm created for and God is continually confirming that I am exactly where He wants me to be!! So thank you all again for everything you support me with and your continued throughts and prayers. At the moment I am just praying about the outreach locations for the new school and I am thinking possibly India, Thailand and Malaysia, but that is depending on what the base is setting its sights on in the moment as well. And I may be leading a team to one of these locations come December seeing as we have limited staff on my school to do so.
I truly am excited for what God has for this school and how He is going to channel His vision for each life through me in this time, I just pray that I will be an empty vessel that He can work through.
At the moment we have 13 students I believe. 7 from North America, 6 from Europe, 5 girls and 8 guys (which is unique to have more guys than girls, I'm glad God is rising up some amazing men of God for this school). And the ages ranged from 17 to 29 so its an exciting and diverse bunch and we should have about 5-8 more students according to what God has spoken to me!! Praise God!

Anyway, my hands are too cold to type from down here, haha. If you would like to help financially get a hold of my mom at smarsh6216@rogers.com or 1041 Snowberry St., Oshawa, ON, Canada, L1K 2H9. Thanks so much guys!! Really appreciate it!! Blessings on you all. This is a cold cold Adam Marshall, signing off from Melbourne Australia!

Cont'

The second story that I did not get around to telling last week was about a Finnish guy I met in Airlie Beach. Joona (a variation of Jonah), had been backpacking through Australia for a few months at this point and stopped in Airlie to see the usual sites. He had been traveling with his girlfriend of 3 years and they had started in Sydney and gone all the way south and right up the middle through the outback, than down from the North through Cairns and stopped at this point in Airlie. This is a fairly typical backpacker route.
On this journey Joona and his girlfriend had made many friends from all over the world. And at one particular stop his girlfriend got a too close to one of these friends and cheated on Joona. Now Joona had to travel Australia with this girl and this guy or at least stay in Airlie with them. I won't go to into detail about what he was going through, but needless to say it was a tough situation for him to be in. Being in a foreign country on your own away from support or friends and actually immersed in a culture (backpacking) that tells you to escape your sorrows. Leave home, drink, do drugs, find false intimacy. People around him were challenging his character and suggesting that it was because of who he was that he lost his girlfriend. Telling him he had to be meaner and aggressive and angry. He was a great guy, but he was broken.
I was praying moment before I met him that God's presence would be so thick on the Chai Tent that people would walk in and just fall to their knees in tears understanding their need for Jesus and desperation in life. As I was praying Joona walked in and broke into tears and one of the girls asked him what was wrong and if he needed someone to talk to, then grabbed me to come and have a chat with him. We talked for a long time I prayed for him and encouraged him in who he was and to keep being who God created him to be. He just kept remarking that the wisdom I was giving him was completely contradictory to what everyone was saying, but he knew it was the truth and REAL wisdom. He asked how I could have so many answers if I have only just met him and heard his situation. I told him the bible has a lot of answers and God knows him deeply and intimately and its just a question of whether he wants to know God. We talked for many more hours and really got close. I took his mobile number and when he comes to Brisbane on his travels he is going to stop at our house and take a break from backpacking, hang around the base and plug into our community. Although he hasn't received Christ YET, he is only going to continue feeling empty on his journeys and will eventually get to the base and feel alive. God will definitely do something inside of him.

Praise God, please pray for Joona! He needs the prayers in this time. Yes that he would come to know jesus, but also that he would have strength in this tough time and meet REAL good friends.

Impact Winter

I can only imagine that the weather back home is now warming up, the snow is melted, its cozy in the day, and evenings are turning to a mellow warmth that only requires shorts. But here in Brisbane the seasons are gearing down for winter. Its getting brisk in the evenings and I feel the need on the especially cool nights to wear long sleeves and pants. This also means its time for Impact winter. Every year, our base does a series of impact tours. In the summer (as one would imagine) its impact summer, winter is impact winter, impact Airlie, impact Gold Coast, impact Byron, etc... These are focus evangelism tours withing Australia.
So early last week I found myself crammed into a 26 seater bus with 20 people, luggage, a circus size tent, a trailer full of cooking supplies and sports equipment and part of an entourage of 3 vehicles which looked similar. We left at 4:00 am about 10 days ago May 17 and travelled approximately 17 hours north, up the coast to beautiful Airlie beach. This town's purpose and livlihood is built around tourism. It has the Whitsundays, and Whitehaven beach, the Great Barrier Reef, etc.. And is a peaceful down time stop for most backpackers. Generally the entertainment aside from the beautiful creation is the strip of shops and pubs along the beach, that is laced with Backpaker hostels. This entertainment includes wet t-shirt competitions, strip clubs, foam parties, and any other lustful indulgence you can think of really. Its a place where there is not much to do but sleep with the back packer next door and get really drunk or drugged.
So the YWAMers rock up a couple times a year freaking everyone out with our gigantic circus tent that takes us a day to put up. After attracting attention via 40 young internationals who have never put up at tent before, following the instructions of a rugged Aussie (from Darwin) with one finger slurring orders in a confused muddle of directions that even after putting up the tent 7 times confuses me, haha. Not to mention the other Aussies from the Brisbane area trying to decipher and translate this Northerner for all of the Europeans and Asian. Anyway, once that scene is out of the way, we generally have already advertised what we are doing. We set up camp and bring a mellow alternative to the lust riddled drunkeness of Airlie Beach. We serve Chai tea (indian spiced tea) for free, have live music in a cozy, mellow, backpaker atmosphere. As the backpackers come and step from their turf of the world, experience and searching for meaning, bringing them into our world and onto our turf of truth, reality of God, and answers. They come in and we sit with them, build relationship throughout the week and lead conversations into deep questions about the meaning of life, purpose, design, creation, good and evil, redemptions, etc... Showing them that all the questions they have can be answered in one night. We also frequently see people healed or emotionally delivered of hurts and pains this week.
I have two stories to tell, I'll tell the shortest first and update later with the second. I talked to a guy the first night who was saying how he had been to the Chai tent last time we were there. He was a local, now this town for locals has one of the highest broken family rates in Australia. Families generally after divorce with move to Airlie either broken or remarried to settle. And we were also asked to speak in school on how marriage should look from Gods perspective and how to cope as a child with broken families. Anyway, this man, Peter, remembered us. He gave us a comment that I will never forget, many backpakers say it, but he said it best. He said that we bring something that helps people escape from escapism. That people are drawn to this tent, because of the "spiritual vibe", Gods presence. He said the tent allowed him to have something else to do other than get drunk in the pub. He thanked us deeply for our presence and what we do for the town and the people and came every night that week and even helped us take down the tent and wants to come to visit us in Brisbane.
In this conversation he seemed like a great guy, but he turned sour when we talked to his family. He started cursing and seemed disgusted at the thought of his sisters. I let him talk for some time, and the God brought an eastern proverb to my mind that one of our teachers on base had used one time. I said to him, "you know, bitterness is like pouring two cups of tea... poisoning one. Then YOU drink the poisoned tea and wait for the other person to die. Because bitterness doesn't hurt anyone but yourself, and yet it gives you hope that someone will understand you through it. In talking about your family you changed into a completely different person, it wasn't you, it was the bitterness you are harbouring." He came close to tears and said I was right, that he needed to forgive his family and repair some relationships. Me and my friend Tim then talked to him about what the bible says about forgiveness and what Jesus did for us. He received this and was attending our worship times before we opened the tent for the rest of the week.

Praise God. He is good, He is a real God with real answers to real problems in real peoples lives. We have to cut down the mystical look at God that says that He is disconnected and super spiritual, as well as the rational view that says that he has no spiritual power and realize He just IS. Completely spiritual and completely real and in touch with our lives. Jesus came through a birth canal to be in the flesh and he walked on water. Thats God.

Much Peace, Love and Prayers

God Bless Survivor week

I don't know if you all remember "survivor week". But it is the week of intense physical and emotional missionary training. In China there missionary schools are trained in the word of the Lord yes, because they preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of God everywhere they go. However, they can read the bible themselves and get revelation directly from God, and the amount of time they spent immersed in the word gives them all the wisdom they need. But the training that is particularly important for them is the physical training. They are trained to run fast enough to out run the religious secret police. Trained to jump from the 2nd story of a building and land without hurting themselves. Jumping from roof top to roof top.
And although not as extreme this week is to get the students ready for hiking long hours into the wilderness and jungles of Malaysia and Vanuatu. It works on attitudes seeing as they are awakened in the middle of the night (1:00) to run an obstacle course through the jungle, eat strange foods, shimmy across ropes over swamps solve riddles and answer biblical trivia. At the end of the course they reach a tribe of people who do not speak their language, they must communicate in a culturally sensitive and acceptable way over the language barrier and save the tribe. And this is just one night of the long survivor week. We also set up markets where each outreach team gets an allotment of money and must cook for themselves with the food they purchase at the markets. the staff spend the day shopping for slightly out there food. Ox liver, veal heart, kidneys, whole rabbits etc... and some exotic fruits and vegetables they might eat on outreach. Each team buys enough food for two days and survives on unseasoned and unflavoured lamb kidneys for a day. They may not purchase their own food or eat any food they have bought prior to these days. It is a challenging week, but every student will tell you while being their least favourite week, in hindsite it is their favourite. They grow so much and at the end feel like they have truly accomplished something and overcome fears and insecurities they may have had all their lives.
God is a God of freedom and this week was freeing for so many of the students. Also, I was teaching on the body of Christ and unity. Essentially, the church. It went so well, far better than I could have expected, the Holy Spirit showed up and I was getting constant feed back of how the students were waking up to their destiny, what they were designed for and rather than being frustrated with the state of the world, realizing they are the church and are designed to change it and influence it. They enjoyed the teaching and I learnt so much through it. Even just little things like fillings exactly the four days I was alloted. Thanks to God the timing landing exactly perfect. I know that God has awoken something within me to teach or preach after this week and it may even be a key part of my ministry to teach on this topic and a couple others.

Anyway, this week is yet another busy week, I am co-ordinating evangelism at our next outreach so I have to prepare for that spiritually, pray into it and make sure that I have plenty of outreach ideas stirring. I would love prayer this week that God would give me creative ways to steer this upcoming week. Its actually a very scary position to have, I need a lot of faith and need to hear clearly from God because the success of this outreach will depend on my ability to communicate Gods heart for each night.

Thank you again for your love and prayers. And the financial support that completely enables me to do what I do for the Kingdom of God. Blessings on you all.

Busy Busy Week

Hey guys, really sorry about the delay and set back in writing lately. We just got back from being on the road and had lots to do before leaving again this weekend. On the last road trip God was really moving in the students lives a lot. We had lectures on Identity in Christ, Spiritual Warfare, and Making Jesus Lord of your Life. We also helped serve at the Australian Gospel Music Festival (AGMF). It was a good time, lots of hard work to do, but the event was blessed by it and they always love having us.
I really had a revelation of how powerful this ministry is. On this last road trip so much freedom came to the students lives and they got so stirred up to think beyond themselves and were ignited with passion for the nations around us. Each one of them is gaining vision for their future and getting a real passion for either specific countries or spheres of influence, such as government or education, that they want to infiltrate back at home as a missionary on home turf. There is just so muc vision getting imparted. Its so encouraging knowing that after every school there are waves of young people going out equipped and ready to take on the world landing in their calling and destiny when they just came here for a religious experience. I have so much hope in my heart for this world when I see the ripple effect that this ministry has. Former students off of our base specifically have planted ministries in Ethiopia, Egypt, Palestine, India, Thailand, etc...etc... And 1000's of lives are changed with each school. I'm so excited to see what each of the students that I help disciple go on to do with God.
This next road trip is going to be on Stradbroke island, and the students are going to have their survivor week, where we put them through intense physical missionary training. Its also emotional trying and tests unity within their outreach teams seeing as all of the events take place in their outreach teams. I will also be taking this week to teach for four days on the body of christ and unity. So this week has been intensly busy trying to finish writing and preparing my teachings for this next week, the topics I will cover are:
>What was God's purpose in sending Christ and giving us the church
>Building the Kingdom of God
>Theology
>Church History
>Holiness

I'm very excited and I know its just the beginning for me and many opportunities to teach on this topic as well as others will open up in the future.
Please pray for my teaching that God would use me and my willing heart as well as honour the hours I've put into studying to prepare this teaching!

Blessings on you all I'll report back after this week. Thank you for all of your prayers and support, it makes what I do possible. There are a lot of deaths and emotional and physical illnesses right now within YWAM, the power and principalities of darkness don't appreciate what we do, and prayer is what allows us to succeed in our mission which is the extended mission of the church. On May 3rd all of the YWAM ministries in the world are going to pray against the spiritual attacks that have been coming against us lately, if you would like to join in this prayer, it would be amazing and powerful. God wants to do miracles!

Peace, Love and Prayers, I love all of you with the love of the Father!

The Second Story

Hmmmm, now which story to tell next?!?!?

Ahhh, I like this one! One night after my mate Gill spoke on the Holy Spirit. Well actually he just told his testimony because he didn't even really have time to get into the teaching. Anyway, after this session, he felt like God wanted to do something, so he just played guitar and the Holy Spirit came and started to move in the room. Gill asked if anyone felt like there was a barrier they couldn't overcome between them and God, one that was holding them back from getting closer and deeper with God and if they wanted to have a break through, they should put up their hand. A few people put up their hands.

Now I was having a tough day and was feeling a little distant from God and tired, drained, stressed. Lots going on and I was in charge of this road trip so their was a lot of weight on my shoulders. I didnt feel like I had very much to offer, so I just figured God was wanting to use someone else this time and I would just sit this one out. Usually when God is moving I get words in my head that God wants to speak and feel a stirring to pray for a specific person before I even choose to pray for them. But this time I had no inclinations.

My school leader (Stephen) came over and said that he felt I should pray for one of the students. So I kinda groaned in my head and because I didn't want to sell Brent (the student) short so I was hoping someone feeling more "spiritual" could pray for him. But I submitted to my authorities and told God that it was up to Him because I didn't have anything to say, no words or prayers in my heart. I walked over and laid hands on Brent and just prayed under my breath that the Holy Spirit would touch him and some other things in my head and was just going to wait see if God brought anything to mind. But before I could wait Brent just started BAWLING, there is sobbing, crying, weeping and BAWLING, and he was bawling. Everyone in the room was actually a little distracted. And as far as Brent could here I hadn't even said anything yet. I started praying things that came to mind about his family and stuff, nothing really powerful and he just kept weeping more and more intensly. He bawled for about 20 mins I'd say and I just kinda mumbled some weak prayers and kept my hand on him. I could tell God was doing something obviously, what appeared to be some deep healing.

Afterwards, after cleaning up in the bathroom, haha, he came up to me and just gave me this insane hug. He nearly broke my back. It was intense. And he said to me, "thanks for that prayer". I said something like, "your welcome man, it was all God, I didn't really have much to say". And to my surprise he started to go off on this tangent about all these prophetic words I had spoken about him and sins I called him on that I couldn't have known about, things I spoke over his future that he believed he was just waiting for and now felt released because of the prayer.

Now I know what I prayed, because it was all out of my own head, most of the time I was only praying in my head and when I spoke out all I said was stuff about his family and friends. Never, not once did I say any of the things he said I had said. Basically the Holy Spirit completely spoke into His life while I prayed one thing he heard another. The entire time I was praying he didn't hear a word I said, he just heard what the Holy Spirit translated it into in his mind. I don't know how it works because he even heard it in my voice. But it happened. Pretty crazy, but God wanted to move and no matter how I felt he was going to meet Brent that night. Obedience is so much better than any wisdom or ability we have. God has so much work to get done and He is mored concerned about having willing people than strong ones. Hes strong and able enough, He just needs His body, His hands and feet, His church to operate for Him.

I love the way God is always surprising us in totally new ways when we seek Him. Praise God.

New news would be I have been asked to go to a conference to get some further training its a two week course in Melbourne. The base is going to pay my tuition but airfare and accomodation at the YWAM base there is my own expense. So if I could just get you all to support me in praying in this money that would be amazing. Thanks so much again for all of your prayers and amazing support, I love you all and ask God for more and more of His heart for all of you everyday. Be blessed!

On the Return

I'm back from another life transforming road trip. Some completely major breakthroughs in our students and even in my own life. I'll share a few amazing stories but before that happens, I just need to share something that I found on my return.
When I returned from this past roadtrip I found out that the immigration office has been messing around with us again. They are not very favourable towards us between the immigration officer is fairly hostile towards Christians. So after lots of trouble and consulting immigration lawyers and spending lots of money on my behalf, Dave (the director at our centre) has told me they are now claiming that I never handed in my Canadian police check, which my mom mailed me and I mailed in along with all my other visa application materials. Dave also testified to this as he was with me when I sent it. Now they are saying I have 28 days (now down to 20) to get another Canadian police check to them. Which takes at least 6 weeks, not to mention postage. So as you can see I need some prayer and perhaps we can see an amazing miracle here yet again. It really is a form of persecution and while having to endure the persecution, we already have the victory in Christ and nothing is impossible for God.

Having said that, I have three stories. And I share with you my experiences, not my theology or doctrine because thats not what I live for, I live for the truth and reality of a relationship with God. And this is what I have experienced in the last two weeks.
1) We had some teaching on evangelism by fire, from a speaker from the Niagra on the Lake area. He is a man who loves William Booth and is very inspired by Booths passion, he read a lot of Booth quotes actually. Anyway, he was speaking on how to reach post-modern people and new age spiritualists in Byron Bay, there is a LOT of demonic activity and spiritual warfare in Byron. New Agers want to EXPERIENCE the spiritual realm. So they get into a lot of dark spiritual activity. And when they see the power of God move, God is glorified and you can reach them. So we talked about healings and deliverances, and miracles that have happened in that city. And at one point he just talked about how speaking in tounges helps him connect to God in some instances in His own prayer time or in spiritual warfare.
One girl who didn't really believe in tounges and was very sceptical of it was put off by this lecture, but couldn't deny the speakers heart and love for God and experiences with God. So she just ignored it. Then the a couple days later during a small worship time when we were just singing some songs to a piano, God moved in her and she started to speak in tounges uncontrollably, she couldn't say a word in english. She went to talk to her mentor Rhoda and she couldn't even say Rhoda's name. All night and for some of the next morning, she could not speak english. Since then she has been so open to the spirit of God that she has grown exponentially and is now praying for others and seeing them set free. She is leading people into new places with God and its amazing.

I will write a couple more stories within the next couple of days. Because I know the longer these blogs get the less likely it is for people to read them, haha. I know from experience!

God Bless!

Yet another Road Trip

I don't know what is so difficult about taking pictures, but I just never seem to find the time to... Anyway, I'll take some on this next road trip for sure. We are headed to Byron Bay, then Mt. Tambourine then to Noosa for a canoe trip.
In Byron Bay we are going to be training the students in Evangelism and they will have lectures on Postmodernism. It is going to be great! Our speaker on post modernism is known globally in many church circles for his ministry in new age towns and his "school of postmodernism". We are truly blessed to hear him speak! Mt. Tambourine we will be helping run a missions conference, lots of serving the long term missionarys who will be speaking there. Then we will have lectures on Holy Spirit and my friend Nathan McGill (Gill) will be speaking for that. He grew up in Taiwan as a misisonary child and has travelled right accross Asia preaching the gospel seeing many amazing works of God. He has some amazing experience from the 30 something Countries hes been to, so again an amazing time. Hes actually one of my housemates. Anyway I leave this week and just thought I would let you all know what we are up to!! Blessings to you all, pray that our students eyes would be opened to the truth of Gods word and Spirit.

Peace, Love and Prayers!

Double Update!?

Well, I know I told you I would send pictures of the new home. But I've been busy, its been raining a lot and I wanted a sunny day, and the house has been a little messy. But I wanted to update anyway, and maybe later today because its sunny I will also put some pictures on of the new house that me and my 4 other friends have moved into. I will however post pictures of my time in Hong Kong when I came home. I really love cultures, there are so many beautiful people groups out there and I was blessed to be able to use my life as ministry and bless these people even just over the hours I was there. Despite it not being a "mission trip" if I am going to own Christs name, I better look similiar to Him in at EVERY moment, or risk blaspheming. I got to play hacky sack and talk to many of the locals and they were amazing. They just LAUGHED AND LAUGHED when I was playing hacky sack, they thought I was really good, I don't know about that though, haha. The man in the picture on the left is like 98 or something. Everyone there loves outdoors and is so healthy and fit and they all live so long. Its amazing, such a healthy culture.

Anyway, there is a new school up and running, and while managing the many roles I seem to have picked up around base, I am also trying to focus on this school and plan for the next which I will be school leader of. I am feeling pretty stressed lately to be honest. God has been convicting me on that though, because I have taken on roles He has asked me to, therefore with my efforts He will so what I cant and work all things for good. I don't need to worry, but be at peace, knowing God wants to use me to disciple these missionary's and leaders. I am also anxious about being a young leader over maturing people. Sometimes students are even up to 35...usually in their 20's. But I have been placed in a discipleship role of them. I am excited to see how God will use me and am secure in this role. But its definitely going to take some getting used to.

The new school is full of students all over the world who all came here for the right reasons. I can forsee a few barriers they may come up against though. It seems they do WANT God and a relationship with Him, but don't want to work for it, they just want it handed to them. Not to say that works give you a relationship with God, but they don't want to go through the refiners fire and shed some of their current desires, or be healed of things from their past, or forgive people who have hurt them. It just seems like tough soil. But once the soil is tilled the harvest won't be long after.

This past weekend we went to a campsite in the Sunshine coast and just spent some time getting to know each other, telling our testimony's and desires of our hearts. Its amazing the amount of depression these guys have struggled with and even suicidal situations. God wants to redeem their hopelessness and build a character that is built on hope and joy. I know God is going to prepare them for the work He has for them. A DTS generally starts with healing and preparation and then leads to destiny and identity, figuring out callings and whatnot. So I hope that we can push through this tough first phase to release them in the next stage. After that weekend everyone was very close and realized we cannot judge anyone, because you never know the story that lies behind them. We had lectures from an amazing teacher, Anna Temple, who spoke on the Character and Nature of God this past week and really opened the students minds to the bigness and power of our God, but even more to the grace and desire of His heart to be near to us.

As for myself, I feel that I'm in a bit of a trasitional period as God prepares me for ministry in the future and even leading a school I am going to be tested and disciplined so God can build character in me over this school. God has really released a lot of insight and discerment in me lately to help me feel like I'm not so alone in this transitional, and somewhat stressful time. I know He's there because He is constantly giving me insight and even prophetic knowledge quite frequently lately. Its really amazing. But it also lets me know that I'm probably heading into tough times where I will need to wait on the Lord to succeed in my mission. Hear His voice.

Anyway, thanks for reading as usual, and I will have some further pictures of the house I know live in up either today or tomorrow I hope.

Home Sweet Home

Hey everyone!! I hope all is well. I have been busy preparing for the new school! During the preparation time a lot of things are on the go, but its mostly just "needs to be done" stuff, so none of it is overly exciting. Which is why I haven't updated in a while. But once the school is on the go things will pick up and I'll will have plenty to say and stories to tell. The School starts on Feb. 14th, so only about a week and a half left. We have 20 students, 13 girls and 7 guys. They are mostly from Canada and America, but there are also a few from Europe (Norway, Belgium, Germany, etc...).

Theres is some big news to report on though, me and four other amazing, solid, passionate guys have moved into a house off base that we are renting. Our rent has gone up about $15/week, but its great to finally have my own room to worship in and now that I am getting more opportunity to teach, I need a quiet place to study. Most people on base when on staff and here long enough will be given the opportunity to move off base. But we decided to pursue the endeavor on our own and found a Christian guy who cut the bond from $1500 to $500 and the weekly price by 50 dollars. He is really amazing and left a bunch of furniture as well. So we have been so place and really see Gods favour on the situation. The man (Don) said has lived accross the street from some of us for a very long time and said "[he was] excited to be able to help us because we are partners in the mission we have" and he realizes we don't get paid. It was such an amazing example of love to us. We didn't really expect it at all. Even though we were praying.

And I mentioned about praying for vehicles before, but part of my intention was to get the word out there and I was wondering if anyone had any connections in the business world or any creative fundraising ideas to help us out. Have a think and a pray and let us know. We have people who do some public relations, but mainly our vehicles and expenses are often paid by pastors in local churches. They are constantly fundraising to help us as the mission focused arm of the church. Its really awesome to see the reputation YWAM has in the community and churches in the area, they really to love us and enjoy partnering with us. But aside from the churches Dave (our base director) has many connections in the business world and in politics as well. But sometimes God wants us to "expand our tent pegs" and go to knew places for our resources! So let me know if you have any ideas, you can email me at adam@ywamoz.com.

I had a revelation today while in lectures on Biblical worldview about a couple things. We were talking about how welfare and reaching the downtrodden is actually the churches job not the governments, biblically anyway. I started thinking how the reason the church is in effective and the world is in the shape it is, is because of the mis-conception of what church is. We, very often, here that its the churches opportunity to reach these people and take care of and love those around us and look up the chain of command. I do this as well, its just as much a mindset in me that needs to be broken. But we look to the church as an organization, rather than what the church actually is, the BODY of believers...US people, we are "living stones" and therefore, when the bible says its the churches job that means specifically ME, and YOU and joe in the pew next to us. haha Its a real issue that can't just be tolerated, but needs to be changed. We need to take ownership and started to shift our mindset, remember that the "church" building should be our outreach centre and a place we facilitate the things we do as THE church. Rather than shifting our responsibilities up the chain of command, I want to start saying "I AM CHURCH". And Christ is my head!

Blessings!

New Vision Stirring

Hello everyone, well I think last time I talked about a couple things I was involved in one was leading the August Beach to Bush school, and two was the Beach to Bush leadership team. But I was asked to be a part of the base vision team. I'm really excited for this, this base is such a fast growing ministry and like I said before we have got influence in many arenas. To be a part of the team casting vision and directing the base is very exciting for me, especially since its one of my gifts. I have a lot of fun dreaming and accomplishing dreams I have. We talked about a lot of things but everything we mentioned came down to the fact that our vehicles have seen their last days. We drive sometimes 28 hours up the coast for ministry. And just recently when we were about 15 hours up the coast two of the vans broke down and one of our trailers broke.
These vans are the arms of this base, without those vehicles our reach and influence can only go as far as we can walk, with backpack's on our backs, haha. So the vision teams first step is to believe for new vehicles. The Kingdom of God will not stop growing because a few vans break down. If you guys could just really pray for the ministry that God would open the flood gates and provide vans for us, that would be great. And if you feel so moved to actually be a part of YWAM Brisbane overall by making a Charitable Donation specifically towards vans on this base, you would greatly and actively be participating in salvations, discipling, building the Kingdom of God, it is SUCH an important thing for us as a very mobile ministry to have vehicles that work.

AND GOD, as it says in His word, own the cattle on a thousand hills, all the treasure on earth and in heaven is His. All He needs to do is take a brick out of the streets of gold and we have the vans and I believe He will do that. If anyone has any fundraising ideas we could do around here or around base, let me know, that would be GREAT! Thanks so much.

I also got to teach recently on evangelism. We have a program called Mission Adventures, where a youth group will come and go through some training on certain topics and principals. Then once they are trained and inspired, they head off to a location as outreach. The guest speaker for the week was a good friend of mine Nathaniel McGill (we call him Gill) he is Canadian/American, but grew up in Taiwan as a missionary kid. He has seen some amazing things, and speaks fluent mandarin, which is powerful for ministry in almost any oriental Asian country. He has been to something like 30 countries in the "10/40 window" (the largest group of unreached people between 10 degrees lat and 40 degrees lat). Anyway, hes an amazing guy and spoke some pretty wise, inspiring firey lectures. But the kids weren't really responding. And I really felt like God had something to say but I didn't know the group or where they were at. So I went in blind, and God showed up and I spoke some really powerful things and a lot of the kids finally responded and got excited about their future, about their outreach to Byron Bay, about the calling on their lives and about the saving the lost. It was quite amazing! God is good, and the glory was definately His, haha, cause I had no clue what I was getting myself into.
P.S. For these kids to go on outreach, again...a van needs to be used...haha, they are so crucial to every ministry this base is a part of please pray!! Thank you all. God Bless!

A New Year

Well, it has been a while since I have sent out a sign of life. So I figured its about time to let everyone know whats new. And theres plenty to tell. (Other than I'm alive) I'll start with the holidays though, thats a good place to start.
This Christmas was a lot harder than last actually, there was a lot of thinking about home and missing it. I think it was harder mainly because last year I was in India preaching the gospel to the lost, so I wasn't to preoccupied with where I want to spend Christmas, and what better way to spend it really! Telling people about the baby Christ, and the resurrected Saviour. This year I was serving on base building the new building and helping very practically, so I spent a LOT of time thinking about home. But I still know that what I was doing over this Christmas was eternally important as well. This building will be used to impact the world in big ways sending missionaries into Hollywood! From there they have a platform to impact the world in MASSIVE ways. Media is so strong.
But as for what I actually did this Christmas. I got invited to a friend of mines house for Christmas day and I got treated like a king, it was insane. We had lamb roast, pork roast and roast beef all for one meal, it was great. So I spent the day with a family, although not my own it was better than being alone. Then on New Years I went downtown Brisbane and watched fireworks on the River with some friends from the base, so that was also a great time. Overall its been a relaxing, fun holiday season.
Now for news on whats next for me, it has been confirmed that I will be leading the August Beach 2 Bush school, as well as joining the Beach 2 Bush leadership team. So my next years is full of new frontiers of leadership for me. I will be staffing one more school which starts up on January 14th I believe. Then instead of going on overseas outreach though, I will begin to plan the August school, which involves booking speakers, accepting students, spiritually preparing, getting a budget lined up and planning the itinerary for our internal Australian ministry and overseas outreaches. Its going to be a challenge for me, but its exciting to know that at the end of it I will have have acquired many useful skills for life and ministry. As well as doing all of this over the next year as a part of the Beach 2 Bush leadership team, I will be casting vision for the Beach 2 Bush ministry as well as helping to plan and make decisions strategically on cities we are trying to influence and places we are trying to gain favour in.
Beach 2 Bush is a ministry that typically attracts backpacker minded people and takes them in disciples them in biblical worldview and teaches them how to minister to post-modern thinkers. Then we take them out on what is called the backpackers trail on the east coast of Queensland and we travel with backpackers seeing all the sites they see and relating to them getting close to them and influencing them both through our lives, our love and our words. We often see travelers who are searching for something end up finding that eternal answer that they didn't even know they were looking for, in other words, many salvations. Now thats the beach side of things, in the bush we go to rural communities were there are few pastors and the do maybe 5 services a day at 5 different churches in 5 different towns. So we come and we serve the rural church like noones business. We show them the heart of Christ. And from that position of serving we have gained SO much influence, city councils and towns are now asking us to run events and giving us the town square to run an evangelism conference or just a concert for the youth where we can totally relate to the youth and befriend them and influence the town.

Thats the small picture of Beach2 Bush, the big picture is to gain sway with politicians and city councils being able to use that favour to run events, and what not. But this favour has even helped in getting us visas so the Lords workers can stay here and continue to work. Its helped in getting politicians voted in and getting the name of God out there, and it all started with and rides on the back of servanthood for communities. They love us because we truly show them Gods love and love them. Us a bunch of youth are having significant pull in political arenas and its only growing faster and faster. And THAT is what I get to be a part of for this season. Its going to be an exciting couple years.

And thats what my next year or two is all about. Exciting times. If you want to pray for something other than me pray for the influence of the Kingdom of God to continue to grow, and that he would use us as a willing vessel to do that.

Peace, Love and Prayers!!

P.S. - I hope this all flowed and made sense, I wrote it quite quick...maybe I'll proof read it if I have time later! Blessings in this New Year!