wait... what? i'm back in maui?!?

Hey all,
Im so sorry that I didnt get to update you for the last few months. Outreach went so fast that it doesnt seem like it was that long. As many of you know i'm back in Maui, I arrived on Friday evening maui time - but it was saturday morning Bangladesh time. It took a total of 68 hours to get home from Dhaka, so i'm still greatly suffering from jet lag, and my body no longer likes western food, so physically my body is kinda on a rollercoaster.
After much time in Dhaka university, spending a week with Bihari children and working in the villages - i really haven't had much time to think about what we were doing. At the time I felt like I was just doing what i needed to. Make friends, tell them about Jesus - okay i think i can do that. It wasnt until I read the book "Jesus and Muhammad" that I truly understand the oppression and hardship that is keeping Bangladesh in bondage. The book compares the lives and messages of Muhammad and Jesus. My eyes were opened wide when I read about prayers and the fear of Allah that they had in their lives - there is no hope there. I have so many stories to share about my time in Bangladesh, and so many different experiences that are just completely random and weird but I want to share one that has really touched my life.

Me and two other girls from my team, Sarah and Hannah, were in the University making friends for a couple weeks together. We met a group of art students that we saw everyday and spent time with them just getting to know them and talk with them about who they are. This went on for about 1 1/2 weeks. I was getting very discouraged at this point because we were talking to a group of about 10 students and we really hadnt had a good open door to really share about our faith and share our testimonies. We were invited to a get together at a girl's house, Shampa, to hang out with everyone on the weekend. So... the day came to go, but there was nothing in me at all that wanted to go. I was just so discouraged and down hearted about the whole situation. All the other people on our team working in the university was always telling stories about how they shared their testimony and the 3 of us girls hadnt had one chance to. After much coaxing and pushing my leader got me to agree to go with Sarah and Hannah to this girls house. At this point i said "God, i'm done. I can't do this on my own strength, i need you to get through this day."
God totally came through that day! When we got to her house, she was the only one there. After an hour or so of just hanging out, we heard the Muslim call to prayer. It was our opportunity to ask her about her faith! It was incredible to hear her thoughts about Christianity and what her view was. Sarah and I went back and forth explaining the trinity, and how the analogy of God the Father and Jesus the Son works. We explained so much about the character of God and his forgiving heart. How he forgives sins, and how he himself was a sacrifice to us. That none of our sin can outweigh his sacrifice. The thing that touched her the most, where i could see her eyes sparkle with curiousity and excitement about our God was when I told her about my prayer life. I told here that I often argue with God about the little things in life, and how He likes to play games with me and tells me jokes. And that no matter how many times I argue with Him, and no matter how right I may think I am, I know that God is always right and He does not change. He is always the same, and He talks to me! I can pray throughout the day, and my prayer is not scripted - it's a conversation!
Yes, she's still a Muslim, but through our conversation, Sarah and I were able to show her the truth of Christianity and clear up a lot of lies that she heard about our faith. We were able to give her hope and take her a step forward to knowing the Saviour for herself.

I can't wait to tell you more stories of God's unending faithfulness that truly never ceases to surprise!

Dhaka

heya! its been a busy couple of weeks and life still hasnt slowed down but i'm starting to really love this place.it took awhile to get used to living in a place that reminds you of slumdog millionaire everywhere you look, but i'm starting to really get a feel for this place. and the work that we are doing is fabulous, i'm in the university right now. I am meeting friends, getting phone numbers and email addresses and trying to meet up with them again. The last few days have been really good since it was Bangladesh New Year today so everyone was so excited. The team dressed up today - the girls in Sari's and guys in Panjabi's (dont know how to spell). The city was insanely busy and clourful, buses run into eachother- ricksha's are everywhere you look. If youwant to find us in a crowd - look for the walking white parade. We get stared at a lot! and we are always having our picture taken. Its as if we are famous - we have been asked if we know Joey from Friends by people...welcome to outreach. I dont even know what to say here! there is so much going on all the time, always going, doing something. Its been absolutely great thought, thank you for all your support!

In thailand!

hey all,
I dont have a lot of time before dinner but I thought i would updte you a little bit about how life has been turned upside down. after 30 hours of travelling and skipping over thursday bc we crossed the date line I finally got to bangkok. Its crazy and insane. The people and traffic and city are not my kind of thing, but i'm learning to embrace it and see the beauty behind the first impressions. Surprisingly, I'm the only one that is not enjoying the Thai food, I guess I got picky with food over night, but all i get excited about is the toast and pb in the morning when it comes to food. oh and the pineapple here is amazing. Today we went on temple tours we took buses, sky trains, tuktuks, and boats to get around which was kinda fun. the tuktuks was scary though i thought i was going to fall out of it as we were being whipped around corners. its so sad to go to the temples it brings a heaviness on your heart when you see these huge idols and people worshipping them. The hardest part for me so far was going to JJ market a huge outdoor market where you can't move and just have to push your way through and it doesnt smell the greatest. You also see a lot of hurt and pain ain peoples eyes, as people follow you. Not only is the smog sufficating but the Buddist religion as well. Continue to pray for strength and courage for our team, especially in the next few days as we are going out into the sex trafficing industry and talking to men. It's going to be really challenging, also mentally and emotionally exhausting. Thank you for all your support, it means a lot to me to know that my team is being uplifted in your prayers. I have so many pictures to show you already!

Off to Thailand in the morning

It's 10 pm and I'm just finished fully packing. Knowing me, my pack is quite full, so I'm hoping to leave some stuff behind in Bangladesh so that I can fit in all the souvenirs into my bag. How I'm going to take it all back to Canada is a whole different story. So as many of you heard, my team was in a bit of crisis with our passports. They were in Washington and we still didnt have them back from the Bangladesh embassy on Friday! Through many prayers (thank you for that) and by the grace of God we got them here today at about 4 pm!! We can go to Thailand! It has sunk in that I'm leaving and its a crazy feeling to realize that I will never sleep up on the top of the 3rd bunk again, and have these 12 roommates that I have now. It seems like so long ago that I started bonding with these girls on our Exodus trip, that it feels like I'm separating from dearly loved family. Thankfully I get to fly with them to Seoul, South Korea and to Bangkok Thailand so we have plenty of flight time to say our goodbyes. The LORD has blessed us all so richly over the last few months. The YWAM motto is "to know God and make Him known" now that the lecture phase is over the "knowing God" discipleship has switched to "making Him known" I'm not saying that learning about God ends, because it's a never ending relationship, where you learn more and more about God throughout your life. The focus just changes from being discipled to discipling. 
Thank you all for your prayers and support along the way. I'm hoping to update you when I'm in Thailand.

Its about time.

First and foremost, the tsunami didn't affect me where I am. I'm in a town called Haiku and it's upcountry. Some of the towns I frequently go to were affected through floods in buildings, but I believe that was all, which I am very happy about. Continue to pray for the nation of Japan, for comfort, peace and restoration as they are going through great loss and confusion.

I'm about to go to Thailand and Bangladesh in 8 days, March 23rd. It's unbelievable. I dont know if I'll ever be completely ready to go, so we'll have to see. My group will be in Bangkok for 9ish days where we will be staying at the YWAM base there. From there we will be taking tours around the city and going to temples. We will be doing prayer walks as we go. We are also planning on doing sex trafficking ministry, which we here is pretty intense but an amazing experience at the same time. It is going to be incredible.


In Bangladesh we are going to be there for 2 months. For the first month I will be staying in Dhaka doing ministry to the slums, universities, and children's ministry. I kinda know what children's ministry will look like because we have skits, object lessons, and games to play with them. Everything else I really don't know what it will look like but I'm excited for what God has in store for us.


 The LORD has been so great the last little while, the lectures haven't been blowing me away but the prayer ministry has. One night 2 weeks ago my Bangladesh group had a through the night prayer. Some of the students saw angels in the prayer room! We all got pictures of what God wants us to do and the roles that we are going to be playing out during outreach. One girl was told to be prepared to be a morning person... she's not a morning person. I was told that I am a comforter, and I will feel things that others don't feel. There is also going to be a lot of spiritual warfare, I saw a picture of whenever the churches back home prayed for us a cloud of oppression was lifted off of our heads. SO PLEASE CONTINUE TO PRAY! It has meant so much to me to have your continual support and prayers as I am gone here, please continue to pray as we pour out the light of the LORD to these 2 nations!

the craziness of life in YWAM

so... its been a little while and I apologize for that. Life gets busy here and I forget that I have to keep people updated on my life. A week ago all the 40 students came back from the fall DTS. Lets just say things were a little hectic around here. I loved loved loved spending time with the team that came back from Bangladesh. Hearing there stories and seeing how excited they were about the country, really helped my team to get excited about where we are going. They told us what we MUST bring with us, and what we should keep here. Things we really needed to know. Girls are going to be wearing the cultural outfits, so we really do not have to bring a lot of clothes, which means more room for pillows and a few luxuries... maybe...hopefully. There is so much we are learning all the time. We talked about Identity last week, and how we are the the tabernacle of God. In Exodus 26 God tells the Israelites all the things that they must do for the Tabernacle of God. They were expensive things that were needed, everything must be perfect for that Tabernacle and that was only a foreshadow of us being the Tabernacle of God! We are made completely perfect in God, for the Spirit of God to be living in us. We need to see ourselves as God sees us, completely perfect in His eyes. Its been crazy, and people are talking to me now, so I'm having such a hard time writing this. So I'm sorry if this doesnt make any sense, but I hope you understand what I'm saying. Please pray for unity in our outreach team!!

Listening to God

last week I had an amazing week with my speaker Donna Jordan, a true Canadian at heart. She spoke to us about listening to God, and just being willing to not just talk at him, but to converse. She explained it like this: when you are talking to your best friend do you just talk at them and as soon as you are done, turn around and walk away without letting them talk back? Of course not! When we talk to God we have to be open to hearing his will, ask questions, HE WILL ANSWER!! I've loved doing that this week, and just being reaffirmed of the intimacy he longs for. In my Bangladesh group, we wrote numbers on the top of a blank sheet of paper. every paper had a number on it from 1 to 11. we each picked up each paper and asked God what He wanted to say to that person, without knowing who it was on the team. It was amazing what God said to each one of us through others. The next day, the entire school picked a name out of a hat and asked God what to say to that person specifically. The girl that got me got the verses Proverbs 31: 10-31 with an emphasis on verse 30 "Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised" While reading it in my study Bible, it referred me to a verse in 1 Peter which says "the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight" (1 Peter 3:3-5). The reason this verse brought such revelation to me was that the day before I asked God what he liked about me and he automatically answered with "your calm and quiet spirit!". How great and loving is our God that His word is still active today. That He is bringing revelation to us!

It's February!

wow. that is all I can say! I can not believe that is February already and that I have been in DTS for almost a month, it makes me so sad that time is flying by I don't want it to end. So okay, what to say about this week. whooo dang! I'm learning about the Holy Spirit and his work in us. I know many of us are hesitant to learn more about the holy spirit and how he works, especially when speaking in tongues and prophesying. It is not something to be afraid of or hesitant of, I know I'm still dealing with get over these presumptions, but the Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity and cannot be ignored. I'm slowly opening my heart to his work and its overwhelming what He has done. It shows you so much of the power of God when you let go of control and open your heart to his will. He speaks in so many different ways, you dont need to speak in tongues and prophesy to have the holy spirit dwelling within you. Remember Galations - the Fruits of the Spirit! well yea, one of my leaders got a pictures for me. God was taking a pie out of the oven and placed it in front of me to eat and right away I just start eating all of it (thats a typical picture of me and pie..) He told me that the pie was filled with the fruits of the spirit! God wants to show me how warm and loving he is. The Sprit is so great!!

Genesis 5

Before you read any farther I want you to pick up your Bible and turn to Genesis 5. Got it? Okay, now read through the genealogy. That's right, the genealogy. Usually we skim through these chapters not really thinking about what we are reading or paying attention to any of the names. It's seems as though it goes on forever. This though is going to change your view a little bit about these genealogy chapters. In our society we really dont think about the meaning of names anymore we like a name, we name our child that right? Well in the biblical times, that's not how it worked. Everyone's name had a meaning behind it, about there identity. So hear are the names and meanings of the names in Genesis 5. Adam = man, Seth = appointed, Enosh = mortal, Kenan = sorrow, Mahalalel = blessed God, Jared = shall come down, Enoch = teaching, Methuselah = his death shall bring (the year he died was the year of the flood). Lamech = the despairing, Noah = rest and comfort. ALRIGHT, now that might not mean much now all separate but lets put the meanings of the names together and read it as the Hebrews would read the genealogy "Man appointed mortal sorrow the blessed God shall come down teaching His death shall bring the despairing rest and comfort" Cool eh??

Lectures

I have entered into the lecture phase, and as previously thought, it is intense. It's intense in a good way but its still intense. Having people tell you in lecture something that you have been struggling with in your faith so simply is so overwhelming. Having God send images to people to tell you that its okay, and that God knows what you are going through is such a humbling and awesome feeling. To really know, and to hear from God - to hear him explain something you've been dealing with for so long in such a simple way is freeing. Let me try to explain. My leader was given an image for me from God, this was the image: She saw me bending down and picking up rocks. Rock by rock I would pick up and then put down again, all the time looking for the key to enter into God's gate, until finally I just look up and see that the gate is already open, that I do not need to find a key to enter into God's presence. Its so easy to be looking for an answer and a solution, a way to receive God's love. God's love is something that we can never earn, it is a free gift! It's up to us to fully receive what He has for us. Its such a simple lesson, but it's so meaningful when you fully grasp the freedom of His love and grace!