Last Thursday started at 5:30 in prayer and quiet time with God. I actually woke up earlier than I needed to because we are so busy during the day mornings are the only time I have to just be alone with God and not alone with God and 10 other people being alone with God. Seriously I need time away from the hoards of people that live here right now. Quick side note we have our larger than normal DTS of 21, the other DTS of 16, a DTS from Townsville of 9, and 2 DTS teams from Wollongong, and a DTS from Sydney and I don't actually know how many people that is, it's just insane when there is a line of 5 people waiting for a shower. We don't have the space in the house for all of them so we have a gypsy camp in the back yard of YWAMers!
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| many mas tents! |
Anyways back to the point! After prayer/worship it was time to get ready and have breakfast then house cleaning at 8. Then we had lectures with Steve Ahern, who is the director of YWAM Australia, and he is quite the speaker. I had a hard time with his teaching because he makes you do your own thinking instead of just spoon feeding info that we all write down and go "ok that sounds nice!" It has been so growing and I am glad he did what he did because it will begin this habit of going beyond a sermon to understand what they are saying for myself.
A weird thing about Australia is that they have morning tea and afternoon tea so we break from lectures around 11 and 4:30 for a cuppa and bread. So much bread, seriously. We have lunch at 1 then I have "free time" until 3:45. It isn't really free time because there is always so much to do! We have journals and workbook assignments every week plus a book a month to read and email updates, and Facebook updates, and pictures, and trying to get a blog done, and if I'm lucky skyping. So everyone who ever told me about YWAM seriously misrepresented the experience when they told me about it! They never told me that I would never have time to myself or time to just sit and not worry about the 10 other things I should be doing!
But, again, I digress. So we have work duties from 3:45 to 5 and I have been working on cleaning in the YWAM warehouse that they have been doing construction on for their new offices and for their youth ministry. This has included cleaning and incredibly moldy fridge, sanding plaster, painting, and cleaning dusty furniture. After my shift is done we head back to base for dinner then on this particular night I headed back to the warehouse for some more work! We had a big event celebrating 20 years of YWAM Newcastle and they were holding it in the warehouse so we pushed and pushed to get it done before then. Then when I was sufficiently dirty from the cleaning I left at 11 pm and rolled into my bed same clothes no showering or anything. I just slept in my filth.
I have never had such a physically and spiritually exhausting day in my whole life, from intense teaching to hard labor for the whole evening I was done. But I have never ever felt more fulfilled, joyous, and stoked about God in my whole life. I have been fighting the idea of being in missions because it is just such an exhausting task. But I am seeing how much I love that. I didn't think I would but I love working in the warehouse knowing that building will bring people to Jesus, especially the youth who feel so lost like I once did. I love hating the lecturer at the beginning of the week because he questioned my theology but having so much respect for him at the end for forcing me to open my mind knowing there was no expectation for me to just believe what he was telling me. I love waking up before the sun to meet with my Father to refocus on Him and not my tired body or mind. I hope I get to be exhausted all my life if it means I feel so full of God like I do now. I hope I learn to listen to God more.
I am beginning to remove the constraints I set on God that mess with how I hear him. Like the ones where I said "no don't tell me anything about living away from my friends or family" or something like "don't tell me that I need to be OK with wherever God sends me." If I say don't speak in those areas he won't and guess what, I have been so frustrated about why God won't give me clarity about my calling and my future. Hmmmmmmm. Why is it so easy to just not understand how that works? Am I waiting for God to get so frustrated with me not fulfilling His plan that he speaks through a burning bush? I don't want to be running from my calling for 40 years as Moses did. I am scared but I want to change things. I want to see masses of people come to know Jesus, I want to improve the quality of living for a whole group of people, I want to do this for the glory of God and not for my own happiness.
Thanks God for giving my these dreams. Thank you all for helping get me here because I don't think I will EVER be able to explain this process or what it means to me.
