My Life In A Week

It's been a little over a month since being back and it feels so good to be in the swing of things again! This quarter we have an AMAZING crew in the Leadership Track.  Right now we have Awaken DTS staff being trained to staff the July school just around the corner, and we also have Community Transformations DTS staff who are leading the school in the Fall.  These are some of the most fun people I've ever met and it was such a joy to come back to a full & vibrant group.

Over the past week I decided to take some pictures of the key things that I do on a weekly (and sometimes daily) basis here on campus and then paint a little picture of what it looks like!! I hope this provides you with a good idea of the different things I do & am involved with in the Leadership Track.
Enjoy!

   

Every other Tuesday afternoon we have a staff meeting where all of the staff on campus from every department, which range around 300-400 people, come together and we have a little family time.  We are so privileged to have Loren & Darlene Cunningham, the founders of YWAM, call the Kona base their home and attend these anytime they are here.  This past Tuesday we were able to pray with Darlene & commission out a group of people as well as hear her and Loren share on the goodness of the Lord and His faithfulness all across the world.  It was such a beautiful moment, I am so thankful for these times we get with them!

On Wednesday mornings the Leadership Track comes together at 8am for what we call Contending Hour.  During this hour we take about 30 minutes (sometimes less or more) and pray in the spirit, then from that place we have intercession all together for the rest of the time for whatever the Lord has led us to for that day.  In the beginning of the track over a year ago, this hour was extremely stretching & not extremely enjoyable as I learned to use spiritual muscles I never had before.  But now I have grown to love it and it has even become one of my favorite things we do!

After Contending Hour, from 9am until 12pm we have Practical Training & Teaching.  We have had the privilege of having some of the most amazing leaders of this generation come and speak to us.  Some of the topics that we may learn are on Preaching & Teaching, Godly Confrontation, Worship & Intercession,  Practical studies in the Bible and scripture memorization, Leadership, A Disciplined Life, and so many other amazing topics!  This past Wednesday we had Christian Gonzalez teach us.  Part of what he shared on that really wrecked me can be found in this statement he said while teaching:  "The questions leading us to an "I don't know" aren't naive, they are there so we may have the fullness of truth. The ability to say "I don't know" is the foundation of all wisdom and knowledge. The mystery and romance comes in the not knowing and being able to search it out for the rest of our lives. It's humility to go on the search into finding out the mysteries of God and who He is."

On Wednesday we also have community outreach.  The Leadership Track does a handful of different ones to serve the community but the one that I've been involved with this quarter is Bible Distribution.  The American Bible Society gave YWAM over 8,000 and the leaders of our campus really felt the Holy Spirit leading them to have a Bible in every home in Kona.  So we have taken on the challenge!  Every afternoon we go door to door for 3-4 in hopes not just that they would each have a Bible, but that we would also create relationships with the people in the community.  So far it has been absolutely amazing!! I was a little nervous the first time we headed out, but it has become something that I look forward to.  We are challenged in so many different ways and have not only see fruit in our own lives but have seen the Lord really moved in relationship with people here in Kona.  The picture shown is of me and my friend Anthony (who is staffing Awaken in July) climbing up a driveway to a families house.

On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday our Leadership Track (as well as some of the DTS' on campus) are in the Prayer Room from 1-3pm.  Each set looks like about an hour of worshipping and then transitioning into an hour of intercession with various topics such as praying for revival in America, Outreach teams to be refreshed (and we sometimes get words for them and send them while they are on the field), praying for our Kona community, leaders on the base, and so much more!  I've never experienced the Lord move in such a mighty way before as I have this past week specifically.  We are seeing so much fruit in our sets not only in our own hearts but as we hear about the people and places we are praying for and how God is doing amazing things through these times.  It really is amazing how God LOVES to give us His heart for things and then answer our prayers!  I have the privilege of singing on two of these 1-3 sets on Thursdays & Fridays.  This is the 5th quarter I've done this and it's an absolute blast.  Fridays are especially fun for me because we get to have Shannon Casteel (leading the Leadership Track) lead the intercession time for revival in America!

   

Last quarter the Leadership Track was asked to pioneer the first ever high-school youth group on Thursday nights for the youth on campus, so we did!!  The first night we launched Youth Ablaze, we were expecting about 15 people to show up, instead we had over 60 high-school students!! We were absolutely blown away and continue to be by their hunger & desperation for more of Jesus!!  This past Thursday we had Isaac (in the track, staffing Awaken) lead worship with Mia & Micah who are high-school students.  Then, Ben Peterson (who is staff with the Prayer Room and does many other amazing things), spoke on the Holy Spirit.  We ended the night with everybody getting baptized in the Holy Spirit.  It was such a beautiful & rich night to watch everyone go deeper, staff included.

Friday mornings we start all being together for Family Time which is an hour of sharing testimonies, hearing people recite their memorized scripture, listen to a word from one of the leaders, and enjoy each others company.  After this, we all break up into our electives.  The two are Songwriting & Worship and Preaching & Teaching.  Last quarter I decided to do Preaching & Teacher, only because it scared me so much.  This quarter I am doing it again for that reason along with me actually starting to love it.  My elective is taught by the absolutely amazing Ashlea Brenenman, but this morning we had Andy Byrd as a guest teacher.  He taught on the importance of not speaking out of insecurity, but walking in all humility and from that place we gain the authority.  His teaching was not only challenging for our own lives, but also extremely practical in how to communicate best.  "We may not all be called to preach for hours and hours to hundreds of people all the time, but we are all called to be communicators.  And the goal of communicating is hearing & learning."

I hope you've enjoyed seeing a little bit more in detail what happens on a day to day basis here in Kona!!  I am so thankful that I am able to be doing what I'm doing.  This past month as been filled with an increase of revelation that God really is as good as He says He is, He really does answer prayers, and He is constantly faithful.  I pray that you are filled with the same revelation and even more!!

If you would like to hear more about these aspects or learn more about something else that we do here, please send me an email and I'd love to talk with you - oceansroar@gmail.com.  Have a wonderful weekend!

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If you are interested in becoming a part of YWAM Kona either long-term or for a short 2 weeks in the Summer by doing a School of the Circuit Riders, please visit these websites for an endless amount of possibilities: http://www.uofnkona.edu   //  http://thecircuitrider.com

School of the Circuit Riders promo:   http://youtu.be/_lJ5pvsDI4M

Freedom From Fear - Testimony!

What an incredible month it has been!!

Just a short testimony of my Amsterdam fundraising - I RECEIVED ALL OF MY FUNDS!!!  So it is officially official, I am headed to Amsterdam in a short 8 days!  I am so expectant of this trip, and in my spirit feel a lot more is going to happen than our team is expecting, and I cannot wait to see how it all unfolds!!
Thank you to every single person to gave, whether it was $5 or $200, every single dollar helped me make this dream a reality and I am so extremely grateful for your support!!

This past month for me has been absolutely FULL of breaking free of fear.  Well, let's just be honest, this past year has been pretty intense is overcoming fear, haha.  But this past month especially I have broken through so much, and I was just so excited that I had to share a little bit of it with you!
Most of you know that I have had so much fear & anxiety when it comes to speaking in front of people, so much so I will do everything possible for it not to happen.  Within the past 3 years, I have had crazy revelation that this is not my "personality", but the place the Lord has called me to thrive in, to set people free in, to bring peace & restoration to hearts, to speak life & bury death.  The enemy knew this was God's design over my life, and so my whole life he has tried to destroy that.  And for a long time I gave in to the fear, I gave in the anxiety, I gave in to the insecurity, I gave in to the plan of the enemy.
Over this past year, the Lord has not just been riding me of the fear of speaking in front of people, but going even deeper into the issues of my heart that create that fear.  He has been securing my identity in Him, and in Him alone.  When this happens, it no longer matters what other people think of you, because you are not performing for love... you are living out of a place of love.
This revelation has become even more real to me and alive in me as I have chosen to step out.

Two weeks ago I spoke at a Christian private highschool here in town.  For two days I shared on Identity through sharing my testimony and journey with the Lord over the past 10 years.  It was absolutely incredible!!  The second day I spoke to a group of 15 students who were 13-17 years old.  By the end of the class, not only was a student in tears after I called her higher in Jesus and started prophesying who he created her to be, but the principle was also in tears!!  As I was speaking, the Lord gave me this very intense vision of fear and anxiety leaving me as I was speaking.  It was as if glass was being violently & swiftly removed from my back by the words that were coming out of my mouth.  The more I spoke, the more free I felt, and the more free others become.  This day really marked a place in my heart and destroyed the thinking "What I have to say is not important".  I knew that that was a lie, because I saw the important in my words as students were falling in love with Jesus and finding out who they were.

Every Friday a group of us in the Leadership Track meet together for an Elective.  For 3 hours we are trained up into being better teachers and preachers.  One of our assignments this month was for us to be in groups and speak for a whole week in middle school or high school class on campus.  My friend Cammie and I spoke in the 6th grade class this past week.  Going in, we knew we were going to be speaking on Identity in Christ, but we didn't exactly know what the week was going to entail... But the Lord unfolded it so beautiful.
For the first part of the week, we each took a day to share our testimony of finding our identity in Christ.  On the third day Cammie led out identifying false identity and how to over come that.  We spoke a lot on the power of declaring scripture and the power of life and death in our tongue.  Then on the last day I led out Original Design.  Original Design is knowing the original intent of your life, the way God created it to be, before satan came in and began to speak to us lies about who we are.  We spend some time writing down 3 lies we've believed, then writing down the 3 truths about who God says we are.  THEN!  We all stood up on our chairs, all 15 of us, and we each declared one sentence of who we were.  It was one of the most beautiful times I've ever experienced.  One by one, each heart, had a revelation of what GOD says about THEM, and they declared it for all to hear.  Some started crying, as it was a struggle, and we were able to walk with them through the fear and into greater freedom.

This week was so powerful for me because I almost felt like I was one of the students... I am at the very beginning of a beautiful journey of not just believing in my head what God says about me, but believe it so much in my heart that my life reflects that truth.  I believed before that if I were to step out and speak up I would feel insecure, more fear & anxiety.  But what I actually felt was full peace, extreme freedom, and confident in being a daughter of Christ.

I hope this encourages all of you to really get the Lord's heart not only on situations in your life, but on YOU as a person who God is pursing and desires so deeply to walk through every part of life with.  If there are areas of fear, He wants to fill those up with His perfect love that casts out fear.  If there are areas of anxiety, He wants to give you His perfect peace which guards your heart and mind in Him.  If there are areas of loneliness, depression, oppression, ect. ect... He wants to reveal to you the amazing family that He has invited you into and show you a whole knew reality - His Kingdom on earth, in your very life.
In Hebrews 12 He says that He rewards those who seek Him.  This is a promise of God.  Seek Him! I promise you, you will not be disappointed.  He is a Father who loves to give His children good gifts!!



Below are some pictures of this past week in the Foundation School class here on Campus.  Hope you enjoy!

The Students speaking life over one another!

  

The whole beautiful class with Cammie and I and their teacher Jon

Me teaching them to put a stake in the ground that we will no longer believe what the enemy

says about us, but only God!!  After this was the declaring of who they were!!