To clarify from my last post about Kris' message from last week, I'm not saying that whatever he said was truth. My point was that he made some really good words of truth. But he also said some things that were questionable. Kris said himself that we need to question if we believe what he says is truth. He even went to the point where at lunch time (noon) he spend another HALF HOUR answering questions that we had about the words he said. So I'm not saying that the things that I wrote about him were truth. He just made us question what we really believe. It was such a growing week because of that!
This weekend I went to a place that is famous to the natives here called Waipio Valley. This valley was one of the seven valleys that Hawaii has, and must I say that God is incredibly majestic and beautiful. His power is incomprehensible. We took a hike down the steepest hill in Hawaii, and maybe even America, down to the valley. Then we took a 1.5 mile hike into the valley to our prize at the end: a gorgeous waterfall! I have hiked many times in my life, and this hike has definitely been the toughest. It was a trail that does not have a set in path, so we were rock climbing and slipping through mud to get to the end. There were many places where we had to wade through the water to our necks up stream with our packs above our heads just to get to another area were we could continue. It was pretty intense, must I say! About half way there I slipped on a wet rock wearing not the best traction shoes. I just watched my leg swell up and just had to bite it the rest of the hike. We ate lunch at the waterfall and it was FREEZING! After swimming in the water by the falls and through the waterfall, and the temperature being like 10-15 degrees colder, we all felt sick! But starting back, we warmed up quickly. The hike back was so much shorter, at least it felt like it. And now days later I am still suffering not being in shape and sore in the weirdest places on my body!
Sunday happened to be one of my best friend, Kaycee's birthday and we went out in the afternoon to Childrens beach to learn how to surf. Our professional teacher, Luke :) gave us a lesson on the beach, and since it was Kaycee's birthday she went out and tried to catch some waves. She was out for a while and didn't seem to catch much. When she and Luke came back in, they said it really was not worth me going out to try because there was no surf anymore! Instead we took a rain check and I just went out on the board and paddled around. But soon I'll learn soon!
This week we have the most amazing speaker for our Justice class ever! He is Samoan and now a local in Hawaii. He is talking about the father heart of God. He took his daughter in and they greeted us all with leis and the daughter danced a Hawaiian hula dance! He highly favors his children, and it was really cool to see on the first day how God is going to work in us this week! Can't wait!
After my day today I have realized that the devil is trying to do some crazy, awful work here on base. We must be doing something right because there have been so many attacks of distractions and temptations recently. I mean, even to the point here where there has been talk about people giving questioning if they made the right decision by coming here thinking that it might be better to just go home before outreach. How awful can the devil twist our minds to think in certain ways! Please pray that those who are struggling with this are able to receive a revelation of who God is and to put the devil in his place!
Finally, please continue to keep me and the rest of the people here on base in your prayers as we diligently seek out God's will with our lives after outreach.
Thank you all so much and God Bless!
Monday, February 23, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
A Banging Prayer Room and a Cockroach
To catch you guys up since the last time that I wrote, I’ll try to let you know a little bit about my week last week and along with the update for this week!
We had our second out of three Corporate Weeks last week. Kris Vallentin came to Kona to speak about our Identity in Christ. Corporate Weeks are so meaningful and influential on my spiritual life because every DTS school is all together in community learning, praising, and praying for the same reason in one room! It is very cool to be able to grow deeper in my relationship with God with the help of every one of my close friends here. My roommates, other friends in different classes, leaders, worship directors, we are all in the same lecture and worship the entire week!
Kris talked a bit about Identity, but each day it was so different, and so challenging to my faith at the same time. As my leader said, we have to take a bite of a very boney piece of meat. Chew it up a lot, and spit out all the bones or bad parts, things that we don't believe are true or things that contradict what our personal beliefs are. Kris was a bit unclear about some of his teachings, which challenged me a lot, but he had so many GREAT things to say! Some totally new revelations that I have never thought about before. For example, the fact that when we choose to follow God for the rest of our lives means we receive grace and mercy, but it does not mean that we go on sinning. We still make mistakes, but it is not being one of his followers if we keep committing our same sin over and over again. I really didn't get the meaning of this until Kris said that he does not sin. I was like, 'wow, that's a bold statement.' I still don't know if I totally agree with that, but once he explained it, it made more sense. He said that once he made this commitment, he said that God's followers don't have the right to go on sinning. Sinning to him means that we do something wrong on purpose, we know that we are doing something wrong and still do it anyways. In 1 Peter 4 it talks about how we do not go on sinning and doing our same earthly desires when we truly want to live for him. I do believe that God's followers still make mistakes. But here it says that we are not to go on doing our same sins if we truly want to live for him.
Kris and his wife Kathy also taught of the gifts of the Spirit. They emphasized on prophesying to others and they said that that is the most common gift from God. We were taught was it is, how we act out prophesying, what it feels like, and we then were forced to practice it. What a great way to be challenged to get out of my comfort zone! It was very awkward at first. But we had to pair up with someone we didn't know and then ask God for a word of knowledge, a true fact or picture from God about the other person’s life. It was so cool to be able to try that out. Getting something relevant to my partner's life and watching others as well. And making mistakes too! Then we asked God to give us a prophecy for the other person. This was a bit harder, even though it might have not happen yet, it was hard to hear God on a more meaningful word about the other person's future! But it was still cool to try and learn!
Not much new this weekend. Just went to visit a new beach. Went to Jamba Juice for the first time in my life, and loved it! Tried out stand up paddle surfing. Swam with a sea turtle. And other fun things!
This week we have a speaker for our Justice school from India. Coming out on such a high from last week, it is hard to sit in class during a four hour lecture understanding and being engaged the entire time. What he has to say is awesome! But I believe that our class is not growing in unity as much this week, like we all wish we would! Hopefully our class will be able to grow so much in this last half of DTS so that during our outreach we don't need to build that bond. We can start off going in as a unified family.
Tuesday night there was an all night prayer session in our Prayer Room here on campus. Apparently God was waking people up from their sleep to go into the prayer room. There was constant prayer, praise, worship, prophecy, and more going on all night! That room was banging! I wish you all could come here and hear what it is like being in my dorm, a ways away from this building, but still being able to hear when there is people jamming out in the prayer room! You can almost tell what song they are singing and it is totally amazing! This was going on all night long! There were a few people who pulled all nighters. And the funny thing is, God gives us all extra energy the next day when we spend that time not sleeping, but worshiping him! In the morning when there was the Fire and Fragrance school worshiping during breakfast, I joined after my work duty. It was so much fun! We had another outreach group in there and there were families, kids, and the regular F&F School! So much fun to sing at the top of my lungs, dancing, and just have fun praising God with these little kids! Makes for a great start to my day!
Last night, my roommates and I had our first encounter with a cockroach in our dorm room! We've heard random screams other rooms during this quarter when others had cockroaches in their dorms. When I heard those screams, I said to myself, 'If we ever had one in our room, I wouldn't be that scared and I'd be tough and just kill the thing.' But our room is the cleanest dorm room of all, and we got blessed with having this nasty bug in our room. Of course there was extremely freaked out and screams came whaling from our room!! We spent a half hour looking for this bug. Of course I was determined to kill it because it kept crawling by MY BED! So, shoe in hand, I went for it. It took a good few whacks, but finally! We defeated the bug!
What a night! Hope that you guys are all doing well! Thank you again for everything. One prayer request if you could keep me in mind. It has been really heavy on my heart what God's plan is for my life after outreach. I've always had a plan in my head, but I've learned that I am not living this life for myself. I needed to lay it down for God. And now, I've come to realize that my plan is never as good as God's. So if you could pray that he reveals to me what it is that he wants from me after outreach. I would greatly appreciate that! Thanks guys, you're amazing!
God Bless and Hazak!
We had our second out of three Corporate Weeks last week. Kris Vallentin came to Kona to speak about our Identity in Christ. Corporate Weeks are so meaningful and influential on my spiritual life because every DTS school is all together in community learning, praising, and praying for the same reason in one room! It is very cool to be able to grow deeper in my relationship with God with the help of every one of my close friends here. My roommates, other friends in different classes, leaders, worship directors, we are all in the same lecture and worship the entire week!
Kris talked a bit about Identity, but each day it was so different, and so challenging to my faith at the same time. As my leader said, we have to take a bite of a very boney piece of meat. Chew it up a lot, and spit out all the bones or bad parts, things that we don't believe are true or things that contradict what our personal beliefs are. Kris was a bit unclear about some of his teachings, which challenged me a lot, but he had so many GREAT things to say! Some totally new revelations that I have never thought about before. For example, the fact that when we choose to follow God for the rest of our lives means we receive grace and mercy, but it does not mean that we go on sinning. We still make mistakes, but it is not being one of his followers if we keep committing our same sin over and over again. I really didn't get the meaning of this until Kris said that he does not sin. I was like, 'wow, that's a bold statement.' I still don't know if I totally agree with that, but once he explained it, it made more sense. He said that once he made this commitment, he said that God's followers don't have the right to go on sinning. Sinning to him means that we do something wrong on purpose, we know that we are doing something wrong and still do it anyways. In 1 Peter 4 it talks about how we do not go on sinning and doing our same earthly desires when we truly want to live for him. I do believe that God's followers still make mistakes. But here it says that we are not to go on doing our same sins if we truly want to live for him.
Kris and his wife Kathy also taught of the gifts of the Spirit. They emphasized on prophesying to others and they said that that is the most common gift from God. We were taught was it is, how we act out prophesying, what it feels like, and we then were forced to practice it. What a great way to be challenged to get out of my comfort zone! It was very awkward at first. But we had to pair up with someone we didn't know and then ask God for a word of knowledge, a true fact or picture from God about the other person’s life. It was so cool to be able to try that out. Getting something relevant to my partner's life and watching others as well. And making mistakes too! Then we asked God to give us a prophecy for the other person. This was a bit harder, even though it might have not happen yet, it was hard to hear God on a more meaningful word about the other person's future! But it was still cool to try and learn!
Not much new this weekend. Just went to visit a new beach. Went to Jamba Juice for the first time in my life, and loved it! Tried out stand up paddle surfing. Swam with a sea turtle. And other fun things!
This week we have a speaker for our Justice school from India. Coming out on such a high from last week, it is hard to sit in class during a four hour lecture understanding and being engaged the entire time. What he has to say is awesome! But I believe that our class is not growing in unity as much this week, like we all wish we would! Hopefully our class will be able to grow so much in this last half of DTS so that during our outreach we don't need to build that bond. We can start off going in as a unified family.
Tuesday night there was an all night prayer session in our Prayer Room here on campus. Apparently God was waking people up from their sleep to go into the prayer room. There was constant prayer, praise, worship, prophecy, and more going on all night! That room was banging! I wish you all could come here and hear what it is like being in my dorm, a ways away from this building, but still being able to hear when there is people jamming out in the prayer room! You can almost tell what song they are singing and it is totally amazing! This was going on all night long! There were a few people who pulled all nighters. And the funny thing is, God gives us all extra energy the next day when we spend that time not sleeping, but worshiping him! In the morning when there was the Fire and Fragrance school worshiping during breakfast, I joined after my work duty. It was so much fun! We had another outreach group in there and there were families, kids, and the regular F&F School! So much fun to sing at the top of my lungs, dancing, and just have fun praising God with these little kids! Makes for a great start to my day!
Last night, my roommates and I had our first encounter with a cockroach in our dorm room! We've heard random screams other rooms during this quarter when others had cockroaches in their dorms. When I heard those screams, I said to myself, 'If we ever had one in our room, I wouldn't be that scared and I'd be tough and just kill the thing.' But our room is the cleanest dorm room of all, and we got blessed with having this nasty bug in our room. Of course there was extremely freaked out and screams came whaling from our room!! We spent a half hour looking for this bug. Of course I was determined to kill it because it kept crawling by MY BED! So, shoe in hand, I went for it. It took a good few whacks, but finally! We defeated the bug!
What a night! Hope that you guys are all doing well! Thank you again for everything. One prayer request if you could keep me in mind. It has been really heavy on my heart what God's plan is for my life after outreach. I've always had a plan in my head, but I've learned that I am not living this life for myself. I needed to lay it down for God. And now, I've come to realize that my plan is never as good as God's. So if you could pray that he reveals to me what it is that he wants from me after outreach. I would greatly appreciate that! Thanks guys, you're amazing!
God Bless and Hazak!
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Revelation
Where to begin, but to say that God is good! All the time! I don't know if I could even record all the countless times that He has blessed me throughout being here and especially these last couple of weeks! I cannot believe that we are half way done with our DTS here! We're on week six and at the end of March, my group will be on our way to Morocco! Along with others going to many other nations around the world! It's kind of crazy to be thinking about, how much potential we have to change the world! There's roughly around 500 students and staff in DTS alone that are going out to be a light to the nations!
I'm so excited to experience so many different cultures while i'm there! Morocco is the majority of our stay, but my leader said he wanted to hit up as many countries as we can along the way and on our travels back to Amsterdam for our class' debriefing time. I cannot imagine how many people we'll get to come into contact with to be able to share our story with!
Back to the classroom.... We have been meeting together with all the DTS classes together in our big Ohana Court auditorium this week for Corporate week again. We have had a speaker that is really challenging me in what i believe, how to take a stand, and how to question others' views and beliefs as well.
I got a few new revelations lately that i thought i'd share with you guys. I got a revelation how God totally is against Gossip. Now, you may say, 'yeah, yeah we've known that all along' but i really didn't realize how much it means to me in everyday life! Like how many times i catch myself doing it without intention! There has been random little attacks by the devil to tear apart our Justice class, and gossip has been a huge problem that has been separating the unity of our group. Please keep us all in your prayers that we can continue to grow together in unity. Especially our outreach groups. It would be so cool to be able to already have a strong solid foundation with each other and the Lord before we go on our outreaches instead of having to start that in april!
The second revelation I got was giving up my longing for a husband someday. I feel as if God is revealing to me that he himself is enough for me to live. He should have all my desires and intimacy. Not some boy. Don't get me wrong, I truly desire to have a husband someday, but God is teaching me here how to lay down that desire so that i can be intimate with him first and then once i do surrender that to him, he will allow a man to come into my life. It's hard to be here, around so many Christian men of God, and know that they are not the ones that need my affection. It is God who desires my heart. Especially being so close to Valentines day, God is revealing his love he has for me, and i am learning how to accept that and fall in love with him at the same time!
Now, to expand on my last post.... i would like to hear if any of you guys went to see the movie taken in theaters yet? I know that some of my friends have, just wondering what you thought of it or if you guys got any new revelations about this injustice. Please let me know, and if it is heavy on your heart as it is on mine, feel free to contact me and i'd love to discuss it! since this is exactly what i will be targeting on my outreach!
Also, please keep me updated on your lives. If you have anything that I could pray for you for, please let me know! I'd be delighted to!
Thanks,
HAZAK!
I'm so excited to experience so many different cultures while i'm there! Morocco is the majority of our stay, but my leader said he wanted to hit up as many countries as we can along the way and on our travels back to Amsterdam for our class' debriefing time. I cannot imagine how many people we'll get to come into contact with to be able to share our story with!
Back to the classroom.... We have been meeting together with all the DTS classes together in our big Ohana Court auditorium this week for Corporate week again. We have had a speaker that is really challenging me in what i believe, how to take a stand, and how to question others' views and beliefs as well.
I got a few new revelations lately that i thought i'd share with you guys. I got a revelation how God totally is against Gossip. Now, you may say, 'yeah, yeah we've known that all along' but i really didn't realize how much it means to me in everyday life! Like how many times i catch myself doing it without intention! There has been random little attacks by the devil to tear apart our Justice class, and gossip has been a huge problem that has been separating the unity of our group. Please keep us all in your prayers that we can continue to grow together in unity. Especially our outreach groups. It would be so cool to be able to already have a strong solid foundation with each other and the Lord before we go on our outreaches instead of having to start that in april!
The second revelation I got was giving up my longing for a husband someday. I feel as if God is revealing to me that he himself is enough for me to live. He should have all my desires and intimacy. Not some boy. Don't get me wrong, I truly desire to have a husband someday, but God is teaching me here how to lay down that desire so that i can be intimate with him first and then once i do surrender that to him, he will allow a man to come into my life. It's hard to be here, around so many Christian men of God, and know that they are not the ones that need my affection. It is God who desires my heart. Especially being so close to Valentines day, God is revealing his love he has for me, and i am learning how to accept that and fall in love with him at the same time!
Now, to expand on my last post.... i would like to hear if any of you guys went to see the movie taken in theaters yet? I know that some of my friends have, just wondering what you thought of it or if you guys got any new revelations about this injustice. Please let me know, and if it is heavy on your heart as it is on mine, feel free to contact me and i'd love to discuss it! since this is exactly what i will be targeting on my outreach!
Also, please keep me updated on your lives. If you have anything that I could pray for you for, please let me know! I'd be delighted to!
Thanks,
HAZAK!
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