Wow...It's 2012 and I'm in yet another new country!

Reading Acts in King's Park

Wow....I must apologize that it's been almost a month since I posted a blog post, but this last month has been a bit of a whirlwind that ended up dropping me in beautiful Perth, Australia!

Last time I checked in, I was on my way home from Taiwan after successfully finishing the 9 month School of Biblical Studies with YWAM Taipei. My time at home was awesome, but also insane. Being home for only 2 weeks at Christmas time is pretty crazy. It was amazing to see a bunch of family and friends and was definitely amazing to see the support that I have from a lot of them! It definitely means so much to know that people support me in what I am doing and believe in what I am doing. It has definitely been difficult being away from all my friends and family, especially since I'm pretty sure I won't be back in Canada long term for quite some time, but it is absolutely amazing knowing that I am living my life for God, the way that He wants me to, and to know that friends and family believe in that too means a lot to me.

So here's a little summary of my time at home: I got home on the night of the 17th to surprise my sister Jenn at her 30th birthday party, which was a definite success! Both her and my brother were completely shocked and floored that I was there because I was supposed to come in the next day. The next afternoon my mom's side of the family came over for our family Christmas, so I had a very loud welcome back to Canada from the family and had an awesome time visiting with everybody, and of course watching football too! Most of my time home was spent hanging out with my family, especially my nieces and nephews, and seeing as many friends as I could. At the same time I was still waiting for my application to go through at YWAM Perth (who were in the process of moving their base from one location to another, so they were pretty bogged down with that), but more on that in a second.

First, I'll tell ya about a bit of a highlight of my trip home, which was going to the Lions-Chargers game in Detroit with my parents on Christmas Eve. Before the game we met up with my Aunt Betty and Uncle Ed and my 2 cousins Krista and Melissa in Chatham because they were going to the game as well, and we were surprised by my Uncle Ed renting a limo as an early Christmas present to his girls, which we got to enjoy as well! So we got to ride to the game in style (first time ever in a limo), and had an awesome time watching the game. It was great to get to spend time with my parents and catch what may be the last football game that I watch live in a long time, and being able to ride up in the limo gave me a great chance to talk to my cousins as well and hear how they've been and share about what God's been doing in my life as well.

Our ride to the Lions game! Thanks Uncle Ed!!

Anyways, back to the whole getting to Perth story, my acceptance finally came through on the 22nd and I was able to apply for my visa online, but had to drive to Toronto to get a chest x-ray done the next day, and because of the holidays it didn't get looked at until the Wednesday after Christmas. This all added an extra level of stress to my trip home, but I was able to give it to God after struggling with it a few days and He definitely came through. Because of the holidays I was worried that I wouldn't get my visa until after New Years, but it finally came through in the nick of time on the afternoon of the 30th and I was able to book a ticket leaving early in the morning on the 2nd. So I was able to spend New Years Eve with some friends and spend the afternoon watching football at my parents' place with family before leaving for the airport on Sunday night. The most amazing part of it all is that the price of the plane ticket didn't really go up hardly at all from the first time I checked when I first found out I would be going to Perth to when I finally booked it basically 2 days before I would leave, God is so good!

So I got here to Perth a few days late, but that didn't matter too much because I only missed a little bit of training. Since I've gotten here it's been pretty full on. Thankfully I didn't have any real problems with jet lag at all (I think my body's used to being on this side of the world by now), so my transition here has been pretty good. The base is absolutely HUGE with over 300 staff and students currently at the base and a ton of others out on outreaches. It has been pretty tough learning everybody's name, but everybody has a lot of grace when it comes to names because we all know how crazy it is meeting so many people in such little time. I am still amazed that God sent me to Australia for a season since it's somewhere that I always wanted to go to, but didn't think I would ever end up going, and it definitely hasn't disappointed! I am loving it here in Perth. The city is beautiful, and our base is very close to the downtown, which is amazing considering the cost of land and housing and such in Perth. It is definitely an interesting time to be on base because of the transition to the new buildings and still waiting on the main building to get completely finished and approved by the city. It is a time where flexibility is key, but it has given me many chances to serve people and do whatever I can to bless the base and the people here.

The Bible Core Course that I'm staffing is now into its 2nd week. Our first week consisted of orientation and registration stuff, as well as reading Genesis-Ruth, Isaiah and Acts. We are now starting to study Acts and we just finished the first day of teaching the introduction to the inductive method. I was a little surprised last week when I learned how different the course is from the SBS that I just finished in Taiwan and kinda wondered a little of what I had gotten myself into, but God has given me a lot of peace about it and I'm just trusting that He will help me to learn a lot during my time here so that I can go to Oxford, NZ and lead the course there successfully after I leave here. I have an amazing leader here (Melinda) who has staffed about 16 BCCs and is leading her 7th school, so she has a ton of experience and is more than willing to teach me as much as possible as I prepare to lead after this school. We have 7 students and 3 staff (including me and Melinda), and we seem to have a pretty great group that are all eager to learn and excited to start digging into the bible over these next 3 months.

If you could all be praying for me and for our school, it would be greatly appreciated. More specifically, for me that I would be able to learn a ton while I'm here, both about the BCC and how to lead it as well as about the Bible and that God would bring me deeper understanding and closer in relationship with Him. Also, for the school that the students would be blessed by their studies and by us as staff and that God would be moving during our class times as well as their study time. We also need your prayers for finances, both for our school, especially for outreach fees for both staff and students, but also for the base in general because they are still in the process of raising money to fully pay off the new building.

Well, I think this is probably long enough (and longer than I planned, as usual), so I will sign off now. I hope everything is going great for all of you and that God is blessing you and moving in your lives. I'll try to send another update in a couple weeks or so and let ya know how the school is going.

God bless.

After 9 months, it's time to leave Taiwan

Me and my housemates at our graduation. I'm gonna miss these boys.

It's hard to believe, but the time has finally come for me to leave Taiwan. It has been an incredible blessing and privilege to be able to live in a different country with a completely different culture. There have been some ups and downs when it comes to living here, but overall it has been an awesome experience and I thank God that He brought me here for this season of my life.

It's been interesting digesting and processing a bit what we've gone through these last 9 months. I realized today when we wrote a test that 2nd year theology students write as a final exam just how extensive all of our biblical knowledge has become. The opportunity to spend all day, 6 days a week for 9 months straight  in God's word is an amazing privilege and is such a unique thing that I still don't quite grasp the significance and depth of doing it. Not many people get a chance to do this and it's important that I remember everyday how blessed and privileged I am to have gotten to do this. So to all of you who have played a part in making this happen, whether through financial support, prayer support, or just encouraging me as I did this, THANK YOU. You have given me an amazing blessing that I am forever grateful for.

The fact that I don't have to wake up tomorrow and start an outloud or colour code or PTs or chart or anything is a strange feeling that I'm not quite used to. We've lived an extraordinary life these last 9 months and now regular life just seems foreign and strange, but I'm definitely looking forward to it, even though I will only be able to really experience it for less than 2 weeks before I leave home again and head to Australia to help students through a similar, but shorter 3 month journey through the bible. It will be awesome getting to finally go to Australia and to be able to help teach the bible and to train for leading the school in New Zealand, but I am definitely looking forward to having a bit of a break after it in April.

As I thought about the fact that I now get to not only continue to study the bible, but also teach it as well as lead a school teaching it I am still blown away by how amazing God is and how He has really blessed me with an amazing life and an amazing opportunity to spend the next few years studying His word. I am part of a small percentage of Christians that will ever get to study the bible this extensively and I know that this is something that many people would do anything for, but don't have the opportunity, and that many people would love to do, but cannot (my Dad is pretty jealous. lol). Being constantly exposed to God's truth and seeking Him through His word is one of the most life-changing and life-giving things that I have ever done in my life, and it has really shown me who God is and how awesome and great and powerful He is, and how small and insignificant we are, yet He still loves us more than we could ever comprehend. It has amazed me how humbling studying God's word is and it was awesome, although a little difficult at times, how God revealed my pride to me and worked with me so that I could give it to Him. If I had to say what the best thing that happened to me during SBS was, it would definitely be how God humbled me and showed me areas of pride that I never knew I had or never knew were pride. His truth is so amazing!!

Well it's getting late, so I should head to bed for the last time here in Taiwan. I hope and pray that you all are well, and I look forward to possibly seeing those of you who are back home in London. Thanks for following me on this journey through SBS, I hope and pray that it was a blessing for you, and please continue to follow the journey that God is taking me on. It means a lot to me to know that people care enough to take the time to read my posts, especially since they tend to be long and can sometimes ramble on. So thank you so much. God bless.

Finally some clarity on the future

The Sunset View from the Library at the University

So a funny thing happened today, I realized that in 3 weeks, I'll be back home in Canada sitting in front of the fireplace at my parents place watching football in HD on their beautiful TV. Oh, and I'll be hanging out with my awesome family and catching up with them a little. The nice thing is that I finally know how long I will be home for because I FINALLY know what I'm doing after SBS.

It's been a bit of a lesson in patience and in giving my future over to God over the last month as I awaited word on my application with YWAM Oxford (NZ). I'd be lying if I said I didn't question once or twice if I had heard God's voice right with applying there, but now that I finally have confirmation I see that He definitely has put this together better than I ever thought it was possible.

When I had first contacted the base about staffing their Biblical Core Course (BCC), I asked if they needed staff and they said that they were looking for a new leader, which I basically just shrugged off as just them giving me as much information as they could and figured I'd pray for them that they would find a leader. Well, apparently God didn't just shrug it off because when I was praying about whether or not to apply for Titus, God basically said to me that I never looked into the opportunity of leading the school. This was something that seemed absolutely insane to me since I had never staffed a school and didn't feel anywhere near ready to lead a school, and didn't even think it would be possible for me to lead without staffing first. A big reason that I was applying to Titus was that I felt that God wanted me to trust Him and do things that intimidate me, which teaching the bible does, and while I was praying about it He showed me that I had got the message correctly, but the application wasn't for Titus, it was for leading the BCC. After wrestling with Him for a little I finally agreed to send an email to the Oxford base telling them what I thought God was telling me to do, while telling them I may be crazy at the same time because I thought I was crazy and that they'd just kinda laugh at me, a guy with no staffing experience, inquiring about leading a school. Well, it turned out that I wasn't as crazy as I thought because after sending a number of emails back and forth and after some waiting I got an email from them offering me the BCC school position.

So the details are that I will be going to Perth, Australia at the beginning of January to train during their BCC so that I can see how the BCC is run and also to be trained how to lead the school. After that finishes at the end of March I will probably come home for about a month so that I can see my family a little and relax a little since I'll only have about a 2 week break at Christmas between SBS and going to Perth. Then I will head to Oxford, NZ to meet my new YWAM family and get settled in at the base that I plan to be at for most likely at least the next 3 years. Then I'll have about a month and a half or so to prepare for the school and our BCC will start at the end of June and run until the beginning of September.

It's been amazing how God has pieced this whole process together in a way that only He could, and He has really set me up for success better than I ever thought He could. The former leaders of the BCC will be staying on staff at the base and have said that they would be willing to help me out where needed, and there are a couple current BCC leaders at other bases that said that they are willing to help me out over skype or phone when needed. So although I am still a little intimidated by the idea of leading, God has done a great job of putting people around me to support me in leading, and I know that He will definitely help me in leading the school.

I hope to also staff the Backpackers Discipleship Training School, which starts at the end of September and was what originally led me to their base, but I will have to see if that is still possible or not. God's made it pretty clear that He wants me at their base and wants me to lead the BCC, so I'm gonna start there and see what else He has for me there as I go. Either way, I am super stoked to head out there. I don't know what it is about New Zealand, but since I first got there last year for my DTS, it just felt like home and I had a feeling that God would bring me back there, just never thought it would be this soon. I'm also really excited to get a real start on my "YWAM career" and get settled into one place for a little while.

As with all YWAM positions, I need to raise all of my own support to pay base fees, as well as for any outreaches that I go on, so please be praying and asking God if you are supposed to support me in this, any support is helpful, even if it's just a little. The nice thing is that because I will be full time staff, I should be able to start getting people tax receipts through a YWAM base in Canada soon, but I still have to look in to how it works.

As for SBS, things have been going steadily and we only have 3 weeks now. We just finished the book of Daniel, which was an amazing book, and prior to that we had what may be the most exciting books of the Old Testament in Ezra and Nehemiah. At first glance, Ezra and Nehemiah may not seem like the most exciting books, but when you think about the fact that the Jews had gone through their exile and were finally seeing the restoration that God had been promising them through the prophets and really try to get into the head of the original hearers who took part in the returns to Jerusalem, it's really exciting. They are also books that give amazing examples of leadership as you look at Ezra's and Nehemiah's examples, and God's sovereignty has been very evident in all three of those books, as well as Esther.

We've now just started Ezekiel and only have Zechariah, Haggai, Malachi and Matthew left. It's been an amazing last 8 months and I can't wait to see what God has in store for us over the next 3 weeks, but I'm definitely looking forward to being done. It's hands down been one of the best if not the best thing I've ever done, but it's also been one of the hardest things I've ever done. I'm really looking forward to having some time to relax and enjoy the holidays with my family and not have another book looming over my head.

Hope you are all doing well, and I'll definitely send out another update before I leave Taiwan.

God bless

Can't believe it's almost November - Only a month and a half left!!

Well it's been a little while since I've posted anything, so I figured I'd give you all a quick update.

Things have been going great here, and God has been continuing to teach me and move in my life. We're kinda on a wave of hard weeks followed by easier weeks, with major prophets one week, followed by a couple minor prophets the next. Right now we've just started Jeremiah and will have our first teaching on Monday morning, which I'm really looking forward to. After just reading the book a couple times, my first impression has been how amazing Jeremiah's faith and endurance were to keep preaching even though nobody was listening to him and were persecuting him for preaching against them and preaching a message of judgment for their continuous turning away from God. I can't wait to dig in a little deeper and really see the full message that God wants to bring me through this book.

Last week we did Micah and Joel, which were both great small prophets, but I think I enjoyed Micah the most. Micah was considered kinda like a little Isaiah. He had a similar message to him, but most likely operated outside of Jerusalem and didn't have the same type of access to the king as Isaiah was. He did bring a similar message though, in that he spoke against the injustice that was happening among the people and among the leadership, and of course, about their coming judgment and the restoration that would come. The main thing that I got out of Micah was regarding leadership and the injustice that was happening within the religious leaders as well as the rulers of the people. It really showed me the importance of being a godly leader and of always looking to God to show you how to be a godly leader and also the importance of having people around you that will help keep you accountable and will help ensure that you are leading in a godly way.

The week before, we did Isaiah, which was a tough book for me, and was actually the first book that I didn't completely finish. My goal in SBS had been not to let this happen, so I was pretty disappointed, but it was something that God helped me accept and really taught me through.

The good part of it was that I was still able to interpret the entire book and was able to do my final application, but I wasn't able to all the insides on my charts and I missed about half of the New Testament references in the book, and there's a lot of them because Isaiah is the most quoted OT book in the NT. The neat thing was that God really taught me a lot about humility through not finishing the book and through being able to accept that I wasn't going to finish and changing my goal to reflect that so that I would still be able to get something out of it and not just go into auto-pilot trying to finish it. For me, this is a pretty big thing because I've had issues with being performance focused and a bit of a perfectionist in the past, so the fact that I was able to give that up and say that I was alright with not finishing so that I could really try to seek God in the text instead of just trying to power through it and not getting anything out of it was a pretty big deal to me and really showed me how much God had taught me through it.

The other lesson that God taught me, through my small group leader and one-on-one Brent, was that although I am a great finisher and always work hard to the very end and won't quit - which was something I was happy with myself about because I didn't just give up and accept not finishing the book, but finished it as well as I could - I don't always work hard throughout the whole process, especially in the early stages of big books. I tend to be one of those, work well under pressure guys, which is good, but God really showed me that I need to also learn to have the discipline to go hard all the way through and to have the sense of urgency that I have at the end all the way through as well. I also learned that I need to set myself up to be able to work hard, which I didn't do in this book because I stayed up to watch the Falcons game on Sunday night, and I ended up getting a little sick because of it and wasn't able to work as hard as I would have been able to if I got enough sleep.

So although I didn't finish and failed the book, I still was able to get a lot out of it and God really taught me a lot about myself, which really is a huge part of SBS, but I'm definitely not going to let it happen again and will learn from my mistakes (that's the good part of SBS, there's always another book to put what you learned into practice).

Starting tomorrow, we will officially be into week 6 of SBS, and I will only have a month and a half left in Taiwan. I still can't believe how fast it has been and it's hard to believe that I will be leaving my family that I've had here the last 7 months, but all good things must come to an end I guess. I've been trying to spend as much time with my classmates and to go for lunch with a lot of people in this term so that I can really connect with people and we can bless each other and speak into each other's lives, which has been awesome and I hope to do it as much as possible over the last month and a half. I'm also starting to have church with some guys on Sunday mornings in the coffee shop near our place where we just read through part of the bible a discuss what jumps out at us. Today was my first time joining them, and it was awesome. We went through Romans 1-7 and had some awesome discussions about it. The discussions that I have with people here is something that I'm going to miss so much because I've been able to learn so much from my fellow classmates just through discussing what we've been learning.

I was hoping to finally know what is happening after SBS for this update so I could let you all know, but unfortunately things are still up in the air. The only update that I can give you guys is that I am no longer doing the Titus Project (where we go teach the bible in 3rd world countries) after SBS as I had planned. I had applied to Titus, but I heard that they probably weren't going to be able to accept everybody, and since I wasn't sure I would be able to do it or not depending on when the Biblical Core Course that I'm planning on staffing in Oxford, NZ starts, I figured I would withdraw my application so that someone who will be doing it for sure could have my place. Also, as I been praying about it, and even when I originally applied, I just really felt that God was taking me in a different direction and that I wasn't supposed to do Titus at this time.

So right now I am still waiting on my acceptance with Oxford, as well as waiting to find out how it's all going to work out with me going there, but I'm just trusting that God has it in His hands and that He will work it out the way that He has planned. Please be praying that I will have peace while I wait to hear from them and that it won't distract me from my work at all.

Anyways, this ended up being a longer post than I planned, as usual, so I should wrap it up, but I hope that you are all doing great and that you're keeping warm as winter comes. Things have gotten a little cooler here, which is awesome because I no longer sweat just sitting around my house, but it's still fairly warm when the sun is out and I was still able to get out surfing with surf ministry this weekend. I will definitely update you all when I know more about the future and how it's going to look.

God bless

Through the first week of 3rd term

Sandiaoling Waterfall

It's hard to believe that we've already started 3rd term. I have already been in Taiwan for over 6 months, and they have been probably the most difficult 6 months of my life, but it's been an absolutely amazing experience and privilege to be able to spend this time studying God's word so closely. The last 3 weeks of 2nd term we did Samuel, Kings and Chronicles (that is not a typo, those 3 monsters in 3 weeks), which was like having a mountain as the end of a marathon. It was insane and I almost felt like giving up one day during Kings, but it was definitely worth it and was amazing to see how God moved throughout the time of the kings of Israel (and Judah) and how even though it sometimes seemed like He wasn't there, He was always moving and active and sovereign throughout it.

Break was definitely a VERY much needed rest. I didn't do anything too crazy, basically just went rock climbing a few times at a bouldering wall that's in a park in Taipei and went on a couple hikes, one of which was an amazing trail with 3 waterfalls that was actually a real hike on a dirt trail, which is rare for Taipei area (usually it just consists of paved or stone trails with lots of stairs). Other than that I did some relaxing and hung out with my friends and with Jesus.

The bouldering wall in Neihu Sports Park

We now have just finished the first week of 3rd (and final) term and it has started off with a bang with wisdom literature. We started out with Proverbs, and it was probably my favourite book that we've studied so far, and probably will be my favourite out of the entire SBS. The former SBS leader, Scott, taught the book and he brought the truth big time and really dug into it and didn't dodge any of the hard and convicting wisdom in the book. We had two mornings of teaching (6 hrs), and throughout the teaching I was loving every minute of it. Studying Proverbs really showed me how much I love wisdom and how much I desire more and more wisdom from God, which was especially cool because I also realized how much God wants us to seek wisdom and loves to see us desire it (Prov 1:7 and 9:10 say that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom/understanding). On the second day of teaching Scott wore his "friendly shirt" because he was going to be delivering some hard truths from Proverbs regarding teachability, money and diligence/laziness, and the whole class I just sat there loving every minute of it and cheering him on in my heart. It was amazing to see how God had put wisdom in my heart and how it made me love it no matter what it meant for my own comfort and no matter how convicting it was. I can't say enough about the book of Proverbs and I 100% recommend each and every one of you take the time to read through it, and better yet, spend some time meditating on different passages. For our assignment we had to choose 4 themes to track throughout the book and do 5 interpretations for each theme. I chose reproof/discipline, pride/humility, the fear of the Lord and anger/temper as my themes, and I plan to colour code all the different themes in my bible so that I can have a quick reference guide to the main themes Proverbs deals with and spend time every week meditating on different passages depending on what I feel God wants to speak to me about.

The 2nd half of the week we studied Job, which was a lot more intensive than we all thought it would be. We did another special assignment for Job where we went through the discourse that Job and his friends had (and Elihu's response to it) and identified passages that we felt were biblical and ones we felt unbiblical, using verse reference outside of Job to support our views. We also had to identify areas where his friends' arguments were biblical, but were just not applied with wisdom. It was a difficult assignment, but was a really good way to go through the book and see how important it is to use wisdom properly, and was a good way to put the knowledge that we've gained about the bible into use. I just wish I would have had a bit more time to do it (may be something to do again in the future).

This week is going to be a bit of a break for us. We are having some mandatory volunteer training as a requirement of getting our Alien Residency Card, so we'll still have classes a couple days for Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes, but we don't actually have an assignment for them, so it'll be a nice little break for us. We also will be starting the prophets with the introduction to the prophets on Friday and our first lecture for Amos on Saturday. It's kinda funny how having a full 6 day week of classes and training is considered a break for us, but that just shows you how intense and busy this school has been for us.

Please be praying for me over the next week or so. In my last post I posted what I felt like God had for me for the future, but this last week when I was about to hand in my Titus application I felt a huge check in my spirit and felt God asking me if I was absolutely sure that this was what I'm supposed to do next. This led me to hold off on applying and spending time in prayer about my future, and I ended up sending an email to the Oxford YWAM base and it's now a possibility that I may be going there in January instead to staff the Biblical Core Course (basically a 3 month version of SBS) as well as the Backpackers DTS in September. So right now I'm waiting on an email back from the Oxford base about some questions that I felt God wanted me to ask before I made a decision, and I should know by the end of the week what the plan is. I still applied for Titus because the application was due on Saturday and just made them aware of my current situation and that I'm not 100% sure what God wants me to do yet, but that I'll let them know as soon as possible. So if you could all be praying that God really directs my path as I plan for the future, it'd be really appreciated. My heart is just to do what He wants me to do and not to do anything just because it seems good or because others think I should do it. He's planned my steps so far, and I can't wait to see the path that He's chosen for me. I'll definitely write a post when everything is finalized to let you know what's happening.

Also, I'm coming home for Christmas this year! I'll be home December 18th, and depending on what I do after SBS, I'll either be leaving January 2nd if I'm doing Titus or 22nd(ish) if I'm staffing in Oxford, so if you're in London, let me know if you want to get together for a coffee or lunch and catch up.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read my blog and keeping me in your prayers, it means so much to me.

God bless!

Almost through 2nd term and getting His vision for the future

Well it's been about a month since I posted anything, so I'm a little overdue. Things have been going great lately. It was a battle, and there were some sleepless nights, but we got through the Pentateuch, and it was awesome. We're now in the promised land and through the time of the judges, and we're just started on 1&2 Samuel. It has been an amazing journey seeing God's faithfulness and grace throughout the early history of Israel, even though the people were not faithful at all for the most part. It's also been pretty amazing to see how God was always never only for Israel, but chose them to reveal Himself to the world so that everybody had a chance to choose Him. It's so easy to forget the fact that a mixed multitude came out with the Israelites, that God used Rahab, a pagan prostitute who was accepted and lived with Israel after she helped the spies in Jericho, and that Ruth, a woman that had an entire book written about her and named after her, was a Moabite. My whole life I always thought that God only chose the Israelites and that all the other nations were screwed, but it's been awesome to finally look at it and realized that God used Israel so that the other nations would see that He was God and to draw the other nations to Him, only they didn't listen for the most part and continued to live in their wicked ways, which led to destruction. This term has been extremely busy and difficult, but it has been absolutely amazing and I can't wait for what the next 3 weeks hold with Samuel, Kings and Chronicles.

Something that God has really been speaking to me about the last little while has been my own insecurities. He's really been showing me my insecurities about my future ministry, as well as my insecurities about hearing His voice. In Joshua I was so amazed with Joshua's faith in God and in his ability to do amazing things through God. Joshua was thrust into a leadership position with HUGE shoes to fill, and rather than focusing on his weaknesses, he was strong and courageous (a command he gets from God a few times and then the people when he is being commissioned to lead), and had faith that God would fight for him and he walked in that faith. This really spoke to me and showed me the kind of faith that I need to have and how I sometimes focus on my weaknesses and my insecurities when thinking about the future and about what God's calling me to do rather than focusing on His power and His ability to do amazing things through me. This helped me realize that I had kinda been talking myself out of doing the Titus Project outreach after SBS because of my insecurity when it comes to teaching the bible, and had forgotten about my desire to do it and the call I had from God to do it from the very beginning (more on that later).

When we were doing Judges, the story of Gideon really spoke to me. When God raises up Gideon to lead the people, several times Gideon asks God to confirm and reconfirm that He is with him, and at first when you read it, it's easy to shake your head at Gideon and think he's foolish for wanting to test God so much when He had already spoken to him and told him that He was with him. As I read it and studied it, it made me realize how we are so similar and we do the exact same thing, we're just blessed that nobody is writing down what we do. It showed me how I always want so much confirmation from God before I do something rather than just trusting in His voice and having faith that I'm hearing Him, and doing what He's told me to do. This kinda showed me how I had lost confidence in my ability to hear His voice and that led to me looking for so many confirmations rather than just stepping out in what I believe He's telling me to do and to have faith that if I'm not doing what He wants me to do, He'll show me and redirect me back to His plan for me. This lack of confidence didn't just affect my being able to follow His guidance, but also affected my faith that He would bring me a wife at some point and that I would be able to have a successful relationship when He brought her along to me. During DTS I a speaker at our base meeting gave me a word that God wanted to restore my confidence in hearing Him that I lost through my broken relationships, and God reminded me of this and showed me that I had lost this confidence because of my past mistakes and how I had thought I was following Him in the past, only to have everything blow up in my face.

Through all this, God's really been showing me that I need to have faith in Him and lay down my wounds and my fears and everything at His feet and trust that He will lead and guide me and will bless me. I need to realize that the mistakes that I made in the past wasn't because I wasn't listening to Him or wasn't hearing Him right, but was more that I stopped listening to Him and that through the hard times He was teaching me and forming me into the man that I've become. He showed me that if I'm following Him and have a heart that only wants to do what He wants and not what I want, then He will give me the desires of my heart and that I can't go wrong. As long as I continue to seek after Him with all my heart, He will lead me and will correct my path if I start to stray. This is something that I'm going to continue to pray into, and if you all could be praying for me as well, I'd appreciate it.

So through all of this, God has really been giving me an amazing vision for the future, and has really showed me what I believe He is calling me to do for the next couple years or so. After God showed me that I was being stupid and just being insecure about doing Titus, I realized that I definitely need to do Titus and that it will be an amazing opportunity to travel to more countries and to give people a chance to learn the bible and to get a greater understanding of who God is.

Since most of you don't know what Titus is, I'll give a quick overview for you. The Titus Project was started by a woman that is actually on our base as an outreach program for after SBS. It consists of a one month school where we'll learn basically how to teach the bible effectively, and learn how to create sermons and teachings. Then we'll go on a two month outreach to go to teach pastors and church workers about the bible. This is an amazing opportunity for both us and them because the lack of biblical knowledge is a huge need in the developing church (one of the things that led to the starting of the Titus Project was a woman went and did a sermon in a church in a developing country and the pastor came to her and said that they loved her sermon, but his only question was who King David was). So this is going to be an amazing way to apply the things that I've learned during my 9 months in SBS and to gain some valuable practice and teaching on how to teach the bible and how to write sermons. It will also be an awesome way to give out what I've learned and to use it to bless others. (For more info, check out the website http://ywamtaipei.com/us/training/titus.html)

After Titus I'm planning on going to Thailand for a few weeks to connect with the YWAM base in Thailand as well as to go down to southern Thailand to see the climbing community and to learn a little bit about the area around Railay and Tonsai beaches. The reason I want to go there is that Thailand is a place that has always had a place in my heart, and I really believe that God has spoken to me about using rock climbing for His glory and that southern Thailand may be the place that He brings me to in the future to do that. It will also be an awesome opportunity to reach out to some travelers (since that who God has really given me a heart for), and will also be a nice and much needed break after such a long stretch doing DTS, SBS and Titus all in about a year and a half.

After that I will come home and hopefully get a job and work for 4 months so that I can reconnect with people back home and make some money to use for my next step, which I believe will take me back to New Zealand. I've been in contact with a YWAM base down in Oxford, New Zealand, and they offer a backpackers DTS that I really feel God is calling me to staff. They focus on using things like camping, hiking and rock climbing, as well as staying in hostels and doing the more European type backpacking, to reach out to the travelers that flock to NZ in the summer months. After reading their website and talking with them a little, it really seems like their heart is very similar to mine, so in September (2012) I plan to go down there and staff there for at least a couple years both in their backpackers DTS and in their Biblical Core Course, which is basically a 3 month version of the School of Biblical Studies that I'm doing. This will keep me busy for most of the year, but will also give me a chance to come home and visit in the summer. (For more info on the backpackers DTS and YWAM Oxford, check out the website http://www.ywamoxford.org/backpackers/)

So, it's definitely been a great last month, and sorry that this ended up being such a long post. Please continue to keep me in your prayers that God will continue to speak to me and continue to give me the strength to continue going strong in SBS. Please also be praying for me about finances. Right now I will have more than enough to finish SBS, but I won't have enough to pay for Titus. Because of outreach costs, Titus will cost between $2500-$3000, and as it stands now with the regular support I get, I will only have about $1000, so please be praying that God will bring in some more supporters (ideally regular supporters, but I'll take whatever I can get), and if you're willing, please pray and ask God if you are supposed to support me at this time.

One last thing I forgot to mention, I will be coming home for Christmas this year! Unfortunately it will only be for about 2 weeks, but my Mom gave up an opportunity to come down to Taiwan to visit me so that I could come home for Christmas instead. So hopefully I can see some of you while I'm home (even though it's a busy time).

Love you and miss you all, and I pray that God is blessing you all wherever He has you.

Prayer Requests

• That God will continue to speak to me and my classmates as we study His word and that we won't let it just become an academic exercise
• That God will continue to give me confidence in hearing His voice
• For finances for all the people in my class that are struggling to pay for their tuition and for their food
• That God will provide the finances I need to do Titus
• That my entire class will have the strength to finish this quarter strong (it's going to be busy)
• Praise Him for how He's working in my life and speaking to me and for giving me His vision for my future

Almost half way through, and loving it even more!

Well, it's been a couple weeks since I've written, so I guess I'm a little overdue. I guess maybe a post every other week is a bit more of a realistic goal.

Things here have been great these last couple weeks. It's been awesome going back to the beginning of it all in Genesis and Exodus and seeing how God's promises continued through the generations. It's really been interesting reading about Israel growing as a nation and has made me realize how, even though we hate to admit it, we can be really similar to them. We, or at least I, always look at Israel after they come out of Egypt and always think, "How can you guys be so stupid?" when I see them grumbling and not having faith and turning away from God, but how often do we in our lives do the exact same thing? I know, they've just seen God do some amazing things and have no reason to doubt God, but when you think about it, they're a people who have been living in slavery all their life and haven't really had much to believe in about God other than some stories about their ancestors. Not to mention the Egyptian gods, who don't care about man and definitely aren't trust worthy, who have formed their mindset about what God would be like, so it's kinda understandable that they would have some trust issues with this God that has allowed them to be in slavery for hundreds of years. Meanwhile, I've grown up in a Christian family and know all about the character and nature of God and have seen Him do some awesome things in my life and in providing for me, yet I still have a hard time trusting Him sometimes about finances and about Him providing for me as I follow Him. I'm doing the exact same thing that the Israelites were doing, just in a different way and in a completely different situation. It's really interesting when you step outside the situation and really think about it.

Anyways, it's definitely been an interesting journey these last couple weeks, and I can't wait to continue it with Leviticus this week. We started it at the end of this week and are through our first few reads, and the more I read it, the more excited I get about it. I know this may sound crazy to those of you who have read it before, I mean, all it is is a bunch of laws, but it's the message behind them that's the exciting part about it. All of the laws that God gave them wasn't just so that they would live a certain way and act the way that God wanted them to do, but they were all put in place to protect the Israelites from disease, falling into the wickedness around them, to prevent any sort of idolatry or pagan worship, etc. The laws on their own can be a bit dry, but when you start to see the heart of God behind the laws, that's when it gets really exciting, and I haven't even really started digging into it and haven't had a lecture to understand the laws better yet.

I must admit that things were getting a little dry for me when we were getting close to the end of the New Testament, but since I've really gotten re-focused these last couple weeks after God smacked me around in Revelation, it's been awesome! I've definitely gotten a new found joy in doing my work, even when I stay up all night doing it (pulled an all-nighter the last 3 books.....oops), and the further we get into the Old Testament, the more excited I get. It's definitely like nothing I've experienced before when I read the bible. It's amazing how much God has shown me that when I read my bible before I never really got the point of it, but now that I'm actually understanding that it wasn't written for me but was written for people who lived thousands of years ago and am starting to look at it from their mindset, even the most dry books just come alive!! Please be praying that this continues the deeper we get into the OT.

Other than school work, things have been pretty awesome here. I just celebrated my first birthday away from Canada. It was a little strange, and to be honest, a little tough at times leading up to it cause it kinda made me suffer from a little bit of homesickness (first time yet really, so not too bad), but it was still an awesome time and I was able to skype with my family and some friends, which was definitely a blessing and helped. A really exciting thing for me is that I've found a bouldering rock climbing wall in a park in Taipei that's free to use, and pretty legit too. It's amazing. It's really helping me enjoy being in Taiwan that much more, and although my hands were like little girls so they are pretty torn up right now, it's been awesome. I'm planning on going pretty much every Sabbath, since it's only about 1hr away using the public transit, and it's a nice way to get out of Dan Shui and just spend some time in the outdoors since I'm inside basically all week, and it's rock climbing, which I missed terribly.

Anyways, it's getting late here, so I should head to bed, just wanted to send you all a quick update first. I hope you guys are all doing fantastic back home and that God is blessing you all. Please be keeping me in your prayers, it means so much to me knowing that people are praying for me back home.

God bless.


Prayer Requests

• That God will continue to refresh me and to be speaking to me through the Old Testament
• That God will be speaking to and empowering our staff as they teach us
• That God will be with our school leader Lachlan as he goes home to South Africa for a couple weeks
• That I will be able to connect with some of the rock climbers here and that I will be able to build relationship with them and share the gospel with them
• That God will be working through our surf ministry and that He'll be giving Chris His vision for what they are doing and how He wants them to reach the surfing community in Taiwan
• For Taiwan in general that God will be breaking down the barriers to Christianity here so that they can be freed from the bondage of their ancestor worship
• That God will be protecting our school from sickness (a lot of people still getting sick, but nobody's been to the hospital lately - Praise God)
• That God will just really be blessing our entire school and that we'd all be giving Him our 100%