Shrimps, barbeques and stuff

Oi, Sheila, chuck some shrimps on the barbie mate!!!!!
G'day! Been gone too long - apologies! And here is the long-awaited blog...!

It's so hard to know where to start as I haven't updated this thing in a while and so much has already happened as usual! Well, in my last blog I think I was telling you a bit about the students and how we had already put together a couple of performances in just two weeks! Well, it's continued pretty much like that as in it's been intense with us all learning a new dance/drama every week, spending hours of our week putting it together and critiquing. I made the mistake of thinking that it would just be the students who were performing, but discovered that we, as staff, were expected to join in most of the performances too - which is fine as I love the performing arts - but as I haven't done dancing for several years it was pretty hard work! Especially as the standard is quite high! But it has been fun and very very rewarding! The main thing to say about our dances and dramas is that they reflect the diversity of different cultures and it has shown how we as a school are from different nations yet still show complete unity - I think it reflects God's heart for peace and unity in the world while still retaining our own unique characteristics, whether that would be personally or as a nation. So our dances included a Samoan dance, the Hawaiian Hula, Hip hop, Columbian salsa, among many others! We recently put on a Banquet Dinner fundraiser which was a big buffet style dinner and performances from our school as well as the New Zealand Hukka from relatives of one of the YWAMers. We raised qhite a bit lot of money from that so THANK YOU GOD!!!!!

This particular discipleship training school has been a very powerful one so far in that God has been so evidently at work in the students' lives - we've seen major changes and breakthroughs happen to the extent that even people outside YWAM have noticed a change in the students. Our speakers have brought the word of God to us in such a dynamic way and the teachings have been spot on in that it's exactly what we all needed at the right time - it just shows how God knows what we need and speaks to us through others - I have seen this happen time and time again and can testify in my own personal life that God just speaks directly into my situation (in other ways as well, not just through the speakers). I have really been having a lot of revelation recently about Jesus' humanity and I just love the way He can relate to us and how we can learn from how He handled situations and hardships because He was TOTALLY human so it's also possible for us to handle life's difficulties in the best way possible - and that comes from a real and intimate relationship with our heavenly dad! Run to Him with everything because He cares for you!

In other news...my VISA has now officially come through - yippee!!! :)

And finally, because it is now getting late and gotta hit the sack...an update on our outreach...

We are off on 13th Dec until 19th to Port Arlington (which is still pretty close to Melbourne)
Off again to Diamond Creek from 22nd Dec-5th Jan, also close to Melbourne

Back on the Melbourne base from 5th-22nd Jan doing Mission Adventures which is like a mini discipleship training school for high-schoolers

22nd Jan-beginning of March - our big outreach which is a tour around Australia - travelling up the East Coast as far as Brisbane and possibly going to Alice Springs but not sure as yet - still working out the schedule! we will be using the performing arts to help share Jesus with people and show them how God wants to be in relationship with Him and is calling them by name...

So I guess all that remains is to ask for continued prayers (prayer points below)

Thanks, as always, for reading!!!!

With love,

Lorraine xox

PRAYER POINTS...

- Still need $3000 for outreach - phew! So a pretty high priority!
- For more revelation of how God sees situations and to be able to respond to all of life's challenges in the way He would want
- For continued spiritual protection
- For energy, wisdom, health and safety during outreach
- For God to really use our team to speak into peoples' lives, meeting them where they are at, and showing them Jesus