God has been showing me how to be completely alive.

It's all coming down to the last bit of lecture phase, and my mind is blown by how quickly it's all gone.  Time seems less like a line these days and more like a knotted ball of string, where the things that happened yesterday feel like forever ago, and a few weeks ago feels like it was just this morning.  It's the same with my family here; I feel like I've known them for years, but it's only been two and a half months.  But still, back to the update.  The past few weeks have been pretty spectacular.

In Week 8, the topic was the Holy Spirit. One thing that God really highlighted to us was that we are not meant to live for ourselves.  Our speaker elaborated and said that because we are made in God's image, and God is love, we are made to look like love.  We are made to love really, really well, and true love is selfless, always looking out for the good of others.  If we lived out perfect love and perfect fellowship, everyone would be looking after everyone else, people would be encouraging and coming alongside one another, and no one would even need to worry about themselves.  We'd be able to trust that others are watching out for us, so we can be totally invested in looking after others.  That's God's kingdom lived out.  We also read this quote:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

-Marianne Williamson.

God created us to be brilliant rays of light, and the Holy Spirit wants to partner with us to bring God's kingdom here, a kingdom of kindness, joy, peace, encouragement, fellowship, honesty,.. A kingdom of light.  God can do such bright and beautiful things through us if we're willing to say an all-encompassing 'yes' to the plans He has for us.  That may be scary, but it's really worth it.

We went exploring!

We went to the zoo!

In Week 9, we talked about Missions.  Now I expected there to be the classic quote "the world is your mission field," and for there to just be general instructions on how to be a missionary.  Luckily, my expectations were far from reality. Our speaker focused on compassion, and how compassion involves an action and it involves unconditional love. We aren't moving out of compassion if we are trying to get something out of it.  Compassion is putting God's unconditional love into action. Compassion is selfless.   Compassion is a way to give people hope.  Pity observes the sufferings of others while compassion gets involved.  Compassion engages our will rather than depending on our emotions.  We learned that a compassionate heart would see everyone through God's eyes, not the stigmas and stereotypes that we so naturally have towards certain groups of people.  God loves everyone, therefore we need to love everyone, not just those we consider to be our friends, or those we think have the capacity to give us something in return, or those who even like us.

One big concept that our speaker highlighted to us was found in 1 John 4:20-21 :

“If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their fellow believers.”

Here was his translation of that passage: “You love Jesus only as much as you love the person you love the least.” Now that hits home, huh? It’s not the easy stuff that shows how much we truly love God, but it’s the hard stuff- the persistent, messy, vulnerable love that puts our entire self on the line and is not based on whether or not we could be rejected.  We keep loving, even when those we’re called to love are both unloving and unlovely.  This realization was a huge turning point for me, needing to make the deliberate choice to love every person the way God does.  It’s cool how God’s grace shines in those places- where I can get selfish and focus so much on me, but God woos me into His heart for people, and helps me grow in my ability to love really well.

We all get really cuddly for movie nights.

And one more from the zoo.

In Week 10, we got to go live on YWAM’s (almost)new ship in Darling Harbour in Sydney.  (The main reason I said almost was that it’s not fully purchased).  It was so fun! It’s crazy to be able to say that I lived on a ship in Sydney, Australia.  I doubt I’ll ever get used to that.  But anyways, the topic of the week was Evangelism.  We talked about how evangelism is not about us, but that our salvation and appreciation for what God did for us should make us want to tell others about it.  Our speaker gave us examples of how we can be creative in evangelism, from painting murals to handing out sandwiches to passing out roses in the middle of a city.  We evangelize so that people would know, understand and experience God, that they would know God’s character and nature, understand God’s significance and what that means for them, and experience tangible aspects of His love.  Near the end of the week, we got the opportunity to go out into Sydney and evangelize in small teams.  That experience reminded me how much I love going out and loving on people.  I’m definitely going to make that something I do more often.  Honestly, it’s not hard to give someone a flower, or pay it forward in a coffee drive-thru line, or even give someone a compliment, and these are all showing God’s love in small ways.  But look at how they can change someone’s day! We need to get that outward focus and love people the way God does, because that’s what we’re called to do.  As for me, I want to get back to loving people like Jesus did.

Here's our family in front of the ship!

Sightseeing in Sydney!

Somehow, we got the best view of the fireworks over the harbour.

In Week 11, we discussed Spiritual Warfare, and how we need to be aware of what both God and the enemy are doing in the world.  Our speaker reminded us of our authority in the spiritual realm that was given to us because we are God’s children, and that we can exercise that authority when spiritual opposition comes our way.  And the thing is, it’s going to come.  We don’t entirely know when, or where, or why, or what it’s going to look like, but the enemy is trying to take us out and we need to stand firm against that.  We discovered that vulnerability in a community, as in, being honest about where we’re at and speaking out our struggles, actually increases our defenses.  God designed us to be in community, to be in relationship with others. Satan wants us to walk in isolation.  We can fall so much faster, so much easier, and take so much longer to get back on track when we’re alone.  Satan wants us derailed.  The wolf wants to separate us from the rest of the flock to take us out that much easier.  As for me, I’m choosing not to give him a foothold in that area.  This YWAM family, this fellowship, is open and safe and we are all fighting alongside one another, fighting to grow and to expand God’s kingdom.

Team time.

The Emerge team at a 70's party!

This week, we learned about relationships.  I think this week is really vital because of outreach, and it’s going to be so helpful to be prepared to fight for our team’s unity in really healthy ways, and to learn how to cultivate healthy relationships.

Speaking of which, this is going to be my last blog update until after outreach.  If you’d like to contact me, my email address is carolineb@ywamwollongong.org . If you’d like to know how to support me in some way, I’d always appreciate prayer.

This experience of lecture phase has been absolutely incredible.  I am not the same person that got off that plane 12 weeks ago, and I am so grateful for that.  This is my YWAM family, and I cannot even begin to express how much I love this beautiful, adventurous life, living in a beautiful place, serving such a beautiful God.