The Burning Bush

Our last day in Penang, Malaysia.

Before you scroll down and see that is blog is too long to read the majority of it is a story by our leader of an unexpected event that happened one day while serving at Kawan, it's pretty awesome I encourage you to read it.

As we wrap up our time here nothing is more precious then knowing we made a difference. Knowing that God smiles on the work we've done here and is proud of us and having that prayed over us almost brought me to tears. Sometimes when you don't see the fruit of your actions and how much you have impacted people until you hear it from God. As the YWAM base here prayed over us and sent us on our way, Nick one of the people who prayed over us just told us that God was proud of us and it made all the difference. Now I will no longer look back at this time by what I thought were unmet expectations, but rather the fact that we have been a blessing to all the believers here. That is one of the biggest keys to short term missions I think is to encourage everyone here to keep givin'er. Being filled with the fire that they are I'm excited to hear what this place is like in 5 years. I expect it will be much different.

With our team much more focused and diving into fasting and prayer we are prepping for the journey to Turkey. Everyone one of us has engaged in fasting in the past week. We have our hearts and our minds refocused/refocusing on the Lord. We are realizing that Turkey is gonna be an intense adventure and if we want to be difference makers there we need to pray first and then be ready to go out. I personally am really expecting to meet with God in big ways during my time of fasting. Like Moses and the burning bush. I've been learning so much and I can't wait to head to Turkey and see how God moves through our team.

As we've continued on in our ministries here, sports ministries, Kawan a place for homeless people to get food, a nap, a shower and a place to hang out, and the door of hope time has just flown by. We won't forget the wonderful people we've met or some of the stories and adventures to tell. God bless Malaysia. There is one particular story that was pretty intense. This is Stephen's story of what happened on a wednesday at Kawan:

Written By Stephen Wood

ok where to begin where to begin... So yesterday at Kawan, a man named david came in completely drunk. He was wobbling around and just not stable. about ten minutes after being there, he has already annoyed some of the other people that were there and was not listening to Ben the leader guy. Ben tells david to leave but instead david calms down and says he will go sleep. There are mattresses up stairs for them to use so he went up there. he only slept for about 30 minutes so he didn't lose any affects of the alcohol. anyways I had just come down from another part of the house to see a small fight break out in front of the house. I ran out in time to see a hammer fly from a guys hand (lets call this guy Jobin as i don't know his name). Edd, a guy we work with grabbed Jobin and Ben was holding David. I ran after the hammer so that neither of them would get ahold of it again. i quickly learned that Jobin didn't like David and David didn't like Jobin. Jobin had not hit David with the hammer at all Thank you Jesus! so we sent them on their separate ways but David, being drunk, followed Jobin... i dont know why. i said to Edd and Ben they are gonna fight again but they said "its not our problem off of the property" thats fair but ridiculous i thought. anyways i walked to the corner to watch as Jobin turned around and started coming back... everyone else was at the door to Kawan and couldn't see. at this point David and Jobin where about ten feet from each other i turned to Edd and Ben and said "they are going to fight again should I break it up" they responded with no its not our business. i looked back just in time to see Jobin catch David in the neck with a screw driver. Shocked i said to Ben and Edd "David just got stabbed"... at this point hammer in hand i am determined to go and stop this. so i start toward the fight and as i look back to fight i see Jobin stab David again in the chest and then Jobin takes off... David turns around and says call an ambulance... at this point Edd is right behind me and he tells Ben to call. Edd and I help David, covered in blood, back to the Kawan centre and lay him down on a mattress. When he was laying there he said he could breath. it was because the stab in the chest punctured his lung we believe. he was a bloody mess he was dirty and smelly and sweaty and worst of all BLOODY! i didnt know what to do i was repulsed by it. i didn't feel love for this man at all... he was a stupid drunk man in need of love and i couldn't do it... i was mad at myself. this is what i was here to do! love the unlovable. why was this such a struggle? My mind instantly went to Jesus, these were the people he loved... so i told myself this is where the "training" ends and the reality of loving, really loving, the needy starts! so i did i changed my mind and held his hand when he asked for it and rubed his sweaty head when he asked me to. I got his blood and sweat on me but i figured it was where i was supposed to be. I knew he wouldn't die from the hole in his chest and neck but it was weird being there. i was lost in thought for a long time. Then the ambulance came and took him away. i dont know when i will see him again or if i even will see him again. but i wont forget it....


Thanks for reading


Love you guys,
Brendan

Char Koay Teow

As time goes on here in Malaysia I'm not quite sure who is helping who.  We've met some incredible believers here and I have been inspired by the strength of the christians here. I've heard a few times now that there will be a revival here within the next few years and with this kind of God fearing, God loving people it is easy to see why. We've come here to serve the people who need our help here and we've done that but at that same time I feel like they've helped us just as much. Encouraging us as we need it and letting us know were doing a good job even when it doesn't feel like it. As time and time again our humanness fails us and we don't say the right things, or we back down from an opportunity to share, It's great to hear that our God still loves us and will never stop loving us. For me as I push more and more into Him and spend more and more time with Him while I'm here the easier it is to talk to strangers and to not back down. Not to say that it's easy. I still find myself missing out on more opportunities then ones that I take. I just need to keep loving like Jesus did and when I keep seeing God's love of me I'll be able to see his love for others. So I'm still working on that but like the potter and the clay God is moulding me until I become perfect. Which I will never be, but as I respond to his love more and more I can only get closer. 


Our first day of ministry we had orientation and then we went to this Ministry called Kawan which means "friends" in malay and there was 3 groups. Johnny and Blake went and did some street evangelism with other people. Stephen was at the church service for the street people and that was with a bunch of other people. Me and Josef were praying over the night in a little upstairs room with a couple others. Then we had another day of orientation type stuff and walked around to see all the different temples and places of worship. That night we went to the Door of Hope which is a children's ministry and then we went there for 3 days in a row and hung out with kids and acted out David and Goliath and taught a bunch of english and we'll being doing that a bunch while we are here it's great. One of the days at the door of hope we cleaned these nasty public washrooms, It wasn't so bad because we listened to worship and made it a worship session, haha like on base morning worship duties except a lot nastier.  Sunday we went to Grace Sanctuary which is a small little church with almost all chinese people so it was amazing of course and we were all prayed for by the pastor there. We played floor ball monday night and it was amazing!! It was basically floor hockey and I was so happy to see hockey sticks in Malaysia! It reminded me of home in Canada. They were like plastic looking things but I was in my element. It's a great way to relate with college kids and the ministry they have going with that is awesome. We rented motorcycles that night and cruised around all night. We still had the motorbikes for the next day and cruised around the whole island looking for beaches and seeing the country it was awesome. The traffic is just ridiculous here and there is like no rules so were weaving in and out of cars watching for pedestrians and watching out for cars and other bikers then at red lights we just cruise up to the front of the line it's amazing!! oh and monday we had a treasure hunt and we decided it would be good to go to this one place for lunch and while we were there this guy came up to us and talked to us for like an hour or more and it seemed like he was prophesying over us and he said he believed in Jesus, but then he said he was hindu and believed in all gods... so it was weird, we tried to tell him that Jesus was the only God and we prayed for him and gave him lunch. Today we went to Kawan again helped out, hanging out with the homeless people for breakfast and lunch and helping clean up the place, it was fun. Wednesday we spent the day at Kawan which is a place for homeless people to come and eat and take a nap indoors, and free showers. We spent time there just chatting with people and cleaning up the place. We did night evangelism and street church there again. Thursday we had activity with Ed. Ed is a guy from Holland who has been here for 4 years now doing evangelism so we took the bus somewhere and found this awesome hike off the road and climbed up a river for an hour or so and then got to this dam in the middle of the jungle and we saw some awesome jungle animals that I've never seen before it was great! I'm used to only seeing moose and deer in the Canadian forest it was a little different here.  Then right after that we went to the Door of Hope again for kids ministry it was a long but great day. Friday helped out at Kawan again  then we hung out with some people from the "Logos Hope" which is a ship that is docked here that is part of Operation Mobilization and the ship has been for a while now and is leaving on wednesday but they do lots of good work at each country they visit brining help, hope and knowledge. We also went to Penhop and had friday night burn from 10pm-1am and it was a great 3 hours of worship. Good to be filled.  Today we went to play futsal with some locals kids and hang out with them it was great fun but I've never sweat that much in my life! At least it's good for me. And that's where I'm at so far in Malaysia. It's been fun and I'm excited to see what comes next!


Thanks for reading,


Brendan

5 dudes in Malaysia, why?

Last night as we walked up to the roof to have a worship session and pray in high places over the city, Steve our team leader pointed out something very interesting to me. Why would 5 very capable, handsome, strong men who could easily be working out fantastic successful lives, in university, working, getting girlfriends, guys who could have awesome lives living the american dream give that all up and go to the ghetto in Malaysia just to love people? (Granted we may not be here for ever, but were still sacrificing half a year of our normal lives) We do it because we are so loved. We go way out of our way, half way across the country just to love people because we are so loved. We're loved so greatly by our father in heaven and the people around us that we can't help but go out and share that love to people that may not know it. If we really realize that and love people with all we've been given were gonna make a huge impact in this world and that is what it's all about. Anyways... I'll tell you about Malaysia so far.


God is great and our travels went incredibly easy. We got on the plane, without hardly having to wait in the airport. After a long 11 hour flight we landed in Malaysia. Johnny was sitting on the plane with a man named Jeeva, and he helped us out when we got there and got us started on the buses to Penang, super nice guy. After a bus to Kuala Lumpur Central station we got on a few trains to where the bus stops to Penang are. There we were walking around like chickens with their heads cut off... or just 5 dudes who didn't know where to go. Then a lady came up to us asked us where we were going and showed us to this awesome bus and then walked away. We paid 35 RM or about $12 each to take a 6 hours bus ride to Buttersworth, Penang. It worked out so smoothly we thought we were getting scammed. Then we took a fairy across the island into the city Georgetown, Penang where the base is and just walked right to it. Praise God it went so smoothly. We just spent the rest of the evening walking around finding where we are and grabbing some grub, which is cheap and delicious. Seriously Penang is a food lovers paradise, EVERYTHING is so amazing! and so cheap!! So today we've been walking around, we hit up the mall and we'll be going out again this afternoon just to get a feel for the locals and what this place is like. Lovin' life here so far! We start our scheduled ministries tomorrow, not to say we aren't looking for opportunities even on our days off. So yaaaaaa That's Malaysia so far, it's real gnarly.


Love ya!


Brendan

The Start of A New Chapter

Well in two days I'll be leaving on outreach and I couldn't be more excited.

Today we had our last day of lectures and it was some awesome worship time and just praying for each other and loving on each other. This afternoon we packed away all our stuff and now all we have access to is the our backpacks and the clothes were taking on outreach. It was a bittersweet day. Coming up to the realization I'm gonna have to leave what has become my home, with what has become my family. That's the bitter part. The sweet part is that I'll be taking some of that family with me to some very beautiful places, and the adventure I'm about to be taken on is gonna be one with wild stories to tell. I'm gonna see a lot of things on outreach that wouldn't be possible without God on my side. I can't wait to just show some major love to people in Malaysia and Turkey. It's been confirmed time and time again today that me and my outreach team are mighty men and mighty warriors for God. Me and 4 men. Me, Blake Ryan Cooper, Josef, Johnny, and my team leader Stephen. My passport also arrived today, fresh off the printing press and looking beautiful it couldn't have arrived at a better time. Our commissioning was also tonight and we had everyone on base sending us out with prayer and good words of encouragement. After that we gathered everyone and had our very own premiere of the brand new snowboarding movie "The Art of Flight" and it was amazing. It was more like a documentary about the risks of snowboarding and what a life chasing snow is like. Seems fun, but there is so much more... The video was one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen and the cinematography was amazing.

Since Queenstown the school has made huge steps of growth. Queenstown was kind of a turning point for us. After that week we had a speaker named Mark Parker who challenged us in big ways and we gave up anything we were holding on a little too tightly and it made us free to live out God's will in our lives. Since then we have all actively pursued God more and more. Through a series of people fasting and getting revelations from God this school is more than ready to go out there and spread the love.

As I'm sitting in the library writing this and just hanging out with a few of my friends I'm realizing how much I love them all. These people in this school have built me up and encouraged me through this time and I'm so thankful for the group that was brought together in this school. This is what church is really like. A group of believers encouraging each other and teaching each other and learning from each other, but most of all loving each other. Laughter, joy, tears, injuries, healings (just tonight Jessica's knees were healed), successes and failures, we've been through a lot together and it's fantastic. Love these people. For those back home don't worry I still love you! haha just making sure you know that...

Going out on outreach please pray for us to have strength to fulfill God's will for us, strength from God. Also pray that we would know God's love for everyone we see and share that love with them and feel that love for ourselves. That kind of love would enable us to be humble servants and that is what people take most notice of. I've learned a lot so far but I can't wait until I learn even more on outreach. God is putting together a good plan for the next year for me. I can't wait to see where he takes me.

Thanks for reading!

Love ya,

Brendan

King of Queenstown

Queenstown is so gnarly. We drove up last saturday and when we went in to town saturday night there was a big rugby game going on New Zealand against Australia and the streets and the bars were crowded. We had been living in a christian bubble for the past month and a half so it was pretty crazy. It is such a party town I think there is more bars than anything else there. It was so much fun hanging out there.

On sunday we went into this town called Wanaka and it was awesome, crazy beautiful scenery and a great burger place. We went to a church in Wanaka that was founded by some snowboarders and it was awesome, we met Kelly Clark there, she is an olympic gold medalist in the half pipe, best girl snowboarder in the world I think. We got the chance to talk with her and pray for her it was cool. Then on monday we went to the hill called The Remarkables which is on the mountain range that Mordor was filmed on. So it was super windy on the hill so only a couple chairlifts were open and we had to hike to find powder, but we found some awesome powder and it was cool hiking that much. Then in the afternoon we found this jump that Scott had been on earlier he said it was awesome for backflips so we then decided we were gonna do backflips. A bunch of us were there hiking up and down the hill to get this backflip down. A few times I had the spin down but not enough air so my nose hit the ground and then I bailed but that was the closest I came. Then Scott ended up getting the rotation down a bunch of times but not landing and finally he landed one it was super awesome! I'll get er' next time though don't you worry. Another guy Davie Jones also did it so it was pretty awesome. Then on Tuesday we had lectures, with Angelina she tought all week on how to do an inductive bible study it was good to learn that stuff. Tuesday we went to Snowpark, it was legendary!! Right before we went up on the hill they closed it down for an hour for some pro skiers to do some filming for a movie and there was a helicopter flying around filming them and they were riding up the hill on snowmobiles to get to the top of the jumps it was a huge production and cool to see. It was just such a privilege to be at Snowpark that place is amazing. However disaster struck at Snowpark and one of the girls Jessica landed on the knuckle of a big jump and blew out both her knees. It was bad, but her spirits are still high so she's a trooper! Keep her in your prayers for healing. Wednesday and Thursday was all lectures. Except on Wednesday night we went out to Queenstown to try and do some evangelism and we got in some pretty cool conversations. Friday we went up to a hill called Cardrona and the burton open was going on and they had ripped down the park the week before to make all the jumps triple the size for the contest. We saw one guy pull a double back 1080 it was so amazing. All that being said we had tons of fun playing around in the other parks that were there and it was just a great day. Since the contest was going on there was a lot of free giveaways so I didn't even have to take a break for my sandwich. The best kind of day! It was a great end to a great week in Queenstown and we had Fergberger to finish it off, best burgers in New Zealand.

This week is supposedly gonna be a gnarly week spiritually so pray for it to be super awesome and for energy throughout the week!

Thanks guys,

Love You!

Brendan

X comes before Y

Sometimes we find ourselves asking why we would hike half an hour up the hill for a 5 minute ride down it, or perhaps why we would ride in an area where it is mostly rocks, or how come we always put our gnarly boots on instead of turn down an awesome opportunity? Well the answer of course is because X comes before Y!!!!! It's time to get X-treme!!! This week are heading to the world capital of extreme sports Queenstown. We will be hitting up 3 different mountains while we are there including the infamous Snow-park NZ, in which some scenes of the best snowboard movie ever "That's it That's All" were filmed! http://youtu.be/Z3heqxz43_0 this will be one of the places I'm gonna ride next week. The rest of the week we will be doing lectures and going out in Queenstown to find some opportunity to serve the Lord and having another week of getting closer to God. 

How many snowboarders does it take to screw in a light bulb?

3, one to screw it in, one to film it and one to yell "SICK!!!!"

Anyways... Last week we had this speaker named Adriel Booker and she talked about Identity. She taught us that as christians our identity is in christ and God know longer considers us as sinners but as holy people and the royal priesthood of God. We learned some really good stuff about acceptance and rejection in society and all sorts of cool stuff.

This week we had a speaker named Mandy Hudson, she talked about spiritual warfare and it was pretty gnarly. We just learned about the ongoing battle that is everywhere. We learned that we can stand from a place of victory because of the Holy Spirit in us. Pretty cool stuff!

I'm really excited for this week in Queenstown though. We have had some pretty big warnings against disunity so please be praying for unity within the group so that we can be as effective as possible.

Love you all

Brendan

"Let's get it on" -Marvin Gaye

Well we're finally getting to go snowboarding on all the days we are supposed to, the hills are just starting to open because this has been one of New Zealand's worst winters for snow in the mountains! But it's not the only reason I'm here so I haven't minded that at all. Anyways this saturday we got to go to Mt. Hutt again and there still wasn't much snow but it was open and so was the mini park with some boxes and stuff, and on Wednesday we went to Porters and it was the same kind of deal. Porters only has T-bars it's crazy! some fairly long runs are available but you have to ride a T-bar for so long and now my inner thigh is majorly bruised. None the less it was such a great time and I hope to improve a bunch by the time I get back!

We've had this speaker this week named Frank and he is this massive Samoan guy and I call him Frank the Tank, not really sure how feels about that though. He is this huge guy with the softest voice but sometimes he yells and it scares the crap out of you but it's really awesome. He's has got us to do a couple really cool activities to prove his point like he had one guy lay on the floor and have 4 other guys each grab a limb and the one guy has to escape from it. The idea was for the one guy to get help from all the people in the classroom that weren't involved in the activity or to use full force to get out, but the one guy was Scott, so he didn't want to actually hit anyone. I definitely would have... Anyways he didn't get out of the hold, especially since I was holding his leg. All the guys holding him had a certain issue that guys have to wrestle with like pride or lust or doubt written on his arm so the idea was that it is hard to do that alone.

And we had to do charades and I had to act out Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it on" so people guessed that in about 10 seconds, of course I did a great job with that. Some of you are probably picturing me acting that out... you get the idea.

Ya Frank the Tank has been going over the character and Nature of God so it's pretty great. We had some outreach prep today and it was all about culture shock. Our outreach teams had to make up a culture to interact with other cultures and violence ensued, and now I have burns in 4 beautifully symmetrical lines on the side of my torso... use your imaginations and try and figure out how that happened that should be fun for you. It involved using Styler as a sacrifice and that's the only hint you get.

So still learning lots and having tons of fun, Can't wait to go to my countries and still loving everyone here, still loving everyone back home. I miss you all!

Brendan

Asia and The Middle East? Beauty!

I have had so much the fun the past week it's been amazing! Joel Parker continued to challenge us to move and to actually pursue some of the call on our life instead of just dream about them. I'm still trying to find out what mine are, but I'm getting there. Friday we went surfing and it was so much fun! It's a lot cheaper than snowboarding as well because you don't gotta pay for a lift ticket. We've only been able to go snowboarding one time so far because the hills still haven't opened, but apparently it will be open saturday so hopefully we will get to go. Today we went to Castle Hill and checked out some awesome scenery and climbed around on huge rocks and did all the fun stuff. Castle Hill is also a place in The Chronicles of Narnia so it was super cool! I'm really realizing why they filmed so many awesome movies here! The Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of The Rings if you didn't know. 

Our Speaker this Week is named Nick Badger we call him Nickjagger. He's a really cool dude. He's teaching us about The Cross and what it means and why it was necessary. God's love and grace is just amazing. So were still gonna be diving into that for the rest of the week.

Most important thing that has happened so far though.... Outreach is confirmed!

I'm going to Malaysia for a month and then Turkey for a month! They are both primarily muslim nations with something like 90% of people being muslim in Malaysia and like 96% or something in Turkey. I've been given a probable rate of arrest for Malaysia and almost definitely will get arrested in Turkey. I'm super stoked to share some love and hope in those countries!!

That's it for now.

I'll blog again when something cool happens!

thanks for reading :)

How real it becomes.

This week we have had this gnarly speaker named Joel Parker. This guy is next level bro, dude, so rad. That's how he talks he is a christian snowboard film maker, and a surfer and a pastor at a mega church in Seattle. God is moving through him in some awesome ways at our school. He has been teaching us some pretty hard stuff about dying to ourselves so that we may be raised again not as ourselves but as Jesus living through us. It's not just something we can do once and all of a sudden were all Jesus like, but it's a daily struggle that we need to pray about every day and really concentrate on listening to God every day. Some pretty crazy stuff, however super awesome. He also tells some real funny stories which is always helpful. We learned a whole new perspective of looking at Simon Peter yesterday as well. I'm sure it is new for all of you as well, he calls Peter so punk rock. He often challenges Jesus just like a punk kid would challenge someone in authority. But God used him in awesome ways in acts as he started the church and brought 3000 people to God in one day in Acts 1. pretty cool. Today we went over ways to answer common questions asked by non-believers. I still don't have all the answers but it's cool to explore!

Yesterday we went to christchurch again to clean up some more earthquake damage. Then of course last night an earthquake hit off the coast of New Zealand and flooded some of Christchurch... It's never ending work for God's people.

But the big thing that happened last night... OUTREACH LOCATIONS. Finding out our outreach locations made this trip seem so much more real! It finally set in the purpose for why I'm here. To spread hope to all the nations and just like Jesus, Seek and Save that which is lost.

The options are:

1. Malaysia and Turkey

2. Jordan

3. Queenstown and India

I've Picked Malaysia and Turkey as my first option, not quite sure yet which one I'll be going or what I'll be doing so I'll keep you guys posted!

In the mean time just keep up your prayers and especially pray for discernment from the leadership team as they finalize what places we will all be going to and continue to pray for unity with everyone here.

Thanks everyone, Love you all!

Brendan

It's time to get extreme!!!!

We finally got past all the detail type stuff and were into what we are really here for. On wednesday we all shared our testimonies and for 20 of us it took about 5 hours so it was pretty awesome. There was such a wide variety of stories being told it was amazing. Stories ranging from people who have been christian there whole lives and were destined to come to YWAM and some who were struggling until the day their plane took off with drugs and alcohol. The most powerful way we saw God move that day is when we renounced any demons that Scotty had left in him and saw him shake as they left, and the instant smile he had on his face when the Holy Spirit filled those places that were now open (getting a little hot and heavy here). Ya it's just awesome to here the variety of stories and I'm so thankful that we are all here together, and that we all answered the call and made it out here.

On Thursday we then had our first lectures and they were awesome. First we talked about Hearing God's voice and then Worship was our second lecture. It was just some basic stuff and it was just really cool to see some ways God speaks. Then we had some sweet hearing God practice it was super cool. Then on friday we talked about intercession and prayer and learned some awesome things about why we pray.

On friday afternoon we went to Christchurch to do some earthquake relief. There is this things called liquefaction that happens with earthquakes and it brings all sorts of silt and crap up to the surface so everyone's lawns and gardens and sheds are just full of this crap so we went into Christchurch and helped with some of the clean up. It was a humbling experience and I'm so glad I don't live anywhere near a fault line. But seeing all the damage in Christchurch really brought it home that there is a lot of people that need our help in this world. and what 21 of us could do in a few hours just the homeowners would have taken months, probably years. Many hands make light work.

Then today we finally went snowboarding and it was awesome! except for there was only a couple runs open and there is barely any snow yet... and except for that I really owned myself. I've been struggling with this nasty hip injury and the bruise now takes up my entire leg between my knee and the top of my hip, and it looks like I have a volleyball or a woman's basketball (but not big enough to be a regular basketball) starting to protrude from my hip and it makes it really hard to walk let alone snowboard. So I had to sit in for the rest of the day :( I am not a fan of taking time off to heal injuries so this is definitely gonna be a challenge. Testing my patience. So that is where we stand before I go to bed tonight. Keep me in your prayers for that.

Thanks

Brendan

Skates, Luggage, Irish.....and so forth.

I finally have collected all my luggage! My board bag and my clothes are all here! I'm so very excited to have everything that I wanted to have... Including jackets because it isn't especially warm here during the winter season. Anyways that's very exciting but not exactly what I'm blogging about.

The school just started on monday and we haven't had any real lectures yet just administrative stuff and rules and regulations and all the stuff you have to go through. We had our first School thing on Sunday night and it was a welcome dinner and everyone involved with our YWAM base was there so we got to meet everyone working behind the scenes it was pretty cool. We had a New Zealand special meal... mutton. Which is sheep and it was delicious, and then there was this awesome dessert, it pretty much sums up all the meals we have had so far. The food has been delicious, and if I keep eating like this I'm gonna be huge in a few months... hopefully I'll just lose all that weight again on outreach. Also sunday night was our first worship session and it was amazing. We may not have had the most practiced worship band and their was a few hitches in the music and Scotty is playing drums right now, and he hasn't in so long but actually sounds pretty dece, but it was still fantastic. Everyone was just concentrating on Worshipping the Lord and not about who was around them and the Holy Spirit filled that place.

Now that our real schedule is starting tomorrow I think we will have a lot less free time, but since we have had so much free time since we got here we have been taking those opportunities to hit the skatepark. Now that I have my skate it's gonna be even sweeter! We are getting to know a lot of the local kids pretty well. Some of them are so sick at skateboarding it's awesome. These two kids that are always there one is named Andre, and one is named Irish (Yes that is his real name) are really good at skateboarding and they are pretty young probably like 15 and 12 or something like that. They played a game of SKATE with a guy from our DTS named Skyler and it was really cool to watch them doing some really cool tricks. Getting to know the locals is cool because we could get a chance to do some evangelism with them and spread the good news. Pretty cool.

Finally everyone arrived today as well and it was really cool meeting with everyone else and everyone just fitting in right away and I'm looking forward to get to know everyone here in a fantastic strong relationship. It's only been 4 nights and these people are super cool. I'm also getting pretty good at ping pong, I'll be a legend by the time I get back. Tomorrow we get to hear everyones testimonies and share our own. I'm really excited to learn so much more about everyone through that. Getting so stoked for that and real lectures starting up on thursday as well! Can't wait to get to know God so I can make him known.

Love from NZ

Btack

Airplanes and Sheep

After the bus ride we hung out a couple days in Van City, and it was a great time. It was a really good way to take a break in between 15 hours of bus ride and 2 days of planes.

The planes started out pretty good and it was super exciting taking off from Vancouver to be on my first trip over seas. We took off from Vancouver at like 7 on Wednesday June 22nd arrived in LA around 11 and left for Fiji around 130,  landed in Fiji at 540 On friday the 24th (that's right we skipped June 23). From Fiji we left at about 830 in the morning then went to Auckland landed at about 1130, and that is the first time we had to grab our luggage since Vancouver. So we picked up Scotty's big clothes luggage bag right away and then started waiting for my luggage and both our board bags... and then we kept waiting... and then a little more waiting... and then it clicked. They were not there. So we filed a report and gave them the contact number for our base and the address and all that and now were just waiting on that stuff. So we left with our carry ons and Scotty's luggage flew out of Auckland at 3 and arrived in Christchurch around 400. We got an awesome welcoming from a few of the other students who had flown in that day and the staff that came and picked us up and things were instantly good to go, everyone clicked right away it seemed. It was then an hour drive to Oxford and by the time we got to Oxford it was dark out... and that's when I realized we were in winter again, from Summer Solstice to the sun setting at 530. Typical.

Anyways that was our travel itinerary, now a bit about the base. The room I'm staying in has bunk beds and there is 6 of us staying in the room. That should make for a gong show of epic proportions. The student lounge is downstairs and that consists of a bunch of couches and a ping pong table lots of chill time there probably to come. The other building has our classroom and our dining hall. In the classroom there is like 6 acoustic guitars all with a broken G string and a drum set and a bass, maybe I'll learn some music skillz while I'm here. Behind the main building there is a building called "The Ghetto" it's got a weight room/library and the old bunks. Behind that building there is "The Field of Dreams" and this field is epic. It's got a trampoline, a volleyball net, a mini half-pipe for skating and a sweet open space. That will be unreal. For those of you who have been to SABC they have the really awesome free hot chocolate things hear as well and I'm lovin' that.

We just watched "That's it That's All" which is the best snowboarding movie ever and if you haven't seen it then you need to. Anyways it was just a great time getting to know the bros since only one of the girls are here so far. Gets me stoked to be here. I can't wait to see what God does with me and these guys  and everybody else when the DTS starts on sunday.

Love from NZ

Btack

How I Found Myself Here

As another day begins me and Scotty embark on the journey of our lives thus far, and perhaps the coolest one we’ll ever have. I personally am so thankful for the way things turned out in my life to this day. As the date approached for my departure and all the goodbyes began I started to realize just how loved I am. I couldn’t believe how encouraging all of the goodbyes and the see you laters really were. Everyone from my lacrosse team to my friends and my family and my church family were amazing in the encouraging words and I have seen so much more love than I’ve shown in the past few weeks. I already knew I’d miss everyone and now I know you will all miss me, so thank you so much for all your love! I can’t wait to pay it forward and I can’t tell you how much it impacted me.

Today we are on a 15 hour greyhound ride from Calgary to Vancouver and for those of you who don’t know my story this is how I got to this point, sitting in this seat with this friend.

I guess if we want to go all the way back in the past briefly I first accepted Christ into my heart in kids church. It never really meant much at that point because I didn’t really know what it meant and I didn’t really feel any different. Then life went on until high school and the Mexico trip in grade 10 I really felt the presence of God and that’s when I accepted him in my life again, but this time really meant it. When I got home from the trip however life just continued on the same course it had been on, just living life as a high school kid no different than anyone else. There was spiritual highs on SABC (Southern Alberta Bible Camp) youth trips and Mexico trips where we went to build houses for people who desperately needed it. Amazing how by serving other people you get more fulfillment then you do serving yourself, something that I learned very quick in Mexico but never held it for very long. Near the end of high school I started leading a great bunch of kids in youth church that were in grade 6 at the time, I still lead them now and they are just finishing off grade 9, It’s amazing how much they have grown already. Through leading a bunch of rowdy youth kids my faith was challenged to grow through having to teach about God and about the way He loves and the way we need to reflect that love in everything we do. When I started leading youth that’s when my faith slowly moved from one or two days a week to being challenged to live everyday for God. It hasn’t been an easy journey and it sure isn’t done yet but since then my faith has grown much faster than before and right now it’s about as solid as it’s ever been and I couldn’t be happier.... well at least not that I know of, but I can’t wait to be pleasantly surprised. 

I’ve run into some challenges along the way as well. Probably the longest lasting and most difficult challenge so far has been the challenge to try and bring my friends back to the light after they had lost their way. Naturally after high school a lot of my friends got involved a lot more in partying and drinking and  drugs, I know it happens right? Well I didn’t want to see my friends go down that path of constant yearning for that living in the moment life. After a while my friends every sunday at church went down to 2 or 3 friends every sunday, before that on a good sunday I probably had 10 or 15. Anyways seeing the drastic change and the desire for the physical desires had started to wear on me and all I could do was keep loving on my friends every single day, and I always did love them and never fell far out of friendship with them and I’m so thankful all my friends still loved me as well. Anyways eventually most of them decided that they were done with all that and started thinking about mistakes they were making and questioning what they were living for and a huge revival happened and now one of them is with me on this trip and mostly everyone else is praying for me back at home. I thank God all the time for their hearts.

Well that is a brief version of where I have been now for when I decided to go to YWAM Oxford instead of another year at general studies school.

I will never forget one night in Palms Springs, California. I was sitting on a longboard with a dear friend and that was when the decision was made that I wasn’t gonna go back to school for that year and I was gonna save up to go somewhere... she asked if I was gonna go back to school next year and I said no I don’t think I will. I didn’t know where yet but I knew it was gonna be somewhere. I had no direction in life and I was really struggling with that, I wanted to go do something to learn about myself and I thought it would be nice to help other people as well. I loved school and I made a lot of really awesome friends there whom I still hang out with a year later, but I needed to find a purpose, mine wasn’t there. At least not yet it may be when I come back home who knows. It was about a month later I believe some time in August when I heard about the Snowboarders DTS (Discipleship Training School) in Oxford, New Zealand I was hooked. Initially the snowboarding drew me in but God knew my passions. It wasn’t long before my intentions switched solely from having a good time to serving God, that being said I’m still very excited to have fun. My fun won’t just be on the hills, it will be in the lectures, during worship and during anything we may be doing on base, and of course the outreach.

Soon after I decided to go to YWAM God moved something in Scott’s heart and then I had someone to go with, amazing how that worked out. He has his own stories to tell as well.

The next 10 months were devoted to working and saving up and this trip was always on the horizon of my thoughts and I finally had something to look forward to that I knew was what I was supposed to be working towards. It made all the days at work in the cold for winter seem a lot shorter because I knew what I was working towards. I got to know my friends better and met more lovely people and life kept keeping on. It was awesome. A few months ago a young adults home group started and I was getting support from a lot of people I have learned from and will continue to learn from. It kinda sucked getting to know so many people and then leaving right away, but I know they will be there with open arms when I return, they have meant so much to me.

I’m so excited for what God has for me and I can’t wait to see where he takes me in outreach and what he will have me do. Thanks for all your continued prayers and support and stay tuned for the next post on what I’ve done so far.