Church Serving Week

Hello again!
A lot has happened since I last updated... but I'm just going to write about this past week. God has done so much through us in a small amount of time! Last Thursday, our school broke up into our outreach teams and went out to serve. My team (Becky, Adrian, Francesca, Ruben, Allie, Aaron, and me) drove to Gore which is about 7 hours away and helped out at an Easter Camp there. Easter Camp is a huge deal here in New Zealand--it's what all the cool kids do! The one we were at was smaller...probably 200 teenagers. The Easter Camp the 3 other YWAM teams were at was HUGE. Around 4,000 teens went to that one! 
Anyway, on the way to Gore my team got to intercede for the camp and spend time just asking the Lord to use us as his hands and feet in any way needed. We had no idea what we were going to be doing there, but we were ready to serve and bring Jesus's love, joy, and peace! We ended up helping with dishes, games, small groups, counseling, cleaning, and more. One day we even got to teach a class about mission work! The theme was Micah 6:8 which is doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God. We talked to the kids in depth about the verse, then preformed a skit we made up (hopefully I'll get that on video and on YouTube soon, it's great!). Then we got to talk to them one on one about things they enjoy doing and how they can use those things to glorify God and impact others' lives. It was awesome! 
It was really cool getting to know these kids and being part of their culture and learning more about New Zealand through them.


  One day during a break, our team decided it would be fun to go on a little adventure... so, we hiked down a hill, crossed the road, went down to a river bed, and gazed a while at a huge, mountain filled, sheep farm. One of the most beautiful places I've seen (especially because the sun was starting to set). Unfortunately I didn't have my camera, but I took a few pretend photos for sure! 
We decided looking at it from afar wasn't enough... so, we walked across the river on a fallen tree branch and out into the field. Then, when that still wasn't enough, Adrian and I decided to hike up this huge hill so we could get a better view. I thought it would be impossible to get to the top because of how steep it was... but no, we climbed up a dead pine tree, through the bushes and thistles and such until we successfully reached the top! I felt invincible! 
The view was totally worth it. I cannot fathom how a person can live here and not know God. It blows my mind! He's so beautiful. And the stuff He makes is pretty cool, too. :) 
On the way back down Adrian thought it would be a good idea to chuck this huge log down so he could make a better bridge across the river. So while I was focusing on climbing down this dead pine tree, avoiding getting bombarded by thorny plants and falling to my death, Adrian was, oh you know, just carrying a huge tree branch. It was hilarious. I couldn't stop laughing! 


  The rest of camp was super fun; full of games and getting to know people! It was sweet getting to be more personal with people because it was a smaller camp. I loved getting to see some kids' lives changed in just a few days! A lot of them accepted Jesus as their Savior by the end of camp! I was blessed to get to be part of that... I was also extremely blessed by the appreciation our team (they called us "The Beautiful YWAMers") got from the staff. They thanked us countless times in different ways. It felt so rewarding to serve! I love that feeling!


  After driving back 7 hours, we got to sleep at the base. It was nice to get to shower and sleep in my room! Tuesday morning we packed up the van once again and headed over to 0800 Hungry for the second part of church serving week! 0800 Hungry is an amazing organization that provides food for people in Christchurch who can't afford groceries and are in need. They keep all of the names of people they give food to and pray for them. It's seriously awesome. They are running very low on staff and they're in a large warehouse with loads of supplies coming in all the time. We spent the week unloading boxes, organizing shelves, cleaning, filling hundreds of boxes with food and supplies for families and getting them all ready to send out, and delivering. This was definitely the highlight of my week. I love being used in practical ways to impact the kingdom of heaven! 
Yesterday Allie and I got to deliver boxes around Christchurch. We saw a lot of the red zone (where the earthquake has damaged the city the most). We delivered to people who were obviously in bad situations, and it was hard seeing that. I wish I could have done more for them. Giving them food was meeting physical needs, but all of them were obviously hurting spiritually and emotionally too. We interceded for them in between runs and prayed for their personal situation. One lady let us pray with her, that was cool!
So anyway, it's been a great week... I've worked really hard and I'm exhausted, but man, I'm so thankful I got to do this!


Of course, when you're being used in great ways by God, Satan tries to come in and bring you down. He's attacked me in many ways this week, but because we've been so in tune with the Holy Spirit and unified as a team in prayer and worship, I've been able to catch it right away and pray against it. I've felt discouraged many times by lies and thoughts the enemy puts in my head but thank Jesus I came right back at him every time with scripture and prayer! It's been awesome having this new love for the Bible! It's my sword! BAM! Take that!
Another thing is sickness, though. I've realized this week how blessed I've been in NZ with my health! I came here and my allergies haven't bothered me at all. But working in that extremely dusty, dirty warehouse, I can hardly breathe anymore. Haha it's bad! It was hard at times pushing through it and working as hard as possible, but I kept a good attitude and got through it. And it felt goooood. Also, I didn't bring good shoes... and after working every day from 8:30am to 5:00pm on a hard concrete floor with no foot support, my leg started cramping up so bad! 
AH. I am extremely grateful to be back "home" with nothing to do tomorrow but rest. :)


  All in all, this week has been incredible. I saw God answer prayers left and right. We really made impact everywhere we went and in everything we did. Oh yeah! Before we left last week we had no idea where we would be sleeping or how we would even have food to eat... so our team prayed that God would provide and we declared that we trusted Him as our Father to give us more than we needed. Well, guess what? We ate four huge meals a day and I slept in one of the coziest beds ever. Yep, that's my Daddy. We asked, and He literally dumped blessing on us. I ate so much this week I don't remember what it feels like to be hungry... I think I gained 5 more pounds... Ha!!! so...many...Tim Tams....... 
hahaha okay that's all I've got.


BLESSINGS!