west coast

This last week was Holy Spirit week...a couple of the many things that stuck with me this week:
-the word "trinity" and "monotheism" aren't in the Bible, but Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are
-if we could coompletely understant the Trinity, the mystery would be gone, and we would be God
-we don't know who we are til we know whose we are
-Father, Son, Spirit have a pertichoretic relationship-all intertwined in a divine dance together
-ICE concept: Intercession, Compassion, Empathy

Went climbing Friday which was sweet, learned to lead climb!!!!!! Soooo fun, the climbing camp my teams going to here in NZ is all lead climb so stoked for that. This wknd was a trip to the west coast and stayed overnite in a hostel which was amazing. The ocean is so beautiful and powerful and it was just one cool example of God's creation. The hostel was cool too, we met a couple people from German and hung out with them, also blessed them by inviting them to share our food with us. It was my first time in a hostel and I really enjoyed it, can't wait to stay in more hostels, especially for Christmas, it's gonna be sweet to bless people there. Also a cool thing this wknd was going into a cave and seeing glow worms. The internets slow right now, but i'll upload some pictures hopefully soon. Later!

Friday/Saturday

This whole week has been pretty awesome as always, but the last few days especially. Friday we had an awesome day of being in God's presence and had an opportunity to lay things down giving them to God...I laid down 2 things:
-My passport: (of course i get it back!) as a symbol that I'm not going to focus on what parts of the world I want to see in my future, but what parts of the world God wants me to see
-my watch: i'm a huge time person and I gave up my watch because i want to focus on Gods time, not my time
We also had an amazing day of worship and it was cool to see some people really anointed with the Holy Spirit (some spoke in tongues, some just convulsed with the holy spirit)...I was completely ready to publicly declare my faith and I got baptized in the evening along with a couple others, after which we had communion.

Today we went to the beach and one van was already overheating on the way there, and on the way back it started smoking so we quickly got out and pushed it to the side of the road with the help of a couple helpful strangers behind us and Seth had contact with the base as the van started smoking...so help was on the way and we just chilled on the curb, still in pretty good spirits. After awhile we just spoke out this list of things we were grateful for and right after that this lady approached us and asked if we were ok and if we needed anything, and that she runs a Christian organization in town. (she noticed the YWAM Oxford on the van). Katie said it would be great to fill up her water bottle so headed to this lady's place, and they came back with jugs of water and homemade cupcakes. It was such a blessing! We got to talk to the lady for a bit about her ministry and she told us a few cool examples of how God provides which was totally sweet...and blessed us all before she had to get back home. So in the end, it was actually good that the van overheated cuz we got to meet this lady...ttyl!

another quick update!!

This week was a little insane but so much fun. The snowboarders came back from their outreaches and had debrief this week, so early on in the week they did presentations on their outreaches which was really interesting. We also got to have worship with them 3 times this week, which was really awesome, energetic, and filled with the holy spirit. The previous week during intercession we each got a snowboarder to pray for and this week we got to go up to them in person and pray for them and give them words God had spoken to us about them...it was really cool because they were so grateful...so much fun to bless them. We had 2 speakers this week who talked about community development which was interesting, and the second guy showed us pictures of his water pumps he uses in various places which was kinda cool. Someone described it as not just bringing physical water to communities, but the living water as well. Friday we got the evening off from evangelism and went to Christchurch free to just hang out...so I went rock climbing again!!!!! Tons of fun...today enjoyed a relaxing day sleeping in and then went to the beach. Really sweet cuz this was my first time seeing the ocean...had a blast riding the waves, collecting shells, writing in the sand, pictures, just hanging out...next week the topic is Lordship (which is learning to be in God's presence and stuff, I'll learn more next week! :D) apparently the speaker, Mark Parker is awesome so definitely looking forward to that. Yup, there's my week for you! Have an amazing day!