more Queenstown!

Late the other nite a few of us went to the sidewalk to do some practice poi, and thru that we met Toby and Paul, 2 Germans who are living close to Queenstown, and Nat and I hung with them listening to live reggae. Paul was more open to deep conversation and we learnt he believes in a higher power and pulls things from various religions, so we're definitely keeping these guys in our prayers. Sunday we had church at Vineyard, enjoyed the warm weather, met new people, and even got some attention with our circus act of poi and slackline. Everyone packed up that nite as yesterday was busy. we headed to Reaver's Lodge hostel which is blessing us with free accomodation for a couple hrs work/day (thx for the tip Sherpa!) and got busy cleaning and doing yardwork with the fabulous employees there. After that we headed to Wanaka to advertise the free BBQ that nite and then helped out with it. We got to see Mary and Julica (crossroaders!) again and a bunch of us, including some people we just met that day went out for pizza afterwards. We also got out our slackline and practice poi again as it's a great ministry tool. This morning we got to soak up God during worship and devos and glorify Him cleaning!!!!! We bouldered a bit and are currently chilling at Vineyard. God Bless!

Christmas!

Merry Christmas all! Let me attempt the impossible task of putting Christmas her einto words...after sleeping in and exchanging gifts we headed outside and Natalie (leader) took off across the street to the church, feeling God led. It turned out they were expecting us and blessed us with a free meal, we also got to meet a couple other travelers, including a girl from Winnipeg! (1 hr from me!) This church is special because it used to be a brothel, and they have turned each room into something unique-prayer, healing, spa, and of course sanctuary. It's small but full of Holy Spirit presence and power. To make a long story short, they ended up giving us a key so we can use their building for ministry-inviting ppl in to hang, enjoy a cuppa coffee, play games, worship, etc. They've also entrusted us with thei rtill and blessed us with the use of their internet. This is clearly where God wants us, so we've cancelled our Wanaka campsite and will be here until further notice. We even managed to find free accomodation in exchange for a few hrs of cleaning per day. Last nite we prayed for each other, which really brought us closer together. This has been an amazing unexpected Christmas. God Bless!

week update!

Hey all! This week we had David Riddell speaking...not my favorite week but still managed to get stuff out of it. He's a counselor so alot of the teaching seemed like something out of a psychology textbook and not as much scripture...last week was scripture scripture scripture which I loved so this was definitely different. Some of the new ideas/reminders I picked up this week:

-Beliefs(conclusions you've made and are living out) drive your life
-most churches have a set schedule and God must fit in during an allotted time
-we're human BEings...not human DOings~worth not determined by performance, doing must come out of being
-Spirit "I"
Body "Will"
Soul "Go"
-you won't quench the spirit if your mind is full of grace and peace
-tongues releases the river of living water
-As a man thinketh, so is he (Titus 1:15 "To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled.")
-one of the most reliable guides to mental/emotional health is how well you take correction
-check up from the neck up
-if you always do what you've always done you'll always get what you always got
-how can you love one another if you have self hatred in your heart?
-that was then, this is not
-speak the truth in love~the sooner you say it, the smaller the degree of resentment
-*a good tomorrow starts with an early nite tonite
-Amos 3:3 "Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?"

This weekend was awesome too...some of us went climbing for about 4 hours on Saturday, being instructed by 2 awesome YMCA guys, learning so that we're confident in climbing and belaying, which will be useful as we're climbing a bit on outreach, and when climbing you put all your trust in your belayer...you need to know that they have you if you fall...its also a good bonding thing for people because communication is key. We climbed outside which was awesome...I love the natural rock, and it was cool meeting other people hanging out climbing. Also got an opportunity to lead climb, not just top rope, which is definitely my favorite. Today has been pretty relaxing, church was awesome this morning. There was a Christmas service which had a huge family sense, kids and youth were involved and ywam even went up and sang a song. It was great really strange though...alot of us were like wow! We're in New Zealand singing Christmas carols! So weird...and shorts weather in december...crazy! Anyway...hung out with my roomates a bit 2 of them are taking off in just over an hour. Earthcare DTS is leaving for outreach tonight, heading first to Bali and then Cambodia. It's almost 2 am here, most of us are either staying up to see them off or waking up in the middle of the night to see them off. They'll be missed, but we're stoked for them and definitely upholding them in prayer. I'm leaving for outreach in 6 days so this weeks going to be busy packing and cleaning up the base. I'll try and update yet before I go on outreach. Later!

couple pix from West Coast and when the van overheated...waiting for our ride

speaking in tongues!!!!

Today I received the gift of speaking in tongues when I pray....church this morning was sweet, really felt the Holy Spirit's presence. At the end the pastor asked those who wanted to speak in tongues to step forward and receive prayer. I had been prayed over once before to speak in tongues but didn't succeed at it, but I really wanted it so I stepped up with some others and a woman from the church came and prayed for me in soft tongues. At first it was hard, took me awhile to get going, just started off praising God, talking to Him in english, and suddenly my tongue was loosed and it was incredible as it started going nuts bouncing off the roof and floor of my mouth as I quickly spewed out to God in words/sounds unknown to me, not knowing what I was saying but really feeling it deep down inside. It was so fun and it's a great tool because when I can't find words to say, tongues takes over and I kept thinking of things to pray for, starting with a sentence in english and just automatically switching. I'm really stoked because this is definitely going to help me in my prayers...it was cool too because before I came here tongues was just some biblical concept to me, it never really occurred to me that normal people nowadays can speak in tongues. Apparently the pastor touched my forehead once I got going to and was like whoa, could feel Holy Spirit presence...that's what I heard, I was totally into talking to God and have no idea what was going on around me.

Some info on tongues:
-the miraculous part isn't the act of speaking; it's the language. You speak; the Holy Spirit provides "the utterance," the words, the syllables.
-tongues is an edifying way of speaking to God
-scriptures on tongues: (Mark 16:17, Acts 2:4, 10:46, 19:6, 1 Corinthians 12, 13, 14)
-tongues releases a river of living water

Later!

glory of God!!!!

Hey all! This week our speaker was Dalton Lifsey from Tauranga (NZ) House of Prayer and he talked about the glory of God this week. Some of the many things that stuck with me this week:
-worship=celebrating God's glory
-God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him
-God created us for His glory (Isaiah 43:7 says: Everyone who is called by My name, whom I have created for My glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him.)
-God enjoys us!
-Don't run from God, run to God.
-Timothy was never comfortable in the spotlight, relied on God for boldness
-prophecy is testimony of Jesus, proclaiming His heart and backing it with Spirit power
-in the original Greek of Ephesians 1, there was no punctuation til vs 13 because Paul was writing in frantic excitement...I think that's awesome
-True praise is the external expression of internal experience of the glory of God.
-In evangelism, figure out what the appetite of the person your talking to is inclined towards
-You become what you behold (eg: if you move to the south you obtain a southern drawl after awhile)...so behold the glory of God! (2 Corinthians 3:17-18~Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
-hunger and humility are important!
-The World is Not Ending, the Age is..and New Age is coming cuz Christ is coming back!

He is an incredible young man of God whose Biblical knowledge and application really inspired me to hardcore study my Bible...throughout lectures he was quoting scripture, quoting scripture, quoting scripture. He also did a lecture "The call to be a faithful witness to the gospel thru apostolic preaching" which was sweet, hands down my favorite message I've ever heard. Here's his website if you want access to sweet stuff...http://www.daltonlifsey.com

In other news, today we went cave streaming and bouldering! Cave streaming was sweet it wasn't even cold after the first bit...the best was crawling thru a narrow dirty tunnel ending with a sweet 10 ft drop down to the stream...bouldering at Castle was fun too...didn't successfully boulder anything but definitely enjoy trying...nothin like hangin out on rock, good hold, nothing else matters but the route, chalk on your hands...i can't really put it into words, but it's sweet. Anyway, I'm gonna hang out with my roomates. Later!