Can you believe it's been a MONTH already?!!

This month has flown! DTS is on it's 4th week and we are learning SO MUCH! It's amazing how much you can learn when you lead a DTS. WOW everyday is a new learning experience. It makes me have more compassion for pastors and church leaders. Working with people is just messy. Yup, everyone is at a different place in life, from different backgrounds and different cultures. It's been stretching but SO GOOD for us.

I think the biggest thing is that we have had to rely on the Lord for almost every situation. More than anything God has shown us that PRAYER is what changes things. Yup that's it!! Who would have guessed... but PRAYER is what works! I think God has really shown us this because we will have some issue with a staff member or student and we don't know how to address it so instead we go to prayer about how to deal with it and then almost INSTANTLY things start changing with that person before we said ANYTHING to them, almost right before our eyes.. ya it's been amazing.... like God is showing up EVERY time for us. I feel like it's more than normal because God is almost shouting at us that He is the ONE to can change the heart. All of our staff are feeling this too that prayer is what is changing our school so we've been praying more.

When all of the students get here each one is at a different place in their walk so it's like herding cats sometimes to get them all on the same page in the Lord, especially in the beginning of DTS. Some of them were hard core partiers, some were good Christians, some have good families, some have no family! Ya so learning how to deal with each individual has been a challange but really good for us to learn how to love everyone individually. We feel kinda like the parents here seeing that we are one of the only couples on staff but it's been good.

Anyway, date nights have been good- actually LIFESAVING! God knew to get us into the habit while in Santa Barbara. By the end of the week we are just LONGING to be together without anyone else around. Yay so it's been good!

We are still looking for a car so if you could pray for us to find the right one that would be awesome. Strangely enough it actually feels good to be in need for a little while, cuz God has been so good in taking care of us with all of our needs that actually needing to rely on him for a ride from here to there has been cool. It makes life simple when you have to walk everywhere. =)

We found an AWESOME church here. Actually a real surprise seeing that we've heard that Australian churches can be known to be shallow on God's word and more about what's flashy or cool etc. Our pastor Tim is SO REAL.... We grow EVERY TIME we go. It's been so refreshing. We met some local couples at the church and have been making friends. It's been fun adjusting to life here. It's honestly not been too hard. God has been good.

Anyway, I could go on forever but know God is working in us so much. We feel your prayers and support! I think more than anything God has been showing us that even if no one else wants to come along in the journey to radically follow Jesus that it won't stop us from continuing to pursue him. You can bring a horse to water but you can't make them drink. Some students want God so much and some are half hearted, but through prayer anything is possible. Keep praying.

Love you all!! We really think of you as our family! Talk to you soon..

Bethany and Luke

Here are some fun pics. Our goofy staff! Always fun!

Staff bonding time. Playing Wii. Like the short shorts? That's popular here in OZ.. ya I don't think Luke will go for it. Not yet anyway.

I made lentil soup for everyone. The base food isn't the best so they were glad to get something good. =)

Gotta love YWAM. They always eat junk food. Aaron and Nate eating candy worms dipped in coke. Yuck!

So we thought we'd combat them with our carrots! =)

A typical Aussie BBQ. They call hot dogs snags here.

Me and beautiful Kelsie... she is from our church Reality back in Santa Barbara and God lead her to do the DTS that we happened to be staffing. God is so good. We absolutely LOVE having her here!

The feeding line!

Date night!

Heading to the beach!

Driving on the other side was hard at first but now only after a month I barely think of it. I think the hardest part is driving our huge buses that are stick shift with the LEFT HAND.

Luke finally getting to surf. So fun.. and I actually went surfing too... yes ME! I know I know shocker but the water is so warm it makes it easy to go in.

Of course I have to throw my food pics in here. I make Vietnamese PHO soup. Super yummy!

Class! We've had some great speakers so far.

This is my (Bethany) kitchen prep crew. I "happened" to get put on kitchen prep duty which was such a God thing cuz I was able to introduce some of my recipes here to help the health of this base. Here they are cutting up FRESH vegetables.. not frozen TV dinner veggies.

Serving my lentil soup and brown rice. Yay

This is our Local Outreach team. Each Friday we try to reach the community of Maroochydore. People are really into exercise here so our team decided to make up a free exercise circuit on the beach for anyone to join. We made flyers and got music and drinks for anyone who wanted to come. We pray each time, hand out flyers, share what we are doing with YWAM and invite them to exercise with us. Last week we met this sweet guy names Philip who seemed lonely and wanted a friend so he came along and worked out with us. He said he wants to come regularly so we were super excited to love someone for Jesus!

Jan 26th is Australia Day which is like our 4th of July so we all had a party and goofed around.

These wonderful girls are my staff buddies! We had a girl bonding time this last weekend and hung out, made french toast, played in the pool and prayed over each other. I am SO GLAD they are part of our team. I love them very much.

The girl on the far right is Whitney and she is leading an outreach with us to TAIWAN!! We are super excited. Tell you more soon!

With all the craziness of DTS it has been SO SO SO GREAT having date nights each week. Thursdays are our night so if you think of us pray for us on Thursdays to get refreshed and built up for the next week. It's been so great!

Well we love you all! God is just amazing! Thank you for taking the time to read our blog. We don't always have access to Internet every second so I hope this blog makes it to you! Would love to hear from you guys! We miss you all!

Bless you

Bethany and Luke