Half Way Through Lecture Phase! 5 weeks before Outreach!!

 

Wow, Lecture Phase has been zooming by!  Our students have been learning so much about the Bible and about how to grow in their character. We have different Bible reading plans that the students can choose from while on DTS and the hardest plan is called The Big Daddy Reading Plan. They read through the whole Bible in 5 months! Our student Mandie has been charging and she's not only all the way caught up but she is AHEAD and LOVING it! The other day she came to me (bethany) and put her hands on her head and was like, "wow I am getting SO much more from the bible than I ever thought!! It's been changing my life".... So cool how God's word does that. There is no other book like it.

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This is Noah, our wonderful Mission Builder for the quarter. A Mission Builder is someone who volunteers to help serve in whatever way a YWAM Base needs. So Noah decided to come for three months and make and serve us "morning tea"  when we have a break in between lectures.  He has been SUCH a blessing to us. Each week he gets more and more creative in how to put oranges, apples and lettuce together to make some crazy concoctions.  This one is a Kangaroo.

We had Jason Solari speak on hearing God's voice. It was the best and most practical teaching we've heard on the topic yet. He had us do a really cool but uncomfortable exercise where we had to sit in pairs and stare into each others eyes for 2 minutes WITHOUT looking away at all! At first you are super uncomfortable cuz your eyes speak soo so much and they really are the window to your soul. You start laughing but you CANNOT look away... by the end of the first minute you get more comfortable and then by the last few seconds you feel like you can go much longer. After doing that you realize how much you can know or learn about someone by just staring in their eyes. We weren't allowed to speak at all or say anything. And Jason was saying that so often we want God to speak to us with words but you can learn so much from Him through other forms of communication. He was a comm major in University and he said that 93% of communication is NON-VERBAL and yet we as Christians get so upset when God doesn't speak to us in words. Anyhow, I could go on and on but it was really cool...

Here is our little class of 14 students and 7 staff.. a booming 21 of us!

This is Solveig. She is from Norway and believe it or not she was born with only one arm. You obviously can't see it from this picture but her left arm is missing.  You'd think this would make a lot of things hard for her but no, she is AMAZING.. and can do almost anything. You would never guess that she is handicapped. She has taken a liking to surfing and at first we were like, "well this might be hard for you".. but after a few days of getting roughed up she can totally get up and stand!! Go Solveig.  She loves Jesus and will be on our outreach team.

There are only two guy students in our school and luckily one of them is as tall and white as Luke.. haha... Okay so it's the winter for us. This is Jason. He will be on our outreach team and we are super stoked to have him with us. He really has such a heart to grow in God and we have already seen many changes in him since the first day of DTS!

These are my beautiful students I get to disciple and become good friends with. This is Cari, she is from Colorado and Hawaii. Ya we have Hawaii in common. Her family lives in a  house on the Big Island for half the year so she has grown up there half of her life. Pretty cool. It's not too often I get to chat with someone who understands where I grew up. Cari came to DTS with her boyfriend Jason and they are just seeking God on what He has next for them and how their lives can reflect Jesus more.

This is Colleen. She is a brand new believer and has just BLESSED my life SO MUCH these past couple months! Her heart to know God and get rid of anything in her past that would keep her from knowing him more has just encouraged and challenged me to do the same. Seeing the Lord through the eyes of a new believer in Christ is so refreshing. Her prayers are so cute and honest and just full of sincerity. Keep her in your prayers as she learns how much God loves and treasures her. 

Luke and I are still doing our Date nights which have been such a help to our marriage in this busy season. We went to a concert in Brisbane and saw a band that Luke really likes called Rise Against. Not Christian but man can they rock out!! It was fun!

                                                                    Well that's it for now!  

We love DTS and seeing peoples lives change and becoming more like Christ.

                            We LOVE you and are so thankful for your prayers and support to us! 

Oh and P.S. I think we put this up on facebook but for those who didn't see our message we picked outreach locations!!! WOOOHOOO!! We are taking a team to Thailand/India. Super excited about that! We'll give you more of an update when we get closer to leaving which is coming up soon. Sept 17th!

K bye for now!!

Luke and Bethany