Week 4 and 5 in Michigan

Week 4 and 5

I am continuing to work on cleaning and organizing things, I am making progress but there is still more to do! Maybe you are also doing cleaning and organizing during this time?

The doctor looked at my ears and there is no infection but my eustachian tube must still be inflamed because there is quite a lot of fluid behind my ear drum especially in the right ear; this build up of fluid is what is causing my dizziness/vertigo (and the other issues I had when flying to Kona and also at the beginning of March); I have meds to take for a month that will hopefully fix the problem.

The YWAM Kona campus has less people living there now than when the base was first started back in 1977! Wow. There have been no cases of COVID in anyone living on campus and only one case in a staff that was living off campus, this person was in self isolation and so it spread to no-one else, this person is completely recovered.

There is a Zoom meeting three times a week that all staff are invited to as well as the DTS students. The campus core leadership are talking and praying about how to move forward wisely in the coming months as the curve flattens.

Tranformations Magazine

This is a link to the latest issue of a YWAM Magazine:  ywamkona.org/transformations

Pictures from page 18; middle picture is of some of the vine.

On pages 15-21 there is an article that shares some ways that YWAM Kona, over recent years, has been seeking to serve local needs; on page 18 you can see pictures of a house/property that I helped clean when I was a DTS student a year ago. The middle picture is of a huge viney plant that was all over one side of the house; I was part of the group of women that helped cut up that vine and pull it off the house and fence!

24/7 Prayer for the Nations

YWAM Kona has started a 24/7 Prayer Initiative to try to cover every nation in prayer 1 hour every week. (Inspired by the Moravians)YWAM Kona staff were invited to sign up for 1 hour slots and each slot was given 1 nation to pray for; thus far 89% of the week is covered so that is exciting and staff are still signing up.

Lectures for Homereach Students

Here are links to the lectures the students listened to for these week; both are good! There are three more weeks of home reach left; I will post links to those lectures in the coming weeks.

Revival:Surrender-Adam Durso

Revival:Small Beginnings-Suzy Silk

The Cha Cha Song

Here is another video that I made for the kids at my church. Unfortunately I couldn't find any video clips of people from my outreach team to include in this one.

Week 3 and part of Week 4 in Michigan

Update from Week 3 (and a bit of week 4) in Michigan

Week 3 I have been cleaning and organizing lots of things that never got finished (or even started :)) before I left for Kona in December; at the end of 2019 I was working full time and also was a full time graduate student trying to complete my last two classes by the middle of December; so I was pretty busy while also trying to get ready to be gone for at least 6 months. I had been asking the Lord when I would get to work on those unfinished things and now I have the time.

I had the chance to join a GoogleHangout meeting with some friends from my home church for a bible study- it was so good to see their faces and hear their voices even if it was through a screen. I am hoping to make another video or two for the kids at my church soon; I will share them in my next blog if that does happen.

I believe that so far all of the Crossroads 2020 DTS students and staff are healthy after traveling home to many different countries and states; that is a huge answer to prayer! But I am beginning to learn of some of my other YWAM friends internationally and relatives of these friends that have symptoms of the virus or have been confirmed with COVID. A few of these people are almost recovered while others have only just started being sick.

Let's keep praying in hope for the healing for people in our towns, states, and countries around the world!

On Tuesday of this week (week 4) my ears started giving me major problems again; I woke up super dizzy and pretty much had to lay still all day; Sudafed seems to be helping because I am much better today (Wednesday) so I will keep taking that for a week or two.

Lecture for Homereach Students

Here is a link to the lecture that home reach students listened to this week. I thought this was a great teaching!

Cory Russell - Revival:Prayer

If you look around on the website you will see other teachings; Jon Tyson gave several talks in Kona during our second to last week there and all of the teachings I heard from him were very good, so I encourage you to check those out if you are looking for podcasts to listen to; they are probably quite good.

Memories from Kona

Here are some pictures that I never had the chance to share with you from a trip that I took  during the first week in March with friends who were going to go on outreach with me. We took a day trip and traveled south of Kona and visited South Point, Green Sands Beach, and Black Sands.

South Point

Green Sands- 1 hour hike out to the beach; a fun hike but not a good/safe beach for swimming; 5-10 minute truck ride (standing in the truck bed) back to where we parked.

     

 

Black Sands-We arrived just as it was getting dark!

**On the way home we ate delicious Thai food because the first outreach location we were planning to go to was Thailand (and Cambodia) so we wanted to celebrate that, even though we already knew we weren't going to get to go there anymore.

Week 2 in Michigan

Update from Week 2 in Michigan

Today is day 14 since traveling back to Michigan from Kona, HI, it is my last day of self-isolating in my parents basement. I am still waking and sleeping on Hawaii time, but thankfully I seem to be very healthy! I will of course continue to abide by the governments recommendations to but starting tomorrow will move more freely through out my parents house.

I was hoping to do some online training while back in Michigan, but so far that has not become a possibility. I messaged the person in charge of Leadership Track and have learned that YWAM Kona does not plan to run this training until July. As for the online inner healing prayer ministry training, this might still happen but I don't know yet. I messaged the person who leads this ministry and it sounds like they are looking into offering something but are not able to move forward with it yet.

This week (week 2 in self-isloation :) )I have been journaling and processing some of the things that God did in my life over the past few months but especially over my last couple weeks in Hawaii, as alot happened in a very short time. I have also been reading through the Freedom Manual; I did parts of this manual during my DTS back in 2019 and also received teaching on some of the same part as well a others during this 2020 DTS that I staffed, however I have never gone through the whole manual until now! I struggled to walk students through it this quarter but now having gone through the whole book myself I think will be more comfortable trying to teach it to others.

I have been thinking and praying about ways to reconnect with my church here in Michigan since I am not able to actually visit them in person. I have been hearing about and seeing the DTS students make fun videos for their family and friends and so I was inspired to make a video too. Here is a link to the video I made last week for the kids at my home church! I shared it with them on our group chat and to make it interactive challenged them to memorize the scripture or the song and post a video of them doing it and to read the scripture as a family and share one thing they learned with each other and on the group chat.

This is one of the songs my team would have done on outreach; near the end of the video you can see the two other staff who were leading this team and the students who were on our team doing some of the motions to this song in class back in February.

Podcasts-Steve Fry

There are two podcast/short sermons in this link given by Steve Fry about the times we are living in right now; Steve Fry was one of the speakers during this DTS and also back in 2019 when I was a student; the sermons were shared with me by another staff in Kona.

Steve Fry- What God does in Times of Interruption

• (or try this link if the one above does not work for you): https://open.spotify.com/episode/5lzyD4mlmio9Lb41Vp1O0U)

Lecture for Homereach Students

Here are the links to the lectures that the students doing Homereach listened to this week. Personally I don't always really like the way this speaker delivers what he is sharing and like with all the speakers in DTS I don't agree with everything he has to say either, but I do think there are some very good points in both talks!

• Kris Valloton - Cultivating Tipping Points 
• Kris Valloton- Culture Catalysts

Answered Prayer:

1. My 14 days of self-isolation are done and I am healthy after traveling through 4 airport! 

2. I feel like the Lord has shown me a few ways to use my time at least over the next couple weeks. 

Prayer Requests:

1. Healing of those who are sick with COVID-19, protection over health care workers and that people would be drawn closer to the Lord in this time.

2. Perseverance and intentionality to maintain the freedom God gave me while in Kona and how to walk in it in a way that blesses the people around me.

3. Clear direction from the Lord during these next months about how to use my time here in Michigan and that I would be ready to go back to Kona when the campus reopens!