Hello all!
Wow, the last 8 weeks have absolutely flown by—we are so sorry it’s taken us so long to get out another update. There have been a lot of changes and shifts, so we will do our best to make sense of it all!
In our last update, we mentioned that we were still hoping to run our September school with all Australian students. Well, just a few days after sending out that last update, Queensland closed its borders to not only Victoria but also New South Wales (as their COVID numbers were increasing), which left us with only one student in QLD able to attend the school. We are of course grateful to our government here for taking so many precautions, which has resulted in low cases and deaths here in QLD, but this also meant that we could no longer run our September school. This affected everyone differently. Many really grieved this as they had spent so much time preparing, praying, and dreaming for this school. When we could not have international students (which we addressed in our last update) many mourned that, and now we said goodbye to the school as a whole.
God has been so faithful during it all and continued to show us always He always has better plans. We went into the last weeks of August having lots of amazing time as a base and as YWAM international, hearing Gods voice and direction for this next season and realigning things in our hearts or our bases to God’s will and direction. One of these times together was a three-day zoom conference with many bases from around the world. We had worship and prayer together over zoom, heard testimonies and encouragements, had some amazing leaders from around the globe teach, and just continued to let Holy Spirit lead us where He wanted to. After this conference, we also had a staff retreat at the beloved macadamia nut farm that you have heard us talk about before. This was such a sweet time as a DTS staff team having lots of worship and prayer together, taking time to quit the noise of the world around us and just be with God those few days. This led into a training week we held at the base, for not only DTS staff but many other staff on the base who have had plans take a big turn or be ‘canceled’. During this time we had a lot of discussion and prayer, again had some great speakers zoom in to talk with us, and Holy spirit often ended our times with drawing us as a group closer to Him through repentance and realignment in our hearts. In our last update, we mentioned that there was already two ‘arms’ or branches in our staff team that would be starting in September: one that would focus solely on the DTS and one that would be doing a lot with the community or coming alongside individuals who were pioneering new ministries within our base. Since the school was canceled, we are all in the latter branch, which started at the beginning of September. Practically, this means still coming together multiple times each week to worship, pray, intercede for the nations, and continue to seek God together. After this week, everyone built their own schedules to fill in the rest of their week with the things they felt God calling them into in this season.
So, what are WE personally doing right now?
Karis has a few things she felt God put on her heart in this season to really focus on. One of those things is to come alongside the mums on our base more. We have always said there is a place for the mums, but the reality is that many of them have kids under school age and don’t have family here to help with child care and very rarely get a break. They struggle to find time to invest in the people or ministries they have a passion for. So Karis started a ‘kids club’ for the littles 0-5 years old, so that mums in our community could have time to either step into roles in ministry that they have been wanting to, or just to have a break. The church we have lectures in during schools has graciously allowed us to use their building for free to do this and Karis has gathered a group of staff who committed to watching, loving on, and making the littles feel seen! Right now, this is only once a week for 3 hours in the morning, there are normally have around 12 kids from the ages of 5 months – 5 years. It has been amazing to see the kids really love this time, the mums feel blessed and released to do what they want, and even the way it has created more connection between younger staff and the families on our base. Her dream is that this would not only continue when schools are here, but it would expand into something more, not just child care, but a place where the littles experience Jesus’ love, and that as a base we would see a deeper coming together of families, marrieds, and singles. Karis is also continuing to go to the farm she went to during outreach, helping a local woman in her 70’s that runs an entire horse farm and airbnb’s! It has been a sweet connection and Karis loves all the different people she meets and interacts with and the amount of openness and curiosity about Jesus she experiences there. Another main thing she has put her heart and time into during this season has to do with the wave house (where students live during the schools). As many of you know the wave house is an old hostel which our base bought but is still paying off. Not having the past two schools run and the potential of this next one not running either, we needed to really ask God to provide financially for this space. We felt like He answered this through one of the staff on our base that approached our base leader with the idea of allowing backpackers to live along side us at the waves house. Scott is a staff member here on the Coast and did his DTS with Karis over 6 years ago! On his DTS, God gave him a big heart and vision for backpackers on the Coast. Since then, he has been running ‘backpackers’ or ‘hostels’ out of houses that he lives at. His heart is to have a home that he and a few other Christians live in, and then rent out all the other rooms to backpackers and travelers and do life with them—live Jesus’ love out loud. So, he thought, why not do that at the wave house in this season? As a staff team, we prayed about this and felt like God gave so much peace and excitement about the opportunity for ministry and provision. So Scott moved into the wave house and already has online advertisements in place from his other properties and has a lot of experience with the business side of it. So him and Karis have been working together to get the waves house ready, put systems in place, clean things up, paint lines for a new car park, trying to organize weekly wave house dinners, and more! All the staff living at the wave house (10 of them) have also really come around this and pitched in and worked to make connections with backpackers as they move in. We currently have 6 backpackers that have moved in since then, 1 girl from Japan, 1 girl from Australia, 3 girls from England, and 1 guy from Australia. We are eager to continue making connections and friendships with them all.
Personally, Karis has really enjoyed the things God has been speaking to her in this time. In August as she was struggling with homesickness and loneliness, she felt God give her an invitation to go deeper with Him. He has been her best friend and love and comfort, but here He was inviting her into a place of deeper intimacy as she felt the ache in her heart for the comfort of family and friends. He reassured her that He can and will continue to fill those places with more of Himself when she allows Him. It does not mean it won’t ever ache or that she won’t get sad, but there’s always more space to give Him, more of Him to know more deeply, and that is absolutely enough. She has really felt to step into this invitation the last months, getting rid of timewasters as little as they may be, and desiring to put more and more trust in Him, choosing and then feeling the Truth that He is worth it all. Sometimes it hurts, when there have been spaces we have unknowingly filled with the affection or affirmation of something other than Gods love and intimacy is rooted up, but right when we let go, and He gets more of us, it’s the most freeing experience. When we step into relationship with God, He gives us His whole self, but we often do not give Him our whole selves, this tends to be a continuous journey—it feels like every time you think you have given Him all of yourself, you realize that there is more. She loves that no matter how long she lives here on are earth there will always be more of God to know, there will always be an invitation to go deeper, to go on another adventure with Him, life with Him is the most exciting.
Sam has also been enjoying what he felt like God has led him into for this season. Something that has peaked his interest since arriving on the Sunshine Coast has been something called Religious Instruction (RI). In Australia, public schools are required to give their students thirty minute of instruction on religion—an amazing concept! The thirty minutes can be filled with teaching on any religion if there is one student of that religion at the school, however, and teachers of religion are not paid. This means that there needs to be a way to organize Christian teachers to go to schools and fill these periods with teaching about Jesus. In the Sunshine Coast is perhaps one of the most well established ministries to train Christian RI teachers and send them into schools. Many members of our community are or have done this, but because of COVID, many of the older teachers could no longer continue going into schools when they opened back up. Sam felt led by God to step into this ministry as much as he could. After training and observation, Sam is teaching RI in two schools (5th grade) and helping a teacher in a third one (4th grade). He is blown away with the opportunity that RI is in PUBLIC schools! Sam can speak about Jesus and answer questions unfettered by rules that are common in American public schools. Sam can pray with students and share with them the simple Gospel—the love of God. In praying about why he should do this, God impressed on his heart, “So that they would know the Truth about Me and the truth about themselves.” It’s been invigorating to get back into lesson planning, teaching, and working with students for Sam. This will be something that Sam is excited to continue to carry into his future years here in Australia. There’s so much to say already, but, for now, suffice it to say that God is at work in even PUBLIC schools here on the Sunshine Coast.
Another area that Sam has jumped into is reaching out to Christian schools on the Coast to organize opportunities for YWAM staff to pour into the younger generation. Students are in their fourth term now and we have had some opportunities for this with many more coming up including teaching Alpha groups and speaking at chapel services. Sam is hoping that these opportunities will forge lasting connections for us to continue building the Kingdom in the Sunshine Coast. Sam is also continuing to organize and do projects in the community when time allows. Similar to on outreach, this includes members of our YWAM community as well as those outside the community. It is just another way God is using His mercy to communicate the power and love of the Gospel!
Over the last couple months, Sam has been in a period of both growth and, seemingly, waiting. He has found that even in all of his good spiritual discipline, there is no life. It feels, for him, as if he’s hit a wall of the hardness and callousness of his own heart. This is not to say he is calloused or hard hearted, but only to say, his own works aren’t going to take him any further into the things of God, and he doesn’t want them to either. Sam, being an internal processor, feels this wall in times of confusing sadness, weariness, and frustration. Sam is realizing, with God, that only the steadfast love of his Father and Friend can crack through the wall he is coming up against. This part of Sam’s journey should not be seen as negative in any way, even though the side effects seem less than ideal. He recognizes it as a natural part of going deeper with the Lover of souls. There is no getting past or over this wall, the only way forward is through—through every obstacle and on to knowing Him and loving Him with every drop of being Sam has. It’s beautiful to know the faithfulness of God through every season of life, and Sam’s prayer is that the ashes of his kingdom would be a place where the beauty of God’s kingdom could grow. (First person side note: My prayer for each of you today is that you would see the love and faithfulness of our Jesus and, in turn, allow Him the liberty and joy to walk you through the obstacles that stand in the way of knowing and loving Him who paid everything for your freedom.)
Together we are both still transitioning and training into our new roles as well. We have been enjoying being apart of the bases leadership team and are learning lots. In regard to the specific role we are taking on this coming year, we have just started to pray and talk about this much more. We feel hopeful that in our next update or the one after that we will be able to tell you more about this (: Thank you for being patient with us!
The last 2 months have been very full, but incredibly good! This first week in October has been a little slower than the last months which has felt nice. Looking forward to this month as it feels calmer as we are in good routines now with the things we have stepped into. Starting mid-November we will be doing a bit of traveling in QLD for ministry, which will be exciting! We will share more on this in our next update, as this one is already so long! We are continuing to pray if as a base we are meant to run the January DTS with just Australian students, or if we will not be running a school until around September (which we hope will be international). Please pray for wisdom for us as we seek God in this! We are very happy with the things God has asked so many of us to step into and can see the impact it’s having on our community on the Sunshine Coast, and the sweet way it has brought our staff team as a whole base more together. We are also eager to continue to pour into DTS students and start asking God how He wants to re structure or de structure our schools, we want it to be fully designed by Him, not just what has worked in the past or what is smooth.
As always, please feel free to ask us questions, ask for a facetime, a phone call, just a chat over email, or send us updates on how your going and how we can be praying for you! We miss those of you we have not been able to see dearly, we are grateful for your friendships, encouragements, prayer, and support. We have been so thankful for those who have reached out wanting to recommit to supporting us! If you want to talk more about how you can support us financially or any other way please feel free to reply to our email and we would love to talk more! You are all so important to us and we often are blown away at the incredible community of people we know are with us on this journey. We love you all!
Samuel and Karis
Sam & Karis at the end of August
Staff retreat at the macadamia nut farm, roasting marshmallows
Sleeping in our car on staff retreat, waking up to the sunrise.
Karis sharing her testimony at a local high school chapel service
The lovely Atalanta (in the middle) who Karis goes and helps
Kids club playdo time
Riding in the back of a truck with some great friends we have become very close with! We went away for a few days together on a little trip in august before things got super busy again!
Karis and her close friend Kelsie
Having some curry on the floor with some other great friends to celebrate there new marriage!
Snorkeling! A lovely elderly man offered to take us snorkeling off his boat for free, what a blessing!
nope we didn't get married again haha. We got asked to model for a styled shoot so vendors could advertise different things, we had fun though!
While driving after a sudden hail storm, a MILWAUKEE tools truck drove past us! hello Milwaukee (:
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