Hello friends and family!
We hope everyone has had an amazing Christmas season and start to the new year! Over here, we have just finished up our first school and are looking forward to the next one coming soon! Since our last update, so much has happened. We will try to tell you as much as possible, but after that, take a look at the amazing outreach video that Karis made from our time overseas!
At the end of our last update, we were just about to leave from Uganda to head to Mt. Hagen, Papua New Guinea. When we got there, we were picked up by a YWAMer and her father who was an elder at the church we would be working with for the next five days. At this church we ran discipleship classes for the youth in the area. These discipleship classes included a lot of fun, but also many of the same topics that our students learned about in their lecture phase. God used these seminars, which were powerful in themselves, to help us create relationships with the youth that attended—we really believe that this is where the true discipleship could take place. Because of the strong relationships that grew between us and the church, we were then asked to join the church in some of their customary events such as a bride price (where a groom’s family thanks the bride’s family for raising her well with pigs, food, cash, and more) and a moomoo (a traditional meal of pig, greens, and sweet potato cooked on hot stones). While we were with the church, we felt like a part of the family, and they certainly treated us like it. The generosity we experienced while there was almost uncomfortable because of how great it was and how little we knew many of the church members had.
After departing from this church, we left for the Mt. Hagen YWAM base. Here, we had Christmas Eve and Christmas off to spent with the team after a land slide blocked us from getting to the church we were planning on preaching at. While very restful, on Christmas, we found out that our ministry for the next week was cancelled. A few times we contacted pastors who were happy to have us come run the same discipleship classes, but soon after told us that they couldn’t have us for various reasons. By midmorning on the 26th, we began to see that it was possible God was closing these doors for us. That day we devoted to praying and seeking God’s vision for what the next seven days would look like. He spoke so clearly to our whole team and so we spent the next days going where we felt the Holy Spirit leading us. In that time, we did open airs where we did skits, preached the Gospel and prayed for people, visited homes to pray for the sick, visited the Mt. Hagen hospital, visited a prison, went to and shared God’s word at a church that put on weekly lunches for the homeless, and were able to spend time with and encourage to the YWAM staff that were serving in MT. Hagen full time. These day of ministry turned out to be some of the favourites of our students and some of the most amazing God-ordained moments came out of them. The final two days in PNG, we spend doing an organized debriefing of our times overseas. We looked back on what God had done and where he had taken each of us personally and us as a team. This was a really sweet way to end our time there before leaving for Australia.
The final part of our outreach was in Australia—Mission Adventures. Mission Adventures was a huge highlight for all of us. We ran this new ministry in Kyogle, a small town in New South Wales, where Reid, one of our students, grew up. This last week of our outreach was by far the most full on as we were with the high school students, who were from Sunshine Coast and Kyogle, at Reid’s church all day and night, but it was also one of the most rewarding! The theme of the week was “love your neighbour” and it focused on loving people without having any agenda. Throughout the week, everything we did and taught was framed from this lens. Our week was packed with activities such as scavenger hunts, evangelism, games, and more as well as lectures and our favourite: “going deeper” sessions. These sessions were one of the most impactful times of the week. Students were able to seek God and see what He was wanting to say to them through a variety of exercises. We loved getting to disciple these students through relationships and lead them deeper into their faith! As a team, we were given the opportunities to teach, lead small groups, and facilitate the “going deeper” times. As a team, we were truly honoured to be a part of what God was doing through Mission Adventures—it was a perfect way to end our outreach phase! Many of the high school students said their understanding of what faith really is totally changed this week, and it was amazing to see so many of them tangibly encounter God as he brought healing to their hearts, spirits, and minds. Some of the students were from the sunshine coast and have asked us to get together with them on a few occasions since, its beautiful to see them hungry for what God has for them!
We then headed back to the sunshine coast where we had our last week with our students as they continued to debrief their time on outreach and talk about strategies of re entering into their homes as the got ready to head back. This week was bitter sweet as we cherished each moment we got to spend with all the students that over the last 5 months we had come to love and care for so deeply. One of these mornings during worship I (Karis) was standing in the back of the room and began to weeping, at first I thought it must be me processing that I soon have to say bye to all these people I have grown to love, but it was much more than that. I was suddenly so overwhelmed with this immense sense of gratitude, as I stood there I looked around at the 39 students and multiple staff and was in awe thinking about how every person in that room had their life radically changed by the love and grace of God over the last 5 months. It looked different for each person, but still it was a tangible, noticeable difference in each individual. I was overcome just thinking about how kind our God is to bring change into our lives where we need it, and how honoured I was to have been apart of the people in that room stories. I was suddenly not overwhelmed thinking about how in 1 week 41 new students would arrive, but excited that they get to come experience the kind, life changing, love and grace of God and we have the honour and privilege to be apart of it all over again. What we do as staff is draining, and sometimes you think ‘can I really keep going’, but God is so faithful to give His perspective when you need it most.
So that’s where we are now, after many tears and goodbye hugs, our students left last Saturday morning. Then That night we started staff retreat and training for the week for this next school. It’s currently Saturday afternoon and Australia day (kind of like their 4th of July!), we have been finishing up lots of final touches around the wave house (where the students and some of us staff live). Tomorrow morning the new students will arrive and we are so excited and expectant for all the things God wants to do in their lives. In the next update we will give some more details of what our role specifically looks like during this school and what the next months ahead hold for us.
We love you all and miss you dearly, being here is where we know we are called right now, but that doesn’t always keep the heartache away when we’re missing family and friends. Your love, encouragement, financial support, and prayers mean so much to us and we know we wouldn’t be able to do what we're doing without you.
** Reminder to go watch our outreach video for more testimonies, stories, and a to have a look at what God did and our experiences! Click on the Videos tab at the top of the page.
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