HALFWAY THROUGH TRAINING

The past 5 weeks have been life changing! The Lord has been working in me and bringing things to the surface that I didn’t even realize I needed to overcome. I haven’t been writing much because we have been going non stop! Each day Monday – Friday we have class from 8-3 usually and then on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays we have stuff going on in the evenings! The weekends are our free time and when we get to explore the island (which is where most of my instagram pictures come from). Since it has been a hot second, I am going to recap my weeks/ weekends! There is so much to these lectures, but I am just going to summarize the things that spoke to me the most.

Week 1: The Nature and Character of God with Derek Schoenhoff

God is creator. We can go to Him because He created us. God has invisible qualities: eternal power to create new things and to restore and divine nature that is organized because He is a planner and a designer. So then why should I worry about the future?

God created us to be interdependent, not independent. (Genesis 2:18 and 1 Corinthians 11:11) Independence usually comes from wounds.

The opposite of love is fear. Fear can cause us to doubt the character of God and thereby doubt ourselves and our value in God’s Kingdom work. When we are motivated by love, we will be driven to have a relationship with Him as opposed to religion.

There are times when we go through a desert experience. When this happens, we are vulnerable to attack. These desert times are hard, but they can also be a beautiful time to meet with the Lord.

This week, we also talked a lot about forgiveness and restoration and I was able to write several names down and forgive them wholeheartedly and ask the Lord to heal.

Overall, this week was such a great way to kick off training. In the afternoons, we had a lot of orientation meetings, rules, values, and protocol stuff going on! We ended the week with a love feast! A love feast is basically a time to fellowship and celebrate with friends and family!

Week 2: Hearing God’s Voice with Donna Jordan

There are 4 levels of acquaintance/ relationship with God: Academic, Casual, Growing, and Intimate. Which one are you in and which one do you want to be in? For me, its the growing level, but i want to be intimate with the Lord. In order to be intimate with God, you must be willing to absolutely surrender and He must become Lord over your life.

When it comes to hearing the Lord’s voice, we should silence our own voice and silence the enemy’s voice so that we can completely and clearly hear the Lord’s voice. The fact that we can freely talk and communicate with the creator of the universe blows my mind! AND He speaks back!! He wants to talk to us like a friend! He speaks to us in so many ways: the Bible, the inner emotions (joy, peace, etc.), the inner voice of God the Holy Spirit, our conscience, circumstances, visions/ dreams, audible voice, angels, gifts of the spirit, leaderships, songs, feelings, principles of scripture, creation, arts, supernatural acts, and our senses! Before this week, I used to doubt my ability to hear the Lord speaking because I thought that it had to be a loud booming voice, but it seriously can be in the still small voice! He speaks and He listens and He wants us to do the same! At one point during this week I just said, “I love you, Lord.” And He said “I love you too my good and faithful servant.” That spoke volumes to me because I was sitting there feeling like I wasn’t doing anything right because I had been confused and had been doubting and yet the Lord still called me FAITHFUL.

A big topic we talked about was overcoming the fear of man. This is something that I struggle with so much. I want so badly to be loved and accepted by man that I forget the One that made me who loves me unconditionally.

During this week we also talked about community outreach and how we should respect the locals and their land. We also found out our potential outreach locations! Then we prayed about the location and asked the Lord which locations we should preference on a list of 1-3.

We went to the beach this weekend and had some sweet times with friends!!

Week 3: Intimacy with God with Ashley Weirs and Holy Spirit with Alyssa Pegg

When we talked about intimacy with the Lord, I was very convicted. I had been going to worship nights and getting frustrated that I wasn’t “feeling the presence of the Spirit” when what was really happening was that I wasn’t trying to be intimate with God in the quiet place. So often, we get caught up in the outwardly appearance of what it looks like to have a relationship with God that we forget about the actual relationship. Spiritual disciplines are not the goal, but intimacy with God is the goal. I also felt convicted because when I asked the Lord “What keeps me from being intimate with you?” he said “Your desire to be intimate and close with people instead of Me.” This has been something that the Lord has been really shifting in me and working in me.

We also talked about the Holy Spirit. The enemy will try to go after your identity. Satan uses fear which freezes us from action. Areas that you have the greatest fear in are the same areas that you were made to be great in. — The Holy Spirit is here to guide us, comfort us, strengthen us, protect us, and convict us. The Holy Spirit helps us to have victory over our flesh and brings us freedom.

We also talked about the gifts of the Holy Spirit and prayed for them too! This week was really good for me in a revelation of my own, but that’s for another blog post:) During week 3, we also learned about how to lead a prayer set and what is original design.

During this weekend, I ran into a friend that I had met once 2 years ago at a music festival. I spotted her while playing volleyball and then we caught up! She was in Hawaii for vacation, and I got to introduce her to my friends! We went to the beach and several cool spots while they were here and we got to share what the Lord was currently doing in our lives! It was so divinely planned by the ultimate Planner.

Week 4: Intercession with Rebekah Bucher and Biblical Overview with Mike Brown

If you aren’t familiar with intercession, it is when you pray on behalf of someone else and essentially stand in the gap. When it comes to interceding, we should ask the Lord for His heart for the people or the situation. In Genesis 18, Abraham asked the Lord to spare Sodom and Gomorrah. He wasn’t trying to make the almighty God change His divine plans, but he was asking because Abraham had a relationship with God to where he knew His character and knew He was a just God. We can do that too when we intercede. We can ask the Lord if we can see His plan and what He is after.

During this week, we practiced interceding over our generation. At the beginning of the prayer set, I did not want to go because I have just had a hard heart toward my generation. But as we began, I asked the Lord to break my heart for what breaks His so that I could intercede and pray for this generation. I then started picturing my 5 year old brother and was instantly brought to tears. The thought of my brother growing up and living life not knowing the Lord hurt me. Then I had a vision of people in the water drowning and the Lord was telling me that it is my job as a Christian to throw them the lifesaver of the Gospel, but it is up to Jesus to reach out and grab them and pull them into the boat and save them. Then we started praying for the LGBTQ community and praying for them to find their identity in Christ. Then we prayed for abortions and single moms. Then we cried out to the Lord to create a revival in our generation and to heal these wounds of depression and anxiety and confusion in identity. Then we praised God for giving us a hope because of His powerful and mighty name.

So Biblical overview, we talked about being able to use the double edged sword, the Word. we also talked a lot about what our life looks like in the big scheme of things. This life is not my own, so I want to surrender it to God so that He can use me for His glory.

During this week, we had more training on cross cultural understanding and had training on evangelism and how to do it.

This weekend, we went to a waterfall and we met a local named Christian on the way up! Immediately once we heard his name we knew that we were going to talk about God with him at some point that day! We befriended him and we got to share the gospel with him and pray over him. It was such a great day!

Week 5: The Humanity of Jesus with Dan Shannon

This week if i’m being honest was little tricky because I did not completely agree with some of the speaker’s theology, but that is entirely okay because there is beauty in God’s mystery. However, I did learn about how when it means to live a life like Christ that that doesn’t just mean praying for 5 hours or something but it means living a life that is pleasing to God. We need to be acknowledging His presence when we live our daily lives. It’s also cool to think about how Jesus lived on earth for 33 years. He worked as a carpenter, and he enjoyed life and the blessings God had given him.

This weekend was super cool too because we went to a coffee shop and met the owner Bill who needed help harvesting his cacoa tree. We helped him and he made us such a good lunch and then he shared some of his biblical wisdom with us. He had some really cool revelations on what the Kingdom of God really is. Then we went snorkeling!!

The past 5 weeks have truly been crazy, but crazy good. I have had to really sit down and process a lot of what the Lord is teaching me and how He is working in me. I am so thankful to be here and to be on this island. I have made incredible friends that love the Lord and want to serve Him. Training is halfway over and then we go on outreach!