You've Got Magic

Last week finished up nicely. I really enjoyed Jeff and his teaching. Thursday, we had small groups (in the afternoon after our lecture) and we had a book report due. Well, not really a book report, but we read Loren Cunningham's book the first weekend of school, so we had to act out an event from that book that we enjoyed. We could either be Loren or Darlene (his wife) as we told the story from their perspective. So I chose to act out when Loren got dismissed from the Assemblies of God because they didn't see YWAM as an organization that agreed with their visions. I also acted out Loren having "heart surgery" in New Zealand, he prayed for a week for God to purify his heart and God reminded him of the events that took place when Thomas Zimmerman asked him to leave the Assemblies. I went first in my group. I was nervous, as usual, but I did GREAT! I'm such a great actor. So we were in the cafe on campus and I was acting out the part where Loren is praying for a clean heart, I was on my knees with my eyes closed and my hands folded in front of me. My team was getting a good laugh at my acting, so I opened my eyes and one of my leaders was filming me and Jenni Gillespie (my school leader) had joined the group while my eyes were closed. I was SOOO embarrassed!! Then John, her husband, my school leader, sat on the other side of me. So I had to finish acting out my prayer of a clean heart and writing Brother Zimmerman a letter of apology. I got an A! Yay! It was a fun ordeal. Then the rest of the team gave their stories and we had a great time talking about the story of how YWAM was started and how Loren and Darlene really live out a life of following God. We couldn't decide what to do for the rest of the time, so we decided to go around and affirm each other. That took up the rest of the time plus some. It was so great being able to speak positive words to each other and tell each other what we see in them. My group said that I was determined to finish tasks, and do them well, that I was bold and confident, that I spoke wisely, and the most popular affirmation was that I was hilarious. :) I like that I'm bringing smiles to people's faces!

Friday, was Jeff's last day of teaching us. We went through the book of Ephesians in like an hour, really looking at how Paul turned things upside down in that city. We read Acts chapters 18 and 19 about Paul's three years in Ephesus (roughly 3 years) and how all of Asia Minor heard the Gospel because of Paul living out a Christ-like life. He taught in the lecture hall, worked in the market place (Paul was a tent maker--traveling tents for rich people to travel with), made friends with the government, and turned this port city upside down. Then he left right when riot broke out in the city. This really is an interesting story, I encourage you all to really read and research Ephesus and what Paul did there. By living like Christ and really following him, Paul changed a city for the better. So many people followed Christ because of Paul.Did you know that Christianity was originally called The Way, because it's a way of life not a religion. Isn't that interesting? Like back when it was spreading, before they had a name for it, everyone called it The Way because it changed how people lived their lives. Listening, following, and loving God is a way of life, not a religion. Good word right there!

Friday night some of my roommates and I went to Wal-Mart for things needed and for something to do. Then some of us went and watched the Dodge Ball tournament going on. (I will upload pictures when my camera is charged) That was so fun! A team of 6 guys from my DTS ended up winning the tournament and they beat a team made up of guys from our staff. That was interesting, but super fun to watch. It's funny how emotional guys get about the activity they're participating in. If someone wasn't being honest about being out or if an official made a "wrong" call some of the boys were pretty vocal about their dislike. It's dodge ball at missions university, calm down buddy. It's not the dodge ball Olympics! Does that exist? But anyways, fun night of dancing and watching dodge ball.

Saturday and Sunday I had work duty in the kitchen. I had to be there at 6:30 in the morning on Saturday and 6:00 in the morning on Sunday. I made oatmeal again and cleaned the dishes inside (so big pans and trays and utensils etc). We had a break until 3 and then we had to come back for dinner. Saturday night we had Taco salad, that was yummy. I mixed salad stuff and then washed dishes again. On Sunday, we had cheese tortellini. Zach, the weekend supervisor (he's 22, real cool dude), wanted Alfredo sauce for our portion of the meal (we eat before the rest of campus) so he made some from scratch. Basically it was the best Alfredo sauce I've had. Almost all of the team was packed around the stove top with rolls we had just pulled out of the oven, dipping the bread into the skillet with the sauce. Talk about YUM. I didn't clean dishes Sunday night, I swept the floors and mopped the floors and for a little while I was scrapping the big dishes before another person washed them. My hands and wrists got sliced up from the pans, so putting them in the soapy water didn't feel to good. I still have all the little cuts, so it still hurts to wash my hands, which I do 500 times a day. :( I like the team I'm working with on kitchen duty. We have a good time together. Here is a picture of the oatmeal I make in the morning and another picture of the Alfredo sauce we made on Sunday night. OOOH and Sunday night, we didn't make the tortellini fast enough, so we just had to put out stuff to make Ham and Cheese sandwiches. Those late people weren't happy, but at least they got fed! Hopefully we will finish the tortellini sometime this week, it was really good!

Monday, today, was our first day of hearing from Bryan Brennt. He's from the OC and has been influential in many guys lives here on CommTrans staff. He's impacted a lot of other people too. He's  really funny speaker!! I was dying laughing at all of his jokes. He got off on a tangent about FuddRuckers (the hamburger place) and seriously, it was hilarious the way he was describing the options you could choose from and how you have to unbutton your pants so you can eat your whole burger. "You leave that place bigger than when you went in. FuddRuckers." Listening to him made me want to go there! Too bad they aren't in Hawaii. But anyway, today we joined the "Super Natural Academy." Bryan is teaching us the gift of prophecy and delivering the message that God gives to you for others. Some people don't have this gift, this gift of getting pictures or dreams or words from God about themselves or others. He explained that in order to hear from God you have to accept the fact that He Loves you (loves you, like your mom or dad loves you), that He Likes You (like when you have a crush on someone in the 7th grade), and that he Lavishes you (he was saying both Ravish and Lavish.. but He pours His love out for us and embraces us). Then once you accept those 3 things, you heart is tenderized, it is easy for you to love others, and it gives you the authority to destroy your enemies. We then broke up into 2 groups, the ones who had this gift of prophecy and those that don't (who he calls the Quarterbacks). Then we got into groups of 3, two prophecies and one quarterback. I was the quarterback with a girl named Lexx and a girl named Kate. We prayed for each other and asked for God to show us how He loves us and then we asked about strongholds in our lives that need to be gotten rid of (that's bad grammar, but I can't think of the right words.) This was a great exercise and it was interesting to hear how God tells other people about us through words or pictures or visions. That's how we ended class, then we went to the prayer room after lunch. This session was about praying for our generation. Asking God to remove the chains that hold our generation back from accepting His love and spreading His love. And then asking God what this generation was "pregnant" with and asking Him to develop it and birth it so we could see fruits of this generation. (I still don't understand what that question means, but I prayed anyways.....) Then I hung out with some roommates before dinner and did some job searching online and chatting with my roommates. Now I'm going to bed! I'm tired!

I hope you all had a wonderful Monday, and I hope your week goes well!!


LOVE LOVE LOVE