Pike Place Market

-the original Starbucks (that's right all you Starbucks lovers ...I was there)

-Rachel the Pig (the mascot of Pike Place Market) This is for you Dad!

-Amber kissing the pig

MINI-OUTREACH Tucoma, Washington

-Seattle, Washington home of the Space Needle (on the right) and GREY'S ANATOMY!

Hello again everyone! So I'm SUPER behind on updating as u can see. This happened over 5 weeks ago, and yet it seems like yesterday. So here it goes....

This was one super crazy week. We left Sunday morning at 6am. For Seattle. We left early because we wanted to make sure we got through the passes and also people wanted to get there in time for the Superbowl. Anyhow, it was one long drive. 3-15 passenger vans (one of which had a trailer attached with all our luggage inside) and another vechile driven by our cooks (YEAH we brought the cooks from the base with us to cook our meals!!!! They are one of our leaders parents.)

So I got to ride through more of Montana, Idaho and into Washington. It was about a 10 hour trek in all. We got there later than we wanted to and missed the Superbowl. Big deal!!!

We stayed at Pugent Sound Christian Centre, which is a four square

church in Tucoma, Washington. Tucoma is about 30mins. from Seattle. It was really big and also offered some preschool like programs during the day. We stayed in 2 classrooms, girls in one, boys in the other. So we were all one big happy family.

The schedule for the week was:
7am Breakfast and pack your lunch
8am Worship
8:30 – 10am Lectues with Anna Smith (a leader in SBS)
10am – 5pm Various Ministries
5pm Dinner back at the church
after dinner various ministries

It was like that every day, except Friday which was our day off. More about that later.

Lectures this week was Inductive Bible Studies which means we dove into the Bible discovering the background and understanding the specifics. Inductive Bible Studies involve Observation, Interpretation and then Application. We looked at the book of Philippians.

Helping out at the various ministries was really fun. I will go through them all day-by-day. This is going to be a long blog, so it back, grab a drink or snack and ENJOY!!

MONDAY

We met Miles Musick, who is founder of New Beginnings home in Puyallup, Washington (5 miles east of Tucoma). New Beginnings home is a ministry for unwed mothers to offer them a place to stay. There is also an adoption agency too. Both of these ministries are through YWAM. After we heard about the background of this ministries we went out and helped them with various jobs (painting, cleaning, building selves, yardwork, etc.) I went to the adoption agency and stripped wallpaper from a bedroom and also did some cleaning.

Monday evening, we went to REACH at Calvary Community church for pizza and worship. REACH is a evening service for college aged students. Mackenzie, Tyler, Jami and Justin all shared their testimonies. Really good! They did an awesome job and made all us DTSer's proud!

TUESDAY

My group (Scott, Claire, Andrew, Jami, Toast, Angi and Shaun) stayed at Pugent Sound and prepped for painting the office. We also patched some wallpaper. This was tons of fun because we basically took over the office and got to hang out with Mile's daughter.

Tuesday night, we split into groups to do some street ministry. I went in the van to the University District and walked around with Toast (NOTE: his real name is Christopher, but everyone calls him Toast) and Angi. We met a homeless man who was trying to get money from cars driving by, so we stopped and talked to him to try and figure out his story. He was a really interesting character and we gave him a few bucks on the condition that he didn't spend it on alcohol.

WEDNESDAY

FISH Food Bank (FISH stands for “Friends in Service to Him”)
http://www.fishfoodbanks.org/ -a really good website about this ministry

We helped unload a truck of food at two locations, re-stocked their shelves, bagged noodles, sorted clothing and did bags. We did

approx. 120 bags in an hour. A bag contains:

• 1 can peas

• 1 can green beans

• 1 can of tomato sauce

• spaghetti noodles/soup noodles
  

• 1 can of peaches

• 2 little bags of romin noodles

Each person that comes gets one of these bags and then they also get to pick some other things at the front. Since we finished early, we had a bit of fun!

Toast and Scott built a 'tomato soup' tower! It went from the table all the way to the ceiling and was over 120 cans I think! The smiles and laughter of the people volunteering at the food bank was PRICELESS!! They even had a leave it for the people that came in the next day.

Wednesday evening, I went to the Crossing. The Crossing is a community service organization which provides for the homeless in Tucoma. It is an awesome ministry. In their building, they have a lunch kitchen, washer/dryer, hair cuts, clothing, showers and fellowship. Everything is free, the only condition is that they pray for you. Wednesday evening and Sundays, they push the clothing aside and have a church service. This service was awesome!! It was on Song of Songs 2:8-13. The speaker spoke that we are called to step outside our comfort zones and follow Him. SO GOOD! After a time of prayer and worship, we were encouraged to pray for others (who were not DTS). I'm not usually one that is comfortable praying for others, but the words seemed to just flow out of my mouth! It was sooooo encouraging for me! A huge confirmation of what God is doing in my life and just how big he is!

THURSDAY

My group got to go to the Crossing and I got to see it in action as I described it above. We also got to go on their mini-bus to do some street ministry. Due to the lack of time we had, we went to a park near by. We did a prayer walk around this park and then came back for lunch. In the afternoon, I helped Claire paint words on the intercessory room that is also located at the Crossing.

Thursday evening, I went to the MOSAIC service at Bethany Baptist Church in Puyallup. Again, it is a service for college-aged students. We just got to enjoy the service which was awesome!

FRIDAY

Free day in Seattle!! We parked near Pike Place Market, which is a public market on the waterfront. Amber, Hannah, Angi and I just toured around the market for the day. I will put pics of the market up in the next post, since this is getting really long. For dinner, our whole team ate at Red Robin and then back to the church to pack up.

-Seattle at night

We left super early Saturday morning, because we had to take the long way back home. The passes we went through were closed due to tons of snow and avalanche control. It was a 15 hour drive home through Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana! We had to go south first before going east. It was the longest time ever in a vechile, but surprising, it went super fast. I read almost the whole book “Under the Overpass:A Journey of Faith on the Streets of America” by Mike Yankoski. Super good book, I recommend it for anyone!

SUNDAY

I just slept back at the base to get ready for the next week!

Thanks so much for reading! Sorry it was so long, but this was such an awesome week for me! Stay tuned for next week RELATIONSHIPS with Ron&Judy Smith, the founders SBS (School of Biblical Studies).

STOP@5 Presentation

GOD is.....OMNIPRESENT

The dictionary definition:
omnipresent means present everywhere at the same time.

Some scripture verses to show this character of God are:

• Deuteronomy 10:4-”To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it.”

• Jeremiah 23:23-34-”'Am I only a God nearby', declares the Lord, 'and not a God far away? Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?' declares the Lord. 'Do not I fill heaven and earth?' declares the Lord.”

• Romans 8:35-39-”Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: 'For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither present nor the futures, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the loves of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

• Psalms 139:7-”Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?”

God does not have a size or shape that can be measured. He exists everywhere. He can act in different ways in different places.

So, just a few examples of experiences I have had before I finish up.

When I was in Romania in May, our team was at a very porr orphanage in Beclean. The orphanage recently had gotten a new doctor who was trying to make things better for the kids. He turned a room that used to be of death into a place of worship. As he was giving us a tour, we saw this room and it was very dark. We started singing 'We Wanna See Jesus Lifted High' and the kids started flooding in. As this was happening, a flood of light come into the room and you could totally feel God's presence.

Also, when I was traveling here, God was deffinetly with me on the plane. Usually when I'm travelling, I'm very nervous, almost to the point that I am sick, but coming here I was at peace, even when I almost missed my flight.

That's all. Thanks for reading!

Week 4: Holy Spirit

This week lectures are on the Holy Spirit. Our speaker was Jessie Padgett, who is from Langly, BC and used to be part of the Vineyard church there. He was a great speaker, full of life and deffinetly full of the holy spirit. Here are the key points that I found:

-there is only one manifesting presence of God on earth and that is the holy spirit

“Speak to the treasure and it will rise up and bless you. Speak to the flesh and it will rise up and bite you.”
-lowest form of discernment is sin, speaking to the flesh
-when the see the absolute good and pleasure in something, you are speaking to the treasure

God created each one of us so we were like him, full of creativity and able to look for solutions. He put fingerprints on each of us (Romans 1:18) which is the truth. It can be found in every person, it just needs to be woken up.

I BELONG.

-not I believe, so I behave and then I belong.

-your behaviour is irrelevant to the salvation process. Behaviour only becomes important after salvation to help you mature

-We need to believe in God's ability, not our own. Walk in the way of the holy spirit

We are designed to leak.
-we are streams of living water and are to go through a cycle of emptying and filling
-always be after the presence of the holy spirit, the pursuit of the holy spirit should be #!
-designed to leak so that God can be strong

The holy spirit worked through many of us this week, beginning healing processes for many and providing confirmation and affirmation. It was a bit difficult for me to get a grasp of people manifesting in the holy spirit. It often involves people speaking in tongues, collapsing to the floor, uncontrollable movements, screaming and laughter. I have never seen this before. Please pray for continued understanding of the holy spirit in my life.

Other highlights of the week:

• I did my STOP@5 this week! I spoke on how God is omnipresent. (I will post my speech as another post.) I was really nervous at first, but once I got started I was fine. It went really well and I got some good evaluations. Praise God that it is over!

• I went snowboarding for my first time ever this weekend! It was soooo much fun! I did fall lots, but surprising didn't hurt too much the next day. I went with Stephanie and Rachel (Stephanie is a teacher up at the mountain and Rachel had been a few times in Washington.) I was so nice to actually board on a real mountain. The runs are really long, it took about 10-15mins. to get down to the bottom and LOTS of powder. I will go a few more times while I'm here. (The pics at the top of this blog are of the amount of snow up on the mountailn) Here is the website for the mountain in case you want to check it out: http://www.blacktailmountain.com/
  

• We drove to Seattle, Washington on Sunday for mini-outreach. It is about a 10-12 hour drive. More on this in the next blog!

Week 3: Father Heart of God

Highlights of the week:

-Missions Tools is AWESOME! This week we learnt how to lay tile. This was really cool for me because I have always wanted to do that, watching people do it on This Old House. Now, I can finally say I have done it and I liked it! We laid tile in the kitchen of one of the houses on base. It was a very small space and we were almost walking on top of each other. Also on Friday for track time, we went into Kalispell to Samartian House.

Samaratian House is a shelter which helps homeless people get back up on their feet. Our team went last Friday too, but I stayed back at the base because I wasn't feeling well. We met with the founder of the place, Chris and he just shared some stories of the people he has met and studies he has done on the homeless people in Kalispell. After a long lunch break, we got to work painting a suite. We painted the whole suite an off-white in about 2 hours. There is 8 of us in total, Matt, Jeff, Stephanie (the leaders), then Jacob, Scott, Tae, Matt and myself. The suite was small with one bedroom, a small kitchen/living area and a bathroom. We also cleaned the hallways and laundry room. Oh and the whole time we were painting, we listened to country (mostly Garth Brooks! Most people here are huge country fans!)

-intercession time Each week we have 3 intercession times. Intercession is praying on behalf of others, 'standing in the gap'. We have intercession as a whole base on Monday's and we pray for situations in particular countries. Then we have intercession as a class and we pray about different issues. I have never done this before and this week it started to make sense as I heard things to pray for from God. TOTALLY AWESOME!!

Lectures: Father Heart of God

Speaker: Matt Atkins

This topic is a very important one that is foundational to Christian growth. 1 John 2:12-14 tells us that our sins are forgiven and that we need to know that God is our father. An important quote I got from this lecture:
“I receive from my parents what they can and have given me and I won't hold against them what they can't and haven't given me.”

To understand the love of God, there are two different types of love we talked about.

• “Agape” -fathers loves as a theological reality (unconditional love for you)

• “Phileo” -fathers love is meant to be an experimental reality (demonstrated affection for us)

There are 5 Aspects of a Father's Blessing (things which every child needs)

1. Meaningful Touch

2. Spoken Message

3. Attaching High Value

4. Picturing a Specific Future

5. Commitment to Fulfill the Blessing

What hinders us from receiving?

• the kingdom of Satan resisting God's love
  -Satan has been questioning God's goodness since the beginning (Genesis 3)
  -”Did God really say....?”, “You surely will not...”

• loveless teaching

• our lostness hinders us (Luke 15:1-32)

• unforgiveness hinders us from receiving the father's love (Matthew 6:14-15)

Forgiveness
...is NOT forgetting (Genesis 45:4)
...is NOT denial (Genesis 45:24)
...is NOT trust (Genesis 42-45)
...is NOT absence of anger (Genesis 42-45)
...IS entrusting the outcome to God, the righteous judge (Genesis 50:19,20)

-unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die

Look at others as a window, rather than a snapshot. I love this! We are all windows of opportunity.

This is just a few words that really stuck out for me from the week. I got a lot of information and it is very hard to summarize it into something that makes sense for those of you who are not here! Hope it makes a bit of sense though or that you get something out of it.

Until next week!

Week 2: Prayer

The first week of our regular schedule. Here is what a typical week looks like:

7:00-7:20 Breakfast
7:20-8:00 Quiet Time
8:00-12:00 Worship, Intercession and Lecture
(exceptions: Monday-all base worship & intercession, Tuesday-tracks 8:20-9:45, Friday -tracks 10:15-12:00)

12:00-12:30 Lunch
1:30-3:00 Meetings (Outreach Prep or Small Groups)
3:00-5:00 Work Duties (my job is to clean the preschool)
5:00-5:30 Dinner
6:45-9:00 Lecture (ONLY on Monday) every other evening is free except Thursday when we have our Community Meeting @7pm

Hope that makes sense.

A bit about lectures first and then I will get onto highlights of the week. The speaker was Mike Phillips and he continued on the topic of hearing God and prayer. This was a really interesting week as every week is, lots of information! I'll just quickly summarize some of the things I'm learning.

Why do we want to hear God's voice?
-to quiet the voices that aren't true
-to explain me (for application in my life)
-to hear him say 'I LOVE you'

An interesting quote Mike gave us:
“Without God, we are meaningless sacs of chemicals.”

There are many different ways to hear from God

Four Primary Ways
-Thought patterns
-Visual (visions, dreams)
-Emotions
-Intuitive

Other Ways
-Scriptures
-Prophetic Actions
-Peace
-Metaphors
-Deja Vu
-Whole being experiences

Steps in Receiving Something from God

1. Reception -who, what, when, etc.

2. Interpretation -what does this mean? Who is it for?

3. Application

Just a bit of information for you to chew on. Now some highlights of the week:

• the beginning of track times

On Monday track times, we will be working with facilities on the base learning different skills to add to our toolbox that may be useful on outreach. This week, we worked in one of the new houses they are building on the base. I got to use a nail gun and a mitre saw for the first time ever! I also did some caulking around the windows, filling in cracks.

• the beginning of STOP@5's

  These are short presentations (3-5 minutes) that each student has to do in front of the class and any other guests sitting in on lectures. The topic can be any character or attribute of God. (mine isn't until the end of the month)

That's pretty much it for this week. Well I did get sick, but it's not really worth mentioning since it is long over with! Thanks for reading!

Some more scenery pictures: (these are some of my pictures, not stolen from other people!)

another picture of the base (that is my dorm on the left hand side) You can't see my room because it is behind the tree!

more of the base

the beautiful mountains and nature around us

Week 1: continued...

On Thursday night (the night of our community meeting-everyone on the base attends and people from the community are also welcome), it was “Welcome to Montana Night”. We had a special dinner where the dining hall was all decorated like a Western Ranch (there were even stuffed heads on the walls!! -kinda creepy).

After the dinner, we had a SQUARE DANCE! The caller was so funny! He had a super long beard as you can see in the picture below and was a big joker! I had to be the part of the guy since girls largely out number guys on the base. It was a good time!

-Claire and the caller

-Dan, Claire and I at the dinner (yeah that's right I'm wearing a John Deere shirt- free found in the boutique a few days before!!!)

-me, Jennifer and Angi

-Stephanie Emery, Rachel, Jami, Alisha and Jennifer

back row: Stephanie Emery, me, Michelle Bailey, Alisha, Teresa (IPHC)
middle: Rebecca. Ja, Emily
front: Courtney

Week 1:Orientation

This week was jammed packed with all different lectures and events to introduce us to YWAM Montana DTS (Discipleship Training School for those that don't know).

The theme for our school is: AT ALL COSTS (scripture reference Luke 9:23-24) The base is very big into the arts, which is why 3 of the 5 specializations/interest tracks involve the arts. The 5 interest tracks are dance, art, music, snowboarding and missions tools. I choose missions tools. More on this later.

On the first night, everyone got a chance to share “How I Got to Montana”. It was really neat to hear everyone's stories.

-some of the girls
clockwise (starting at top left): Claire, Jami (green coat), Michelle B., Crystal, Ja, Stephanie E. (red hat), Alisha (red coat), Stephanie W. (brown hat), Sarah, Mackenzie and Michele F. (middle)

The lectures for this week included:

• Bible Meditation

• Worship

• Hearing God (my favourite of the week)

• The Root and Fruit of Pride (a video lecture by Floyd McClung-very good I recommend you watch it if you can get your hands on it!)

• Relinquishing Rights

If you want to hear more about these or any of my lecture topics, feel feel to e-mail me or chat with me on MSN.

Arriving in Lakeside, Montana

-a view of Lakeside, Montana

The beginning of the adventure!  It seems like so long ago (over a month now),
but I feel I should start here.
I left Canadian soil around 9:15am January 6th (was supposed to depart at
8:45, but there was delays due to the cabin crew not having there minimum
down time and it being very foggy).  I had a very short stopover in Minneapolis
(only about 30 mins.) and then it was off to my final destination, Glacier
International Airport in Kalispell, Montana.  This flight was a bit scary
because they wouldn't let anyone sit in the back 10 rows of seats due to a
weight restriction.  They had put extra fuel on the plane due to weather
conditions being bad in Montana and wanting enough so that we could coast
in the air until weather cleared.   Thankfully the weather cleared and we landed
without problems and my baggage made it too!

I was greeted at the airport by the entire Wilke family who are the leaders of my
DTS.  It was then a 20min. drive to the YWAM base which is in Lakeside, Montana. 

-a view from the base

There is about the same amount of snow here as there was when I left (it sounds
like you have more there now though!)  The base is located at the base of
Blacktail Mountain, which has a local ski resort on it.

Some facts about YWAM Montana:

• the base used to be a military base for a look-out that is located on Blacktail Mountain to watch Russia when nuclear missiles were a threat

• the base has its own water tower
  

• We (DTS) live on the 2nd floor of the Gladys Alyward dorm. Girls are on one side, guys on the other. My room is right beside the girls bathroom and I live with 2 other girls (Ja from Thialand and Angi from Vermont-pics of them will come later!)

• Our lecture hall is attached to the dorm and the cafeteria and the students center (library, laundry room, gym, pool table and snack bar) are each justa short walk away.

• There are 26 nations represented at this base! Incredible!
  

• Approx. 100 staff work on the base

Now some facts about Lakeside, Montana:

• population: 3,000

• there are 2 gas stations, a DAIRY QUEEN, Blacktail Grocery Store, ACE Hardware, a post office, a bank, a couple restaurants and a few other places that aren't worth mentioning

• Lakeside is located on the shore of Flathead Lake, which is the largest freshwater lake in Western USA.

That's it for now!

The Beginning

Well, here it is! I finally did it! After many years of saying that I would create a blog to document my adventures so that others could read it, it is finally here. So it begins...... Alice's YWAM Adventure! Stay tuned, more updates will be coming shortly after I compile my photos on my computer