Meet team Haiti!

When the Outreach teams were first announced, Team Haiti consisted of our two leaders, Bob and Dorothea, myself and two other girls. When I realized how small this team was, I really questioned God about whether it should even happen! After all, what kind of impact could three girls have on Haiti? But God spoke clearly: "Go to Haiti and trust me with your outreach". So I did (if somewhat reluctantly). However, all five current members of the team felt that God would bring more people to our team. So we began praying into that. And while He didn't answer our prayers in the way we imagined He would, ten people will now be boarding the plane on Tuesday, March 29th, glory to God!

Our Leaders:

Bob DeGroot, age 21 from Holland. He has been with YWAM for almost two years now, having completed his DTS in the spring of 2009. He shares my love for the beach and surfing so I knew from day one we would get along great. As if that didn't make him cool enough, he also has an amazing heart for God's kingdom and a special soft spot for kids.

Dorothea, age 23 from Switzerland. She did her DTS with Bob in 2009, so this is not the first time they've worked together in this context. They're both servant leaders and have given us as students a big say in what happens on the team. Dorothea is a firm believer in positive attitudes and has a huge love for fun. Her laughter and encouragement really bring life to the team.

The Original Three:

Stefanie Sliger, age 18 from Texas. She graduated highschool last spring and, like me, felt called to put college on hold for a time to go deeper into God. She has an amazing leadership and pastor/teacher annointing. When she speaks, people listen and where she goes, people follow. She also brings lots of energy to the team and is a pretty solid defender in soccer :)

Rachael Loh, age 27 from Malaysia. She might seem quiet and unassuming from the outside, but when she speaks, I have learned to listen. She is so filled with the Holy Spirit and it shows through her gentleness, her words of encouragement and her humility. She has an annointing for emotional healing that I know will come in handy not only in ministering to the people of Haiti but in our team as well.
Me, age 18 from Morocco/Minnesota. While this is not necessarily something I would have imagined for myself, last week David Gava prophecied a deliverance annointing over me both in the physical and the spiritual realm. In hindsight, this actually makes a lot of sense, because since I've been at DTS, God has used me to help break strongholds in the lives of several of my friends.  I look forward to the way God will develop that in me in Haiti!

January Additions:

Summer Zhu, age 18 from Australia. She had originally joined the India team but felt like God was calling her to switch after about a week. She is always laughing and making others laugh- definitely filled with the joy of the Lord! She also has amazing musical ability and a real worship annointing. She will not only be able to bring people into worship but she will also be able to bring healing and deliverance to people through her worship!

Ryan Vermooten, age 24 from South Africa. He was a last minute addition to our DTS, and arrived halfway through the second week of the school! But that was clearly an act of God as he has been a huge encouragement to me and a great asset to our team. As a vegetarian, he is the only member of our team who is genuinely excited by the beans-and-rice diet we'll be enjoying while in Haiti. He has amazing photography and videography skills, having done several YWAM schools in these fields, and has an annointing of creativity on him!
Ex-Team Turkey: About three weeks ago, the Turkey team was cancelled because their leaders were now needed to lead the Ghana team (it's complicated). As a result, the ex-Turkey team members were divided amongst the three remaining teams and we got two more members to our team!

Holly Leeming, age 20 from the UK. I was particularly excited by this addition because Holly, in addition to being pretty amazing, is my roommate! This means she probably knows me better than anyone else in the school, and has already learned to put up with my sleep-talking :) She has a powerful testimony and I have been able to personally witness the Lord's healing in her life, which has given her an annointing to now heal others!

Rachel Brighton, age 20 from Pennsylvania. She was a Junior in college without a major, who decided to take some time off to seek God's will for her life. Since being here, she has  found new life in the Holy Spirit. She has a "sledge-hammer" annointing, to break down walls and breathe the Holy Spirit into the lives of everyone she encounters.

Our latest addition: (as of yesterday, March 23rd)

Jesse Blair, age 25 from Washington. Needless to say, our whole team was excited to have another man! He is naturally protective and is sure to take good care of us ladies, but his goofy nature will keep us all laughing. Not to mention he balances out the guy-girl ratio a little :) He also has a lot of experience with construction which we'll be doing a lot of!


And that is team Haiti!

Week 10: Partnering with the Holy Spirit in Powerful Evangelism!

This last week was absolutely amazing as our speaker, David Gava, did far more than just teach- he worked with the Holy Spirit to effectively equip us for outreach, no longer a far-off eventuality but an immediate actuality!

He spoke on evangelism and emphasized the importance of really coming into the knowledge of what we have been given in Christ, because "if you know what you've been given, you can go out and give it! But if you don't know what you've been given, you can't go out and give it because you don't know what you have" :) He also challenged us to think about what it would be like if we began to work with the Holy Spirit in evangelism. Jesus only ever went where He saw His Father working and even then, worked not out of His own power but out of God's power in Him! We actually have the potential to do all the things Jesus did and more if we stop trying to do things for God's kingdom out of our own limited knowledge and ability but rather partner with the Holy Spirit! The age of signs and miracles is not over - David and other speakers before him have countless testimonies to make this quite clear. Rather, God's infinite imagination is working greater miracles all around the world today than ever before: people are being raised from the dead, money is falling out of loaves of bread, there are countless healings and countless deliverances...  And I believe that if I am in constant submission to and communion with the Father through the Holy Spirit, He will do unthinkable works through me! He will lead me to where He is already working and thoroughly equip me to work alongside Him and in Him. He will give me words of knowledge for people I have never met and will heal the sick that are brought before me. I will cast out demons in His name and reap the plentiful harvest that is waiting! As David said, "God is not looking for ability, He is looking for availability". I don't know what ability I have but I do know this: I have never been more available!

So stay tuned as, like Jesus, I go where the Father leads and partner with Him in the amazing things He is doing in Haiti and beyond. :)

The last few weeks

First off, I'd like to apologize for how long it's been since I last posted something here. These last few weeks have been pretty crazy busy (and I must admit, I've just been a bit lazy in regards to this blog). As the countdown until outreach begins to truly wind down, I find my free time being all but cut out of my life as I go from lectures to work duties to outreach team meetings to the video editing studio...

Despite being busy, these last few weeks have been full of great teaching and fun times. Two weeks ago, our topic was spiritual warfare and our speaker, Jills Bills really opened my eyes how finite our enemy is! He is a created being in no way equal to our God: he is not omnipotent, omnipresent, or all-knowing. His power is limited and his authority is actually smaller than ours! This really made me feel empowered to actually make a difference in the spiritual realm. This topic flowed into this last week as we learned about worship in warfare. We learned about how great an effect our worship can actually have on the place we are in! For this reason, it is so important that we be intentional in our worship, fixing our eyes on God and making Him the subject of our full adoration and attention. I also benefited from some extra time just spent in worship. As I turned my focus from my hectic schedule, tight finances and homesickness to God, He was so faithful to comfort me and restore joy to me.

A few weekends ago, a few of us drove 2 and a half hours east to the Riverside County Fair in Indio, where I introduced my international friends to the wonders of fair food, demolition derbies and unlimitted ride wristbands. Our amazing day of funnel cakes and ferris wheels ended with (can you believe it?) a SWITCHFOOT concert! We got there two hours before the show started and braved the cold to win amazing spots right up at the front. Not only did this allow me a pretty spectacular view of Switchfoot's top-notch performance but it also meant that I made contact with Jon Foreman's hand on not one, but two occasions! I guess that makes us basically best friends now (though we were already pretty tight before, after all, do follow him on Twitter!)

On a slightly different note, things for our Haiti outreach are really starting to come together. A major door opened for us to stay in Port-au-Prince, working with Homes of Hope, serving at the YWAM base and doing urban evangelism for the first four weeks. The second half will be spent in Gonaives doing ministry around the base there as well and working primarily amongst the Haitian churches. We'll be focusing on connecting the various churches to each other and to YWAM, as well as just serving where we're needed. The opportunities of course, are endless. As a team, we are committed to continually listening to the Holy Spirit and being sensitive to whatever work He would have us do!

Please continue to pray for our finances, as we are all still short. If you feel led to help support me individually or my team as a whole, please send any checks to:

YWAM LA 

11141 Osborne St.

Lake View Terrace 

CA 91342

Thank you so much for going on this adventure with me! As always, I will keep you posted! 

Lessons in God's Provision :)

In DTS, it is not at all uncommon to have worship at least one night a week, however last night, our worship looked a little bit different. We were told to spend the afternoon asking God if there was anything He wanted us to give away and then bring it with us that evening so as to spend the evening worshiping God by giving! 

As I prayed, God brought a few of my fellow classmates to mind who hadn't yet raised all their support for being here so I brought a few financial gifts for them, but He also brought my guitar to mind- and THAT I was not quite as ready to give up. So I pushed the thought aside and headed off to worship night with my checks in hand and my guitar safely in my room. 

When I got there, the leader opened by saying: "If any of you forgot anything in your room, feel free to go get it at any point during the night". Needless to say, that got me squirming! I was becoming increasingly convinced that God wanted me to give up my precious guitar and was in the middle of deciding whether or not to be obedient when my friend, Jesse called me into the middle of the circle to receive a gift from him. I had no idea what to expect but was completely blown away when he left the room and returned with his beautiful, hand-crafted guitar in hand. I knew firsthand what an incredible sacrifice it was and all I could do was stand there speechless :) As soon as the joy of receiving such a priceless gift subsided, I was incredibly humbled as I realized that the guitar which God had told me to give away was still sitting in my room. How could I have not believed that God wouldn't have some sort of plan for me? He knew how much I love guitar and music and He already had a replacement picked out for me- He just wanted me to be obedient.

Bashfully, I ran up to my room and got my guitar, then confessed to the group how God had told me to give my guitar away, I had dutifully ignored Him, He had blessed me with an even nicer guitar nonetheless and I was now finally being obedient. Better late than never right? 

Throughout the rest of the night, I watched as people sacrificed things of great monetary and sentimental value and God faithfully blessed them with even greater gifts in return. In addition to my guitar, I received two pairs of nice shoes, a bracelet and a skirt. This night will hopefully remain engrained in my memory for awhile as a reminder of God's amazing provision. He is so faithful to take what little we have to give, multiply it, and give it right back to you, blessing all kinds of people along the way. If He calls you to give, you can trust that it is absolutely the best thing you could be doing with your possessions :)  

Turns out, His timing was perfect as usual for teaching me this lesson, as I found out today the cost for my outreach to Haiti. Because our team is so small, the cost is significantly more than I expected (considering it is being divided amongst a smaller group of people, and we can't get group rates as a general rule with a team of 7). The total cost will be $3500. At the moment, I have about $2500. So now, I get to experience God's provision as He brings in the remaining $1000 between now and the time I leave in a month :) 

Please pray and ask  God if He might be calling you to be a part of this provision. If so, please make any checks out to YWAM and mail them to 11141 Osborne St. Lake View Terrace CA 91342 with a note attached indicating that they are for me. 

Either way, stay tuned for the continuation of the amazing story of how God in His infinite imagination, meets all my needs :) 

Weeks 5 and 6: Biblical worldview and Justice week

The last two weeks really went hand in hand. During the first, Colleen challenged us to tackle the major questions that shape our Worldview (such as "What is real?", "Can we know?", "What is the purpose for living?") from a Biblical perspective.

This led in to Justice week led by Christel. On Monday, we took part in different stations and skits that helped us experience some of the injustices in the world today, including; sex trafficking, child soldiers, the persecution of christians, the poor working conditions for children in sweat shops, and the lack of access to clean drinking water.

These guys, role-played terrorists, kidnapped us, threw us in the back of a van,  blindfolded and turned us into child soldiers. Some of us were forced to "kill" our fellow children. It was very real and quite frightening. To think of children as young as 3 or 4 years old having to go through this was heart-breaking.

Throughout the rest of the week, we learned about God's heart for justice, as well as some practical ways we can be getting involved. There are several organizations working hard at the various aspects of injustice all throughout the world, such as: 

*Not For Sale: http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/

*Project AK-47: https://projectak47.com/index.aspx (This one was started by a guy from the church I've been attending. He had some amazing stories about how God is working! He truly does stand up for the widows and orphans!)

On Friday, we went into Hollywood and did some flash-mob type things (everyone froze in a dramatic pose for 5 minutes on the walk of fame) to draw attention and raise awareness about the issue of sex-trafficking. As people stopped and asked questions, they were handed flyers with statistics and website URLs for more information on the subject and what can be done about it. As a member of the Media Track, I was able to film the people posing, the bystanders reactions as well as some interviews with people during and after the event. We will be working on putting together a video about this "Freeze Project". Stay tuned! :) 

Fun times :)

Went to see the Tonight Show with Jay Leno :) We got box seats and I  came away with some free awesome fuzzy socks as memerobilia. To see what I was seeing live last Wednsday, go to: 

http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show/video/wednesday-february-16-2011/1295633/. If you look closely, when Jay comes out at the very beginning, you can see me standing up in the very middle, wearing a black and white scarf :) But you'll have to look reaaally closely...

As a part of the Media track, I've gotten the opportunity to capture several pretty amazing moments, one of which took place last Friday on Hollywood boulevard. The students in my DTS did some flash mob type stuff to raise awareness about the issue of human trafficking. We turned lots of heads and were able to spread the news about this growing problem. 

A fun hike... If it weren't for the smog, you wouldn't even know this is LA!

Australia Day!!

LA by night :) 

A trip to Anaheim- we didn't even have to go in to Disneyland to enjoy ourselves :) We walked around Downtown Disney and soaked up the magic while watching the fireworks, listening to free live music, and eating yummy food.... 

Week Four: Identity/ the Father Heart of God

It doesn't take a clairevoyant to predict that this weeks' topics of Identity and the Father Heart of God might be tear-jerkers. And suffice it to say, our two amazing speakers, Dan Sneed and Dave G., weren't bashful about bringing on the tears.

Our first speaker, Dan, spoke on Identity and Self-image. He explained that identity is who we in fact are; the way God sees us; reality. Self-image on the other hand, is the way we perceive ourselves and can be a completely different thing indeed from who we truly are. He spoke on how, through Christ, we have a new identity: God now sees us as His adopted children, holy and blameless, covered in the blood of Jesus. To put it shockingly, we are the same in His eyes as His Son! Unfortunately, our self-image just can't grasp that because everything we see, everything we hear, everything that God tells us passes through a filter that we ourselves have created, a filter built on one or two foundational lies. These lies are usually set in place as young children and are buried so deep that we are no way aware of them! They can only be revealed by the work of the Holy Spirit and  even then, take years of healing to bleed out. At Dan's urging, I prayed that the Holy Spirit would reveal any foundational lies that I have been believing, and over the course of the last week, He has done exactly that.

Our second speaker, Dave, took over on Thursday and spoke on the Father Heart of God. He explained that  because of these foundational lies that form a base for a skewed filter through which we view the world, we have developed a wrong perception of God the Father. As a result, we can't relate to God the Father in the way we wants us to- as his trusting little children. So on Friday, Dave took us through a tearful, re-parenting process as the Holy Spirit moved around the room, revealing to each person the things that were keeping us from crawling into Papa God's lap and delighting in Him. I wish I could say that my foundational lie has no stronghold in my life anymore, that I am completely healed and in perfect harmony with my heavenly Father, but that just wouldn't be true. I am however, allowing the beautiful, painful, healing process to begin. I am convinced that God has some amazing things in store for me over the course of the rest of this school and outreach! I am excited to continue this adventure deeper into Him :)