God is Good :)

That's the cry that God has put in my heart and the hearts of those around me. In the last two weeks, our Father has totally cared for us, nurtured us, and protected us :)

The week before last, Scott Smith, the base leader spoke on world religions, covering witchcraft, buddhism, hinduism, and mormonism. It was a fascinating week, and it was a lot of fun to learn about the other religions and see where they come from when they make statements of belief.

Then this past week, Bob Reasener spoke about the character and nature of God. We had a few laughs because one of the students is named Chad Reimer, so we had a week of "Reim and Reasen" :D Anyway, Bob was an excellent speaker. He's pastored a church nearby for over 10 years, and been all over the world, both speaking and holding leadership training sessions. He really ministered to us and had a lot of solid teaching that we needed to hear. He spoke about God as a Master, as King, as the Bridegroom and as Friend.

Then on Thursday, he spoke to us out of one of his favorite subjects, "Big God, little devil." In this teaching talked about how we as christians often think of satan as the opposite of God and therefore equal in power. But God is so much bigger and more powerful than satan that when satan "fell from heaven like lightning" (Luke 10:18) God wasn't even the one who kicked him out. God sent the archangel Michael to do it. But so many times we forget who we belong to and start living in fear of what the devil can do to us. It was an amazing message that we really needed to hear :)

Then yesterday we had fun time in the morning and we got to go sledding! :) We drove up to Olson mountain and the Cooleies brought their snowmobile "or snow machine as they call it here" and towed us up the hill and we rode sleds down. Greg also brought his snowboard and was kind enough to let us students who were dying to snowboard use it :)

So all in all it's been an amazing two weeks :)
I hope everyone's doing well!
God bless,
Josiah

Praises:
God has totally answered your prayers for unity on the team and continues to grow us closer together!!
Excellent ministry and teaching these past two weeks

Prayers:
Provision for the students who still need money for outreach (a large portion of the cost is due in three days)

Happy Valentines Day

Hey Everyone!

Happy Valentines Day!

Last week I was in Santa Barbara, at Westmont College competing for their Monroe scholarship, so I wasn't able to write anything up. It's been a pretty good last two weeks. Last week the staff taught on various subjects; modesty, public speaking, emotions, and forgiveness.

This past week, a pastor from Kodiak island came and taught on intercession and spiritual warfare. He's the pastor of a very charismatic church, so we didn't agree with some of the stuff he talked about, but what he had to say was very good :)

I've been really tired this past week. I only got fourteen hours of sleep all of last weekend, so I was pretty wiped throughout the week. Oh! Speaking of the week, it was Angel-Mortal week. Each person is assigned a "mortal" to be an "Angel" to for the week and you have to do something nice for them every day, which was a lot of fun. Then yesterday, we tried to guess who our angel was and we all revealed ourselves.

I hope you're all doing well!
God bless,
Josiah

Praises:
The scholarship competition went well, and my trip went smoothly
The volcano hasn't gone off (yet)

Prayers:
That I would get more sleep
One of our team members is really struggling with submission to authority, so if you could pray for her, that would be great.

The Shack

Hey Everyone :)

I just finished the second book we were assigned. It's called The Shack and it's an amazing work. The book feels God-inspired and it's beautifully written and tells an incredible story about who God is. While some of it is a little different theologically, I still enjoyed it to no end. I definitely reccomend it to all believers out there!

In other news, we finally got some snow :) So everything is covered in beautiful white :) For small group today we dug out the firepit (down a foot and a half) and roasted hot dogs in 0 degrees :)

Life's been super fun!

Hope you all are doing well!
God bless,
Josiah

Praises:
Snow!
Amazing teaching :)

Prayers:
That I would have a safe flight down to Santa Barbara on Thursday
That Redoubt (a local volcano) wouldn't cause too much damage when it blows