Winding up

Lecture phase is winding up! Only two weeks until we leave for the island! Our team is doing excellently, keeping busy and really building unity and trust amongst ourselves.

Two weeks ago, our speaker was Bevin Ginder, a worship pastor from the Denver YWAM base. His teaching on missions was very inspiring because he approached it in a way that was exciting and attainable. Most people (including myself up to this point) view missions as a task. The "Great Comission" or "Our marching orders." But Bevin's focus was on the story of the gospel. The bible and our lives are part of an amazing epic that is being written. An epic, full of battle and heroics as well as the most incredible romantic plotline is unfolding around us and our call is to step into our role in the story. The Gospel is a two-part message.
Part one says "God is going to bless your socks off!" In other words, He's going to save you, give you eternal life, and give you abundant life on the earth. Part two says "Go and use that blessing to be a blessing to others." This was first declared to Abraham when God makes the covenant with him. God says in Genesis 12: "I will bless you... and all nations shall be blessed through you." Bevin's takeaway was that you can't preach one without the other. So our mission is to take that two-fold gospel, apply it to our lives and in doing so take the gospel to others.

This past week we've learned about Islam and the Jehovah's Witnesses and why their teachings don't make sense, and about God's plans and purposes in our lives, and about our identity as cleansed sons of God. The identity in Christ teaching was something that I really needed, because I, like a lot of other people think that God must be angry at me when I sin and that He wants to punish me. That's wrong thinking however, because to think that is to deny the finished work of the cross. Saying that God is still going to be angry and condemning when I sin is the same thing as saying "The cross wasn't good enough." So that was incredibly freeing to me, since it means that I don't have to fall on my face and feel miserable in order for God to forgive me :)

So yeah :) Life's been really good!! We've had some awesome times of prayer and intercession, and a good amount of time just marveling at the beauty of God's creation around us! The mountains and the oceans are spectacular and everything here is just so beautiful. Oh and we had a moose in our front yard today :) It was a really little one, probably only one or two so it was only as tall as a minivan. But it hung around for a while, ate some grass the ambled off :)

Friday night we had a masquerade party as an opportunity to just have some fun and get to know people better and fellowship with the community of friends YWAM has built in and around town :) so that was a lot of fun! Chad, the other guy student and I dressed up in matching robes and facemasks and had a lot of fun entering the costume contest. We would have definitely won had not Scott, our base leader shown up as an outhouse :P Good times :)

Anyway, I hope you're all doing well! I really appreciate your prayers and support! God bless! I miss you guys!

Josiah

Praises:
God is totally answering our prayers right and left, little things are getting straightened out and He's been so faithful to us and kept our path smooth!
Our team is really bonding even closer together and learning to work together.
We're all excited and looking forward to our outreach!

Prayers:
Some of our team members are still in need of finances for the trip, so your prayers for them are really appreciated!