Week 3, Dealing With the Past

This week our topic was on "Dealing With the Past". If you are like me you probably interpreted it to be about dealing with issues from the past and though we did touch on that, we got much deeper and went much farther back into the past. Back when I was only a thought in God's mind. Back to the time of Adam and the fall. Back to truths and deceptions that cause us now to not understand God in the way that we are meant to.

One quote really struck me on just how true it is:
God has created man in His own image and man has repaid the favour. We make God out to be just a really, really good version of us. We can only comprehend the tiniest, tiniest piece of the puzzle so we just make up a pretty box that we think is right and put our God into it and think everything is perfect.

We think we know God from what we read and what we see or have been taught, but knowing someone doesn't always mean we will understand them.

The Deception of the Flesh

The Bible talks about the "flesh". The flesh may be defined as 'a condition in which a person operates out of their own resources doing things their own way' or in other words, me saying I can do this on my own better than God. However the Bible says we are NOT the flesh and the flesh is NOT us.

Galatians 5:16-17 "But I say, walk and live in the Spirit; then you will certainly not gratify the cravings and desires of the flesh . For the desires of the flesh are opposed to the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are opposed to the flesh ; for they are in conflict with each other, so that you are not free but are prevented from doing what you desire to do."

God did not call us to a measured life or a life with information overload. God called us to life. God pursues US! It's not about performing. He is satisfied with us already; if he wasn't how could he have put the Holy Spirit into our lives. This is the transformation. This is exciting!!

Satan uses the flesh to deceive us into untruths. His first deception was with Eve and Adam. He told Adam and Eve that if they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil that they would be like God [deception] BUT God created us in his image! We ALREADY are JUST like God, in his image. As much like God as we were ever going to be. So what happened? They discovered their nakedness, which in original translation actually means empty. They didn't litterly die but they died inside.

So Good does not equal Life?
No, doing the good thing or right thing doesn't mean you are experiencing life. I am living out of a system that I believe will bring me life (by doing good) but it doesn't - Good is under the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil (self-life, independence, bondage, law, death (in speration).
The Tree of life = Spirit-life, dependance, freedom, grace, life.

So obviously man's effort to get to God wasn't working...that's WHY Jesus always had to come to us. God knew that when he created us that we would separate ourselves from him, it was always the plan for Jesus to come to make us alive again.

When Jesus came and died on the cross for us he spoke the words, "It is finished". This was the reason for his coming, to give us life, to bring God down to us so that we may be a part of him. To wipe us clean from all sin and condemnation. We are now completely righteous. He gave us a new identity in God.
Colossions 2:13-14 - "And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made you alive together with Christ, having forgiven you all your trespasses, having wiped out the requirements against us. He has taken it out of the way having nailed it to the cross".

Romans 2:4 - "Or do you think so little of how riches is his kindness, forbearance, and patience, not realizing that it is God's kindness that is leading you to repent?"
The word for repent in Greek is "metanoia" which means turn around. God's goodness in us yells out "metanoia" to "turn around". There is no condemnation in God when we go the wrong way, just the guidance of "You are going the wrong way child, turn around".

God does not see our sins as Jesus died on the cross for ALL our sins. They have all already been forgiven BUT this doesn't mean we don't need to confess our sins. Not for God but for us. We are already forgiven by Jesus dieing on the cross but if we sin we still need to talk to God about it but we need not fear as we are already forgiven. Sin means now that is puts a wierdness into our relationship with God, it makes it awkward. God is not limited but sin limits us. We do not NEED to confess to God but we do so because it skews our relationship with him.

This was really amazing to hear. So freeing if you really think about it. There is NOTHING we can do to make God love us LESS or More. HE loves us unconditionally. He created us to share relationship with Him (the Trinity). We don't need to be good but we do it because we love him, because of our relationship with him. WE are ALWAYS going to be the fathers children.

So let's go back to Deception and "Dealing With the Past" on a now basis.

I Think...Therefore I Am??? Our self-concept directly affects everything in life.
Our beliefs about ourselves predict behaviour. What I believe about myself will ultimately determine what I do and how I teach others to treat me. For example, If I believe about myself that I am not smart enough and I tell others that I am not smart enough, eventually they will treat me like I am not very smart and then lets say, they will write-off what I have to say as it's probably not very good anyhow.
BUT I AM WORTHY because of Jesus Christ and I shouldn't be treated this way. So when do these deceptions in our mind begin?? We are not born with them but from birth we are "nature-ally" self-focused. Before the age of 5, we have highly developed a self-image, we need others to feed us, pamper us, change us, etc. As we grow if we see parents fighting or other children whispering we automatically think it is about us. We can't see beyond ourselves.

Sin soils, brings deception of how we see ourselves and how others see us. Sin wounds and defiles us. Things of our past, effects from family, friends have created lies in our heads that make us think we are not good enough, not worth it, maybe if I act this way THEN I will have friends, etc. These lies have sown into our hearts. These lies are arrows sticking out of our hearts so that when we meet new people and want to get to know them we can't get close enough because these arrows are in the way. However, we shouldn't blame the past but realize its impact in our lives.

These lies become strongholds in our lives that keep us in bondage of believe the lies are truths.
Four Characteristics of Stronghold Beliefs are:
1) Debilitating - we need to confess it to God so he can take away the lie
2) Controlling - our mind is now telling us what's true
3) Self-protective - put up barriers to keep people from hurting us again
4) Self-destructive - living in lies we are not experiencing Christ in his fullness.

We need to recognize the lies and once we discover them give them up to God so that he can reveal the truths to us. That we are perfect and wonderful in him, that he is well pleased with us.

So what happens if we don't? Our emotions become effected. Emotions are the colour of our soul, they are an indicator of what's going on underneath the surface in our "Emotional Bank Vault". Our fear is that if we let out the emotions we have hidden for so long it is going to destroy us and those around us.

So during this time we had an exercise in class in which we took a look at the messages about ourselves that we have received from people that have had an effect on our lives which then leads us to feel and think a certain way about ourselves and motivates us to build protective layers. Later we wrote down our final thought that summed up how we view ourselves. It was very sad and hard to see how some of us viewed ourselves - Not good enough, not perfect enough, I can't show who I truly am or they won't like me, I can never fail, I have to always win, etc. It was not easy and how strong those were to reveal these lies to everyone.

I want to share with you what I wrote as I want you to fully be able to take part in my spiritual journey and hopefully be blessed by it.

For me I wrote, "I am not worth it". My lie is that "I am not worth holding on to because either I am not pretty enough, funny enough, positive enough, smart enough." But mainly I'm just not worth holding on to, either as a girlfriend or as a friend. Now I will say I don't totally believe this lie, I believe God brings people into our lives to bless us for a short time or a longer time, some are meant to stay shorter than others but we need to see the value in the relationship and enjoy them for the time they are in our lives. However, there are times when I am low or down in the dumps or feeling lonely that Satan brings this untruth back into my mind and fools me into believing this.

The wonderful part about this exercise was that in the end we prayed to the Holy Spirit to reveal us truths to speak upon each other. It was so beautiful and so uplifting. It was such a special moment for us and another bonding time.

So how do we erase these lies or at least begin to work on erasing them?
In "Forgiving One Another as in Christ He Forgave Us".
However, let me note: Forgiveness is NOT for the person that hurt you. It is for yourself to release you from its clutches but we must also note that we can only do this in God, apart from Him it is impossible to forgive on our own.

Moving toward Freedom first 'Face the pain' [identify the person/event/emotion/effect] then Forgive (or cancel the debt), then 'Accept the offender as he/she is without demands for change' and lastly 'life free to engage again in relationships with others'.

To emphasize all that I wrote, I want to leave off with a song that Laurie left off with for us. I encourage you to listen to the song if you are able but for now enjoy the words and be open to them. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this. I really felt that I had to write it all out. I hope that it may have blessed you but if you have any questions or disagreements PLEASE send me a note or email me. I can't promise I'll have answers for everything but I encourage discussion.
Love Stephanie

"Not Guilty Anymore" by Aaron Keyes

It doesn’t matter what You’ve done; It doesn't matter where you're coming from
Doesn’t matter where you’ve been, Hear me tell you I forgive

You’re not guilty anymore, You're not filthy anymore,
I love you, mercy is yours
You're not broken anymore, You're not captive anymore
I love you, mercy is yours

Can you believe that this is true, Grace abundant I am giving you
Cleansing deeper than you know, All was paid for long ago

There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Jesus

You are spotless
You are holy
You are faultless
You are whole
You are righteous
You are blameless
You are pardoned
You are mine

________________

Ephesians 1:17 - "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better."

Week 2, The Father Heart of God

This past week was the 2nd week of the lecture phase of DTS and we were blessed to have Claude Bonjour come and spend time with us and get to know us and bless us with his lectures on the Father Heart of God. We talked a lot about our relationships with our own fathers and we were all very open and it was amazing. We discussed how our views of our earthly father plays a huge roll in our views of our heavenly father, and God really spoke through Claude to a lot of people this week. During one session we each shared about our own personal relationships with our fathers and I was surprised how sad some of our stories were. It made me weep and I know God was weeping as well. Such heartbreak for so many in the group. It got me thinking that maybe we need to look at having more guidance programs for Fathers - new and old. Fathers play such an important role in a child's life and many of them don't know what it's like to be a Father or how to really love and show it b/c of the experience they had with their own fathers and so on and so on. We have programs for mothers but besides Peace Keepers, I don't think we really disciple the men in our church on being fathers that resemble the Ultimate Father of all, Our Father God. I just want to put it out there that I am not talking about ALL fathers. I'm pondering these thoughts and will probably come back to them in the future.

There were many emotional times during the week and when making a comment to Claude, he said, "And this is only the beginning, the first week, just wait!" Which is soo true. God is shaking us all up, there is a movement going on here. It's exciting but also very emotional at times.

I'll share one personal story that happened to me, a hard one. It was during intercession prayer that we have each Thursday morning for the various countries we will be going too. During orientation we were first introduced to "The Principles for Effective Intercession" by Joy Dawsen. A kind of guideline of 10 points on intercession prayer. We split into small groups to pray over Venezuela and the issues there. One of the girls in my group mentioned she had trouble with the guidelines because she grew up being taught how to be open and really communicate with God in prayer (through tongues and various other ways). She struggled with feeling like she was being "told" how to pray. I explained that though she has been blessed to know these, for some of us, including myself, the guidance is very helpful. I never really considered how important it is to ask God to reveal any sins left on my heart that I haven't confessed so that the devil will not take hold of them and this became revealed to me as you will read.
So we began in prayer, myself and a few others praying what was on our heart...then that one girl was overtaken by the Holy Spirit and began praying louder and louder then in tongues. It was amazing but sadly at that same time I felt the devil take hold of me and turn my thoughts of goodness into harsh criticism, feeling all of a sudden that everything I say and do is fake. That I don't really mean what I say and it just went on and on. I froze and could no longer concentrate on anything but selfish and awful thoughts. I had to get out of there...Thankfully Claude happened to be just outside so I got up and went out and spoke of what just happened to me. I am so thankful God put him there for me as I just started to shake so hard from crying so hard. He prayed over me, telling/revealing truths to me to rid of the lies that were going through my mind, praying Gods love on me.
I tell this story because I just want to show how Satan works so hard in situations where he knows that he doesn't have control. He grabs onto anything and everything, twisting things all around. When we first arrived we were told that great things are happening here, a manafestation. God is really speaking here...and he is! This really is an amazing time, we are learning soo much and God is surrounding us here...but that doesn't mean Satan isn't trying to work his magic because he is. Our self-esteem issues are high on the rise. So I just ask of you to pray for each of us here, students and staff. Pray that we can stand strong in God's love and in his truth and to close our ears to lies.

I have just been enjoying so much what we have been learning and I wish I could just tell you about it all, explain everything in full but of course that would take a very long time :P While learning there have definitely been times where various people from back home pop into mind of how much I wish they were here to hear this or that I could be where they were to share what I was learning, but hopefully in time.

Friday afternoon we went to a beach called Foul Bay to worship. That was really neat that we could take our worship outside the classroom and on the beach. Then we all went off for 10 mins to have time to let God speak to us through his creation. I saw a storm coming in (which didn't end up reaching land) and felt God saying that he was going to be shaking things up here and shaking up our lives and our thoughts. It's exciting. Afterwards we came together and shared what we had heard. As usual Alef always has something hilarious happen to him that creates another funny story. He was sitting at the Ocean talking with God and what comes up out of the water right at his feet....a PHONE!! That's right, a telephone! So he said he heard God say, You can call me (talk with me) anytime! lol. Love it! Afterwards we had the opportunity to go into the water for a bit. The waves were insane and I just stayed at the edge of them but it was funny watching others get bowled over and rolled up on the beach.

Friday night we went out to Cafe Sol for some Mexican food which was a good time, it was nice to hangout together away from base, time to bond more and eat some different food! Celina took a bunch of us to Miami beach for the afternoon on Saturday (after spending the morning working on my book report). The water here still amazes me, it is so beautiful. It was 5 pm and we were waiting for the bus which was supposed to come at 5:30 so we decided to walk to the jetty by the Oistins fish market cause you can see turtles there in the evenings. Finally we discovered how to get on the jetty, after some wandering (we had to cut through a building where they brought the fish to gut them...it smelled lovely). There were some men on the jetty and as we were walking by they said "you want to see the turtles?" They were throwing the fish guts into the ocean and there were 4 turtles eating there! They were so huge. It was awesome. We are going to go back one of these days cause Solomon promised to take us swimming with the turtles :-)

Sunday we went to a Community Center where we ran a children's church program for the community children. The kids had so much energy, it was so much fun. We sang some fun songs with lots of actions, one that Solomon taught us. It is sooo hilarious but hard to explain. Hopefully I'll be able to share a video of it at some point or at least once I am back home. We separated into age groups and my group focused on the Fruit of the Spirit. We started with a bunch of repeating fun songs to get to know eachother (songs from our camp childhood days). After our lesson we played simon says with them. They are such a good children, so darling. It was a great time.

In the afternoon we once again had the opportunity to go the beach, back to Crane beach, my favourite. The waves are just right there, a bit large but not enough to be sucked out by the undertow but large enough to body surf them in :) Fun!

Well we have already started week#3 now but I will tell you more about that later. Almost already a third way through the DTS, crazy! :)

South America Outreach Destination

So we were told a tentative schedule type thing of our outreach. We will be going only to 4 countries, not 5 due to the fact that it is the rainy season in South America. So we fly out of Barbados to Trinidad and Tobago because that is the only way to reach Venezuela, from Trinidad and Tobago. We fly from Trinidad and Tobago to Caracas, Venezuela where we will staying and doing ministry. Then we will drive to Boa Vista, Brazil and stay there and do ministry, then driving onto Manaus, Brazil and stay there to do ministry. Then we will take a boat down the Amazon down to Porto Velho, Brazil and do ministry there as well. We then fly to Buenos Aires, Argentina to do ministry and then we travel up into Bolivia and that will be our last place before we fly back to Caracas and back to Barbados. We will stay in each place for 2-3 weeks.
All of this can change of course as we don’t have strong connections in every place so prayer that everything falls into place smoothly would be great. As well as protection as it is the rainy season in many places we are going and this creates a danger for traveling. This is one of the reasons we are not going down through Bolivia to Argentina but rather flying to Argentina and going up to Bolivia because the roads are better this way, it would be too dangerous to go the other way. So far that is all I have, I will keep you updated as I find out more.

Island Tour (and a weekly update)

So Tuesday we went on a bit of a tour around the island of Barbados which was absolutely amazing! We started out at Codrington College which is where the Anglican priest go to become priests. It is one of the oldest buildings in Barbados and the grounds are beautiful and the view even more amazing. It is where one of the couples on the base here got their wedding pictures done. The ducks there were so friendly, the ducklings came so close to us that we could touch them, though when we did, they ran away, but the mother didn't get too mad at us. We were taking a bunch of pictures and joked that people back home would say, "You went to Barbados and all you took pictures of were DUCKS!!??" lol. It was here that I discovered that what I thought were goats I was seeing around the island were actually called black bellied sheep! That was interesting because they kind of looked like goats.

After that we went to a church in St. John. This church, as well, is very old and had some of the oldest tombs on the island. Some dating back even to the 1700's. We then went to Bathsheba which is a beach on the west side of the island which is known for its large rocks. It was so beautiful there. It reminded me a bit of the one lone rock at the farthest point along the Seawall in Stanley Park in BC. It was beautiful there. We then went to a place called the Animal Flower Caves. You had to pay to go in the caves so we didn't, but apparently there was coral down there that was alive and it was quite amazing to see. There were also cliffs here and that is what we went to see. It was very rocky, no beaches on this shore but the Atlantic water was soo blue. These caves were at the North-East part of the island and the waves had hit the cliffs so much that it hollowed it out in places, it was quite beautiful.

Then we continued on to a place called Farley Hill National Park which was just breathtaking. We had driven by some sharper rock hills but only caught a glance and didn't have a chance to take a picture but you could see them from the park. We went there to eat our lunch of cold hot dogs...we were hungry so everything tasted good :) Just before I had an opportunity to talk with fellow YWAMer Claudia. We had such a nice, deep conversation while looking over the valley. I really felt more connected with her. Also I just ask for prayers for her as she could use some. She's a beautiful person but she has trouble believing it herself.

We then continued our trek onto the 4 towns in Barbados: Speighstown, Holetown, Bridgetown and Oistens. We stopped at the jetty in Speighstown which is basically a pier and we were able to see schools of fish and I, along with a few others, saw a turtle swimming, very cool. We also stopped at another Paynes Bay between Speighstown and Holetown where we swam. There were locals with a boat and tubes as well as jet skis offering rides, which was a touch annoying as we were trying to enjoy the beauty and all I could smell was the fumes :P We just drove through the rest of the towns and back to the base. Solomon told us of a beach where you can swim with turtles and has promised to take us there one of the days on the weekend, so excited.

Wednesday we had lectures and more orientation.

International Day of Prayer/Testimonies
Thursday was YWAM's international day of prayer as it was the first Thursday of the month. So we skipped lunch and spent that time in prayer. We all got together, leaders and students and we all split off into groups of 3. Then we prayed and we were given 5 separate questions to ask God. After each question we shared what we heard from God with the other 2 people in our group. The 5 questions were: 1. What sin is there in my life that is preventing me from growing in relationship with you? 2. What do you have on your heart for me God? 3. What do you have on your heart for this YWAM base God? 4. What do you have on your heart for the church God? 5. What do you have on your heart for the world God? This session really stretched me to listen for the voice of God, we only had 5 mins pretty much for each question before we were asked to share in our group. The last 3 questions we wrote down our answers as those would be given to the head of YWAM to see what God was speaking to all of us. I did hear God speak somethings on my heart but a few of the questions I heard nothing, which is fine too. Janell (staff and worship leader) and Riikki (fellow YWAMer) were in my group. After that we stayed and shared our testimonies. We didn't finish through everyone so we continued Friday afternoon with that as well. That was a real enjoyable time. Some testimonies (specifically Solomons and Alefs) were very funny (well b/c they made them that way, they both had pretty intense things that they went through) and other testimonies we wept through. I really enjoyed that time as I think it really help us to bond more together and to understand a bit better where each of us have come from and how God brought us here to YWAM Barbados DTS.

Tae bo
We started Tae bo on Thursday with Solomon. I am so sore at the moment. Tae bo is an intense aerobic workout that had us all sweating especially because it does not cool down much at night here. It is still hot and by the end of the session our clothes are completely soaked in sweat! I don't think I have ever sweated that much before! But it is lots of fun! Kashama, Solomon's wife, joined us the first evening. I joked how mean her husband is, torturing us, she agreed, lol. Kashama has already become a special person to me here. She works only one day in the YWAM office and otherwise is in University. They live just to the right of the base so when she is not at school she is often around. We really click and I just love being around her and talking with her. She is such a hoot and add Solomon into the mix it's a barrel of laughter.

Friday we continued and finished with the testimonies as well as had another Tae bo session. We will be having one every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and going for a walk one night a week in the evening...not sure which night yet. Solomon and Alef - who is from Holland - go running every morning at 5 am. I wake up about 15 minutes later to go speed walking to the big hill, up and around and back. So far I've had at least one girl come with me every morning, which has been really nice.

Oistins Excursion
Friday night around 8:30 pm we left for Oistins and the fish market there, once again Solomon driving us. That was fun. I had flying fish, along with a bunch of sides including the Carribean Macarroni pie. We got a chance to look around the shops set up there and listen to the music - there were 2 dj`s and 2 separate stages - which was neat. We didn't stay out too late, which was fine because we still had fun!

Bridgetown Excursion
Today most of us spent the day in Bridgetown doing some shopping and getting some things we forgot. We took the bus in and though I started off sitting, it wasn't long before I gave up my seat for an elderly women and found myself standing, which was funny as it wasn't much before I made a comment there is no way I would want to stand on these type of buses. What a workout! Holding on super tight as those buses do not go slow and whip around the corners. Made for a great true Caribbean experience :) We started off at Chefette because the boys missed breakfast. Chefette is a local fast food restaurant - no McDonalds here, but there is KFC. So far I have only had ice cream at Chefette. Then we moved on to some stores. Cave Shepherd is a duty free store so we spent most of our time there and unfortunately it was here we lost part of our group. We looked around for them but couldn't find them. We headed out to check out the street shopping, which is much more up my alley. Feels more like being in the Caribbean, I can always go to a mall back home but the street shops we don't have. After we got all the household items and food we were missing we headed off to the beach. White as snow sand and crystal clear blue waters, just beautiful. We were there for a few hours, when Nicole and Riikka found us (two of the girls we lost). That was great. We stayed for about an hour and a half longer and then headed back to the bus terminal to go back to base. It was a great but tiring day.

Church/Dribble 2 Africa
Sunday we left for Church at 7am as it was clear across the island completely to the opposite side. It was a great service and Alef was the first to share his testimony in Church. Solomon talked about Dribble 2 Africa which is another program that YWAM Barbados is putting together in June/July 2010 to go to the World Soccer Championships in South Africa, where Solomon lived at one point. They will be working with orphans, young boys in high security prisons and evangelising on the streets. It sounds like such a great program. Solomon is going around the various islands getting the young Caribbean people excited to join. They are hoping to take at least 300 people!

The rest of the afternoon I just relaxed, uploaded pictures to Facebook and gabbed with the few people who had opted out from going to the beach again. Skype has been working well so I have had the chance to talk with mom and dad a few times which is really nice.

School/Work Duties
Today, Monday, we officially started classes with our guest speaker Claude Bonjour from Switzerland. Our first week is on The Father Heart of God. It was a great start. In the afternoon we parted to our "work duties" and/or ISCF, which is the school Christian intervarsity here. My work duty is actually in the office! I'll be able to put some of my design skills into play once again, helping out with laying out their newsletter, as well as helping plan the Christmas party for Children on the island that are infected or have been affected by HIV/Aids. Sadly, we will be gone for the party but I'm excited to be able to help with the preperations. Celina and Marcia were fighting over me in the office, which was funny. Celina is the accountant here (and she will also be coming on outreach with us) and she has soo much to do. So I will be helping her out as well, working on the Gov't VAT forms, going through the invoices and filling out and excell form so they can get their tax money back since they are a non-profit organization.