Spread the Word of God to the country towns in Australia

We will be running to 4 country towns in Queensland. This is going to be a small part of a big vision: to run with a message for the children of the western world & for the reformation of the western world. Our part is going to start off a run to different country towns and to bring there a bible in every home. The vision is to run all over the western world… For more information check out the site: http://passiton.alined.com/

For a short 3 minute movie about the project, watch this movie: Go Pass It On Tour

A True Parade of Love in Berlin

In Germany, we will work together with the YWAM Berlin base. As far as we know so far, the main two things we will do in Berlin is street evangelism and being involved in an English Camp for German kids. During our stay in Berlin probably the Love Parade will be organized there. This is a popular electronic dance festival where they pretty much stand for peace through music and ‘love’. Our hope is that these people will experience true love, which can only come from God Himself. Our prayer is that Gods love will overflow out of us to the people on the street in Berlin.

From London to the ends of the earth

During our time in London there is probably the world biggest and greatest event: the Olympics! We are going to work together with the organization called ‘More than Gold’ that organizes outreaches for teams who are coming on outreach to the Olympics. They will connect us with local churches to set up ministry. We are really excited to be experience one, if not, the greatest worldwide event where life and sport is celebrated. And not only that: there is going to be the biggest Christian mission wave ever known! We are going to be part of that which makes me just stoked to see how God is going to move. This reminds me of when the Holy Spirit came down upon the disciples with Pentecost. It says in Acts that every nation on the world was represented in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit was poured out on human kind. From then on it spread all over the world. What I want to take from this historical event to the Olympics coming up, is that God uses big events like this to make an impact in the world. It is our prayer as an outreach team that this wave will influence people coming from all the nation to the Olympics in London; to see them after that making an impact in their home towns, cities and nations.

Dates

• Australia: 27^th of May until 17^th of June (3 weeks)
• Berlin: 19^th of June until 23th of July (5-6 weeks)
• London: 24^th of July until 9^th of August (2-3 weeks)

We as Youth With A Mission Brisbane have volunteered there now for at least the last 10-15 years. We do whatever is needed to make the Festival happen: we are there just to serve the people. This is always a great testimony to the Christians who run the festival and a great blessing to them.

The focus of the festival is not only inside for the Christians who come to the festival, but also to be a blessing the non-Christian businesses and individuals in Toowoomba. Easterfest had artists playing in some pubs, cafés and other business in town. We also saw some people giving their lives to God for their first time.

And is this not were Easter is all about? Jesus died and rose again so that we may have eternal life. We were celebrating that with around 40.000 people in Toowoomba with music and dancing which is great! But in heaven there was probably even a greater party about those few individuals who came to know Christ in Toowoomba.

For me personally Easter is a great time to rethink what Jesus has done for me. I have been on a journey these last few years where God has showed me a lot about my own heart and obedience. I cannot trust my own heart, but I can trust my heart into His hands, knowing that He can make something beautiful out of it. When He calls me to step out, I do not worry anymore where my heart is at, but I walk in obedience knowing that He takes care of my heart. My focus is not anymore on my own weaknesses, but just on where Jesus is leading me.

Now Easterfest is over; the focus is totally on outreach. Please pray for us that God will lead us in the preparations and will open the doors for us. Please pray for all the finances to come in for everyone on the team.

Here a testimony of a student of the last weeks, a clip from YouTube and a little insight on outreach! We had some weeks of surival and with lectures on Lordship and Apologetics.

The week of Lordship was great. Students had the opportunity to lay their rights down, repent of sins, forgive people and consecrate themselves for God. This week is always a significant week for a lot of students and so it was this time again. It is amazing to see what God does in people when we come and are just totally open and vulnerable before Him and others. His love never fails. Here an insight of one of the students – Robin – for how this week was for him:

It was an awesome week! The first few days were just information, the last day was bringing everything that we learned into practice. We did praise, thanksgiving, different offerings and ministry for 14 hours. The whole purpose of the day was just to remove the veil over our life, just like Jesus removed the veil in the temple when He died. After this day I just felt so free and good!

The week of Apologetics was greatly challenging. We had Bill Muehlenberg (check out his articles on http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/) share on different hot potatoes as abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, Islam and more. It was great to hear the biblical view on those topics, with that the scientific insights and see the news articles. The students had mixed feelings: a mix of being in a shock of what is going on, challenged to do something about it and encouraged to be a world changer with God.

For a small glimpse on abortion, watch ‘180’. It is certainly worth your time.

One outcome of this week was that a student took the initiative to take a group to an abortion clinic in Brisbane to pray over it. I came along her helping to organize it, and it was an experience that I will not easily forget; to be there and pray over the building where many babies get killed. It seems so normal nowadays.

These coming weeks we will be more and busier with the preparations for outreach. I will be co-leading an outreach team to Berlin (5-6 weeks) and London (2-3 weeks). We are with a team of 6 girls and 3 guys. It is a great team and we are becoming closer as a little family. We have been together on a survival week where we worked together to overcome obstacles, to preach the gospel and to play interesting games… How more awkward, how more bonding it seems…

Please keep us in your prayers as we are busy with all the preparations involved!

Cheers and blessings!

Alex

We are with a group of 19 people with 11 students (4 guys and 7 girls). It is a great group and it is great to be part of their walk with God.
It has been great to see them taking the first steps with God these first weeks. God is showing me to be thankful with these first steps, knowing that greater things will come in their lives when the time is there. However, as a staff team we need to have the courage to challenge them as much as they are open for.

The first week we had lectures about the Nature and Character of God. This is always the week of building the foundation in the lives of the students. Without knowing who God is, you cannot move in other topics as Hearing His voice, Lordship, and so on. However, we need to pray that they may know God in the biblical sense: experiencing His character for themselves, instead of knowing who He is as in head knowledge.
God has been challenging me more in that this week; having been in these lectures more times now. I know God, but do I truly know Him? Getting to know God is a great journey. I will never be at that place here on earth where I could not learn more about Him.

Right now there are a lot of exciting events happening on base. We are involved with one of them with our DTS: bringing bibles in every house in the suburbs Michelton, Enegorra and Keperra. We received from a church in Brisbane 10.000-15.000 bibles and we found a great way to bring them in (almost) every home. We are focussing on families as a base so the Go Teams (local ministry office) have researched the things that a healthy family needs to have. Therefore we made a package for each house with something in it that represents each of those, and one of them is a bible.
In the same time, the Go Teams is developing a website where we are promoting different services of churches and businesses around these suburbs. We are doing this out of a servant heart, just to bless those services. They are there but not a lot of people know that they are there so we want to be a blessing for them by developing a website for them. The website is almost finished and it will be in the air any day. (www.gohelp.com.au) We have made a leaflet with the different points of what a family needs with the website on it. We put this leaflet in each of the packages for the houses.
Who can say no to free gifts, focussed on families and offering free services around? Our heart is not to make us known as YWAMers or Christians but to be a blessing and to trust God He will use the packages, bibles and free site to change peoples lives. Please pray with us that God will use these projects in powerful ways for the coming years to come.

As a DTS we are part of all this by making all the packages and bringing them to the houses in the suburbs. We are blessed with great weather this last week and we are praying for the same weather the coming week.
It is great to see the students already step out in this form of evangelism / missions. It is not difficult, because who does not want to have a free gift? So everyone is enjoying it and most are thrilled to be part of bringing a bible in all these houses!

In the same time we still have lectures this week on Intercession and Hearing Gods voice. Please pray with us for breakthroughs in the lives of the students: that they may grow in their ability to be aware and to recognize His voice. And that the Holy Spirit will break the lies of the enemies in their minds, that they are not able for other lies.

Thank you for your support and prayers!

The last 3 weeks of BLS intake have been great. I had lectures about different topics of leadership and had to lead different activities as intercession, worship and small groups as a preparation for the DTS. I feel God has been preparing me this last 3 weeks through the BLS intake and in my own times with God.

I know these 6 months of DTS are going to be different than the last DTS I have been staffing. I know what is coming, what is expected from me and what challenges are there on the way. I have grown in knowledge and understanding; now I am excited to see those understandings more being imparted into my heart and being lived out in my life.

But this DTS is not going to be about me or anyone else in the staff team. We are so excited for the 9-12 students to come and privileged to be part of their journey with God this coming 6 months. We are going to build on the foundation, Jesus, in their lives and my prayer is that we are going to build golden temples together with the Holy Spirit.

Please pray with us that this is not going to be a ‘normal’ school, but that students are going to fall in love with Jesus and will have powerful encounters with Him.

Learning to play guitar... awesome!

I am back in Brisbane! It is great to be back in Brisbane. I arrived here the second of January. It totally feels like coming home. It is the third time now I have come back and it has been a totally different than last year. Last year when I came back we had the floods in Queensland and it felt like a new start. This time it is more of a quiet come back with just reconnecting with people and friends on base, picking it up again where I left it.

This last two weeks I have been involved in the training of the new staff on base; I have been staffing the TAA. Exactly a year ago I received my own training which is called TAA, which stands for Training and Assessment. The purpose of the training is to prepare the new staff to train and assess the students for the DTS they will staff. It was just great to help with this training, to be part of pouring into the new staff and to get to know them a little better. There were 14 participants in the training and 4 of them have been students on the DTS I staffed last year. It is just great to now be part of their preparation to step in some leadership and I am excited to see them step out while they will be staffing a DTS.

Now this coming 3 weeks the BLS (Basic Leadership School) intake is coming up. We will have 3 weeks of lectures and preparations for all the staff who are going to staff the schools coming up in February. I am looking forward to pick this all up again and to get ready to staff a DTS. My hope is that I will be able to apply what I have learnt this last year, by staffing my first DTS and by doing the School of Pioneering and Leadership in Norway, in this new season. And not only that, my heart is to pass it on to the staff on base, especially the ones I will be close with staffing the Sports DTS.

Then after the BLS intake the school will start soon. On the moment we have for the Sports DTS a big staff team. We have around 9 staff members (6 guys and 3 girls) and around 12 students (5 guys and 7 girls). The school will start on the 15^th of February. 12 students would be great for the Sports DTS, but we are praying for more students. Not because it is about numbers, but because we have the staff team for it. Would you please pray with us for some more students?

• Second of January:                                     Arrived back in Brisbane, Australia
• 8 January – 20 January (2 weeks):         Staffing TAA
• 22 January – 10 February (3 weeks):     BLS intake
• 15^th of February:                                          Start Sports DTS!

De lessen waren gefaciliteerd in een Baptist Gemeente, wat mij meteen brengt bij de eerste bemoediging die ik in Polen heb ontvangen. Het was een mooie gelegenheid om meer van de Poolse cultuur te proeven dan ik zover heb gedaan in Nederland waar we een verkeerd beeld krijgen van Polen. Verkeerd in de zin dat ze een slechte indruk op ons maken in Nederland, en verkeerd in de zin dat de Polen vele goede kanten hebben die we niet vaak zien in Nederland. Een van de grote bemoedigingen die ik heb mogen ontvangen is toen ik onderdeel was van een studenten ontmoeting in een Katholieke Kerk. We hadden een lange en aardig uitbundige worship met daarna een korte preek van een van mijn stafleden, Paul Groenewege, die YWAM Polen vertegenwoordigd. Het was een geweldige eye-opener voor mij om voor het eerst om samen met katholieke studenten God te aanbidden en te prijzen! Bemoedigend! En dat is natuurlijk maar een zegen van de vele die de Polen ons kunnen brengen.