Today was a day not many words can even explain. We began the morning with breakfast at 6:30 am followed by a gift giving ceremony to the Hawaiians, the people of the land, for allowing us to come to their territory to attend YWAM. We then were welcomed by all the campus leadership and had orientation of all the DTS students. (There are 6 DTS schools going on at one time-almost 400 students). Afterwards we broke off into our different schools so the "Compassion" students went to our classroom tent and got united with our staff and leaders. Lunch break! After lunch we met back up with our class for a run down of how things will go for the next couple of weeks.
Some words our leaders got for our specific school were "Restore", "Rest in my love", and "Bring my river of life and hope to the helpless". The Holy Spirit prompted our leaders to call the students to break off any strongholds satan had in our lives presently; struggling addictions, and proclaim freedom and to have the Lordship of Christ over all those areas that were hindering us. It was so amazing how God showed up and allowed His spirit to work and move. We are crammed into a tent with 100 kids from various parts of the world coming together for one purpose, to worship Jesus. Complete strangers basically but during this time we had the freedom to pray for one another, intercede on their behalf to have victory in the name of Jesus and to grow and start this new season of life together. It was such a life giving experience and it really showed me how powerful God is and really how important unity is also.
We then had time to absorb everything that had happened and just "rest". After supper we had a huge "Aloha Welcome Night". There were Somoan men with torches and women with skirts and flowers and beads dancing in unison to a Hawaiian beat. It was so awesome to see! It's like a whole new world here! :)
We had a flag ceremony that introduced all of the nations we were representing as a school. It is unreal to me how deep and far and wide the love of Jesus is. Students have traveled from 36+ hours away just to come and experience God differently. Our school this quarter is representing 43 different nations all over the globe; places like Egypt, Pakistan, Haiti, Fiji, Switzerland, Netherlands, Norway, Marshall Islands, China, South Korea, and many many more. I am proud to say that I serve a God who hears prayers from all different languages, he can be everywhere at once, yet always meet me right where I'm at. We ended in worship and praise of thankfulness to how amazing our God is. I felt so much freedom to just worship authentically. Him and I. Heart to heart. I danced around with child like faith, cried like a baby, and jumped and shouted for joy. I expressed more emotions than I thought were humanly possible and loved every minute. So much joy, so much life. He is making me a new creation, and this is only the beginning! Hold on, cuz it's going to be a wild ride :)
No comments:
Post a Comment