Do You Hear What I Hear?

What you hear would be :YWAM Nashville people celebrating electricity (because the electric company decided to work on it for 4 1/2 hours, in the whole tiny town of Adams, the day after we get back..) and maybe some puking. Because we're so unlucky. Read on.

 Me, Marissa, and Sheridan at Jacksonville Beach in Florida a couple of weeks ago :) This is the life

I have a slight obsession with Christmas. I started listening to Christmas music in October and I haven't stopped. It's just intensified. But that's not really what this post is about.
We spent a week at home in Adams learning about the Bible from Art Collins. We also watched the Louis Giglio film "How Great is Our God" and it was amazing.

Last week our whole base was at the YWAM Southeast Conference in Talladega, Alabama. There were about 8 bases represented, with over 500 people. I met students from all over the U.S. and from many countries throughout the world. It is indescribable to be with people from so many different walks of life, and to have in common the fact that we are all "YWAM-ers". We had amazing worship every morning and evening, and God moved in great ways. Our speaker taught on "Lord, Build Your Kingdom." One of my favorite parts, honestly, was the free time from 1-5:30. DTS students just don't get free time usually. (Which isn't that bad, because I would be bored to death if we had nothing to do every afternoon. But for a week it was AMAZING.) The conference was at Shocco Springs retreat center, which had pretty much any recreational activity you could want. Including hiking, which I love. Everything I hiked on seemed to be uphill the whole way. Interesting how that works.

   But honestly this is how I spent most of my free time - when we didn't have base meetings 

- talking

- sitting outside in the glorious weather until it got like 40 degrees and froze us all

-trying to read but actually

-sleeping.

I meant to go play soccer two days. Both days I accidentally fell asleep instead.

Oh, well.

We had an outreach prep meeting while there and we started to do skits. Eeeep! It makes outreach seem so CLOSE. We learned we do have a place to stay, and that we have some sort of a bathroom (which wasn't a given), and some other details. Only 4 more weeks of lecture :( then Christmas, then stateside outreach, then UGANDA.

Today is Saturday. We got home around 3 yesterday. I love road trips. I just sing and dance to my music the whole way. And brainstorm Christmas activities to do here. (We are so making gingerbread houses ASAP). Sadly, the flu has struck YWAM. The last couple of weeks we passed around the common cold (dontcha just love living in community)! Now, we get the puking stuff. So far only 3 people here have been sick. I disinfected doorknobs and light switches today. Yes, I was that person. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

 

Please pray though for those sick and those not yet sick. It seems to be a less than 24 hour bug, which is good. But if everyone does get sick, spaced out so a few get sick a day this thing will be here FOREVER > let's talk optimistically and pray it away.

LORD JESUS LET NO MORE PUKING TOUCH THIS BASE. Amen.

 

I freaking love my base, my new friends, all the DTS students here. I miss all my home people but Christmas will be here before we know it.

Of course, Christmas is already here to me.

Until next time...

Road Trippin and Florida Sunshine

Hey everybody!

Last night, we got back "home" from 5 days in Jacksonville, Florida at the "Finish the Task" conference hosted by the YWAM Jacksonville Beach base. The drive was about 10 hours long. It was considerably longer based on the fact that on the way down there I had to pee like 3 times in an hour, and one of our 12 passenger vans blew out a tire and had to wait a couple hours to get it fixed. But my van made it down there Sunday night just in time for the opening night worship.
  The best part of the week for me was definitely in the worship times. God moved so powerfully! One of my friends and I got to share an amazing prayer and really feel the Holy Spirit touch us and cover us. On Tuesday, we were split into different teams for outreach. My team went to the Jacksonville base and help clean up their property. Then we went to the ocean. There were some people who had never been to the ocean, and others who hardly ever go and it was incredibly fun to watch them experience.
  We all went in the ocean Thursday. Apparently they have a little bit of a jelly fish problem, and several people on our team got stung.
 
  So, road tripping with me can't be a very peaceful experience. There was a lot of muffled singing and not so muffled dancing going on. I had a blast though! Thankfully we're not totally burned out on road trips, because next Sunday we'll be leaving again, for Talladega, AL this time. We're all so glad to be back in Adams, TN for a week. Now we get to experience the pleasure of having 2 functioning washers & 1 working dryer for about 25 people who all need to use them at the same time.

 Fall has come to Tennessee and it's beautiful! It almost makes up for leaving the 80 degree weather in Florida :)
God bless!