Forgiveness

How to sum up the past few days? One word: Intense!

Yesterday, Derek talked about forgiveness. I'll quote him here:

"I truly believe that our only path to freedom is through repentance and forgiveness."

Repentance is not apology. Apology means saying, "I feel bad that I hurt you." Repentance is asking for forgiveness, deciding to change and then making a change.

I've struggled with forgiveness, because I didn't really know what it means. What does it mean to forgive people? From our class, here is are some lists that might help.

Forgiveness IS NOT

• Excusing, minimizing, justifying, overlooking or tolerating sin
• Getting even
• Conditional (If they say sorry, then I forgive. If they do X, then I'll forgive.)
• An obligation to trust
• A feeling
• A process (There can be process before and after forgiveness, but forgiveness is a choice.)
• Forgetting
• A one-time event (You may have to forgive the same person or action multiple times.)
• Impossible

Forgiveness IS

• A choice based on faith and obedience to God
• Doing to others as God has done to you
• A healing agent for your relationship with God
• Letting go of your rights to justice and anger

Our youth leader often says that forgiveness is taking someone of your hook, and leaving them to God.

Forgiveness is super important, because Jesus said that if we don't forgive others, God won't forgive us. Forgiveness has nothing to do with the other person; it's about our relationship with God. It begins and ends with God. Because God has forgiven us, we can forgive others.

We had some time where Derek let everyone write down who God wanted us to forgive, and why. Then we went through the list, and prayed to forgive those people. At first I thought, I don't know if I'll have many people to forgive. After all, I've grown up in a loving, stable home and community, and haven't had any crazy awful things happen to me. But I ended up with a page and a half of people to forgive.

God showed me that my response to people hurting me has been to overlook it, to say "Oh, they didn't really mean it, so I'll just let it go." And I thought I was forgiving. But forgiveness is not ignoring, excusing or justifying the sin and the hurt it causes. God made it clear that I had been wronged, that it was ok to be mad and hurt, because it was never meant to be this way. And strangely enough, that was what paved the way for true forgiveness. I had to admit that the other people hurt me, and that there was something to forgive.

After we prayed and forgave the people on our list, we went upstairs and threw the lists in the fire. It was done. Forgiveness really does bring freedom. I asked God to show me what forgiveness is, and he showed me part of it. Forgiveness is realizing that someone has wronged me and sinned against me and hurt me, and yet with God's help, I CHOOSE to give it over to God, turn the other cheek, and bless those people instead of curse them (however many times are necessary). That's what Jesus did.

There is no other word in English that means the same thing as forgiveness. It is its own thing, and the definition is found in Jesus.

Recognizing the Voice of God

Hello!

Wow, this last week has been so full! I'm learning so much about God, and living in community, and having lots of fun doing it!

Here are a few things that I've done in the past week:

• Fed the dragon. (aka the wood-burning furnace/water heater)
• Learned how to say "Je ne comprends pas" and other useful phrases in French.
• Sang many worship songs in French (and English).
• Spent time in the prayer bathtub.
• Washed dishes for 40+ people. Multiple times.
• Tidied up the costume closet with Anna-Elisabeth, and learned more about life in Germany. Then had a dance party afterwards, when Stephan and Billy came to help.
• Had a couple great deep conversations with my amazing one-on-one, Jordan. (Who's a girl, by the way. Don't get ideas.)
• Learned the basics of Hawaiian dancing.
• Spontaneously broken into song with people many times.
• Eaten home-made maple syrup.
• Learned about different ways of worshiping (spinning, shouting, kneeling, raising hands, dancing, and more), and tried a few of them out.

It's so hard to describe all the things that have happened, and all the things we're learning in such a short blog post.

~~~~~~

This week our speaker is Derek, from Hawaii. He's talking about Recognizing the Voice of God. Note that it's not hearing the voice of God, but rather recognizing. God is speaking; our main problem is that we're not listening, or that we don't realize it's Him.

Derek has been talking about the character and nature of God for the last three days. Because after all, if we want to recognize someone's voice, we have to know who that person is and get to know them before we can recognize what they're saying. God is Creator. God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. (Ex 34:6-7) He wants relationship with us. You can't have relationship without speaking and listening. God wants to speak to and with us.

Talking about recognizing the voice of God, or saying "God told me. . . ." to other people tends to make me uncomfortable. Mostly because I don't want people to have the idea that I'm super-spiritual, and that's why I can hear God's voice. I'm not super-spiritual. I believe that hearing the voice of God should be a normal thing, most especially for Christians. Derek said today that there is no such thing as becoming more spiritual, which I thought was a cool concept. We already have a spirit. It's like saying I'm trying to become more human. Or more female. Our spirits can be healthy or unhealthy, but you can't get more (or less) of them.

So when I say, "God told me" or "God said", I'm not trying to be better than you, or impress you with my uber-Christianness. I have a relationship with God; therefore, we talk. And that's that.

Soooo. . . . Now I'm going to tell you a story. I love the way God is concerned with the everyday details of our lives. On Sunday I had finished my quiet time, and didn't know what to do next. So asked "God, what should I do now?" and He said, "Why don't you go downstairs to the encouragement board?"

This is where we put little notes and things to make people smile.



And my response was "Pfffft, why? I bet no one has put anything in my jar." And it was like God just smiled and said, "It's up to you." But I didn't really have anything else to do. So on a whim I grabbed my pencil and some sticky notes, and headed downstairs. Sure enough, my jar was still empty. But then I had an idea for a note. And then Shaynna and Anna-Elisabeth came down the hallway. And to make a longish story shorter, we had a grand time writing notes, and soon everyone's jar held something. All because God had a cool idea, and I actually paid attention.

You might be wondering, "What does it sound like when God speaks to you?" Well, I've never heard an audible voice. Usually, it sounds a lot like my own thoughts, only better. It always lines up with the Bible and God's character (if I hear a voice telling me to hang onto bitterness, for example, it's not God). Sometimes it's a crazy idea. Sometimes it's an impression. And sometimes it's an actual sentence. And I'm still learning how to recognize Him.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's class on recognizing God's voice, and practical steps to do that.

~~~~~~

PICTURES!!!

 

Me and Jordan, ready for bowling!

 

 

The woods across the road, which YWAM owns.

 

Artsy pictures from the woods.
Because this IS and Arts and Music DTS.

An Introduction to the Base

We're only halfway through orientation week, and wow, we've had some jam-packed days! I can't believe it's only Wednesday, and I've only been here for five days.

There are 18 people in our DTS, and five staff members. Sarah and Dan are the leaders, and they're from Ontario. Then we have people from all over the world. There are lots of people from Canada (mostly Ontario and Quebec). Four of us are from Canada and another country: Australia, Burma, Tunisia and Mexico. Then we have others from Switzerland, Germany, Australia, and South Africa. Other people on the base come from Cameroon, Ghana, France, and other places. It's such a neat international community! I'm learning a bunch of French, and a tiny bit of South African and German.

This week has been focused on getting to know each other, and getting to know the house and the routines here. We had an introduction to YWAM, and what our DTS will be like. We've had tours of the house. We've been assigned to different teams (I'm on dishes), and chosen our laundry times.

Today and yesterday we spent fifteen minutes each telling the other DTS members our stories, sharing about how we met Jesus, and what brought us to YWAM. It's been really neat to hear how unique and inspiring every person's story is.

We also have lots of fun here! We played Sardines a couple nights ago, in the dark creepy-ish basement that goes on and on and on. It was a good introduction to the house :) . The next day on our tour of the property we had an impromptu snowball fight. And last night we were told to dress up in crazy costumes, the crazier the better, and then we were going to drive somewhere. The staff didn't tell us where we were going. After about half an hour, we arrived at a bowling alley. It was grand fun bowling in our crazy outfits, hollering and yelling encouragements at whoever was up next. I'm not sure what the professional bowling league next to us thought. I'm terrible at bowling, but it was still super fun. We've also had times to sit and talk, and play card games.

My favourite thing so far is living in a community.

You probably want to see some pictures of where I'm staying. Firstly, go to  http://ywamdunham.com/photos.htm and look at "Our Property and Community Activities".
The pictures are like real-estate pictures, but in reality things are much more comfortable and less spiffy than they look in the picture. And yes, the Prayer Room really does have a prayer bathtub.

Here are some of my pictures:

 

The hallway in the New Wing where the girls live.

 

 

The front of the house.

 

 

The east (?) side of the house. The large grey part is the gymnasium.
Can you spot our mammoth?

 

 

The back of the house where the old, middle and new parts meet.

 

 

Artsy things on a random window.

 

 

The west (?) side of the house.

The room where Stephanie, Shaynna and I live is on the second floor of the New Wing.

 

The entry way. Note the heater under the YWAM logos. That's what helps keeps the house warm. We have an actually fire furnace, that burns wood. Because the house is old, it's fairly chilly.

Dunham

I've arrived safely in Dunham. Thanks for praying! The flight was very smooth - no turbulence. But that may have been because I was sitting right over the wings.

I met the YWAM representative at the Montreal airport, and we waited for two other girls to arrive. After meeting Dorianne and Anna-Elisabeth, we drove for an hour or so to the village of Dunham. Dorianne is from Switzerland, and Anna-Elisabeth in from Germany. Both of them speak French and English.

We received an enthusiastic welcome from the staff when we arrived at the house, and then got shown to our rooms. I have two room mates, Stephanie from Thunder Bay, Ontario, and Shaynna from Shelburne, Ontario. We then went on a tour of the house, and met more people. I'm still learning everyone's names. There are people from Quebec, from Nova Scotia, Germany, Switzerland, three people from Australia (Yay!!!), a couple from South Africa, and others from other places that I don't remember. The one staff girl from Nova Scotia pioneered a DTS in Sydney, Australia, so she knows about Nowra!

The YWAM house is huge, and old. The main part of the house was built in the late 1800s. One extension was built in the 1910s, another in the 1930s and the newest section was built in 1963. There are class rooms, a dance studio, recording studios, arts room, prayer room, gym, library, and all that in addition to the usual kitchen, bathrooms, dining rooms, and so on.

Now we're going to go explore the house, and then go explore the village of Dunham. DTS starts tomorrow night. Yay!

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!

I fly to Quebec tomorrow afternoon. 

The reality is starting to sink in. It started when we went to the Calgary Zoo, and I saw all the planes flying overhead, and thought, "Soon that will be me." It's one thing to say I'll be going to Quebec for six months to do a DTS. It's quite another to realize how long I will be away from my family. I'll miss birthdays, concerts, drama performances. I know that YWAM will be an amazing experience, and those six months will fly by. But now it's a daunting idea. I'm scared and I'm stressed, and I wish I could say I was confidently trusting God. But in my mind I'm screaming, "God, what am I doing?!!" Thankfully he says, "The right thing." And what he says I will cling to.

Please pray for a smooth and safe flight, because flying makes me nervous. 

I'm sure that in a few more days I will be much less stressed and more chipper. Trusting God is hard in the middle, but so worth it later!