This has been a crazy 2 months. I have spent less than 2 weeks in Adelaide since my last newsletter :) Lots of travelling and sleeping on random floors. But it’s always a lot of fun. And it’s good to be home for a while.
Certificate IV in Training and Assessment – Phase 2
For two weeks I was in Melbourne doing the 2nd half of a 
Certificate IV in Training and Assessment. I did the first half of it in September 2007. This is a course that trains us to train other people, but specifically in YWAM, it is training to be able to lead our schools. It is a government requirement, but also an opportunity for us to be excellent in how we train people.It was a very full-on two weeks. Heaps of homework, but also a lot of fun. I loved getting to know people from other YWAM bases. And I found a lot of the teaching very helpful. I’m sure I will look back on my notes a lot in the future.
I still have a bit more homework to do before I actually finish. It is mostly just developing a series of teachings and then delivering a one hour teaching. But I’m almost there.
NIKO
After being in Melbourne, I was back in Adelaide for 4 days. Then drove up to Brisbane with a car full of people to run another NIKO.
This was the craziest NIKO I’ve been on yet. It was the biggest, the participants were mostly teenagers from YWAM Townsville, and it rained. It rained a lot, we actually got washed out of camp at one point. But it was so fun. The kids were awesome. They fought through the weather, and we all came out laughing. I think my favourite memory is sitting around the campfire on the night, having a sing-a-long, but instead of just one song at a time, there would be 3 or 4 songs competing to be the loudest. Completely crazy, but so much fun.
It’s interesting how God speaks to us sometimes. At one point during NIKO, I was sharing with the group about Psalms. And I was saying how what I love about Psalms is how David is completely honest with God, but at the same time he praises God and trusts him to come through. I was talking about how important is for us to be honest with God, that He is big enough to handle our problems, and we can give everything to Him. And I was half way through sharing and I realised that God was mostly talking to me. I had been stressed out about getting things ready for NIKO and everything else that was going on, and I hadn’t been giving it to God. I’d been thinking I could handle it myself. But I wasn’t listening to God telling me to give things to Him until I was talking to someone else. It’s funny sometimes how it’s so much easier to listen to God when we’re listening for other people. But after that I did give most of it to God, and I went through the rest of NIKO without being stressed out, even with everything that was going on. I even left the schedule packed in my bag, rather than carrying it with me like I usually do. I was able to leave the changing schedule in His hands and adjust to things as they came.
Morgan
After NIKO, we drove down to Morgan, a very small town about 2 hours north of Adelaide on the Murray River. There was an ‘Old Fashioned Revival Meeting’ being run there, and YWAM had been asked to run a kids program. It was a good few days. We looked after the kids for a few hours each morning and night, and in the afternoons we had plenty of free time, some of which was spent out on the Murray River being towed behind the boat. There were only about 10 kids, varying in age from about 2 to 13.
Future Plans...
I always feel rather hesitant about writing any future plans, because things seem to always change. But I thought I’d give it a go with a disclaimer that plans may change depending on
where God leads :) I am planning on staffing the DTS we are running here in October. It is going to have a focus on youth, and mobilising Australian youth into missions. We also feel that God really wants to express a real heart of belonging for the students, and through them, to the youth that we will work with. So, that’s it for now. I’d love to hear from you, and hear what you have been up to in the last few months.
Love,
Nat
