October Update

Hey Everyone,

I know it’s been a bit long since my last newsletter – I’ll try to fit everything in, without going too long =)

As I write this, I am sitting on a plane on my way to New Zealand – more about that later.

NIKO #1

At the start of September, we went down to Tasmania, where we ran a kids camp and a NIKO (outdoor leadership camp). I was part of the NIKO team. I have helped run 7 NIKOs before, but for the first time, I was actually responsible to lead the camp. There were 7 teenage boys, and 2 teenage girls on the NIKO. It was a stretching experience for me – and I definitely learnt a lot more about teenage boys. But it was a lot of fun too.

PCYM – Lecture Phase

After we got back from Tasmania, we finished up the lecture phase of PCYM with 2 final weeks of teaching. First we had Kevin & Chris Stitt from New Zealand talk to us about Kings Kids International values, and outreach team structures. Then we had Nigel & Jennifer Eades from Sydney. Nigel spoke about evangelism, and Jen about kids at risk.

NIKO #2

The major outreach for PCYM started with another NIKO, this one in South Australia. Most of the participants were students on the DTS which had started the previous week, as well as some local teenagers. Once again, I got to lead the NIKO, and again I was stretched in my leadership, but loved getting to spend some time with the new students and getting to know them better.

JJ & Amy’s Wedding

After finishing NIKO at 10pm on the Thursday night, I was on my way to the airport at 5:30am Friday morning. But it was more than worth the sleep deprivation, because I was on my way to see two of my best friends get married. JJ & Amy were both at YWAM Adelaide when I first joined, but have since moved to New South Wales. I have had the joy of seeing them grow closer to each other, and now get married. It was a beautiful day, and I also got to stay with my family for 2 nights, and catch up with heaps of people at the wedding that I hadn’t seen for a while.

PCYM Outreach

While I was busy socialising, half of the PCYM was at a camp called SAYCO (South Australian Youth Camp Out), a state-wide Uniting Church camp. I have been to SAYCO the last 2 years, and it’s a great opportunity to work with teenagers from across the state, and is a lot of fun. I rejoined the team at SAYCO on Sunday afternoon.

We returned from SAYCO on Monday night in time to farewell Michael, Jordan, Ray & Guanah as they left for their outreach in Papua New Guinea. Michael, Jordan & Ray will be there for 3 weeks. Guanah is going to stay in PNG (her home), and is preparing to get married in March next year. It’s sad to see Guanah go, but at the same time it is exciting to see the new season God is preparing her for.

After having a day off, the rest of the PCYM helped out at the Upside-down Circus, a kids and family outreach event in Northern Adelaide. It was held in Elizabeth, which is known as one of the more disadvantaged areas of Adelaide. The point of the outreach was just to bring awareness to people in the area of the gospel, and to tell them that Jesus came to turn our upside-down world the right way up. Most of the team dressed up as clowns, and helped to provide atmosphere to the event. I had the opportunity to help out with an activity where the kids were asked a few questions, and then told a Bible character that they were like. It was great to see kids getting excited to read the Bible to find out more about the people we were telling them about. What was really exciting for me was when one kid came back the second day to let us know that he had read the story of Gideon overnight, and had decided that he was brave like Gideon.

As I said before, at the moment I am on my way to New Zealand. I am leading a team of 5 (Bec, Taliah, Patrick, Marieta, and myself) in New Zealand for 3 weeks. We will be working with the Kings Kids (YWAM for under 18s) base in Auckland. I’m not sure yet exactly what we’ll be doing – I find all that out tomorrow – but I do know that we’ll be involved with a couple of kids clubs, and probably running a kids program at a YWAM NZ national gathering.

After New Zealand Bec & I are heading home for a few days to celebrate our Grandad’s 80th, Dad’s 50th, and uncle’s 40th birthdays. Then the team meets up with the PNG team and heads out to western SA to work with some churches out there. 

Base Stuff

A new DTS (Discipleship Training School) started on September 21st, with 8 students from Australia, South Africa, and the US. This school has a focus on creative arts, and how to apply use arts in missions. They will be heading to Byron Bay then Thailand early next year for their outreach. They are a really great bunch of students, and I’m looking forward to seeing and hearing about their journey through DTS

Things have been a bit up and down on base lately. From a new school starting, to Guanah leaving to go back to PNG, to a couple from Brazil getting visas to come join us at the end of the month, to Harry having to leave the country soon because he was unable to get a visa to stay. But through it all, we are praying that ultimately things will work out to bring God glory. We are still having major issues with getting visas for any overseas staff who are wanting to join us, but we are looking into options that from early next year will make the process a lot simpler.

Personal Stuff

As I mentioned in my last newsletter, I have been struggling to find a balance between work and rest in my life while being involved with PCYM. Things haven’t really changed much with this, and leading an outreach team adds new dynamics to the balance, but the team is pretty awesome, and I’m looking forward to seeing what God is going to do in and through us, and also having a lot of fun in the process.

We’ve also had some bad health-related news in the family, so I’ve been processing that a bit. I would appreciate your prayers for me and my family as we work through the news and what it means for us.

I’m looking forward to taking holidays at the end of the year and having a rest before heading into next year. I’m going to be taking on some more responsibility on base next year, and getting involved with our staff training – but more about that next month, because this newsletter is already rather long =)

Nat's July News

Hey Everyone,

Wow – newsletter time seems to come around so fast. I can’t believe it’s July already, it seems like we just started the year and we’re half way through.

I’m headed off to outreach on Monday – so here’s a bit of what I’ve been doing the last month, and what I’m going to be up to for the next month. 

PCYM (Principles in Child and Youth Ministry school) 

We have just finished our 5th week of lectures in PCYM. We had Caleb Brownhill from YWAM Perth come to speak on Apostolic Pioneering – which was basically about Christian maturity, having passion for God, and working together with different giftings. Then Ruth Golden came from YWAM Melbourne to speak on Stages of Human Development – Ruth spoke on my PCYM as well, and she’s really amazing. She makes things so easy to understand, and a lot of fun. We then had Christoph Leu, the international director of Kings Kids (YWAM for under 18s), and he spoke on families and impacting generations. The last 2 weeks we have had Shiree Lind speaking - one week on leading kids and youth into worship, intercession & spiritual warfare, and then on intelligences, identity & communication.

The students have also been going on local outreach every week. They are involved in 2 different primary schools Outside School Hours Care (OSHC), a church kids club, and a dance club. They have been a huge blessing to the different groups – even at the OSHCs, where they can’t speak about God at all.

A few weeks ago, one of the students (Lauren) was having issues with her visa and her finances, so she went to God about it, and really felt that God was saying it was time for her to go home. So that was really sad for to team to have to say good-bye to her. But God has told her that He is going use her in mighty ways at home – so we’re looking forward to seeing what He does in her.

Outreach 
On Monday we are splitting into two teams, and heading off on outreach.

I am leading on team (Guanah, Rebs, Jordan, Taliah, Marieta, and I ) to Canberra for 2 weeks, where we will be working with a local church to run a kids camp. We will also be doing some prayer walking around parliament house, and whatever other opportunities come up. We will then be going to Port Augusta, a town about 3 hours north of Adelaide, where we will do school ministry and work with local churches.

The other team (Ray, Bec, Katie, Pat, and Michael), is heading to Queensland. They will first be working with a local church to run a camp with Aboriginal kids, then heading down to the Gold Coast to outreach to Muslims who are on holidays there).

Both teams are going on very limited budgets. Most people are still paying off fees for their lectures, so haven’t been able to pay much towards outreach. We still feel that God is telling us to go, and I can’t wait to see how God is going to provide for all of our needs. 

Base Stuff 

At the moment most of the base is involved in the PCYM – either as staff or students. So as a result we’ve been pretty busy between the school schedule and keeping the base going.

We have finally had some breakthrough in immigration for our staff visas. Our registration as an Occupational Trainer has been renewed, so we can now start the process of getting our staff to apply for 2 year occupational trainee visas. There are about 8 people who have been wanting to come and join the base, but have not been able to due to lack of visas. So it’s very exciting to be able to get the individual visa application processes started. Hopefully within the next 2 months, we should have a huge boost in our staff numbers.

Last Friday night we had a soccer world cup party here on base. It was a lot of fun with over 40 South Americans and a few Australian come up for a Brazilian BBQ (lots and lots of meat), and to watch Brazil play Portugal. The game itself was rather boring (a nil all draw) – but the Brazilian fans were very amusing.

So that’s it for this month – I’d love to hear from you.

Love,

Nat

May News

Hey Everyone,

I’ve written a slightly longer blog this time – so please bear with me to the end. The last few months have just been so full and amazing that I don’t want to leave anything out.

Adelaide

After my last newsletter, when we had just returned from Canberra, we spent another 3 weeks in lectures on Identity, Calling, & Dreams, Father Heart of God, and Lordship.

Early on February 16^th, we once again loaded into the van. For various reasons unfortunately 4 of team decided not to come with us on outreach. So that left us with one very full van of 11 people for the journey. After a long day of driving we once again spent the night on the Central Coast, on our way to Newcastle.

Newcastle & NIKO

The next day we drove up to Newcastle, and arrived just in time to see the MV Pacific Link (YWAM Australia’s new medical mission ship) arrive at the Newcastle foreshore. It was awesome to see the ship come in and to feel the excitement of the YWAM crowd (and get on the news for a brief second too J). 

After a few days of learning about the ship, and some training for going into schools, we headed inland a bit to run a NIKO – the outdoor adventure camp that we run fairly often. JJ, who used to be at YWAM Adelaide, had set-up a NIKO for us, so we took the DTS bush for a week. Everyone had a lot of fun, and learnt heaps.

We then returned to Newcastle for a few days, where we started actually working with the ship. Our job was to help the public relations team to give people tours of the ship. We helped with leading the tours, organising groups of people, and mostly just talking to people about YWAM, the ship, and what we were doing.

The Ship Tour

At the start of March we drove down to Sydney. It was amazing to see the ship sailing in to Darling Harbour and being docked right outside the IMAX theatre and the Sydney Convention Centre (and StarbucksJ). After a week in Sydney we travelled to Ulladulla (on the New South Wales south coast) for a week, then Geelong for a week. Then we returned to Adelaide where the ship was moored for 2 weeks. Throughout the tour we mainly helped out the PR team, but also visited schools and churches to share about the vision of the ship. It was such an amazing experience.

So many lives were impacted as we shared about the huge health needs in PNG, about the struggles that Australian youth have with things like depression and self-harm, and how we can make a difference in both of these areas. Through the ship we can take teams of young Aussies over to PNG where they can practically help the Papua New Guineans, which gets their eyes off themselves, and gives them purpose in their lives – which is what they are looking for. There were many people who are now interested in getting involved in missions, whether in PNG or with YWAM, or just missions in general. God was definitely at work through our team, and everyone working with the ship.

DTS

The DTS then split into two teams, and headed overseas for 2 weeks. One team went to Vanuatu, and the other to PNG. They had a great time and impacted the people they worked with, and experiencing the culture they had heard so much about throughout the ship tour. (Vanuatu has a very similar culture to PNG).

We had a very fun graduation with a tie-dye and fluro theme, and then – sadly – we started to say goodbye to people.

Personally

For me personally this last 6 months has been amazing. I have been stretched heaps though staffing the DTS. I didn’t think I would be up to leading an outreach – but I did it. And I did with barely any stress. I knew every day that God was with me giving me peace. But also the team was so awesome! They are a huge blessing and I’m going to miss having them around.

God has taught me a lot about trusting him each and every day to provide what I need – whether it was time to myself, or someone to talk to, or finances, or whatever, God was always so faithful in that. He has grown me so much in my confidence. Many times I would get up and share in front of a crowd, and it didn’t bother me. I was reminded of my DTS, when I was terrified of speaking in front of people, and completely freaked out at the idea of public speaking – but God has helped me to get over my fears of that.

Earlier this month I had nearly 2 weeks off, which was a nice break. It gave me a chance to relax and rest before getting into the busyness of the base again.

Base Stuff

On May 4^th, we had a government audit of the base. As we are a registered training organisation and we are able to get student visas for our courses, every few years the government likes to come and check that we are doing what we say we are doing and that we are doing everything right. There was a fair amount of preparations, just checking that everything was up to date, but in the end the audit went well.

We are currently in the process of renewing several of our visa options to bring staff into the country. At this point in time, we don’t have any visas that are current that we can use for new staff. We have several people who are wanting to join the base, but are being held up by immigration. Please pray that all the processes with be fast, and that we will have wisdom in the best way to go about all the applications, as well as patience for us, and those that are waiting to come.

PCYM

Continuing with the leadership theme, I have just started staffing a Principles of Child and Youth Ministry school (PCYM).  It is the same school that I did in 2008. It’s another 6 month school – including outreach. 

There will be lectures on topics including – child development, kids at risk, ministering to families, working in schools, etc. We will be doing outreach in Queensland, Canberra, Tasmania, New Zealand, PNG, Victoria, and a few places around South Australia.

I am going to be leading a team for most of the outreaches that we go on – so this is going to be a continuing opportunity for me to learn more about leadership.

Some of the DTS students have come back to do the PCYM – so it’s going to be great to continue their journey with them, and the rest of the PCYM students are staff on base in Adelaide. It already feels like a school of family, and I know that God is going to do great things in and through us.

Love,

Nat