Heritage Tour: Germany

Germany was three days on our tour.   We were at Hurlach and Herrnhut YWAM bases. Both are amazing bases although very different from ours. Hurlach has been owned by YWAM since the Munich Olympics (did I say this last year?) and Herrnhut has over 100 students in their DTS. Can you imagine that many people eating supper? I couldn't either.

We spent an hour in downtown Augsburg one evening. I saw it in daylight last time. More stores were open... but I kinda like that night walking and photography.

Herrnhut is the birth place of the modern Moravian church. This is the cemetery.

These are some of the head stones. They were from the 1700's. Isn't that amazing?!?!

Next: Prague!

Heritage Tour: Switzerland

We have returned home from our tour!  Safe and sound in Slovakia, although VERY tired.

But I want to continue to tell you about our trip!  In Switzerland we stayed with YWAM families who showed so much hospitality to us. They actually had a wood pizza oven and we had a make your own pizza night!  That was AMAZING!

We spent time in Lausanne and Geneva. For many more pictures of those cities, look at last year's post. This was my favourite picture from both cities this year. (Its's from Lausanne)

And as always, I fell in love with the vineyards all over the mountainsides. 

And we were lucky enough to drive into Switzerland during the sunset. The Alps are just AMAZING!

I have at least two more posts, but more pictures than I will ever fit in two posts. The few I do put up will have to suffice.

Heritage Tour: Assisi

Today was AMAZING!  Even as my second time here, I absolutely adore this city! (is it a city? It's pretty small... but anyways: totally worth the whole trip!)

I'll just post a few pictures until I can give some other information. Fast posting means you just put up pictures. Hope you all fall in love with this pretty town where such a great group of people lived.

Francis' Hermitage

 My quiet time in an olive grove this morning. (photo credit to Shay)

 The Basilica 

Burke and Lizzie, two students on our school. They are an awesome couple. If you want to see the front of their faces, click on this link to go to their blog! 

The sunset was GREAT!

Heritage Tour: Rome

Hello from Italy!  After two days in beautiful Rome (with 28 degree weather) we are now in Assisi with wifi connection so that I can share these with you!  It will be so hard to choose pictures but here are a few of our time. I have plenty of the whole group, but I won't be sharing them on my blog to save the students' privacy. I hope you enjoy these though!

St. Peter's Basillica

Week Four

No Way!  It definitely can't be week four already!  But it is!  We just finished our fourth week of teaching. And this surely is the tear jerker week.  Father heart of God. This is the week that you hang all the other information you learn at DTS upon!  This isn't just another book, it is the bookcase where you put all the books. It is the tree you hang everything else on. It is the lens with which you look through at everything else.

Our teacher is a amazing and humble man who currently lives in Belgium. And he teaches this week so well, because he has so much revelation on this topic and because of his own fatherly qualities. It was so nice to see him again as he taught last year as well and really impacted me.   But instead of giving a real cliff notes overview of this teaching, I'm going to write down some of the great one liners that he said that made me think.

Only God is up to date on someone's life. If they have confessed and been forgiven by God, who am I to not forgive them?

Mercy is getting what you don't deserve and not getting what you do deserve. (then why do I always want justice for others, and mercy for myself?)

Sin didn't change God. It changed us.

Everything outside the love of God will not fulfill you. 


No one has been rejected into wholeness. (I can't bring someone to health and wholeness by rejecting them. It is through acceptance and honour that they can find change.)

The greatness of God is like trying to explain the size of the milky way to a six year old. Even if you talk about light years and distances, they still only relate it to the two day journey to Grandma's house.  We have no concept to understand the greatness.

God's ability and desire to speak to you is greater than your ability to hear. (He will tell you again if you miss it the first time, or second, or third)

You cannot become like Jesus by focusing on what Jesus did. (How may people just gasped? Be honest....  The reason is that we don't want to be just a mimic of Jesus. We want to draw from the same source that he did in order to do the same. In order to do that, we need to realize that we also are adopted as sons or daughters of God. That identity is the most important thing in becoming like Jesus. There is much more to that, but I already explained enough)

To be touched by God is not to have a relationship with him (the ten lepers).  Touching is from one side. Relationship is from both sides.

Love is to reveal the beauty of another person to themselves.

For love to unconditional, it depends on the character and nature of the giver and not on the behaviour of the recipient.

If I do not fell God's love daily, I'm living on less than I am created to.

Time does not heal the heart, it just gives us time to get used to the pain.

The main point of the whole week was: God is our perfect Father. We cannot look at him through the lens of our earthly father, because that isn't who he is. And when we don't believe that he loves us unconditionally, we don't want to come to him.

SUCH A GOOD WEEK!

This is Life!

Do you ever get a song stuck in your head? And it stays there for days? Sometimes I think that God makes that happen. I heard a guy speak on how if God puts a song in his heart in the morning, he sings it instead of trying to drown it out with something else. So for the last two days or so God has been drilling this into my heart. Repetition is one way that truths sink into my heart, and singing the chorus of this song over and over definitely was reminding me that God was with me. But the rest of the song has such deep truth in it too (I might go into it more in my next post). Such a nice way to learn. I hope it blesses you like it has me.

This is Life

Eyes can't see the way you hold me

 Or how I'm hidden in your heart 

 Minds don't know all you've told me 

 Or how I ache for where you are 

 It's invisible to the world 

 Incredible to the nations 

 Not since Eden, have they seen this sight 

 Everlasting Life! 

You are all over, 

You are around,

You are inside, 

This is Life, this is Life (repeat) 

Come in empty, I leave filled 

 Bring my sickness, I leave healed 

 Brokenhearted, You mend every piece 

 Come in captive, but I leave free!

You are all over, 

You are around,

You are inside, 

This is Life, this is Life (repeat) 

Bojnice Hrad

I LOVE CASTLES!

I didn't realize how much I love castles until yesterday. That is when I took Shay to once of the nicest castles in Slovakia for his birthday. And I hope I can be forgiven if I enjoyed it more than he did (although he did really enjoy it too).

And because it is so GORGEOUS I hopefully can be forgiven for posting so many pictures (hint: you can click on the pictures to see them full size!)

The Birthday Boy!

Gold leaf ceiling? Yep!

The cave below the castle

These last few pictures are credited to Nick, one of the other DTS students who came with us. He isn't camera shy, but doesn't like pictures on public blogs. So I'll just give him a shout out!

We haven't had this many pictures of us together EVER. So I'm kinda enjoying them.

Ta ta!

First Two Weeks

When I left to come back to Slovakia for this trip I told myself that I would do a better job of posting on my blog this year. I definitely have not. I forgot how long it takes to get into the rhythm. And with the extra stresses and planning that comes with being staff I'm finding it difficult to have enough time. Right now I'm drafting this while on a bus to Bojnice for a day trip. It is Shay's birthday this weekend and pictures of the beautiful castle there will becoming soon. But I haven't even shared about teachings yet! Last week a wonderful woman of God who has been in YWAM since it's first school of evangelism came to speak. I had met her and her husband before but she always inspires me to become a greater and more faithful woman of God. if I have half as many adventures when I'm seventy then I will be very happy! Unfortunately smuggling bibles into Slovakia isn't really an adventure anymore (praise be to God for that!).

She taught us about prayer and the fear of the Lord. I really love her teachings on prayer because you can tell how much of a prayer warrior she is. Her daily intercession on others behalf, her group intercession for countries and cities, how she approaches God with prayers for herself.

One of the most inspiring things she told us about is women from her town coming together to pray. they come from 14 different denominations (every one in town except the evangelicals-which makes me sad because my church at home is evangelical. I hope we wouldn't pass an opportunity like this up). And these women meet together and learn what is happening in different churches and pray. A could times a year they put on a luncheon and invite Christian women to come but they are required to bring one unsaved friend. They have a speaker and lots of fun. And through these women getting to know eachother, the denominations are working together. When two churches hire a youth worker jointly and give them a commission to work with all the towns youth, that is a huge step for unity in The Church.

I also believe she has a powerful understanding of prayer. And it probably is what people have tried to teach me my entire life, but when YWAM explained it for some reason it clicked: Prayer is partnering with God. We ask God what he wants us to pray for and do and we agree with his plan by praying with the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit is present and you already know God wants to do it you can pray with strength and confidence! Your prayers and words are strong to tear down and build up. I had even heard this teaching last year. It's amazing how quickly you can forget if you aren't actively applying. But I have six months to practice applying this whenever I'm interceeding on anothers behalf or my own.

This week we had another speaker and he was Irish but living in Scotland. He also has acting training so it was so fun listening to him switch between accents. He spoke on sin, forgiveness, conviction vs condemnation, and giving up rights. Those seem like some pretty tough topics, and they are, but he was so easily able to make it real for us. One of his best analogies was about sin and temptation. (Skip to the next paragraph if you have a weak stomach).  Temptation is a nice, shiny wrapper from your favorite candy ( werthers or toffee?) that gets you excited in anticipation and you greedily want the candy... But as you unwrap it and shove it in your mouth you realize it isn't a candy. It's poop. And you taste it and smell it and your breath stinks. It is the grossest analogy ever but sin is gross. And when he was explaining it I was actually very grossed out. But I think it was good to use such a strong idea.

He also taught on how we need to lay down our rights. I hadn't really thought about it before, but the places where you are frustrated and upset with God often are the places where you are unwilling to lay down what you think are your rights in that area. If I think I have a right to a white picket fence life, I'll be upset when it isn't what I have. If I think I have a right to use my money and have a good reputation, and to get married, and to live where I want to then I will not be grateful for God's blessings when they aren't what I think I deserve.  Its such a sacrificial and biblical message, but I've thought my whole life that making sure that I have those rights is the most important thing. To lay them down and let God tell me what is actually what I need.

Next week we talk about the Father heart of God. I LOVE this speaker and his message. And I will upload pictures from today ASAP as well. Thank you all for your prayers. They mean so much to us, and we really do rely on them!