November Newsletter : Off to Camboland

The last month has gone really quickly and I find myself writing this with 6 days left before I leave for Cambodia! The time has flown by and my time here in Montana has been full of growth and rest. I cannot wait to see where He is going to take me in the future!

There have been many things going on in the past five weeks so I will try to highlight a few of the big things...

Almost five weeks ago the entire DTS packed up and drove to Spokane, Washington for a week of “mini” outreach. It was a really good time for getting off base and being able to put into practice the concepts we have been learning in classes. While we were there we volunteered at numerous organizations including Classy Rack Thrift Store, Union Gospel Youth Camp and a few other places. A big part of the outreach was doing street evangelism in downtown Spokane. We had multiple opportunities to share our faith and pray for the people. We saw God do some crazy and awesome things, with the people of Spokane but even more so among ourselves!

Every year the base here puts on what we call “International Night”, a time where all of the international students have the opportunity to prepare and serve a native dish. My friend Hannah and I made 600 scones and served them with cream and jam. It was a sight to behold! There were 11 other countries represented and so as you could imagine, it was quite the diverse feast and a fun time of fellowship with our brothers and sisters from cultures all over the globe.

The past four weeks of lecture topics have been Spiritual Warfare, The Cost of Discipleship, The Power of the Cross, and The Holy Spirit. This week we will be in full outreach preparation mode...shopping, packing, cleaning, resting, and praying. Team Cambodia will leave December 6^th at 3a.m. And return to the United States February 1^st, 2009. While we are there we will be working alongside the YWAM base in Battambong (the city where we will be spending our 8 weeks) teaching English, doing more street evangelism, visiting orphanages, hospitals, and other similar locations, performing dramas and playing music, and discipling the DTS students at the base.

Any and all prayers for me and my team would be much appreciated as we “go and make disciples of every nation, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

I want nothing more than to share the hope He has given me and show others how they can abide in the same love and grace in which I have found my identity! I look forward to speaking to you again in two months! God Bless - Em

Name tags on the table

During a class devotion I found myself being hit with a bout of rhyming inspiration;

Name tags on the table

Remnants, Significants,

Deep routes, Dali constitutes,

The holy three, working in me

homeopathic cure?

Memory flashbacks for sure

traits of function,

textile sames,

running from the ancient flames,

in the element- thrive

others not, but do I pay attention?

Meekness I should seek this

Treasured jewels, enable function tools

Should I anticipate a consecrate?

Lap it up, saturate in

Maximise to realise the presence of Him.

Bounty case of talents, Richness of belief

Savedness, the refining process,

acknoledgement of the soul

Jesus you are my goal

Remembered deposites of the desert land,

now bursting shoots brought out by a fathering hand

Shades of grey now sparks of life and colour

re-united with sister, brother.

Is this the start of the ministry part?

Intuitive minds, people all kinds

Playful to teacher, confused young creature.

I began one day a lump of clay

put me on the baking tray

Was living in part, now encompassing the heart,

Let this encounter be the start.

***

Hello everyone!
Just wanted to give an update of whats been going on during my DTS in Montana. I arrived on the 15th September and we had a week of orientation where we got to know the other international students and had a chance to recover from jet lag. We have students from South Korea, Germany, Taiwan and Brazil and two from England. The following week students arrived from all over America and Canada. We have had three weeks of lectures so far and each week is led by different speakers on different topics. So far it has been “The God Story” by Trent Sheppard, giving insight to God's character, how relational he is and His story revealed in the Bible. We also prayed about which outreach location that we should go to out of Thailand and Malaysia, Cambodia, India and Brazil. When I was choosing, Cambodia seemed to stick out for me, I asked God for a confirmation and the verse John 14v4 popped into my head, looking it up it said “you know the way to the place that I am going”, I was pretty encouraged by this and felt assured that Cambodia was the right location to go to. Another confirmation was the top I was wearing that week was made in Cambodia!

The Second week was about Relationships with Ron and Judy Smith sharing their experiences and lecturing on what a healthy relationships look like. They talled about relationships between us and God, us and our parents, relationships between partners and about singleness. Ron Smith helped set up the School of Biblical studies here in Montana and inspired us with different ways that the Bible can. One way, which I had never tried before, is to read a whole book in one sitting, so the following Saturday a group of about 10 of us read through Psalms from start to finish, it took about 6 hours! Pretty hardcore but a great way to get a grasp of the whole book.

(DTS Classroom)

Last week (wk3) Mike Philips spoke to us about “Hearing God's Voice”. This week David Graham, who founded the Montana base in 1985, is speaking on the “The Father Heart of God”. In between lectures we have tracks where we pick an area that interests us and can be used to reach out with the Gospel to others. The options were; dance, music, sports and art and photography. I chose sports track. We get to play different sports, learn how to coach them and also give our own testimonies so that we can do a mini kids sports camp in November with local Montanan Kids and perhaps go on to do more sports ministries in the future. So far we've played ultimate frisbee, frisbee-golf, relays, blindfolded soccer-baseball and basketball. We're also involved with reffing and scoring for the base volleyball leagues, so last week I had to umpire volleyball for the first time. Pete's teaching us cricket on Friday, representing the British sports!
We also have work duties in the afternoon to help keep costs of running the base down. For me this is cleaning the guys toilets, not my favorite thing!lol. We have small groups on Tuesdays and Thursdays where we can discuss what we're learning. I've visited different churches on Sundays and this week we have to pick one to go to, so that we're not “church hopping”. Other activities have included, Welcome to Montana night, where we dressed up like the local Montanan population, (See attached photo: my dungarees and blacked out teeth managed to win a $5 cafe voucher?!) Swing dancing, jumping in freezing lakes, trips to dairy queen-ice cream parlor, 15 aside soccer, cold showers, boutique fashion shows and community meetings with intercession times. So they're keeping us pretty busy!
I've got a laptop here now so can hopefully keep in touch a bit more, miss you all!
Love Emily
xxx

Prayer Requests
-Health-That my cough would finally go as I've been on two sets of antibiotics over the past month (the last one ended up giving me hives towards the end of the course!) and now my cough has come back.
-That I would settle into the routine- of lots of hours of lectures.
-Time to rest and get the essentials done.