Back from Camping

Greetings my friends,

Camping was incredible and such an amazing experience. We traveled about 2 hours north into the rainforest and experienced God in an awesome way while having some fun as well. There were definitely a fair few ticks up there and many had to be rotated out with tweezers after they had buried half their bodies into our skin (as ticks do...). I woke up and had one feasting away in my shoulder. The key is to turn counterclockwise because they bury themselves in clockwise. It's like loosening a screw or something. One of the girls (who isn't exactly the "camping" type) told me she was praying that she wouldn't get one...I told that's funny cuz I'm praying that you DO get one. She didn't like that very much. She ended up getting 3. The most out of anyone. I laughed more than once.

We also saw an 8 foot python, a spider the size of a dinner plate, wallabies, enormous bush rats (that I caught in a trap), and a yellow bellied black snake. We only saw the snake after I ran over it...iIt was still alive and wasn't super stoked about just having a van crush part of it's body. It was cool to see though...ha! Our camping experience also consisted of drop toilets (lovingly referred to as thunder boxes over here...a name I loved and used at every opportunity), not showering for the entire two weeks but instead bathing in the creek, and a rope swing at a water hole we found. We definitely enjoyed the camping experience.

While camping was fun....that really isn't the reason that we do it. Camping is a time where we can take two full weeks and rid ourselves of so many of the distractions of life and just concentrate solely on God. It's amazing what He can do when we actually give Him that much time to speak to us and move through us. Lectures continue as well and I spoke to the school for about 2 1/2 hours on the first day and talked a bit about the Bible and how the Old Testament ties together with the New Testament as well as what it looks like to live a life of radical obedience. We had different topics during the first week and then during the last week we had our DTS leader speak on "Lordship" and what it looks like to not just be a Christian but to have Christ as the "Lord" of your life. So often we love God and say we want Him to be first in everything....but there are many things where we still do not allow Him to have any say over what we do/desire/pursue. I was challenged to look at my own life and found there are some things that I am guilty of doing just that. Relying on myself and not giving God any room to move. So God spoke to many of us as He continues to refine us and bring some of this stuff to light. A great time of ministry for the entire DTS and myself as well.

Other than that we are just preparing for outreach. We leave for Darwin in only 2 weeks and then are off to Southeast Asia after that. It's getting close and should be incredible.

Love you guys and will write again soon. I'd love some emails!

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