Forgiving People, Outreach and Australia Day

Soooooooooooooooooooooooo,

I have entered week three of being at YWAM ! This past week we learnt about repentance and forgiveness...

But I'm going to tell you about forgiveness.

I never realised I actually held grudges, I'm a pretty easy going person, when people wrong me it takes between thirty seconds to a day to be all good with what happened, but it seems I never really forgot..

I found I actually had quite a few things to forgive people for, things that I would bring up on occasion, and feel perfectly okay with, but then when I thought about it deeply when I had to make my list I found that I obviously hadn't forgiven them, as, I would still feel a small amount of agitation.

I think people bury things deeply, things they think they have under control but really don't. Trust me when I say, its a huge relief to get it all off your chest. I found as I sat with my two leaders and said my list in front of my class that I cried about the things that I didn't think affected me.

I challenge you to make a list !

It was a long challenging week... :3

Tomorrow I find out the possible locations for my outreach trips. I am super excited to find out where in the world I get to go help people ! Outreach teams are made up of our DTS students, we group up and do many different things from skits to teaching and everything in between. It is all very exciting !

So Australia Day was yesterday ! I dressed up super Ozzie like, as did my DTS and we all headed down to the river for an awesome firework display (as usual ;P). It was so beautiful to see and such a great time to spend time with friends :)

I have found there isn't much to say about this week, there was simply to much going on for me to ever be able to type it all, and honestly I am still trying to process it ! Enjoy my friends photo of the fireworks :) I haven't downloaded mine off my iPod yet sorry, and I'm still awaiting on my camera..... Seriously .... Australian post sucks ! But not as much as American I hear ;)

Until next week,
Tash :)

God and Men with Fluffy Beards....

So here begins yet another week in Perth !

So the reason I am in Perth is because I am doing a YWAM DTS !

But what is that you may ask ?

YWAM (sounds like “I am”)(Thankyou Loren Cunningham for that one) is a non profit organisation the specialises in teaching young and older people about God and missions. I chose to come to YWAM to better my relationship with God, which makes some people go “Huh, a relationship with God..... You have gone mad !”

The truth is, I was already mad ;)

I kid, I kid

But I did hit that point with God where I knew a certain amount about him, and knew him a little bit, but nothing quite satisfied. It’s truly amazing here as I slowly learn about the bible and all of its stories and the messages behind them. Pretty soon I’ll be on outreach, which is where I go overseas and help people, and I’ll have many exciting stories to tell you all, and you can read my usual rants ;)

But until then I will tell you about my week by week experiences J

<- Doing le Homework latenight at base with my fellow schoolmates

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

This week.....

This week I started proper classes and morning workouts ! Now the first day of morning workouts we had a sports DTS take our school.... Now I know there is fit when you do sprints, but I think Ninja is a better word for our leader.

So I was in the last shuttle (group) to go, we did it in shuttles because there is many of us, and I’d look to my right and my leader would be there and I would out run him.... Every single time !

But here is where the really interesting part comes in J :S

Somewhere between hitting the halfway mark and blinking he would always be at the finish line waiting for the rest of us to finish.... I tried lots of times to see how he did it, and all I can say is that he’s fast.... Ninja fast.                                                                                                            Jesse's feet sunburn from Sat ^^^

So that started my week off ! During the week I had many fun activities with my fellow school mates including watching Tangled and a Planet Earth video. I always love a good documentary, but never before had I ever watched something that was written for the visually impaired. At first I didn't realise, and just had those weird moments where a whole scene is described to you and you just sit there like... oooooookayyyyyyyy.... but soon after my fellow schoolmates and I embraced this new way of speaking and used it quite often ! Some of our favourite quotes from the doc are:

“A man with a fluffy beard”

“A man carrying a spear”

And

“A man in a wooden boat”

These all seemed to revolve around men (How sexist ! Jokes) but what happens when it comes to describing how someone is feeling when they feel upset? Well you just slip in: “John looks very upset at this statement”...

Now I am not having a go at blind people, I am just saying it was a funny new experience for me. I did thoroughly enjoy having the scenes said to me J

Other than that I had some lovely life changing confrontings as I learnt about the character and nature of God and had to look at my own heart J

Currently I am chucking starbursts to one of my roomies as she does her journal and I type this, since she is on a top bunk and I am on the floor I have had some interesting throws including having her pen fly at me... Generally you put things down before you catch something ;)

So that’s my quick update J

Catch you up next week J

Tash

All photos are taken by me and edited, please try to desist from stealing them ;)

Did you say Perth.... Australia ?

Hello All !

Feast your eyes on the chocolate pizza I had the other night !!!! Mwahahaha

It has been quite some time since I have touched my blog, and the simple reason is.....

I really didn’t have time !

In a mix of packing for Perth, saying goodbye to everyone, and other various activities that had to take priority, I didn’t have enough time to sit down and type to you.... So sorry about that one ;)

Now because I am in Perth I will only be able to blog ever Sunday, and the occasional Saturday, so it will be a once a week update on all things that are happening in my life ! :D

So last Saturday I flew into the beautiful Perth ! My flight was pretty good, except for the screaming child at the very back of the plane that I could hear from the front.... -.-
So on the flight I did the usual: Eat, watch movies (pitch perfect), talk to the nice lady next to me who broke my record of having to sit next to creepy older men every time I fly,  read a book, did origami, chewed gum, attempted to sleep, went to the bathroom (almost taking out a few people in the aisle seats, come on guys, just because you’re in an aisle seat, doesn’t mean you have to lean all into it!), and then did the very thing I am good at on planes...... Waited.... Because when all of that was over, I still had one hour of flighting ! Insanity slowly crept in....

But after landing I met up with a guy who was sent to pick me up ! With no sign I did side glances across the room as he looked like he was waiting for someone before he came up to me and asked me if I was Tash, which I said yes and we collected my baggage and went to another area of the base to pick up another student who flew in at the same time ! So we went over and met with another student and leader and introduced myself before we finally after what seemed like too long to travel, made our way to base ! The other students greeted us with open arms and Rachel and I (the other student from the airport) ate lunch before quickly going to drop our stuff off at our temporary home and going to the beach ! That night out other roomie Molly arrived and finally out bedroom was full as we were the only students in out DTS to be assigned to this house ! (We do live with other students though :D )

Over the next few days orientation began and classes, while other students arrived from locations all over the world which is very exciting ! The week also included many outings to the beaches and other places in Perth and outside of Perth ! Having said that, I did have homework ect, so it isn’t as much of a holiday as I make it sound ;)

So I bet your wondering where I am (exactly) and what I am doing ?!

I’ll tell you next week :P

Tash J