Lulu- my awesome and hilarious friend from Germany!
John from Canada!
Lindsay (Omaha) and Naomi (New Zealand) !!!
Stacy and Brittany- they are both Canadians!
Hello my family and friends! Hope you are doing swell!
I want you to know right from the beginning this is going to be ridiculously long, but after this post I will make things MUCH more brief!!
God is doing some amazing things here on the campus of University of the Nations, but he is especially real within my little PhotogenX DTS (but maybe I'm biased)! I have only been here a couple weeks, but it feels like much longer!! So much has changed in my life, I feel like a new person. I can only imagine how I will feel in 6 months (or 2 years) once God has opened my eyes to more of his heart and plans for my future.
The first day I arrived here I already wanted to turn around and go home because I was assigned to a very early morning work duty (if you're reading this you probably know I am not a morning person), and I didnt know a soul. I didnt feel welcome, or like I fit in. But of course there was NO turning back. And I am glad about that because things changed quickly!!
The weekend I arrived my school had a beach day where we went to a beautiful beach north of campus. I started making friends with some of my roommates and other people in my DTS, and of course got to take some pictures!
Since then relationships have only been building more and more, and I got seriously blessed with a mistake in the work duty records so my work duty is now from 5-7 pm!!
But these arent the things that have changed my life in the matter of two weeks.
What has been so amazing is presence of God in our classroom every day.
For those of you who dont know how a DTS works ill explain a little: Essentially a DTS has a focus (which mine is photography, obviously), but the main point of it is to build a strong relationship with God and find His calling for your life. It is sort of like an educational bridge to your future (often times with YWAM ministries). My DTS has two AMAZING leaders (along with an incredible group of other staff members) Paul and Susi Childers who run the whole thing! So every day from 8am-12pm I have lectures led by various guest speakers and often Paul. Every night we have class from 7-9 which is either an educational movie, photo class, small group times (I have an amazing small group leader Anne who I am getting to know and love) or community lecture. We also have worship every morning from 8-8:30 am. We get photo assignments every week which are turned in every friday (along with other homework like journals and book reports), and then evaluated on mondays in front of the class!
So back to the life changing part!
The first week of lectures was about hearing Gods voice. We were assigned to read the book Is That Really You, God? by Loren Cunningham (The founder of YWAM). We spent the first two days going through our entire group of 53 people sharing our testimonies. This was an amazing time for us to grow closer as a group.
The second week is really where God showed up in our little classroom. The theme of the week was Freedom in Christ. Our guest speakers were Faith and Andrew Dutton from
So that pretty much gets you up to date!! I will be uploading pictures of some of the adventures I have had in between all of this growing and learning! Thank you so much for reading and for you continuous prayers!!!
In Him,
