Humility in Gods great plan

I was back home in England and I was sharing with people what God has been doing and I almost had a crisis as I could not think of one single thing. Of course this was not so God has done many wonderful and amazing things and has met so many people and by Gods wonderful love I trust that he has poured into them all his goodness and acceptance and love and mercy and grace.

I think I almost had a crisis because I was comparing what has happened to what I hoped would happen in Norway, expectations that have been built on my amazing experiences from my DTS. The kind of lets go in guns blazing, I pray and the Holy Spirit comes in thick presence, lives are transformed on the spot, people are healed, saved etc... and the truth is this has happened but not in the way I was hoping or expected. In fact it has been quite normal in that respect and as a result I have been humbled by God because he spoke something very specific to me and has recently reminded me of that he said this I want you to invest. This is profound, such a touching from heaven on peoples lives through this. Due to all my experiences in life nothing is more beautiful to me when the God of the Universe comes down and reveals the value of that person to him, when acceptance and significance is given to them. This is the place I have seen the Holy Spirit work wonders that overwhelm even me who witnesses and he does it quite normally, quite simply and even quietly as God comes closer to the hearts of those we talk to.

The key is so simple it's relationship and it brings me great excitement and encouragement but it also requires one of the biggest sacrifices of all time. It cannot be rushed. Statistics say that a non christian needs 7 positive encounters with another Christian before they make a decision. So my challenge is this why don't you be one of them. 

Pioneering

This week was my last week before I go home for Christmas YAY. Now I leave for England in just over 24 hours. I am definitely looking forward to going home. This week has been looking at what pioneering is. A very interesting few days that was sure.

Prayer Needs

. Finances for Outreach

. Apple Laptop (it's coming to the point where I am needing a laptop so I can do more work especially so I can continue to do more design work away from home).

So here is why. For the first 2 days our tutor got two of the student to lead, they had no idea about this by the way, it was interesting to see how they handled the topic and content given to them just 30 seconds before they were to teach it to the rest of the SOE class. The reason was this. Part of pioneering is passing on what you have learned as soon as possible so others can teach it to others and so on and so forth.

We also talked a lot about the 7 most important commands of Christ and how these were a vital part of Jesus ministry and teaching, we also looked at the 7 essentials of worship and how these should be a part of every church gathering if we are defining church as a group of people gathered together. Not necessarily somewhere where you gather on a Sunday morning. What was a lot of fun is that we got to practice it and it was incredible to find at how easy it is. All we have to do is gather a few people and involve these things in any creative way we want to and away we go. I got a huge revelation in giving, it is not about giving money in a collection although that is part of it, it is about giving people specifically what they need, just like the Church in Acts did. I would love to see this happen more.

Seven Commands of Christ

Repent and Believe (Mark 1:15, John 3:16)

Be Baptised and filled with the Spirit (Mark 13:11, 16:16, Luke 24:49, Acts 2:38)

Love God, Christians and your Neighbors (Matt 22:37-39, John 13:34)

Meet and Share the Lord's supper (Luke 22:17-20)

Pray each day and feed on God's word (Matt 4:4, 6:5-13, John 6:35, 14:15)

Give Sacrificially (Matt 5:42, 6:2-19-21, 10:8)

Seven Essentials of Worship

Prayer

Fellowship

Bible

Giving

Repentance and Forgiveness

Communion

Glorify Jesus

Testimony

In our Church meeting one of the people said "you know what I really need a pair of snow boots for all this ice here in Norway" so we decided to take a collection and we raise over 500 NOK which is just over £50 which I think is incredible. This giving also released so much joy it was quite something.

I am coming home within 2 days so I look forward while I am back in Leicester to sharing stories in person.

God Jul (Merry Christmas)

Sowing, Reaping, Keeping

Well we have just had a week with Laurence Singlehurst on the topic of this blog. It was one of my most favourite week of lectures because he is British and offers only the best in sarcastic British humour, he knows how to ask the right questions and it was 100% practical in application. BRILLIANT.

Prayer Requests 
. Finances for outreach to Vienna
. I would grow in glorifying God wholely (see below)
. An opportunity to put on a massive event in Vienna has arisen pray for direction and provision

I could share many, many things about what I learned. We learned about a post modern culture and what is relevant to the people, old methods no longer work we must find new creative ways, we discussed how today people need to go throuigh a process and therefore relationship building is very important.  But this is I think is the key message of the whole week.

Evangelism is not a method but a question, and the question is how big is your heart ?

Mission starts with love, the challenge to me is am I loving people or am I seeing them as projects. If I am not loving I need to be renewed in my values (high view of God, of people, of myself and sacrifical love).
It is our heart and love for people that drives us, helps us persevere and stand our ground. This is tough as I realise often my motives are wrong so I have begun to ask God to give me a bigger heart, I am going to need it.

Other
God has also been teaching me a lot about his Glory and it is a mighty subject. He has been showing me how many prayers actually have selfish motives because they are about what we get out of it. For example we often pray that God would move in an evangelistic event but hearts are often syaing so I can look good (I focused), to become a stronger Christian (that's I focused), to feel better about myself (that's still I focused), to become more holy (that's I focused as well). This really struck me because my prayers a riddled with motives like these. God really spoke to me saying "since when was it about glorifying self", but those who glorify him find they will always have success because God will be glorified through it. it's a complete brain shift but I am loving the challenges.

Worldview. What's yours?

Prayer Requests
. Finances for myself and the Vienna outreach team
. A House in Vienna

I am excited about typing this post as this was a really fun and challenging week. There is a lot I could say so I shall do my best to be concise. The foundation of the week could be summed up in three questions:

. What is a Christian Biblical Worldview?

. What kind of Worldview does the world have?

. What kind of Worldview do we have?

During the week we talked a lot about what freedom was. The problem though is that the world believes that freedom is freedom from rules and regulations and although this is true such actions have consequences. For example I could choose not to wear clothes but such consquences may be I die from the cold or I get arrested.

The best example of true freedom we found in the bible was in the story of the Prodial Son. The freedom to walk away from the Father and the freedom to walk back to the Father. True freedom then we decided needs boundaries, for example the earth has an ozone layer to protect us from the sun and allow us to breath.

One of the biggest lies of the enemy today is You Can't Change

I have always found it refreshing to be reminded how we as humans work and is best explained as the following.

. Our core values are the things we have chosen to believe

. These affect our thoughts, ideas and our personal convictions

. This then affects our action and behaviour

. Which eventually affects how we act in society and our evangelism

This was very powerful for a lot of us as we were confronted by the truth that we were believing a lot of lies so over that past week and continually now God is confronting well at least me about false values I have kept in my life which to be honest is kinda exciting because now he is replacing it with Godly values.

What I found very interesting though was when we talked about Post Modernity specifically how music and film play a huge role in that, in that they are the spokes people of the day. Story is key in this and God has been speaking to me recently about how I can use my desire to use Art and Design in Evangelism to tell stories to people. This to me is a vital piece of information because this works it is one of probably a few keys that unlocks people for Christ.

Leadership, Church Planting and Church History

It has been a long time since I last posted and I have heard many of you have been wondering what I have been up to. So here we go. Prayer Points first.

Prayer Points
. We are at a maturing stage, pray this continues to happen
. Finances. We estimate roughly 4000NOK, that is roughly £417 a month for my outreach to Vienna.

. A house in Vienna City Centre that is cheap and a car for travel.

Leadership
This teaching was led by our base leader Runar. It was a very straight forward week with a very simple message what does it mean to lead? His definition of leadership was to simply lead and that leadership is less about managerial roles such as finance keeping but is more about foresight seeing the potential in things and acting on it. Which for me is a relief as I am not really great at creating complex finance charts. Part of the week also focused on what kind of leader are you, specirfically what kind of leadership giftings have you got. It was a very practical week of teaching showing us how to spot trends, potential but also the signs of ministries about to end. 

Church Planting
I really enjoyed thsi week it focused on one persons experience of chruch planting it was actually really eye opening on how we as a class defined Mission, Church and Jesus but especially our negativity towards Church. One of the most valuable things I learned was this:

Jesus + Mission = Church

Our teachers point was that nowhere in the bible does it say plant a church but it does say go out and make disciples. It is when we go we create frienships and these friendships create communities and these communities are what create a the church (the body). It is Jesus who sends us into Mission and then Church is formed but Jesus must come first. This teaching really started to challenge my views on how I view mission and my motivations for doing it, seeing it from this perspective lifts a burden and makes mission easier.

Church History
This was a lot to take in a lot of facts but was very interesting, the focus of the teaching was that where we come from, what we do,  what we study etc. forms our identity. These past 3 weeks have in many ways linked to each other, as I learned that if we want to change the future we must first find out what has happened in the past with Europe and where the Church has been in the midst of that.

I am finding that the SOE has moved into a new focus of preparing us to be pioneers for Christ, this is reflected in all this practical and factual teaching but we are also finding more opportunities to step out and take hold of leadership and use our giftings in Evangelism.

Newcastle

I feel it is about time I told you all about my time in Newcastle, England. The reason the SOE went there was because every year a team called Forever sets up a gathering inviting lots of DTS students for a week of teaching on Evangelism and then they get to practice it, a truely fantastic idea. They invited us the SOE to be examples but also to lead the outreaches.

We did lots of things such as street evangelism using magic to draw a crowd giving us the opportunity to talk to people. We did Treasure Hunting and I shall tell you an amazing story further down the page. We did litter picking so a great opportunity to serve the community. We did a lot of youth work which I was in charge of and it was a lot of fun having the opportunity for both myself and the DTS students having the chance to encourage young people with testimonies. There was also refugee drop in centres, developing a church by painting it ect, and there was a most fantastic opportunity to get involved with Newcastle University and their Missions Week. Also as grwoing leaders to start practice what we are preaching and to live out our values that we would ourselves expect to be lived out in a disciple-discipleship context.

Something that God has been putting on my heart since Newcastle is to start investing in people. I had many amazing opportunities in Newcastle to do so. I found investing in others is a sacrifice but it is also a lot of fun. I had this wonderful opportunity to take two DTS girls out on a treasure hunt at night and one of the perks I found of investing in people is that you also get to share in their experiences of Gods power being shown, in this case they discovered not just that God speaks to them but at how specifically God speaks to them.

Testimony
We feel that the things combined together of what we felt God was saying drew us to this one person. I had this word that we should walk to a certain location a specific way and when we got there this DTS girl noticed her treasure walking past to the exact description she had written down. So naturally she is amazed and it took a little convincing for us to follow this girl that walked past. And yes it feels like your stalking someone. We follow this girl and the DTS girls i am with collect enough courage to talk to this girl and it turned out the name she had on her list was the girls name who we stopped. It was amazing to watch these DTS girls speak so powerfully into this girls life something as a guy I just would not be able to do. This girl leaves and my DTS friends realised that after chasing this girl down the street that they ended up in the exact location according to all the clues written on this treasure map. It was absolutely incredible to witness these two DTS girls invest so powerfully into this other girls life that we met. But what was really amazing was how God just melted their brains as the realisation sunk in that God had just spoken to them in perfect clarity. It has been an incredible blessing to see God transform DTS like these, because I look at them now and I can joyfully say they can never be the same again, how can they be now they have tasted God in this way.  

What I have been able to personally take away from this week is the importance but also joy it is to invest in other people.

Lots of happenings

So I have not posted for 2 weeks I am very sorry baout that I have been busy and we have had a few internet problems along with homework to hand in, yes we have homework. So much for escaping school but never mind.

Anyway the last 2 weeks of teaching have been on SPiritual Giftings and callings which was very cool with a guy called Yan Nicholls a very passionate man of God and quite amazing to soak up what he has to offer. So that week we talked a lot about the 5 fold ministry and we did a lot of discussing on what each one of these really means and then we were left to think about where God has placed us. We also learnt about the giftings God has given us to go with these callings in order to make us who we are - very exciting stuff. We also had a time of prophecying over each other and that is always a lot of fun and encouraging.

This week we have been learning about the importance of communication and discipleship it has been a very fun week  but also very challenging as we looked at a lot of habits in our lives which when representing the gospel put people off. We also looked at what it means to be a disciple of Christ and to be a discipler. A very practical week so a lot of fun.

This week myself and another SOE guy called Ezra had the opportunity to lead some evangelism in the streets this week with the the SOE. What was really cool about this was that a group of DTS students joined us. The aim of the eveangelism was for people to experience God. This is one of the stories a DTS student had to say.

Rebekka: During her treasure hunt God told her about a man and a woman one of them had a bad knee and the other had a bad lower back. Her and her partner in the treasure hunt went to find them which they did and they got talking and eventually got to share about what God had told heard her. So they prayed the one with the bad knee said after they prayed it no longer hurt but wouldn't know for sure until they properly tested it out, but the one with the bad back instantly described her back feeling completely better after being prayed for. What else was amazing was that as she was praying she felt heat go from her hands and her hands started to tingle.

How incredible is that, that God is doing such incredible things. What i really enjoyed about this was the opportunity to lead others into a form of evangelism that I felt inspred to do and then hear about the fruits being bore.
 

In other news though I go to Newcastle for a week to lead the evangelism for all the DTS who will gather there. I will be doing that with the rest of the SOE. 

That is a quick summary. A lot has been going on but I am having still a lot of fun with God.

Covenant Promises

A covenant was used when God spoke. The Israelites new what this meant, it was a new perspective at looking at things. That truth was that God wanted to open up relationship with his people. A Creator and His creation, intimately. What follows are the seven covenant promises Israelites used to make with other. These promises also apply to us, you and Jesus.

Switching of a Cloak/robe

This symbolised the other as a person, it placed vaule on other. It meant that everything they owned was no longer their own but was at complete disposal for the other to use. It was a sign of trust. David and Jonathan in the bible is the perfect example of this.

They exchanged their belts
To the Israelites the belt was not the kind of belt that kept up your trousers but it was a belt that contained your weapons. It was a symbol to each of 'strength and protection'. We stand together in double support. Whoever attacks you I attack, whoever you attack I attack.

Cut and animal in two
Those in a covenant would walk between the animal sacrifice. It symbolised that they died to their rights and that they now live for each other. They expand themselves allowing room for the other into their life. A walk of life together, forever. It is us an God walking together in the middle of the sacrifice of Jesu for life eternal. A covenant was impossible to break.

Shedding of own blood
They both would cut their hand a tiny bit and then shake hands and this would mix the blood. This was a symbol of beoming one, a life of faithfulness to each other. They would also give each other a new name that contained part of both the covenant  partners name. They were now in each other. A new name means a new life with a new purpose.

Speak the conditions of the covenant
It means this, that everything that is mine is now yours. I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you. (Psalm 23: 5-6)

Share a covenant meal
The breaking of bread and the pouring of wine, is a symbol of a life untied. They were in each other, one  body, one spirit, one life. (Gal 2:20) (1 Cor 6:7)

Plant a tree
This was a memory mark, a sign of the covenant. We usually have mates or we might call them buddies or even friends as a symbol of being able to get along and enjoy each others company. In those times a friend was someone you made a covenant with, it went much deeper and was more more meaningful. It was complete unity, complete, care, assests wewre shared for the others need, it was like being family.
(John 15: 1-5)

Check out this link it explains how the covenant fits into Gods salvation plan.
The Gospel (Link)

The Gospel and our Covenant with Christ

This week has been quite an extrordinary week as the title suggests it has been on the gospel. Not in the way I was expecting though, my personal expecations were we would focus on the gospels but no we look at the whole Old Testement and how this related to the gospel today. I learnt from a complete new perspective that to talk about the Gospel you have to look at the history and Gods overall salvation programme.

Below is a summary of the weeks teaching. For most of you this is not new but I pray that you might see things from a new perspective like I did. For those those of you who this is new I hope that this will explain and answer the questions you may have. Also in a second post I have written all the covenant promises we have with Christ. it was this list that blew my mind.

Check out this link to get an understanding of what a covenant meant.
Covenant with Christ (link)

In the beginning there was God (Trinity) and in his image he created man and woman, physically, emotionally and spiritually in his image totally unique. The purpose to share himself, relationships is on Gods heart. Before 'the fall' God was in perfect unity with man and had created a covenant with many promises. At the heart, the covenant expressed  a complete giving up of self for the other, a sharing with each other, a fighting for each other. It showed the seriousness of God had to be joined with humanity. Not just that but it is a promise of being defended, a promise of whatever is Gods is ours. The truth is we are covenant freinds with Christ and all the above apply. This has been Gods plan since 'the fall' to re-establish a covenant freindship with his children eventually finding its completion and fulfilment in Jesus.
     History shows a process of salvation, bit by bit God is teaching his people. It's by grace through faith that we enter into the covenant promises, faith defined as being 100% dependant on God the perfect example being Abraham 'the father of faith'. Without faith not only is it impossible to please God but we as a race are capable only of destruction. We see God rescusing the Israelites from the Eygyptians a symbol of our faithful covenant protector defending and saving us from trouble. If you look at their 40 year journey to the promise land God teaches his children about what a covenant means, the need for a tabernacle,sacrifice, atonement wonderul image for the future and God beginning to dwell amoung his people. But God cannot just send Jesus down on a parachute and die on the Cross, they would not understand, first they need to know that they need saving. God then teaches on the law leading his children to an understanding that they need a saviour.
      It is now time for Jesus to come, he showed us what it meant to live in a covenant relationship, he was the peoples example. He showed how without God we are put into slavery, under sin, under law, under religion and under the influence of satan. At the garden, at his darkest hour Jesus submitted to God not only taking our sin but becoming a physical curse for us before God. The Cross origianlly a symbol of a curse no becomes our glory, a symbol of baptism, we die with Christ seperated from God, buried with Christ and raised with Christ now into God. Sin, religionm, law and satan's influence on our lives is disarmed and have now been replaced with the Holy Spirit, grace, faith and relationship giving us complete access to God. Not that we would come to God but so that God can come to us and surround uis where we are at for all eternity.
     Now we have a new life consisting of 3 things, a life 'in Christ', a life 'with Christ' and a life 'by Christ'. Now a life of perfect relationship can once again be lived.

Norwegian Lessons

Hello/Hi - Hallo/Hei
(hallo/hi)

Goodbye - Hadet Bra
(hard-a-bra)

Thank you - Takk
(tack)

Thank you very much - Tusen Takk
(tosen tack)

Your Welcome - Vær så god
(var soar go)

My name is - Jeg heter
(yi heter)

how are you - Hvordan har du det        (respond with)
(vordan har du de)

I'm fine - Jeg har det bra
(yi har day bra)

I can speak a little Norwegian - Jeg kan snakke litt norsk
(yi can snacker lit norsk)

Can you speak English - Kan du snakke engelsk
(can du snacker engelsk)

God - Gud
(good)

The Holy Spirit - Den hellige ånd
(den hell-e-er on)

Jesus - Jesus
(yesus)

The Kingdom of God is near

Prayer Requests
. That my time in the community art group will be fruitful as I build relationships with those who really need the love of Jesus
. As we prepare to plan outreach we could move forward and strengthen relationships with each other.
. That Andreas will grow in passion and confidence in Evangelism as he learns new ways to do it.
(see last paragraph)

This week as you might have guessed has been on the 'Kingdom of God' it has not been an easy subject by any means. One of the biggest focuses of this lecture has surrounded the topic of Gods healing power. Most of us will have no problems confessing Gods healing power but when it comes to God healing us or even healing people through us things get a little less simple.

At least that is how I feel.

But one of the most amazing things that we have been taught this week is that it has been Gods pleasure to give us the Kingdom, also we know that all authority on heaven and earth has been given to Jesus therefore that same power in Jesus is in us. Furthermore I can do things through Christ who gives me strength and even Jesus said you will do greater things than I.

I think God might be trying to tell us something.

I personally have not yet seen God heal anybody through me yet, and I think that is where it gets difficult for us. Was it me?, Is it them? But one of the most beautiful things I will hold on to is this.

Even if I never see God heal someone through me my faith will not faulter, I will not lower my faith level for the things God has promised and for the things God desires.

We watched a documentary called the 'Finger of God' after something like that it is impossible for me to believe anything less than what is described. I have attached a small part of the documentary, a taster.  

FINGER OF GOD (click this link)

Other cool stuff that God has been doing this week is using us to bless the community. We did some more treasure hunts. For those who don't know a treasure hunt is when we ask God if he would like us to bless anyone in the community, so we ask for location, name, appearence, prayer need and then we go off and find them. Once again God has shown how faithful he is, in short I found my treasure and we got to pray for his shoulder to get better (I believe God has). But what was really amazing was to see how God worked his timing of us being in certain places at certain times, not just to find our treasures but how at the same time we met other people, even some we new from the community in Skien and got to spread the gospel and pray for others.

Another story the DTS have to do something called Evangelism and Discipleship and I am one of 4 SOE students who gets to disciple and take out a DTS student on Evangelism, it's quite cool really, a great way to grow in Leadership. I have an amazing guy called Andreas he is Norwegian and really passionate for Jesus and it as much a chance to learn off him as he off me.

Anyway that is enough for now

Blessings in Abundance

Jonathan

Extra Extra read all about it Outreach location revealed.

Well the day has finally arrived I know my outreach location.
and the winner is (drum roll please)
 

VIENNA, AUSTRIA

I will be going with two others, both Norwegian and both men of God who are passionate and on fire for him.
As I understand it we will be working a lot with the Churches there and re-pionnering a YWAM base.

We ask for your prayers.

Prayer Requests
. that myself Vegard and Bjarte will be drawn together in unity, friendship and trust
.we will have vision for Vienna and courage and boldness to see them come alive
. health
. organisation as we plan even now

Also please do not hesitate as you pray to send any pictures, words of encouragment or scriptures as this can bring much confirmation and encouragment.
Well that's all I shall write another post at the end of this week bringing you up to date on other news.

Blessings in Abundance

Jon

The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom

Prayer Requests 
. Pray for the SOE leaders and staff members as they seek Gods face inot where each student should go on outreach, pray they get clarity and peace.

Another week of lectures has gone by and this week it was on the 'Fear of the Lord' and on 'Growth'.

Hard to know what to say as so much has happened in a space of 5 days of teaching. But here is what God has been really speaking to me about.

The Fear of the Lord is to not just hate but to despise sin, God has really been teaching me that I cannot take sin lightly or passively, it must be dealt with violently beause if not sin will violently destroy us. A lot of what God was doing with me and the others was giving us the opportunity to repent and rebuke sin in our life and what we found was that God was restoring us to a Holy boldness and courage, free from fear.

Now Myself and others are able to preach the gospel more fearlessly and not because we have to because we are told to but because we want to and this has released so much joy as we find new creative ways to bless Skien residents.

Testimony

Every week we do something called 'people games' the aim behind this is to bless, encouraged the community in Skien. This past week we decded create hand made blessing cards and hand them out with free chocolate (not a bad coversation starter). Some stories include a person giving their life to Christ, many got prayed for but I didn't get any conversations but God really encouraged us two ways.
1. The effort myself and others put into the written blessings and the cards opened up many coversations
2. Success isn't conversations it is in obedience to God

During the 'Growth' lectures I learnt a lot about taking responsibility for thought life, for using my giftings wisely and developing them and time managment. This week was a very practical week but I see God is pouring maturity and intentionality into all of us.

In other exciting news I find out my outreach location on Monday.

YWAM 50th Aniversary

Prayer Requests
. We know our outreach Locations. Newcaslte in England, Vienna in Austria and Stockholm in Sweden. Please pray that God would reveal where he would like me to be and what he would like me to do there.
. I am getting involved in an Art Group in Skien so I can get to know the public, some are from Afganistan, pray that I could communicate and relate especially since English may not be that good.

This past week I have been in Sweeden at the YWAM Base Restenas. A wonderful place in the countryside. It has such a loving atmosphere. This week was all about getting YWAM's DNA and all the YWAM bases came to Restenas from the Northern part of Europe, over 700 people were there.

We spent a week of worshiping God, growing in community by networking, encouraging other Ywamers and listening to lectures given by Loren and Darlene the founders of YWAM.

What did I get from that week.
. a growing passion for Europe and to see it changed
. a greater revelation of Gods incredible provision
. a love for Fika (a Swedish break with coffee and cake)
. and volleyball

This week we have lectures on the Fear of the Lord, with a passionate American called Connie Taylor. Should be challenging.

Until the end of next week, spread the word, pray lots and blessings in abundance from Skien.

P.S Skien is pronounced (Shen)

Im off to Sweden

Well I am off to Sweeden to the land of Abba and all things blue and yellow.Sadly Abba won't be there.
I will be going with the whole of YWAM in the Northern Europe sector for 5 days of celebrating 50 years of YWAM. It will be a week of food, cheap sweets/candy and gaining a greater vision for the future of YWAM celebrating Gods faithfulness in the past. I reckon 700+ people will be there.

You will also be happy to hear I am making good use of time learning Norwegian phrases such as:
 

there's a sweaty moose in the forest
the cheese is in the toilet

You know the important kind of phrases that get you through life.

Prayer Requests 

. The week will be filled with Gods Glory and that we would be drawn near to him in true intimacy

. Have lots of fun

My address

Below is the address of the prison (i mean base) where I am living it would be nice to keep in contact with you, hear how things are with you etc.

I don't fancy completely secluding myself off.

Kongensgate 1

3717 Skien

Norway

Many blessings

Jonathan

Sorry it took a while but I am here

So I write to you know from Norway Skien, very exciting.

It is a very beautiful country really beautiful. At the moment it is sunny and warm but I hear as winter closes in it can get down to -10 degrees celcius. mmmm  nice.

Anyway I am sorry it has taken so long for an entry, internet issues.

Interesting facts

I live in a prison and all rooms are cells.

It turns out also starting the week of the 20-09-2010 it is the 50th  Aniversary of YWAM so I go to Sweeden for 5 days to celebrate an be invisioned with the whole of YWAM in Northern Europe.

Prayer Requests

. I continue to stay open to God, not to lose passion or grow weary but to fight.

. I recieve new revelations of God (intimacy)

. I find ways to be a blessing in Skien Community with art and design (part of course)

My first week of lectures are over and we were learning about bible study methods, very insightful and I feel very encouraged to read my bible in a way that brings new depth and insight in a fun and easy way. Praise God.

 I think that is about it for now. I will post a picture of Skien next post.

Blessings

Norway is soon

Welcome to the official Norway School of Evangelism Blog. It is not long until I go and I am very excited to learn so much more about myself and God. I am expecting no less than to be transformed by God again in completely unexpected ways.

A little testimony this waiting period has been hard I have wanted to get back in there ever since leaving South Africa and many of you may know me and God took powerful ground over rejection which had such a terrible grip on my life. This waiting period I have struggled with lies from my old life of rejection and I have had victories and I have had failures but I have been learning that no matter how terrible the rebellion against Gods name you cannot out trump Gods grace (if you are familiar with the game). It's interesting to note that the more I become broken the greater the desire to seek Daddy's face, it's like a fiery passion that can't be put out. I am so thankful to Jesus that when Satan think he is ruining me actually by the power of the Holy Spirit that stirs in me to go for God stronger than before.

Romans 8: 28 "And we know that in all things God works together for the good of those who love him, who have been called to his purpose."

Prayers

I need your prayers in preparation for Norway I am asking for intimacy and passion. The rest of Gods plan will come but these two things I want in increasing measure. 

May The God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob fill you to the fullness of his Glory and bless you to the point of overflowing so that you may be a blessing to others.