Mi wantok bilong yu,
Mi wantok bilong Jesus,
Jesus emi wantok tru.
Emi wantok tru,
Emi wantok tru,
Jesus givim liaf long me nau yu,
Long Calvary's Cross hem dai,
Hem givim yu mi liaf,
Pres Jesus, emi wantok tru.
This song is written in 'Pidgin', the local language spoken by those in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. We were taught it by Australia's own legend, the Country singer Steve Grace (www.stevegrace.com). He was gracious and humble enough to take a week out of his busy schedule to lead our lectures for week number 7 of the DTS, titled 'The character and nature of God'.
Before I move on, I guess I should translate! So here it is:
You are a friend of mine,
I am a friend of yours,
I am a friend of Jesus,
Jesus is the true friend.
The true friend,
The true friend,
Jesus gave His life for me and you,
On Calvary's Cross He died,
He's given you and me life,
Praise Jesus - the true friend.
What's beautiful about this song is the word 'Wantok'. When Steve went to New Guinea and quickly thought up some lyrics to an easy song for everyone to sing, he asked the locals for a word to describe a 'true, good friend'. They suggested the word Wantok. It is a deep and meaningful word with no straight forward translation. The best way to describe it is a friendship as tight as a brother's, kind of like a blood-relationship. It's ignorant of skin colour or location, it overcomes those differences and suggests the two people are on the same level, they are one person. It's a great little cheesy song, and I can't wait to sing it as a group to the people of New Guinea when we get there in a couple of months time!
It's been a great week since we arrived back from camping, and crazy at the same time - because there is so much preperation for outreach going on right now, trying to fit that in to a normal week of lectures is a funny thing! Our arrival back at base was celebrated by the whole DTS going out on the Saturday night to a restaurant on the Seafront. We all dressed up, and really enjoyed a fantastic night out in great company. After the meal we went to the local ice cream parlour and I took advantage of the situation (some thing will never change) and got an ice cream with Banana, Hazlenut, and Cookies & Cream scoops. I won't lie; it was undesputably the best ice cream i have ever eaten.
So, a great way to start the week for sure. The positive vibe definitely continued as lectures for the week began. We all knew Steve Grace would be speaking to us, but no one was able to predict the amount of fun we had in lectures! Every story Steve told us had a song to go with it, so his voice, guitar, and harmonica (yes those are cool, or, they are now) made many appearances. Steve also blessed us with many great words of wisdom, here's one of my favourites:
"Never, ever let that which you do not understand, rob you of what you do understand."
On top of some great teaching, Steve really put a passion for songwriting into all of us which was awesome. Now, you need to understand something about me to grasp how much of a miracle this is. I'd probably consider myself to have the same lyrical ability as your average stick of bamboo. So, the fact that i managed to write a great song and put music to it is nothing short of a God-send.
The song is about the book of Joshua. It's a song for the church to sing, and it's testament to the greatness and power of the God that we serve, and our commitment to fight. I also love it because i now have a really solid reminder of some of the lessons God taught me when i went camping.
This week lectures are on the topic of 'Spiritual Warfare'. We are watching videos of YWAM legend Dean Sherman speaking on the subject, and they've been great so far - I'm all of a sudden rapidly running out of paper in my note books!
Last weekend the YWAM base was blessed by the presence of the returning October DTS. They were coming back from their 6 week outreach based around various cities along the coast of Australia. It was great to have them all back, to hear some great stories, and to see so many people on the base! Of course you can tell what my favourite part of all of this was - my good friend James Sandquest from Bristol back home, who is currently on the October DTS, came back! It was so great to see him again, he's a little reminder of home - which i love. Today we were able to pray for and encourage each other; and it blew my mind to think back to when we first met years ago at a youth camp in Bristol, to see how far we'd come! And more than that, to consider the faithfulness of God throughout all those years in between left me speechless. God is good.
Some of you will be aware that on the 10th March, my outreach team (see earlier post 'Papua New Guinea') will be beginning our 5 hour van drive to the wonderful city of Cairns, where we will be for 2 and a half weeks; returning on the 27th March. The programme is pretty mixed, and we're still waiting for a lot of it to be organised! What i do know is that for the three weeks we will be staying in various locations including hostels, church halls, houses of friends of YWAM and i'm sure there will be a couple of surprises along the way! As for what we will be doing, there are two main purposes: evangelism, and raising awareness of the YWAM Ship Tour (www.ywamships.org) amongst the youth. Activities will range from running church services and youth groups, to school assemblies and classes, to street evangelism, to busking, to talking with the other backpackers staying in our hostel - and anything that God tells us!
I'm incredibly excited about this outreach; i've recently had a lot spoken over me in terms of my ability to lead and speak, and my calling to be a young leader like that of Joshua and Timothy, now is a chance for me to set an example in 'speech, life, love, faith and purity', and really step into that role. The entire team cannot wait to get going, we're currently gelling pretty well which is always good news, and i'm just so thrilled to be working alongside this team of Godly men and women.
As always with outreach, and particularly YWAM outreaches, there are always emergency funds that need raising. About a week ago we made an estimated budget that our DTS needed roughly $30,000 (AUD) to come in in order for all of us to go. Since then, God has miraculously provided approximately $27,500! We're just waiting for that little bit more to come in and then we're all set!
There were two people on my team who were really in need of funding for this outreach - our team leader and one other team member. As a group, several of us were able to put money towards them and we were able to pay the remainders of both of their fees, which totalled to about $3,500? How incredible! I was really blessed because of the overwhelming genorousity of those supporting me back home - it meant i was able to contribute to my two other team members and ultimately get them on our outreach! Praise God. This also leads me to say another huge thank you to all of those back home who have, and still are, supporting me in means of finance and in love and in prayer - it's making pretty much all the difference on this side of the world. So thank you.
As for me and how I'm doing. Like i said, it's been a pretty draining time - with lots of hard work and a lot to be thinking about, with generally minimum time to hit the pause button on it all, which would be nice. So i'm quite tired, but God is giving me strength every day. More than that, God has really been blowing my mind on a regular basis and im so thankful for all the work he has been doing in me and those around me.
I'm reminded that "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me", nothing is impossible for my God. And with the energy I have, i am giving it to responding to my creator who is relentlessly pursuing me,
and I am loving every second of it.
All my love and God bless, Matt.
Prayer:
Strength and determination when it comes to video lectures, and getting ready for outreach
Greater unity within our outreach team
I would continue to hear from God clearly and regularly
I would step into what God has called me to, with authority and with confidence
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