Philippines to Fiji

Well our time here in the Philippines is complete!  We take off for Fiji tomorrow & have a few hour layover in Brisbane, AU before taking off to the Island.  It has been an AMAZING experience here in the Philippines & God is making himself known!  We have been doing a wide variety of ministry here & it has been a great learning experience.  Our YWAM team partnered with a youth group called the Upright Generation from Naga Philippines & they were an incredible help.  Whenever we'd go out for different types of ministry, member of the Upright Generation would help us with translating & sharing God's love through their gifts & talents.  Some of the ministries we did included concerts at city plazas, going to prisons, feeding programs for street kids, basketball/soccer games :), home for the blind, street evangelism, door 2 door, & many other ways.  We went to the Island of Catan Duanes for a week & shared the gospel to those there.  We were greeted with such happy faces & just open hearts.  God is doing awesome things there & hopefully Upright Generation can continue to impact the areas we helped plant seeds.  I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed my time here!  It is undoubtedly one of the best months of my life & God did things that I can't simply explain with words.  The Philippines definitely has a place in my heart & I have a huge family of strong believers in the Upright Generation.  They are so passionate & so joyful for the plans God has!


For this next month in Fiji it will probably be quite a bit different.  Supposedly it is really heavy spiritually & our team can use a ton prayer.  We have been able to maintain great unity but we will need to remain extra strong.  Please continue to pray for boldness.  I miss you all & can't wait to tell you more in person!

"Kingdom Builders 4"

What a week!  We just completed our kids camp & it was an incredible experience!  This is the fourth year that Grace Covenant Church has put on this Kingdom Builders camp & I felt so honored to be apart of it.  Each of us had a group of 10+ kids that we mentored throughout the week & led through a variety of events.  Over 30 kids accept God as their Lord & Savior & most of them went on to getting baptized!  Our speaker was a guy named David Victory who spoke on bringing the kingdom here to earth.  David is from Nigeria & is living out his faith by traveling the world & sharing the gospel with young believers.  He's only 25 & has been to over 22 different nations since giving up everything for God's plan at 19.

This next week we're leaving to an island & preaching the gospel to the natives.  We don't have any big plans & we're just going to be led by the Holy Spirit.  I still have so much to process from this past week, but I'm excited to see a transition & to serve in a different way.  My foot is much better & I'm finally able to put a shoe on.  I hope to play basketball again with the locals soon & I am trying to raise some support to purchase a basketball backboard for the local church we are staying at.  I've checked out some supplies & it only comes out to around 800 pesos, which translates to about $20.  If you would like to help support this church they would be so appreciative!  Just let me know & please continue to pray for safety for our group & travels.  I hope Tulip Time is fantastic!!  Miss you all & can't wait to share more on my time here in the Philippines!

I MADE IT!!!! Right now I am in the city of Naga in the Philippines at an internet cafe.  This has been an incredible week here so far and God is making himself visable.  We have been laying cement & getting ready for a week long kids camp next week.  We have also done a wide variety of events outside of where we are staying, from street evengelizing to prostitutes to visiting the elderly in nursing homes.  Eveyone here is so loving & inviting!  We are working with a youth group organization called the Upright Generation & they help us with translating & communicating with different contacts.  Today is our day off so we are traveling around & sight seeing.  God has been so cool & sparking my intersts as far as playing basketball with the kids here & giving me opportunities to be bold.  The food has really been awesome even though it involves some sort of rice just about every meal.  Our team is really starting to bond & that makes everything else so much easier.  You can sense our unity & God is answering many other prayers.  Please continue to pray for our camp for next week & those we evangelise to this weekend.  It can be very difficult with the language barrior, so just pray for boldness & understanding.  Also could you pray for rest & energy as the kids camp with go from 6am - 10pm everyday!!  We have also experienced some health issues on the team so just pray that everyone's digestive systems get with the program & we can funtion properly :)  Thanks again for all your support & prayers & I will try & post again when I get a chance!! Love from the Philippines!

Also... I found out right away when D-Rose got injured... I was devastated to say the least.  You can see more of what I'm doing on our team blog at http://www.ywamteam2012.blogspot.com.au/

Don't fight for victory, fight from victory!

I can't believe the time has come! It's slowly settling in, but I still can't believe that I'll be in the Philippines tomorrow!  I am so overwhelmed with how blessed I have been & my newest adventures are just getting started!  Coming into this week I was feeling drained & I wasn't sure how ready I was going to be for outreach.  After this past week of lectures on Spiritual Warfare however, I am way stoked to move in God's power & spread his truth to the lost nations.  Our speaker was Neil Champion who was arguably my favorite speaker that we've had.  He is a local guy & just has a passion for Christ like no other.  The ways that he moves in the Holy Spirit are incredible & he has had a lot of experiences in Fiji, so he was able to share a lot of stories & ideas of what to expect.  This got me so amped & I never would've guessed I'd be this pumped to head off for two months.

It's sad saying bye to my fellow DTS buddies, but we will have a debrief week at the end of our journey so I will see them all again.  There have been some hard things going on as far as kids unable to go on outreach & others getting really sick.  Originally, we had 12 people on our outreach, but now we are down to 10.  Unity was already a tricky thing for our team, so this adds even more distress & questions.  Through it all God is still good & there is obviously a reason behind all of this.

Throughout the week we discussed a lot of spiritual gifts & how to act properly when using them or how to know if you have a gift.  So often we automatically think that raising someone from the dead is the greatest miracle, but really it's salvation, because you are bringing someone out of death & into life.  Healing someone doesn't give them eternal life.  Imagine this... if you had the cure for cancer, what would you do?  Hopefully outside yelling to everyone about your discovery & I don't think that's really the way to go about evangelizing, but it gives you a perspective of the excitement you should have when sharing eternal life with others.

One thing Neil continued to stress were personal quiet times.  You cannot just switch God on & off when you want to.  The greater the work in you, the greater he works through you.  When you're in your quiet times, there is enough power in the room to create a universe.  Instead of inviting God to join our stories, we need to join his ultimate store.  I know this kind of contradicts what I said a few posts back, but I feel this is a more accurate outlook on things.  Spiritual warfare is being connected to the source.  Here are some really powerful/interesting points that Neil made:

• Every morning ask yourself, what would a man/woman of God do today? Then do it!
• When someone persecutes you, ultimately they are saying: Stop preaching or I'll send you to paradise.
• We should know & be familiar with God's voice.
• If God stopped speaking to you, how long would it take for you to notice?
• It is so important to connect with God each morning through quiet times.
• This is something I'm still struggling with but "dead men don't have rights."
• "For our struggle isn't against flesh & blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world & against the spiritual forces of the evil & the heavenly realms." Ephesians 6:12
• It says we are not fighting against flesh & blood, so why do we fight each other?
• If it moves pray for it, if it doesn't well push it & pray for it.
• Don't be worried to step out in boldness.
• The Bible tells us that the devil is below our heals, so how does he get in our heads?
• We give him a foothold & lift him up with sin in our lives.
• The Bible says we need to humble ourselves before the Lord.  This is for us to do not him.
• "God resist the proud, but gives grace to the humble." James 4:6
• Truth doesn't need to hide from anyone. You get intimidated when you don't spend time with the Lord.
• Do you think you need to defend a lion?

These are just a few of the things we learned, along with how to deal with intense spiritual warfare, which is very prevalent in Fiji.  Here's a tentative schedule of what we'll be doing.

Philippines:

• Week 1: Preparation for "kids" camp that will go the entire day.  We've been told they will be waiting outside when the sunrises ready to go.
• Week 2: We're running a camp & will each have our own tribes to lead!  I'm so pumped & the ages will vary from 12-25yrs old.  Hopefully we'll be able to do some basketball camps there!  I would be so thrilled!!!
• Week 3: Feeding some villages & bringing the gospel to some islands for the first time!

Fiji:

• Week 1: Staying at a YWAM base & working with them.
• Week 2-3: Working with a pastor who works with the poor & need.  We'll be doing door to door missions, evangelizing, working with single women & possibly inmates.

I'm not sure how many of these things will really go as planned, but these are just ideas we've received from our contacts.  Either way God's hand will be in the entire process & we'll be doing his work.  Thanks for all your support & feel free to leave a post below (You don't need to log-in).  I won't have my laptop on outreach, but I will try to blog when I can.  However, we will have a team blog at http://ywamteam2012.blogspot.com.au/.  Hope Tulip Time is wonderful & GO BULLS!!!

Prayer requests:

• Boldness to step out in the power of Jesus.
• Safe travels.
• Ability to stay united as a team.
• Our leader to be healed so she can rejoin us.
• Love for the people of the Philippines & Fiji.

It's a Relational Life.

Welcome to Jason's world!  Where unopened milk doesn't need refrigeration, where long-boarding injuries are quite common, where plugins have switches, where looking like a caveman is acceptable, where it's weird to carry American cash, where slushies cost $4, where geckos are more common than squirrels and your family is 30+ students with all different ethnicities.  Thanks to everyone who takes the time to read this each week!  It is super encouraging when I hear that someone is enjoying the things God has been revealing to me. I just want to make it clear that the ONLY way I'm able to write the things that I've written, is through the power & discipleship of our All Mighty God.  I pray that your heart is open to what he is trying to say through these posts & that you understand that the stories I share come from me joining God's journey for my life, not my journey trying to involve God. I am continuing to grow & struggle through the things I've been experiencing.

This week in lectures, a Godly couple spoke on relationships.  They have been serving our base for years throughout their marriage and do an awesome job of working together in unity to demonstrate what Godly relationships look like.  We learned about 1) Our relationship with God, 2) Our relationships with others, and 3) Our relationship with that special someone.

"Relationships are what's most important." - Michael Scott (My father, not that other guy)  These are the words that I carried into this week and these are the words that I carried out of this week.

1) Greatest commandment "Love God'

• God has always been a relational God.
• Genesis 1:26 "Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image."  Who is "us"?
• Father, Son and the Holy Spirit!
• Our relationship with God will improve our personal relationships with others, along with our character.
• Those who walk with God have a Christian community around them.
• You must be committed to a local church so can be encouraged in your faith & journey.

Committing to a local church is something I really struggled with back home.  I felt warn out and like I was wasting my time, because everything seemed irrelevant.  They talked about the importance of church and how it is Christ's bride.  For example:  If our best friend met a guy or girl we didn't necessarily approve of, we would either need to change our attitude towards that person or we would become disconnected with our best friend.  God intended for a body of believers to gather in his name to praise him.  Also, no church is perfect, but when you get involved with a small/core group of believers, you can share your struggles and ask for prayer!

James 5:16 "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.  The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." - We are our brother's keeper and it is our business to help those who are close to us that are struggling.

2) 2nd Greatest commandment "Love Others"

• John 14:15 Jesus says, "If you love me, you will obey what I command."
• In order to obey his 1st commandment, we need to obey the rest of his commandments.
• 1 John 4:20 "If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar.  For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen."
• Ouch, there are so many people that I don't love...

Motives: Can I be a great person & love others without Christ? Do I love others for personal fulfillment?

Our relationships with others needs to glorify God in all ways and this doesn't mean putting on a front and not allow others to see us when we're weak.  When conflicts arise it is easy to run, hide, or ignore the issue.  However, conflicts can: create opportunities for growth, heighten creativity, help people think with a broader perspective, help others express their true feelings.

When confronting:  Go to the person, think it through, no personal attacks, use "I" not "You" language, listen, offer a solution & pray.

When confronted: Paraphrase your understanding, ask questions/clarify, ask for time to pray/process the situation, reveal thoughts & solution.

Both parties: Seek Godly mature counsel, express sympathy & sincerity, make plans for next step, pray for each other and a heart for each other.

3) Relationship with a special someone

It isn't healthy to skip steps in a relationship.  God created this type of Love to only be enjoyed between a man & woman who are under a covenant together through marriage.  Proverbs 18:22 "He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord."

Relational advice:

• What are your motives for this relationship?
• How you begin a relationship will influence how it continues.
• Be careful if you are "pot heavy".  In poker, if you have too many chips in it is extremely difficult to get out.  Don't commit too much too soon or you will experience great tribulation.
• Get to know their family and friends.  This is where their true character comes out.  Character will stand the test of time, but good looks will perish in time.
• PRAY ABOUT IT!!

For further marriage advice, contact my parents :)

I apologize for the extensive posts. I've tried to simplify, but there's so much to share. Here's my past week:

Tuesday - My outreach group met up & learned more of what we'll be doing (I'll share more next post). We worked on a couple skits we'll be performing & in one of them I'm Jesus. There's a decent amount to learn, but my beard does most of the acting anyways.  We're really coming together so thank you for your prayers!

Wednesday - We had a special dinner where we all dressed up & our staff served us our dinner & washed our feet. It was a really humbling experiences & brought back awesome memories of NTS (Never The Same) camp from high school. My appearance really flourished this night & there's a picture below!

Thursday - Five of our students decided to get baptized in the ocean and it was an incredible experience.  I have always had a love for baptisms and hope to personally get baptized this summer when I return home :)

Changing gears...

Friday night a group of us were at the beach when we saw sirens nearby.  We decided to go see what was going on & upon our arrival I saw a medical team performing CPR on a girl who had been hit by a car. A girl named Katelyn was crossing the street when she was hit by a car. Her friends were kneeling together nearby on the grass with emotions pouring out. I was in disbelief & never expected something so tragic to happen on such an ordinary night.  We started to pray with those huddled together, crying out to God to pour out his mercy. This was one of the most horrific situations I have ever experienced, even though I had never met this 20yr old girl. The ambulance eventually took Katelyn away & we said our last prayers with her best friends & boyfriend who were there. My heart cried out for this girl who supposedly had no relationship with her Father in Heaven. The following morning we heard that Katelyn never made it. Today, this only fuels my passion to tell others about Christ (the greatest relationship you will EVER experience!) so that they can be delivered from death & experience Eternal Life.

Apart from this event, I had a fantastic week/weekend.  The surfer guys got back from their road trip & it's good to chill with them again. We take off for the Philippines this Saturday (4/28) & I won't really have internet while I'm there. Our group will keep a blog so I'll post that before I leave. Shout out to all my supporters! Thanks to my family Mom, Dad, Jessica, Kendall, Tarah, Taylor, Mariah & Charlie for all your love & encouragement!  This is already a crazy week full of packing & last minute shopping.

My buddy Dayne & I before our dinner! Yes we used surf wax on our staches'.

Slowly yet surely

Surfers paradise!

Surf crew!

Prayer Requests:

- Unity & patients within our group & wisdom for our leaders.

- Love for the people of the Philippines & Fiji.

- Discipline for me to set aside time to seek God daily.

- Safe travels

- For boldness to speak out & discernment for spiritually heavy times.