Whats the craic everyone! Now I feel a bit more Irish as I felt a bit foolish saying G'day to to you all a few weeks ago as I'm not an Ozzy. The word craic in Ireland for all of you with worried faces right now is a term for news, fun, entertainment, and enjoyable conversation according to wikipedia. I have now been in YWAM Perth for eight weeks and it has been up there with the best two months of my life. The teaching, the revelations from God, the love and the overall craic in the base here is nothing short of awesome. For all those who are unsure of what to do with their lives right now I would really recommend having a look into YWAM to see if there is a DTS course that you feel God might be calling you towards.

Ten days ago I finally managed to catch up with my good friend Willy from Ireland who has been working on a farm two hours north of Perth for the last two months. We had hoped to have a surf together on the Saturday morning but his car broke down and by the time he eventually got down I had to make it back to YWAM to pray for outreach finances. Therefore we only had around half an hour together but it was still a sweet catch up. Willy went out clubbing that night and I didn't join him because I was too tired. Then later that night or I mean early the following morning I got a call off Willy freaking out down the phone informing me that he didn't know where he was as a taxi driver had dropped him in the middle of nowhere. I managed to calm him down and prayed for him down the phone. I then went back to bed and the following day he told me that as soon as I hung up a guy pulled over to offer him a lift and ended up dropping him back to his friends house. Father God is good and takes care of all of us when we cry out to him for help. Plus there is no such thing as coincidences friendsJ!

During week seven we had teaching on Missions. The teacher for the week was an amazing man of God called David Skeat who leads Australianmercy which is a charity that was pioneered out of YWAM in the late eighties. He also started Buzz Off which works with preventing the spread of Malaria and other diseases spread by Mozzies. He talked a lot about the work he does in Burma and the refugee camps in Thailand filled with Burmese refugees as a result of the war. I was really impacted this week and have a heart to go to these war torn nations or places of extreme poverty to see how I can bring the love and hope of Jesus to these people in desperate need. Through this week we learned that missions are relational and not numerical. We are all called to missions as part of the great commission. Acts1:8 "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes.; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, and in Samaria and to the ends of the earth". For some of us this may only mean to 'go' to the next town but for many of us it's a call to full missions in another country and we must be obedient to step out in faith in answering this call. On missions you are told to expect the unexpected and expect that God will show up in unusual ways that will lead you to grow in faith and mature in God. The one important fact that I took out of this week is that everyone needs to hear to Gospel as God loves the bad guys just as much as the good guys. All can be forgiven. Peoples needs must be met through healthcare, education and mercy missions. This then opens the door to the Gospel being preached.

The following week we learned all about spiritual warfare. This week was presented to us through a video teaching. The teacher was Dean Sherman who is part of the YWAM leadership team. This was an awesome week of teaching during which I had many awesome revelations. First of all the best form of spiritual warfare is to just get along. Its that simple yet so many people struggle with this. There is power in unity and the enemy hates unity. We as Christians have the keys to open the door going on the offensive and close the door in defence. One way or another the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church. The way the enemy most often attacks us is through discontent and condemnation. Whenever you feel like this pray in the opposite spirit as this is an awesome form of spiritual warfare that I learned during this week. I'm not gonna go into too much detail from this week so lastly I will say if you ever feel under any sort of spiritual attack simply call upon the name of Jesus and he will come to your rescue and set you free.

I have another three weeks to go as part of the school before getting launched into the Frontier of missions for three months in Nepal and India. We will be hiking around Nepal for four weeks both to villages that have been visited by missionaries before and villages that have never heard the gospel. We will be discipling the present Christians and evangelizing the non Christians. We will be going in there to meet their practical needs whether that involves building them toilets or teaching them how to make water filters so they have permanent access to clean water. In meeting their practical needs through acts of service and selfless love we hope to provoke them to ask the question of why we are there. This then opens the door to share with them the love of Jesus. We will be doing similar types of outreach in India. In India we will be located in Darjeeling for five weeks working with the local YWAM base and doing ministry in that city. Then our last two weeks will be spent in Calcutta where I believe we will be doing a lot of work in the slums.

Over the weekend we did our Hikeathon in one of the beautiful national parks an hour outside of Perth. We also did the pressupathon and I managed to knock out 28 push ups with the 12kg bag on my back. I'm still a long way short of my finances but I'm trusting in Gods faithfulness. This coming Wednesday is the due date for our finances and I'm waxing my chest that day also. For every $50 I raise for that fundraiser a strip of wax will be coming off me. I want to take this opportunity to thank all those who have supported me already. For anybody else who is interested in supporting me I have attached a link at the bottom that leads you to the YWAM Perth donation page. As always if there are any prayer requests please send them my way. You are all in my prayers already but for anything in particular please let me know. Blessings of peace and love.

https://www.ywamperth.org.au/007/payonline.asp