My dear family and friends whats up in Jesus' awesome name. Greetings from my present home in Scarborough beach Perth. I have now been back from my mission trip to Nepal and India for two weeks. I have had such an amazing time over the last two weeks in Perth catching up with friends and getting a swim or surf in almost every day. The first time I got into the ocean when we got back I was more excited than a puppy with a new toy. The three months I was away was by far the longest time I have ever been away from the sea in my life. But it was also the best trip I have had in my life through which my love for Jesus has increased as has my broken heart for the lost.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your support. Your prayer support, financial support and loving encouragement over the last six months that I have spent in YWAM has been such a blesssing. I pray that God will bless you all for being a blessing! As the body of Christ unites and truely learns to support all those within it then we will see revival and transformation beyond what any of us can presently imagine. This is coming so lets all start working together and bring forth the return of the king. But for this to take place there has to be a greater unity in the body of Christ than we have ever seen before. God is working and preparing the bride at the moment. We need to go back to the basics of loving God, loving each other and the great commission and not get caught up in theological issues that cause disunity and act as a bad witness to the lost. Ultimately we are only true disciples of Jesus if we love one another. I have had a taste of interdenominational unity in my expereince with YWAM and its a powerful sight to see which gets me even more stoked for what is to come.

I was blessed to have seen many beautful places while in Nepal and India. One of the highlights has to be the morning we got up around four to get a lift to the top of a hill above Kathmandu to witness the sunrise over the Himalayas. The big man really came through for us on this beautiful morning as we first got to see a full moon set nehind the hills to the west. As stunning as this was its beauty was dwarfed by the sunrise over the Himalayas which also gave as a glimpse of Mt Everest amongst the other white capped giants. As the sun arose I was left in awe of how beautiful Gods creation is.

In our time in India when we were based in Darjeeling we were blessed with the opportunity to hike in the Himalayas along a well known track called the Sandakphu pass. At one stage we reached a height of 12500 feet and we were treking through snow. On this four day trip I had an experience that I will never forget. It was the first day of hiking and the group was a little disorganised and split into a number of small groups. I was with the second group but when I saw the potential for a beautiful sunset I decided to rest on a hill, have a read of my Bible and wait for the last group. I read my Bible and watched the sunset over a period of around half an hour but there was still no sign of the last group. It soon started to get cold with the sun having gone down so I decided to continue on by myself hoping to catch up with the stragglers of the second group. But as I rounded the next corner I suddenly came upon thick jungle which I wasn't very keeen on entering by myself. I shouted out to those ahead of me but I heard no reply. It was now dark also with the only light coming from the full moon. I prayed and asked God what I should do and he said to continue down the path. But I waited a few more minutes hoping the last group would turn up but no luck. I knew I was in a very dangerous position with black bears, leopards and snakes all lurking in the dark jungle. But again I I felt the voice of God encouraging me to continue down the path. This time I obeyed and speedily started walking down the dark jungle path with the moonlight being my guide. Ten minutes later I seemed to have not made much progress and I could not see any lights in the distance so I started doubting that I was going the right direction and fear started creeping in. As a result I hit my knees and prayed out loudly to God for his protection and guidance. Almost instantly I felt him encouraging me once again to continue down the path. Then as I stood up an incredible sense of peace fell upon me and all fear and doubt left me. I laughed out loud and continued down the path praising and worshipping God out loud. Finally around fifiteen minutes later I caught up with the stragglers of the second group and they were gobsmacked to see that I had walked through the jungle by myselt without any light.

We eventually arrived at the lodge around ten minutes later and about half an hour after us the last group turned up in a jeep. They had gotten a lift from an earlier village as there was an injured person who could not keep walking. They told us that in the last village a large leopard had killed a cow last night and this village had had been only a few hundred metres away from where I was alone in the jungle earlier for almost and hour. Thank God for his protection as he says he will never leave us or forsake us. This whole experience has increased my trust in God and a word spoken over me before I left for outreach was that God wanted me to have a spirit of no fear. Through this experience and having had a number of opportunities to preach and testify on outreach God has blessed me with this.

The last two weeks of outreach in Nepal and India was Spent in the over populated city of Calcutta. This was a complete contrast to everything we had expereinced up till then. Its a largecity with a population of over 16 m illion people. Its humid, loud, smelly, dirty and all your senses are getting dominated the whole time yet in the two weeks I was there I really got a feel for Gods heart for this city and how he wants to radically change it. We mostly did evangelism in univeristies while in Calcutta but we also had the opportunity to work with street kids. I found talking to many students that many of them are hungry for the truth and Calcutta is ripe for an abundant harvest of people. I was blessed to have had a much better finish to my outreach than my s***ty start. In our last week we ministered alongside campus crusade for Christ in a university. From the tuesday through till the friday I got to meet a young student and became good friends with him over this period of time. When I first met him he was Hindu but didn't really believe in God but in humanity. He was depressed, stressed out and had been struggling with insomnia for nine months. I spent two hours sharing the love of Jesus with him on the wednesday and although he would not let me pray for him he agreed to pray to Jesus before he went to bed that night. The following day he had a big smile on his face and he told me after praying he had felt amazing and he had also had his best night sleep in nine months. I chilled out with him that day watching a cricket game. On friday when I met him he complained to me that he had a pain in his stomac. I told him that Jesus commands us to lay hands on the sick and to pray for them in his name and they will be healed. This time he let me pray for him and God instantly healed the pain. Twenty minutes later just before I left the university he recieved Jesus to be his Lord and Saviour. This man had been radically transformed over a four day period by the love of Jesus and he could not stop smiling. There is many more that God will being doing this to in Calcutta as he pours out his living waters into this city.

My six month experience in YWAM was nothing short of awesome. It far exceeded my expectations. I now stand on a much stronger foundation than I previously had and I have not lost any of the fire or zeal I had entering YWAM. Instead it has been stoked up over the last six months and given more focus. I have learned how to go in Gods strength and seen how that has far more impact than anything I could carry out in my strength. The highlight for me over the last six months was preaching my first full sermon in Sikkim. I look forward to serving and growing in a ministry in the future that will give me many more opportunites to preach and see the captives set free. My Ozzy visa runs out at the end of May and I will be working in Perth up till then. Then its back to Ireland for the summer. I will be doing a ten week internship with a ministry called Unbound which is based in Cork city. They do a variety of work with local charities, running youth camps, work with the local church and also have two Christian book shops. This once again is a faith mission so I'm hoping to save up money for this by working in Perth over the next seven weeks. Thanks again for all your support. Blessings of peace and love.