outreach information/prayer concerns

Hi folks

We're going to Thailand!

On Wednesday, December 8th, 12 people from 4 different nations will be traveling on 2 airplanes approximately 22 hours to the beautiful nation of Thailand. We wanted to take this opportunity to share with you what it is we will be doing!

We will be flying into Bangkok, where we will spend two days having cultural orientation, including a half day prayer walk around the city where we will be visiting various Buddhist temples in order to gain a better perspective of the religious climate in Thailand. From Bangkok we will be traveling up north on an 11 hour overnight bus ride to Chiang Mai, the 2nd largest city in Thailand, where we plan on spending 4 weeks working with a University student ministry called "The Center". Below is a basic description of this ministry...

CHIANG MAI: The Center...
"The Centre is a happening hangout for university students in the north of Thailand. You can help the students learn conversational English and then make relationships with them through which you can share Jesus Christ. The main reason they come to The Centre is for English classes but you don't need to be a teacher to help with those.  It's conversation based so it's just hanging out with them and helping their English. Through that you can invite them to the outreach activities The Centre runs in the evenings. Your team will also have the opportunity to do dramas, dances, share your testimonies, preach a short message, play games etc. The Centre has a desire to see this nation impacted through the next generation!"
This is a highly relationship based ministry so please be praying for favor in all our relationship! PRAY that we would love boldy and would share our lives with transparency. There are many other opportunities for ministry in Chiang Mai that we may be involved in, including an orphanage for children who have lost their parents to HIV/AIDS.

From Chiang Mai we will be traveling a few hours east to a small town called Chaiprakarn where we will be working with a children's home called Sila Home

CHAIPRAKARN: Sila Home...
Sila Home was started by a local Thai pastor a few years ago and serves as both an orphanage and a children's dormitory for 40 children ranging from 5 to 20 years of age. Many of the children have been rescued out of potentially harmful home situations. Some were at risk of being sold into prostitution by their families, some are too poor to afford proper education, some were homeless when they were found or came from homes where they were simply not being cared for. Those working at Sila Home are committed to raising these kids by providing the opportunity for a proper education, feeding, housing and raising htem up to be leaders in their communities.
Some of the ways our team will be able to serve this ministry are... Loving the kids! Our first goal is to simply be an extension of God's love to them. We get to play games with them, give them attention that they wouldn't normally receive(There are 4 longterm committed staff for all 40 kids), teach them english and just plain love them. We will also be able to serve them practically by helping with the regular upkeep of the property and any other special projects they would like help with. Last time we helped move and rebuild a concrete/barbed wire fence and worked on their mushroom farm which helps to provide income to feed the kids. The children are amazing and I consider it an honor that we are able to go serve and love them.
PRAY that we would love these kids unconditionally and that God would show us how to care for them while we are there. And also that we would have a mind to work as we serve them practically as well.

DATES
December 8th, 2010 - February 7th, 2011

PRAYER REQUESTS
-Health for the team
-Provision for all the finances we need to make this outreach happen
-That God would increase our LOVE for one another and for every person we will meet
-Unity --- pray that God would give us an abundance of grace with one another and that He would put it in us to think the best of one another at all times
Pray that we would "do only as we see the Father do", as we will be surrounded by plenty of opportunities.

MEET OUR TEAM! Click on the link below to meet the team and see how you can come along side us...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49yKa0Y27DE

thanksgiving break

a ton of people are peaceing out for thanksgiving break. it'll be awesome to rest, read, and just hang out, but i'm going to miss them while they're gone. i'm looking forward to outreach (thailand), but man it's going to be hard leaving these people. kind of in a funky mood. a lot of stuff is racing through my mind.

video of the DTS tracks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVhHfMi0fiY&feature=player_embedded


watch this video. i'm part of the skate track. :) cousin carrie is part of the create track. God does so much through these tracks it's unreal. He doesn't have to use these tracks or us, but He chooses to do so. This past Friday was absolutely unreal. There is no way other to describe it. I was completely emptied before I went to skate track. Friday morning God was wrecking my controlling self for the better. Long story short, I literally tried to hide from God because I was so overwhelmed with everything that He has been doing. I literally ran back to my bed and hid under the covers. Two minutes after laying there God spoke to me just as He spoke to Adam in Genesis, "Sarah, where are you?" It wasn't that God didn't know where I was. He was saying Sarah climb out of bed. Why are you hiding? After I kind of pulled myself together I went to talk to my small group leader, Nova. After I finished talking to her I had about 5 minutes until I had to meet for skate track at 1:45. I was so emptied, emotional, tired, and so on. But, I told Nova that I really didn't want to go, but was going to be obedient because God will bless it. Who would have known how much He was going to bless me!!!!

We arrived at the skate park and soon as I stepped foot on that park my attitude and strength was renewed. I began talking to one of the guys, Jeremy, who is a Christian and part of the local youth group. In the middle of our conversation I looked down the fence and this guy, Ryan, was down there so my crazy self gave him an obnoxious smile and wave. He doesn't usually talk a lot or make much eye contact, but Ryan gave me a grin and a head nod. PS. that means something. Anyway, I went to talk to him and basically God gave me the opportunity to hang out with him for the entire evening. It was an amazing time. I really enjoyed chilling with him. He's been through a bunch of crap this last year and it breaks my heart so lift him up in your prayers. While I was hanging out with Ryan, Jimmy led this kid, named Jude, to Jesus. Then an hour later this guy named Sean started repenting sins he'd never told anyone before to our DTS school leader and track leader, Shaun. Shaun led Sean to Jesus and it was AMAAAAZZZING. Sean literally looked like he was high off the Holy Spirit..and he was! You think that's enough??!!?! Well I thought that was completely outrageous, but the Holy Spirit continued to move. Donovan came out of the skate park, saw Sean, and asked him what was wrong with him because he looked high. Sean said, "I just got saved." I wish you could have seen his face. This kid and all of us were speechless. The Holy Spirit was blowing us away. Donovan looked at Sean once again and then said Shaun, "I want what Sean has." So THENNNN, Shaun led Donovan to the Lord. During the prayer Shaun had his left hand on Donovan's right shoulder. After they prayed Donovan asked Shaun if Jesus was touching his shoulder too. Donovan said that while Shaun was holding his right shoulder he felt Jesus holding his left shoulder. WOW WOW WOW. Not only did God show up in these examples, he showed up in other ways too. It just reminds me over and over again that God's power is made perfect in our weakness and that when we are weak he is strong. He has been teaching me that this week. Truly amazing. This is just the skate track. The other tracks are create, media, and justice.

God bless us with your strength this week. Love you Lord!

showing off the team

This is the first Thailand A team picture. We took this the night we found out what teams we were on. The whole point of this post is to show off the team. Saul is the dude on the far left, then it's Tony (team leader), and then Will. Starting from the left with the girls it is Laura, Megan, Emma, Carrie, Jacqui, Jenifer, Maxine, me, and then Synnove (team leader). Glad to introduce you to the studly team.

Haggai 1

God continues to blow me away here. Tuesday night we have our base gatherings. Usually these gatherings are open for people outside the base to join. Typically the night includes worship through music and a speaker of some sort. Last night, they closed the gathering to base people only. We started with a few testimonies from some DTS students about the previous week in Gleanings and San Francisco. Carrie, Saul, and Matt spoke. After that the SOMD (school of ministry development) spoke about this Luke 18 conference that is going on. It’s going to be huge! 3,000-5,000 college age students are flying/driving to LA for this conference from all over. They even had to move locations because they have too many people coming. It’s basically a conference for people who feel called to missions or are interested in missions. It’s a 3-day conference, and Loren Cunningham (founder of YWAM) is speaking Saturday night. So, you might be asking what we have to do with it?!?! We YWAMers get to go!!! Verner (our base director) believes so much in the YWAM presence there that he is covering our cover fee. Not only do we get to hear Loren speak, be amidst thousands of people who love and want to serve Jesus, but they’re going to have us there as a tool. All the YWAMers are going to be wearing the same shirt so that they know who we are. Instead of an ‘alter call for salvation’ they’re going to have more of a calling/questioning time for these young adults. I am SO pumped for this. Jesus is using me to fire up people for the sake of His great commission. I may only be a ‘DTS’ student, but the Lord has done miraculous stuff in my life already when it comes to my heart for missions. We’re not there to ‘promote’ YWAM; we’re there to promote the Great Commission!!!! This just gets me pumped up thinking about it; it’s unreal. Of course, I will refer them to YWAM because this organization is an amazing and anointed tool that God uses to train His children (chosen ones) for missions. Ahhhhhhhhhh!

Okay, so after this Verner began speaking. I don’t even remember how he started this entire thing, but he got up there and closed it off to the public because he wanted to ask for forgiveness from everyone. I was absolutely blown away by this. He got up there being completely transparent about everything he had just gone through. He said that he was wondering why during intercessory prayer times we’ve been having such a difficult time getting clear direction from the Lord. At the same time the base staff had their weekly meeting and had decided to do their annual Christmas tree lot, just because it’s usually what goes down. Verner said that he went to Joy Dawson’s house to talk to her about how intercessory times were difficult (she’s a well known lady in the YWAM family who has great practice and fruit with intercessory prayer. She has written, basically, a ‘how to have intercessory prayer’ guidelines sheet. While Verner and other staff members were sitting with her, Joy told them that intercessory prayer was easy. She boldly went on further explaining what she meant by that. In the gathering, Verner basically said that he is life an infant. That he is learning how to listen to God. He was up there to say that he and the leadership had not led intercessory prayer the way it should be held. He went on to confess how he doesn’t like waiting on the Lord. How he is good at working and getting things done, but has the hardest time waiting. He said that he has been rushing intercessory prayers and not letting the Holy Spirit work through things. He then said that an individual on staff came up to him on Friday and told him that God had given her this phrase “it smells like flesh” for the base. She said that the Christmas tree lot was being done by fleshly works and desires, that God didn’t have that in the plans. Verner said that he started crying because he knew this. He knew that this was wrong because they had rushed this decision to happen. He was upset because in September, someone reminded him, that they prayed about doing the Christmas tree lot and God said no…but he had completely forgot about it. Anyway, it came down to the fact that Verner wasn’t listening. He was trying to rush God, and then was blaming God for no response. It was probably one of the most beneficial and powerful things for me to see him get up there in front of 100 people, confessing his sin and then asking for forgiveness from everyone. I literally started tearing up during this. At the end one of the CSBS (Chronological School of Biblical Studies) students stood up and asked if we could pray for the elder counsel ‘Korean style,’(where you all just pray at once out loud) and then asked anyone who was touched by this to go up and lay hands on them and pray.

This is where this night begins to hit me, personally. As I said earlier I was completely blown away by how powerful Verner’s confession was to all of us; even to the point that I began to tear up. When Adam asked those who were touched to get up and pray for them I just sat there. With all of my being I was yelling inside, “Sarah, get up! Go up and pray for them. What is your problem?!?” But, I couldn’t; I sat glued to that seat. After we prayed for them, a base staff lady, Kathryn, got up and said that she felt that we should be practical and sit there, as a base, and wait on the Lord. As soon as we started waiting on the Lord, I felt God telling me to go over to Synnove (my small group leader) and talk to her about how I had been holding back from being myself and who God created me to be. I sat there AGAIN battling inside whether or not I should do it at that moment. Then God said, just do it. So, I got up and went over to her and asked her to talk to me after this entire thing because I know if I didn’t tell her right then I wouldn’t have told her what was going on inside of me. She said that she wanted to go outside right that minute and talk to me about what’s going on.

Synnove and I went outside and I started pouring out what was going on. To sum it up, I wasn’t being obedient to what God was calling me to do. Earlier that week, on Monday, during base worship I sensed God telling me to go talk/pray with Jessica Hover and I didn’t. Even though I wasn’t faithful, God continued to be. He brought her over to me during worship. She came over and said that God put a verse on her heart for me and then she prayed for me. This is just one example of me lacking obedience. Before I even came here I knew I would struggle with being a student, but relating more with staff. Because of this, I have been sitting back and letting others lead. Even when I have felt God asking me to take a certain opportunity to lead I haven’t. I have been struggling with this fear of man. I have been afraid that my fellow DTSers will think I’m trying to be a staff person by taking on leadership opportunities. Because of this I have been sitting back. I haven’t been the person God has made me to be. After Synnove encouraged and prayed for me we went back into the meeting and at this point there was an overwhelming presence of God in that room. Everyone was repenting. It was amazing. Soon as I walked into that room I knew that God wanted me to yell out for His fire and boldness to be who he created me to be. There was no more sitting back for Sarah Jane Alber. I desperately called out for Jesus to come meet me in my weakness. Come make me who You created me to be. After I called out in front of everyone I felt like this weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. It was God, no doubt about that. Later on in the night Jess aka Marge got the Holy Spirit laughter. It was hilarious. It was like God was laughing and being joyful through her. At first it was really weird to me because I was like why is she laughing during this time of repentance, but it was clear that God was joyful. He was delighting in us because of this corporate repentance. He loved on us with joy. Jess was His tool to bring this on. It was awesome!!! God is stretching my view on Him every day, and I am so thankful for that. Thank you Jesus!!! He is preparing me for something big…just not exactly sure what it is yet (which is the fun part).

Gleanings trip

So last week we were at a YWAM base called Gleanings. There were a lot of differences between that base and our base, but at the same time there were many similarities. It was out in the middle of nowhere, even compared to our base that only has a 7 Eleven in walking distance. The main ministry of Gleanings YWAM is to package food and send it to countries in need. They receive all type of donations to keep the base running, including the food they are sending to other countries. It was an awesome food ministry, but it was hard being there. I struggled in a lot of different ways. Basically, I was humbled and realized how desperate I need the gospel of Jesus Christ. Sometimes God really has to take us places to open up our eyes. Had a great time Wednesday and on, but was definitely ready to come home. It was awesome being around a smaller group of my fellow DTS students, but I missed the other half of our family. Man it’s going to be hard to leave for outreach.

Here are some pictures from the Gleanings base: 

Gleanings and LA DTS students/staff

work duty in Gleanings

beautifulness