Hello again! I do apologize for the long periods of time between posts; the days are full!
I suppose I'll start with lectures. My last post was during the week of lectures on the Father Heart of God, the topics of the weeks in between have been Hearing the Voice of God, Foundational Week, and this past week, the Holy Spirit.
I've learned so much and God is good! The lecturers are all fantastic and really present the topics in an easy to understand way. They bring everything about God to a place where we can grasp the concept and apply it to every day. Having God talk to you and help you in the every day things isn't something for only the 'Super Christians.' God doesn't choose just some of his children to talk to, He desires that intimate relationship of Father and Son with everyone.
During that week of lectures, the students were given the outreach location options: Germany and Czech Republic, India, Indonesia and Malaysia, Russia, and Peru. The students were to take the options and ask God where he wanted each to go individually. We didn't talk about it with each other, only God and family at home. We needed to hand in our first and second choices by Friday morning.
So, just in care you're wondering, God told me to go to Vladivostok, Russia! Originally I didn't want to, but it was mainly because of petty reasons, aka I like warm weather (thanks, DAD). But I knew this is where God was saying to go, therefore, I'm going. My team consists of Heidi, Paige, Emily, and I. Paige and Emily are staff and Heidi and I are students. I know God has big plans for us there and will use us as a small but mighty team of four.
Foundational Week was a really great week getting back to the basics. The lectures were on quite times, meditation, memorization, fasting, bible reading, etc. I have been learning the importance of having quiet time with God every day. I have actually been getting up to spend some quality time with God in the morning before the day begins. Honestly, it makes the biggest difference. God has been showing me that quiet times don't always have to be reading the bible either. Sometimes He just wants to BE with you and hear how you're doing and talk to you. There was a quote from lectures that goes "I pray everyday that THIS quiet time would be the most intimate time with God I've ever had." This is now my prayer.
This past week on the Holy Spirit has been a really powerful time for our school. Our lecturer was from Sydney. Aussie accent all week, FOR THE WIN. He spent time talking about each of the gifts of the Spirit and how everyone has all the gifts but each has a few dominant gifts. Christians are supposed to be using their gifts everyday! For encouragement, for evangelism, for decisions, for miracles! God is totally in to talking to his people and totally in to miracles. We need to realize what gifts are most prominent in us and use them for the benefit of everyone. The gifts were not given to us for ourselves, but for others and the advancement of the Kingdom of God. The end of the week He baptized us all with oil and the baptism of the Holy Spirit and prophesied over each person. It was a really powerful time.
As far as music goes, my band is doing great! Our latest assignment was to write a song together. It was so much easier than I thought. Will had a chorus he thought would be cool to use and than God gave me verses and Ellysa took it to the piano. Yay, team. :) We got another assignment a few days ago; we have to take a popular song and keep the chorus but write our own verses and make it a worship song.
At this moment we're in the middle of a bible reading weekend! We're trying to get through the whole bible in 60 hours. Our school is split into teams and we've been reading out loud nonstop since Friday morning at 10:30. Hopefully by 8:30 tonight the whole bible will have been read out loud.
So thats a little of whats going on! As always, thanks for your prayers and thanks for reading!
Joyfully,
Rachel Meck
