Entry 9: Sweet Surrender - 10/11/22

Journal number 3! It has been a little longer than I would have liked, but here it is! Finding time to post my journals will continuously be a struggle while I am here. I am happy that is one of the only problems I have. There is constantly something happening and there is always something to do. This journal gets vulnerable. I Want to be transparent with all that I do. There is not much I can think of that has not been brought to the light. I cannot stress this enough that I pray this website is a reflection of my inner most being which is supposed to be a reflection of God. 

View from tree in Waikii

The Daily

  After being here for a week and a half, most of my week days go something like this. Wake up, workout at gym, eat breakfast, personal journal about day prior, worship/prayer with all YWAM and University of the Nations students, class, lunch, workout with Respect The Corners, work duty, supper, free time, then end the night in prayer room with intercession. Even though I workout with YWAM and their program Respect The Corners, I really enjoy lifting at the gym in town alone. There is not much time in YWAM spent alone so it is good for me to slow down and be able to think. On Wednesday of last week the lecture was about idols in our lives. The speaker; Andy, told us to ask God if there was anything we should surrender to God so we can grow closer to him. I prayed about it and realized a lot of my music was negative and filling my brain with negative thoughts. Since i have gotten here I have barely listened to music other than Worship or Vibey Hawaiian music. During this time I felt myself not thinking about myself as much and being less prideful because my mind was not being filled with self centered negative music. When I was home listening to rap all the time I found myself becoming egotistical, most of rap is boasting and saying how great oneself is. These things made giving up all my negative music really easy. One of the hard parts was deleting previous playlists though. I put a lot of thought and time into each playlist. When I made them I wanted to convey a certain feeling or vibe throughout the whole playlist and I felt each one was unique and a piece of art. I could tell it had a grasp on me and that is the exact reason I deleted all of them. 

I do not regret it and have already found tons of music that either glorifies God or is clean and not encouraging sex, drugs, drinking, depression, or anxiety. The subconscious brain is a sponge and makes up 90-95% of our mind. That means if we are filling it with those negative things listed above, it is no wonder we start to indulge in them. After lecture and my surrender of Negative music I went to my first workout with Respect The Corners. Respect The Corners was created by men who wanted to share a hard experience together and then talk about life after. They found people became open and vulnerable after experiencing something like hiking up a mountain in the Hawaiian heat with 50 pound kettlebells in each hand. The 4 main corners they want to respect are things Jesus Christ never deviated from while on earth. They are Integrity, Extravagant Love, Faith, and Family. They stress that the workout is the least important part of RTC. The coaches encourage us to stop at anytime during a workout to talk with them if we have something we need to get out. The reason they use exercise is so we can be fit and send people out to reach the nations that are far off the beaten path. I am so excited to be surrounded and coached by such spiritually, mentally, and physically strong people. They push you like non other and I cannot wait to see my growth throughout these next 3 months in Hawaii. After RTC I went straight to something called work duty. Work duty is everyday 3-5, some students work in the kitchen, some clean, but my job is grounds crew. One week in and the only thing we have done is pulled weeds from a large hill. I actually enjoy it because it reminds me of some of the work I would do for my mom and also for Ron Klassen when I worked on the farm. In all the newness of Hawaii I have something that feels like home. Most of the students were complaining about it the first day. I used an analogy from a poem I had previous wrote. I said guys imagine this hill is your mind. You must pull the weeds of Lies, insecurities, and pain at the roots so that you can be full and complete. Just like the hill, we must pluck those weeds on the daily or else they can grow rapidly and soon consume us. I try to be as conscientious while on work duty. I want to be a steward of the earth God has created for us. Sub-facets of conscientiousness are diligence, prudence, perfectionism, and organization. A study showed that conscientiousness is the most important virtue to live a success life. I pray everyday that God enlists consciousness in all that I do.

Iron Man World Championship

Every year the Iron Man World Championship is held in Kona Hawaii. They need tons of volunteers for this, so YWAM always sends students and staff to help. I was so excited to be apart of this event. I got to be security and show the VIP where to go and make sure no one stood in a designated area. I got to witness history as the first mother ever; Chelsea Sodaro, took first place. She had given birth just 18 months prior. That may sound like a long time ago but you must remember that these athletes train years just to complete an Ironman. I think any women will confirm that giving birth definitely changes you and possibly causes physical problems. Like for instance, I was such a heavy baby that my mom was never the same after my birth. 10 whole lbs, tehe, and I was the last of 5. Shoutout to momma Karla for being such a trooper. After Iron man was over all supporters got a huge supper on Monday the 10th. I was so full after and brought home a plateful of steak for breakfast for the rest of the week, because I am a YWAM student and will take any handout I can! Contact/Donate

Power of Prayer

Here at YWAM we really believe in the power of prayer. Before I even got here the staff was praying for each student specifically and would ask God what room we should be in and how to plan the entirety of the school. You can tell this school has been walking in the way of the Lord for a long time because they are so conscious with everything we do throughout the day. They do such a good job of timing the worship/prayer/lecture so that we allow our hearts and minds to be open to what God has for each one of us. Because we believe in the power of prayer, we are praying often for another revival to start in Hawaii (Hawaii had one of the biggest revivals in history years ago) and for revival throughout the world. We are so close to reaching every nation, tribe, and tongue. It is estimated that by the next 10 years their will be a Bible written in every single mother language.

Mother Language- A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period.

When I heard this it reminded me of a goal I wrote down sometime last year. I had a revelation and felt God put it on my heart to “create a language”. I wrote it down and did not know how I would or when. Now as I hear about reaching every nation I have felt the dream being fueled. Then while I was reading a book for class it talked about the language of Greek. This inspired me and I said to myself, sometime after YWAM I want to learn Greek. Then I went to worship/prayer and after it was over the speaker said we have special guest here today. Can everyone apart of the Greek/Arabic translation crew raise their hand. I was speechless because I just had the thought of learning Greek an hour before. I told my room leader; Ethan, about it and he was even more excited then I was because before DTS started all of the staff would pray very intently for students to come who wanted to learn Greek and spread the word to every nation, tribe, and tongue. He told me how the founder of YWAM, has practically devoted all his time to doing this and setting people up to pursue it. This made me radiate with joy of what the future may hold for me. Ethan encouraged me to pray about it but also not think too deep into it. He wants me to focus on lecture right now so I can experience fully what Christ has in store for me and I totally agree.

Campming

My first weekend after class entailed a camping trip with 15 other people. We left sometime on Saturday and made a fun trip out of it. We went to Waikii which is a cute little town about half way up the volcano. We went to a coffee shop then got some pizza. Then we arrived at our camping spot and set up all our hammocks. When we arrived I was starting to realize there was a small chance of me sleeping tonight because it was cold and wet. I was not prepared because I have not been up the volcano yet but it is cold and wet. I went to bed and woke up after about an hour, I was really cold and could not fall back asleep. I tried to fall back asleep but I was too uncomfortable. So instead of being miserable, I boasted Christ’s strength in my weakness and started writing poetry. (Click to read one of the poems written in cold despair, Called Hypothermia) Journal. After writing for 2 ish hours I got colder and colder. I decided instead of being bored and cold I would instead go for a run at 2:30 am. The run felt great and warmed me up. After about 15 minutes of running I took a break and returned to my hammock all nice and warm. I fell asleep for about 2 hours the I woke up freezing again. I went for my second 15 minute run and got warm. This time the tiredness was getting to me and the sweat was turning into coldness fast. It was around 5 am when I got back. I did not fall asleep for the rest of the morning. When I saw the first ray of light shine over the volcano I woke up everyone who had told me they wanted to watch the sunrise the night prior. We all ran up this beautiful grassy marsh hill and watched the sunrise. Between the sleep deprivation and God’s beautiful creation it felt surreal. I felt so accomplished and proud of myself that not only did I survive the night but when I surrendered to the thought of getting no sleep, I capitalized on my quiet time. I beat the devil with his own stick and I did not allow him to shake me through the strength of the Lord. We left the campsite and proceeded to Hilo which is on the opposite side of the island from Kona. This is where many of the beautiful waterfalls are. We went to one and it was so cool. Many of us jumped and we put red clay on our face as a natural exfoliator. Even though i was running on about 2 hours of sleep I still had vitality and had so much fun. We made it back to campus and I went to bed the earliest I have since I got here which was 10 O’clock.

Vulnerability

This week we are reading the book Pure Heart and diving deep into the internal lies that are possibly placed by our parents in the early stages of life. It is not to condemn our parents or to hate them. Sadly parents are not perfect and they can make mistakes. When we are young our brain is very plastic, meaning it can create hardwiring based on what we have experienced. If we once experience a traumatic event and do not allow healing and truth to cover it we can live with anxiety or depression. The book talks about how we all have legitimate needs like God, but instead of going to God we go to illegitimate things to find comfort and peace like pornography, drugs, alcohol, homosexuality, anger, social media, etc. I do not say this out of condemnation but instead out of personal experience. I once tried to fill my voids with pornography, weed, or girls’s validation. Since I have arrived I have surrendered all those thing and now I lean on God instead of my own understanding. He has lifted all those vices off my shoulders. He has broken the chains of guilt, shame, and addiction that come with illegitimate Things. If you are filling your voids with illegitimate things. Things that stem from lies that you are not enough or you are a failure. I want you to know God can take it all. The word Sin in Greek means to miss your mark, like in artery to miss the bullseye. This is beautiful because it shows us that God can forgive you if you lied once or murdered someone. Because both of those actions are inadequate of a bullseye. Now each one may have different consequences, but in Gods eyes they are the same. God can forgive you and forget your sin and if he can do that then we must do it as well. We cannot go on living in shame or guilt. Allow God to enter your heart and remove all feelings of anxiety, guilt, shame, etc. If you want this, reach out to someone or you can reach out to me. I encourage you to pray this prayer often to help the conditioning of your mind.

Prayer