harry's YWAM adventure

heloooooo

my blog has moved to http://hazzaaa.livejournal.com/

so go there!!!

xx harry

heloooooo

my blog has moved to http://hazzaaa.livejournal.com/

so go there!!!

xx harry

heloooooooooooooooooooo

sorry this has taken me a while to write my first blog at YWAM. here is my explanation: the internet at the base i am living at has no internet for two weeks!! two weeks!!! so today i made the long trek to mount lawley to this awesome cafe called exomod which gives u free internet connection to your laptop when u buy a coffee. it's a God-send, seriously.

so anyway. I can't believe a week has gone by already.

i arrived on sunday to the YWAM base in claisebrook. mum, dad, tom, nicola and millie all came up to drop me off and we had a quick tour around the base with one of my leaders, nirina.

then i was shown to where i would be sleeping for the next three months - a room on the base with 11 other beds in it (i had been expecting to be in a room with maybe two other girls!). i met two other girls who had already arrived - anna from denmark and summer from hawaii.

then i realised that the rest of my family were going to be going home, to my house, to my cat, to my church, to my friends, to my mandurah without me. without me :( so i had a bit of a teary moment (okay, maybe more than a moment). we said goodbye and i started to unpack (struggling to fit all my stuff into three small shelves - my hair care, makeup and new skin products took up a shelf on their own - i'm blaming u petrina!).

i was still a bit teary, which i felt silly about, seeing as i am in a much better position as everyone else in my school, who has crossed wither states or countries to get to YWAM perth and will therefore not be able to visit their family in the free time, as i will hopefully be able to.

but as soon as i actually talked to the other girls in my room (by then i had also met natalie from melbourne, hazel from hong kong, yoonhee from south korea, lizzy from canada, dana and tori from the usa and later on faith from queensland and dominique from canada/new zealand), i realised i could make YWAM home for the next three months.

there are 24 people (8 of which are aussie, i am the only person from WA) in my school, the compassion DTS. those who aren't living in my room are living in accomodation near to the base. (they may have more space, but i glad that i dont have to wake up earlier to walk 15 mins to get to the base for the 6am morning exercises!!).

on monday and tuesday we just had information overload - a lot of orientations and registration stuff.

on wednesday lectures started, which are amazing. this week we had them on the character of God. i am learning so much and i feel like i need to take a day off just to sit there and process it all!

i'll give u a run-down on what a basic day-in-the-life of a ywamer looks like:

5am: wake up - do quiet time

6am: morning exercises (this hasn't started yet, but it will on monday ugh)

6:30am: fight about 15 other girls to get into one of the two showers, get dresses, to makeup etc, have breakfast etc

8am: morning chores - cleaning toilets, sweeping floors, making sure everywhere is tidy etc

8.30am: worship/announcements etc

9.30am-12.30pm: lectures

12.30pm: lunch

1.30pm-3.30pm: usually its time to do weekly journal, homework, one-on-one time with leader. on tuesdays i have 'hands on compassion' (HOC)*, where i will be working with a ministry that feeds the hungry in the city.

3.30pm-5.30pm: work duties. everyone in ywam does 2 hours of work a day - everyone in my room except for me and another girl, lizzy, have to do kitchen dishes etc. lizzy and i have the 'work' duty called media (cos we both have experience in that area). we basically have to design brochures, edit wording, play with photoshop etc etc. who would have known those four years at the Mandurah Mail could get me out of doing dishes for three months!!

5.30pm: dinner

6pm-7.30pm: the other girls in our dorm have to do dinner dishes so in this time lizzy and i are the only ones in our dorm - an answer to prayer! not cos i don't like them, but cos God knew i needed some alone time!!

7.30pm: either free time, school announcements, lectures etc. on thurs nite all the ywamers go to the city for evangelism - something that will start next week. i am pretty nervous about it! on friday nites we have an open-to-the-public friday nite meeting (FNM), which are really amazing. its like a big youth church service or something. great worship. u should come along!!

*everything in YWAM is shortened to an acronymn!

on weekends it is pretty much free time to go to the shops, for the foreigners to visit all the WA sites (by the way, pretty much EVERYONE is a foreigner. its rare to actually talk to an aussie. its weird being the minority in my own country!), do homework (we have three book reports, weekly journal questions, a research project etc), and do washing etc. sometimes we will have weekend chores, like today i am on cooking dinner duty. sometimes the school will do an activity together, like today we are going to the beach for a BBQ dinner.

i am really hoping i will be able to go back to mandurah some weekends to see my family and friends. at the moment everything is so full on and busy tho. maybe next weekend!!

my leaders are amazing. i feel so comfortable sharing my weaknesses and fears with them.

at the same time as my school is running there are about six other schools running, (including the young people's DTS, with 50 or so teenagers) so there are always A LOT of people around.

okay, this is a lot of info, but i thought u might wanna know a little bit about what i am doing or will be doing for the next three months while i am in perth before the three months overseas.

i will hopefully update again soon, but time is very scarce. i apologise in advance if i don't reply to comments/emails/facebook messages!!

love u all and God bless,

harry

heloo!!!

welcome to my new blog. i am starting it so that i can keep in contact with people while i am away for six months doing a compassion discipleship training school with youth with a mission.

the first three month will be in perth, where i will be living at the ywam base. the second three months will be the 'practical' phase of the course and the group will be travelling overseas to put what we have learnt into practice!!

i hope i will regularly update this blog and that u will keep in contact with me by commenting!!

keep checking the photos section as i have just bought a digital camera so i will be taking heaps of snaps of what we get up to at dts.

love u heaps and God bless always,

harry