I am here! Finally! YWAM Wollongong is in Shellharbour, Australia and it is really, really beautiful! But let me backtrack a little bit. My flights went extremely well, particularly the last leg from L.A. to Sydney--God blessed me with SLEEP! A huge answer to prayer! One of the girls on my team, Kiki, was on the same flight as I was and we were able to meet up in L.A. and go through the customs process in Australia together (which went wonderfully, except for a few seconds when a security misunderstood me when I asked if gum was okay to take in...he though I said gun....whoops! =S)

David Bell, the leader of our DTS, his wife Donna, and two staff members were there to greet us at the airport, along with several other students who had also arrived that day. Sunday was mostly devoted to keeping us awake by any means necessary--something I did not appreciate until I actually climbed into bed and fell right to sleep! Keeping me awake did allow time for a few intense games of dutch blitz!

This morning (Monday) we all got up after a good night's sleep, ate breakfast and then headed over to the main center for an incredible time of base-wide worship---a Monday morning tradition. It was a very intimate time and already it is so clear that God is working and ready for us. One of our leaders told us that as he worshipped, he got a picture in his head of a heart surgeon about to work on a patient and he sensed that God's desire for the members of this team was for us to allow Him to just work on our hearts so that we could truly fall in love with His.

Before we came, the leaders printed off our pictures and put them individually on chairs. Then they would go around and pray for us by name. As they did this, they received words and verses from God about each student. Last night, we were able to look at these. I wasn't going to share them as they are deeply personal  and precious to me, but the more I thought about, the more I realized that all of you who are praying and supporting me deserve to know exactly how God is working in me--how He wants to work in me. So I'm just going to be really vunerable and share with you. Hopefully, this will give you a better idea of how to pray for me as well!

These are the words that God gave the staff of YWAM for me:

Visionary

This will be a season of assurance.

You cannot be shaken or moved

Season of purpose. A woman of purpose.

Grace and joy

Compassionate one.

God trusts you with His heart and will tell you His plans and purposes.

For some of you, these may just be some amazing words for anyone--and they are! But for those of you who know me intimately, they probably mean more. These words present ideas and hopes that God has been revealing to me over the past few months, particularly. I am so excited to meet with God here! Please continue to pray for me in these next few months! I will share more later, but right now it's dinnertime!! Goodnight all!