God is a Healer

For the past three weeks, I've been praying and asking God to reveal Himself as the Healer in my life. I have always heard and been taught that He is but never fully experienced His healing power with my eyes. My faith had definitely lacked in this area of Gods character. A lot of unbelief. So in effort to boost it, I asked Him for an opportunity to see Him as a Healer. 

For those who don't know, my family has encountered a strange and hard case of sickness/injury the past few weeks. Mom and Dad both have had the flu, my sister Katie experienced a bad stomach virus, and I have had a rash on my face, poison ivy-like rash on my ankles and feet, and a toe smashed by a sledge hammer. I thought for sure God was just getting us really sick to show me that He is the Healer.... Not quite. 

But He did provide. Last night. It was our last night of Schoolies in Airlie Beach and I was on the tent welcome team. Me and a few team members engaged in a conversation with a 17 year old named Rafael. He was a very interesting guy. Near the end of our conversation, one of my teammates asked if there was anything we could pray for. He didn't understand. So my first statement after that..."do you have any physical injuries?" He immediately responded with "my ankle!"

He went on to explain that he had a huge passion for soccer but about 16 months ago, he had a nasty injury that completely tore his ankle to pieces. So what did we do? Asked for it to be healed so he could play again. As I was praying for Rafael, God spoke, "Here he is Jacob. You wanna see healing? Command it." So I commanded all the tendons, ligaments, and bones to be restructured to their original state. God spoke, "He's healed." 

I asked Rafael to try to run to see if it hurt. (He hadn't ran in over a year) He didn't wanna risk it. I understand his logic, being an athlete and all. He told us he would try running later in the night and come back and let us know! As he was leaving, I just whispered, "dude. God healed you. Trust Him." He returned a small smile and nod and kept walking. 

He came a few hours later, ecstatic! He was saying that his ankle was all better and that when he ran it didn't hurt or anything! He was so excited....and so was I! 

God answers prayers. 

God is a Healer. 

God is good.  

Much love! 

Jacob

Airlie Beach

Oh! And here is the beach where we are! It's unbelievable! Gods creation is so amazing! 

Schoolies 2013

Schoolies is an event in Australia where all grade 12 graduates go to the beach and just throw a massive party. It's totally accepted by the country and has become almost the norm, so to speak. The students have to register when they arrive and they receive a badge of identification. Since the drinking age is 18 here, the kids purchase and drink lots of alcohol out of celebration. It's craziness.

So what are we doing? 

YWAM Brisbane and YWAM Whitsundays have teamed up to create an awesome event for these students. Tomorrow we will be setting up a massive tent and running a chai tea and coffee cafe out of the tent. Our goal is to bring kids in, serve them in a safe environment, and create amazing conversation. We are creating a mood of relaxation and openess. We're gonna have live music throughout the nights and people at the tables, creating conversations. We are going to be open about our faith and hopefully be able to speak truth into the kid's lives and lead them back to God. I'm so excited about what God is gonna do this week. He's so good and he's always doing amazing things! 

What to pray for?

-Safety of all of the students 

-Open hearts and minds in the tent

-The Spirit's presence would overflow the tent

-Endurance and strength for our teams

Thank you guys so much! I hope you guys can join me in prayer for these kids. God wants to tear some walls down and get into their hearts! 

Relationships and Road Trips

This past week I've been back on base at YWAM Brisbane. It's good to be back after three weeks of evangelism. Good to see familiar faces and new ones. While we were gone the MAD (Music Art Dance) DTS started. So when we got here we were greeted by them as well. They are some pretty great people. An interesting group but really cool. I just had an interestingly unique discernment when I arrived and was here a few days. But they have big things coming! 

Anyway, this week we had lectures on relationships! It was a great week. We touched on everything from our relationship with god, to our relationship with friends, to marriage. So lots of points were covered and definitely lots of notes were taken. God taught me a lot this week about my relationship with him and how to grow that, and also my relationship with others (family, my girlfriend, and friends). Now just to turn the information into action. 

What's next? Well tomorrow morning at 5:00 a.m. we hit the road again. This time we're off to Airlie Beach. It's a trip about 16-17 hours north. Should be a fun ride. We'll be there for two weeks, having class for one, and outreach for another. I'll try to update sometime within the next week about what all of that looks like. Be praying for our trip. Safety and health. Thank you so much. Much love. God Bless.

Last week: Toowoomba & Lectures

It's so good to be back on base for a week. After three weeks of being away, it's good to see some familiar faces here in Brisbane. Last week we were in Toowoomba, QLD. There is another base in Toowoomba and they allowed our team to stay there for the week and have lectures. God really sparked a new desire to play guitar last week too, which was cool. We had a speaker who is originally from Uruguay, did a YWAM DTS in Brazil, and is currently a base leader in Adalaide, Australia. His name is Pablo Nunez and he was an amazing person. He spoke on Evangelism. He really challenged me in some areas in my life, which has lead to some amazing breakthrough with God. He touched a lot on having dreams for our life. He posed a super deep quesion, which has really stuck with me and has actually inspired some ideas and dreams for when I return from YWAM. If you could do one thing the rest of your life, without having to worry about finances or providing for yourself or a family, what would you do? I challenge you to ask yourself this question and honestly answer. Are you pursuing and changing the dreams and desires that God has placed in your heart? Get out of your practical mindset and dream big. Trust that if you follow the desires God has placed in your heart, that He will provide the rest.