Week 12!

“Always be joyful. Keep on praying. No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Wow! What a great week! I’m going to bring it back to the weekend before. We had the YWAM Staff Weekend at Ruurikkala and the students became the base staff. I was able to exercise my Leadership skills and I lead the students and organized the weekend! The team worked great together with no major hiccups and everything ran smoothly! I was able to able to lead worship on Saturday night and Sunday morning as well. It was my first time leading worship on acoustic guitar, and it went really great! I love leading worship! I also got to meet some of the great YWAMer’s from all around Finland.

After the weekend, Mark Erickson stayed with us to teaching about Intercession and Spiritual Warfare! He shared his testimony and how he spent 10 years in Cambodia, and also how he got involved with YWAM Finland. He also told us about how he has seen many successes and breakthroughs come from prayer. We had a great time learning about how big intercession is. God has really been broadening my view on who He is and His Kingdom.

We also had a week of 24/7 prayer. There was a room that always had at least one person praying in it, 24/7, for one week solid! What a great place to be! I loved being able to spend time with God, even in the middle of the night! Many inspirational painting, drawing, and even a punching bag showed up! I had a great time in the prayer room and I’m really learning how to pray and how to enjoy spending time with God.

On Friday we headed to Pietarsaari for some street evangelism. It was a step out of our comfort zone, but it went good. I tried out “treasure hunting” for the first time, but didn’t meet the people I was looking for. Oh well, I wasn’t expecting perfection on my first try. We were able to speak some people and pray over them. It was a really good experience and it helped prepare us for our upcoming outreach.

Over the weekend we had some team building exercises! It was lots of fun, but quite frustrating at times. We had a “chair bridge” activity which involved 4 people piling on one chair and moving across the room. The “slack line” challenge took some thinking, but we came through great! The “spider web” took a bit of time. It definitely built up our trust in each other and our patience!

That’s all for now!
God bless!
Shane