Hong Kong & China Outreach

Hey everyone! We just wanted to start out by thanking everyone who has helped us both through prayer and through our fundraiser events! We couldn’t have done this without you.

We wanted to share with you a little bit about what we will be doing on our outreach Hong Kong and China.

Due to the control from the government in China and Hong Kong unfortunately we won’t be able to share with you the names of the organizations we will be working with. We also won’t be able to update you from China or Hong Kong. So for confidentiality we will just share some of the amazing things we will be doing while we are in these countries.

We leave Tuesday September 21 to fly from Geneva to London and then to Hong Kong.
In Hong Kong our main ministry will focus on sports. There is a local ministry in Hong Kong that specifically focuses on showing the love of God through sports. We will be working alongside them to help play sports like soccer and volleyball with kids at different churches in the area.

We are divided up into teams within our class and Lydia is in charge of running soccer programs with another guy Felipe. I am in the media team with Katherine documenting our ministries through photos and video.

Other ministries in Hong Kong include food ministry where we will be working at local churches or soup kitchens helping out in any way we can serving and providing meals to those in need.

We will also be visiting drug rehabilitation centres in the area running games or sports with them.

Fortunately we are there during Chinese National Day and we are told that there will be fireworks and other fun activities throughout the city on October 1st!!!
In total we are in Hong Kong for about two and a half weeks.

We leave for China on October 11 where we will take a train ride from Hong Kong to a province in North western China. The train ride will take 29 hours in total!!! So we will have lots of time to pray and connect with our team.

There are two Omega Zones we will be visiting while in the North Western part of China. YWAM classifies areas of the world that have been unreached by missionaries as Omega Zones. Lydia and I have the privilege of visiting these two areas, praying and seeing what is on God’s heart while we are there. By intercessional prayer we will spend some time praying over the land that has had barley any Christian influence. Hopefully this is where we will really see God lead and guide our class. It is at this point of the trip where we will be splitting up into two groups going to one Omega Zone for each group. This will allow us to spend quality time in each zone without the worry of travelling back and forth because we only have a few days in each area.

Because we are categorized as tourists we are allowed to carry bibles and other Christian paraphernalia. However, we aren’t allowed to make any public demonstrations or even worship so that we don’t attract any attention to the Chinese authorities. China employs university graduates both to monitor and screen emails that have words relating to God or religion. They also have undercover police in cities to ensure no religious activity is being practised outside of licensed government regulated churches. Underground churches are illegal by the Communist government really restricting the level of knowledge people have about God. We are allowed to evangelize while we are there and talk to people about Jesus but we just have to be careful if people start to ask us about whom we are and where we are from. It is advised we just use our discretion with which we communicate and share information with.

Following the two Omega Zones in the North West we will be travelling by train to South East China. We will also have the unique opportunity to bike across some of this land. There is a Bike Ministry in this area of China and YWAM was able to get in contact with the man who operates it. We are fortunate to have this man guide us through some of our journey throughout South Eastern China for 2 weeks. While there one of our highlights in ministry will include working in a Chinese Orphanage with Children. We are able to play games with them, sports and just help and show the heart of God to these kids in need.

We return to Lausanne, Switzerland Tuesday November 9th where we will have a few days of debrief.

I hope this helps with understanding what we will be doing while we are on our outreach. Both of us are very excited what God wants to show us while on this mission trip.

Thanks for your support, thoughts and prayers and for helping to make all of this possible!

God Bless,

Kyle & Lydia :)

Hearing God's Voice...

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to start out by thanking all of our wonderful supporters!!! You guys are making our experience here possible and we want to thank you all.

This past week we learned about the Holy Spirit & Listening to God. Listening to God through His spirit is every Christian's basic right. We learned about the different ways this happens and the different voices we hear.

PROVERBS 1:7 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline."

I learned this week why it is important to "FEAR:" – which means to have awesomeness or reverence towards - the Lord and His loving characteristics and TO HATE EVIL. This is the beginning of wisdom because God hates evil and evil hinders our relationship with Him. I thought it sounded pretty simple but i also find it REALLY HARD to put into practise when under attack from the enemy.

4 VOICES

1. The first voice can be our own. So we must learn to die to our own thoughts when we pray and burdens. We also must not allow our own limited knowledge to interfere with how God might be speaking to us.

2. The second voice is the voice of others. Other opinions formed by our families and friends can often get in the way of what God is trying to say to us. We must have the 'fear of the lord' which means to hate evil, rather than the 'fear of man' which can to lead to worry about what others think. The media and other influences can interfere with our hearing God's voice as well.

3. The third voice is that of the enemy. The enemy's voice is opposite to God's character which I have written about already. So the enemy is not loving, compassionate etc. The enemy uses any opportunity to try to make us stumble in what God is trying to tell us. Satin is crafty and once doubt enters the picture, we start to believe what he and his demons are saying. Fortunately, one way to test this out is in your spirit. Everyone has the Holy Spirit and if something doesn't settle within your heart then it probably isn't God.

4. The fourth voice is God's voice. He will use those amazing qualities that make up His characteristics to speak to us and tell us things. One important thing to realize is EVERYTHING God does or wants for us LOVING. If it’s not loving or does not resemble one of His character traits then it isn’t truth and not from Him. He will always creates opportunities or paths for those who obey His commands. His truth will always set us free JOHN 8:32. It takes practise to hear God’s voice. When we blame Him for things that go wrong in our life we often don’t trust him. I realized that doing God’s will man’s way, never works and if we judge Him for the things that happen to us we aren’t looking at what makes up His loving character and how He truly feels about us. He loves us.

One way to hear God's voice better is to repent. In the Greek, repent means literally "to change one's perspective." Therefore, if we have un-confessed sin in our life or we are holding onto burdens it is often difficult to hear God. The reason being is that WE are pushing away from HIM. Everyone has the Holy Spirit within and if our thinking (perspective) is not in line with the thinking of our creator, how are we supposed to hear Him? He created us for intimate loving relationship and if we don't attempt to be like Him and His characteristics, then technically we are not following in the ways we were create to hear Him to begin with. If we are not following in His ways by asking in prayer, repenting or spending time with Him and His word then we aren't going to get our daily bread and the enemy will have the opportunity to weaken our defences. If our defences are weakened we then can be susceptible to sin or other temptations or frustrations pushing us away from a loving God, thus changing or perspectives away from God's.

This is all stuff that Lydia and I are both are processing in our journeys on getting to know God better and just wanted to share some of our highlights with you :)

Thanks again for all those who support us. I hope you can get a little taste of what we are learning by reading our blog.

Godbless,

KYLE AND LYDIA.

God's Character

We just thought we'd share a little bit with you about what we were learning :)

This week we learned about God's character, what He is like and some common misconceptions about how He is percieved by people. If there are misconceptions about the nature and character of God then people will be left confused in what He expects from us in our day to day lives in how we relate to Him, ourselves and others in a relationship concept. The speaker described God as a personal God - that means he is intelligent, self concious, reasonable, imaginative and he has a memory (we also share these same characteristics). God also feels, joy, grief, anger, compassion and humility for example just as we do. You can't have a personal relationship with a God who is impersonal.

We also learned about the Will of God, in the big things and the little things. Gods Will is whats best for us, its up to us to choose to listen or not. It's our choice, whether it be in dealing with family members, friends or our life decisions - this is not the be all and end all however because God can be reasoned with in a loving way- if it is in his Will and we have a passion for somthing He can make it happen, we just need to ask. We are called to become more loving, holy, wise, faithful, just, merciful, gracious, good, kind and forgiving - all the things that GOD IS and wants US to become (these things are not always easy to do as a humans - but we need to try). If don't try or we go against any of these things (which are going against Gods Will then we are technically Sinning) - Sin hurts God because He sees what it will do to us and He feels what we feel. However the beauty of God is that no matter what mistakes we make He will always provide doors for ways in which we can get back on track e.g. if we need to apologize to someone or we know or follow through on somthing major in life He can make it happen if it's in His Will, it's never too late with God. There is also a difference between conciously, blatently choosing to ignore Him regularily because we are not acting loving, holy, wise, forgiving etc... OR we just honestly are missing his instructions (if thats the case he will somehow work with us in a loving corrective manor to try and get us back on track in relationship).

Finally, only He is infinite, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent and holy (we are not these things, nor are we expected to be). We are also not called to Judge people because we are not God, we are only called to do our best in becoming the characteristics that make up God's true character; loving.....merciful, forgiving, good, kind to one another etc) Finally I learned that when you truly love God, you will love yourself because of all that He is and wants us to be (all that He is are the things that make up His characteristics). Finally the coolest thing i found out was that - The bible is a Record of God's Will, Man's response to God's Will and God's response to mans response (He sent us Jesus to restore the broken relationship that was happening to all humans recorded throughout the bible). I thought it was really really cool and although i maybe knew some or most of what the speaker was saying already, it was a nice refresher course in life with God if anything. I also thought that He is a friend that wants a relationship with me just like i want with you guys or Lyd or anyone and it's never to late to say just say "HEY" and ask what HE thinks of me and how i am doing and possibly let some things go in my own heart (that is what i have been processing since i've got here). What i just talked about is in scripture and i have verses to illustrate the points i made.

CHINA OUTREACH!

We found out today that we are going to Hong Kong & Northeast China for our outreach phase on Sept. 21st!
We will be gone for 7 weeks and as part of the preparation we are learning Manderin together! How neat is that!
I will keep updating the blog as we find out more information but we are all very excited and eager to go!

K & L

HIKING

We had a great time hiking yesterday up one of the gorgeous Swiss Alps yesterday. There was steep climbs, strong cold winds, and as we got higher-SNOW! In July, snow. It was a great day, very tiring but so worth it for the amazing views. Check out our facebook to see some more sweet pics!

PLANNING OUTREACH

We have now started the process for planning our outreach phase as a class to another country. This will most likely be somewhere in Asia but we are now finalizing dates, places and finances. The first portion of our finances is due next week, a little earlier than we had anticipated and we do not have all of it yet. We are praying for ways we can raise this support but if you would also pray with us in this time that would be much appreciated. In one sense, it's exciting to have the opportunity to see God's awesome provision but it can be challenging at times to know that He does provide and how He will do it. If you would like to help us financially in this time, please email me and I can give you more details.

HOW ARE YOU?!?!

Please email Kyle or I and let us know whats going on with you, we want to share both our experiences and hear yours as well!

WEEK 5 CLASS

Tomorrow starts week 5 already of school, I can't believe it's going by so fast! This week we have a teaching on the Character of God. It will be very unique as we are receiving this teaching via satellite with Amsterdam! Our speaker will be in a third location (can't remember right now) and will be speaking to our class and a YWAM class in Amstrerdam so it should be interesting! How cool is it that we can experience class with people a few countries away :)

Well thats all for now, until next time!

Bless ya heaps (as our Aussie's say...)

K & L

You all can see other Switzertland pics of us on Kyle's facebook, thanks!

New week!

Lydia:

As The Regeneration outreach ended last week, I was a bit sad but also relieved and excited to get back to the exciting routine of DTS. We had an awesome opportunity to hang out with Dustin and Katie (guy who does unicycling and his wife from Minnesota) for the weekend, seeing different sites, factories and ending it with yummy cheese fondue!

Our week started off and went full speed quickly! It between classes of 'Foundations in Missions' we have been biking, playing volleyball, and serving in our 'practical miinitries' (Kyle's is housekeeping/landscaping & mine is hospitality). I have been challenged huge through the biking because I quickly learned that I didn't know how to bike like I thought I did. We biked 10 km as a class, going down many steep, bumpy, rocky hills in the forest followed by twists and turns going upward for what felt like an eternity!

We started discussing this week in class about how being a missionary is something we all do, in every country we live, wherever we work, whatever we like to do and whoever we are related to or friends with. It was really inspiring to talk about how no matter where we are at, we can make difference in that worldview.

As biking starts again in a few minutes, hopefully these hills will feel a little less scary!

Swiss Pics

Swiss Night!

Yesterday we had 50 more people join our base for about 10 days from Kona, Hawaii and other areas of the world. We had a Swiss night yesterday to celebrate their arrival that consisted of Swiss cheese fondue, fresh bread, swiss chocolate and traditional Swiss games like stone throwing!
This team came to take part in our 'Regeneration' outreach at the Montreux Jazz Festival, a huge festival held every year in Switzerland with world famous performers such as Norah Jones, Billy Idol, Missy Elliott and many more! The team from Kona will be doing a variety of dances and other performances.
Today was our first day at the festival. While things were still getting started, we took some time walk around, meet people and pray for the festival and the city that will be held over the next 2 weeks. There were some performers and a lot of shops open selling local artistry work. It was very hot so some people enjoyed a nice dip in Lake Geneva. Kyle and I were asked to help record the festival everyday through photos and journals that will be put on another blog. I will let you know what the blog site is soon!

Au Revoir!

Lausanne

Lausanne is more beautiful then we ever anticipated and the people both on campus and in town are so wonderful! It was a great way to be greeted and welcomed into Switzerland.
Wednesday we arrived here and it didn't take long before we were right at home, greeted by everyone on campus, including the other 8 students in our class (8 girls, 2 guys) and our staff, as well as general campus or 'base' staff as they refer to it.
Thursday we did orientation of everything on campus and then started our classes which was just getting to know each other, and these classes will be Monday to Friday. But next week everything will be on hold as we are all participating in a huge, worldwide jazz festival downtown. Not too sure what we will be doing yet but we'll find out soon!
Yesterday we found out what our 'work duties' were going to be on campus. For those that don't know, YWAM is fully volunteer based so in order to keep the base running smoothly, everyone participates in a different area of service. Kyle and the other guy student, Felipe from Brazil, are in charge of general maintenance and gardening. Myself and another girl from Australia, Sarah, are in charge of hospitality, so anytime a guest comes to stay on base, we take care of their rooms and help make them feel at home!
Today was amazing, we took a trip into town and really got to see the view of the mountains. We took a trip into Switzerland's largest Cathedral. It is 900 years old!
We slowly made our way down to the lake and enjoyed a refreshing swim as it was another hot, hot day. On our way back we passed a park area near the waterfront where a huge TV was set up outside for the soccer game! Many people gathered around to watch and cheer, so cool!
As our first week wraps up, we'll see what next week has in store...

MONTREAL & FRANCE

Bienvenue a France! We are quickly realizing how valuable French class was to us in school, but regardless we are doing well :)

After a nice little trip around Montreal with friends Luke & Megan, we headed off to Lyon, France where we arrived this morning and are currently staying in a cute little hotel (little is understatement) in the country. It feels like we are literally in the middle of nowhere - peaceful yet a little creepy! It is a beautiful, hot, sunny day (26 C) and soon we will go exploring around - mainly for food!

Tomorrow we head off to Lausanne, Switzerland by train where we will be welcomed by our staff on the YWAM campus, can't wait!

Thank you all so much again for your love, support, prayers and friendships throughout all of this, please keep us updated on your lives over the next few months!

Until our next blog :)

K & L

Fundraiser Events - Dates & Times

Here are the dates for our Fundraisers...

SILENT AUCTION - SUNDAY JUNE 13th 2010
TIME: 12-4 PM
PLACE: KUURSTRA RESIDENCE 1258 GLENROSE CRES. OAKVILLE ONTARIO
DETAILS: BBQ lunch available/items to bid on/draw prizes


POKER TOURNAMENT - SATURDAY JUNE 12th 2010
TIME: 11am
PLACE: KUURSTRA RESIDENCE 1258 GLENROSE CRES. OAKVILLE ONTARIO
DETAILS: $20 buy in cut off at 4pm.

Come out and join us for these events and feel free to invite a friend or two!!! :)

KYLE & LYDIA

OUR MISSION

We have joined a Christian organization called Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and from July 1 through November 13, 2010, and we'll be attending the Discipleship Training School (DTS) in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Throughout the world people come together at YWAM campuses to learn about themselves and grow in their relationship with God. Check out YWAM's website at http://www.ywamlausanne.com/ for information on the specifics of this DTS with its focus on sports and fitness. During the schooling portion our itinerary will be experiencing a bike trip across the country, one of many reasons that we found this particular area of the world attractive.
The schooling segment of our course lasts twelve weeks and covers a variety of topics preparing us for an outreach, the missionary component that occurs during the final eight weeks of the program. These eight weeks will likely be spent in a Third World country in dire need. This is the portion of our adventure for which we are most passionate. For our Outreach Mission, we are fundraising and with your help we can practically execute the wisdom acquired from the schooling portion of our DTS.
Please keep us, our schooling and Outreach Mission in your prayers. We are both so excited to see how this chapter of our lives unfold, what we will learn about God, ourselves and people less fortunate than we are. Some may never venture far afield on a mission trip but we ask that you join in our endeavour with a financial donation. Any contribution to support our Outreach Mission is greatly appreciated!


K & L