Week 5!

Week 5 has come to a close, and it's incredible to think that August is coming to an end! It seems like I just flew in to New Zealand yesterday! This week has been incredible!

So that I don't forget at the end, what has been happening on the medical front. I forgot to add that last week! During Week 4, I helped teach on wound care and how you treat and care for wounds. I loved at one point went someone asked if you should scrub a wound, and I was like NOOO! There will be no cheese grater motions, no scrubbing. Gently clean. In circles. This week, we had a dr come in and teach on various health diagnoses. The dr told me that I wasn't allowed to answer questions 😁 I personally loved when she talked about heart attacks, and in my head, I was differentiating the different symptoms with the different kinds of heart attacks. I'm not sure what we are doing Week 6 yet, though we will find out our teams this week!

 Changing gears, this week was awesome! We did drive to Mount Maunganui, which is a landmark of Tauranga, and we hiked around the base. We saw Oscar the seal laying on a rock too! We also walked on the beach, which we all know made Morgan incredibly happy! I was like a 5 year old, I was so excited! And there are sooooo many whole shells here! I only picked up two though. I restrained myself.

On Friday, the staff felt that we should just worship all morning instead of having lectures. It was amazing! I painted, I sang, I danced, I found an incredible verse. For me, this verse completely sums up the week. Matthew 28:9, "Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him." Previously in the story, Jesus has already been crucified and has been resurrected. The women have already been to the tomb, and the angel explained that Jesus wasn't there. The women are walking home when Jesus meets them on the road. And when they meet Jesus, they drop to their knees, they grab hold of his feet, and they worship Him. I wonder how sweet that worship sounded, probably some of the sweetest worship the world has ever heard. These women thought he was dead because they watched him die. They went to the tomb to anoint his body as tradition would have it. He was dead. He was gone. There was no more Jesus to follow around, no more Jesus to listen teach and tell parables and do miracles. They have just lost their world. Then, when they meet Him on resurrected on the road, they drop to their knees. I would say that they would have been justified to be angry, to beat their fists on his chest and say "We thought you were dead. We thought you were gone." But instead, in the most beautiful act of worship, they drop to their knees and they worship Him because instead of being angry, they are filled with complete adoration that their King lives. I want to love Him that way and worship Him that way, with complete adoration and awe of Him and completely in love with Him.

This verse sums up the week too- we talked about Submission and Authority and the Fear of the Lord and Intimacy. It was a jam packed week! Jesse's teaching on submission put it into a new light to me. When his first slide said that we were learning about submission instead of Faith and Finance, I was far from pleased. Submission had such a bad taste in my mouth- to me, it meant "to be blindly obedient all the time." I have found that it doesn't mean that at all. Submission is giving up your rights by choice, and from a Christian perspective, that is done out of love. Submission is a choice, surrender is because you have no other choice left. We talked about viewing the 10 commandments out of a viewpoint of love than of rules. Instead of "Thou shalt not" viewing it as "I will." He recommended that we write out the 10 commandments as "I will" and then add a "because" and make it personal. "I will not have any other gods before You because You alone are worthy and holy and deserve the utmost highest praise, and there are no other true gods besides you.... I will not murder because that is taking away someone's life that you have given them, and it is not my job to play God..." It placed all of it into a new light, and it was amazing!

God demolished a bunch of lies that I had been believing about Him and other people this week, and that was awesome (at the end- it wasn't fun during the process). He demolished the lie that His love is conditional and based on my behavior. He demolished the lie that He was going to suddenly walk away and take His love with Him. It's all a load of crap! His love is enduring, his love is powerful, his love is constant, his love is eternal, his love is unconditional, his love is beyond anything I've ever know in life!

Week 4

Week 4 Update!
What to say about this week? Hmm... Well Saturday, the Brick House Grannies (as we are known) did not leave the couch/the house until dinner. We watched movies, and it was an awesome relaxing day! I suppose though, that we should back up some though.
This week, our speaker was our DTS Director Cheyne (pronounced Shane), and we studied Hearing God's Voice. Out of the 4 weeks, this was the most impactful for me personally. Lectures really enforced within me that we, as Christians, can hear the voice of God; we just have to tune in to hear it. The story of how I ended up here in New Zealand right now involves hearing the voice of God, but to be very honest, I have very much struggled with the concept of hearing God. Part of it was my own doing, part of it wasn't. On one end, God would give me direction, but I would fail to seek out the details (this is something we discussed this week.). Instead, with my direction, I would make assumptions and make a mess of things, and then, I would question if I really heard God correctly. If God gives direction, you have to ask Him also to show you the details of how that works. However, on the other hand, I remember being told once that I couldn't hear from God. This one moment would end up having big consequences. It made God distant and un-inviting. (I loved what Femi said during one of his lectures- if God was an angry God ready to rain down His wrath and punishment, He would have already done it. We wouldn't have made it this far. Instead, God is beckoning you to know Him truly and fully.) This week confirmed what I already knew deep down- God is approachable, He does listen, and He does speak. I've watched it happen.
During moments of alone time with God throughout the week, He really transformed my understanding of Him. If I am very honest, I have viewed God as being angry with me and having conditional love. God will only love me if I am good and if I follow the rules and behave, but He is just sitting there waiting for me to mess up so that He can punish me. Tammy has spent 4 years trying to tell me that I'm wrong, trying to tell me that He is good and that He is sovereign and that He is loving. She told me this over and over and over- I can hear her words even now, but that's the problem, I only heard her words. I wasn't able to really listen; it took God speaking Himself for me to listen.

There was suddenly this revelation one night that God is really good. He only wants my good- He doesn't want to hurt me and cause me massive amount of misery. That's not in His character. And God is truly sovereign. This seems so simplistic. But have you thought about how God's sovereignty means that He is King, it means that He is on the throne and in control, and it means that no matter what the enemy does, everything has to fall under the Will of God because He. Is. Sovereign. His sovereignty brings power into my life because it means that I have no need to fear (Isaiah 41:10) because He is with me and has it all under control.

It has been an awesome week really. Had some not so fun moments, but they ended up being things that God was able to speak to me out of. I can't wait to see what God has in store for this week!

Week 3 Update

A week 3 update for everyone!
I can't believe that week 3 is over already but also that we've only finished week 3! We're all like family, but we've only known each other for 3 weeks! It feels like it should be longer than that! Our room of 6 girls is like a room of sisters, and it's so much fun! It's funny sometimes of all the different cultures that we have here on base! The other day we mentioned garbage disposals, and Hannah, from Sweeden, says "Oh! I've seen those in movies!" We all laughed. It was really cool this morning to look around the room at all the countries represented as a group of us watched the Olympic opening ceremonies. In the room was the US (obviously), England, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Germany, Colombia, and Israel. Where else could I watch the Olympics with all of these countries in the country of New Zealand! It was really awesome!

Last weekend, we went to Karanghake Gorge as a field trip and hiked! The area was originally used for gold mining, and now it is a park. At the end, I had a Coke float, which tasted fantastic!

Later that night, a group of us went to the hot springs that are by base. It's not actually a natural hot spring, so essentially it is just a swimming pool filled with hot water, which felt great after hiking all day!

Sunday Natalie and I went exploring the town of Tauranga since she is a Kiwi and has her car. I had my first New Zealand Starbuck's! It was delicious! It felt great to get off base for a little bit!

This week lectures were rather uneventful for me. We discussed the nature and character of God, and a lot of it was information that I learned in church growing up. We discussed the Trinity in depth, how God keeps His covenants, and then various attributes of His character like He is holy, giving, loving, etc. Our speaker was really awesome- his name is Femi and he is fiesty and sassy. We loved having him!

For me personally, the real impact of the week came with my quiet moments alone with God. I found my heart softening and forgiveness really taking root in areas that I have long been angry. I found God undoing lies that have been rooted since I was 11. I found myself laughing and I found myself weeping. I found myself Friday night pouring my heart out in prayer in a way that I haven't experience in years.

One of the big things I've been praying about this week is what post-DTS life looks like for me. The plan has been to return home and return back to the ICU that I love, but other options to work as a missionary and a nurse together have been placed on the table. The beginning of the week, I really was struggling with the whole concept. Part of me wants to go work in missions full time and the adventure that would be, but part of me wants to go home and return back to the ICU as well. I know too that if I become a full-time missionary now, I may never work in a hospital again because I wouldn't have the necessary experience. It was a scary thought to think about. I finally though have come to a place where I've laid the decision at the cross. I've place it there and left it, saying "God, I trust that you'll reveal your guidance and direction in Your Timing, I trust that you'll make it clear." I don't know where God is going to take me, but the longer that I stress about it and try to finagle a way to get my own way, the more I'm at risk of venturing out of God's plan, which is a place I don't want to find myself. At some point, God will give me an answer, and the adventure either way will be awesome. Right now, I'm going to push all of my energy into knowing Him better and deeper.

For all of the medical people, wondering what's all happening, we are beginning all of our training. With the exception of me, all of the "medical stream" are participating in a CPR/first aid course this weekend. Most of the school aren't medical professionals, they are here to get their feet wet in the medical world a little. There are a few medical people though- Natalie is a physical therapist, Cason is an athletic trainer (which has a medical aspect to it- kind of like a physical therapist), Kiwi Jess just graduated nursing school, and we have a couple of people that just graduated as EMT's. I thankfully brought my ACLS card with me, which meant I did not have to participate in yet another CPR class. I am pretty confident in my CPR skills. This week we will begin training for wound care in the field, which won't look quite like wound care at Kennestone Hospital due to the limited resources of being in remote villages of Vanuatu.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me on this journey! I can't wait to continue to share all of my stories!