alright friends get ready...

Ok this is crazy.

It's officially time for Uganda!

I am currently in Brussels, Belgium! SLOWLY making our way to Africa!! We've had a couple days of traveling before we get there but I am getting so excited!!!

As lecture phase wraps up and I look back on the last three months, I have been overwhelmed by the faithfulness of our God. Before getting to Hawaii I had been praying that God would provide me with a group of friends that would push me, challenge me, and be friendships I would have for a lifetime. He exceeded my expectations to say the least. Saying goodbye to this God given group of friends was AWFUL! I cried and cried the whole way to the airport:) Definitely a weird mix of emotions... sad to leave them but super happy because we are all going to spread the love of Jesus!!! I have been SO bad at blogging and updating you all since getting to Hawaii, and I am so sorry!! Each day I am learning something new so it is super hard to narrow it all down to one blog post!!

One of the most impactful things I learned while in lecture was how easy it is to have a relationship with God and how ALIVE He really is. Before coming to YWAM I had always wondered what it meant when people said they had a conversation with God, or they heard Him speak. Growing up being so involved in the church, I feel like a lot of what I was taught became habit and I never made my faith my own. And coming to YWAM made me realize how important that real, raw, intimate relationship is. One of our first classes was about how to hear Gods voice, and that is one class that will stick with me for the rest of my life! He can speak to us in so many different ways. He speaks through nature, people, dreams, music, etc. But most often it's that small voice we hear in our heads, whether that's a thought you might not have had or sometimes you just get a feeling that it's Him! Since this was all so new to me, this was very hard but one thing that changed my whole perspective was that I was talking to the CREATOR OF ALL THINGS! When trying to discern if that was my voice in my head or Gods, I would go with the voice assuming that it's God without a second thought about it! He is GOD people!!!!!! Think about all of the things He has created out of thin air, think about how powerful He is, think about how He can see our hunger to hear Him and our willingness to be obedient and if we are so hungry that we just go with the first thought in our head and it's not actually Him, he has the power to rewire our brains to hear his voice for real.

One night during our first or second week I was walking around campus by myself at 1:30 or 2 am. I had previously been in the prayer room and got a thought to leave the prayer room. I immediately jumped on it assuming it was God and walked out and just went for it from there!! I was walking around trying to hear Gods voice and I would get to a spot and would ask Him "ok right or left?" and I would go whichever way he told me! After about an hour ish of just walking around the WHOLE campus, I heard God tell me to stop. So I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk next to a playground. It immediately started DOWNPOURING. The hardest rain I had seen since being in Hawaii. I was definitely not prepared for a walk in the rain so I started to walk back to my room. Then God spoke to me and said "Jamie I asked you to stop here" and so I stopped again. I probably stood there for 5 minutes and I heard Him again "turn around." Keep in mind it is currently 3 am and pouring rain, I turn around to see a guy walking. He sees me and just starts laughing. He asked if I was ok and why on earth I was standing in the rain at 3 am and I told him I was trying to be obedient and listen to God! He prayed over me before we left and said this "God sees your hunger and obedience and he is overwhelmed with joy. He wants you to spend time in His word because that is where you're going to hear Him the most and get to know Him the best." He gave me some books that he felt like God wanted me to read. One of them being Song of Songs and let me tell you I fell in LOVE. The language in that book is so beautiful and was so amazing. I learned so much about Him in just that small short book!

Lecture phase has been life changing. I will never be the same. I wish I could sum it up well enough to give you insight into what we did and learned but I can't! I am always missing some big piece or some big lesson! I think you all might just have to go do your own DTS! :) As always if any of you have specific questions that I don't answer on here PLEASE reach out! I love talking about Jesus and what He's doing in my life and I wish I could tell you everything!! Here's a bad metaphor but it would be like reading a whole book and using one word to describe it. Your one word may be true but it would do the whole book justice. :)

One of my favorite memories in Hawaii was having my family come and visit!!! My dad, Molly, Dave, and Isaac all got to come see me during thanksgiving break!! It was so fun to show them around campus and give them a little taste of YWAM! They got to experience some worship and a little bit of class! I got to introduce them to some of my friends and it was just so fun to hangout with them and show them a bit of my life in Hawaii!!

Going into this next adventure in Uganda I am very expectant. I cannot wait for God to move in me and through me. One way that God has been speaking to me recently is through dreams/pictures. A couple weeks ago during worship, I had my eyes closed and I saw a house that was clearly in Uganda. There was an African woman in the kitchen of the house and I asked Him what this house meant and what happened there. I felt like God was just saying that this woman needs to know she is loved by her father in heaven! It sparked a new level of excitement and expectancy for me and so as I fly to the other side of the world to do exactly what I saw in this picture, tell people about Jesus and how loved they are by Him, I am beyond ready to see God move in ways I've never seen before.

Please keep my team in your prayers!! We are going to the middle of Uganda with not a whole lot of information:) Please pray for safety, wisdom, and courage for each of the 14 members on my team! We are so expectant to not only see God change the lives of people we come in contact with, but within our own hearts as well!

No better comfort than going into the unknown with the God who is all knowing.

Get ready!!!!!!

He's doing BIG things:)

stay tuned

-jam