DTS Update 8!

Hi! I’m so excited to share some more fun things with you all! But I also have a little more information about the things coming up! LOTS AND LOTS of details are still being worked out, but this is what I know now!

For our first outreach beginning this upcoming Sunday, my team is serving at an event called Stable! It is an interactive Christmas experience for the community. Every single church in Townsville supports it and comes together to make the event happen (which is so cool!), and I am so excited for it!!! We will be helping with the many days of load in and load out at the site as well as serving in a variety of roles during the event! I’m going to be chatting with people, dressing up, baking bread, picking up trash, dancing a little maybe hahaha, and so much more! I am genuinely so excited to serve and know the Lord’s really going to reach people through it! I’m also excited to bond more with my outreach team (our school cohort is split up into a few different outreach teams) during Stable in preparation for our bigger second outreach! I’m also so pumped because teams from Norway and Whitsundays are coming to live on base here and serve at this event as well!!

For our second outreach, we are going to Papua New Guinea! We are the Global Health team 💪💪💪💪 so everything we are doing in PNG will revolve around that focus - loving and serving others in that way! For the first 2-ish weeks, we will be in the National Capital District of PNG (mainly in Port Moresby - YWAM Townsville has a satellite base there!). The next 3 weeks will be on the ship doing the ship outreach in Western Province (check out what the ship does in this sweet video here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8E-tEN5e5s). In the final 2-ish weeks, we will be doing more land-based outreach in Central Province. For the land-based outreaches, we will be doing a variety of things - potentially health education, community support, youth engagement, work with YWAM’s dental trailer, and soooooooo much more!!!! I can’t really give many specifics now, but it’s going to be such a crazy cool time that I know the Lord will use so intentionally. YWAM has an amazing relationship with villages and communities across PNG so we will be able to live among and really invest in the communities that we have the opportunity to go to! 

Anyway besides all of that, we are in our last week of lectures for now!! It’s been so good!! Our speaker this week literally published a book as a resource for us (legit it’s dedicated to our base leaders here), and his passion for us and our walks with the Lord is so evident! 

I cannot believe how fast everything is flying!

IMPORTANT!!! As I step into the outreach phases of my school, I will likely change to doing updates a little less frequently :) 

👏👏👏 HIGHLIGHTS 👏👏👏

• Last Wednesday evening, we were able to attend a big community worship night, and it was so cool to interact with more people in Townsville in that space!

• Townsville had some Christmas festivals and markets over the weekend which were so fun to check out!

• We hit the streets again on Saturday night with our biggest group yet! We played music, chatted with people, learned people’s stories, and just got to show some love and hope to some people who were really hurting. So good!!

• We had church on the beach on Sunday which I LOVED!

• Carols by Candlelight!!! On Sunday, we had the opportunity to enjoy a sort of Australian Christmas tradition! The event was huuuuuuuuge - so many people from the community gathered together for a massive show that was basically just epic performances of soooooo many Christmas carols by local performers! Such a wonderful experience! 

• The boys on campus put together a night of yard games! They used carpet and material scraps to make mini golf holes and we had a whole tournament going with teams and all!

• We wrapped up school visits! The school here just ended for summer break, so we are done with school visits for now. Sad to not be going anymore, but thankful for all we got to do and every way the Lord used us to speak into the kids there.

• I feel like in general I’ve been finding a better balance of interacting with people and building relationships while also getting done the things I need to and spending time alone. I felt I had so many really fruitful times just being with others this past week! 

• Small group and one-on-one times are always the best!!

• Our school leaders set up a little surprise game for us to officially find out our outreach locations and teams. It was so sweet!

• Since school is on break, all of the kids on campus are around more! We’ve had so many super fun afternoons just all hanging out and playing in the courtyard together! Some of my favorite times! 

Sending merriness and snowy cheer your way! Feel free to reach out anytime!

🫶🫶🫶

Annika 

Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

Luke 12:27-28