#dts2015

[thesilverinfinity]

This year's Dream Team Stream was Amazing! Even though I was an hour late, I loved it so much! Thanks so much to all you guys and everyone who helped make this years stream great!

[lirependragon]

Sparkles* constant random dancing is just the best

[mrowlpig]

DREAM TEAM STREAM 2015!

It was showed on stream omg!!!

[theonewingedbutterfly]

Outreach Prep

The next couple of weeks were outreach prep! :) It was crazy busy trying to pack and plan for outreach. It was so hard knowing we were splitting into two groups and wouldn’t be doing outreach all together. It was so sad to have to say goodbye to 10 of our sisters and half our staff. We worked so well together and balanced each other perfectly, none of us could imagine being separated. We played team games and really worked on getting to know each other better before we left. Planning and packing were crazy at times, but we cherished every minute we got to spend with our sisters on the other team. One of my favorite things was the 24 hour prayer we did before outreach. It was such a good time to step back and get God’s heart on what he had in store for us as we left the country. :)

[theonewingedbutterfly]

Week 9: Holy Spirit! Party!

Holy Spirit week was awesome. I was looking forward to it so much! I couldn’t wait for my sisters who had never encountered or experienced the Holy Spirit to have that opportunity. It was amazing to watch. The husband of our speaker gave me a really good prophetic word during ministry time of class one day.

He said, “Right now you’re building steps up to the top of a wall. You are a watchman of the wall-a watchman of the night. God has gifted me with the mandate of intercession. I will be able to see what the enemy is doing and pray against that. He’s always had a good plan for me that won’t leave me dry or disappointed. I will see 10,000 come to Christ. He sees me. He rages for me. He is passionately in love with me. He wants to hold my hand.” That was soooooo encouraging. It confirmed things I’ve heard before, and reminded me of promises God’s given me.

She took some time to talk about envy and my favorite thing she said during that time was, “Any time you fake celebrate envy is present.” Ouch! How many times do we pretend to be happy for people in our lives all while secretly harboring bitterness that we aren’t receiving the same blessing or favor that they are? I want to be real. Really happy for my friends. Really joyful because they’re joyful. I don’t want friendships to be affected by envy in my life!

My favorite part of Holy Spirit week was praying with two of my sisters to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. They both wanted to receive their prayer languages and hadn’t had that opportunity in class that day. We were in there room before bed, and they decided they wanted prayer! We began to pray and the one girl said she felt like it was going to happen that week but maybe not in that moment. The other girl (from a Mennonite background :) )  asked if we would pray for her. Within a minute she was speaking in tongues. :) She turned right around and started praying for the other girl and instantly that girl received her prayer language too. I loved loved loved being able to pray for my sisters in that way. We went to the prayer room and had a great time of celebration before bed. I loved watching the Holy Spirit shatter false expectations people had of him all week. I loved watching my sisters be forever changed by realizing their spiritual gifts. It was an amazing time.

[theonewingedbutterfly]

Week 8: Cost of Discipleship

Week 8 was a great big kick in the butt spiritually. It was all about dying to ourselves and giving God everything.One thing Jeremy talked about a lot was “The moment grace gets boring is the moment you don’t understand it.” How true! We can never ever ever fully understand grace and the magnitude of what it means for us eternally speaking.

“We end up trying to redeem our lives rather than living the redeemed life.” Whoa! That’s crazy. What an amazing perspective shift. We can never redeem our lives. We have been redeemed by the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross. That is the only way redemption was possible, and because of that our focus should be living as who we are in Christ rather than trying to make ourselves seem redeemed enough for Christ.

“If you defend something it’s part of your identity. We defend what makes us who we are.” It’s funny how when we are doing bad things we tend to become super defensive. When we are dating someone everyone thinks we should break up with, we constantly defend their behavior. I want to spend more time defending my faith and relationship with Jesus than the sinful desires of my flesh.

The last concept he talked about was Peter. Peter had to listen to roosters crow every day for the rest of his life. After having that be the signal that he had denied Christ three times he could’ve allowed that to influence him in two ways. Would he choose to let it be a reminder of how much of a failure he was or a reminder of how amazing God’s grace for him was? The decision would make a world of difference.

[theonewingedbutterfly]

Week 7: Sex & Relationships

I must say this wasn’t a week I was particularly looking forward to. Honestly I’d rather avoid the topic altogether. Luckily we spent a lot of time talking about relationships and a lot less time talking about sex. This week was amazing for me. Our speaker Pat Caven taught us so many little things that were life changing. The biggest thing she taught us was that No is a complete sentence. You don’t have to defend your no. You don’t have to explain your no. No is No! That was revolutionary for me in so many ways. I am allowed to say no and not have to explain myself. Wow! Such a big shift mentally!

Some other amazing things she said were:

“In the transformation from the old to the new, the presence of God is the anesthesia.” Being able to go back and look at that today means so so much to where I’m at now.

“Christian maturity is our ability to access the holy spirit within us.” Wow! That pretty much speaks for itself.

“Children are like wet cement. What you experience gets recorded permanently into the rock.” That statement couldn’t be more true. I think healing is being able to take those rocks to Jesus and allow him to wash over the cement with the healing, living water and make them new.

“When the pain of the consequences is greater than the pain of whatever we’re trying to numb, that’s when change occurs.” Such a harsh but true reality. Sometimes it has to hurt more to numb the hurt than to feel the hurt.

“80% of the relational difficulties we have as adults are based on the first 20 years of our lives.” YEP.

“We fight against the very thing we believe deepest in our hearts.”

“You can deal with the same issue repetitively, but it will shrink in size.” This was so encouraging. I get so frustrated seeming to deal with the same things over and over again. Realizing that’s natural and the problems really are getting smaller made a huge difference.

I had an amazing one on one with Pat, and I really learned a lot during this week. Many things she said still play over in the back of my mind in certain situations and I’m so grateful for that! She was amazing, and I am so glad she came to share with us!