We'll, here we are recovering after a hectic Conference week, enjoying the company of sisters in the house – Lisette's sister Nickey has been entertaining us for a couple of weeks now and today Rachelle's sisters Abby and Janel arrived for the holidays! They are so much fun, bubbly and as much chatterboxes than myself :) The house is buzzing with 7 girls in a tiny flat with only 2 bathrooms... :D but it's so much fun to get to know each other's families, you learn a lot more about each other as well!
We ended up staying in this flat, since college actually released the flat we were planning on to move. So my address will remain the same and all of that, and on the other hand we've got kind of cozy here anyway :) however, in a weeks time Lisette will be moving out and that'll be very weird. My new roomie Mana is from Japan!! Im so excited for her to come, her arrival day will be hectic since Lisette is moving out on the 20th too.. I don't know how on earth Lisette is going to pull off this move, since she hasn't even started to pack and the whole house is full of her stuff in every corner and cupboard! It shall be interesting.. ! :D
It's Lisette's birthday on Wednsday, and all the girls are going to Blue Mountains tomorrow. I can't go, I really don't have the money for it. Makes me a little sad, not that there's anything that special to see there but it's one of the last times we get to hang out together as a flat. But oh well, whatever. Can't always have everything hey?
My finances are actually very challanging for the month, since God really challanged me to give a lot more in the Heart for the House offering than I was planning on to give on the first place. I don't really see how Im gonna make it through but I know that regardless of my circumstances God's always faithful and will come through to me one way or another. I refuse to panic over the future or regret my genorosity and simply choose to trust in His flowing provision as I put His Kingdom first. We raised AMAZING 6 MILLION DOLLARS in the Heart for the House offering and this money will go to change the lives of so many – how blessedam I to get to be a part of it!
Anyway I wanted to write about the Hillsong Conference and JAM – the most amazing and life changing four days since I've been here!! I was serving in the general registrations for the Conference on the first day and totally missed out on everything that was happening, but the three next days I got to spend full time in JAM as a Connect group leader, hanging out and connecting with kids as my mission! It was mindblowing to see the five thousand young people gathering to seek after God...
In the morning we got to hang around in the Acer Arena for the morning rally, since most of our kids had the opportunity to attend the morning session of Hillsong Conference. Then we packed up thousands of young people in shuttle busses and transported them to our very own JAM venue, the State Sport Centre!
Once on the venue, we battled between the four tribes through the Tribal Wars – always so crazy yet so much fun! After trillions and billions of points the kids went crazy, jumping, screaming and chanting.. :)
We had both morning and night rallies, so basically we had our own conference now! It's really remarkable since this is the first year we had our own night rallies for youth and we had the main speakers from Hillsong conference coming to speak in our venue, directing their messages straight to our age group of teenagers!! It was so amazing challanging and life changing.. I know these kids will never be the same.
Since most of my kids were scattered into different tribes in order to hang out with their friends, I targeted to befriend the lonely kids. I met Alisha and hanged out with her the whole day – not the most glamorous or fun thing to do since she barely spoke to me, but halfway through the day when I was about to give up on her she asked with a tiny voice if she could have lunch with me.. my heart skipped a beat when I realized I had actually made her conference even though it might not have been obvious to me until that point. I realized that such small things can change a person's life forever..
The worship was so powerful and the presence of God could be sensed so tangibly.. We had the amazing Chris Tomlin coming to lead worship for one night and as the whole auditorium sang ”How great it our God” the voices of the teenagers echoed into my heart – I found myself sobbing in the wonderful revelation of the faith the next generation has and the change they will bring to our world.
We had electives for the teens too. I attended the combined Justice and Worship stream and LOVED to hear more about how tightly the two are tied together – justice is worship.
Joel Houston said to us:
”Justice+ Worship=Change. If you ain't changing, you aren't really worshipping.”
To see the masses of kids who take the mission of bringing justice seriously made me bowl my eyes out.. To see their determination, faith and love totally changed me too.
For the last night we brought all jammers to the main Conference, where we had priority seating on the main concourse. It was a night to remember! All the amazing messages brought by Louie Giglio, Jentezen Franklin, Phil Dooley, Craig Groeschel and many others spoke volumes both in my life and the lives of thousands around me. I was inspired, challanged and encouraged to push forward for God! These conferences always greatly encourage us as believers to see the reality of millions of fellow believers all across the earth rising up with us – the truth is we're not alone.
The last night we got out of the bump out around 1 a.m, relatively early this year! There was no crazy confetti rain in the celebration finale which we all were very grateful for.. :) isn't it funny how your perspective can change according to your responsibilities? I still remember standing in the midst of tons of falling confetti in Hillsong Conference 2007 as a delegate, admiring the wonder of it, just to sweat in fear of the same two years later as a volunteer responsible of the cleaning up afterwards.. :p
I feel very very blessed to have had the opportunity to see what God is doing amongst the generation rising up, and it truly has inspired me for the things to come and ministry to build once I get back to Finland. I am still praying for God to bless me with an opportunity to get a hold of the Conference recordings, I was planning on bying the whole recording pack not to miss out on the amazing leadership messages that were shared in the main conference, but for now I simply have no finances for it. It is my desire to save up the money in the coming months to get a hold of it! I wanted to buy the Conference pack to bless others during the holidays by hosting the conference again at my place and inviting students who also missed out on the messages to build them up.. but the pack is $200 and I have no such money at this stage.
Anyhow, I better stop here and get out, I want to take a walk with the girls before I need to start concentrating on teaching Finnish online for my Texas mate Stewart :)
Love you all so so much, wish you all could have been here to have a share of the blessings God has been pouring on me!
Lots of Love,
P
We ended up staying in this flat, since college actually released the flat we were planning on to move. So my address will remain the same and all of that, and on the other hand we've got kind of cozy here anyway :) however, in a weeks time Lisette will be moving out and that'll be very weird. My new roomie Mana is from Japan!! Im so excited for her to come, her arrival day will be hectic since Lisette is moving out on the 20th too.. I don't know how on earth Lisette is going to pull off this move, since she hasn't even started to pack and the whole house is full of her stuff in every corner and cupboard! It shall be interesting.. ! :D
It's Lisette's birthday on Wednsday, and all the girls are going to Blue Mountains tomorrow. I can't go, I really don't have the money for it. Makes me a little sad, not that there's anything that special to see there but it's one of the last times we get to hang out together as a flat. But oh well, whatever. Can't always have everything hey?
My finances are actually very challanging for the month, since God really challanged me to give a lot more in the Heart for the House offering than I was planning on to give on the first place. I don't really see how Im gonna make it through but I know that regardless of my circumstances God's always faithful and will come through to me one way or another. I refuse to panic over the future or regret my genorosity and simply choose to trust in His flowing provision as I put His Kingdom first. We raised AMAZING 6 MILLION DOLLARS in the Heart for the House offering and this money will go to change the lives of so many – how blessedam I to get to be a part of it!
Anyway I wanted to write about the Hillsong Conference and JAM – the most amazing and life changing four days since I've been here!! I was serving in the general registrations for the Conference on the first day and totally missed out on everything that was happening, but the three next days I got to spend full time in JAM as a Connect group leader, hanging out and connecting with kids as my mission! It was mindblowing to see the five thousand young people gathering to seek after God...
In the morning we got to hang around in the Acer Arena for the morning rally, since most of our kids had the opportunity to attend the morning session of Hillsong Conference. Then we packed up thousands of young people in shuttle busses and transported them to our very own JAM venue, the State Sport Centre!
Once on the venue, we battled between the four tribes through the Tribal Wars – always so crazy yet so much fun! After trillions and billions of points the kids went crazy, jumping, screaming and chanting.. :)
We had both morning and night rallies, so basically we had our own conference now! It's really remarkable since this is the first year we had our own night rallies for youth and we had the main speakers from Hillsong conference coming to speak in our venue, directing their messages straight to our age group of teenagers!! It was so amazing challanging and life changing.. I know these kids will never be the same.
Since most of my kids were scattered into different tribes in order to hang out with their friends, I targeted to befriend the lonely kids. I met Alisha and hanged out with her the whole day – not the most glamorous or fun thing to do since she barely spoke to me, but halfway through the day when I was about to give up on her she asked with a tiny voice if she could have lunch with me.. my heart skipped a beat when I realized I had actually made her conference even though it might not have been obvious to me until that point. I realized that such small things can change a person's life forever..
The worship was so powerful and the presence of God could be sensed so tangibly.. We had the amazing Chris Tomlin coming to lead worship for one night and as the whole auditorium sang ”How great it our God” the voices of the teenagers echoed into my heart – I found myself sobbing in the wonderful revelation of the faith the next generation has and the change they will bring to our world.
We had electives for the teens too. I attended the combined Justice and Worship stream and LOVED to hear more about how tightly the two are tied together – justice is worship.
Joel Houston said to us:
”Justice+ Worship=Change. If you ain't changing, you aren't really worshipping.”
To see the masses of kids who take the mission of bringing justice seriously made me bowl my eyes out.. To see their determination, faith and love totally changed me too.
For the last night we brought all jammers to the main Conference, where we had priority seating on the main concourse. It was a night to remember! All the amazing messages brought by Louie Giglio, Jentezen Franklin, Phil Dooley, Craig Groeschel and many others spoke volumes both in my life and the lives of thousands around me. I was inspired, challanged and encouraged to push forward for God! These conferences always greatly encourage us as believers to see the reality of millions of fellow believers all across the earth rising up with us – the truth is we're not alone.
The last night we got out of the bump out around 1 a.m, relatively early this year! There was no crazy confetti rain in the celebration finale which we all were very grateful for.. :) isn't it funny how your perspective can change according to your responsibilities? I still remember standing in the midst of tons of falling confetti in Hillsong Conference 2007 as a delegate, admiring the wonder of it, just to sweat in fear of the same two years later as a volunteer responsible of the cleaning up afterwards.. :p
I feel very very blessed to have had the opportunity to see what God is doing amongst the generation rising up, and it truly has inspired me for the things to come and ministry to build once I get back to Finland. I am still praying for God to bless me with an opportunity to get a hold of the Conference recordings, I was planning on bying the whole recording pack not to miss out on the amazing leadership messages that were shared in the main conference, but for now I simply have no finances for it. It is my desire to save up the money in the coming months to get a hold of it! I wanted to buy the Conference pack to bless others during the holidays by hosting the conference again at my place and inviting students who also missed out on the messages to build them up.. but the pack is $200 and I have no such money at this stage.
Anyhow, I better stop here and get out, I want to take a walk with the girls before I need to start concentrating on teaching Finnish online for my Texas mate Stewart :)
Love you all so so much, wish you all could have been here to have a share of the blessings God has been pouring on me!
Lots of Love,
P
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