In one month

Hello! 

Well the students have been here for a month now and i have completely and fully fallen in love with every single one of them! I have a small group of 5 amazing women who have all been faithful to the call God has had on their lives to come here. 

So, a recap on the last 4 weeks. Week 1 was just a lot of getting everyone acclimated to base and life in Ywam! the students were champs as they learned about all the rules and values and just what the next 5 months of their lives! Week 2 we had Mike Philips come talk about Hearing Gods Voice which was a new concept for a lot of our students! but when the holy spirit shows up you do not ignore him! 

Week 3 the wonderful Mat Atkins came to talk abut the father heart of God and brought my dear ol dad with him! It was so fun and life giving to have my Father around especially in this crazy time of my life of not only continuing in my learning of Jesus and who he is but also encouraging my sweet small group in their walk with the Lord. 

This brings us to week 4 which we have just completed with the ever daunting topic of grace with Chis Lautsbaugh! This week was instrumental for my small group and for me for that matter. The topic of grace is often tied up in cute little packages that we give out at church on Sunday after the paster has convicted us of our sins but grace is SO MUCH BIGGER THAN THAT! Something I often forget in my walk with the Lord is that there is Grace for even me. Now I know what you are thinking, thats kinda weird Sierra, but I'm completely serious! I feel like todays christianity is so quick to give grace to others yet we have a hard time receiving it ourselves! This leads to imperfect and broken relation ships because we are giving out "grace" that we ourselves don't fully comprehend! So how do we fix this? Well in all honesty I don't think we can. God is the only one who can give grace because He gives perfect grace. Grace is the action of God FIXING the world that WE broke. His grace is perfect because He IS perfect. Our grace is broken because we ARE broken. God no longer counts the dumb things we do against us because the second we accept Jesus and what He did on the cross is the same second Grace is gifted to us. That is the moment that God no longer holds the stupid things we do against us but covers us with the love of "I don't care, and I will never bring it up again" How many of us can say in friendships or relationships that as soon as argument arises we don't pull out that one thing they did or said that one time that just really pissed you off and how they are doing it yet again! I know I do that and I fall into the trap of fully expecting God to do the same but He says "no, I won't bring that up". WHAT A PERFECT LOVING FATHER WE HAVE! 

So all that to say we have had a pretty busy month over here and I am excited to see what God dose with the months to come, for now I will say "may the Lord bless you and keep you may the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you, may the Lord show you his favor and give you His peace" 

(here are some pictures and things.)