July 2019

I've been at YWAM Salem for 1 month

and I love it so much. Here in YWAM I have found a community of people dedicated to pressing into what God is telling them, and following where He's leading them. I have found a community of people who are on fire for sharing God's love and partnering with God to do His Kingdom work. 

Get ready for a really long post with a lot of photos. I'm just loving this season so much and want to give you a glimpse into what God has been up too.

The campus is absolutely beautiful. It's nestled amongst pine trees and has different layers to it as you go up. A few of us have hammocks down at the bottom of the base, and then up in the trees at the top of the base. The driveway is a winding road lined with flags representing different countries. 

The Pioneer building is where the dining hall is along with the Kitchen. Each of us DTS students have an AOS (Acts Of Service), which are assigned work duties. My AOS is on Wednesday and Thursdays and consists of cleaning up after lunch and then helping cook dinner for the campus.

The MPR (Multi Purpose Room) is at the bottom of the base and that's where we have worship meetings and campus intercession. The MPR has a piano that we can use, so it's also where my classmates and I have spontaneous worship sessions. 

This is inside the prayer chapel and honestly, the windows are my favorite part of the whole building. You feel safe and protected while still in God's creation. 

We are halfway through lecture phase so far, and just these last 5 weeks have changed my life forever. We have gone through Bible Overview, Hearing God's Voice, Fear of the Lord, Worldview, and we just finished Character and Nature of God week. 

Learning about the depths of God's love for me and how much He wants to have a Papa daughter relationship with me has transformed me from the inside out. I have purpose in this life, and I have worth and value cuz God calls me daughter. 

Local outreaches have been amazing. My class is split into two groups and rotate between two outreaches, Gospel Guy and the Refugee Ministry. For Gospel Guy, on every other Tuesday afternoon my team goes to downtown Salem and sets up a table with a question and we just talk to people. The goal is to share the gospel with them, but really it's just an amazing way to love on people, engage with them, and challenge them to think about their relationship with God. 

On every other Sunday afternoon, my team and I help with a local Refugee Ministry. For their safety and privacy, I'm not able to share any photos. But here is a photo of some of my team on our way home from a Sunday. We all help out in different ways, some of my team helps with the kids, some help with the teens, and then some help with kitchen clean up and praying/worshipping with the adults. I've been praying that God would give me a heart for refugees and being a part of this ministry really has done that. I'm so excited to continue working with this ministry while I'm here in Salem. 

My whole group is seriously so artistically creative. We've had so many painting sessions and worship nights and it fills my soul with so much joy to be among people who love to create. 

I miss my Woods coffee shop from home and just having a place to go and study at, so you can better believe I found a coffee shop here in Salem. It's honestly the cutest and my friends and I have already spent countless hours there doing homework, talking about what we've been learning, and just hanging out. 

This isn't quite my entire class, but it's close. I love each and every one of these humans with all of my heart and I'm so thankful God has brought them into my life. 

The next few photos are just from throughout the last month and the adventures we have had

The ocean is too far away to drive to often, so this creek has become a place where I go to process and journal and just hangout with people and with God.

We all unanimously felt the need to pray for this gentleman, and it honestly was so much fun and such a blessing to be able to speak truth into his life.

For the 4th of July we had a BBQ after classes before we went to town to watch the fireworks over the river. 

These are a few photos from 4th of July <3

and last but certainly not least, this is my outreach team! 

Front row from left to right: Konner (one of my outreach leaders), Me, 

Hannah, Jacey, Patrick, and Emily (my other outreach leader). 

Back row from left to right: Hannah, Abby, and Sabrina

We're already getting ready for outreach, which we leave for in a little over a month. My team is going to Greece and Albania! For the first 4 weeks of outreach, we will be in Athens and we will be working with refugees, a gypsy camp, and some other local ministries. After that, we will go up north to a local YWAM base in Albania to partner with them and the ministries they do there. 

If you stayed this long I applaud you, I've been having so much fun with these dear humans and it's hard picking what photos to share cuz I have so many. 

This has been such an amazing journey so far and God has provided in huge ways! 

I have a testimony story I wanna share of just how good and faithful God is!

 The leaders are getting ready to book our plane tickets for outreach and on Wednesday they told us that they need money for the deposit and then the rest of the plane ticket money is needed in 2 weeks. I didn't have the money and while I knew God would provide in His perfect timing, I admit I got a bit stressed out. But we all prayed for each other, as there are others in my class that were in the same situation. I needed $1000 in 2 weeks. That freaked me out. 

On top of that, I felt that God was telling me to not ask or post about my need and to trust Him and let Him provide. So I said nothing. This was all on Wednesday, and by Thursday God had placed on peoples hearts (including some of my own classmates!) to support me and He brought in $950! My plane ticket is almost fully paid for!

I know I'm exactly where God wants me to be, and He has me here to do His Kingdom work. I'm so excited to be going to another country and share Papa's love with them. 

A few prayer requests if you feel lead to pray for me:

- Unity for my outreach team. We all come from different backgrounds and walks of life, and while we are so united already, we're getting ready to walk into a hard trip that's in a foreign country. We don't want to leave any room for the enemy to work.

- I'm not fully funded yet, but God has such a perfect plan. So my prayer is that my faith grows in waiting on Him. Being fully financially dependent on God is a new concept for me, and while it's growing me to learn to trust and wait on God, it's still hard.  

- God has been doing some major healing on me from all the things that I've gone through over the last few years. It's been amazing, but hard. Through it all though I feel like a completely new person, and I don't even recognize myself anymore. There's no way I want to go back to who I was before. 

Thank you all so much for your support, it means the world to me. Love you all! 

xx, alexis 

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