Preaching at VEC

This morning I enjoyed sharing with the English speaking service at the Vietnamese Evangelical Church - for a number of reasons:

- it was my first time there this year, and after a five year relationship with these guys, it was just nice to re-connect again

- I really love the intimate nature of sharing with a group of about 30 people- predominantly youth and young adults 

- lunch afterwards was pretty good :)

- today I got to share a little about immerse, and folks responded really week to the stories I had to share

- probably the highlight for me was a conversation with one of the youth leaders afterward - he's very interested in all things immerse and wants to explore what ministry might look like for him in the future.

... So I invited him to our next immersesa planning and prayer meeting and he's keen to come. I'm praying that He will know Gods leading as he discerns what he steps into next - and if that is immerse then that would be a big bonus for us ;)

... and now it's literal

"Hey, we should do that baptism thing" said one of the 15 year old boys as the group walked by the stream at the bottom of the valley.  The dark-haired teenager was still buzzing from his new-found faith, having decided to follow Jesus the night before.

As they began to wade into the water, their leader Stu, told them to just hang on for a minute and he quickly scaled the hill to get some phone range and called me - he asked me what I thought.  I told him I'd ring him back, and then sent their youth pastor down to chat to them.

24 hours later (including 2 hours of discussion with the boys and five phone conversations with parents), that same youth pastor stood in the freezing cold water of the campsite's dam, and immersed 5 young men.

I'm not sure what the most exciting part is:

- that this bold declaration of faith was entirely initiated by the boys themselves?
- that the one who first suggested the idea had no church background at all?
- that three parents drove two hours south of Perth at the last minute to witness this baptism?
- that one of those parents who came carries no faith background at all?
- that the other set of parents not only got to see their own son baptised, but also his friend whom they had financially sponsored to be there?

I've walked away from this camp struggling to process the volume of life-change stories - and the way in which God is so clearly multiplying His movement among this generation of young people ...

... I'm still scratching my head over the irony that IMMERSE WEST ended yesterday in a far more literal manner than what I ever could have anticipated.

pray for immersewest

Trav will be in WA 6-17 July ... please pray with us:


Pix will join him from the 14th of July - we're looking forward to spending some time together with family, friends, and supporters in amongst some meetings:)

immersethailand - video#3

Last night we saw around 33 young people publicly choose to follow Jesus.  This video includes some footage of the events leading up to this moment, the moment itself, and some of the following day's events.

My hope as this is viewed is that you might add a prayer for one of these young people to your prayers for our team and family during my time in Thailand.

video #2 & new's story

"NEW'S" STORY
All I wanted to her to do was to help me know where the the story-teller was up to, but she kept reading me the entire English translation.  He told the story in Thai, and I needed to know his place so I could decide when to show the media that supported the story, and she kept reading the story in English.

Before long, the situation changed from me being frustrated that she wouldn't stop reading, to me being humbled by the sound of God's story through a quiet, unassuming, Thai voice.

Somehow, her telling of the story drowned out the cacophony of the Thai-speaking story-teller, and the quiet, broken-English version began to penetrate my soul.

He finished, and so did she.  Then, as the campers sat in silence reflecting on what they had heard, 'New' began telling me her own story.

"God's story is so good," she began, "last year was my first immerse camp, and I had never heard God's story before.  My life was sad at school, and my parents were divorced.  when I heard God's story, it made me happy, and I decided to follow Jesus.  God's story changed my life, and my family have noticed how I have changed - much more confident.  If I had not come to immerse camp, I would never have heard God's story. Thankyou for bringing Immerse."

I had no words as my eyes welled up with tears.

I've since learned that New is now a part of the Immerse team here in Thailand, and has brought many of her school friends to the Light Church.

3 days in ...

Here's a clip giving some footage of our first three days in Thailand.  Our activity includes some travel to Korat from Bangkok; a good Friday night service; training on Saturday for immerse camp; Sunday morning at the Light Church; and arrival at our site for immerse camp.

(http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hrWL8FnFEt0 )

If you're journeying with us in prayer, we'd love for you to keep the 170 students and leaders beginning immerse Monday morning.

a year for clarity...

Yesterday was a good day.  We were blessed to be able share with our home church a little of what we believe this year holds for us. Then in our evening service Trav got to interview a couple of our awesome team members: Mel Hamilton (from Sydney) and Rosie Fricker (from Perth).  He was pretty excited about having our church family hear a little bit about what God is doing through the YMA network in other parts of the country.

The day was topped off with a great turnout at Junktion for our vision supper - so many great conversations, and such an encouragement as we head into 2013. (See panoramic shot below)

There are two important questions we (YMA) are answering as we journey forward in clarity this year:

WHAT DO WE SEE? "We see a TRANSFORMATION MOVEMENT in every school community."

WHAT DO WE DO? "We will CHAMPION existing movement builders; be a CATALYST for spiritual transformation; and COACH emerging movement builders."

If you missed our vision day yesterday and want to know more, or how you can support the work of YMA further, drop us a line :)

NSW team...

Over the last few days I've spent some time with our Sydney team who held their retreat in preparation for working in 9 schools throughout NSW (with the possibility of adding a tenth school in the coming weeks).

I've come away extremely encouraged by the depth of expertise that our team brings to serving young people in schools. Our team leader carries with him over 15 years experience as a local school presence, and a strong DNA of love for students and awareness of how God might be working in the school community context.

I'm also excited by the responsibility YMA is taking up nationally to foster the vision conversation of seeing "a transformation movement in every school community."

The more I talk with others, the more I'm becoming convinced that we have a great opportunity to:
CHAMPION others who carry a similar vision
Be a CATALYST for transformation ourselves, and
COACH those who want to build this kind of movement.

2013 is a year marked for clarity for me, and after this trip I'm already beginning to see things a little more clearly.