Friday, December 16, 2011

Leaving on a jet plane!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year everyone!

I leave tomorrow (Sunday) for Morocco for 2 months! I am really excited about the plans God has for me there. Everyone on my team got there outreach funds in, so that is a huge praise! Each team-member and our leader ,Kent, has become my family in one way or another. The word (Whanau) in the picture above means "Family" in Maori.  The last couple of weeks during lecture phase I have learned a lot about the Holy Spirit and gifts the Holy Spirit gives to us. I want to take the gift of giving that I have to Morocco and share it with the people there. The first couple weeks we will be in a boy's home (orphanage) and then the rest of the time we will be talking with backpackers and other travellers about God and Jesus. It is a bit scary going to an all Muslim country and being conscious of their cultural habits. I trust that God will keep us safe in all situations and we can share the love He has for us, to them. Thank you for all your prayers and support over the last 2 and a half months and the continual 2 months. Here are some prayer requests we need during outreach:
-We would continue to have unity within our team and be able to communicate any worries with each other
-Safety over our travel time
-Protection from any sickness or health problems
-The people in Morocco would be open to us talking with them & we would be aware of their culture and respect that.

May you all have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year with friends and family.

~Amy

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Renewal

Hi all!
I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving with family and friends! Unfortunately, New Zealand does not celebrate Thanksgiving so I had a big bowl of cereal to remind myself of home :) This past week was crazy. I confirmed my baptism as child by being submerged in the Ashley Gorge. I had this whole new since of renewal when they pulled me up. I am starting over and I am ready to go wherever and whenever God wants me to. Don't get me wrong, I definitely believe that my baptism as a child was real, but I wanted to make a conscious decision for myself so I confirmed what had happened when I was a baby.

This week was also a sense of renewal in the fact that I learned how much stress has been apart of my life. As some of you know about 2 and a half years ago when I was in college I was dealing with a lot of stomach issues and when I got tested they said I had to eliminate gluten and dairy from my diet. So I did that and felt a little better but I haven't ever felt completely healed. At the beginning of this week my stomach/intestines hurt so bad that I knew something was wrong and I had to see a doctor cause food shouldn't cause this much pain. The doctor said that stress was the problem and that was what caused all my stomach issues in the first place I just never treated it correctly. I will always have stomach problems unless I get healed, which I believe can happen, but he said that stress is the root of it. So now I am being aware of how stressed I am and trying to eat smaller meals to help digest the food and to exercise more to relieve any stress. I trust that God has a plan for why all of this has happened and that I can help someone else who deals with the same problems.

I leave for my outreach on December 20 and we will spend 3 days or so in Spain and then go to Morocco from there. There are 5 students (Chris, Nate, Abby, Kathryn, and myself) and our leader (Kent) going. We have become like family and we are going to end up getting a lot closer in the 2 months that we will be there. I am hoping to still be able to send updates from Morocco to let you know what all we are doing there. So far I know for a couple weeks in the beginning we will be working at a boys home, which would be like an orphanage. We will spend 3 or 4 hours there for a couple weeks trying to communicate to them the love of Jesus we have by acting things out, music, art and whatever other creative ways we can think of. They speak Arabic, so I pray that if anything else we can just hang out with them and share our love with them.

I want to continue to thank you for supporting me in this experience and ask that you would continue to pray for me. Specifically, that I can learn how to handle my stress while getting ready to go on outreach and during outreach; that I wouldn't cause myself anymore sickness.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Faith Weekend

So this weekend starting Thursday at 2 and ending Sunday at 3, I did something called a "faith weekend". Basically it means depending on God to provide for the whole weekend. Each team was made of 3 people. I had Chris (who is from Texas and on my Morocco outreach team) and Marianne (who is from Norway and going to India for her outreach). Each person got 10 dollars for the whole weekend. We couldn't take any other money with us or food besides the lunch we had packed and we had to find our own housing accommodations. So the van from YWAM we were in had dropped us off west of Oxford but our original idea was to go south, so we actually ended up hitching a ride (which is much safer here in NZ than in the states) back into Oxford and we walked about 2.5 hrs to get close to a highway because no one was picking us up. Finally someone did that had seen us an hour ago and brought us to the highway and then from there we got another ride to Arthur's Pass which was west. So I think God wanted us to go west. We spent the night in a really cold chapel and woke up early the next morning and started our way to the west coast. We got a couple rides without too much of a wait in between. One of them was a huge RV with an older couple and they gave us tea and cookies. From there we ended up in a town called Hokitika. We stayed in a hostel for 2 nights for free in return for a couple hours of work on Saturday and he bought us lunch!

This morning (Sunday) we got a ride out of Hokitika to Arthur's Pass and then got a ride from Arthur's Pass back to Oxford by a really nice old couple that bought us lunch. We did survive on the 30 dollars for food and actually had some left over to give to people as they would give us a ride and we gave some to Jon (the hostel owner). It just meant a weekend of chips and lunch meat, peanut butter, rice cakes, ramen noodles and bananas. God definitely provided this weekend and there were times when I thought I was going to have a complete breakdown because no one was picking us up or because we weren't sure where we were going to sleep. I can go more into detail of the events of the weekend but I just wanted to let you know that I made it home safe and I am thankful that I have money and food so I don't have to live like that everyday. Thanks to those of you who prayed for Chris, Marianne and I.

~Amy

Monday, October 24, 2011

October Update!

I don't even know where to start because the last few weeks have been amazing! I can't believe I have been gone almost a month! I wish every month went this fast! I look forward to wake up every morning wondering how God is going to challenge me and what I will learn. One of the most valuable things I am learning here is how much God truly loves me! We hear all the time that Jesus loves us, but I never realized how much that is. The picture below is from a place we call the "lookout", which is about a 10 minute bike ride and walk up a hill that feels like a mountain. It looks out over Oxford, which as you can see has mostly fields. There is a strip of some stores but this is mainly what it looks like. I got to see the All Blacks, New Zealand Rugby, team win the Rugby World Cup on Sunday night!

I have had some really good lectures so far. The first one was on the Destiny and Calling that God has for our lives. I learned how God has probably called us at some point in our lives, but we just weren't listening. Also, that as we are called, only few are actually chosen. This past week we had a lecture on the Nature and Character of God. He focused on prayer and how it helps to have a planned devotional time. For me specifically I get too distracted to just open my Bible and figure out how God wants to apply it to my life.

Last weekend I had the honor of being apart of the YWAM "family gathering". Every year there is a group of New Zealand YWAM board members and people that have been involved in YWAM for awhile and they gather at one YWAM base and talk about the different ministry opportunities and how God is working in their lives. This year YWAM Oxford hosted it. We all helped make everyone feel welcome and I got a really good taste of the Maori culture. When you welcome or say goodbye to them you touch noses. It was quite interesting considering I hadn't met any of them before. They are very passionate and wonderful people. We were able to sing a song to them in Maori when we welcomed them.

I have also had some really good outreach opportunities. The full weekend I was here, we split up into group and we to the mall in Christchurch for a "people treasure hunt" to listen for God's voice. Basically, before we left we prayed and asked God if there were any characteristics, colors, places that He put in our heads and we would write out. I had a thought about a scarf and so did another girl in my group. Another person had someone wearing red and a picture of a green plant and also the word life. So we actually found a store in the mall that was called Pharmacy Life or something like that with a logo of a green plant. So we went in and actually found at the back of the store a rack of scarfs. Then the manager wearing red asked us if we needed any help. We were in shock by this time and took a couple minutes to process what we should say. We decided that we would go up to her and say that on our treasure hunt we are to buy someone a cup of coffee, she said that she was leaving soon and didn't have time after to talk. So we asked if there was anything we could pray for her. She responded that we should keep Christchurch in our prayers, for the families that have lost loved ones in the earthquakes. Below is a picture of one of the churches that had severe damage from the earthquakes.


The second outreach opportunity I had was in Christchurch last week Friday at a Food Distribution Center with some of the "family". We took grocery items out of boxes and put them on shelves and then went around with a big cardboard box and would put all the different items in one box for people. Even though it was simple, it was really cool just to be able to help them out. The third outreach opportunity I had was this past Friday, I went with about 8 other people to the retirement (nursing) home down the road from our base. We brought a guitar and someone played the piano and we sang hymns to them. I didn't get a chance to talk with many of the residents there because they were hard of hearing, had a hard time talking, or they were sleeping. But I know they enjoyed having us because they all had smiles on their faces when we left.

I could keep writing story after story but that will have to wait until I get home. We did get our outreach options this past week: Morocco, India, Thailand, New Zealand, or Laos. I would be happy wherever the staff leaders feel God wants me to go. Please continue to pray with me that they will make the right decision and the financial funds will continue to come in for those of us who don't have our outreach funds yet. I have realized how prayer is such a powerful act and I do it now without even thinking about it. I have so much more to learn and I am very thankful for all your financial and spiritual support.

God Bless & Thank You!
~Amy

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

First week of "Kiwi" life!

Hi all!

I made it to New Zealand and let me just say...its AMAZING! I cannot stop smiling. The people at YWAM here are awesome and everyone is super friendly and happy!

My flights here went well! I met a couple girls that were going to YWAM here also in the LAX airport so we stuck together and made it through customs and got our luggage transferred safely. I didn't expect to meet anyone there, but it was great knowing that we had someone that would stick with us if something did happen. I got here on Friday afternoon around 11 and we waited a little longer for another YWAMer to come and then we got back to base around 12:30. I am living in a house with 19 other girls with two bathrooms. My room only has 3 of us in it and my two roommates are from Minnesota and Austria. There are quite a few nationalities here and its intriguing to see how they have grown up in an entirely different country.

My daily schedule keeps me very busy. Usually from 7-7:20 we have breakfast, then we have our quiet time with God (devotions, prayer, reading the Bible, etc.), after that most people have a morning work duty. My work duty is to help prepare dinner. So I got lucky there! The food is amazing and they always have gluten and dairy free food. After that, depending on the day we will have worship or intercession time. Also in the morning we have something called "morning tea", which is a snack break. We have speakers/lectures in the morning an afternoon. So far we have had staff speakers this week, but starting next week we will have one speaker for the whole week. I am just getting used to the daily swing of things and seeing how it all works. So far, I am loving it and the 24 hours of travel time was worth it!

I am sorry I haven't had time to take pictures yet, but when I do I will get them on here or my facebook. Please continue to pray that the funds for my outreach time will come in. I am so excited about everything that I have learned so far and I can't wait to go out and see who God wants us to talk to!

Blessings,
Amy

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Time Change

There is going to be a 16 hour time change from Michigan to New Zealand. I thought it might be helpful for those who read/look at my blog to know what time it is where I am. So it is posted to the right of my page. As I get ready to leave in 8 days, I think about the fact that I will be gone for 6 months at the most and it seems like a long time now, but it is really quite small when you think of how long you live. But all it takes is an amazing learning experience about God and yourself to change your life forever. So not only am I having a change of time in the world, but also in life. I am looking forward to what God is going to throw me into next after New Zealand, even where He calls me in my time of outreach with Youth with a Mission. This is a change in my life for the good but I still have no idea what I might encounter. I pray that my teammates and I can reach out to the people that God intended for us to talk to. Also, that we may change their lives for the good to. Please remember me and my teammates in your prayers, that the people we encounter will have open hearts and minds to listen to us.

I will try my best to write on my blog and show pictures when I get free time to keep you updated on what is happening in my life and New Zealand. Feel free to shoot me an email (abronsink@gmail.com) saying hi or even send a letter or card to the address below. It made my day getting letters, cards and packages in the mail when I was in Colorado last winter.
Amy Bronsink
YWAM Oxford
PO Box 47
Oxford, North Canterbury 7443
New Zealand

Thursday, August 18, 2011

August Update

In a little over a month I will be on my way to New Zealand with Youth with a Mission! Here are my top 5 things that I am most excited about.
  1. Showing the love of God to the people in New Zealand!
  2. How God is going to challenge me in my faith through everyday life.
  3. What I am going to learn about God and myself during this time.
  4. The people I am going to meet and the friendships I will make.
  5. Embracing the culture of New Zealand and other countries I might end up in.

 As excited as I am about this experience; I still need spiritual/financial support to go to New Zealand. I can use prayer that the people my teammates and I meet in New Zealand will have open hearts and minds about God. If you feel lead to help me financially you can send a tax deductible check to Middleville Christian Reformed Church, 708 East Main Street, Middleville, MI 49333. All you need to do is write YWAM in the memo line and they will know that it is for me and send it to YWAM New Zealand. If you are interested in more of what Youth with a Mission is and what I will be doing, you can go to this link http://www.ywamoxford.org/. I am doing the BDTS (Backpackers Discipleship Training School).

I am going to try an update my blog as much as I can and show pictures. However, I will not be bringing my laptop with me because it is staying working right now because I have rubber bands holding the battery cord in it. But there are computers on the Youth with a Mission base in New Zealand so I will try my best to post a couple times a month. If you would like to correspond with just me, just send me an email at abronsink@gmail.com and I will get back to you as soon as I can. On my blog post you can select an option to "follow by email" meaning each time I post anything you will get an email saying that I posted something!

Have a great day!
~Amy

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Getting more out of life

After coming back from working in Colorado at Keystone in their Ski and Ride School department I realized that I needed more out of life. I asked myself what I would change and decided I wanted to see more of the world. I didn't want to travel by myself so I decided to apply for YWAM (Youth with a Mission) in New Zealand to show the love of God to the people there. If I can show one person that God is a part of the small stuff in our lives just as much as the big parts it will be worth it. When I was in Colorado I had the opportunity to ski for free, so I did that on my days off. While skiing I would look out and see what God has created and wondered what else is out there that I am missing out on. I have always been fascinated by Australia and New Zealand and their culture.

I got accepted into the YWAM program in New Zealand and will be leaving at the end of September for 5 months. There are 2 phases to a YWAM program, the first part is Discipleship Training School (DTS), meaning I will spend the first 3 months learning more about God and how to communicate to non-belivers. This specific YWAM DTS program is a backpacking one. Meaning I will be able to see other parts of New Zealand on the weekend when I am not in school. The second phase is an 2-3 month outreach puting into practice what I learned in the last 3 months and I can do that right in New Zealand or Internationally. I haven't decided yet what to do or where I should do that. I am nervous but excited to see what challenges I come upon. I never thought that I would be a "blogger" but I figured it would be easier to keep up with me and my adventures through here. Hope you are having an amazing summer!