Hello all...another weekend...it's crazy how fast these days go by! On saturday my DTS went on an all-day canoeing trip down moore river which is a good hour north of Perth. It was fun!...more than i thought it was going to be at the beginning of the day when i woke up to clouds and rain...!! :S but it turned out to be a beautiful day and fairly entertaining...a couple of my friends flipped their canoe-that was amusing... :D we paddled about 12 km downriver to where the river meets the ocean and on the way there are some huge sand dunes so we stopped and had some fun there for a while...rolling down and sliding down on cardboard. luckily no one got hurt but there were a couple of head-over-heels flips including one from me! ha! i'm sure i'll be feeling it tomorrow... :S :).

So lectures this week were by Shirley Brownhill, our base director, about relationships. I really liked this week's lectures--although she didn't have many specific teaching points, there was so much good information i got from the week. She talked a lot about the relationship between us and God, but also really emphasized our relationship with other humans in relation to God and how He sees relationships. A few points that really stood out to me this week are as follows...

1. The quote, "Out of the mouth, the heart speaks." --This is so key because we can't use the excuse "i don't know where that came from" or "that comment just slipped out". Whatever is coming out of our mouths is somewhere in our hearts and if it's not from Philippians 4:8, we have some things to work on. Any sin in our hearts is a relationship breaker which is exactly what satan is trying to do--ruin relationships. Very convicting...

2. If we are in situations with difficult people, God is trying to teach us something. This is almost encouraging because it proves that difficult people aren't put in our lives just to push our buttons and test our patience!! :D but it shows that God actually wants us to grow and learn something valuable from the person or the situation...so ask Him what it is! If we become best friends with the person, then we've succeeded!! ha! :)

3. "Spiritual maturiy is not how long you've been a Christian, it's what you do with the truth and how well you actually know Him." I could be a Christian my whole life but not actually ever be mature in my faith. Kind of a scary thought... but what a challenge, huh?!? Which leads me to the last thing...

4. God has personally convicted me this week of not being in the Word enough. That's our lifeline--our key to knowing God, and i have neglected it. The Bible is one of the major ways that we mature in our faith and without it, there's so much more room for satan to maneuver. So my goal for the rest of this year is to read the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs. Very doable...now i just need to do it! ...it's all up to me... : )

So that's all for this week...i'm still working on outreach funding--lots of prayer! :D

Love and blessings,
Rachel