Saturday, December 30, 2006

4 Days

Irritating....


I made a big nice post that had photo's and cool stuff, but the blog site wouldn't let me post it, said i hadn't filled in a neccessary component or something.... and thus, no pictures or blog..



BUT!! I wrote this for everyone!

On the 4th, I leave for Vanuatu, the flight keeps getting changed so it's closer... and closer...
But it's the 4th, so if any of you have any vital and crutial messages you need to get to me... the 4th is potentially the last time i'm near a computer for the next 7 weeks. (mabye once or twice in vanuatu, but i doubt it)

The last week or so has been really good, but busy as well, getting ready for hte SOS, and for outreach. Lots of Goodbyes as other teams head off across the world (Literally) on outreach, and changing atmosphere around the base as they get ready for the next quarter (of the year) with the new schools and DTS's coming up. (For more information visit www.ywamperth.org.au ) ACTUALLY, on that note, I updated that site! haha cool, you'll have to search around it to see hwat i've updated (because thast more fun) but hints are that it has a link on the main page) but it can still be found in other places.

So it's New years eve for me tongiht, it's currently noon of the 31rst, and tongiht i'll be going to a new years party at this coffee shop that is in the city, (it runs together with the base). So that will be cool. hmm....
(I'm still listening to SAOSIN constantly, and I have some other people hooked on it now, especially the song "Your not alone")

so... mhmm, the days are running out before we head for Vanuatu, And I am pumped

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Merry Christmas

Thank you everyone for your E-mails, and thank you so much Gormans for the card deck! That was a really pleasant suprise.


Everything here is going very well, The atmosphere is beginning to get a bit strange as people, not just any people, some of the closest friends I've ever had, are leaving off to the other side of the country, so naturally it feels strange not having them around haha and they've only been gone for a day. SO despite the excitment of people leaving off to the ends of the Earth, everything is still amazing, and Christmas in Australia is one of my new favorites.

Thank you to everyone who sent me Christmas Greetings and wishes, and I hope to continue to hear about all of you and your adventures (or misadventures) back home.


God Bless, and Merry Christmas

- Jonathan Arkle
(Ready to speak at Peter Brownhill's Honouring Night, to either side of me are someone representing the kids who grew up on base, and then behind me was someone who had been with the base since almost the beginning)

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Bird on his Head

Okay!

Currently listening to the new Saosin... woah! HAHA WOAH!

Love it.


Anyways, I digress....

So the past week or so has been busy busy for me, i've been working on "Be Visionary 2" the highly anticipated sequel of the indie film "Be Visionary". I'd put up the trailer i made, but i'm on the wrong computer (Mac, vs Windows)


Does this CD get bad? ever?

So.... last sunday was YWAM Perth's 21rst birthday celebration. That was pretty cool, haha they had a bush dancing band come in, amazing! you'd think lame... but oh ho ho ho, it was not my dear. Fun stuff. But the excitement does not end there, we had our "Commisioning Night" on Tuesday, which essentially like a "Grad thing" for the school's going on outreach, it's a ceremony where they symbolically send us off ready for outreach. We are still in our last week of teachings (Evangelism this week), but it was still really cool (It was during this ceremony that Jon and I showed our movie trailer).

THEN! Tonight is a suprise honourary night for the Base's Founder, Peter Brownhill, and i've been asked to speak! I'm the only person in my class... and boy do I feel honoured. This man is amazing, he is such an inspiration, the things God has done to the world through this man is incredible. So i'm really excited for that, basically get to honour him in front of everyone, i'd love to. (for those deicated readers, he's the one who sings backstreet boys at the end of "Be Visionary", the last line, the climax etc).

SO!!! The days are counting down till Vanuatu...and boy am I excited, it's kind of sad on one hand that i'm splitting up with half of my friends as they go to literally the other side of the world on their trips, but we'll be all back together in Perth on Feb 17th. Vanuatu is going to be amazing, i'm so excited. Actually, cool story

On the first week of DTS, we had to pick up books from the base bookstore to read/ do reports on. The first one we all had to pick up is written by YWAM's founder Loren Cunningham. The book is called "Is that really you, God?" Really good book, tells about the vision of YWAM and it's 'birth'. The second book I chose was one called "Discipling Nations" which so far is so good.. haha i read half then wrote the report and didn't finish it (I got distracted). But the book is still fascinating. Then for the third book (which was true missionary stories) I wanted to get this one they had called "End of the Spear" (some of you may be familiar with that story), BUT it apparently wasn't on the DTS list... so quite dissapointed I picked up whatever one had a cover that appealed to me haha I judged it by it's cover.

So I chose one called "The man with the Bird on his head". Excellent.

It looked funny, I liked the title, so I grabbed it, took it back to 228 where I put it on my shelf... and forgot about it. I didn't pick it up until two weeks ago... long after I had been on the Fiji team, then it turned into Vanuatu, etcetc. NOW, I grab my book, open up the first page, adn there is the title...written again... i never really understood why books need to repeat the title... everyone already read it on the colourful pretty cover... why write it again on the first/2nd page? "oh, just in case you missed the bold print on the FRONT" ...anyways...
The book's Nation that the missionary was in...was vanuatu! haha and his name is John Russ, the story is about the tribe there has worships a "John Frum (America)", and they naturally think he is their saviour/messiah of sorts because he's John from America. hahah thats where I"m going!! Vanuatu! Pretty cool, I was impressed.
Halleluja Glory


Right... what else is interesting...


Pictures? I'll get to that later, i'll edit this on another laptop... mabye when i'm editing BV2.


Oh, for those of you who didn't know, My Ipod went fubar on me a few weeks ago.... corrupt file or something and i had to reformat it to get it to work again... as a result lost all my music, so thank you again so much for those of you who sent me that CD, haha it means alot. Then People here have been gracious enough to let me borrow music from them via. Itunes on their computer. I think I'm going to start buying my music off of Itunes when I get home, it's amazingly convienient! (The Saosin was bought off Itunes....8 bucks for 13 tracks and the entire booklet plus some? sounds like a deal to me)


But! I should wrap this up so I can get to some filming of BV2. I'll write again sooner, hte internet is working again. (It's been as bad as dial up fo rhte last week, and thus.... not possible to edit, or skype, or anything) But now it's good, so you can hear about my exciting exploits


Love you all
I'll be praying

-Jon

Haha!! I just realised the title I gave this post is very similar to a Saosin song.... which is awsome, becuase i talked about them both! The book and the song

Bird on his Head
Bury your Head

Friday, December 15, 2006

Skype Dates

Currently talking to Mike and Amanda on our Skype chat date


SO COOL! LIVE WEBCAM!




My small group

Chucky and I

....

More Beach. Epic Pose
Pictures!


Internet is working...ish....

Better blog with better internet

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Draft 2?

More life updates




Yesterday went to the beach, went surfing (no real waves, really windy so all chop), and then went to James Bond in the evening.


Here are just some video's and photo's of life here on base/ when we do things...who we are.







Proverbs 16:6 "Through the Fear of the Lord a man avoids evil"


This week we have been learning about the Fear of the Lord. I had lots of my notes written out and hten for some reason they got deleted, so this is my second attempt to write out some of the key points for those of you who have been asking.

The Fear of the Lord is not to be afraid of God. God does not want you to be afraid of him, it is not a horror story fear, and it is not a fear like "oh no, i don't want him to get mad at me get me in trouble" ...

The Fear of the Lord is the Hatred of Evil

Sin is rebellion against God. and if God is all good, then Sin holds no good.

The heart of Sin is selfishness, it's about living for yourself and your own personal pleasure. You can know that your not supposed to sin, but that doesn't mean that you obey what is right.

James 4: Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

Now many may ask why would God discipline his children if he loves them so much? Why would he stop them from getting what they like? If a regular father doesn't discipline his children what do they become? rebellious little punks. It is for your own good, whether or not at the moment you feel like it is.

Essentially the Christian goal is to be like Jesus was and is written in the bible. It's not Rocket science, just be like Jesus, and represent him to all those who know meet you.


If our fear of sin is due to our fear of our own well being, then you will still fall short. Fear of sin should be becuase of reverance for God. Recognition that sin is acting out against him.


Do not be Overcome by Evil
But overcome Evil with Good.
Romans 12: 21

There is a quick short overview of some tidbits of my notes... many pages of notes...

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Be Visionary

There was a Video i think i talked about earlier... I think i may have only talked about it in a few e-mails...
Anyways, this is it. It had people laughing pretty hard, probably mostly becuase of the familiarity they have with everything, but feel free to enjoy it yourselves. (Special regards to Danny and Nathan for helping out immensly with sending me songs).

The video was a presentation to show one of YWAM's fundamental values. We chose "Be Visionary" and threw this little thing together. It didn't have to be a video, but we thought it would be good to be original. I enjoyed making it, I hope you find it funny in some ways...

Starring Jon Arkle, Jon Neufield, James Nicholson...and many more.

JORDAN CLARKE, IF YOU READ THIS BLOG, TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!




Yes that was a phone book...

There are many people in that video.... but for you guys to understand the "Ending" of the last song was the Base leader/Founder Peter Brownhill.


There is a sequel coming too.... this one isn't for a project though... and there are more involved... including ninjas.

Tommorow comes a week update on my classes. SO be prepared.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

CHANGE OF PLANS

CHANGE OF PLANS FOLKS



SO, as some of you may have known, Fiji was on the verge of a military coup, and who could have guessed.... it happened. SO due to danger etc, the Fiji location has been changed to a new nation. Vanuatu.


That name may sound familiar to you becuase there was a "Survivor" season "there", however for those of you who do not know where it is, it is just West of Fiji, a smaller island kingdom. We don't know any details more than that because our leader has been off for the last few days meeting his fionce's parents and such, so he's been unable to tell us anything, and we only found out yesterday.

SO yea....... thats about that.

Thank you for those of you who are still reading the blog! Much Appretiated.


A few of us here have really gotten into a TV show that some people have downloaded on iTunes called "Heroes". If any of you are interested.... check it out!! It is so good, we are addicted, it keeps you hooked. A few people have tried to quit watching it.... but we can't, it pulls you in. It's no "Lost" apparently, but it is good nonetheless.


I went to that Pool today, it was amazing, I wish i had never stopped swimming, i was on a high for the rest of hte day becuase i enjoyed being back into it. I'll have to go again SOON. Also, a few weeks ago the Sports DTS had this Olympic coach.. ish someone come in. Someone who is really tight with alot of the atheletes, and he told them that Ian Thorp "Thorpedo" is apparently "SO CLOSE" to understanding Jesus... so he told them to pray for him.

This weeks speaker is this guy Will from Northern Ireland. Really good, he's not nearly as charismatic as our previous speakers but he has alot of a different approach. Honestly,. I can't get over how amazing this course is and how glad I am I came here. The people I've met I feel like I've known my entire life like... the best relationships you could ever imagine, the things I've learned and experienced... wow, hte course itself makes Australia like a sidenote haha but even that is obviously amazing. For real everyone... Im not going to stop reccommending this to EVERYONE. Yes that means you Mike, Amanda, Danny, Michelle, Casey, and everyone else reading this blog. This course has just been a constant...awsomeness?

www.ywamperth.com.au

ALSO, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR E-MAILS, i print them off and read them over and over and over, and I really do mean to write back to all of you. Some of you we have been having pretty constant "E-mail conversations", those have been nice don't let those stop!



BUT, I'm going to get to bed early, I think i'm running out of sleep.

Pray Dangerous Prayers

- Jonathan

(woah... my full name? wierd... i decided to try it.. just once, we'll see)

Saturday, December 02, 2006

TextEditEnter

ARGHHH


I had this post all typed up, and then i LOST it.


I wrote about having 1 less laptop access becuase I helped prank the person who lends one of them to me (but not the one i like to use..heh, phew). Anyways, looks like he didn't appretiate the prank, and although i wasn't even the one who got him bad, i got punished, sigh

the worst part is that for hte last few weeks i had been working on this video which i FINALLY finished and presented on firday. It had the class in tears of laughter. It was amazing how much they loved it. Anyways... its' on the laptop.. and they guy says he MIGHT give it to me.... gr.

Walked 15K today for our walkathon. I dind't get any pledges out becasue....becuase. AND thats about it that i can think of

I was tryign to post pictures, but i'm goign to wait until the owner is here because he can tell me how to do it properly, so they arn't sideways.





okay... now to figure out hte sideways sotuation





Guess not, enjoy your neck cramps


Listening to Saosin... My taste in music has been so fine tuned and i love it. I'm really deciding which bands I actually do like, and it's really cool. Was listening to Lost Prophets earlier Danny.


NOONE HAS ADDED ME ON ON SKYPE!! CMON!!! IF You DO Then WE CAN TALK! ON THE PHONE! CMONNNNNNN, SO MUCH BETTER THAN MSN< CMOONNN


Skype: Jonarkle


I can't really think of what else to write. This week was amazing speakerwise, like.... imagine going to a school where you listen to only people who are so filled with wisdom you wish you could ask them EVERY question about life and they could probably answer. Like.... this guy had such incredible stories of when he's talked to some of the most powerful leaders in south america, and so many more... like.... wow, the live's some of these people have had are incredible, it's amazing just to hear their stories let alone their teaching.

(How's that sound?.... Good? Talk to me about YWAM)

Anywyas, i'm off for now, i'll update again soon, VERY soon this time I guarantee.