Just Super

So today I had off, not on my own accord however. You see the situation was that on Wed. I get a talking to from my boss saying that the higher ups have commanded me that I can't work on Friday as well as the Saturday graveyard shift because there is not enough time in between the two shifts and it is close to double time which they don't want to pay etc etc.
ANYWAYS, as it would happen I don't come in to work on Friday because i needed to work the Graveyard shift, but I get a call saying they figured it out and there IS enough time in between shifts just as long as I NEVER EVER STAY OVERTIME ON FRIDAY.
So, as thankful as I am that they figured it out and I can keep my convenient Monday Tuesday weekend, I kind of wish I could have gone into work today (found out earlier), especially after seeing the pay stub that I got the other day. Huzzah for work!

I enjoy my job.


I've realised how random my music listening habits actually are.... I'll go from listening to
some amazing music such as Iron and Wine or "I can make a mess like nobody's business" (*Vanessa I think you would love the latter of those two) I"ll then switch to something such as In Flames (which is what's currently playing) or As I Lay Dying, which is arguably heavier. Random. I'm glad I'm able to appretiate it both... I've even founded a soft spot for folk! haha This guy Greg Graffin is the lead singer for one of my favorite all time bands called "Bad Religion". They are an old school California punk band who have been around forever. This guy is in his 40's or so and still making music with both Bad Religion and this solo project of his which is surprisingly... folk music. I'd reccomend anyone reading this who knows how to preview music on the iTunes Store to check him out, especially the song "Don't be Afraid to Run".

What else is remotely interesting for now...

OH! My sister borrowed a game boy from her friend and he's got some game which has no label and has obviously been bought from some illegal source, China? (haha China is illegal, I need to learn how to write better) who knows. Because it's got like... 10 games on one! Full games too. Now usually this wouldn't fascinate me too much because I'm fairly selective when it comes to video games that I like, but this one had Ninja Turtles games, including the old school Arcade one which i remember my Cousin having for the original NES. Which excited me quite a bit.
So I played that a bit, tried to save April from the Foot in this burning building and this Rhino guy with a gun. But after that the Shredder came out of nowhere! Grabbed April and jumped through a window into the second level... but by that point I had lost interest because I think I had already made my point that Donatello was a better Ninja than the hordes of "the foot", and I turned off the game boy.

Pirates 3

... *cough

**** I AM giving away and tearing apart the movie.... so don't read if you haven't seen it.


So I saw Pirates 3 as well....and to be honest...

The lamest parts of the movie were the ones revolving around the pirates... which was disappointing (seeing as the entire movie revolves around pirates), but especially the Pirate Lords. What was up with that? We have one pirate that looks like memoirs of a geisha, another one that looks like whatshismask from V for Vendetta, and then finally.... one that was a freaking knight who says Ni!

Keith Richards was the most awkwardly placed characters of the movie, who offered nothing new other than giving Sparrow a father (which took away from his "epic" nature, and also! What was with the whole split personality thing? They focused less on his quirky nature that people loved from the previous movies and now they just give him random.... others?)
"Instead of writing clever lines for him.... lets just make him every character that he ever needs to talk to!"


Aside from parts of the movie that made me laugh (at) There were some other parts that butchered some of my favorite parts of the last two movies. Particularly Davy Jones. He was my favorite ever since the first scene when you saw the Flying Dutchcman shoot out of the water in the second movie.... as he ominously walks up the deck and offers his spooky ultimatum. "Do you fear Death?...." Anyways, not only did this movie take any any prestige that this "master of the sea" carried in the second movie (by making him the East India Trading companies pet, thus proving him to be in fact the weakest of all the pirates? But we're still supposed to fear him? All because Mr. 4'6" gets all freaky deaky about shooting the heart and blah blah blah), but they also made a butchering of his awesome "do you fear death" speech from the second movie. In this one, anytime ANYONE is at gunpoint or at the end of a blade.... heck, even if someone was maybe a bit sad in this movie he would pop out his "Do you fear *sucking sound* death?"

(speaking of 4'6", did anyone else notice that he had the most epic death of any character from all 3 movies?? Even Sparrow being eaten by the Kraken wasn't as Epic as his slow motion 300 esque walk through the exploding ship, then his body landing in the floating flag with the silhouette of his crushed empire behind him? Yikes, I didn't realize he was THAT 'big' of a character, heh

On the note of Davey Jones... I don't think I even have to mention ANYTHING about the 80 foot Calypso that reminded me (personally) of a Gulliver's travels movie I saw in the 90's.

There were two redeeming factors for the movie for me however, one was Barbossa, who is by far my favorite Pirate. He does things right. The other was the fact that the ending had a very Empire Strikes back feeling to it in some parts for me because.... look at it this way:
The entire movie series has (as much as we might like to think it's Depp) revolved entirely around Will Turner and Elizabeth whatserface. Now their entire story has been a tragedy throughout! First she gets kidnapped, then she leaves him then goes for sparrow etc etc. Anyways by the end... He's doomed to fulfill his duty for eternity... heartless, and she can only see him once every 10 years! PWNED! What a downer for the both of them eh? I loved it, there was no corny happy ending to it, in a sense they 'got what they wanted' but it came with a harsh twist, which I thought was amazing. (Unfortunately, the movie had them turning on each other so many times, whether real or not, you kind of forgot that they actually loved each other).
The other ending quality that i loved was the fact that everyone went back to square one in the beginning. Jack doesn't have the Pearl, Barbossa is off with his crew to try to find some immortalizing treasure, (hmm... how will that end?), that old sideburns pirate is back in Tortuga with those two slapping... escorts? Square one, as the last thing we see of Sparrow is him in his little dingy boat. Everyone is where we love them to be at... (except the aforementioned lovers who are doomed to the eternity of love/despair that we saw in Davey Jones and Calypso).


Anyways, I liked the length to be honest... nowadays it's hard to watch a movie thats less than 3 hours long and consider it substantial. All because of Lord of the Rings eh?

I guess it's... just good business

Pirates

So in the last few days I've been randomly visiting old friends and it's been amazing! haha it suprises people when you randomly show up at their front door, and I got pumped on it, visited Foster and Rob the other day with Robin, then Mick yesterday and thats where I'll lead into my next topic

So at Mick's, we watched this new reality show called "Pirate Master" and there was this guy John on it who was a "Scientist.... / exotic dancer" which was pretty much an amazing career combination. The best part was the fact that he was just "Scientist", not a particular chemist or biologist.... just Scientist. Amazing.

Working Graveyard tonight, which will be the third week in a row.. and I've been unofficially put on that shift. I enjoy it though, lots of time to think, especially when I'm alone working somewhere, it's dark, I get into a zone where I just work and think... whats strange is lately when i get into that zone I think about musicals... constantly, particularly 'The Producers', but I've had the odd 'sound of music', and then randomly 'Animaniacs', which wasn't a musical but was musical at times.... eh?

Still haven't seen that new Pirates movie, I'd like to though, I've heard mixed reviews from friends.... and I'm not going to fall victim to the commercial slew of rants about how it's the BEST MOVIE OF THE SUMMER HAERADLKASJ, I'll decide that myself... and probably be critical of it... because I can.

I'm going to update in this more often, I didn't really have much to say, but I realised that I lost my blogger address when I cleared my Internet history to try to get rid of a glitch, so I came back and decided.... I'll write, I don't know about what... but I'll write
.
(this glitch by the way is horrible, on half hte sites I try to go to it shows a blank page with this

MANNN!! THE DREADED CODE WON"T EVEN LET ME PASTE IT INTO THE BLOG, when I do it quotes my "headline" and then ends the post... when you can clearly see there is more below.

see?


HORRIBLE!!! GO AWAY!

But whats worse!! Is that it also causes Youtube, myspace etc to not play any sound.... so when I'm on the internet there is no music... so I have no use for it. Why listen to itunes, I have music OFF computer. Anyways, this could be a blessing in disguise to free me from the clutches of the PC, but I'm giving it some time to see.

Yep.

Weak

So, the last few nights have been interesting... actually the last few days have been random in many sense. Of course true to my nature I've forgotten a lot of what would have happened, but what is fresh in my mind right now is that this morning i wake up to realize that i stepped on my phone sometime the night before! Which is needless to say disappointing because in the last two days I had been quite proudly admitting to people (when they started flashing their fancy new mp3 camera phones with.... built in TV's? i don't know, nice new ones) that my phone was still old free bee from a time gone by when i first got a cell phone plan, and it was old, beat up, but still a tank.

I guess you can't step on tanks.

Anyways, so that'll be my main objective for today, which will be to go and find a new phone. I think I'll betray my inner convictions on this one and get a nice new one too, like those razers.

Anyways! What else is fresh on my memory.

Nothing else! Other than some movies I've watched lately, but those aren't interesting to talk about on Blogs.
I work Graveyard shift next weekend, OH! and also next weekend is this Christian conference thing I'm going to, called "Avalanche", and Jason Upton is speaking! haha sweet eh? So, I'm hoping I don't work on that day.

Thats it for now I think.

Callings?

Yikes... today I had a crazy Stress out attack, not insane... but i started to get these horrible anxieties about the future... Can people really hear their calling? Of course... Did I hear my calling? Well... I was so sure, but now I'm terrified.
God please... help me with that? comfort me? Speak to me more? haha some MORE conformation? mabye? Please show me that I'm not insane.

What should I do to figure this out? To find the direction?
What should my first step be?


Anyways, Rise against is good, listening to that right now. Man, I really don't have enough in my mind to write about right now... let alone people reading the blog haha, oh well.

"Why being really lonely is sometimes super awesome"

It figures eh? I've been back for about 3 weeks now and when it comes to updating the blog (or journal for that matter... yikes, I haven't touched that since NZ, so much for my everyday streak)
I have no idea what to say, or to write about.

Since I've been back I've been hanging out a lot with people such as Danny and Krystal a few times, not doing too much. I've been reading I guess... but mostly catching up with people. I went to a show the other week? haha which was awesome, man... news isn't exciting unless it's fresh.... so! Today,

Hmm... Today was a fun little experience, went to a casting call for extras in a CBC movie about the CPR... it's a romance with Sam Neil (Jurassic Park) hahah, anyways, I don't really expect too much from it, 18 year olds with Hippity hoppity hippie hair don't exactly carry the same look as the... nice? old men with crazy beards and full our costumes. Anyways, fun experience, BUT while I was there this guy talked to me and told me he was filming an Indie film and would like me to Audition apparently I had the "look" (Thank you Hippie hair!) So we'll see how that unfolds, but nonetheless it was cool.

Then ran into Alex Bird in the mall while I was looking for shoes that aren't quite
as... well used? as the ones i have now... anyways, this is boring, chilled there then ended my day after stuff. Done, and done.

Oh, the name of the blog is from a scrubs episode, I downlaoded it and was watching it as I wrote this, and lost all creativity for thinking of a name "If I wanted to be any more depressed i'd read newbies latest blog entry" "Why Being lonely is sometimes super awesome" heh...

I like scrubs, been watching that, and Heroes... yes Heroes.


Yikes, was this lame, BUT I needed to update.

Stay in the Game.

There and back again

Well,

I'm back in Westbank now.


Thank you to everyone who read my blog during my time away, It means so much, and every time I hear from one of you who was reading the blog when I didn't know? Puts me on cloud 9, much appretiated.

Now to get rolling here in Canada.




What an Adventure this has been eh?


(End of Chapter 1, Chapter 2 "Canada"" begins shortly)

In New Zealand now.. haha

Well, Now i'm in Wellington

Before that I was in Sydney, but thats another story, I had a great time there as well, staying with family there was awsome. Really cool to meet people who are blood.. on the other side of the world!

Anyways, My flight to NZ was with Virgin Blue, with a layover in Melbourne..... BUT that flight got cancelled and all the people who were continuing on to Wellington got moved to Quantas! Which is a bonus because Virgin Blue is a cheap flight with no meals or movies etc, but Quantas is much nicer with food and drinks and etc. SO, I got a bonus there, which was really sweet.

It's really funny to me, every airport official asks "do you have a place to stay in NZ?" "No.." then they give me this "oh boy" look, haha, that aside I also only have one bag that is smaller than the one that i would use for school haha, this Yellow Backpack. Woo!

Got in at midnight, stayed in a hostel for the night, and then today I got lost and walked aimlessly through the outskirts of wellington... haha, THEN I missed the ferry that I wanted to get to Picton
(This is a very point form entry, I want to be sure I don't spend too much time on this and miss the next ferry) It all works out, even better in some aspects becuase I just got to see the Embassy theater (since missing it), thats the theater where they had the Premiers of the Lord of the Rings movies, so that was cool. Only downside is it'll be 9:00 pm coming IN to Picton, so I won't be able to see the landscape... win some, lose some. I don't know where I'm going to sleep though....

Actually... in Sydney I had mishaps similar to this come to think, I caught the wrong train home, so I wasn't able to get back in time to see my Sydney relatives (Rob and Ros) as they left for the Easter Weekend... I was trainhopping and station waiting for 3 hours... haha.
OH! But, Rob did give me Kangaroo steak! SO i made that for myself when I got home that night, and it made the night really fun, Kangaroo and "Lost survivors guide" was on TV.
Oh, I also watched "The Passion" on Good Friday, wow... I don't remember it being like that... I've never been so hit by a movie.

Team Tech

So this last little while has definatly been a transition. I have been on the tech team, setting up and tearing down stages for the past week? and it's going awsome. I've made good friends with the guys on the team, and we get along really well. I'm still living at the base foer the time being however, but that works out all for hte better because travelling for me is easier that way. Tonight I will be beggining to set up the skate ramps for the Gen X team that does all the skating, in-line-skating, BMXing (one of the guys is an ex world champion apparently), and lots of awsome dancing (break dancing is even cooler than I thought before)

Anyways, last night was Chuck's performance again and I have definatly decided that it's my favorite in the show. haha it was really funny actually, his little grass skirt at one point, during the New Zealand Haka called "The Crucifiction", his grass skirt thing started to fall off... it didn't completly, but in some of the turns haha it was funny. Two fire knive dancers last night, and one of the them had two sticks, man.... SO impressive. Best show of IWT for me, my favorite by far. But they are all so cool... after this it's going to Ohio and I'd love to try to go, road trip or something... so if anyone is interested haha i'd love to go and visit Chuck while he's in North America.


Hmm... I can't really think about what else to write about... IWT is essentially my life right now...

Was able to spend some nice time with James, Eric, S(o)imon and Adrian the other day from the "Long DTS" but it's wierd to think that i'm completly done... I'm not even with YWAM anymore, I'm with IWT... really cool, actually today I got my official papers confirming that I have graduated the "University of the Nations, Discipleship III training school" haha nice.

Anyways, there is an update for those of you who have not quite forgotten me yet haha it seems wierd I've almost forgotten that my time here is almost over... Now that DTS is over it's been a whole new world... not like theres a countdown ending... everyone who was to leave has left... so now it's me living in australia... haha what is "home" anymore?

Well... home can change and does change, but soon i'll be back "home" in Kelowna. In time.

Theres the Update! Very exciting eh? slightly lacking.... but I enjoyed writing it nonetheless.

-Jon

The End

Well, DTS is now over, and people are parting ways

Be Visionary I and II are out on DVD

Many the closest friends I've ever had are going back to their various locations across the world

I'm prepping myself for my current commitments (I signed on to help out with this Imapct world tour for the rest of the tour, working on the stage crews, setting up lights and sounds and construction and tear down, also working on skate ramps for the performers)

The future is here

6 months is so short, but so much happened, hearing God's voice, seeing miracles, healings and signs, making friends and family, laughing, movements, music and movies, pirates and ninjas, Perth and Vanuatu, early mornings, late nights, leaders, kangaroos, sunsets, coffee, books, philosophy, macs, revelations and ... wow

I can't even begin to explain the impact on my life this has been.

now for the next step ladies and gentlemen, a new chapter, a new season.

I will never ever forget this past 6 months... it would be impossible to...
my life has changed.

God is Amazing.




I'm stoked.

Thats Chucky!! LOOK! LOOK!

So, IWT time is progressing and it's been nothing but epic. SO much personal growth even in THIS time! You'd think Vanuatu was enough, haha but I can feel it even now, and It's awsome, I'm thankful for every second of it.

SO the Tour is going really really well, The events themselves are amazing, so awsome. We've been setting up and tearing down stages and venues and all sorts of whatnots which has been really cool to learn how to do. I've always wanted to have a better know-how about all the tech things behind shows, and now my experience is definatly growing.
Last night we saw the Island Dancing part of the tour, which Chuck was performing in and I was so pumped about. Seeing him doing what he loves in front of a huge public crowd, so exciting. I have been on stage quite a few times in my life and I remember people would always come up to me and tell me how pumped they were to see me, or how excited they were, and I never really understood their enthusiasm, I was without a doubt thankful for it, but never could really identify with how pumped they'd be about me being up there. Then last night haha oh man, I couldn't stay still i was so pumped for Chuck, I was shouting out Samoan war cries and clapping the entire way through "THATS CHUCK!! MAN THIS IS AWSOME!!". Love it, I was so pumped for him.

Anyways, so the two shows that we've been helping out with have been The extreme one with strong men and whatnot. HUGE teddy bears of guys who push themselves to an extreme limit, it's intense. We've done two...two? yeah two shows with them, and then one with island breeze last night. They have been intense. Really fun, I'm lacking on sleep however, people say they can see it on my face, but i'm okay with that. Pushing myself harder reminds me that I'm alive, my arms and legs feel worked out from all the stage whatnot, which is good BURN IS GOOD.

Anyways.... unfortunatly I can't really think of what else to say...


OH! I've heard a rumour that there are some people at home who have put the preverbial 'last nail in my coffin' haha, assuming that I'm never coming back. That is in no way true, and i apologise to everyone who has asked me that and i've given such an undecided answer because the true deal is, I'm still waiting to hear my calling. My future plans and future destinations with life rely entirely on where I am led, and to this point i have recieved faint whispers about guidance but I am still waiting till I hear exactly what my purpose is. Which is seeming closer and closer every day, BUT nonethe less, I'll have to come home sometime soon, Australia will only let me stay in the country for another month or so with my visa, SO Even if i feel my calling is to somewhere away from home for "the next 2 years" as I've mentioned to people before, I will still have to return home for a short bit LEGALLY. So yea, I'm not quite dead yet.

SO thats all I can think of right now. Life is still amazing, and I'm finding more and more purpose in it every single day. Your not dead, and thats not the only reason to be happy, it's an amazing one, and a single strong foundation. But there is so much.... so much in life that.. haha yes! Love love.

Thank you YET AGAIN for all the E-mails everyone, you put such a smile on my face and I am so excited to see you again. You are all Numbawan

Oh yea, Remember when i fouind thebleedingalarm in a Perth CD store? now i foudn stutterfly.... or the... band previously known as stutterfly?

"GOD BLESS US.... EVERYONE"

-Jon

I'm home

Well, I'm back home in Perth now, and needless to say...Vanuatu was epic... is was amazing and it was legendary. I have so many stories for every single person and so many miraculous wowza's it was the best.


You see, getting back into the atmosphere in Perth with all the western commodities was no doubt a bit of a shock. In the Sydney airport for a layover it was intense to see so many.... buisnessmen, tourists, obvious westerners it was crazy! Now back in Perth we are exposed to all the familiaritys of the western world.... internet, coffee shops, Hungry Jacks (also known as Burger King in North America), and of course... Jerks on the street haha.

It's a crazy culture shock for all our teams, being back in the western world, but we are easily moving into our new routines.

We are currently helping out with this huge event thats coming to Perth, 4 years of prep. It's going to be Huge. We are Being ushers and security and setting up stages etc etc. Some are actually helping perform (Chuck from my Vanuatu outreach)

We have new Outreach teams now, which is cool, I've been appointed as a secondary leader of sorts. So when the leader of hte team is unable to do something (for example the other day when she was stuck in bed becuase of Bronchitus) then I step into the position of leadership. Which is really cool.... especially since I'm the youngest on the team heh, it's quite an honour to have that responsibility. (even when it means waking up before sunrise everymorning)

Anyways, I don't really know what to write..... We are currently staying at this campground which is like luxury to me! Running water!! imagine that? AND electricity! pretty cool.

Anyways, my life has no doubt changed in these last few months and I can't wait for people to see how... it's nothing I can really write about in the blog... some things i guess.... but it's just complete transformation in hte best ways ever. I love it.

It's hard to write about the experiences becuase of how many things happened.... and it's something that can't just be told on a blog. So, I'm sorry about this blog's lack of "update" stories.... These last few months have been incredible in every single way. If there is ANYONE who would be wanting some kind of recommendation about this, Mabye considering doing the same thing i've done/doing/ may keep doing!

I say with no hesitation DO IT!

Life is amazing, and all of you back home are amazing for your continuing support. I hope everything is going awsome with all of you and I wish you all the best.

Still trying to recognise the calling however....

It'll be clear in time.

I'll blog again next chance I get (mabye with photo's? But don't hold your breath...)

-Jon

Tails, Trails and Trials

WOW


This second half of outreach has outamazed me X10 from the last one. If you thought hte stories in my last post were powerful, if you thought hte things that were seen in the last post were awsome, if you thought that that was a pretty intense report of God's true power of seeing him move through people, and fight against darkness.....


oh boy...ha HA!


So, where to begin. I left the plkace where i currently am, Vila, a while back now, and went back to Lelepa, where we finished off hte water tank so that it is "fully operational"...heh. We were there for a while and had some cool time where we went and prayed and worshipped in this HUGE amphitheater cave that they say spirits are in. But that was Lelepa, adn although there are stories tehre, that I will tell you all in person in full detail, awsome stories, amazing stories, funny stories, i need to get this blog done fast before this internet cafe place kills me of my money.

SO we went to The Island of Emau, and that was possibly one of the most amazing, most powerful times of my life. I have seen things i never thought i could have seen before, i have seen God move, i have seen the reality of hte spiritual world like there is no tommorow. THe west... just doesn't see it... it's so hidden... but not here, they know whats real.

We went around to all 6 villages on the island, backpacking, and in each village we were taking a census for health, occupational things, etc etc. Just to serve the people. 2 nights in each village, some on hte coast, some in hte hills, one by a lagoon.
Some villages built relationships with us so strong... in the two days that they actually wrote us songs and danced when we left.... tears in their eyes. So moving. This one elder, William, from the second village actually came with us to every village after htat on the island, and became hte 12 member of our group.... and thus, we became the 12 disciples of sorts. And just as the Bible says the "signs that will accompany followers of christ" include, casting out of demons, healings, safety from sicknesses, and more. We experienced them all.

Like..... i docn't even know how to tell all teh stories..... i really can't i guess, it would take much too long on a blog, but i can promise you all very good reports when i get back, with photo's and all sorts.


I've been speaking a fair bit, for example the other day I spoke to a group of 40, 20 somethin's year olds, about the world you enter into when your a christian, the reality of what it is, and totally taking away the veil over people's eyes that being a christian is somehow.. a "wimpy" thing, becuase it throws you into a world, into a real battle that is sometimes hard to handle... spiritually, it drains you.


But it is worth.. every.. single.. second of it.

I had one church elder who was watching my "message" come up to me later for prayer, and told me he was incredible moved by it... he kept repeating it. I'd love to be able to tell any of you readers about it as well, it was probably one of my largest revelations I've ever recieved was this new perspective. Christianity is NOT just salvation and 'going to church', oh man, it's so much more.


SO aside from even the discipleship and the missions work in itself, we have all been having SUCH an amazing time, we have climbed mountains, we have been swimming in hte beautiful south pacific, we have been eating... some of the strangest food, I had not been shaving until yesterday haha, lots of amazing bonding times and awsome times with the guys especially haha, we have been scratched and bruised, we have laughed and just... it's amazing.


BUT! i have to go, time to get on with the rest of today..... THANK YOU EVERYONE for your E-mails! For your shout out's! On Myspace, or even to through my Dad hahah. I Love you all so much, and i wish you all the best.


Stay strong
Keep Praying
Believe
and Fight.

Pray Dangerous Prayers.

-Jon

PS. OH YEA, I GOT SCABIES, and in short form of some other funny things.... there is now a baby on one of these islands that will soon be named "Joe-Chucky" (A little girl.. haha), i was just reminded of that right now... anyways, have to run)

Healings and prayers and crowds, oh my!

So....although we have been in Port Vila for the last few days, which we didn't expect to be as powerful as our time in Lelepa (our our time in Emao coming up) man, we had one of the most intense few days we've had all outreach.


On Saturday we went into this slum-ish area of Port Vila to have a time for kids, so we were singing songs and building relationships, really just trying to get to know people. However, in the midst of all this there were powerful things happening as one of our members saw God heal this woman and her child of malaria, and that story in itself is nuts, this kid during our program was really burning up and shaking, so one of our members (Myung -hee from Korea) took him home. When she did the mother at home actually fell down and was burning up from fever or something... and myung hee thought she heard the people panicking saying it was malaria... who knwos. anyways, myung hee immediatly began to pray and then the woman's body immediatly cooled. We came back the next day and the woman wasn't around.... but then the NEXT day (Monday) we came to the commuiunity adn this woman (and her sister who she had brought) come spruiniting up to Myung hee more excited than anything becuase they had miraculously been COMPLETY healed. Halleluja haha

The night on monday was nuts, we held an open air where we taught, preached, performed, everything and it was awsome, so many people were turning up, on average the crowd was 120 people watching. and at the end we offered that we would pray for anyone who wanted prayer.... and the next little bit was hectic with all the prayer. It was amazing, it started slow but then one woman gained the courage to step forward, adn then it broke loose, I had people trying to drag me away frmo other people WHILE i was praying for them to pray for healing, and to pray for all sorts of everythings. We may have seen healings, but in many cases we're unsure becuase we'd pray for healings for sore backs, finish, ask how they were feeling and they'd casually say "much better, thank you" and then walk away... um... hahah good? I know if i was healed like that i'd be like WOAHHHH!! WHATT>?? but for them it seemed to be an everyday thing, "of course, you pray and your healed" kind of mindset. Vanessa and I prayed over one individual over a strange sickness that was... something else... I actually went back later and prayed for her again in a different way... becuase something wasn't right there...

But!

It was a really good time, and good prep for Lelepa when we go back. I neglected to write about it in my l;ast blog, but when we go back to lelepa, there is alot more truth that has been unnearthed about that place that we were oblivious to before... and alot more things are starting to make sense. There is a dark presence that we are going to be going up against, and our "mysterious sickness" that our leader came down with that basically put him out of commission for a few days was actually predicted and prayed against by two completely different groups back in Perth australia while they were praying for us, and the source was made clearer...and actually caused a bit of fear to enter into our group, but we've dealt with it and are ready to take it on. (it was actually really cool, because at around the same time they had started to pray was the time when Joe said he actually felt BAM a huge difference). There is spiritual warfare behind this and I would appretiate all of your prayers for my team as we go back into it, prayers for strength and prayers for protection.

But, before i start physching poeple out with all this spiritual warfare talk, I'll talk more about whats up now,
So the last few days we were in these slums with our outreach leader gone back to perth, but today actually is the day that Joe gets back from perth, so we will start to press in and get ready to go back to Lelepa and then Emao.

Man, words can't describe how much I appretiate the E-mails that have been sent to me and the updates I've been getting on people's lives back home. It reminds me of you all and i really appretiate it. Please keep them coming as they are the only contact I have with home these days. Honestly, they just bring the biggest smile to my face, I'm so happy to hear about home from the people who I can see are thinking about me constantly!! THank you so much

But yea, this is the last time I'll get to update my blog for a while... so this is really the last update you could get until... well for a while! So if you have any details you would like to know, please write me and I'll tell you, i'm trying to keep some things on the blog fairly vauge becuase i feel uncomfortable talking about them on the "world wide web" but if anyone wants to know more specifics to pray into or anything like that, than by all means e-mail me and I'll get back to you.


Thank you so much for your support everyone.


The Authority and the Commission
The Power of Prayer

-Jon

1 Week in

Woo!

Hello everyone! I am having the most amazing time, it is incredible!
We just spent the last week on the Island of Lelipa and it was absolutly incredible, I met some of the most amazing people on the most beautiful island, it was something else.

Everyday we would work on this concrete water tank that we were building, (The villagers would have to usually canoe across the passage to the mainland (Vila) to get water from freshwater streams there when the tanks they have run out, so we were building another one. Whats awsome is while we were there, it rained HARD twice, filling up all the tanks so that some were overflowing! it was powerful.

We made friends with so many people, and impacted alot of lives. There was this one woman who had suffered from a stroke and the entire right side of her body below the neck was pretty much paralyzed. She could move her fingers and toes really. We all prayed over her one day for healing, and once we were done... she could move her right arm fully, that was really cool to see, theres been a fair bit of spiritual warfare, and htast JUST on Lelipa, and i'm sure we'll be faced with more.

On the island we ate fruit, 'showered' in the ocean, and would sweat... alot haha.

The guys all slept in this half built church while the girls in this building of sorts that was a big room. There was in general no electricity on the island save for one 'shop' and one or two homes, but those were not community generators, those belonged to the family. Also, no running water save for water coming from the tanks, the toilet was... haha something else, i'm sure you'll see pictures.

Everynight you could hear village mutts fighting, haha and the next day the dogs would have all these scars all over them.

For fun when we were done work, Eric and myself (usually with two of our Vanuatian friends Fredie and Rex) would swim out to this sunken plane and go freediving around it, the other day we saw a Stingray and we tried to spear it with Fredies spear but it was too quick.

The water tank is finished save for a roof, it's watertight, but now we want to structure it perfectly so the DTS will be heading back there in a few days... next week? After hte SOS has gone home. When the SOS goes home, our outreach leader (Joe) will be going back to Perth with them temporarily (Which is a good thing because then he can go to a doctor, his eye got really really swollen up the other day and we don't know why.. he may have been bitten by something but we are unsure, they have some MASSIVE bugs here)
Anyways, when Joe is gone, we will be going into Prisons here in Port Vila to speak to prisoners, which will be amazing, after that we go (as i said) back to Lelipa for a day or so to finish the tank, which will be cool, I miss them all already. (Oh! I'll talk about this game I learned that the kids on the island made up)


When Joe does get back to Vanuatu then we will go to this Island up north about 30 min boat trip that has 7 villages on it, and we will be backpacking from one to another. (Oh, and and one point... either before or after that, I can't remember we only got concrete plans a few days ago, but we will be going into the slums of vila as well)

And thats essentially all the details i can think of right now.... Joe leaves in 2 days for Perth, and thats the gameplan.

This morning I woke up at 5:30- throwing up... thought you might like to hear some of my calamitys as well haha, also my feet have been slaughtered becuase hte sandals that i have are my dads, which have moulded to his feet not mine, and as a result I have some AMAZING blisters and gashes.. which may be septic now becuase i didn't put anything on them the entire time i was on Lelipa, but I doubt it. A few scrapes and scratches from the plane (cutting myself on the sides as i swam through it haha but nothing some salt water can't fix.. whats awsome is not too far off is where there are Hammerheads!


Right now in Vila we are staying at a YWAM run...area? it really reminds me of Morningstar
kind of set up, almost exactly the same sized and designed buildings, everything (For those from westbank/ glenrosa), and we are sleeping in the church. Last night the biggest beetle i have ever seen in my life came flying through the window, this thing was the size of my palm and it landed on my mosquito net and got trapped. Also last night chuck said he saw cockraches crawling all over, and one on my net. haHA! Missions is amazing!

So... thats my quick blurb update for now.... I've been keeping my journal everyday so I have lots of good full length explinations of awsome stuff that i've forgotten at this current moment... but oh boy... one week and it's been this good? thats great.

So! I have to head off now, time is running out, so i should wrap this up

I've been thinking of you all! haha and i won't give you the little updates like what music i've been listning to, noone wants that anymore, BUT! if you have any questions about anything that i havn't mentioned here? then PLEASE! by all means e-mail me! Thank you to those who E-mailed me in this past week, I was excited to hear what's new with you!


"Pray Dangerous Prayers"

-Jon

On my way

I'm currently in Brisbane International Airport, waiting for mu flight.. which boards in 5 min

TO VANUATU

Gotta go

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

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)

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

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

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...

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.

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)

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.

Oi

alright, THIS POST WILL BE LENGTHENED LATER TODAY, BUT FOR NOW I"M GETTING THE BALL ROLLING





I seem to have lost my Thursday Zip up.... which is needless to say, very dissapointing.

This morning I washed my Jeans for the first time since I got here... excellent.

Our speaker this week is this Argentinian guy (Alexandro Rodriguez) who has a translater just so he can get his points across much quicker a nd much more fluently without having to search for the "perfect word". It's pretty cool, really good speaker, AND it's funny when sometimes instead of talking to us he just turns and talks to the guy who is translating (A staff at YWAM). It's good.

Went swimming at sunset yesterday in Ocean, pictures later.
I really...really want to buy a surfboard,,,,, decision later



Annnnnd, oh! myself and some others almost got into a fight with some drunk little punk last friday, but we didn't provoke pr respond, so he couldn't really do much... more updates later :)


Okay! so what happened was on friday is I was talking with his Muslim guy (Adiel) from Pakistan. We had been talking for a while and we kept talking till 2am haha he was so interested in EVERYTHING I had to say, it was amazing!, BUT anwyays while IU was tlaking to him and some friends were there as well (Chucky, Chris, and Eric) and this group of drunk teens came up and started hanging out nearby. I guess one of them had a problem with my face because he kept yelling at me telling me to stop smiling, and then cussing and saying I was showing him disrespect. Anyways... he got mad, came up to me and was all up in my face, I kept my feet feet planted and didn't move even when he slapped me and would put his fist up against my face. Then Chucky, (our amazing Samoin warrior) got up and told him to get out of here we didn't want to start anything, and this got the little twerp even MORE upset so he started getting all up in Chucky's face telling him to sit down before he calls up his brother who will stomp him down. blah blah blah

Anyways... all's well that ends well, he got freaked out by the Bible, and left us alone HA. When he saw Eric's he was acting like it was some sort of disease.... funny stuff.

What else..... I just saw a guy this morning who I thought looked like Chuck Norris

And i realised I need to put more pictures up on this thing so that I can remember more stories of my escapades.

OH! On Sunday we had a car wash to raise money for outreach. haha I held signs all day at the intersection and had people giving me money just because htey htought i was funny. People coming to the carwash were syaing "that guy over there is great" and all sorts of awsome compliments from nice aussie drivers. It was sweet, i had some people laughing so hard they were hitting their steering wheels at the red light.

So much fun.

Peace up
A Town Down.

-Jon


SKYPE: Jonarkle

LAYLA

I just checked the mail thing today.....




Thank you guys so much.... I havn't been able to stop smiling, it is the most amazing thing ever, thank you so much. Haha, danny I saw your present and it made me laugh, thats awsome buddy, thank you so much hahah man, i miss you dude. And mike, your present probably has the most sentimental whatnot to it, and thank you so much, those two are going to be put to good use. You'll see. And michelle, thank you so much for all the work you put into that, it's amazing i'll be looking at it all the time. Ms. Keyworth!!! (well... not anymore heh) I was so shocked to see your letter haha but i could tell it was you as soon as I opened it! I'm so happy for you and the picture looks amazing!

Thank you most of all to Nicole though, for putting all that together, that was awsome, your amazing, and thank you so much for the shirt haha and the CD! and just.... everything!! man, I love all you so much, looks like you all had fun at mike's whatchamacallit, good to hear.

Thank you



Today at work duties Simon (Aussie) and myself drove to this part of perth to try to get rid of some junk, we drove around forever, took some risks only to find out that it closed 30 min before we got there.... grr

I love this DTS, and I wish you guys could all be here doing it with me, it's life changning, and only in the positive way, Revelations like nuts... and just.... wow, i would reccommend this to all of you in less than a heartbeat. I don't regret a second of this.

Weekend now... I need to get a book report done, hopefully go to the beach becuase I havn't been there in forever and i want to go, i'm sereoulsy contemplating buying a surfboard.... and tommorow i might go over to our School leaders place. (Caleb Brownhill) he announced the other day he's having a baby, which is really awsome, I'm pumped for him.


The last few days have been really good for my patriotism, I've been having so many of my habits classified as "Canadian" even my sarcastic humour which not all the americans particularily appretiate, but it's still Canadian so to me and the others, it's all good. We understand it.

Thank you all again so much, i've been showing you off to all my friends here haha "This is Michelle, and this is Danny, and this is Mike, we've known each other since we were born..." etc etc etc

Amazing

(Laura Degraff! I need to get a picture of a person here for you... he looks exactly like Warren!)

Peace up
A town down.

Stuck in a Moment

I just want all of you to know that I think about you constantly, and I do pray for you. Every single one of you, and if your right now going "well, probably not me we don't know each other that well" ... I do.

I'm always going to be there for all of you... if you want me to be.
Hope is always going to be there for you... If you want it to be.

Banana Pancakes

Ack, I fell behind, Internet was outish again.


This morning it's raining, and it's beautiful. I'm listening to Sum 41- Does this Look Infected and boy does it bring back memories of Mexico. (Casey, Davis (heh), Ryan, Weon Joon, Rob, Nazuki, Robin, wow awsome times witih Mr. Arcuri)

Anyways, the other night (Sat) they had some "farce awards"night, to give people who live on base some funny awards (everything from look alike to 'foot in mouth' award, best toilet story on outreach etc). It was also a half birthday thing for the Founder/ Leader of Perth YWAM base. At the night they wanted people to either dress their best or dress as movie star's etc. That day I had worn a bandana and then chucky comes across this revelation that "JON LOOKS LIKE BAM MARGERA!", I didn't really think so, but I played along, and went as Bam. Pictures are below. (It was suprising to say the least, up to that point soo many people say I look like Tom Cruise in his younger years. Some people just call me "Tom", so it was cool to hear I "look" like someone else)


Last night I watched "Tears of the Sun", some Bruce Willis movie about Rebels in Uganda, kind of a mix of Predator... Hotel Rawanda and Saving Private Ryan.... good movie none the less.

This week in lectures it's the one everyone has been looking forward to because it's so different from the rest of the lectures. "Relationships" haha, but not just in the romantic sense, just relationships with people in general. The Sports DTS and us (DTS classic as I like to call it) are being molded into one class for the week, Should be cool.


BUT the really cool news of the weekend was the Red Bull Air Race. On Sunday there was an Air Race on the Perth river, really cool, planes doing this course of sorts (Individually though, like time trails). It was the final, and had some F-18's at the end do some cool stuff. haha there was even a Jumbo Jet that flew over and went up and down over the river, that was cool.


And thats the weekend's update. Listen to Jack Johnson.


Pictures! (sorry to many for this being a "kangaroo post")

Me -- Peter Jackson (Travis) -- Tobias.


Cory (SOE) and I



















Class, don't let people see your camera.

Me.. in front of the river.



Bubble Tea phenomenon.





















Airplane can you see it?




Elton John. (Phil SDTS)






















AND THATS THAT. Enjoy.

Outreach Details

This is it.


So as many of you readers may know, come Christmas time I will no longer be staying in Perth but rather going onto the "Outreach phase" of my DTS.

My Country that I am going to is Fiji, however, there is an extra catch to what I am involved with...

YWAM calls it the "Summer Of Service" which is much like an extended "missions summer camp" idea. This will take place in Perth at the base from December 27th to January 2nd for preperation and then 5 days for the orientation and getting the youth (mostly u-17 year olds from my understanding) ready for Fiji. The SOS also applys to the DTS outreach team that is going to Indonesia. Myself and the rest of the DTS outreach teams are Staff for the SOS, so essentially we are getting a quick crash course example of what it would be like to be staff for the DTS itself.

Once the Perth time is over, the SOS outreach comes, that goes from January 6th to the 20th. That takes place in the Village that we are staying in for most of the time, building homes, churches and working with an organisation called "HOMES OF HOPE" that works with Women who have been victimized by Rape and other such injustices.

That outreach lasts till the 20th as I said, but then our leader, Joe Marino, heads off back to Perth with all the SOS youth and we are on the island alone for a few days, we continue to work.

When Joe gets back we continue to work in the village and possibly we may do some island hopping in which we Promote that IMPACT WORLD TOUR that I have mentioned before.


After Fiji we come back to Perth and work at the I.W.T.




And that is all I know for now, I also will be getting some forms for fundraising things that we will be doing that they would like us to send back to home and possibly get some help with funds. But I won't focus on that topic right now.



Chucky (Chenaniah) wanted me to say that my team is humbled by having his presence on the team. We are all so glad to have a person like Chucky in our lives and without him this outreach would not be the same.



-Jon

Further Seems Forever - Light Up Ahead

This isn't a good post, it's just to keep my promise to all those readers out there saying that i will be updating more frequently. In this past day nothing too exciting has happened, just the "regular"

Last night was a random free night actually, so I went out for what is called "Bubble tea" with some friends. It's like iced tea except with these wierd....things at the bottom of it. It's kind of wierd, but good nonetheless.

For those of you who are into music, my playlists as of late have been Cry of the Afflicted, some Stutterfly and Bleedingalarm, and alot of U2 and Further Seems Forever. Dan, if your reading this I've also been listening to Stick to your Guns haha.



I've finally found a pool! It's wierd.... as soon as i saw it i had a wierd deja veau like feeling.... it wasn't really like the 'regular' deja veau, this one was just like... i've seen this building before. It's unsettling actually... but I want to get some good excercise.



That's really all for me, sorry that theres not any new news about the school or Fiji or anything, but as i said before, this is just to show that updates will be much more frequent.


Thank you to everyone who would still check frequently even when it took me weeks to update, You are all amazing.

- Jon

Take this Day,

Alright,

So, last weekend the entire DTS (the name of the school I'm in) went to this campgroudn for the weekend. We were ending our week on lordship there and friday night ended late after a long time of "application" as it's called. Anyways, on Saturday we (I) spent most of our time down by this awsome little river that was beside the campground, and jumped in swam etc etc blah blah. Jumped out of a 30 foot tree branch etc. And that was that.


Oh! But, another crazy "is that God talking?" story starts now, okay, after a friend of mine (Jordan) jumped out of the 30 foot tree he took off his shirt in the water. (We were wearing shirts becuase the climp up the tree was pretty scratchy). The shirt sank immediatly after he took it off down to the bottom somewhere of this 10-12 foot deep river, and everything down there was pitch black (the water had a greeny tinge to it because of these "tea trees" all around it). He was a bit choked becuase it had been his favorite shirt, so I offered to dive down and try to find it. I looked for about 20 min (with goggles) and even got the help from another person just diving up and down up and down in this river trying to find this dark coloured shirt, but to no avail. We had scanned and gridded the entire area, and even prayed that we'd find it...nothing. Finally after about 20 min I gave up becuase my lungs were burning from all the diving up and down continuously and i made my way back to the shore. When I got back to the shore I looked back out to the water and then suddenly in my mind a pinpoint location was made, and my eyes focused on a very very specific spot on the waters surface and then this voice in my head....(for those dedicated readers...it was the same sounding voice as the one in my 5 in the morning talks) tells me "Look there" so i figure....meh, why not. So i swim out to that specific spot, that exact spot that had been pinpointed and then I dive straight down.... The shirt was right beside my feet when the hit the bottom.
True Story, no Exageration.

Sorry that this blog has been lacking on the updates, internet is not so good here, so please forgive me everyone.

Happy Birthday Mike

This week in class the lectures are on "Submission and Authority", really interesting week. Our Speaker is Andy Lim, our Regional Director for YWAM. Very wise and humble man, really good speaker (Quite different from Mark Parker last week, probably one of the most intense human beings I've ever met.)

When I get a chance on a computer that is not quite so slow, i will do my best to update with pictures. But as for now, that is all the news i can think of


Oh wait! haha I almost got Mugged last week. haha, alright, last tuesday i was out in a part of the city called Mt. Lawly with our small group. As we were walking back towards the base, a friend (Chris) and I ran into a music store to look at movie posters. When we got back out, our group had moved out ahead. So I say to Chris

"Lets run up a back alley or something, and get ahead of them so they will see us and be confused"
Chris then asks "why would we run up an alleyway" appropriatly I responded with "So we'll have a good story to tell"... little did I know. So we find a backroad, and start to run around the block until Chris notices an actual alleyway going behind a restraunt or something. We begin to run down the alleyway until a big white van with no windows at the back begins to drive down the alley towards us. We move to the side of the alleyway and stop running so that we can get past the van (Narrow alleyway). As we approach the van I hear yelling inside "GET OUT GET OUT NOW", I assumed it was people fighting inside) anyways, as we begin to pass this van the doors slide open and 6 guys and 2 girls come speeding out, one of them coming around the van to head me off before I could get around. Actually pushing me back with his hand so that we were both surrounded in a circle by them all. One was jumping around and the one who pushed me began talking really fast "Why are you two running down the alley? Did you steal something? You don't run that fast unless you've stolen something, did you steal hash? you guys got hash? what are you guys doing back here? you wanna get robbed? whatcha got? these guys look like they want to get robbed" and they all started to move in closer, one of them getting all up in chris's face. We played dumb tourist and acted like we were so confused we couldn't answer the questions. These guys were looking for a fight and would get all up in our faces trying to provoke us, but we stayed calm and even when they moved in and threatened to take our stuff we stayed calm. The "leader" then lost intrest and shoved past me grabbing Chris' hat as he left saying "**** you guys, I'm taking this hat"
He then grabs Chris's black LA hat and walks off, while his "posse" followed him all swearing and obviously quite proud of their accomplishment of the evening. Chris as obviously choked and he just began to walk away in silence (he wears that hat every day) and as the 'gang?" started to walk away I got and the attention of one of the girls who was walking at the back of the group and said "Hey, we're not even from around here... is there any chance we could get his hat back?" the girl then said "oh? your hat got taken?" "yea... he just grabbed it off his head" "oh okay just hold on" so she goes around the corner after the guy we hear the 'hat thief' describe what he thought of us in a few explicit terms then the hat comes flying back into the alleyway. Chris walks over to it, picks it up, puts it on then goes "thanks bro, see you later" (very cheeky) then we run to catch up with our group... who were talking about kangaroo's or something...

WOAH! (Crikey?)

I'll update more often I promise, it'll become a daily to semi daily thing, but the posts may not always be so exciting....ish.



Oh, okay, for those of you who are reading who do not quite understand what YWAM is, it's a Missions organisation, so Missionary work. I am not in Australia for the entire 6 months, On December 27th I will be leaving Australia to go to Fiji. I will be in Fiji until end of feb, where I will then come back to Australia to work with this Huge international tour thing called Impact World Tour






This is my current "Job". It's the Property shed on base, everything in there has been donated from various places becuase YWAM pretty much has to live off of donations. The people in the picture are James (kiwi far) and Eric (close, american) Eric is on my outreach team to go to Fiji. It is Eric, this other guy Chucky





This is where I eat. Plain and simple, this is the Audotorium, it is essentially the "meeting place" there are two floors ish... same room, two levels? and they are used to help the Friday night service that YWAM hosts.













This is where I sleep. It looks messy.. it's not always that messy. Top two shelves are mind, and it is what I live out of. Top is for clothes, bottom is for food, paper/pens/books, toothbrush toothpaste etc, and such.












And thats that, I'm off to get some things done. I'll post again soon (PROMISE) so thank you for reading thus far and please come back.

Y-BAM

This is going to be short....for you Danny.


Okay, so it seems like everyone is kind of interested in how the school works.... alright, well every morning we have to be up by 6 for morning excercise. This maintains confidence that during outreach we will be able to be disciplined enough to be up and ready to start working. Some friends and I have started playing Ultimate Frisbee as our morning sport and it has become one of the more competitive games played in the morning (if not THE). The other day it was myself, Jimmy (Hemi, James, i switch around), Adrian (German, you havn't seen pictures yet, i'll get some) and this girl star (just becuase we had to) vs. like 10 people. We won.

After that we have a bit of free time till 8:00 when we have to do chores around the base, this switches up every few weeks and doens't last too long, then by 9:30-10:30 anytime there it is time to go to class. Our classes take place in..a classroom? at the base, it is cold but good becuase it keeps you awake... other than the large map of the world on the wall, the room doesn't have too much to keep you awake... except the speakers...*cough*.



heh... Fun with Macs Mike! I want one so badly now haha it is the sleekest computer ever.... i've been using a friends "MacBook" anyways enough about that

Classes end at about Lunch time, usually cut into it so then we eat, then it's work duties time. Everyone has a work duty ranging from Media (Graphic art for the website www.ywamperth.org.au etc) to Garden work. I'm on property which is the labour job, everything from carpentry to welding, building to tearing. The work duties have two main times...1:30-3:30, and 3:30 to 5:30, the time you don't have shift is free time, otherwise your working. Then it's dinner time and we eat... food that varies but overall we all like it, then the evenings are basically toss up, every night is different,
Monday is more lectures,
Tuesday is "small groups" (i'll describe that in a bit),
Wed is the free night,
Thursday (heh) night is "outreach" where we go out into the city and such to talk to people about everything from what Ywam is, to Jesus, to what batman movie is the best (WHAT? JON'S AT A CHRISTIAN THING? WOAH WOAH WOAH) , i'm on a "skatepark" team...the best I think.
Friday is... i can't remember to be honest.. thinking... thinking...oh yea, free night except the Base puts on a friday night service so we go to that.
Weekends are free except for weekend duties that kind of cycle so you only have it a few times


there, so that was the itinerary, now "small groups" is essentially your "pod", there are a bunch of staff in charge of our school (DTS 'classic' as I call it, there is Sports DTS, Surfers DTS, BSN, SOW, etc etc many schools here) and every leader has a bunch of students who they are more personally in charge of. So once a week we have a "one on one" with out leader where they just check up on us i guess.... or something, and then on tuesday we do stuff as a little group, go into town together etc. (Chris is in my group, It's his Mac)



This week we are learning about "Lordship", Now, for those of you who arn't interested in hearing about "Christianity Stuff"... keep reading HAH. Essentially Lordship is about understanding that in the scheme of life, nothing should come before God, which you would think is a given.. but actually goes quite a bit deeper. It's about being willing to lay down everything if God was to ask you to, and although that at first may sound like some kind of suicide attempt "What?? Give up EVERYTHING i've earned and worked for?" you realise that so many people who have... have received so many blessings as a result (modern day people, i'm not just talking about "bible stories" for you cynics out there). Anyways, I won't go into a large thing about religion, religion vs. science, whether you believe religion is a "crutch" etc right now, becuase i'm writing a blog not an essay or debate BUT I'm completly open to hear any critisicm from any readers, communication is key for friendships, and I'd love to discuss and hear what you have to say about any of these things (and i'm nottt going to just argue my own opinions, i'm too much of a diplomat (as a previous speaker told me) who knows.. my opinions might be closer to yours than you think..dun dun dun). FUN!


Anyways, this weekend we're going into the outback as a school to go camping, which is cool. My school leader Caleb Brownhill actually did his DTS in Westbank (Kelownas YWAM is down at green bay), and then did his outreach to both Tofino and Fiji. cool.


Well, thats all i can think of... I need to go the washroom (or Thunderbox as the Aussies call it), so i'll wrap this up.
Oh! went to this thing called "Church together" on sunday night, it was allt he churches in perth coming together for one HUGE service/concert. 5-6,000 people all packed on this field with fireworks (nice ones) good concert of this band called "Hillsong United" (United is important, i guess "Hillsong" is a bunch of old people, Hillsong United is the younger ones, really good show!

And that's that.



This picture reminds me of 'Mallrats'

(Too much fun with Mac's Mike...)




Love, Jonathan

A Sequel

DOES ANYONE HAVE SKYPE???



IF SO! COMMENT WHAT YOUR NAME IS ON IT SO I CAN ADD YOU!!! I HAVE IT HERE SO THIS WAY WE CAN 'PHONE'/ WEBCAM FOR FREE! HEY! YOU! YEA YOU!


(Casey, i've been listening to alot of Legion of Doom in the past few days, so yea... say hi to steph for me as well, and i'm working on getting back to you so calm down... CALM DOWN! WOAH)

Actually, Casey, theres a girl here who kind of reminds me of you mannerism wise...well she started too, but then i realised...no, noone beats or even comes close to casey, then i started getting pumped on disneyland haha. BAM

and Mike, i know you have Skype, so Get back to me

And everyone else...hey, this is a really quick blog entry as i have to quickly run off, so I'll get back to better/more interesting whatnots later (if People are interested in how the actual School itself is going, then please tell me haha i could write so much more about the actual course itself...but i feel like the only thing people want to know about are the homeless and kangaroos.... the most interesting stories i've been writing so far...


man Jon.... get on top of things!

Freaking IDIOT ughhhh


_Seeyalata