It's Time to Fight!

At 5pm last night all five outreach teams came together to formulate a plan of what to do since our need is still so great with finances.  It was not an exciting meeting to walk into, because we were weary and ready to be done fighting, but the battle was far from over.  The leaders at the base explained to us that the victory is sweetest when you have to fight the hardest.  And then we remembered!  Our word from the begining of the school was that we were fighters (an army)!  And because our fight is not against flesh and blood, that means that there must be some serious Spiritual warfare trying to stop us from going on outreach.  Why?  Because as a group we are committed to serving our Father in Heaven and we have heard from Him to go to these countries and that He is going to use us to bring people to Him!  We have have a call! A hope! A purpose! And satan hates this, but it's God's delight!  Lord, please give us the strength to keep up the fight and help us to be listening to your strategies and be obedient when you ask us to do things.  This battle belongs to you God!  *If you would like to know more about what's going on here, just shoot me a facebook message and I would love to give you things to pray about for us and keep you up to date.  Also if you want to partner with us financially just let me know and I'll tell you how you can do that.  Christmas Eve, Lord willing we will book our flights!  It's time to fight!  Love, Cassey

24 hours homeless

Here is an article that Jono, one of the students on the Compassion DTS that I am staffing wrote about our experience being homeless for 24 hours, it was pretty incredible:

http://ywamnewcastle.com/blog/2012/12/13/24-hours-of-obedience-compassion-dts-homeless-project/

Thanks for reading!
Love, Cassey


Also I would like to introduce our team blog while we are on outreach!!
http://blazingbanglas.wordpress.com/

WE ARE GOD'S TEAM!

         I would like to introduce my outreach team to you!

 Back row: Natalie (19) New Zealand, Marley (18) Canada, Morgan (18) Canada, Stephanie (21) France. Front row: Rouyal (26 also the other leader) Australia, Alexa (21)  USA, Rachel (18)  USA, and Myself (23) USA.

   They are an incredible bunch, very eager and willing to impact Bangladesh for the glory of God!  We would love for you to be praying for us as we prepare to head to Bangladesh at the begining of the new year!  Right now if you could be praying for:  God to be preparing specific ministries for us and also softening the hearts of the people there.  Also that we would be prepared, provided for, and ready when the time comes for us to leave.  :) Thanks!  Your prayers change things, believe it!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey Everyone!

It's been a while since I've caught you up on what's going on with me, let me attempt to do so. :)  Today is Thanksgiving Day and my Australian friend Ruth made pumpkin pie just for us Americans, I can't wait!  Life has been pretty busy for me since I got here, we are in week eight of the DTS that I am staffing and it's going really well.  I have three girls that I am mentoring during their school and their names are Marley, Morgan, and Natalie. Staffing here makes for very full and happy days and lots of leaning on God. 
  In January I am co-leading a team of six students and we are headed to Bangladesh for two months!  I would really appreciate your prayers as Rouyal (my co-leader) and I plan our outreach, which we are in the process of doing right now.  I would love to hear from you all and how you are doing.  Thanks for your prayers and support!  God bless, Cassey

I'm Here!

Hey everyone!  I just wanted to let you know that after a long 18 hours in the air I made it to Australia!  Thank you Magali for helping me get to LA and keeping me company on the flight to Seattle, that was awesome!  Right now I am taking two training courses to be able to staff a school here, they keep me busy pretty much all day.  In one week the students will be arriving: all 22 of them (21 girls and 1 boy)!  The picture below is taken from the April school's commisioning celebration; it's a tradition here to take an all homeschool picture. :) We have quite a group.  Thank you all for your prayers and support.  I miss everyone and I love you all.  ~Cassey

Outreach week 7:
Singaraja, Bali

Hello from the Bali Five in Singaraja! We have been living in an orphanage called Jewel of The Nation for the past week. Our duties have included, team time, sweeping, mopping, doing dishes, playing with kids, beach evangelism, and lots of sports evangelism. The food is delicious here and the people are fantastic. We have been much more successful in sharing the gospel with the locals as well, which is exciting. We think it is easier here because there are fewer tourists and the pace of life is slower, so people are content to just talk. Yesterday the eighteenth of May, was so good! We went to Lovina Beach for the second time after praying about where we should go and reconnected with a Hindu woman who Ronnie and Nick had prayed for and shared the gospel with two days earlier. They had prayed specifically for her business to pick up and as soon as they walked away, someone came up to buy some bananas, and then a coconut, pretty soon all of her supplies were sold out and since Ronnie and Nick weren’t there so she thanked Jesus! When she told us this on the eighteenth Ronnie prayed with her again, she prayed for herself and asked Jesus to be with her all the time and to protect her family and heal her husband. Praise God!
On Monday we will drive back down to Kuta where we will spend the night and on Tuesday we fly to Kupang, West Timor from there will will drive to the village of Soe for our final leg of outreach.

God bless you!
~The Bali Five
(Bo, Oddvar, Nick, Ronnie and Cassey)

P.S.  Feel free to comment after you have read this, I love hearing from you. :)

Outreach week 6:
Pomogan, Bali (Team Indonesia)

 Zack and Faith (our school leaders) headed home this past week, so Bo is now our team leader.  These past two weeks have been very eventful: lots of ministry time focused on the church in Kuta, sharing what God has been speaking to us over the past four months ( we have led three mini dts teachings at the church) also letting the Spirit lead the time here.  The church meet about five times a week and we are usually in charge of those meetings.  God is definately doing new things here in the church and we are blessed to be a part of it.  We have also had the oppertunity to visit three villages within a three hour radiase.  They are homes of members of our church whose families are practicing Hindus.  It's eye opening to see where these people grew up and in some cases where they are no longer welcome because of their decision to follow Christ.

We appreciate your prayers, keep them coming!  God bless,  Team Indo

Please pray for the church here, there is a Hindu young man very close to giving his life completely to Christ and that could start a whirlwind of events.  This young man is looked up to by many of the Hindu boys in the community and he comes from a very influential family.  Please pray for his family as well.

Maria's Village

Last week our team took a two hour drive to a village called Almapura.  It was the original home of one of the women who is now helping with the church ministry here in Bali.  Her name is Maria and I would like to tell you her story...
    Maria's home is tucked away in the trees, a short walk from the nearest road.  In a clearing, sits three houses that belong to her family.  Alongside the houses is a temple (about the size of a house).  I don't know all the details about when Maria became a Christian, but I do know that it involved a dream and when her family found out she wanted to give her life to Jesus they drug her to the temple by her hair and beat her until her ear started bleeding.  Somehow Pastor Fien (who we live with here) found out about Maria and came and offered her a home with the church and her family accepted.  Maria's story might seem dramatic and unusual to me, but in Hindu families this is what happens when a family member give their life to Christ.  In Maria's case, because she was under the age of sixteen when this occured, not only does she not have a family, but she doesn't have an identity card either.
    So according to her family, Maria may come and visit  and maybe stay over night but she is no longer a part of their family and in the eyes of the Indonesian government she has no identity.  But for Maria, she holds no hard feelings against her family and even though she would like to have an identity card with her name on it, she know that she found her true identity the day she gave her life to Jesus!

Pemogan

Outreach: Week four

Indonesia Team (Bali, Indonesia)

Puji Tuhan (Praise the Lord)

Hello Everyone!  We have now been in Pemogan, a suburb of Bali, Indonesia for a week.  The area that we live in is poor, the toilets do not flush, we cannot drink the tap water, and most of us shower from buckets, but we are glad to be experiencing the real Bali, a place where tourists do not get to see. 

We are very involved with a church in town and go to many meetings during the week.  Tuesday night we led a time of testimonies and teaching on the Father Heart of God and having a clean conscience before him.  The ministry time afterwards was incredible and God's Spirit was upon us as we prayed and ministered for the people.  We are feeling very strongly that God has put us in this church for a reason.

            We are living in with a woman named pastor Fien (Fin) who has a huge heart and a large adopted family who help with the ministry here.  She is living in a house formerly owned by Muslims, a piece of property that they have turned into a school, home, and church, with hopes of adding an orphanage someday.  Since she and her family just moved in last fall, there is still a lot of work to be done, but we are happy to help.  God is taking good care of us here and giving us lots of work to do.  Please keep us in your prayers.

    Tarima Kasih, Tuhan Yesus Mumberkati (Thank you and God bless), 

Team Indonesia

(Zack, Faith, Bo, Cassey, Ronnie, Nick, and Oddvar )

Starbucks Encounter

On our day off we went to Kuta Beach as a team.  This day it was pouring rain outside, so we ducked into a local Starbucks to get something to drink.  Zack (our school leader) started up a conversation with the two employees, one a Hindu and one a Muslim and they talked about their faith.  The two employees didn't know much about their religions, so when Zack shared about his relationship with God they were very interested (the Muslim in particular).  All in all it was great conversation with an email address exchanged and a promise for further communication prayerfully made.

Outreach week 2

                                                                     Indonesia Team

 

We are living here in Bondi, a very wealthy and densely populated section of Sydney Australia; where looking good and making money alot of money seems to be mandatory in order to live here. Matt Madigan the founder of The Hope Project (A Christian organization with a vision to see Bondi transformed into city of believers) has kindly given up his house for the week that we are here.  We are so blessed.  So far every morning has started out with a prayer walk around Bondi.  We have been praying alot against Religion (there are 12,000 Jews in the area), Hedonism ( thousands of backpackers pouring in here with one intension: to party hard), also materialism, elitism and many other things.

 

Kings Cross: We went into King's Cross this afternoon and the moment we walked off of the train we could feel the heaviness and change in the Spiritual Rhelm. I was surprised that there is no attempt to hide what goes on there. Faith counted fifteen brothels on one block. There are clubs with seductive advertisments everywhere, and the homeless walk the streets. There is defintely a feeling of hopelessness and emptiness that permiates this place. I'm sure we will be back to do more praying and maybe we'll sing next time as well.

Sydney Excursion!!!

Wow, God has blessed me so much here....I am having an amazing time!!  I wanted to share with you about my day in Sydney last weekend because it was pretty incredible.  To start off with I figured Neil, Jameson, Tyler, Michael, Haley, and I would spend the day sightseeing and enjoying the sunshine and although we did, God had some other plans for us too. 
   Lets see....our train left at about 7am and we spent the early morning hours on the train playing 20 questions and reading to ourselves.  When we arrived in Sydney, we parted company from our YWAM travel companions and headed for the bus stop.  It turns out that the last bus going to Hillsong had left about three minutes before we got there, Frusterated, I went to the bathroom and while I was gone a train came by that would have taken us close to Hillsong, but because a couple of us weren't there they didn't take it. This is where it started getting strange: about three minutes after I got back, we discovered that a bus that would drop us at the front doors of Hillsong Church was scheduled to arrive in three minutes!!!  We were so excited and praised God the whole way because we had been praying that we wouldn't be late to Church.  At Church we got to spend some time with another DTS from Townsville that we had met the previous weekend here in Newcastle.  It was so good catching up and hearing about all that God has been doing through them during their outreach.  It was making me excited for our outreach to Indonesia!!
  Our afternoon was spent jumping bus to bus ( God was amazing with the bus schedule that day!) and using ou 21 dollar all day train, ferry, and bus pass, we visited and sang on the front steps of the Sydney Opera House....what a dream fulfilled for me!!  Plus the weather was beautiful all day long.  The only time that we felt a Spiritual heaviness was when we first arrived at the Sydney Harbor and so many people were walking around, alot of them dressed in traditional Indian garb.  This lasted for a while and it didn't help that there was strange music playing in the background and a man dancing out of control, but as we walked closer to the Opera House we came upon the sound of "Ave Maria" coming from a beautiful violin being played by an elderly man.  I wonder if he knew how much he raised our spirits by playing his music.

  The ride home on the ferry was lovely under all the city lights, we sang hymns and I was asked if I was a singer. :)  The train ride home was probably the coolest part...In Sydney that day their had been a huge music festival called Soundwave and they all were coming home the same time as us.  So amongst the tatoos, language, and occasional visits to the restroom caused by too much alcohol, I was getting a little bit tired of it all and for some strange reason decided to sing.  It was pretty cool, I started out pretty quiet, but as I was encouraged I got louder and during that time it was really peaceful on the train.  Even though it was scary I felt like I needed to do it.  I think it was the Holy Spirit inside of me wanting to change the atmosphere on the train to something that would honor God. :) It was so cool to be used for His purposes!  All in all it was a day full of God appointments and when we got home we felt like walking the town because we felt so annointed.

Mail!!!

I got mail yesterday! One package and three letters and today I got another letter!  Thank you Makenna, April, Mrs. Tognoli, Hillary, and My family, I love you guys!!!  Wow, sorry it's been a while since I written anything on here.  We have kind of settled into a routine here morning workouts twice a week, tidy time, lectures from 8:30 until 1pm, work duties, free time and then depending on the day we could intersession, more lectures, or sports evangelism in the evening after dinner.  Bed time is 10:45pm.  This week we are learning about relationships, which I thought was appropriate since Valentine's Day is coming up.
   My Indonesia team has been getting together weekly and working on songs that we will be performing on outreach, since we are a very musical group. :)  We will also be learning skits and playing lots of sports!  There is even talk of going to a prison to play sports.  So far we are thinking Jakarta and Bali are our destinations but that could change depending on what God tells us.  I have been skyping with my family once a week and that is sooo nice, I miss spending time with them.  Thank you everyone for your prayers and letters, I really appreciate them. I hope everyone is doing well and God is doing mighty things in your lives.  Love you all and have a very Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Must see...

Indonesia

Indonesia!!!!! Is our outreach location for three months!

New friends!

Me and Benny

Larissa and I

Lizzie and I

The girls

Ragnhildmarie and I

Kangaroos!

I kissed a kangaroo!

I kissed a kangaroo today and fed it bread out of my mouth!! I also drove about 6o km in Australia and no one died! :) Epic day.

Highlight Reel

Yesterday was extraordinary!  We are studying about the Father heart of God this week in lectures, and it is hitting hard.  God is an amazing Father!  I want to know Him better, how about you??  We have base worship every Wednesday here and it is pretty cool!  I am on the worship team next week, I'm excited.  In the afternoon two of my classmates (Ronnie and Tyler) and I walked to the elderly home next door and visited with the residents for about 45min...it was great and we got to pray with three of them!  That night I was filling in for a friend on kitchen duty and helped make dinner for 80 people!! Afterwards it was my night for dishes crew! Oh yeah!  All in all it was a great day...finished up the night with a solid lecture about shame and guilt and our identity in Christ!  Thank you everyone for your prayers, this week is supposed to be the most challenging week of them all, so I could use some prayer as we are sharing our testimonies and confessing things that challenge us tomorrow.

Out Reach Locations!

On Saturday we found out that our outreach is either going to be in Columbia/Venezuela  or Indonesia.  We are supposed to pray about it and decide by Tuesday night!

I made it!

So, I've been in Aussie for a day and a half.  Today it got up to 82 degrees!! Wow sooo hot.  I like it here and the people are really nice.  I am enjoying our instruction so far and the co-leader faith is my one on one partner which I am super excited about!  We have all ready gone to the beach and swam, I had salt in my mouth for hours....but I'm not complaining. :)  God has blessed me thus far, keeping my travels safe and placing kind people around me.  All right well we are having a meeting about our youth mission which starts on Saturday...so I've got to go.  Thank you so much for your prayers keep them coming!   Love, Cassey