rain dance

we had a second time of ministry on Orchard Road on Monday night.
Usually when it rains here it is in the afternoon and again at night, but on Monday it was all day pouring down. When it came time for us to leave for the ministry, we decided to go despite the weather. The rain stopped for awhile, but after we began our program (this time it was an hour long compared to the half hour we had done before) the heavens opened up the floodgates again. At the end of the program is the Bambalayla (for those of you not familiar with the YWAM Amsterdam favorite, I apologize but there is no explanation). At this point it was raining the hardest yet but we decided to embrace the fun and ran out to dance in the rain. The locals were able to enjoy a highly entertaining group of 28 foreigners dancing and splashing about in a lamplit pavilion in the middle of a shopping area. A few even dared to join us.
Despite the weather, some locals did come over to us to talk and receive prayer. Overall, it was a smashing success.

Yesterday we visited a prison. After the program we set up for them, we had an hour of talking one-on-one. During the performance I spied out the boy (all of them were aged between 18 and about 23) I wanted to talk to. He was quite shy but wanted to answer all my questions. He was such a sweet and gentle kid who I thoroughly enjoyed talking to and praying with. I know I will be praying for him for a long time coming.

Tonight we visited an artsy sub-culture hangout. They meet in one of the few places that the Singapore government allows free reign for youth. They gather in the basement of a building to practice dances (lots of hip-hop and breakdancing), bmx tricks, skating, in-line skating, and sword (with sticks) fighting. The dancers in our group did their dance and also mingled with the other dancers to dance with them and talk. Anniina (finnish student) and I were the only ones who wanted to paint, so we bought some supplies then went outside (big gathering place) to paint. I painted a design then painted the text to a poem I wrote over the design. An Indian man approached us and we were able to talk with him for quite some time. In the end he had so many questions still, so I gave introduced him to one of the Singapore ywam staff so they can meet up another time.

I would love to hear from any of you, so please keep the emails coming.

good night!

Orchard Road

On Saturday night our team went to Orchard Road to minister through songs, skits, dances, and short testimonies. It is not permissable by law to proselatize (I am not sure of the spelling there) in public, so we were admonished to indeed speak out about Jesus but to keep it very short and to the point (they do not want the ywam ministry here comprimised because we "felt from God to take the microphone and preach"). We honored their laws and were still able to impact several people.

Orchard Road is the Kalverstraat (or Times Square) of Singapore...only it is Kalverstraat on steriods. I seriously have never seen so many people packed onto one street in my life. There are four million people living in this city and with the added tourists at this time of year, I think they all came out that night to shop.
The amazing things is that ONLY Christian churches and groups are performing on the different Christmas stages set up along the road.
Our group put together some Christmas carols in various languages, a hip-hop dance, and some skits. Our first performance was not so well received...so we thought. Everyone just sat in their respective chairs and clapped politely. On the last song (Bambayla of course) no one would dance with us. But afterwards, we talked to a lot of people and a man from Bangeladesh even wanted to follow us to our next stage performance.
That stage was directly in the line of traffic of people walking down the street. I was filming the performance on a camcorder and was almost pushed off the sidewalk ledge (about 5 feet above the cars) the entire time. It was really good though. So many people walking by recognized the different languages we were singing (chinese, indonesian, dutch, and of course english) and one Indonesian man stopped to cheer during a song. I asked him if he could understand our pernunciation and he said of course. I ended up talking with him and two others from his group (Christians and there to sing on our stage after us). He is from a church in Java and we may end up going to their town and helping them in some community service. He was so so so excited to meet us.
We debriefed last night about what happened at that performance and students told how they were excited to invite people to church (one group of three girls came yesterday!), led people in the prayer for salvation!, and prayed for many other things. Some students also told about personal breakthroughs they had themselves during the performance. I loved hearing about that.

We have some more performances this week in the evenings. I look forward to sharing more good news soon.

the story of the bags

I have just a few minutes left on my computer time so I will write like a whirlwind and spit out what I can in these next few minutes.

I missed some of class yesterday due to being at the embassy and came back just at the end. I immediately felt the presence of God in the room. It was time for a break but I could not bring myself to leave. Several others also stayed to just pray. I did not even know what was said but felt compelled to pray.

Part of what I had missed was some information that a lady who was not in Singapore and who did not know we were coming had called the base (she knows someone here) and told them that God had told her a base from Amsterdam would need some bags that she had and that she would send them for us. wow.

We (team leaders) were asked to pray with our teams to find out what team should get them. As our team got together, there were a few students who felt like they cannot hear from God and were uncertain about the whole thing. We encouraged them to just try it. After we each prayed silently, we had a time of sharing. The funny thing was when we got to the students who were skeptical, they were like "well I don't hear at all from God and I don't know if I can believe He speaks to me, but..." and then they shared some amazingly detailed pictures or words they got. It was so fun to see that happen, though they still have some doubts. They will come around to understanding more about hearing from God the more they draw close to Him and speak to Him.

It ended up that our team and the Cambodian team both felt like the bags (we do not know how many or what is in them) are not for us and the China team felt like they were for them! None of our teams had shared about what we heard about the bags until today, so we did not influence one another. perfect. Goes to show that God definitely is speaking to us about even small details here.

On sunday we will go to a church located near a main shopping street, so I assume the rest of our Holy Sabbath will be spent fulfilling the lust for materialism. ha ha ha : )

Next sunday our teams will go to churches according to what outreach country we are going to (china team to chinese church, cambodia team to Cambodian church, etc...).

We will be given 10 minutes to share with the church our vision and what we will be doing and then after the service, the church will commission us. nice.

We are still taking language and culture lessons here. Today we learned an original Christian Indonesian song. We are told that when it is sung, almost all Indonesians know it and that some deep passions that they do not normally display comes out. I felt a strong rush of the Spirit over me as we all sang it. It is a beautiful song and I am excited to share with the people in that way. We hope they are blessed that we actually want to sing it to them and participate in their culture with them in that way.

more from me later....love you all!

A very tropical Christmas to me

Someone must have been praying about the visas. Though not smooth as butter, here is what happened:

I took the metro then changed cars then took a bus then took another bus (all guided by a Fijan man on staff here) until we finally arrived at the Indonesian embassy. After discovering that we should have made copies of some papers that were needed for each individual (we though one copy would be enough) I also was told that we had filled out the wrong application forms (not my fault at all, those were the ones given to me). So Siti (Fijan man) and I fervishly filled out the new forms and when we got to the bottom, there was the ominous signature line!
When the man at the counter handed me the new forms, I asked him if they had to be signed and he said "no" but I went and asked him again...he said "no" again.
So when I had all the copies and right papers filled out, I brought them back up to the man again. He was going through them all and shoved them at me saying, "these need a signature." (by the way this man never cracked a single hint of emotion the entire time I communicated with me...no matter how friendly I tried to be) I looked at him (thinking "what the heck?!") but politely reminding him that he had told me (twice! only minutes before!) that I did not need to sign them. He made a glance sideways (as if to see if anyone was watching) then looked up and me and said (monotonously) "they need a signature."
The proverbial lightbulb went off in my head and I said "you mean you want me to sign them?"
He did not even look up at me, but nodded his head once in a yes.
I did not even think. I just took the forms and signed them for everybody. I don't know if I should have or not, but I don't feel guilty about it at all and no lightning has struck me, so I believe all is good.
Ok, I said I signed for everybody and by everybody I mean the non-Dutchies. Yup, Dutchies had a problem again. The form they needed was filled out for the embassy in The Netherlands and not for Singapore...wonderful.
So I got back and after a day and a half of communicating by email and phone calls to Indonesia we finally worked out how to change the one-teeny-tiny-little detail of a wrong country name to the right one. Here is what I did:
We (Bas and I) were told that in order to change the form it would take several weeks of waiting for the Indonesian government as well as a lot of money for each person to change it. That did not make sense to us since it was only one paper and only the name of the country needed to be changed. We called the lady whose signature was on the paper and asked her permission to change the name ourselves. I had saved the original document in my email.
I had to be creative in how to change the document because their computers do not have Word (though they have everything else) and it would not open in several other applications, but I found one that worked and changed the name! I am really turning into a clever little forger, huh? : )

ok, next time I write I will be sure to be more informative of what is going on more personally. I just wanted to finish the story that I began in Amsterdam.

We will all have our visas by Tuesday at 3:00pm. Again, thank you to those who prayed...and keep praying for us!

selamat malam...

...means good evening in Indonesian.

I am here in lovely little Singapore right now, and it definitely feels like SE Asia here=hot, sticky, and rainy. I know even hotter weather will attack us in Indonesia, so this is a good buffer zone for us.

I am at what must sure be the most organized YWAM base ever. The staff here are one step ahead on everything and are so accommodating and hospitable. They are really just lovely people.
We got a good tour of the city yesterday. It was dark so we were able to view the skyline all lit up against the sea. It is definitely Western and Americanized in many ways here. Everything is written in English and the people all speak English. I feel like I must be wearing some special English helmet that allows me to understand these absolutely Asian looking people to communicate so clearly with me! But no, it is just one of the unique things about Singapore.
Another thing that is quite unique to Singapore is the Merlion. Yes, that is right, I said Merlion. What the heck is that? Well, dear ones, it is simply a lion's head with a mermaid body. He is the icon of Singapore.
The story goes that when some foreign captain sailed to the coast of Singapore (I think he was from England) that he supposedly saw this strange sea creature rise out of the waters. Not too impressive of a story, but the legend lives on...
The highlight for me was finding out that one of their staff here is from Korea and he invited me to a Korean dinner with he and his wife. I am quite excited about that.

Today we started classes and I don't know what else to say but that it was truly amazing. Joseph (name of the man who spoke) is one of the most genuinely passionate people I have met who are passionate without being all hyper and loud. When he speaks, God is almost surely speaking through him. I look forward to hearing more tomorrow.
We also had language learning classes (hence the subject line) for a couple hours and we will have some more of those classes as well.

Tomorrow I will go to apply for our Indonesian visas. If all goes well, we will have them by Tuesday of next week. Please pray for that as you think of it.

Ok, there are students in line for a computer so I must bid you all adeiu.

much love to you all! xoxo

I thought everyone would be interested to hear about some of the musicians that came to the YWAM Nations-to-Nations consultation at our base this last week.


One is Benny Prasad. He is an Indian man who came from a seemingly hopeless life situation. However, after he discovered a passion for the guitar, he took his talent and ran with it. He now has created his own guitars (I am sure you have never, ever seen a bongo guitar or a 52-string guitar...I have) and has played them worldwide. He was a part of the opening for the olympic games and played for the last World Cup game in Germany.
You can read his story and see his crazy guitars on his website www.bennyprasad.com

One is Pedro Eustache. He is an extremely talented flute and world woodwinds musician. You may have heard his music on a commercial, or in one of several orchestras around the world, or with one of several popular singers from around the world (like Paul McCartney and Shakira), or from a movie soundtrack (Munich, King Kong, Hidalgo, etc...). He has played with Yanni since 1995 and is one of his featured soloists, and his latest big project was being the leading world woodwinds musician for the movie "The Passion of the Christ."
He is originally from Venezuela and moved to the United States with his wife to provide a better life for their daughter. She died in 1988 at three years old from brain cancer. Instead of allowing this tragedy to crush his spirit, he sees that his move to the United States was also a plan for his own life that has provided him endless opportunities to share his faith while living his passionate dream for playing music.
He has a collection of over 600 instruments from around the world some of which he has developed and/or created within the past 10 years.

Ok, enough talking him up. I just want to say that it was amazing listening to him play. The best way I can describe the way he plays is "hauntingly beautiful."
Now, go back and watch "The Passion of the Christ" and keep your ear open for all the flute-like woodwind instruments. He plays on 75% of the soundtrack. At the consultation he played some movie clips while playing the instruments live for us. You would never believe what strange looking instruments can make such beautiful sounds. you can read more of him at www.pedroflute.com
He has a strong testimony and is openly dedicating his talents to God's glory.

It is great to see all the areas that YWAMmers are involved in. That is how the body is supposed to work, right? beautiful.