MEXICO CITY BOUND!!! IN 13 DAYS AND COUNTING!

I’ve discovered that God likes to surprise us.
Like when He said to me this week:
“SURPRISE! I AM SENDING YOU TO
MEXICO CITY IN
2 WEEKS TIME!”
Let me get you up to speed. When DTS finished in December I was placed into the ministry here on base called Megacities. It is a vision that Shirley Brownhill, the base director, got several years back of transforming nations by targeting the heart of the nation: big cities. Megacities goes into a city with a population of over a million for one year at a time and connects the local body of that city to short term teams from all over the world to join together in reaching the city. The integrated, unified, grassroots approach to outreach serves as a catalyst to ignite the local body and bears fruit that lasts for years. I have seen the effectiveness of this approach first hand. I did my outreach in Jakarta during the Megacities focus in 2008. God used our tiny team of 10 to stir up a youth group, get them fired up for God and involved in reaching a neighboring slum community with His love. More than a year later, those same teenagers are still going into the same community and seeing miracles and transformation in peoples’ lives week after week.

This year Megacities is focused on Mexico City!

It has been quite busy and exciting in the office over the last month. I have been corresponding with teams and churches via email about joining Megacities in Mexico City and have been phoning pastors in D.F., confirming details about the teams that are coming to work with them.

Then came the surprise!

On Wednesday afternoon my leader, Rod, asked me to pray about going to Mexico City at the end of this month to serve as a coordinator. Coordinators are the bridge between the local body and the visiting teams. They bring vision, encouragement, and direction and help to build relationship. Coordinators are also the face of legitimacy for Megacities during the beginning of the year, as more pastors hear of what is going on in their city and decide whether or not they want to be a part of this major effort. Despite the size of Megacities (dozens of teams and local churches are involved, and we’re hoping for hundreds more) there are only a couple of coordinators working in the city at any given time. It is a huge responsibility, privilege and honor.

As I sought the Lord about this decision, He reminded me of the words that He had already been speaking to me over the last few weeks. He had said to me that this is not a season of standing still, but of RUNNING… that I am to step out of my comfort zone so that He can move in big ways… and that I have been brought to this position for such a time as this! The final reassurance of His hand in this came through the scripture “I will be with you where ever you go.”

This is a major leap of faith… a leap bigger than He has every asked me to take. The role that I will be playing will be challenging and stretching, in ways that I have never experienced before. It is also a financial leap of faith. I have trusted Him for provision before, but never in such a short period of time. God has increased my faith a hundred fold in the last year and a half of serving Him in missions. I believe He is ready to multiply again.

o I need to raise $2300 for a plane ticket by Monday the 18th.
o I will also need $2000 for ground fees (transportation, food, and accommodation for the ten weeks) by January 25th.

One of my favorite YWAM speakers said that “the big things we want to see God do will never happen in our comfort zone.” I am ready to step out of my comfort zone to be a part of an incredible move of God in Mexico City!

I would like to ask you to please pray about supporting me as a Megacities coordinator in Mexico City. Your support would be a part of what makes an eternal impact on a city of 20 million souls.

Thank you!
In His amazing grace
Claire Griffin

If you are able to give, please do as soon as possible via:
Bank transfer (preferred method so that I can pay for airfare by card):
Bank of America checking acct # 0437305391
From BofA acct you need to know: zip code is 95835
From other bank you need to know: routing number 121000358

Give online at http://www.ywamperth.org.au/
Scroll down to donate/pay at the bottom of page, fill out online form (payment type = ‘other,’ recipient = Claire Griffin, school or ministry = Megacities)

What's the point? the holiday blues get busted

I came close to boycotting Christmas this year.

I'm new to YWAM Perth and I just got back from outreach and I don't know anyone and it's hot here and I'm homesick. I was "this" close to protesting, pouting, and otherwise preventing celebrating Christmas this year. "the 25th is a pagan holiday anyway..." and "it's too commercial" and every other excuse actually went through my mind this year.... as I sat arms-crossed and pouting in my spirit.

But I'm done windging and whining about this being my first Christmas away from home. Why? Because God gives perspective when we ask for it. And I've been noticing the lyrics to traditional Christmas songs lately, and they are amazing. Christmas songs are like the ultimate worship songs. They are powerful! It's been refreshing to view Christmas songs as a way to worship God. And it was that right there that brought me back to the heart of Christmas. Here, in Australia, stripped of all my familiarity, comfort, family, most of my close friends, and to boot the torture of celebrating a traditionally "cold/wintery/snowy" holiday in 90 degree heat, I was overcome with the beautiful simplicity of why we make such a fuss towards the end of December.

It's Jesus.

He was actually born. He cried and had fat baby arms. He grew up and learned how to talk and walk. He lived a beautiful and perfect life and then died a greusome death... so that we could receive the Father's love. He died for love. So that we could be loved extravagently. So that we could take all our mistakes, our "owies" and "ouches"- both those caused by others and the ones we have done- to the one who gives total healing and restoration. Jesus came so that we could have abundant life, wholeness, healing, love, and joy. Jesus is amazing!!

Now, I know that Christmas in its simplest, least commercial, form may be a little... repetitive for us Christians. We claim to celebrate and worship Jesus every day, so why such a hullabaloo on one particular day. We'd much rather focus on the decorations and gifts because it's a break from the ordinary, mundane, day to day... it's something different. Can we really worship God every day AND get ultra-exicted about the same thing on December 25th? I'm going to go on a tangent now but it will prove relevant so bear with me: I've been interacting with more married couples lately. On many, many occasions I have been SHOCKED by married couples requesting MORE time to spend with each other. For example, couples wanting to make sure their weekend work duties are the same so that they can do them together. My immediate, naive thought is "you guys live together... do you seriously want more of your working and spare time with each other? Don't you see each other enough?" I don't understand... I probably won't understand untill I am married.. but I suspect there is something truly beautiful behind that. It is a beautiful thing that two people who share every day together would still want more time together, would still get excited about the "more" or the "extra". And I guess that's kinda the way Christmas should be. That we worship Him, live with Him, love Him daily but we are SO in love with Him that we can still get excited about the special occasion, the added opportunity to make a fuss over Him and celebrate His love. And tonight, at church singing Joy to the World and O Holy Night, as the lyrics of the songs really sunk in for the first time ever, I felt that excitement rise up inside me. I felt an exuberance and bubbling joy over the opportunity to revel in His love and grace in such a beautiful and sweet and festive way- on this crazy day called Christmas.

And that, my friends and family, is why it is worth it to celebrate Christmas.. alone, in shorts, scratching my mosquito bites. It is worth celebrating, and celebrating madly!

Christmas Wishlist!

I'm gonna go ahead and put this out there.. in case people are feeling particularly postal this Christmas:

Things I would love from the States that I can't get in Australia:

1) Trident gum- the green spearmint flavor

2) Peet's or Starbucks coffee!!!!!!!! (ground)

3) Reese's peanut butter cups/pieces (or Christmas trees)

4) Airborne

5) Deoderant - anything solid and smelly-good


My address is:
P.O. Box 8501
Perth Business Centre
Perth, WA
Australia 6849

You're probably in Cambodia if....

• You see 6 monks in a Tuk Tuk

• You take any form of transportation anywhere and find that you never stop once until you reach your destination (literally... they don't stop... everyone yields... intersections and all... they just weave.. there are no stop signs or traffic lights anywhere in Battambang)

• You see a dog riding on a motor bike

• Loud music wakes you up at 4:30 a.m.

• You go to the market after sunset and the stands are lit up by candlelight

• You see goats congregating in the park, hanging out on the steps of a statue

• You see people sleeping in the parks overnight... in hammocks

• Entire families on a single moto- two adults and four kids, plenty of room!!

More to come we ain't done being here yet!!!

OUTREACH REPORT!!

Outreach Report!

It’s been some of the most incredible months of my life. This outreach has been really unique and different in almost every way from my DTS outreach.

Highlights!

DELFT! We started outreach in Delft, Cape Town, South Africa, a poor colored community (that is the way the South Africans would describe it). The thirteen of us slept, ate and worked in the Apostolic Faith Mission church for 2 weeks. Our ministry during the time turned out to be primarily children’s ministry. Street kids and neighborhood kids came out from the woodwork as early as the first day and we spent all our free time playing games with them and talking to them (it’s an Afrikaans speaking community but most spoke English also). Most of the kids’ ministry was unstructured, but some of the structure activity was for a group of kids who are at risk, either from abusive homes or have AIDS. The whole community became abuzz as the kids would go home every night talking about all the fun they had that day. We worked with many many kids, but there is one story that stands out. His name is Denver. He is a foster kid, actually…was a foster kid. We fell in love with him the first day- he was quirky and hilarious, about 9 years old. We practically took him in, he stuck to us like glue. We prayed for him several times during our team prayer time, praying that he would find a better home than the one he was in (Denver was being neglected physically and emotionally) and that the church would continue to look after him when we were gone. The last day we were in Delft, Auntie Freida (one of my favorite Aunties, the purest gold heart you’ll ever come across) calmly and sweetly announced that the Lord had spoken for her to look after Denver and that she would be looking into the adoption process.

Update: since we left the kids continue to flock to the church, Denver is being taken extra care of, and the church has unified their separate feeding projects (run from different peoples’ homes) and are running it out of the church’s kitchen (before our visit the kitchen was largely left untouched), bigger and better than ever before.

MUIZENBERG: we had two weeks of lectures in Muizenberg before heading out to our next South Africa location. The lectures were a great way of getting filled up and refreshed. The definite highlight of these two weeks, besides climbing Table Mountain of course, was getting to translate for our Argentinian guest speaker.

RETREAT: outreach seemed to get better and better as we arrived in Retreat, Cape Town, South Africa. We worked with a guy named Pastor Bradley who is incredibly passionate and gifted in youth ministry. We were able to go into a high school every day for four weeks and talk to students… about life, struggles, sports, God, dancing.. anything they wanted to talk about. Our purpose during the time was to encourage, motivate, support, edify the students. We (slowly but surely) developed amazing relationships with these (mostly Xhosa) students. The highlight from this time I think would be the girls’ club we started the second week there. We met with GIRLS ONLY!! One afternoon each week and played games and danced and shared something short about identity and value (women in the Xhosa culture have very little societal worth and therefore most of the girls we met had incredibly low self-value and negative self-image). It was incredibly to see these girls go from totally skeptical about our presence in their school to totally open and receptive to our encouragement and advice. Even though it was only four weeks, the whole atmosphere of the school seemed to change. Many of the girls wrote us notes the last week sharing how our time with them had given them strength when they were close to giving up and reason to believe that someone loves them and that therefore there is something about them worth loving. My only regret was that we couldn’t stay longer. I would love to continue on the girls’ club. I learned so much about leadership, youth ministry, and myself during this time, I can’t even begin to write it all. We also had a TON of fun and we learned and experienced that ministry is not supposed to be heavy, it’s life-giving, exhilarating and heaps of fun, even with the challenges.

CAMBODIA! It was really hard to say good bye to South Africa, but Cambodia has been a great surprise! It’s opposite from South Africa in virtually every way, but as much as we loved South Africa, we love it here too! We have two main ministries here. One is teaching English to elementary school kids (K-6). The other is spending time (teaching English, playing games, and doing arts and crafts) with girls that live in a “safe house.” They have been rescued from the human trafficking industry or other really severely abusive situations. The girls range from 5- 22 years old. “Our purpose” here is similar to that of our time in the high school- to love on, be a support to, encourage and bring joy to them through simple things like playing a game or having a chat. They soak up the love and attention like sponges. I’m grateful we are there 5 days a week and can’t imagine how difficult it will be for us to leave in December. I’ve made two “sisters” already. I’ve also really enjoyed teaching 1st grade English. The students are so cute and love learning English. I have no idea what I’m doing. Normally that would freak me out. But a lot of what I learned in Retreat has come in handy- I don’t have to stress, or try too hard, I can take it easy, be spur of the moment, have fun, and trust God to teach me as I go along.
The aim of outreach is to bless others. I think.. I know.. we have done that. Still I can’t help but feel like the most blessed person in the whole wide world. The team has been incredible (fun, whole hearted, passionate, silly, wise, and dedicated) and the relationships made, built (and being built) with people in South Africa and Cambodia have been a precious gift from Daddy God. He is an extravagantly good God.

Thank you to everyone who has made our ministry possible!!

If you have prayed, helped financially, ever read any of my emails or blogposts or supported me in any other way I’d really like to thank you – in paper! Please email me your snail mail address as soon as possible!!!

Thanks for reading. I love you people!

This is why I go....

August 19th

I have an amazingly cool story to share. For those of you who aren’t “the religious type” please read; I’m not a fan of religion either, but I really love my relationship with God and you might like hearing about this… maybe?

A few weeks ago the students were given the opportunity to pray about which outreach location to go to. Some were worried that God would not speak to them. I was speaking to one girl (let’s call her Wendy) in particular and told her that I know from experience that God cares about the details of our lives and that He really will tell her specifically which place to go (of three options). She was surprised to hear that a big God cares about the details of our lives. I told her a couple stories from my own life of how God has shown that to me, and she said “huh” (like, huh interesting). Fast forward. Same girl. In our week of teaching about prayer she feels that God is affirming the worshipper in her. She is greatly encouraged by this and starts singing more and worshiping in her heart more frequently. “Lord, it would be really great if I had an ipod to listen to worship music with,” she thinks quietly to herself one day. A couple days later another girl (who was not present for the “God in the details” chat and who does not read minds and could not have read Wendy’s mind) gives her ipod away to Wendy with a note that says “I felt God telling me to give this away to you, to show you that He is a God who cares about the details of our lives.”

Are you kidding me? THAT is God. Not only does that speak to me of the reality of God, but to me it also speaks HEAPS about His character. This is His intention for everyone- to show us that He is so caring and so loving, and active in His love. This is not always communicated successfully; not everyone has Wendy’s ipod experience to back up claims of His goodness. But I think that is largely because He has chosen to use people to demonstrate His love. He uses us to speak things to one another, to be the person that hears Him say “give this person your ipod” and does it not even knowing that that is the answer to a secret prayer. Sometimes we hear Him and are able to be a part of a miracle. Sometimes we stuff it up or don’t hear it altogether. But that doesn’t change the fact that He is speaking and His intention is to demonstrate this love to EVERY person on this planet. That is His heart.

I got another glimpse of God’s heart this week. A friend of a friend took his own life. I don’t know this person at all, but when I heard the news I cried. My heart hurt. I felt like God was sharing His heart with me, a tiny fraction of it, in that His heart breaks when things like this happen. Because His intention for people is good, His intention is to bring hope and peace, freedom and fullness of life. It literally gives His heart pain to see His children living in sorrow and despair and inflicting pain on themselves and each other. But He has given us free will, because He wants to enter a loving relationship with all of us, and that can’t be forced. For some, their free will can bring agony and destruction into their lives and the lives of the people around Him. He is active in trying to stop this, He is active in pursuing us and showing His love, but because He largely (but not exclusively) works through people (remember the ipod story), it doesn’t always get communicated. Some might think, “well, it’s pretty stupid of Him to work through people, because of course we’re going to mess it up. That’s too much responsibility! He should just do it and leave us out of it!” But we live in the physical and He is spirit, so it is His kindness, humility and love that cause Him to work through physical beings –so that He can speak to us in a way we hear, receive and give His touch, give physical gifts through us, show us visible things through other people – all things that He couldn’t do or would be harder to do if He chose not to work with us and through us. Not to mention He loves to co-labor and partner with us. Just like a Dad wants to play games or build stuff with his kids. He doesn’t want us to be puppets or strangers, He is close and works alongside us.

That is why we go. This is why I work for a non-profit missions organization. Our free will can bring so much pain into the world, for ourselves and for others. Or…. our free will can be the agent of His demonstrations of love. We can be the ones that show others His ability to speak, His attention to detail, His heart of compassion, His pro-active efforts to communicate His undying love for us. I want to be His communicator. I want to be His agent of love. I want to spend my life being someone who God uses to show people His real, active, tangible, unfailing, healing love.

That’s why I am going to South Africa and Cambodia.

On September 5th, I leave for South Africa. I will be co-leading a team of 11 students with one other staff member. We will be in South Africa for 10 weeks. Then we will go to Cambodia for a month. We will be serving the people of these countries, helping in any practical way we can (teaching English, cooking meals, etc.) and showing love and value to the people we meet. There is sooooo much more I could say, but I am trying to keep this entry shorter than my previous emails ;)

If you would like to hear more or if you would like to support the outreach through finances (current need is $2000 AUD) or prayer please let me know!

First Entry Since Arriving in Perth

I have arrived!


Arrival shock:


It’s so surreal to be back in Perth. Half the time I think I am dreaming and that it is the strangest, most foreign thing to be here. The other half of me already feels like I never left… except that I am acutely aware that I am here on staff, not as a student. That part is not surreal at all. Maybe it’s the new and exciting privilege of using the staff bathrooms. I love it (being staff that is, not the bathrooms per se! I am deeply and pleasantly aware that I am supposed to be here.


I know I am staffing the right school, too. I sat down with the leader of the school (Janine) my first morning after travelling and we discussed the school and what she felt God was speaking about it. She told me she felt that God was putting psalm 84 on her heart for the school. She feels that through their DTS they will really know and feel that it is better to spend one day with God than a thousand without Him. It was amazing because God had put psalm 84 on my heart earlier that morning, too. Those that set their heart on pilgrimage- on seeking Him out and following after Him- go from strength to strength, and get to see His face. That is better than anything else. I know from the experience of comparison. The hardest times in my life WITH Him have always been soooooooooooo much better than my best times in life lived without Him. It was says it is better to be a doorkeeper in His house than live in tents (I think that was a better thing back then than it is now- you know, life fancy tents, not camping tents) with bad company. I am a UC Berkeley grad, yet I not only don’t make money, I depend on the financial support of others. It’s pretty humbling to be doing this at 24 with a college degree. I sure feel like a doorkeeper. But I wouldn’t trade it for any fancy, high-paid career or some highly-esteemed profession, not even for a day. I am really looking forward to seeing the students getting a hold of the message behind this psalm, too. It's life changing, life bettering.


One the fun side:


There’s been a bit of fun involved, too, already….


Last night I went to a Christmas party at 8 Bulwer (that’s the house name). Yep. A Christmas party. A bunch of North Americans decided since it’s cold here now and hot in December when Christmas actually happens, we should celebrate it now, when the weather is slightly more like what we are used to. It was a fabulous party. People at YWAM Perth are really good hosts and party-throwers I’ve noticed. They pulled out all the stops. They had eggnog, red and green jello, stuffing (talk about random, there was no turkey or anything else, just stuffing) and hot chocolate and tons of Christmas decorations. We even played the white elephant gift exchange game. It was a riot. Since most of us are on a stringent budget the gifts included an orange, a bar of chocolate, a plastic sword, and a gold ribbon. Yes, a gold ribbon. Which actually got stolen believe it or not. I was uber pleased to get rid of a pair of gloves I never wear and a pack of gum- which got stolen three times… yessssssssssssss! To put icing on the cake we watched A Charlie Brown Christmas. It was great. On the not so Christmas-y side we also made smores (with smuggled in American marshmellows) in their backyard and lit sparklers. Mmmmmmmm........


To be honest and dangerously open, the party was fun but a bit hard. I miss my home community already - where I am just me and people know me and appreciate me. I am safe being me and it is easy to be me- in fact, the people that surrounded me reminded me of who I am, and it was easy to stay true to that. Here, I don’t know very many people and very few know me at all yet. I know this will change with time, but the in between stage is difficult. I’m not craving attention or appreciation, but I do want the freedom to just BE ME. I can’t wait to get to that point here.


Friday Night meeting revelation:


Friday night meeting was also a really great experience. Aleni spoke on what a servant’s heart looks like, challenging us to examine our motives for what we do. Do we do it for the recognition? Because we think we’ll get a reward? Do we do the bare minimum sometimes because we are unpaid- just “volunteers”? (It was really cute when Aleni asked the audience, “do you have a volunteer mentality?” and one of the toddlers in the front happened to cry out “noooooooooooo” at just the right time). Since I have arrived in Perth I have been singing the song “You are my treasure” over and over again. My heart and spirit have been so pleased, so satisfied to be here because I know I will get closer to God, closer to Jesus. Even in worship on Friday night I was brought to laughter and tears during the worship because I wanted nothing but Him and I knew being here again, that is exactly what I will get. But, as Aleni gave His talk I did see a part of my heart that had been clinging to a certain verse in the Bible about rewards. The whole “those who leave mother and brother and father and husband and home will receive many more, in this lifetime” bit (not a direct quote) was something that had helped me be able to give up everything at home to come here. I felt (and feel) I was giving up a lot, and I felt reassured that I would get back was I lost – literally. But He challenged me in this, saying, “what if what I meant by that was that I will be your mother, father, lover, brother, and home? What if that is the reward and nothing else? Would that be enough?” My heart had been saying yes to that question for the last few days, but I could tell my mind was still clinging to the whole repayment thing. So, I’m letting go of that, too. Because He is the best reward, and if He is the only reward, it will all still be more than worth it.


A random note about my housing:


I am beginning to like my house. It’s old and, despite the drafts and leaks (it’s raining A LOT here), feels remarkably cozy. It’s kinda like camping. It actually feels a lot like camping. We keep the window in the bathroom open all the time to keep it from molding (makes for cold showers, but I am all for the prevention of mold considering that the last time I was in Perth I worked on the property crew and spent a week cleaning the mold off the ceiling in there). So with a window always open the house mostly smells of the great outdoors (expect the refrigerator which smells of something else). I really like smelling the plants and the rain when brushing my teeth at night and in the morning, very “campy.” You can also hear the sound of the rain on the roof, and the wind through the trees from any room in the house (none of the houses here are very sound proof) and I sleep in a sleeping bag. So, yeah, it feels oddly like a big camping trip. Which I like quite a bit. But I am trying not to get too attached to my new home because I may move (temporarily) next week to live closer to the students during the lecture phase. Anyway… just some random detail.


Looking ahead:


This week the whirlwind begins. I start leadership school and the students of the discipleship school will start to come arrive. My 18+ hour days will begin soon. Honestly, I know He promises the whole Philippians 4:13 all things through Him thing. But I am terrified. I was able to survive my DTS last year, but this is even more hours and more exhaustion. He gave me the grace to actually not feel that tired last year, but for some reason I am scared and doubtful this time around. I guess that’s something I gotta talk to Him about today.
Next entry I’ll know more about the school and the students. I think getting to know the students will help remind me of the passion God gave me that got me into this holy mess. That passion will hopefully be what gets me out of bed at 5 a.m. next week.