FREEDOM: The State of Being Free Rather Than in Confinement or Under Physical Restraint

Hey y'all! 
Hope you're doing swimmingly! I am doing well, enjoying the spring weather here in Oxford.  Which is rainy most days but the sun has made an appearance every one and a while. All our students have arrived safely, soundly, bags and all. 

Orientation has been involved in the first week schedule but we were also blessed with a couple of amazing speakers Marty Emmett (YWAM Bethlehem, Tauranga, NZ), and Paul & Teresa Archer (Hope Center/ Tauranga House of Prayer, Tauranga, NZ). Marty Emmett spoke on the Gospel and the Pursuit of God. He took us through heaps of repentance, repentance of shame, passivity, apathy. It was gnarly as. Many students met God in bold ways. God downloaded heaps of identity and just broke off many loads. God literally kicked shame and passivity out the door. A key thing that really challenged me was this "mathematical" equation, RADICAL TRANSFORMATION = RADICAL TRANSPARENCY. Freedom tore through, God downloaded pictures, epic words, scripture and so much joy! And of course tears! Romans 12: 2, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."

Paul & Teresa spoke on Worship and Prayer. They talked heaps about being in the Father's presence, that worship is about God and not about you. That you cannot define worship by your circumstance or your emotions. If you do not give God the priority of being your first love than you cannot possible worship Him for who He is, otherwise it becomes about you. And worship is not about you, it is about God. Referring to the church of Ephesus and how they did everything that was required but they forgot their first love, Christ, in which God removed their influence. It did not matter to Him that they were the biggest influence in Asia at the time, He just wanted their hearts. 

This first week of DTS has been so incredible. Heart wrenching and feelings of just wanting to cry but also heaps of joy and feelings of just wanting to laugh for hours. God has been at work wrecking our hearts and mind with His crazy offensive love. Such a sweet as journey. 

Prayer requests!
* Health and wellness for all staff and students
* Unity and development of awesome relationships
* That hearts and minds would be open for all that God has for us
* Finances for both lecture and outreach phase for all staff and students
* Family. Families of staff and students that they would be rock with the revelation of Jesus Christ. And for homesickness.
* Focus and energy for this season!

"And the turtles, of course... all the turtles are free, as turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be." -- Dr. Seuss

Facebook me or email if you want to chat, share some thing or just want some prayer.
Love y'all
Josephina

Kia Ora!

Figured it was time for me to write home... Give y'all a bit of an update. Officially I've been in New Zealand for nearly two weeks. It has been super good but challenging as I felt a bit behind, still sort of do but as the school is starting to gear up what I'll be doing is becoming more clear. We had two speakers who actually spoke together on my DTS last year. Josh Cole and Marty Emmett. They spoke on leadership heaps and just developing character and becoming the best leader you can be. We also had some ministry/ affirming time as a team. Super sweet. This last weekend we had staff retreat to get to know each other better.  So the backpacker and climbers staff drove to the West Coast to the small town of Moana. We stayed in a house, watched Titanic, walked to the lake, saw a real steam train which was one of my highlights. Fun times. I also got to drive one of the base vans on the left side for about 2 hours, heaps of it close to the edge as we had to drive through mountains and the like. Scary but fun. Got to chat wil Jill (one of the two climbers staff) for that drive. She's from Vancouver and is the coolest. We had a sweet conversation about life and what is like staffing as she's worked at YWAM Perth for the last couple of years. The staff are really awesome and we've been bonding well. This week we've been going through a lot of the nitty gritty stuff of staff so things like small groups, one on ones, schedules, speakers, our jobs for the lecture phase and the like. We are also sharing testimonies throughout the week. Other than that the students are coming in about ten day and it's been really sweet being back. Yep that's all I think. Miss y'all. Love y'all heaps too.
Jo

New Zealand Address

“Just go. Go. Go! I don’t care how. You can go by foot. You can go by cow.” - Dr. Seuss

If you want to send me any sort of things like letters or magical packages my address while I am in New Zealand is:
YWAM OXFORD
ATTN: Jolanthe Schaefer 
14 Church Street
Oxford, Canterbury
7430 New Zealand