Hello!
It has been a crazy 5 weeks since the Foundations of Counseling Ministry School has begun. We are already heading into week 6. Here is a picture of my class, people from Hong Kong, Switzerland, US, Canada, Netherlands, China, Norway, Germany, and Australia.
So far we have had lectures and teaching on Intimacy with God, Foundations of Counseling, Family Systems, Divine Plumbline, and Mental Health. Along with the lectures, each week we also have workshops where we learn practical counseling skills. We’ve had workshops on attending skills, opening and closing a counseling session, feedback, hollistic wellbeing, and active listening. Each Tuesday afternoon for a couple hours we have a new workshop where we learn practical counseling skills and then do role play to practice.
Wondering what our typical day looks like?
We make breakfast for all the students in YWAM Perth each weekday morning, so we all meet in the kitchen at 6 am to prepare breakfast and lunch together. I help open the cafe by the kitchen so people can start their day with a hot drink. At 8 am, we help clean the base for 30 minutes, and then move into either a time of worship or prayer. At 10 am, our lectures for the day begin. We are in class until 12:30ish, where we then break for lunch for an hour. Once lunch is over we either have a period of working on homework, or we do counseling skills workshops. We meet back together for dinner at 5:30 pm, and then will often have a class session after dinner.
Below are some photos from a couple different fundraisers we have put on. We’ve done a car wash, a pizza fundraiser, and in November we are selling pumpkin pies. All the fees from these fundraisers go towards out outreach in January.
Where are we going for outreach?
India & Perth
We will be in India for 6 weeks. Those 6 weeks we will be serving and counseling in an addiction rehabilitation center. We will be doing a range of things from counseling, teaching, evangelism, and serving. This will be an incredible time to build relationship with the people in the rehab center and share God’s love with them as they walk through struggles and towards recovery and freedom.
Then we will head to Perth for 4 weeks. In those 4 weeks we will be helping pioneer a counseling ministry through YWAM Perth in the city, connecting with the chaplaincy program in the city. This time is going to look a little uncertain as pioneering a counseling ministry will entail many unexpected aspects. We will be building connections with other organizations and churches in the city, trusting for God’s leading on how to help people experience God’s healing and freedom in different ways.
Here is a photo of my outreach team!
Honest & raw.
That’s what God has been doing the past 5 weeks. His doing is actually undoing me. I’ve been confronted with perspectives and life choices that became habits that unknowingly affected my health and my relationship with God. Through choosing constant work, through my job, schooling, finances, keeping up relationships, health challenges, and other things that popped up, I became overloaded and weary. Instead of trusting God for time to rest, I felt pressured to keep going to try to keep up with everything going on. I became so exhausted it affected my physical, mental, and spiritual health.
So being back in Perth has been confronting how I’m honestly doing. I’ve realized I need to slow down. Being in a time of healing, of learning, of taking a step back, and of pushing and trusting for breakthrough in a hunger for more of God takes time and rawness before God. Realizing how broken I am, how undone I am is challenging to confront and embrace. But I can just take it one step at a time. To show up for the moment before God,
honest and raw.
(Also here’s a photo of Brody & I, as we are finally done with long distance dating & can do normal life and counseling school together 🙂 ).
Cheers,
Grace
Furthering Grace 