Durban...thus far

Hey everyone,
We had some free time today so i thought that i would make a blog update.
We have been here in Durban for a few days but have been traveling for a week. Two Sundays ago I went to London while we were staying at the Ywam base in Harpendon, it is a huge city and i only had a few hours there so we walked by Big Ben and then down to London Bridge (tower). We left harpendon, bound for London early Monday afternoon. We waited anxiously for Jose and Arietta to arrive from the South African Embassy, hopefully with Jose's visa for SA. When they arrived we were sad to hear that they didn't grant Jose the visa, but jose was allowed into the country for 30 days.
So we left England and flew to Madrid, Spain. Shortly later we boarded the plane to SA. Once we arrived, we stayed in the airport for a few hours until our bus arrived to take us the 10 hour journey to Durban.
So since we have been here, i have swam in the Indian ocean, shopped at one of the biggest malls i have seen, worked with children in a slum near Durban were 45% of the populations has HIV/Aids and TB, Cleaned a woman's house who has spent her life being treated horrible by the white people she worked for, and i went to Church.
Cleaning the house was amazing, I'm pretty sure that the Gogo (Zulu for Grandmother) was in shock that a bunch of white people cleaned for her.
Its been amazing so far and i cant wait to see what Gods going to do here.
Cheers! Nate

Ohh PS, today Jose went to the home affairs office and got an extension for the visa so thank you to everyone that was praying, God really came through.

Cork

Hey everyone,  

   Im not sure how many more times i will update before i go to South Africa, i will probably not be able to update at all their.  So... Cork is real cool, its cold and its a busy city.  We have been volunteering at a coffee shop and Book store, and been working with a church in Cobh and here in Cork.  Sunday we led the worship service at Cork Community Church, it was a very cool service and the members and God enjoyed it.   We have also been prayer walking and doing alot more stuff.  Its very exciting.

   Update on Jose's (hosea)  visa,  we called the embassy in London, and they said that not all the right documents were given to them, however the embassy thought he was applying for a different kind of visa.  Corrections have been made but it will still take awhile and we leave in a few days.  So please keep praying, he really appreciates the prayers.  

      Two more months!!!

    Cheers Nate

Christmas

    Hey everyone, I hope you all had a great Christmas,  here in Closkelt we went to a christmas day service, then in the evening we had a nice dinner and watched Christmas Vacation.  Yesterday we watched all of the Lord of the Rings, we started at 10 am and didnt finish till 11:30 pm.  

   Anyway, this is the last Saturday I will be in Closkelt, we leave for outreach on Monday, we will be in Cork for 10 days, London for 2 days and South Africa for two months.  We are all super excited about being able to apply everything we have learned in the last three months.  

   My team and I would appreciate all the prayers you can send our way,  please pray that one of the students gets his visa for South Africa soon.

   Thanks so much for giving me this opportunity to be here,  I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas.        

                              -Nate

These last few weeks

  Hey Everyone,

      I thought it would be good to update everyone about what's going on here in Closkelt.  It is very cold, I woke up this morning and it almost looked like it was snowing but it was just really foggy.  

      This week we are learning about how to tell a Bible story accurately in ten minutes, we have a speaker from Storys for All ministries, and the base purpose for this is to be able to relate the bible to Illiterate people.  It is a very awesome tool to have as a missionary because you never know if you will run into an illiterate people group.  

      This week we are also doing a thing called scripture union, which is basically were we go into a school and spend time with school children, teaching them bible stories and playing games with them.  My group is doing The Good Samaritan, and we go tomorrow (Thursday) for a few hours. 

      Last week we had an awesome week of lectures about Discipleship  and what it means to be a disciple and methods to be a good disciple and disciple some one well.  Our speaker was really awesome, he had been with YWAM Argentina for a decade and he showed me a few Argentinean Hardcore bands, it was really cool.  

       Over the weekend I went to Belfast, and went to a rugby game, it was really fun, but very cold.   The Mascot for Ulster, made fun of me because of my American accent, then he went around the field and when he came back he asked for me by saying "Where is the Yanky Doodle", it was a great game though.

So yeah thats what is going on right now with me.

                      Thanks again to all my supporters and also thanks to everyone who is leaving comments on this blog its really great to read them.   

                                                      Cheers!   Nate

Thanksgiving

     Hey Everyone,

 Just wanted to say hello to everyone and Happy Thanksgiving.  We celebrated Thanksgiving tonight and it was nice of everyone who isn't american to allow us to!   I also just wanted to say how thankful I am to all of you who supported me and continue to support me, it means so much to me.  One more month until Outreach!

                              Thanx again.... Nate

Galway

Hey Everyone,

     Im in Galway, Ireland right now for Mid term Outreach.  Please be praying for us, and for our time here.  

                                          Thanx!  Nate

Mid-Term Outreach

Hey Everyone,

Sorry it has been so long since my last post, I have been very busy. We found out the other day that we are leaving for South Africa January 11!!!!!! My team has been very hard at work researching South Africa, learning Zulu, and praying about what ministry's we need to be apart of.
This week is our 24/7 prayer week so at all times during this week, we will have someone in the prayer room. Our focus for 24/7 is Ireland, Ywam Northern Ireland and Ireland are becoming one unit instead of two, this is very exciting for the full time staff and even for us DTS'ers. So we have been praying for God to reveal his heart for this Island, and it is so amazing to see what he is saying back to us.
Next week we leave for our Mid term outreach in Ireland. We will be sending out three teams of about 3 or 4 students and a staff member or two. The teams will be going to Derry, which is the second biggest city in The North of Ireland, to Cork the second biggest city in the Republic of Ireland and the whole Island, and a team to Galway, which is the biggest University center on the Island. We will be gone for a week or so doing anything we can from evangelism to looking for possible places for YWAM bases there.


So that is whats coming up.... as for what has been going on, the other day we went to Giants Causeway which is the only place in the world that these hexagonal rocks are, they are amazing. Then we went to a Castle on the north coast of Northern Ireland. It was so crazy to be in a actual castle were battles were fought.
This past week was on Forgiveness and Reconciliation, we had Johnny Clark the National Director of both Ireland and the North of Ireland. I went into the week thinking that i had everything figured out and that i had forgiven people, but God pretty much slapped me in the face with issues i had forgotten about.
The week before was about the Holy Spirit, this week was huge. I don't want to get into alot of what happened because its hard to write it out, but it was awesome. God did so much for our group that week it was amazing.
The week before that was a week on the fatherheart of God, this week was also very awesome. I had never thought about God like that before. I encourage everyone to not think of God as some King on his throne in heaven but as The heavenly father who loves and comforts us.
So that's pretty much been whats going on in my world. Ill try to write more often.
Cheers!