Week Five!

We had a very exciting and different week!

Monday: We left the base and took a field trip to visit Maple Hills Estates. We were able to meet with couple who have been working in this community over the last ten-ish years. Maple Hills is a trailer park located outside of Maple Grove, MN. The focus for outreach in the park is to get involved and engaged with the children and teenagers in the community, to introduce them to God, and to give them hope for the future. The couple we met with have actually moved from Maple Grove into Maple Hills for the summer to really see what it looks like to "incarnate" Christ. They want to be His hands and feet in that community. It was really inspiring for us to see.

Tuesday: We began our normal class week. This week we talked about public speaking/ how to prepare a sermon/ message. We each had to give a 5-7 minute speech on the fly. We all gave speeches on things that either interested us or were the first things we could think of to speak about. Nate gave his talk on "What Makes a Good Hockey Goalie a Great Hockey Goalie" while Julianne taught the class how to bake sugar cookies. It was fun for all of us to get a chance practicing speaking in front of each other.
       We also met with our outreach groups today. All of the fall DTS (Discipleship Training School) staff gathered together to talk about the upcoming school and to pray for the students. We would love your prayers as we prepare for this fall's school. We are needing more students to attend to have a big enough school. We know God will send those who need to be here. We don't want anyone to miss out.

Wednesday: We continued with our speech practicing. This time we split the class into two groups. The first group had to give a 5-7 talk on a topic they learned from DTS...but pretending to give it to a youth group. The second group had to give a 5-7 talk to a group of supporters, explaining what they were doing and trying to raise money for outreach. Nate and I were split into the opposite groups. I did the youth group talk while he have the support talk. We each had a half hour to prepare and then gave our speeches to our respective groups.

Nate teaching in class

Thursday: We had another field trip. This time we journeyed into Minneapolis. We visited an organization called Urban Home Works. This organization buys old/ foreclosed houses in Minneapolis, fixes them up, and then rents out the homes to lower income families. What is really neat about this organization is that they rent the lower and upper parts of the houses separately. The lower is rented out to low income families while the upper is rented out to Christians. Those in the upper commit to a year long program of intentional community. These "neighbors" make a point of reaching out into the community and showing their neighbors the love of Christ. On our tour, we first met with a couple named Heather and Nate. They lived in north Minneapolis with their three little boys. We visited with them, heard their story, and looked around their house and neighborhood. We next traveled over to the main headquarters of the organization to learn some more of the background of the organization and their goals. After lunch we all got to help do some landscaping on a nearby house that Urban Home Works had purchased and were fixing up. Nate dug and filled a trench while Julianne weeded, planted new grass, and watered. We had an incredible time. We are hoping to keep connected with this organization because we really believe in what it is trying to do.

Friday: Last day of class. Each of us students had to prepare a 15-20 mini sermon on something God had been showing us lately. It was also to be translated. Nate gave his on "Trusting God and Living in His Rest," and Julianne spoke on "The Person God is Looking For." It was a challenge, but we both grew so much in all of it.

Saturday: Our day off!!! Well, kinda. :) We watched a bit of the Olympics right after breakfast. Someone here at the base hooked up the TV to our big projector in class. The guys here are loving it. Nate wanted to stay and watch for more, but we had work to do. We have FINALLY finished all of our wedding thank you's! We will be sending them out early next week. We had not forgotten about all of you. :)

         This evening we had a class picnic at the Buffalo Lake Park. We grilled up some burgers and played frisbee. We worshipped together at the park on some blankets. We then broke up into groups to walk around the park and the town to see who God wanted us to talk to. Some of us had a chance to speak with some other people, but the park was pretty empty. Nate and I walked around the town with our friend, Jaime, praying for the community. It was such a lovely night.

Worship in the Park

        And now we are here at McDonalds for our weekly update. The Internet at the base doesn't let us get onto our blog. So we have to take a trip here. We get a large drink every week and sit in the little booth, typing away. It's a good time.

We are so thankful for all your support in our lives. We LOVE your prayers! We would really appreciate you joining with us in prayer for this upcoming DTS this fall. We really need students. Pray that God will open the doors for students to come and that they would only listen to God's voice. Also pray and ask God if He is wanting anyone you know to come to this DTS. We have three different focuses: a Dance focus, a Wilderness focus, and  Justice and Mercy focus.
We also would personally love your prayers for our future. Please pray that God would give us the ears to listen to what He wants to say. We only want to do what the Father tells us to do. We are longing for His direction and wisdom.

Thank you, thank you, and thank you! We love you all dearly! May God continue to bless you!!

Love in Christ,
Julianne and Nate Gibbons

Week Four

Hey everyone! We had another wonderful week here. We got to do a lot this week/weekend.

Our class this week was about God’s purpose through history. We went through the old testament and looked at some of the bigger promises that God has made. Some of those promises are when He promised in the Garden of Eden that there would be a man born of Eve that would defeat Satan, when He promised Abraham that He would bless him and that through him He would bless the world, and when he promised David that he will have a son whose throne would last forever and through him all nations would be blessed. Then we looked at Jesus and how Jesus fulfilled every one of those promises. It was just a really cool week where we just really dug into the Bible and its message throughout.

On Tuesday night Nate got to go work with some East Asian children in one of the local outreaches that are ran through this Youth With A Mission base. They are all from Buddhists families. We just got to play with them, talk with them, and just give them some love and attention. They really need it. Because they are Buddhists, they worship/pray to/give offerings to their “gods”, which are really just demons.  They live lives based around fear of their gods and not pleasing them. So we just come in to love on them and whenever we can try to talk to them about Jesus and how they do not have to be afraid because Jesus is more powerful than the demons. It is a great ministry.

This weekend was another Mission Adventures weekend here at the base. So we had about 30 junior high and high school students who came to get trained and prepared for their mission trip. This weekend we got to do things like help teach them some short dramas they can act out, how to make balloon animals, and helped lead them in some team building and team bonding games. It was a lot of fun working with the youth and just talking to some of them during their free time. We have been praying that this experience would be a life changing one that would change their walks with good for the better.

We are looking into investing in an Ipad and have really been asking God about it and feel like He wants us to get one and has one for us. We are just really trying to figure out how to find the one that God has for us. So if you know of anyone who is looking to sell one that is in good condition or any kind of lead on one, we would love it if you could email us about it at: julianneandnate@gmail.com Thank you so much for all of your help! J

We would love it if you could continue to keep us in your prayers. We know that they really do help us. Some specific things you can pray about are: first for God to release the Ipad He has for us and second for us to really just figure out our places here that God has for us. Thank you so very much for all of your support. We could not do this without you!

                                                                                    Love in Christ,

                                                                                    Nate and Julianne Gibbons

Helping with the MA teams:

Nate and Julianne:

Week THREE!

            Sorry we haven’t updated lately. We were super packed last week and did not get a chance to upload a new post about our week.

            We had such an incredible third week. The topic of the week was Spiritual Gifts and Strengths. We took two different personality tests. The results were very helpful for both of us as individuals and to help better understand each other. They didn’t “discover” new talents but instead gave us the words to describe ourselves.

            The first test was called the “Strengths Finder.” We had to answer 170 questions online through a website. The test had split different personalities into 34 types. It then tells you what your top 5 strengths/talents are. We really liked it. We also took a spiritual personality test. It helped us see how we minister spiritually the best.

            We spent a lot of time in class discussing our results and learning more about ourselves and the other students. It was very helpful to see how we all have so many different gifts but fit together to form the body of Christ.

            We also had our first meeting with the Discipleship Training School (DTS) staff this past Tuesday. It was exciting to begin meeting together and talking about the plans for this fall. We are super pumped to work with the upcoming students and help pour into their lives. As Jesus said, “freely you have received, freely give.”

            Thank you so much for all your prayers and support! It is such a blessing in our lives! Please continue to pray for school unity for our class. We really want to become one as Jesus and the Father are one.

            Lots of love and blessing!

                                                                                                In Christ,

                                                                                                Nate and Julianne

Our "Strengths:"

Week 2!!!

            We are now done with our second week of class and our first weekend working with Mission Adventures. It was such an incredible week!

            This week in class we learned about faith and finances. We talked and learned about how the Bible views and talks about raising support. Some of the scriptures we looked at where: 2 Chronicles 31:4, Deuteronomy 14:22-29, Acts 18:1-5, Nehemiah 13:10, 2 Thessalonians 3:8 and 9, Galatians 6:6, Romans 15:20-24, and 2 Corinthians 1:16. We also learned about how to best write an effective newsletter to our supporters. It was a really good week in which we learned a lot that I know we will start using now and will continue to use for many years to come. We had class only on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday this week.

            We had Wednesday off to celebrate the 4^th of July! We were able to spend the day with some of Julianne’s extended family. She has lots of family that lives close to us here in Minnesota, and they were having a family reunion/picnic on the 4^th. We spent Tuesday night over at her grandparents’ house and went to the picnic the next day. We had a great time talking and, for me (Nate), meeting lots of her family. We drove back to the base that night.

            We also had Friday off this week to work with the Mission Adventure students. So you might be wondering what is Mission Adventures? Mission Adventures is a program that is run by some of the Youth With A Mission bases. It is basically a program to help prepare and send groups of people on short-term mission trips around the world. Local churches (and churches from all over the US) will gather a team of middle school and high school aged youth that want to do a mission trip. They will come to our base on Thursday evening and spend Thursday night through Saturday night preparing for their mission trip. Some of the staff at the base here give lessons, play team bonding games, and just help prepare the teams for their trips. Then Sunday morning the teams will set out. A couple of our staff will go with them to help lead them along the way. This weekend we had two teams from two different local churches. One team is now in Haiti, and the other is actually working in downtown Minneapolis.  One of the best parts of this weekend was that both Julianne and I got to each be a part of a different team that led worship during some of the worship sessions. We each sang. It was a pretty big step for both of us to get up there and sing into a microphone in front of everyone, but we did it. It was really awesome.

Next week we are learning about spiritual gifts and strengths. We are very much looking forward to this week and everything we will learn from it.

A couple prayer requests we have are for wisdom in determining what God wants us to do for our outreach and for what He has for us after this school. We are also looking into buying a white 32GB iPad. We currently only have one computer for both of us, and its battery is dead. We always have to have it plugged into the wall. If you know anyone who is looking to sell one or have any leads on a good iPad, please contact us at julianneandnate@gmail.com. Thank you so much!

We want to thank you so much for praying for us and for following us and our ministry. We are so blessed to have you as part of our team.

                                                                        Love in Christ,

                                                                        Nate and Julianne Gibbons