WEEK 8: Trip to Pine Ridge

We are back in Minnesota! We had such a great experience working on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. We met up in SD with a high school youth group from Aberdeen, SD. We worked with them throughout the week. There are lots of stories to tell, but we’ll try to sum it up as best as we can. :)

Saturday (11^th)

Most of our class left for Pine Ridge while we stayed back here at the base. We had such an incredible catching up and fellowshipping with two of our friends, Becca and Kendra, from Grand Rapids. They stayed overnight with us in our apartment for their last night of their road trip.

Sunday (12^th)

The remaining six students from our class left around 7am for the reservation.  Nate drove for the first 5 hours until we stopped at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. We ate our sack lunches there and looked around at the tourists shops.

We arrived at the reservation for dinner. Then we traveled to White Clay, Nebraska where we were going to be sleeping for the week.

Monday (13^th)

We spent the morning preparing for the Vacation Bible School for the local children in Allen, SD on the reservation. We were planning on having them come that afternoon, however, the children did not know there was a VBS. So we instead took a trip to Wounded Knee. In 1890 a massacre happened to the Lakota Sioux in this town. We visited the memorial burial spot. It really helped us to connect with the history of the local people. We were all very glad that we were able to go to Wounded Knee.

After dinner we all gathered for a debriefing time. We began to worship, thank, and praise God for what He had done throughout the day.  Some of the students from our class began to pray for the youth group students. Soon the youth began to pray for each other. The worship time continued for over an hour with everyone praying for each other. We could feel the presence of God in the room. It was such a great way to kick off our week!

Tuesday (14^th)

We worked in the morning at a location organization in White Clay, NE called Lakota Hope. White Clay is just outside of the reservation, where it is legal to purchase and sell alcohol. Over 10,000 cans of alcohol are sold there a day. The organization working in White Clay tries to connect with the men and women living on the street and to give them the hope of Jesus Christ. We spent our time pulling weeds, moving tables, and scraping paint off of the building.

After lunch we traveled to Allen for the Bible School for the local kids. Julianne worked with the 3-6 year olds while Nate worked with the 10 years and up group. It was a lot harder than we had thought it would be. Nate’s group was especially tough. A lot of the children come from tough home lives. The older children were very disrespectful and trying on Nate’s patience. We were a bit afraid of what the rest of the week was going to look like.

Wednesday (15^th)

We again spent our morning in White Clay working at Lakota Hope. We scrapped paint off of one of their buildings that was going to be repainted.

Once that was finished, the team was split into groups to go walk the streets and talk to the men and women there. An older lady started to yell and threaten Nate because he looked like a guy she knew named Clay. (And so we jokingly called Nate “White Clay” for the rest of the week.) Nate got a chance to talk and minister to some of the guys on the street. Julianne had stayed back and was praying for those out on the streets.

We went to Allen after lunch for the VBS. Some of the older kids were acting off before it began and were told they had to go home. It was sad to see them leave but a blessing as well.

It almost felt like a completely different group of kids. The whole afternoon was much more behaved and organized.

Thursday (16^th)

Yeah! Our 2 month anniversary!

We spent the morning in White Clay again. We scrapped more paint off another building before going down town.

Half of our group worked in the thrift store sorting clothes while the other half talked with the people out on the street. Nate met up with one of the men he met the day before. On Wednesday they had talked about angels and demons since the man said that he could see into the spiritual world. Nate told the man that if he saw a demon to “rebuke it in the name of Jesus.” That night the man had seen a demon standing by his feet. He had tried to hide from it but kept seeing it. He remembered what Nate had told him and so said to the demon, “I refute you in the name of Jesus.” The demon, of course, left him. It was so exciting to hear that story! There is power in the name of Jesus!

We went to Allen for our last day of VBS. We had a lot of fun playing with the kids. We ended the day off with a huge water balloon fight. The kids had such a blast.

It was a bit sad to see them for the last time. We can only hope and pray that they will remember what we taught and showed them throughout the week.

Friday (17^th)

FREE DAY! Before we left for the day, we cleaned up the house where we had been staying. The youth group left to go back to Aberdeen while our class took a trip to Mount Rushmore. We spent a couple hours there sightseeing and then got pizza for dinner. It was a fun relaxing day.

Saturday (18^th)

We once again pilled into the vans for the 11 hour car ride to the base here in MN. It felt so good to be back home again.

We cannot believe how quickly this summer has flown by! We only have three more weeks left of our class before we will begin preparing to help lead and staff the next upcoming school here.

            We could love and appreciate your prayers for us in this next season. We are excited for the DTS. We know this is where God wants us to be next. We are looking forward to it and, yet, a bit nervous about leading.

            Thank you for all the support you have shown us over these last two months! May God continue to bless you!

In Christ,

Julianne and Nate Gibbons

SOMD Week 7

            Hello everyone! Wow, did we have a great week. This week was all about other religions and how to reach them.

It was so great to learn about some other religions and how we can reach each of them. We learned about Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Islam, Buddhism, and Witchcraft. We continued to see that, although all of them were far from truth, they each had a bit of truth in them. It showed us that God is always so faithful to point back to Himself. He never gives up on His people. To every people group and religion, God always makes Himself known. That gave us a lot of hope. Some times it can be discouraging when talking to people of other faiths; it seems like they will never understand. We can know that God is faithful and loves them. We will share with them and let the Holy Spirit minister to them on a deeper level.

As we learned about all these religions, Islam and Buddhism both stuck out to us the most. We feel like we are called to working with people who believe in those two religions. This is just even more confirming for our heart to spread the gospel to China. It was pretty cool to get a new piece of what God has in store for us in our future.

On Tuesday afternoon we went on a tour of down town Minneapolis with John Mayer. It was a great experience that we learned a lot during. Minneapolis is home to so many immigrants and especially ones whose homelands missionaries cannot get into.  For example, Minneapolis has the largest number of Somali, Hmong, Oromo Ethiopian, Liberian, Karen Burmese, and Anuak populations in the US, as well as the second largest Tibetan population. We don’t have to go around the world anymore to reach people of a different nation, they have come to us. It is like the great commission has come to us now.

                                           This is John Mayer

                 These are two houses that are right next to each other. The top one

                 has 5 people living in it while the bottom one has 70-90 people living

                 in it. 

This is a garden that is used by some witches around the area

This is the produce section of a Latino store in Minneapolis

These are some Somali kids

This is a mosque above a store

They have camel burgers at the world market.

This is us with our food we got at the world market. It was really good.

It really was a great week that we learned and got to see a lot of neat things. Next week we will be in the Pine Ridge Native American Reservation leading a youth group on a one week mission trip. Prayers for that would be amazing. We leave Sunday the 12^th to drive there and will be back on Saturday the 18^th.

Please pray that we will be able to help minister to the youth group students. They are middle school aged students on their first mission trip. Pray that God would give us the words to encourage them in their faith. Also pray for the Native America children we will be working with. Our class along with the youth group will be giving a Vacation Bible School in the afternoons for the local children. The program is for 5-10…but we are expecting younger and older kids as well. We are excited and know that God is going to do great things during our time there. Thank you so much for all your prayer!

God bless you,

In Christ,

Nate and Julianne Gibbons

Week Six

WOW!!! We're half way through the School of Ministry Development! We can hardly believe how quickly the class has just flown by.

Over the past weeks we have been attending a church in Plymouth, MN. We are really enjoying our time there meeting new people and fellowshipping while studying God's word. A group of us from the YWAM base head out there every week. This past Sunday the church held its annual service in the park. We had worship and the preaching outside at the park on our lawn chairs and blankets. After the service we all walked down to the lake for a baptism. Then we returned back to the pavillion to grill our hotdogs and burgers. It was quite fun. They had some games for the little "children." Our YWAM group of course joined in the fun of the water balloon toss. Some of us got quite wet. In the last game we played, Nate decided that he was done tossing and instead threw his balloon straight at our friend, Jarryd. It was a good time.

This week in class we talked about "Community in Development." We learned that God has created us all to be together and become one as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one. We talked about how we can truly be the church, the body of Christ, by removing the focus off of ourselves and back onto God. Our speaker reminded us that sometimes we can get so "caught up" in whether or not we liked the songs we sing at church or the message or the colour of the carpet that we totally forget that coming together with other believers at "church" is supposed to be about worshipping God. We need to stop focusing on our "experience" and simply worship our holy and loving God.
We also were reminded to stop tearing apart our brothers and sisters in Christ, that we each are a part of the body. Some of us may be hands while others are noses and still others are toenails. We each have a ridiculously important job to play, and we cannot spend our time tearing each other apart. It was good for us to remember that we all together form the body of Christ, the church.

We had another Mission Adventures team come this weekend. Nate and I had a chance again to lead worship with the teens. And this time we got to sing together. It was a lot of fun! This team is heading out to the Native American reservation in Pine Ridge, SD. We are excited for them as we will also be heading out there next weekend.

Nate and Julianne leading worship

SUPER AMAZING STORY:

We had a MA team over at the base two weeks ago while they were doing Vacation Bible Schools in Minneapolis. Some of the students and staff at the base got to know the kids really well. A couple students in our class felt like God was telling them to pray for a certain girl on the team. They believed that God wanted to show her His love through them. While praying, they wrote down different things they believed God was telling them to tell her. When they talked to her, she confessed to them that she had given up on God and had been seriously contemplating suicide. She said the last week at MA really changed and probably saved her life. GOD IS SO GOOD!

The MA team loading up supplies

This weekend Julianne's family came up from Michigan for a vacation. They will be camping throughout MN and through the UP. They stopped by the base Saturday night to eat dinner with us. Julianne's sisters, Hannah, Bethany, Moriah, and Sarah, spent the night with us. They came with us to church and then we all drove up to Pease, MN to eat lunch with Julianne's family. We had an amazing time visiting with them.

Thank you so much for following along with us on our adventures out here in Minnesota! We are having such an incredible time our here learning more about who God is and who He has created us to be. We are getting very excited for the upcoming fall DTS. Please keep this school in your prayers. We are still needing more students. Continue to pray and listen to God as He tells you names of people you know who could have a life changing experience through a DTS.

To learn more about DTS, click on the link below:

http://www.ywam-mn.org/index.php/focus

We would also love your prayers as we will be preparing to leave for the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. Pray that our hearts and eyes would be open to see these people the way God sees them. And also that their hearts would be open to receive the love that we want to show them. Thanks so much!

We are so thankful for all of you!

Love in Christ,

Julianne and Nate Gibbons

P.S. Julianne went a bit crazy this week...and decided to dye her hair BLONDE! Pictures will be coming soon! :D

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