"It's not about you! It's about how God will use you in spite of your mess." | Week 8

Since I was little, I have always enjoyed sleeping. I was a content baby, rarely upset, that slept for so long my mom had to wake me up so i'd actually be able to sleep at night.
these past few years, I've still always enjoyed sleeping. always the first one asleep at sleepovers, to never fighting when I was instructed to go to sleep, to never being given a curfew when I was in high school because I enjoyed sleep.
last year on a missions trip/conference I went on, there was one day where I crashed so hard I called my youth pastor crying and he came to pick me up. not my finest moment, i'll admit. but it had been months of not sleeping well and that combined with about a week of less sleep then i'm used to... things didn't end well ;)
here on base, I go to sleep around 10-10:30 each night and wake up around 7:30. however, i'm EXHAUSTED! the only other time I can remember being this tired is from that mission trip. I forget how much being in spiritual battle is exhausting. It's hard not to fall asleep in lecture... or really any other time I stop moving really.
the reason i'm informing you on my sleep habits is because it actually has something to do with the title of today's post. The title is a quote from one of our speakers from this week (a married couple that lead a media team here on base). I love it because it's so true- it's not about me! it's about how God will use me in spite of my mess. in spite of how utterly exhausted I am, in spite of my total failure at life. He still uses me and will continue to.
today we got to watch some videos from the country we're going to on outreach. I am SO excited! God is working in the hearts of our team and we leave in LESS THEN A MONTH :)
again, if you want to receive my updates while on outreach, please send me an email at cwieler@ywamwollongong.org and I will add you to the list.
thanks so much! please keep us in your prayers. prayers for continued health and energy are especially needed. next week we have no internet access as we'll be at the base in Newcastle for a conference, so if I don't respond/don't post don't be worried!
blessings,
Cailey

week 7

well, it's week 7.
this week, we found out where we're going on outreach!
however, we're not supposed to be sharing over the internet except over secure connections.
if you would like to get my email updates while on outreach (as I will not be on facebook or my regular email) email me at cwieler@ywamwollongong.org and tell me who you are, and I will be happy to add you to my list! I will reply with where we're going :)
we were in the middle of a fundraising meeting and our leaders were like "we'll show you some examples of a fundraising video that past schools made"
and then we were like "why are our faces showing up in this video?" and it turned out that it was the video showing us our locations :) we were completely surprised, that's for sure!
well, blessings as you serve the really cool God that made our amazing earth!
-Cailey

Monday Afternoons

Every Monday afternoon during lecture phase, we split into two groups. one group goes to do community service/outreach, and the other goes to the local old folks' home to hang out with them. the groups switch every week, so one week you'll do community service and one week you'll go to the old folks' home.
quite honestly, the old folks' home is one of the highlights of my week. I love going to visit them, hearing about their lives, their stories, and telling them why the heck I left my home to come to Australia for so long.
I grew up going to visit family in old folks' homes, even working in a seniors' home for a few months in my grade 12 year, and it's always been something I look forward to. so far, I've gotten to play dominoes with a lovely lady named Sheila a few times (one time she showed us a picture of her when she was young in a "legs" competition, competing for who has the best legs... she won and so she was very proud). today, I went into the dementia ward, and was incredibly blessed by the conversations I had there. the people I was talking to seemed to forget I was there, so I had to keep the conversation going most of the time, but at the end I moved over to join the two other girls I had come with and we talked to this lovely lady who asked us all about ourselves and how we were and where we were from. and she even seemed to remember our answers :)
this week, we have a guy from the sunshine coast teaching on the Bible. unlike I thought, he's actually a really young guy with this intense passion for the Bible and getting us to love it too. i'm excited to learn from him.
God is good :)
-Cailey

thankful | my church family

To my church:

thank you.

thank you for your support.

thank you for listening to my stories, for asking me how i'm doing, for caring so incredibly much.

i'm so blessed to be a part of a church that supports the youth so wholeheartedly.

I thought it was the norm, having a church who is so supportive of the youth and young adults- financially, through prayer, through emotional support, and through helping us debrief by listening to our stories. apparently it's not... and i'm so beyond blessed.

thank you for absolutely making my day by coming through my till at my old job, chatting about how I was doing and asking about this trip.

thank you for donating financially for everything i'm doing, whether camp or Guatemala or SOAR or YWAM.

thank you for reading my blog, for your emails, for checking up on how i'm doing.

being gone, I have realized how much I actually miss you guys. I miss how everyone sits in the same spot every sunday, youth on the right and c&c on the left and young parents in the back. I miss laughing at church, every single sunday. I've been learning that one of the ways the Holy Spirit can show itself is through laughter, because the joy of the Lord is our strength. I think the Holy Spirit shows up in how you, the congregation of FGMB, love on each other. He shows up in how you laugh, how you care for each other, even if they haven't been to church in a long time, how you invite God into every decision, and how you are so mission focused.

one of the 18 values YWAM has is to go and champion young people. to support them and raise them up to do great things, to pray for them and to give financially to them. You, church, are the living embodiment of what it means to champion young people. it seems like every few months i'm up sharing about something else that I've done and that God's been doing in me... and I can't WAIT to come home and share with you what God's been doing in my life.

to the youth- thank you for being my family. you were the place I always fit when I never thought I fit anywhere else. with you guys, I could be myself. we were a family, where we supported each other, prayed for each other, and loved on each other. you were the best example of faith community that I had. I loved every night we had together; playing alien night squadron, making soup, discussing the just war theory, getting banished to the bottom of the stairs for hanky panky, jamming out to DC Talk and Stryper and U2, dancing together, sitting at the back in the sanctuary at SOAR together every year, and just generally laughing together.

church, I miss you so much. please keep us in your prayers as we continue to serve and learn. keep praying for my stomach, as we're under attack from Satan this week as we learn about spiritual warfare... and I get attacked by bad health quite often.

thank you church for all you've done for me. i'm blessed to be a part of the congregation. thank you for giving me my best friends, my mentor, and the people I look up to. thank you for challenging me, supporting me, and loving me.

you are the church.

thank you.

-Cailey

"Give me all of you! I don't want so much of your time, so much of your talents and money, and so much of your work. I want YOU! ALL OF YOU! I have not come to frustrate the natural man or woman, but to kill it! no half measures will do so. I don't want to prune a branch here and a branch there; rather I want the whole tree out! hand it over to me, the whole outfit, all of your desires, all of your wants and wishes and dreams. Turn them ALL over to me, give yourself to me and I will make of you a new self- in My image. Give me yourself and in exchange I will give you myself. My will shall become your will. My heart shall become your heart." -CS Lewis, Mere Christianity

Sunday Morning, once again | week five

I literally can't even believe how long I've been here. it's sunday the 16th, which means I got here exactly 5 weeks ago. Things have changed so much since I left home. I'm working through stuff from my past, but only in the hopes of moving forward. i'm becoming part of a family here, a family that comforts, that sings, that loves hardcore, that encourages to the point of being creepy, and that is very quickly overcoming personal space boundaries. we watch the Olympics together, cheering on our respective countries, and we Skype/facetime/video chat each other's families. life is so incredibly good. we do ridiculous things like spontaneous hair dying, going swimming at the beach when it's cold and windy, and laughing so incredibly hard at movies like Monsters' University. Next week, we have a talent/no talent night where we get to showcase our gifts and our "gifts". we are in routine, and I love it. I got to facetime one of my excellent little brothers today and didn't feel homesick at all, because for this season of my life, this is home.
a lot of people ask me about my taste in music. like what I like to listen to, etc. quite honestly, I would enjoy all kinds of music except screamo and probably most techno. however, the music that I listen to always has a memory attached. for me, that's one of the coolest things about music. it has this ability to call up many different kinds of memories. for instance, the song "Wobble" by Family Force 5. I don't like Family Force 5 at all, their music is a little too weird for me, but I love the song "Wobble" because whenever I hear it, it brings me back to the summer of 2012, where we heard it constantly. And the "Hoedown Throwdown" will always remind me of this past summer because we heard it ALL THE TIME. but I've learned to appreciate it :) "The Piano Man" by Billy Joel will always remind me of Guatemala (because someone sang it while hiking up a mountain behind me for like 20 minutes straight), and anything by DC Talk will remind me of singing in the church van while going... pretty much anywhere.
the song lately that I've been into is "Abide with Me". it's an old hymn, but rearranged by Greg Jasperse in the recording I have. we sang it in choir when I was in grade 11, and it was this phenomenal song that made people cry and gave us goosebumps. we got to sing it in an old church while on a music trip in Chicago, and it was just so incredibly cool to hear it echo like that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_x54fSmLJE
this song brings me back to all the good times we had in choir, but also it's a hauntingly beautiful version of a hymn with so much meaning behind it. the last 2 verses are my favourite:
Swift to its' close ebbs, out life's little day
earth's joys grow dim, its' glories pass away
change and decay, in all around I see
oh, Lord who changes not
abide with me

Hold now your word before my closing eyes
shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
heav'n's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
in life, in death oh Lord
abide with me
abide with me

today, I encourage to you be thoughtful about the music that you listen to. is there a reason you listen to this kind of music? do you just like it or is there a memory attached?
I am so thankful for the gift of music :)
Blessings in the One who created music,
-Cailey

10 reasons why I'm proud to be a Canadian

1) We're 2nd in medal count in the Sochi Olympics!
2) this article-  http://sports.yahoo.com/news/the-united-states-has-a-case-of-olympics-medal-envy-and-is-saying--whoa--canada-114753429.html
3) rocks and trees and trees and rocks and rocks and trees and trees and rocks and waterrrrr.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxTpIMK5NSo
4) hockey :)
5) "TRUE NORTH!" at Jets games
6) land of the overly polite people (better overly polite then rude)
7) we didn't look totally embarrassing at the opening ceremonies like the states
8) we actually say "sorry" the correct way instead of "sawry"
9) we're more educated on the Americans then the Americans are on us
10) free healthcare

Prayer requests and waterfalls

Hey folks! 

I just wanted to take the time to ask for more prayer. It's been a rough week for my insides, I've been having a lot of nausea every day and it's getting really discouraging... I'm just tired of being sick all the time. It's making me homesick as well as feeling removed from community life here because I just don't feel good at all. 

Otherwise, life is going great! We went hiking yesterday and climbed up a waterfall (so tiring but so worth it... We were all a sweaty mess by the end). By the looks of that waterfall, we're definitely not in Manitoba anymore :) we're at the end of "Father heart of God" week, and it's been really good. Today we head to the beach, and tomorrow is Saturday so we have it free! 

God is good. Even though I'm constantly sick, even though life is hard sometimes, even though terrible things happen... God is big, and God is good. Pray that we would be able to cling to that as we enter into a week of lectures on Spiritual Warfare next week, and as we're all exhausted already! 

"And he will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast because he trusts in you." 

Blessings, 

Cailey 

Family hike to a waterfall... Aren't they adorable?? This was before we got sweaty and dirty and bitten :p