YWAM Queenstown | Volume Five

I can’t believe that it has been five weeks! It is quite surreal to look back on this time to my first week here and it feels so distant, yet it feels like it was yesterday when I landed in the Queenstown airport and looked upon the mountains of New Zealand for the first time. I am in constant amazement of the beauty of this great country. There truly is no place like New Zealand. The Ends of the Earth.

On the theme of New Zealand, both myself and a few friends hiked up Ben Lomond at 2AM for the sunrise, which is the tallest mountain in Queenstown. All 1,748 meters up to the summit we hiked and climbed. At one point we lost the path and we prayed that the Lord would direct our steps to find the way. After a while we eventually found the path and praise God because it was very dark and cold, so we didn’t want to get stranded on a mountain! A few of the photos from that hike is in Volume Four if you want to check those out!

Before the week started, we had a Messianic Jew named Scott Brown come over the weekend and share with us the sacredness of communion as well as all of the different feasts that the Jewish people celebrate and the “why” behind them celebrating it. It was a very intriguing to know how important these feasts are and even have the knowledge of their biblical significance and how that carries into modern tradition. The thing that fascinated me the most was the the majority of the Jewish people don’t really know why they celebrate these feasts except for them simply being tradition, but Scott went very in depth and even shared his ministry with us called Celebrate Messiah NZ which I highly recommend checking out!

[Leviticus 23]

This week we had the honor of having Edwin Fillies from Cape Town, South Africa who has been in YWAM for over 30 years! He is an incredible man of God and has imparted greatly this week on The Cost of Discipleship. What it really means to lay down your all in surrender to the Lord and to be a disciple unto Christ. In the end it is about who has your heart and the Lord is who should have it.

During lectures, in quiet time with the Lord, and discussing this topic with others; I began to realize that there are things that I need to surrender unto the Lord. Things that I’m still holding onto and not submitting to Him. One being my calling. Over the years I’ve always had an idea of what I wanted my calling to look like and not letting the Lord define it. This week has been surrendering that (amongst other things) to God and letting Him truly have it all in my life. [Luke 14:25-33

Also on Thursdays we have Chapel Talks which is where we pick a characteristic of God and this week I shared of God’s Faithfulness. I shared out of the Book of Exodus and how God was faithful to the children of Israel and that even in our lives we can see the Lords faithfulness even in the small and insignificant things. I shared my highlight moments of Gods faithfulness in my life and how since I know His faithfulness, I can walk in confidence that my prayers will be answered. [Deuteronomy 7:9]

One of the ways the Lord has been faithful is even through you! In coming to YWAM Queenstown it was a step of faith that God would meet my financial provisions and because of how the Lord has moved upon the hearts of His people, I’m here experiencing the fullness of what the Lord has for me! I speak a blessing over you and your family that you would reap abundantly as you have given abundantly in Jesus name! [2 Corinthians 9:7]

If you’d like to continue partnering with me, you can do so below!

www.paypal.me/JosiahDavidGibbs

Godspeed,

Josiah Gibbs