'There's no point trying to preach the Gospel to someone who's hungry.' William Booth

So first things first, you may be excited to know that we've finalised outreach plans! We're going to be spending 4 weeks in Burundi, followed by 8 weeks in Rwanda! The decision came after lots of prayer and discussion and I'm so happy with the decision! We're all getting very excited and this past week we were each asked to research a topic and present it to the group. I chose education. Here are some of the facts that I found out:
- A Rwandan is expected to complete an average of 10.6 years of education. The actual   average is only 3.3 years.
- In Burundi, only 47% of girls primary school aged attend school
- After the Civil War in Burundi ended in 2005, 1/4 of the schools were destroyed, forcing many students to walk miles to reach the closest school
- In Burundi, the Elementary schools have limited resources
       - Only 3.5% of schools have electricity
       - 29% have access to clean water
       - 14% have no toilets, because of this, a lot of the girls quit school
- In 2009, more than 16,628 students walked 12.5 miles to school everyday

Most of these facts shocked me, but its important to remember we shouldn't pity these people. Instead we should have compassion, which should lead us to action!

I LOVE the walks around here, last week I discovered my new favourite spot, a bench overlooking Burtigny, the valley, on a clear day you can see the Alps, Lake Geneva & the city of Geneva. I also found some horses..

Last week we were looking at Biblical Worldview. I had no idea what this meant & what it would involve. The teacher was British, which is always cool because they can relate to you on certain things, especially since this week we talked a lot about our different cultures! The main points I took away from the week were:

- God DOESN'T change! (I needed to be reminded of this) 
- Our World is constantly changing, yet we're fully accepted by an unchanging God
- Sometimes we need to obey, before we understand

'Our Worldview is a framework of fundamental beliefs through which we view the World      and our calling & future in it.'

- There are 3 main worldview's:
      - Naturalism
      - Animism
      - Theism
We then looked at 5 questions and how each of these worldview's might respond to such questions:
1. Is there a God, if so, what is he like?
2. Where did we come from & what is the nature of humankind?
3. Where do our ethics come from? How do we know what is right & wrong?
4. How do we know?
5. Why are we here? What happens when we die?

- Jesus had a 3-fold ministry- sign, word & deed. These were all integrated into his ministry & he didn't separate or focus on just 1. Both Luke 4:16-19 and Matthew 9:32-38 show us how he put them into action. We need to learn from this & allow them to flow naturally from each other, like Jesus did.

We can't have the Kingdom without the King & we can't have the King without the Kingdom!

- The Church needs to understand that acts of compassion are an expression of the gospel.
- Poverty is often more than just material. When we go into the nations, we go as broken people with the spirit of humility, knowing we also have poverty in some areas of our lives.

' If we ignore the World, we betray the word of God which sends us out to serve the World. If we ignore the Word of God, we have nothing to say to the World.'

The birthday girl & I!

We had some excitement on the base last week as it was Jenna's birthday, which meant we had a nice meal as the DTS and sung Happy Birthday in so many languages! It was also pancake day, but unlike home, we didn't have any pancakes! However, after making it known that I'd missed pancakes, one of the staff on the base, Shelby, invited Aubrey and I over to hers on Saturday morning for pancakes! She even had lemon & sugar for me! 

View from my bedroom window!

This past week has been a long one! We had teaching on Reconciliation & Relationships from a guy called Wilson from South Africa. The teaching was brilliant but challenging too. This meant it was quite emotional at times & I think for me, I may not have picked up loads of 'practical' things in the teaching which I can tell you, but God definitely spoke to all of us & we had a time on Friday morning of taking things back to the cross & reconciling with one another. 
We looked this week at Paul's perspective of Reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5:14-21. We then went through it step by step and looked at the following points:
- Radical love
- Radical perception
- Radical change
- Radical ministry
- Radical ambassadors

We also looked at our 'Root System', in other words, whats influenced us such as our culture, upbringing, ethnic group etc. And asked the question, do we need to bring this to God & is there any area thats influenced us in a negative way.

We also, on Thursday evening, had a time to celebrate the different cultures. We were told to get together with others of the same nationality & put together a 5 minute little presentation on what we loved about our culture etc. So Sam & I decided to do a little drama where we gave the news headlines in true BBC style. We also got them to stand for the national anthem & had a personal message for them from the Queen (I put a mask of the Queen on & addressed them!) They found this quite funny, but some of the humour we had in the headlines didn't go down too well.. we've realised since being here that us Brits definitely have a certain sense of humour that others don't get!! 

Sam & I doing our broadcast

Aubrey- USA, Jenna - Canada, Hanielle- Benin & Me!

This weekend we went as a DTS with some staff to a place called Chaux-de-fonds, which is on the Swiss-France border, about an hour and a half away from here & quite a few degrees colder with much more snow! It was an evangelism weekend with youth groups there. So, on Friday night & Saturday morning we had a time of worship & talks. We were then sent out on Saturday afternoon in groups, to hand out Bibles & speak to people about Jesus. I definitely admired the teenagers there who were willing to go into their home town and approach people they may know. I thought about if I were at home, would I have the guts to stand in the city centre & hand out Bibles, knowing I might see someone I know! It was a great time, not just speaking to the public but also getting to know some of the people in my team, and of course practising my French! But with temp down to -7 we were so so cold by the end of the afternoon!

Chaux-de-fonds

Our team for the afternoon

 It's been a very busy week, but great at the same time! 
If you pray & would like to know prayer requests I have a few for you! 
- Preparation for outreach goes smooth, for finances & booking flights. 
- We're also thinking and praying at the moment about which areas of ministry to get involved in when we're on outreach, so wisdom for that would be good!
- For me specifically, I think I can sometimes get overwhelmed at the need that there is, with poverty for example, so pray against the thought that I can't do anything to help because its just too overwhelming!
- I've got a lot of ideas about where my future might be heading, well even just the next step after DTS, with many options.. so please pray for clarity & wisdom to know what to do!

Thank you so much, if you've ever got any other questions or want to know anything I haven't said, drop me an email- emmwilcox93@gmail.com
Love you all
Emma x

Worship, Skiing, Basel etc..

This past week we were looking at worship and what worship means to us. The speaker, Sylvain, was Swiss and spoke french, which meant we had a translator speaking english this week. It was another great week & we were able to explore different means of worshipping God & that we all worship in different ways. Many of us, when we hear the word worship, would automatically associate it with worship songs we sing in church. However, the Bible tells us to worship God at all times, in all places. Which means consciously giving praise to God in our everyday lives. 

Here are the main points I took away from this week:
- We worship what we know
- Worship = All that I am to all that He is
- How do we maintain a love for worship?
- Praising God in the difficult times is a lot harder, but it produces more fruit
- Psalm 139 'I am fearfully & wonderfully made'
- No one else can praise and worship God for you!
- We sometimes worship our intelligence. Intellect doesn't equal wisdom!
- Opposite of worship = Idolatry
- Your God is who you give your time, money & thoughts to. Who or what are we idolising?
- Our worship isn't dependant on our feelings
- What do we need to give up to God? Offer back to him?

At the end of the week we were challenged by the speaker to pray about what we had been idolising and on Friday morning we had a time where we gave them back to God, some symbolically put something at the foot of the cross, others wrote on a piece of paper and others gave it to God in their hearts. It was a powerful time and a great end to the week.

Since being here in Switzerland myself and a few others have really wanted to go skiing but havent had the chance! One of the leaders, Catrina, said she would take us on Friday afternoon to a place about 35/40 mins away called Les Jouvencelles, which is in France. So there were 5 of us that went, I have only been skiing once, 5/6 years ago for a week and Stephan only for 1 day about 15 years ago! So we thought we'd be staying on the baby slopes all day, however we managed to pick it up pretty quick and with a bit of persuading managed to do a red run!! For those that don't know, the difficulty goes, green(easiest) then blue, then red & then black. So we were pretty pleased to have done a red! One cool thing when we were going down one run, the run split into 2 and you had the choice to ski into France or Switzerland!! Pretty cool hey?! Catrina took her camera, so here are some of the photos she took...

On Friday night one of the women on staff had a Pyjama party, so we went across the road to her house for some girly time! It was great fun and we had some awesome chats whilst eating chocolate and painting our nails.. you know, girly things! 

If that wasn't enough excitement for one week, some of us were invited to Basel to stay with Sebastian's (DTS student from Romania) sister & Brother-in-law and their children. So, Aubrey, Sam, Jenna, Sebastian & myself were picked up on saturday morning by his brother-in-law. Basel is about 2 and half hours from Burtigny and the journey was beautiful, we were able to see loads more of Switzerland. Basel is on the border of France, Germany & Switzerland. I really wanted to just drive into Germany & have a little walk round to be able to say I've been there!! On saturday we went into the centre of the city and walked around. We also climbed a tower in the Cathedral which meant we got some amazing views of Basel & the surrounding areas, including France & Germany! We ate so much amazing food! On Saturday night we had the Swiss tradition of Raclette which was delicious then on Sunday we had Romanian food- Peppers stuffed with meat & rice. It was a lovely weekend and so nice to see more of Switzerland!!

The Swiss doing what they do best!

This week we're looking at Biblical Worldview & after this mornings lecture I can tell I'm going to learn a lot!!

Emma

"Love is letting those we love be perfectly themselves & not twisting them to fit our own image, otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we see in them."

This week we had a guy called John Bills take our lectures and he was speaking on 'The Father Heart of God & Repentance'. Again, a great week of teaching and its only now when I'm going back through my notes, that its all sinking in!
I have to admit, this week has been a bit up and down! I got to a point on wednesday where I was pretty tired and got homesick! It seemed everything was going wrong with my day.. you know those days? And eventually it just got a bit much! But I knew it would happen, the homesickness would kick in! But.. I managed to perk up! I woke up on Thursday and didn't feel good at all. I spent the day in bed and wasn't able to go to the lectures. I'm not sure if it was a stomach bug or something I ate, but it wasn't nice! I felt a lot better on Friday but it definitely knocked me for 6 and only now am I feeling like I've got my appetite back! Even though I missed the lectures on thurs, they were able to record them and I've caught up! Here's a few of the points I've taken from this week:

- God wants to communicate with us, like we want to communicate with those we love.
- 275 times in the New Testament it instructs us to call God, Father.
- We need a personal revelation from God, we need our own story, something we can hold onto in difficult times when our World is shaken. 
- Our generation wants to make an impact. But the enemy creates a spirit of apathy and wants us to be comfortable where we are. We should have a holy anger toward the enemy of the soul. We want justice.
- Repentance creates a changed life. An outward flow of a changed heart. 
- Everyone fails at hearing Gods voice at some point in their life. People get it wrong. Its okay to fail, God doesn't focus on the failure!

A Father's Authority
- Authority = Lord. Do we believe this in our hearts?
- Jesus is the perfect authority
- When did Jesus become more than just a name to you?
- We will be as spiritual as we want to be
- We're not controlled by God, its a relationship
A Father's Faithfulness
- Hebrews 13:5. People will break promises. God never breaks his promises
- Psalm 27:10
A Father's Generosity
- God is not mean and he is not poor
- Do we allow him to be a generous God?
- We must not think, if we don't receive something from God its because we don't have enough faith!
A Father's Attentiveness
- 1 Peter 5:7. God is constantly thinking uninterrupted streams of loving thought toward you
- A loving father gives attention to his children
- God is NOT distracted
A Father's Acceptance
- Isaiah 49:15. Can we accept the fact that God loves us unconditionally?
- John 13:1-7. Jesus knew Judas was going to betray him. He still washed his feet- unconditional love!
- Love is not partial
A Father's Affection
- You are attractive to God!

Just a few things to mull over! 
I was able to go to Nyon yesterday with Prisca and Jenna and after having a mooch we found an 'Auberge' (restaurant/cafe) and sat down for a nice hot chocolate! Its so nice to get out of the base from time to time because you do feel like you're in a bit of a bubble! 
As part of our assignments, we've read (or should've read) 'Is that really you, God?' By Loren Cunningham, the founder of YWAM. I finished reading it today and would really recommend it! An incredible story of how God gave a man a vision and how that vision came to pass. 

Me, Prisca & Jenna in Nyon

Auberge Du Chateau

Also, in other news, I'm able to announce that our outreach destination will be.... Burundi! Our first reaction when we heard this was.. where is it? Its a tiny, landlocked country, surrounded by Rwanda, Tanzania & The Democratic Republic of the Congo. The official languages are Kirundi & French- more french practice! According to wikipedia, Burundi is the 5th poorest country in the world! As far as what we'll be doing, we're not yet sure. We'll be based at the YWAM base in the capital of Bujumbura, they may choose to send us out to the bush, or we'll help with things they're involved with. We will also be able to spend some time in another country in Africa & I will update you on that when possible. 
Emma

Summary of the past few weeks..

Trying to summarise the past few weeks into a few paragraphs is going to be hard, but I'll give it a go! So the 1st week here we had our orientation week, getting to know each other and the base etc! The 2nd week we had our first lectures, with an English guy called Richard who lives here in Burtigny speaking. The topic was 'The Character & Nature of God'. The 3rd week we had a guy called David from Zimbabwe, but he now lives in Sweden, speaking on 'Hearing the voice of God & The Holy Spirit'. Then today we began our 3rd week of lectures, with an american called John on the topic of 'The Father Heart of God & Repentance'. In amongst all of this, we visited our school leaders church in Geneva, visited Geneva for a little tour and some cultural history & this weekend we took part in a 'Faith Walk' (You probably have no idea what a faith walk is, neither did I till last week, I will explain!)

I guess I'm still processing all the information, so bare with me as I attempt to give a brief outline of the things I've taken from each week.  

Character & Nature Of God.
- The character of God is who God is that we can be. The nature of God is who he is that we can't be.
- What we believe about God, is that from the Bible or from what people/the world has let us believe? 
- If it's not in the Bible, we must go through our thought process with God.
- 'What comes into our minds when we think of God is the most important thing about us' A.W Tozer
- God doesn't change.
- Since the beginning of time Satan has been trying to make us doubt God. 
- When God spoke to Adam & Eve, the first thing he said was 'where are you?' He first & foremost wants a relationship & intimacy with us. The consequence of their actions came after. 
- Who are we giving authority to? 
- We are fearfully & wonderfully made but we're so finite. God is infinite.
- God says we are beautiful, do we believe that? If not, why not? Who told you? Where did that lie come from? 
- If you're having a problem with pride, take a moment to think about how finite we are.
- Take captive every thought & pay attention to our thought dialogue.
- Replace lies with truths!
- If you really believe that the Bible was created by the Creator of the universe, why aren't you reading it?

1 Corinthians 13:13
'And now these three remain: faith, love and hope. But the greatest of these is love.'

Hearing the voice of God & The Holy Spirit.
- The challenge is knowing: Gods voice/My mind/Enemies voice
- God doesn't contradict himself
- There's a difference between hearing & obeying!
- Hearing the voice of God is not a gift you're born with, its a muscle we develop
- Are we afraid of the voice of God?
- God never dies down to our pressure
- The way we see ourselves shuts & opens heavens. It can also hinder us from hearing Gods voice
- God gets angry but it doesn't change the way he treats us.
- Perfect love casts out fear & God is LOVE
- God speaks in SOOO many ways!
- A loving father never communicates to us in a way that is threatening
- We tend to focus on what the Holy Spirit does, rather than the person
- Focus on Jesus, don't focus on the miracles (they are just the bi-products!)
- God can use 1 person to change a nation. PRAY.
- Don't stop praying until you get a breakthrough
- How big is your God?
*If you could ask God for 2 things, what would they be?*

Already I've learnt so much & hearing the stories from various speakers of events in their lives where God has provided and watching their passion for him is amazing! One thing that David spoke about during Hearing the Voice of God, was a faith walk. He'd done it with DTS's that he'd lead and encouraged us to do one too. So, on friday morning we were told we wouldn't have any lectures but to be ready at 10am to leave the base in teams of 3/4 and we wouldn't be returning till 11am on Sunday. We weren't allowed to take any money/credit cards/phones/iPods etc.. The purpose was to wait on God & ask him where he wanted us to be, who he wanted us to speak to & we'd have to organise transport/accommodation etc ourselves.
We dressed warmly (admittedly I definitely didn't put enough clothes on!) and got our sleeping bags ready. My team was the team I'm going to Africa with, minus 1 person. I could try to explain what happened but it would take a while! To summarise:
- We spent a lot of time waiting on God and praying about what to do
- We were able to pray for various people we didn't know
- We prayed for the towns we visited
- On Friday night God provided us with a room to stay in, after we thought we'd be sleeping outside! And we were given so much food we didn't know what to do with it all!
- All the walking we did meant we got to know the towns VERY well!
- A lot of time we spent being very cold and pretty hungry
- We were questioned by the police, who asked to see our passports incase we were immigrants and then thought we'd stolen the little chocolate & clementine that we had! Fortunately I had the receipt still. Trying to explain that we didn't have a place to sleep and we were doing a faith walk proved to be quite a challenge!
- We ended up coming back to the base a night early, after realising God was teaching us about our pride!

Even though it was probably one of the hardest things I've ever done, I learnt a LOT from it. Firstly I realised how much I don't pray to God in my day. We spent so much time praying and relying on God, because we had no other option! Secondly, we really appreciated what we did have & the fact that we weren't homeless. Thirdly that God is always faithful! We obviously spent a lot of time together and meant that we became better friends and more of a team, but one of the biggest lessons was to surrender our pride & expectations to God. We went into it thinking we were going to see so many amazing things happen and that God would move in amazing ways. But the reality was, that we were all quite inexperienced in the area of just fully relying on God with everything and so that may have made it harder to hear him. And no matter how small the things we did may have seemed, God can still use them and we may never know the impact that we had on people! 

In other news.. it was 3 weeks yesterday since I left home! I can't believe how quickly its gone already! I also have been exploring the surroundings and there are some amazing views! Here are a few pictures..

So.. I know this has been a long post and I'll try not to leave such a gap in-between the next posts! Hope you're all well and email me if you want to know the full story of the faith walk!! 
Love you all,
Emma

We live in a universe at war; a war for the affections of our heart - C.S Lewis

Wow.. 2 posts in 1 week, whats going on?!

I wanted to update you all and let you know where I'm going for the outreach phase of the DTS!! On Wednesday we were told that we would be splitting into 2 teams for the outreach. At first I didn't like the idea of having to split with people, we've all already become so close, after 3 months its going to be hard to separate. But they then explained and it became clear that it was right to split. We have a team of 12/13 (A lady from Africa is hopefully joining us on Monday!) which means we can go to 2 countries and have more of an impact. 

The 2 options for outreach were Europe or Africa and we were given the afternoon to make a decision. I immediately wanted to go to Africa! I knew though, that even though this is what I wanted, God may have been saying something different. So, even though the thought of picking Europe scared me, I prayed about it and asked God that I'd feel a complete peace about going to Africa, and if Europe was where I should go, that I'd feel unsettled. So I left it for a few hours and when it came to write my answer, I realised that I'd felt so peaceful and not worried at all- very unusual for me when making a big decision like this! So I wrote Africa. 

On Thursday we had a day of sharing our stories of faith with each other, something I've not done before! As I listened to the leaders and other students talk about their stories of God working through their lives in amazing ways and bringing them out of really difficult situations, I realised I've had it pretty easy and was worried my story would be boring! After I shared my story of faith I was really encouraged by everyone and told not to be ashamed of my story!! After each person shared we had a time of prayer for each person and one of the students, Kyounghwa from South Korea, had a picture of me holding a child and thought this was relating to the outreach. 

It wasn't till Friday morning that we found out which leaders and students were going where! We were told not to discuss with anyone else where we were going but Aubrey and I (my room mate) guessed each others and were trying to figure out where everyone else was going! So on Friday morning we found out that Claire our school leader and Catrina one of our staff will be going to Africa and Billy and Salome, also staff, will be going to Europe! The surprise came when we found out 8 students chose to go to Europe and 4 of us are going to Africa!! The students going to Africa are; Aubrey, Sam, Benjamin & myself with the two leaders and the other 8 are going to Europe. Its obviously a pretty small team but Im really looking forward to spending 3 months in Africa!!! 

Also, Kyounghwa told me after we'd announced the teams that in the picture she had I was holding a black African child, but didn't want to say it at the time because she didn't know where I'd picked to go!! Thought it was pretty awesome! :) 

So, I'm sorry if I ramble, I've realised that what I've explained in 4 paragraphs, Aubrey explained in 1 in her blog!! So if you'd rather read a more concise blog.. Drop me an email and I'll send you the link!! I also apologise if my english is getting slightly ungrammatical! I think the break from studying has seriously effected how well I communicate!!! 

Peace out. x

Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons - Donald Miller

Squash, Digestive, Stodge, Hench, Cooker, Cuppa, Chest of drawers, taking the mick, museli, ace...

You're probably wondering what these words have in common! Well.. they're all words which I've had to explain to my Californian room mate! Just one example of what comes from living with people from all over the world for the next 6 months! 

The beautiful base!

Some views around the base.. yes you can almost see the Alps through the fog!!

Our local pub.. 

So, I arrived on Sunday night, got to the airport no problem and after an emotional goodbye with my family I sat in the departure lounge and thought, 'what an earth am I doing?' I had to laugh at the guy who checked my passport who watched the goodbye with my family, he asked where I was going, so I told him, to which he replied, 'forever?!' That did make me laugh, but come on.. 6 months is a long time! The plane ride was fine, didn't get a great view out of the window because of the amount of fog! But the view when we were arriving in Switzerland was pretty awesome. The sun was just setting over the mountains, a view that’s pretty hard to beat!! Once I got my bags (had to try to carry/drag 4 bags through to arrivals since the trolleys required 1 franc and I only had notes!) I found Claire, our school leader, and Catrina, one of the staff. There were 3 other students arriving at the airport so we waited for them. Once we got back to the base we met the other students. So far we have.. a Canadian, a Californian, a Romanian, an Australian, 4 Swiss, 2 English, a South African and a South Korean. We’re waiting for 3 from Africa who are awaiting visas so if you pray, pray they get them in time to join! We’re only 3 days in and already culture differences are showing. I think it’s pretty awesome though!So, for those of you wondering what I’m doing I’ll give you an average days schedule:
-7am Breakfast
-8am Lectures till lunch with breaks
-Free time after lunch till 2, when we do our duties. I’m currently spending 2 hours a day cutting veg.
-6pm Tea
-The evenings vary; we either have a lecture or free time at the moment

But this is only the first week. Soon we’ll have book assignments and meetings in small groups to discuss the lectures, whether we agree/disagree/have questions etc.We should know very soon where we are going for outreach and I’ll explain when I know more! For now, the main thing to know is I’m having an awesome time, the team is amazing and the views are incredible- when there isn’t fog!Please email me if you’d like, my email is- emmwilcox93@gmail.com we do have wifi so its easy to check emails/facebook or to skype!