For the Nations

 

 

Dear Family, Some news from the past few months as I’ve been serving with Youth With A Mission Toowoomba (Australia) 🙂 First off, I had my 26th birthday last July! July- December I lead my first school on my own (previously I’ve co-lead a couple schools in 2015). This was an incredible experience! They graduated (pictured above) mid-December 2016. I had a team of 4 staff , and we had 13 students from America, Canada & New Zealand. I am so honoured and privileged to have been apart of their training and I’m pleased to say that there was much transformation and many lives transformed through them all on outreach. Here’s an incredible story of one my students: She came into the school unsure of who God was, incredibly insecure and unable to trust people or Jesus, and held back by shame & fear. By the end of DTS, she had laid down the need for comfort from things like food, blankets, make-up, also fear of man, comparison, and complacency in her faith. She picked up things like comfort from the Lord, security in her identity as a daughter of Father, genuine love for others, passion,  standing agains the enemy on the Word of Truth, and also a love for intercession! On Outreach I saw her push through so many things and she became a major force of reckoning to the people of Hong Kong and our team as she learned not to be controlled by her feelings or circumstances, but by the Word of the Lord and Holy Spirit. I am so proud of her! She is now continuing walking in the things she’s learned, even at home when things aren’t easy and she is seeking support, the Lord and the Kingdom. So good! Ah! One of my favourite parts of the School was getting to teach an entire week on the Lordship of Christ. I covered things like who is the Messiah/Christ? What was His purpose? What’s the Gospel? What is true surrender, and what does it look like to live a life surrendered to Jesus reign? What’s holiness? What is our purpose? Why do we need to obey the Lord? It was a powerful week where I stepped out in teaching and in faith as well. The end of the week we had a challenging time of practical surrender and prayer for each other 🙂 Everyone had the chance to pray and ask the Lord about things that we hold onto and give them up at the cross. Then the next day we had a debrief time where we discussed how we walked out in those things practically, and everyone had a story where they were tempted to worry or think about things the same way as before but then dealt with it differently this time! Whether it was to go to someone and ask for prayer to overcome, or to say the truth out loud, or to practically share with someone about Jesus (if they were afraid to do that before) etc. So amazing! The timing of that week was quite crucial to some, one of the girls found out her mother had cancer & parents were getting divorced, and another girl found out her friend had passed away. There were many tears, but it really moved me to see them go to the Lord straight away and to give them their burdens, and as well for the whole school to grow in relationship & vulnerability with each other. We prayed and ministered with these girls, and the Father really came with peace & hope in the midst of their pain as they gave it all up to Him. This was a pile of things that we as a class surrendered to the Lord. Wallets to represent finances, passports to represent citizenship, mirrors to represent self image, watches to represent time, pillows to represent comfort, pictures of family etc. HONG KONG Myself and another girl on staff lead half the students to Hong Kong, and the other half went with another couple leaders to East Timor. We had an amaaazing time on outreach in Hong Kong working with YWAM Harbour City up in the Northern Territory. So many stories I could tell again! 🙂 I think one of my favourites was working with a ministry called Shanti Ministries. It’s a Christian Tutoring ministry that works with about 20 Muslim, Buddhist & Hindu school children and tutors them in maths, Chinese, & English. They have volunteer Chinese teachers come in, and once the kids have done their homework, they go into another room and learn about Jesus! We got to work with these kids twice a week for over a month, and really fell in love with all of them. Jesus is moving in their lives and touching their families as well. I was talking with one of the kids, he’s about 12 years old and is from Pakistan. Every day after school he comes to Shanti for a couple hours, is surrounded by love, encouragement and the Lord, and then he goes to a mosque for a couple hours and is surrounded by fear, anger & hopelessness. I was challenged by the amount of wisdom he carried and the pure heart he had, and how even though he was very young could really see the spiritual battle that he and his family is in. I was able to pray for him and prophesy over him, and I continue to pray for him and his family. Another really cool aspect of our outreach was the amount of intercession & worship we did over the city of Hong Kong & the village the YWAM base is in. We engaged in spiritual warfare by declaring the praises of our King in some of the darkest spiritual places around. We carried around our guitar everywhere and I loved getting to feel atmospheres shift as the place was taken for Holy Ground by a bunch of young Jesus lovers! 😀 We got to also work in a public primary school several times a week teaching English! It’s also completely legal to talk about Jesus there, so we shared taught the kids worship songs and encouraged them to get along and work hard gave them notes about Jesus. These kids were mainly Muslim & Buddhist! Such an incredible opportunity. I am so overwhelmed by how God strategically had us ministering to mostly young people from the ages of 2- 20. I got so convicted that these kids are SO KEY to revival in Asia! The enemy is trying his utmost best to destroy their lives, suicide rates in kids from 10-18 in Hong Kong, Japan, & China are unreal! We felt a real burden to reach out to these kids and impart JOY and HOPE through Jesus. That was our main focus while we were there. When we would evangelise & worship on the streets we always felt to go counter-culture and sing joyful songs and dance. Haha so fun, and people were really drawn to that, because joy and peace are so evidently missing in that city. Pray for Hong Kong! My team and some of the amazing youth we got to hang out with! 🙂 Worshiping on the streets! Shanti Ministries!  Gospel Drama on streets I was hugely blessed by an opportunity to go to China for the day! 🙂 I left my team in the capable hands of the other leader and traveled to Shenzhen with a couple girls from the base in Hong Kong. Stepping over the border I immediately felt so much joy and peace and confirmation about the potential future opportunities there! These are a few girls from the High School that we went to a few times! It was amazing, we shared our testimonies, talked about Jesus and sang quite a few worship & pop songs. Such an amazing opportunity and because of this several of the girls from the school went to church with us and heard the gospel even more clearly. THE NOW: I’m currently co-leading this DTS which started about 4 weeks ago. There are 21 students from America, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Germany, England and the Netherlands. One of the students I’ve actually known since he was born! It’s been amazing to help disciple him and hear all the revelations that are challenging and growing him. I’m serving on the Leadership Team that meets weekly to discuss staff/student issues, base decisions etc. I also get to teach! I’ve been teaching the DTS on subjects like Worship Leading, Worship & Praise, Bible studying, Missions & Cultural Awareness. I also am overseeing staff development and Pastoral Care. I meet with about 3 staff girls weekly. Weekly, I run a staff development session that focuses on Leadership Development. I also serve at a local church here in Toowoomba as well. I am running a Young Adults group with about 7 local young adults from Toowoomba! I love them all, so fun! Here’s a picture of a few of them 🙂 So excited to keep seeing them grow and challenged in the Lord. This school I won’t be leading an outreach team, but I’m hoping to go to Hong Kong again at the end of April with another staff member to scout out a potential future music & worship partnership between our two bases.

Thank you so so so much for reading this email and continuing in your prayer support of my adventures with YWAM! I pray you are abundantly blessed and enjoy your day! Feel free to connect with me via email, facebook or follow me on instagram (hmacuzz). I am not the greatest at responding, but I LOVE hearing from you!!! I promise I read every email I receive 🙂 Now I am working at scheduling in times into my schedule to reply to all of them, so if you’ve sent me an email in the past bit and I haven’t responded yet, don’t worry! An answer is coming! Also, if you feel lead to support me financially either monthly or one time donation please check out paypal.me/hannahmacuzzi, or https://www.gofundme.com/hannah-macuzzi or for tax refundable receipts go to:  https://chimp.net/groups/hannah-macuzzi-mh06 These funds raised will help me continue discipling the next generation of fearless world-wide missionaries and sending them out the nations. It will also help me keep my car on the road, and to travel to Hong Kong in April. I’m in need of about $1500 for Hong Kong 🙂 God bless you! Lots of love, Hannah

Live & Laugh

 

Hello from the other side…. 😀

Hey there folks! This is an update from May-June (the last one was actually one I wrote back in May, but just posted it yesterday)! 🙂 I’ve been up to a bunch of stuff!

What I’ve been up to these past few months:

Well, I went to New Zealand for 10 days in June, after the January Discipleship Training School graduated! Myself and one of my best friends who’s been staffing with me for a couple years, Rebekka from Germany, went together and rented a car and stayed at several YWAM bases, and did some couch surfing as well! The whole trip was amazing, we got to experience New Zealand, get some rest, get renewed and ready for the next school and have so much fun! I was so blessed to have been able to go. We met a lot of cool people who love Jesus and got to encourage some who don’t know the Lord! We visited Hobbiton, (one of my childhood dreams come true), climbed some mountains, visited the Hot Springs, explored some deep caves and went on a boat that floated underneath a million glow worms lighting our way, hung out in the city of Auckland and drove throughout the North Island. Thank you Jesus for opportunities like this! 🙂

Top of Mount Maunguanui in Tauranga, NZ

Roturua Hot Springs

This is Cathedral Cove where they filmed Prince Caspian a few years ago.

Hobbiton! Samwise Gamgee’s very own door! 🙂

 

Also, I turned 26! 🙂

My birthday was on July 1st, right after getting back from New Zealand, and I had a blast! I was able to skype with a lot of my family, opened my birthday package from my parents that had a bunch of Canadian chocolate, ate dinner out with all the YWAM staff still on base, ate some of my Canadian Maple Leaf birthday cake, and watched Tarzan with everyone. Wonderful 🙂

Birthday cake & a flag

Skyping my parents & eating dinner out with my YWAM family!

 

After that, on July 4th we started Staff Training! From then til the end of July, I was pretty much leading the whole base (the base leaders were all away on holiday), organizing and running staff training, planning and preparing the school and training my new DTS staff how to staff a DTS! It was a CRAZY month but so amazing to see myself stretched and the Lord’s faithfulness to preserve my sanity and strength. When the school started and all the other base leaders arrived back, I felt a big weight lift but I also was so amazed at how far the Lord has taken me in the past few years, there is NO WAY I would have been able to do this even a year ago, I would have freaked out and probably stressed so much and made myself sick. Wow, HE IS FAITHFUL and HE GIVES SO MUCH GRACE! Seriously, amazing.

Also, as you know, I’ve been preparing the past 6 months for the July Music & Worship DTS, and it has now officially started! It’s the first time I’m leading a school fully on my own, so scary but exciting! 🙂 We just finished Week #2, having covered the topics of Character & Nature of God, Hearing the Voice of God and Repentance & Forgiveness. There are 13 students from North America and New Zealand, 4 boys and 9 girls. They’re amazing!!! Compared to other schools, it is a young group, but some things we felt strongly as a DTS staff team (there are 4 staffing the DTS and myself) before we started were that the Lord has gifted this group with an anointing in wisdom, discernment and understanding, that He was going to grow them & mature them fast, and that they were going to bring a level of consistency, steadfastness and peace such that this current generation has seen little of. I’m so excited to see that already happening! These guys are incredibly hungry for the things of God. And something we keep feeling the Lord telling us as a school is that faith is not built on emotion it’s built on the Fear of the Lord which leads to the knowledge of God and a deep deep wisdom & understand. Some amazing passages that God has spoken over us are

Hosea 6:3

Let us press on to know the Lord

Psalm 119:97-104

Oh, how I love your law!
    I meditate on it all day long.
Your commands are always with me
    and make me wiser than my enemies.
I have more insight than all my teachers,
    for I meditate on your statutes.
I have more understanding than the elders,
    for I obey your precepts.
I have kept my feet from every evil path
    so that I might obey your word.
I have not departed from your laws,
    for you yourself have taught me.
How sweet are your words to my taste,
    sweeter than honey to my mouth!
I gain understanding from your precepts;
    therefore I hate every wrong path.

& Proverbs 2:1-11

My son, if you accept my words
    and store up my commands within you,
turning your ear to wisdom
    and applying your heart to understanding—
indeed, if you call out for insight
    and cry aloud for understanding,
and if you look for it as for silver
    and search for it as for hidden treasure,
then you will understand the fear of the Lord
    and find the knowledge of God.
For the Lord gives wisdom;
    from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
He holds success in store for the upright,
    he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
for he guards the course of the just
    and protects the way of his faithful ones.

Then you will understand what is right and just
    and fair—every good path.
For wisdom will enter your heart,
    and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.
Discretion will protect you,
    and understanding will guard you.

 

I am so excited to see the Lord already transforming these amazing young people into targeted arrows for the Kingdom of God that are going to be sent out soon into the nations! We just had a week of Repentance & Forgiveness and every student has chosen to open their hearts to the Lord and let His light come in and speak Truth. I’ve watched minds and hearts healed, tears come and forgiveness and confession of their identity in Christ and not in sin bring freedom. Thank you Jesus for Your work on the cross!

Thank you for your prayers, they mean the world to me! You mean the world to me as well, and I pray for you to be filled with all knowledge of the glory of God and with His power.

 

Much love,

Hannah ❤ xoxo

 

May 2016

Hey family!

Been awhile since I’ve updated but since March, it’s been amazing to see the students’ growth and love for outreach! I was able to have the privilege of teaching a whole week on the topic of Missions. It was incredible and I never would have imagined myself speaking to a classroom of over 40 people for an entire week!! It ended up being so inspiring and I covered things like, God being a missional God, an overview of missions in the Word, what is missions?, who does missions?, why do we do missions?, mission is actually our main reason for being on the planet, the 10/40 window, 1st world missions, martydom, the worth of the Gospel etc, cross-cultural awareness, and at the end we had a time of 3 hours of worship and intense commissioning and saying yes to God’s call on everyone, to be a part of His mission. It was amazing! I was so amazed at what the Lord did in everyone’s hearts and how He used me to express Himself to His kids.

Right after that week, all the outreach teams left for Fiji, Thailand and Cambodia!

While the outreach teams have been away, I’ve been working hard planning for the Discipleship Training School in July that I’ll be leading! 🙂 Booking speakers in and their airfare, planning the weekly, master, & event schedule, praying, processing student applications, choosing outreach locations (another possibility of me going to Hong Kong in October!) and much much more keeps me busy! 🙂 I’m getting so excited, albeit a bit nervous, to try this out on my own with the Lord! I have a staff team of 4 and already 12 students fully accepted. It’s looking like there could be upwards of 14-20 students by the time the school starts at the end of July.

I’ve also been ministering on a team in our city’s Healing Rooms, teaching Sunday School, leading worship at different events and churches, attending our Christian Leadership Network meetings, starting a Young Adults group, mentoring a few different young ladies in the city and leading our staff team of about 10 that has stayed back in Toowoomba to do ministry here.

It’s been full on! I would love prayer for sanity and rest in the midst of the business of life, that I would have the wisdom to really continue to encounter God and treasure quiet moments with Him, and that I would be growing in my confidence to lead this school without a co-leader (I’ve been a bit nervous about that!), that things would come together planning-wise, and that I would be very in tune with the Lord with what He is planning these next 6 months!

Thanks so much! Love you all! ❤

P.s. The pictures are of the Young Adults Group that I’m leading here in town (there are about 8 all together, 4 pictured), a little glimpse into some of my schedules/calendars for planning this DTS, and a bunch of pictures from the last time I went to East Timor! 🙂

A much needed update from Oz!

Dear family,

News from the past six months (since my last email update! ah!)! 🙂

First off, I had my 25th birthday in July! That was pretty cool. The Lord has shown me how blessed and favoured my life has been as I’ve traveled the world and seen hundreds impacted by the love of the Lord and His Kingdom. My family has also more than doubled in size in the past few years. All my siblings are now married and I have 4 nieces and nephews! Amazing! 🙂

Since I last emailed, we graduated the second DTS that I co-lead! Super excited to hear stories already of how they are impacting the world with the Kingdom of God. 2 of them are actually coming back on staff this July to be on my DTS staff team for the July 2016 DTS.

I also lead a third team to East Timor! It was quite a trip, many testimonies of the Lord’s love and I am really getting good at the Timorese language, Tetun! In the village I was able to communicate quite well and even do some translating! I think my favourite part of going back a third time was seeing relationships grow and the changes God is doing in their lives since my first time being there almost 2 years ago.

Check out these awesome testimonies:

 

This is Cecilia… She is a wonderful woman who has been on quite the journey since I first met her in April 2014!! She received salvation and physical healing our second time being East Timor April 2015. When I went in October 2015 her face shone the light of the Lord and she has received much healing, emotionally spiritually and physically, and even her husband is on his way to receive Jesus soon, because of her testimony and the joy she has found. What an honour and privilege it’s been to go back to see her and see the seeds we planted grow into fruition! Praise the Lord!!

This is Janelle… She is a beautiful lady who is trying to get on track again in life and while our outreach team was in Darwin in November (Northern Australia) the Lord sent us to her to encourage her and pray for her. The week before she was beaten by her partner and she had two ribs broken, he ended up going to jail. When she met us and told us her story, we shared the gospel and prayed for her and her ribs were healed! Keep praying that she will fully surrender to Him her heart as He continues to chase her.

Also I got to lead these wonderful young people to the Lord at the University in Dili! So honoured and blessed! They were so blessed and were so amazed at the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ! So hungry!

The Lord provided a way for me to go home to Canada for 5 weeks in in December! It was a most amazing time of being with family and hanging out with my nieces and nephews! I am so thankful for that precious time and love love love that the two older ones can say my name now when I skype them! 😀

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE NOW:

Landon and I are no longer co-leading, he is fully leading this school that just started and I will be leading the July school by myself. This means for the first time in YWAM Toowoomba history I will have a whole 6 months to prepare for the school!

I am currently doing a few different things around the base. I’m in the beginning stages of planning, organising and running the July DTS as I said earlier.

I’m serving on the Leadership Team that meets weekly to discuss staff/student issues, base decisions etc.

I also get to teach! I’ve been teaching the DTS on subjects like Hearing the Voice of God, Worship, Holiness and Fear of the Lord so far.

I also am overseeing staff development and Pastoral Care. I meet with about 5 staff girls bi-weekly and run a small group for the new DTS staff as well. Weekly, I run a staff development session that focuses on Leadership.

I have just recently (in the past couple weeks) begun to serve at at a local church here in Toowoomba as well. I am going to be training and developing the youth in the church in ministry! This involves creating a Youth and Children’s team to volunteer in the Healing Rooms that the church runs, mentoring them weekly, teaching on worship and stuff as well.

This school I won’t be leading an outreach team, but it will allow me to continue to plan the July DTS, serve my church here, and have a bit of a rest after the past 2 full-on years.

I’m very excited about this season! It is a bit weird not being fully involved with the school but I’m loving the change in schedule and being a bit more flexible.

 

This is Tammy, my car! My church family in Toowoomba blessed me tremendously by giving this beautiful little red car to me! She’s a ’95 and runs like a new one. Only 140,000 clicks on it!! I still cant believe it! In all my almost 26 years I never thought I would ever be able to own a car! The Lord has completely outdone Himself in His faithfulness to me and has challenged me again and again in my misconceptions of receiving and blessings! Thanks Lord!

 

Thank you so so so much for reading this email and continuing in your prayer support of my adventures with YWAM! I pray you are abundantly blessed and enjoy your day!

Feel free to connect with me via email, facebook or follow me on instagram (hmacuzz). I am not the greatest at responding, but I LOVE hearing from you!!! I promise I read every email I receive 🙂 Now I am working at scheduling in times into my schedule to reply to all of them, so if you’ve sent me an email in the past bit and I haven’t responded yet, don’t worry! An answer is coming! 😀

God bless you!

Lots of love,

Hannah

 

Australian Update :)

Hey there!! 🙂

I am back from 4 1/2 weeks in East Timor and a 1/2 week in Darwin, Australia! So many stories to be had, but I think my favourite part is always watching the students grab hold of the fact they can hear the Lord’s voice, know what He’s saying, and then obey!

Team East Timor

I also loved going back to a country I’ve grown to love!! I seriously felt like I was coming home. We got to build a house, hold many church services and kids ministry times, build relationships and disciple, evangelize on the streets, in universities and in aboriginal communities, teach English to children and adults, worship and intercede over nations, and boldly proclaim the Kingdom of God to the Timorese people.

After we arrived back in Toowoomba, there was a couple more weeks of lecture and local outreach (which included busking/evangelizing!!! That was so fun, I’ve never busked before but it was such a neat way to share the love and light of Christ to people!). The last week Landon (my Co- School Leader) and I shared on debrief and re-entry, as well as both of us taking the time to impart again to the students what a normal Christian life can look like. It was incredible to share with them the power of Grace, which can train us for godliness in this present age! Titus 2:11-15.
I was able to teach a day on Holiness/Sanctification, and he taught on No Compromising. I love love love teaching! I was literally so paralyzed in fear when it came to speaking in public a few years ago, it’s incredible how far the Lord has taken me! I still get nervous, but now it’s so fun and rewarding to see the fruit of what you teach for 5 months displayed in a group of 33 young people who are on FIRE for the Lord and His Kingdom! These guys’s journey has been inspiring and encouraging to me to say the least.

Last Worship Session!

Bible Reading: I lead this 30 minute segment 2 mornings a week. We read a portion of scripture for 15 minutes, ponder it for 5, then discuss for 10 🙂 So much fun!

On Honouring Night (the night after Graduation), I had the chance to honour the whole school and I cried the whole way through. I had no idea that I would grow so close to these wonderful people or be so proud of them! They have truly laid down their lives for the King and I fully trust the Lord to carry them on until completion. These guys are a different breed of young people than I’ve ever seen. They are on a mission. HIS mission! I’m so excited after having sent them off last week, they get it! They get the fact that we, as followers and disciples of Christ, never turn off. We are always missionaries wherever we go. We are always transforming to look like Christ, never taking a ‘break’ from the tilling, ploughing, weeding, etc of our spiritual gardens. The call to rise up and take up our swords has been shouted from the rooftops and they are off on a mission to live as foreigners to this world, and bring Heaven to earth wherever they go.

Grad night!

I am so fulfilled. I can’t believe how fulfilling it is to watch seeds planted and take root, grow and bear fruit! Discipling is addicting!!! It’s so cool, I’ve been told all my life by that I have a mother’s heart (nurturing, developing and teaching people) and that I would mother nations but I never ever believed/understood it until last Friday. I realized through this school that that is one of my giftings, and I feel so blessed to be able to walk out in that calling! I felt the morning after graduation like a mother about to have an empty nest, I was overwhelmed with fear for their lives and then the Lord reassured me the whole day that He is keeping watch over them and that this is so good for them to go, to take to the world a message it needs to hear!! Woo! I love my job!!!

NEWS about the FUTURE!
I am School Leading this next school that starts in July with Landon. There are 12 students and I will most likely be leading a team of 6 students to East Timor again (3rd time) for 6 weeks with Stu, a student from my last team who is coming back on staff in July.

To give you an idea of what I do around here:

• Planning, Booking & Facilitating Speaker Sessions
• Small Groups, One on Ones & Basic Mentoring
• Facilitating Classroom & Ministry Times
• Leading Staff & Student Worship
• Student Song-Writing & Collaboration
• Teaching, Preaching & Sharing Testimony
• Planning, Coordinating & Running School Events & Local Outreach Teams
• Local Evangelism, Youth & Mercy Ministry
• Planning, Coordinating & Leading Overseas Outreach Teams
• Student Assessment Development & Implementation
• Staff Development & Mentorship

Also, if you are interested in supporting me financially, (I will be doing more intentional fundraising in the next few months, especially if I commit to YWAM for a longer term) I am looking to raise funds for a new computer. I have already raised $1,200 of my $1,500 goal through GoFundMe! 🙂 I only need $300 more!

You can go to the GoFundMe page itself to donate:
gofund.me/wnk9t7y

Or you can donate via PayPal by sending money to hannah.macuzzi@ywamtoowoomba.com

Feel free to connect with me via email, facebook or follow me on instagram (hmacuzz). I am not the greatest at responding, but I LOVE hearing from you!!! I promise I read every email I receive 🙂 Now I am working at scheduling in times into my schedule to reply to all of them, so if you’ve sent me an email in the past bit and I haven’t responded yet, don’t worry! An answer is coming! 😀

God bless you!

Lots of love,

Hannah

News from Oz :)

Dearest Friends & Family,

I’m so sorry it’s been 8 weeks since my

last update! I have been incredibly busy with leading this school! An amazing opportunity just presented itself this week! In a couple weeks Easterfest (the biggest Christian music festival in Australia) is happening and

I just got asked by a local worship leader here to play keys and sing with her on MainStage Saturday morning during the Festival! Great opportunity that I’m scared silly of but so excited for! Being pushed out of my box by the Lord, and it’s awesome!!
Also I got to teach for the second time this school this week! I spoke on Cross-Cultural Awareness and Outreach Prep! It was a great morning and so fun! The Lord is definitely giving me so many opportunities to be stretched and to grow in the gifts He’s given me!

My time as a school leader is spent mostly in meetings! 😀 Meetings to do with planning, problem solving, speakers/lecture/Classroom  management, ministry, pastoral care, student issues, Base Leadership and the growth/future of YWAM Toowoomba, evangelism/discipleship etc. I love it!

My favourite part of school leading I think is having one-on-ones with the staff girls instead of the students. While I love the students, there is something so special about discipling girls that I already have a relationship with and get to walk life daily with! I meet individually with 5 staff girls weekly, and it’s been amazing to see the growth in each of them this school!!! I love helping them with their own one-on-ones and helping them with family stuff back home, life on base, and even just being a listening ear! I feel so blessed to see them become bold and steadfast leaders and teachers.

In the third week of school we had 5 healings in one morning! One student has had fibromyalgia for a number of years, and today she had 0 pain for the first time in years!!! She had always been at a 6, and often would go to 8s and 9s since she’d been here. She even went running on the trail!!! So amazing!!!

I’ll just give you a quick update of our different weeks:

Week #2: Bible Overview/Inductive Bible Study- Amazing week of invoking hunger for the Word of God! The students really loved this week of practically applying the Word to our every day lives and also how to get the deeper mysteries of the Kingdom through intentional study! I also was able to teach a session on the Biblical Foundations of Worship & Praise. This is the second time I’ve been able to share on this topic, I love it! I got reeally good feedback as well 🙂

Inductive Bible Studies

Week #3: Repentance & Fear of the Lord – The Spirit of the Lord was so intense in worship times that we had three demonic deliverances happen, multiple healings, gold dust and incredible times of repentance and spiritual heajling. It literally felt like a spiritual bomb went off! Crazy amazing times.

Week #4: Holy Spirit – Over half the students were baptized in the Holy Spirit for the first time ever! Many got the gift of tongues and many received other gifts or became aware of ones they already had. It was amazing as well, because even the students who had grown up with secessionist backgrounds were open and ready to learn about and receive from the often forgotten yet integral part of the Trinity.

Week #5: Evangelism – A great week after Holy Spirit! The students were fired up and excited to partner with Him in loving on and spreading the name of Jesus to the city of Toowoomba! All 34 students and 12 staff went out on the streets for a day! Amazing stories from everyone. I think my favourite part is watching even the most shy and insecure people get out of their comfort zone and rely on God to lead and guide conversations with strangers who are still actually His children.

Week #6: Relationships – This week was amazing, a lot of the students were convicted to reconcile relationships with family, friends, ex’s, etc! Amazing, we’re still hearing testimonies of the Lord restoring relationships as they are lead to apologize, repent and ask for forgiveness. 🙂 Amazing!! 

Week #7: Spiritual Warfare – Amazing week of teaching by a local pastor who runs a ministry called Freedom Life. They specialise in deliverance and inner healing. Incredible stories and biblical teaching!! The students got a lot out of it! We’ve had some experience with intense spiritual warfare this school, and we experience more on outreach, so it’s been very helpful 🙂

Week #8: Music & Missions – The Lord inspired and called people out this past week! Even I felt renewed and awakened to the dreams He put in me many years ago! Dreams I had let die or fade away, He brought back up and actually the timing is so amazing! He is opening up opportunities (such as playing mainstage and working more with the House of Prayer here, and I was also recently given an opportunity to teach the IHOP model of Worship&Prayer to a bunch of High School students in Toowoomba as well!!) that aren’t allowing me to hide anymore! haha! It’s amazing that in His grace, He does things like that eh? I am learning again that HE is a dreamer, and I don’t need to be afraid to dream or that I will get disappointed. Even if things in the past haven’t turned out the way I thought or wanted, this isn’t plan B! It’s still plan A and He has known it all along 🙂

Week #9: This week is only a couple days of lecture (I got to teach on Cultural Awareness, Missions and Team Building!), and now we are heading into the set up of Easterfest! Tomorrow until Easter we will be at the park, setting up fences, building walls, floors, tents etc 🙂 Such a great opportunity to serve! A lot of the staff are going to be performing all over the city in cafes, on the streets and in different venues at the festival itself! It’s going to be a crazy time of ministry and music!

The countdown to East Timor is on! 4 weeks away!
I’m learning to be a child again. The song by Jason Upton “When You Were A Child” has been on repeat the last few weeks!! He is calling me to not be worried about my future! Who cares m almost 25 and don’t really especially have an a-z plan! He has called me to be open and available to Him. And He will do the rest 🙂 I really do feel though like He is about to drop something big on me in the next few months… so stay tuned! He has been fanning a fire for the 10/40 window again 😀

Thank you so so so much for reading this update and continuing in your prayer support of my adventures with YWAM! I pray you are abundantly blessed and enjoy your day!
Feel free to connect with me via email, facebook or follow me on instagram (hmacuzz). I am not the greatest at responding, but I LOVE hearing from you!!! I promise I read every email I receive 🙂 Now I am working at scheduling in times into my schedule to reply to all of them, so if you’ve sent me an email in the past bit and I haven’t responded yet, don’t worry! An answer is coming! 😀

God bless you!
Lots of love,

Hannah

Finally… Fiji!

Fiji Times!

Last newsletter I shared about the upcoming trip to Fiji! Well, we’ve been back now for about 2 months and I’ve finally got a bit of time to sit down and write about it 🙂 Hope you enjoy and are encouraged.

To start, writing 6 weeks of pure awesomeness is next to impossible! So bear with me as I try to hit the highlights 🙂 (Also, if this is too long, skip to the end to see what I am doing now and will be up to when the January DTS starts!)

I believe the word for the trip was “Unity”. If you remember, I asked you to be praying for our Team Unity. The team struggled a lot before we left with this. We had 6 students, and 5 of them were extremely strong willed and they butted heads all the time. Before we left, we called a team prayer and fasting day to ask the Lord for unity, unoffendability, selfless love and grace to continuously choose each other over ourselves. The whole team was aware this was an issue and that we would need to fight for each other and not with each other while on outreach! 🙂 I also had all of you guys praying for us!

The Lord answered our prayers! 

We realized that, after hearing many comments about our unity, something was shifting and that the Lord was using our constant intercession and worship to create a bond and love for each other that couldn’t be shaken. Seriously, it was totally a miracle! Because of the unity He gave to us (and the team worked so hard for) we were able to minister to the brokenness and disunity in Fiji itself!

An example of this is us heading to Naviti an island of the west coast of Fiji. We were able to be the first YWAM Team and non-methodists to run a church service and worship with instruments, do some skits and share a message from the Lord on unity in the church. The Assemblies Of God church on the island all came and joined us, so it was also the first time that had happened! We did worship everywhere and people were always drawn to it and confused by the power they felt behind it. Opened a lot of doors to share the Kingdom 🙂

Another example was the Fijian prison we went to a couple times! The second time we brought an Indian pastor (aside from the Methodist and AOG unity issue, there is also a Fijian and Indian unity issue! There is much animosity there) with us and he was able to share with the prisoners his heart. The Fijian pastor, Paul, who ran the ministry invited him back to share anytime he wanted and in turn Veejay invited Paul back to his village to help the church plant.

Learning to cook in Natawa with Vulolo

Playing with children from the Special Needs school in Lautoka

A testimony from our evangelism times was getting to share the gospel with a really open Fijian-Indian named Bob. He was so sweet, and we talked for quite a long time. He had been healed a long time ago by Jesus and didn’t realize who Jesus was or why He healed him, so I shared with Him and prayed many times through-out the conversation for him. He was so open and I even told him that Jesus is the ONLY God, which he didn’t fully understand (he’s Hindi), so I ended up getting his phone number and bought him a Bible and we hung out with him again later on! I don’t think he ever fully received Jesus as his King, but he definitely was interested and had never heard the things I’d told him! We have his number as well, so the team that is heading to Fiji in April will get to keep building on the relationship. SO blessed 🙂

The Lord used our team to build unity, relationship and the Kingdom in Fiji while we were there, and we are so thankful for your prayers that made it happen! Some ministries we loved doing were Village Volleyball (seriously, the whole village came out every afternoon), learning to cook, playing with kids for hours and discipling them in their walk with God and encouraging to have big dreams, church services, worship teaching, serving (building, cleaning etc), evangelism, prison chapel, praying for the sick in the hospital, assisting a YWAM Medical team (doctors, dentists and nurses volunteering free services in poor villages)!

Oh! One of our ministries we did a lot of was worship & intercession! Our main contact had told us that that is a huge tool the Lord uses to open doors and release His presence into places. We definitely saw this first hand, as the people were always so quick to listen and receive prayer 🙂 One night we were actually up from 1am-5am doing worship warfare for a village we were staying in! In the middle of a huge ministry weekend! The Lord is faithful though, and His children are worth any sleep we sacrifice!

Another time we saw God move through that ministry was when we interceded for the YWAM Base and two of the full-time staff who needed the right visas to work as doctors in Fiji. That day was the huge breakthrough YWAM Marine Reach needed! The visas came through the next day after 4 months of waiting and stress!

Helping out with YWAM Marine Reach! Serving the doctors as they serve the village 🙂

Getting ready for the market in VaiVai

Saying goodbye to the kids on their school-boat the morning we left Naviti (we had been there for 10 days) was incredibly hard! I don’t think there was a dry eye in the place! We had spent hours and hours pouring out God’s love on them, and receiving probably even more love back 🙂 They couldn’t stop giving us things (shells, handmade necklaces, animal teeth, sulus, handmade weaved bookmarks etc)! What a blessing to fall in love with those precious gem. Our favourite thing was encouraging the old and young ones to dream big with God and do missions! He is way bigger than their tiny island 🙂

One of my one-on-ones, Maria, got baptized in Fiji!! This is an amazing story of God’s transformative grace. When she first came to YWAM she found out she actually wasn’t a Christian! Through much prayer and discipling, many tears and tough questions, she fully received Jesus as the Lord of her life and let Him have control. The Lord was softened her heart and she was amazing. She had revelation that He DOES exist, that He is GOOD, that He would never leave her if she gave her life to Him and He is worthy of it all 🙂

Jared (my super duper cool co-leader) and I had the privilege of baptizing her in the Pacific Ocean at sunset. It was incredible and the whole village of Naviti came out and joined us!! She has changed so much, and if it was just her life that was saved and transformed, whatever I go through in life is totally worth it!

Now she has gone on to attend the Atlanta School of Ministry (the place where I spent 3 years studying the Word of God and reaching the lost in the inner city of Atlanta, Georgia).

Baptism!!!

Worshiping and praying with the patients waiting outside before they saw the doctor or dentist!

A strength the team developed was prophetic words! A house visit didn’t go by without the team hearing God specifically for the people that lived in the house. Interestingly enough, this was hugely impactful because our contacts were not used to teams operating with the Holy Spirit! That’s so sad! I can see why though, it can be quite intimidating to go to a house where you don’t necessarily speak their language and the people stare at you because you are white!
However Jared and I decided to get the team to do practice hearing the voice of God, by getting one of them to sit in a chair with a blindfold on. We would send one person at a time to them and they had to ask God what He was saying about that person! It’s an incredibly encouraging exercise, and even the most timid person who really believes they can’t hear God, find out they can!!! Nearly everyone is right on, every single time. The key is that because you can’t see, you are really relying on God for something!

This released them in the prophetic, and the Fijians were amazed that God wants to speak to them! It enabled us to train them in hearing God’s voice and to teach them that speaking with Holy Spirit can be a daily thing! 🙂 That is something that is often missing in the Fijian village churches (esp the Methodist church).

Intercession and Worship at YWAM Marine Reach

One of our many church services filled with the wonderful Fijian people!

CURRENTLY: 
I am co-leading this next school (34 students!!) that is arriving on Thursday. We have been in hard-core preparation mode these past few weeks!

These are what the responsibilities of my new role will look like:

Pastoral care of female staff
Responsibility of female students: helping staff with one-on-ones, dealing with student issues etc
Classroom manager: setting the room up, setting the atmosphere pre and during class, feedback for speakers, assessing engagement of the room etc
Ministry time facilitator: Discernment, guiding the room with Holy Spirit etc
Spiritual oversight of school
Taking care of weekly Speakers: preparing them, welcoming them, communicating with them daily about how the school is going, working with them during class ministry etc
Base Worship&Intercession Coordinator

I also will be leading a team to an undisclosed place (I will let you know when the students know ;)) Should have 8 or 9 students with us! More info on that to come 🙂

Spending time doing one of our main ministries: Relationship building with food and Jesus!

Prayer Points:

• Provision: Naturally and Supernaturally
• Protection: Spiritually, Mentally, Physically, Emotionally
• School Leading: Wisdom, Discernment, Revelation, Much Fruit, Unity between Kerri, Landon and myself (the leaders of the school)
• Outreach: Planning, preparation and unity between Caleb and myself
• The students: Transformation, God to move, Evangelism to explode, unity among them

Thank you so so so much for reading this email and continuing in your prayer support of my adventures with YWAM! I pray you are abundantly blessed and enjoy your day!

Feel free to connect with me via email, facebook or follow me on instagram (hmacuzz).

God bless you!

Love,

Hannah