Hey all,
I've wanted to give you the blog address for the team, but haven't been able to get onto the internet these past two weeks. There were problems with the login for the computer at the Muizenberg base last week and this week we're in Ashton, which is a small community. Suffice to say, internet access isn't common here. The computer I'm on blocks Facebook, so you might have to e-mail me if you want to communicate with me. You can talk with one of my family if you don't have my e-mail address. Anyways, the team blog is ywamcarlisle.wordpress.com. I'm sorry that this is so brief, but my internet time is limited. I am looking forward to seeing all of you and talking with all of you again when I get home.
Blessings,
Thomas

Hey friends,
I'm so sorry that I haven't written before now. That's not loving to all of you. Please forgive me. I guess rather than try to fill you in on everything else that's been going on this past month I'll just let you know what's happening now.
Most of the team has made all of the necesary preparations for South Africa, and we're leaving tomorrow! One of our teamates (Jo) had to fly out today, but the rest of us are leaving tomorrow and arriving in South Africa on Monday. It's going to be a completely different climate, physically and spiritually, but we're all looking forward to it and expecting God to do amazing things. The majority of the school up to this point has been a time when we've been poured into, with a couple of outreaches here and there, but now we're going to have a huge oppurtunity to really pour out, as well as learn from the Christians in South Africa. And of course, as long as we live God will continue to teach us more and more as we grow in Him.
None of us here can get our heads aronud the fact that we'll be in South Africa so soon. It's going to be amazing!
Apparently the first and the last week of the outreach are more laid back but the rest of it is going to be crazy. We do have a third of the day off everyday, as well as one day off a week because our staff realize the imporatnce of us not being burned out. Hopefully that will give me a chance to stay connected with all of you via Facebook or other means, although I don't know how fast the internet in the internet cafes will be. There will also be a team blog that one of the team members will update weekly. We don't have an address for it yet, but when we do I'll make a post on this blog and on Facebook to let you all know what it is.
The first place we'll be in South Africa is Cape Town/Muzemberg, then we'll go to Ashton, and then to Mossel Bay. We'll be staying for a couple of weeks in each place before moving on to the next location. During the last week we'll debrief in George, and then I'll fly home, unless God has something else in mind and delays or changes my ticket.
Anyways friends, thank you for your patience and for your support and I look forward to seeing all of you when I get home.
Blessings,
Thomas

Wow, it's been an amazing two weeks. I've been learning a lot, and it's the kind of learning that goes beyond head knowledge and moves into application and living it out. Two weeks ago David Painting came and spoke about Discipleship and Worldview. He taught us about loving people instead of judging them. He also shared something that brought home God's love for us.
On the night when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, He had a choice. One that changed the course of history. He asked the Father to make the choice for Him, but the Father would not. He left the choice to His Son. Jesus could've decided to not redeem us. He could've chose to call down twelve legions of angels to wipe out humanity, but He didn't. Instead, He looked into our eyes and decided that the joy we would bring Him was well worth the cost. Instead, He chose the cross.
He chose to die for us, and it is this death that brings us life. For we are separated from God by our disobedience to Him, but Jesus has brought us back to God by His sacrifice. The payment for our sin is death, and that's what we deserved, but Jesus chose to die in our place and instead of death, He offers us life. And even if you were the only one on the planet, and there was no one else who needed Him to die but you, He still would've made the same choice. That's how much He loves you, and how much He longs for you.
But He won't force Himself on you. A gift has to be accepted, and so you have a choice set before you. Whether you reach out and accept the gift of life or you choose to go your own way. Either way, He loves you and nothing will change that. It causes Him so much sadness when people choose to reject Him, but He loves us far too much to force us to do something we don't want to do.
And don't let the devil deceive you. Even if you feel like you've committed every sin in the world, Jesus still loves you and is able to give you life.
So the choice is yours. No one can make it for you. And if you want to know more about Jesus you can write a comment on my blog and I'll gladly write you back.
But as for now I 'll have to say, "So long."

Hey all,
Sorry this post has come a little bit later than I intended. About a week later. Anyways, I am going to try to summarize two weeks in one post, so here it goes.
Last week the lecture was on the Abrahamic Covenant and was one of the most important lectures during the DTS. Unfortunately, a lot of the DTS took turns being sick that week. The gist of it is that God has one unchanging purpose for all of mankind (Hebrews 6:17) and that it is the covenant He made with Abraham. The covenant can be shortened to "I will bless you and you will be a blessing to all peoples." This isn't word for word, if you want to look it up it's in Genesis 12, but it's pretty close. So that entire week was spent hammering God's purpose into us and showing how it permeates the rest of the Bible. From the Old Testament to the New, it's everywhere.
We also opened up the prayer room at the house where the trainees and BLS staff are staying to be used for minstry and not just to be private anymore, and some amazing things have been happening. Let me just tell you some of what God's been teaching me, and if you're on the Carlisle team and reading this blog please bear with me since you've heard all this before. First let me give you some background.
On the first Monday night of the DTS someone named Darren came and prayed and prophesied over us and the Holy Spirit fell. On that night God told me he'd given me the gift of healing, and there were some oppurtunities to use it that night, so I did. For three weeks I wondered about it off and on. I hadn't received any instruction about it and didn't know how to use it and was a little frustrated. When we opened up the prayer room to be a place of ministry to each other a lot of things started happening. The second time I went in there God anointed my hands to heal again. Like on the night when I had received the gift, they started to tingle, and the tingling didn't have anything to do with the temperature of the room. Anyways, that was on Friday of last week, and since then He's anointed my hands to heal when He wants to use me to heal someone, and it's been happening more frequently and not just in the prayer room. I long to take this out into the street and not just use it among my team, but I trust God's timing and I will wait for His call.
This week the lecture has been on the Bible and the speaker gave us an overview of the Bible in a week, (talk about a difficult task), and he also gave us the historical context for each book. The context has definitely helped a lot. To be sure, I knew the context for some books, but not for all of them. I now have a lot of notes and a clearer understanding of some of what was going on when different books were written.
I'm also thankful for someone who came and talked to me about some of what's been going on in the prayer room. They gave me some cautions as well as some constructive criticism because there were definitely some things going on that I hadn't noticed. They also challenged me to find out who I am in Christ, so I'm searching for that as well as beginning a study in Ephesians since it talks a lot about our identity as Christians.
I guess that's most of what's been going on these past two weeks. If you have any comments about anything I've written I'd be happy to discuss it with you. Till my next post, I must, in a very British way say "Cheers."

In Blackpool

What can I say about Blackpool? It was an awesome week of seeing God move as we learned how to witness and then went out into the city. People were healed on the street and people were saved this week. There's so many great stories to share, but as I remember mine the best, I'll share that with you.
It was Monday afternoon during the lecture that I heard God speaking to me and saying that I needed to put into practice what I had learned. He told me that I needed to spend some one on one time with Him and then go on a prayer walk. That made sense to me as we had just learned about the importance of prayer in sharing your faith. So after my quiet time, I set off on a prayer walk through the city. I headed west as some of the members on my DTS were planning on going to the beach and I was going to join up with them after my prayer walk.
I continued heading west and heard God telling me to go directly towards the sun. I reached the beach and saw the sun setting and a long stretch of beach before I reached the ocean. And there between me and the beach was a guy throwing a tennis ball for his two dogs. God told me to talk to him and I did. It was awesome. We talked about normal everyday things for twenty or thirty minutes and it was natural. He asked me why I was in England and I told him about YWAM. I might've pushed the gospel a little too much at the end, but only God knows. I'm still praying for him.
It is really awesome how God can lead you right to a person and how He can use you. I'm definitely excited for what God's going to do as I continue my DTS. After all, it's only the beginning.