DTS so far

To Friends & Family

Sorry it’s been so long since doing this update. A lot has happened and I don’t know how I’m going to get it down on paper, but I’ll try. As you all know I am doing a DTS that is called Intimacy and Impacts. Were we are finding out about intimacy with God through revelations and wisdom given by God and imparted through men. (Ephesians 1 vs.17- 19) At the start of this season here in Tauranga my computer decided to not work and so I haven’t had much access to a computer. Finally got my computer back after a couple of weeks in the shop and now our internet is not working as there was a crash outside our house and the power shortage killed our modem.

One of the subjects we have been learning about is intimacy with God and how only God can satisfy our needs to be loved totally and fully. He created us for His glory, everything he does is to point back to him he is not prideful he just wants to share his love with another. Aaron Walsh taught us about this and just let a bomb go by talking about how intimacy with God should be our main focus in life. We can do this by setting aside time each day to talk and listen to build our relationship with him. Have you ever thought about how Isaac and Rebekah’s story is a symbolism of God and us becoming one? Abraham (God the father) sends his head servant (Holy Spirit) to find his son (Jesus) a bride in the land that he himself came from and to take from his family a bride. The servant goes but is led by the connection with the father about who the bride will be and what she will say so he knows that she is the one for the son. That this life now is the journey to find out about the bridegroom and their family, the Holy Spirit is here to guide and tell us about his master (Jesus). Amazing right!

Other topics are the nature and character of God, gifts of the Holy Spirit. The father’s heart was a week of amazing change in my life. We learnt about what God thinks of us. Frank Naea taught us about this, on Wednesday we put our names in a hat and pulled out someone’s name so that on Thursday and Friday we could tell that person what God wanted to say to them and how he wanted us to express that. My friend Katie got me and sprinkled flowers over me like after a wedding ceremony and said that ‘I am my beloveds and he is mine’. (Song of Songs 2 vs. 16) After that everyone got ask to take some petals and give them to me as gifts speaking truth into my heart about who God thinks I am and what he wants to do to me. It was an amazing time of love and sharing. In learning about the father heart of God we went back to the start and reacted the scene of the Garden of Eden. About how when Satan (who was an angel that was very beautiful; he is described in Ezekiel 28 vs. 11-18) tempted Eve; she was deceived into wanting to be like God but in love with him like he was in love with them not to have knowledge of good and evil and to rule and suffer the consequences of this. When God called to Adam in the garden he was referring to both parts the male and female human. That nothing happened until both parts of Adam had eaten the apple and then the female part was given a different name Eve.

In the last couple of weeks we have learnt about Identity in Christ, Hearing God’s voice and Relationships. It’s amazing the things we think are truths but are not, that we have thought or been taught that makes us fear trying things because it is naught or wrong we are not always given the full truth about relationships and what they were created for. I have been dealing with a lot of past events that have affected me and let God reveal to me where he was in that situation and what he would have said. At the beginning of this course we were told about how this time here is a consecrated time devoted to hearing God’s voice and developing our relationship with him. We were asked to write down what we wanted to get out of this what we wanted God to do. Before I came to this course I had asked God this question and I came expectant for him to restore, renew, refresh and rename me. I can totally see him doing this in me, Praise the Lord. He has renamed me from Isaiah 62 vs. 3-4 “You will be a crown of splendour in the Lords hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God. No longer will they call you Deserted or name your land Desolate. But you will be called Hephzibah (my delight is in her) and your land Beulah” (married, favoured and blessed by the Lord). He has been teaching me about the beauty I have in him and has called me to “Arise my darling, my beautiful one and come with me. See the winter is past, the rains are over and gone.” (Song of Songs 2 vs. 10-11). He has said to step into the joy of the Lord and receive his love with wholeness and delight.

As some of you know I have always had a dream to open a café and have apprentices that come from a woman’s shelter to train and teach them about what life is about and who they are in Christ Jesus that there is another way to live life without getting abused, or not treated with the respect due to them. At this time I have given this dream to God to either bring back into my life or to start a new passion. I am devoted to doing whatever he calls me to do in this new season in life even if that is scary and out of my comfort zone.  As a part of this course we are asked to do Friday night evangelism where we go out on the street talking to people about God. This for me is very scary and not my style of evangelism; we are all called to do different things to bring people to Christ to develop them and teach them to be disciples. But as I have gone out I have felt God with me and give me the strength and boldness to talk to people it is a journey and with each week I have been able to take small steps to delivering the message of Christ. Praying for a girl to know that she is worth the whole earth to God she is worth the wait to be together with him. Introducing myself and just asking questions about the person and asking if we could pray for them. We had an awesome experience with a guy one night were we were able to pray for him and just talk about God freely because he was ready to hear what God wanted to say to him. We were the best thing that had happened to him that day that month as he had been going through a hard time and was just sick of life. So God does call us to do things that we feel uncomfortable doing and sometimes it’s only for a season, so just be willing for him to use you in that time listening to his voice and his direction.

We have recently found out where we are going on our outreach phase and who we will be going with when we split up. We are going to the Philippines and we start off all together for about a month then split up and go to different Islands to help out for another month. This is a fantastic opportunity to do this and some of us will get to work with prostitutes which I’m excited about because my heart hurts and has a lot of compassion for them to bring them out of this lifestyle. So please pray for us while we are over there that God would protect us and help bring his children to him.

As part of our course we also attend THOP (Tauranga House of Prayer) it’s an amazing time were we just get to spend time with God talking and learning about him. If you are ever in Tauranga I would totally urge you to visit this place to just experience God in a new way and to pray for things. Know that this house prays for the youth of the nation, for the churches and leaders and so much more it is so exciting to know that you are being prayed for on a regular basis through prayer and worship.

If you would like to help sponsor me or give money towards outreach fees for the students here please private mail me and I can give you the information needed. Also pray for us that we would be able to get the most out of this course and that the plans God has for us here in New Zealand as well as overseas in the Philippines will go smoothly. 

Thanks for reading my update and I hope it will be sooner when I can update my time here.

Many blessings

Renee Pearce