back in the mountainous land of brown cheese and bread...

I realize its been a very long time since my last post, so for that I apologize. Sometimes there is so much going on here that it overwhelms me to think of how to summarize it to a medium length blog post...
Since it's been such a long time since my last post, I will spare you a lengthy summary of the past month and give you some pictures instead... how's that?

one afternoon- a huge rainbow over Vézénobres (a town know for its prophetic anointing)!

Gabby and Lyxee during one of our performances at Pont D'art- a bridge where many artists gather to share their work with the people passing by. It was so cool to have people stop and watch what we were doing, we had the chance to talk to many people about our art and our heart behind it. It was such a sweet experience to be able to share our art so freely, and be so well-received by the people.

I got to sing too :) (photo by Gahyun Lee)

Marie gave out her artwork for free, which really surprised people :) (photo by Gahyun Lee)

Josefin, Me and Hannah doing our hip-hop dance (photo by Gahyun Lee)

(photo by Gahyun Lee)

An impromptu dance...one day someone on the team suggested that I do a dance that I choreographed to the song "What do I know of Holy" by Addison Road. The song is a little more outspoken then the rest of the material we prepared for our performances, but I felt that I needed to share my heart with the people of Paris with no reservations. I spoke about how this year I have realized that God is way bigger than we think, and that He is so much more complex than we will ever know, which is what the song is about. When I began to speak, the people walking by stopped to listen, and by the time I was finished with my short testimony there were people watching from every direction, and they continued to watch as I shared my dance with them. It was such an good feeling to know that I was obedient to what my heart was yearning for, because I know that God used me to speak to His people that day. When your heart is full of God's love you just can't help but pour it out to share with others :)

This is a picture of the cafe and pastry shop we leaved right down the street from. We bought our bread from that little shop on the corner every morning. We became very familiar with the people who worked there, and at the end of our trip we left them with a card from us, and the owner said that he would miss us very much. Our time in Paris was very much a learning experience about how to live every day life out of love for the people you come in contact with. We really became part of the little Belleville area community, learning how to live in the world as followers of Jesus. 

We met a girl named Hapi at the open-mic night we went to on Mondays. She invited us to see her sing at a benefit concert put on by her college. It was so cool to get to know Hapi, she is such a beautiful and talented person with big dreams! She was so excited that we came to see her perform!

(photo by Gahyun Lee)
 Jonothan and Claire, the son-in-law and daughter of our contacts in Paris, are starting a Culinary Arts DTS this coming fall. We were lucky enough to experience some authentic French food at their restaurant, Kiwizine. This dish was the first of three courses, goat cheese, tomatoes, and bread toasted with honey drizzled on top :) delicious!

the whole group!

home again, home again to beautiful Norway!

:)

We've been in France for a little over two weeks now. Since the 11th we've been in Vezenobres (a tiny medieval village about 30 minutes away from Nimes). This past week we've been guest teachers in the local middle/high school. We played some word games and broke off into discussion groups so the students could practice their english. It's been really interesting speaking with the students about their likes/dislikes, and their dreams for the future. They all seem very interested in the US and what it is like to live there, so it's also been really fun to talk about where I'm from :) For me, the highlight of our time here so far has been working at the Salvation Army. It is a small place in town that is used as a hang out place during the students' lunch hour. The youth we have met there are part of another school who's focus is on automotive mechanics. There are about 20 boys that come every day. Only a few of them know English well enough to carry on a conversation, and I'm the only one who has had any experience speaking French (which is not saying much, although it's coming back to me here and there), so its been interesting to figure out ways to talk to each other :) Despite the language barrier, we've already begun building relationships with the guys, they are all very nice and welcoming to us, and each other. We made some cakes for two guys that had birthdays, and we are going to have them over for a barbeque some time before we leave. 

As far as liking France goes...it's incredible! We are blessed with a beautiful house to stay in while we are here (complete with a view of the medieval village from our balcony), and I've enjoyed not having to cover myself with at least four layers of clothing every time I go outside; the sun has graced us with its presence every day since we've been here. Last Sunday we went to a Huguenot museum and a cave where the Huguenots used to have secret worship during the Reformation (after the middle ages). 

This past weekend we spent Saturday at huge market! I bought dried fruit, fresh pickled garlic, a pair of gladiator sandals (yet another pair of shoes I'll have to lug home), and homemade honey- to send home to my family :)

We also went to see an aqueduct (built in the time of the roman empire) which was also very cool. On Sunday our host, Henning, came over to share with us some of the words and pictures he got while he was praying for us previous to when we arrived. It was so encouraging! I couldn't help but cry when I heard him speak pure truth regarding what I have experienced this year in my DTS, and it will be interesting to see what comes of the prophesy regarding my future. It's so nice when God speaks- and so cool when he speaks through other people!

For those of you that made it through this whole blog, congrats...it was a long one. We have limited time on the internet so I have to squish a lot of events into one post, so thanks for reading! 

Bonne journée (have a good day)! :)

first week in France...

We've officially been in France for one incredible week. I am in love with the culture; the friendly people, the little shops, fresh baguettes every morning, store fronts packed with colorful and yummy pastries. Also, its been really fun to use the little French I've stored up from many years of French classes. Oh yea, and how could I forget...if you walk to the top of the hill that we live on you can see the whole city of Paris, Eiffel tower and all.

 taking advantage of the artistic freedom in Paris...dancing at the park during worship on a beautiful sunny day :) (photo by Gahyun Lee)

It's been a pretty low-key week. We've spent a good amount of time praying and worshipping as a team. At the beginning of the week we went to the park close to our little abode, to play music, sing, and dance.
Sunday we led a kind of mini-church service at a small soup kitchen. I got to paint during one of the worship songs, which was a cool first-time experience. Afterward we had lunch and spent time talking with the homeless people that were there, it was a blessing to be able to bless them with our art, prayers, and homemade cookies :)
Last night we went to an open mic english poetry night at one of the bar/cafes in Belleville (the area in town where we are staying). That was probably my favorite thing we've done so far. The cafe was a classic Parisian-bohemian hole-in-the-wall. By the end of the night it was packed with people, anywhere from 20 to 70 years old; students, writers, actors...
Most of the people in our group shared their own work (being that I didn't share anything, I was the proud parent of the night, excited to see my loved ones up on stage).
The coolest thing was to see these people up on stage, listening to them pour their hearts out in various forms of art, knowing nothing about them except that Jesus loves them, and that because of that we, as His disciples, should too.

 Gabby singing one of her songs at the The Spoken Word poetry night

 In front of Notre Dame! 

I found a pink vespa...can I have one? please?

 the Notre Dame towers- so beautiful! (photo by gahyun lee)

God has spoken to me a lot in the past week about living out of love. When I left the cafe last night, I felt so full, because I knew that we had brought Jesus with us to love the unlovable. Its just so exciting to know that God calls us into the world- to be among ALL people, to see with His eyes, and feel with His heart. Dying to my own thoughts and preconceptions has never been so liberating! When we live from love, we further understand our amazing God for who He is: hope for the hopeless & love for the unloved.

rise and shine!

Today the India team leaves. A couple of girls had the idea to have one last worship time before we all go our separate ways...

 

also, Gahyun taught me how to make the paper roses we will be giving to people on the streets of Paris,

 

pre-outreach post

It's now Friday...the last weekend before we leave for outreach. This week we have been very busy working on the pieces we will be performing in the streets of Paris, and also getting some teaching material ready for our time in Nimes. Tuesday evening we had a "sending out" service. We prayed for the nations to which we will be going, and the teams prayed for each other, and gave encouraging words and pictures. I can't believe we are leaving this Tuesday- I can hardly wait!

I am not sure how often I will be updating my blog, seeing as we won't have internet at the places we are staying, but I will be sure to take lots of pictures! 

art exhibition.turning20.avery the canadian

koselig (cozy) lighting at the art exhibition!

my roommates and I! (for my birthday they made me a movie of all the students saying happy birthday, and other sweet and funny things! I love it!

lyxee helped me make cake on my birthday. it was so yummy!

"hurra for deg!!"

on the night of my birthday I was in one of the film trackers movies. My part was a Canadian named Avery...and my friend Rachael was Esteban the Mexican :)

There was no script, we just improved while playing the game Risk. I can't wait to see the outcome!

Also, today the france team was prayed for and sent off by a church here in Moa (the part of town where our school is located). We told a little about YWAM, our school, our mission in France, and performed a small song/dance piece. After we did our little spiel a woman came to the front and told us that God had put the words "joy, peace, triumph, and victory" on her heart for us. So encouraging :)

We are leaving for france a week from Tuesday (March 2nd) and will be there until April 27th! Its coming up so fast! This week will be a time of preparation before all the teams go out into the world! Keep us in your prayers as we prepare, go, and share God's love with people!

fah fah france!

today we did some preparation for outreach...

here is the France team in all our glory :)

today is valentine's day...

so Josefin, my secret valentine, gave me tulips :)

and rachael, lyxee and I dressed up...

and took fun pictures :)

happy valentine's day!

Geiranger Fjord

Today four other girls and I took a trip (about two hours from us) to see the fjord in Geiranger! it was absolutely beautiful!

YAY FOR BELATED UPDATES!

we have dress-up day every wednesday...this is Yvonne, Terhi and I on pirate day!

this is at Grimerud (another YWAM base in Norway where we went to a leadership conference and had a week of teaching on relationships)- very beautiful, and extremely cold!

our whole group yelling our new year's expectations!! (mine is to learn how to be expectant of God) :)

I can't believe its been almost a month and a half since I've been back in Norway. Lately, we've been busy planning for outreach! I am soo excited to go to France! We will be spending a total of about 5 weeks in Paris, and 3 weeks in a town close to Marseille. While we are in Paris we will be doing a lot of street performances, and just reaching out to the people of France (giving out free coffee, flowers, and spending time getting to know their hearts). When we go to the south of France we will be teaching English in a high school. The group I'm going with is awesome, we have three dancers, three musicians, one person from the film track, and one visual artist.

We are on our winter break now (it started today and goes through the weekend), but this week before the break we had teaching on evangelism, and spent one day in Aalesund town passing out hot chocolate and talking with people. The week before that our teaching was on missions. It was really cool because I realized that as Christians we are all called to be missionaries in that we are all called to spread the gospel no matter where we are in the world!

Over Christmas break I bought a small journal, and I've been jotting things down constantly, whether is notes from class, doodling designs, or prayers, I've found myself writing a lot- I love it! One teacher we had in January was here from North Carolina teaching on how to live from your heart. His name is Ken Helser, and he is one amazing person! I was so inspired by his stories and his relationship with God. The reason I'm telling you this is because one day he told us the importance of writing God's response when journaling. He said "If you're not writing God's response, it's not a journal, its a diary." :) Since that teaching, I've been doing just that, writing what I feel God is saying back to me- and its been amazing to hear God speak. I feel like my whole life He's been dying to tell me things, but I never took the time to really listen. I strongly encourage listening to what God has to say, he's pretty smart :)

I feel like in my earlier posts I haven't really expressed my heart to you, but now I will. Since I've been here in Aalesund, I've not only learned a lot, but I've felt a lot. I'm learning how to separate my head from my heart, and believe that the little voice inside of me is God speaking. I've learned more about the Holy Spirit, and the power we have in Jesus' name. My heart has grown for the people around me, the people that know God, and the people that don't. I have fallen in love with Jesus, and I want the world around me to know him too. I've learned and experienced the love God has for us, and its overwhelming. I've learned the importance and power of forgiveness. I long for more and more of Jesus in my life, for my heart to break for the world. Also, my love for dance has exploded!

I have to say the most exciting part of all of this is that we can never be full enough! I am so excited for the rest of the DTS and all God has for us [and France!] on outreach!

while hiking one day!

playing in the snow!

For Thanksgiving, the Americans hosted a big dinner- and my roommates dressed up as turkeys to help celebrate. It was hilarious!

hello!

I'm really sorry it's taken me so long to update my blog :(

It's been super busy here with the first half of the school year coming to an end.

To fill you in on some fun things I will make a list sooo enjoy:

1.) This past friday and saturday the dance and film tracks got together to film this year's dance video! The theme was freedom, and myself and another dancer were in charge of putting together the choreography for the video. On friday we filmed the dance in a beautiful field with the water and mountains in the background, despite the fact that our feet went numb for it being so cold, it was so fun to be part of a film! Saturday each of the dancers were painted like idols (I was violence, grr) and we went into town and were filmed standing, like statues, in a gazebo in the middle of town. I am very excited to see the end product!

2.) Last night we celebrated Sinterklass (kind of like Santa, but Dutch), and the night before we put out our shoes for Nicholas to come and fill them with gifts!

3.) Two weeks ago we had Ann Rosita from Norway come to teach us hip hop. She was such an inspirational teacher! Every day I left absolutely exhausted from her class. We learned two dances that we can use when we do evangelism on the street and we also did a lot of strength exercises and stretching. It was a very encouraging week! We had a chance to show our dances to the rest of the students and staff at the end of the week and many people were touched! It has been so cool to see how God can use any kind of art that is done in His name to reach people :)

4.) As far as weather goes- it snowed here for two days last week! We all had so much fun playing in it! And since the time change the days have been getting shorter- so now the sun doesn't rise until about 10am and it sets around 3:30...It's really sad, but the Norwegians just call it "cozy".

I will be back in the States for Christmas break next Monday! woo hoo! I am so excited to see my family and friends! Also, I will be dancing in church on the 27th- I am really looking forward to that!

the last two weeks

I can't believe its already the end of October. Time seems to just fly by here...it's so weird.

The weather has been great this week- no rain...its a miracle! The view from our porch is even prettier now that there's a little snow on the mountains. 

Just to fill you in on last week... our teaching was on spiritual warfare. Needless to say it was a pretty heavy subject for just the second week of teaching, but Eleanor (our teacher for the week) was really good. She made a point to focus more on God and how BIG He is instead of focusing on the enemy. It was awesome to be reminded of the enormity of God, its so easy to bring Him down to our size and keep Him there that we forget His true size- which is much bigger than anyone can imagine. Eleanor also spoke a lot on the authority we have in Christ's name, and how we have all of God in us- how uplifting! 

Below is a video we watched during the teaching on Spiritual Warfare from Louis Giglio's How Great is Our God tour:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGxsI8ksX8Q

Today was our last day of teaching on the Word of God. Lars Ølav Gjøre from Norway was our teacher. It was refreshing after a week of teaching that dealt mainly with emotions, to have a week of just facts :) We spent a day talking about where the Bible came from, how it was compiled, church history, etc., a day on the Old Testament, a day on the New Testament, and today was on how to apply all of our knowledge to further reading. This week confirmed a lot of doubts I have had about the Bible in the past- its so cool to know that the Bible is a history book, and at the same time its living and active!

Here's the website to all of our teaching from the week, Lars Ølav covered some really cool stuff!

www.biblebynight.no/dts

Yesterday I taught a salsa class for all the students! It was a lot of fun- almost everyone joined! Afterwards we had a double birthday party for two of the girls here! We had cake and ice cream, and Carlo from Mexico made delicious salsa and guacamole! Saturday night we are having a dinner party! The theme is Moroccan...I don't think anyone knows what to wear yet- but it should be a lot of fun! 

1st week of teaching...

This past week was on the Father Heart of God, and it was taught by Ezra Griffiths from the YWAM base in Orlando, Florida. He was a really cool guy, very down to earth. He began the week with Isaiah 61:1-3 which tells us that God has anointed all Christians to share the Good News, proclaim freedom, comfort others, etc. - basically telling us that as Christians we have responsibilities, and that service should flow out of our relationship with God. We talked about God's character, and the importance of loving and trusting Him. 

When we began talking about the Father Heart of God, Ezra asked us to write down how we viewed our own dads at age twelve, and then how we think our dads viewed us. Luckily, I have been blessed with a loving and supportive father, so when Ezra told us to relate our experience with our own father to that of our relationship with God, it was very easy to understand God as my heavenly, well...dad. My whole life I've known that God should be like my "daddy", but this week was the first time I truly understood God in that kind of way. I have felt a closeness that I've never felt before, because I know that God loves me just because I am his child, and that I didn't have to do anything at all to receive this fatherly love except be born again in His name- how cool is that?! Ezra was a great teacher for this week because he used a lot of illustrations from his experience as a father to three girls. We finished up Friday afternoon with a lesson on forgiveness and the power of the spoken word. And after the teaching we broke off into smaller groups and verbally forgave anyone who has hurt us. It called for a heavy end to a long week, but I think we all learned how freeing forgiveness is. 

This coming week we will have teaching on Spiritual Warfare. 

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Hi! 

If you want to comment, email me at davism22@mailbox.sc.edu, i'm not sure whether or not i'm getting the comments on this page :)

catching up...

a very tiny car. 

Yvonne (Holland) and Me with the Guard in front of the castle.

yay! all the girls (minus a few) on the stairs to the castle

me with a norwegian troll outside a tourist shop :)

It's been a while since my last post... part of the reason is because I was computer-less during the time I was in Oslo for Nations 2 Nations.  N2N was neat, eye-opening, exciting, and absolutely exhausting. People from over 30 nations gathered for this conference to promote unity amongst Christians, and to learn about God's heart for Oslo. We had worship and teaching every morning, and in the afternoon we were sent to evangelize in Grønland (the area in Oslo where many immigrants live), and afterwards there was music and dancing at the Grønland square. Also, the dancers from my school were asked to choreograph and perform a dance during the weekend celebrations which were held at local churches- so we spent almost all of our break time working on that. It was a great experience, getting to spend time with people from all over the world, and learning about God's heart for all of His people. As they said at the conference "The Kingdom of God is not about tolerating differences, but embracing diversity." Oslo was a really cool city, and I'm glad I was able to spend a week there, but it is definitely good to be back in Aalesund. 

We start the regular schedule tomorrow (we had today off after such a long week). Our teacher this week is from the U.S., and he'll be teaching on "the Father Heart of God." It will be nice to get into more of a routine after three weeks of trips and adjustments. 

As far as adjustments go, I'm really loving it here. There are times that I feel really homesick and wish I was back home... but at the same time I don't want to be anywhere else but here, because I know it's where God has called me. 

just a little update :)

we have started classes!! i dance for about five or so hours a day (which is really awesome) we've only had two classes so far, and during those we've spent a lot of time worship dancing (the dance leader just played music and we worshipped as we felt led), and we've also been learning about rhythm and choreography. there are six other dancers (three from the us, two from sweden, and one from norway) they are all really sweet. its really cool because since i've been here i've had a rollercoaster of emotions, but God has really been showing me- through my dancing- that he wants me here and that he is going to take care of me :). Oh yea, and we got our first assignment in dance- to watch a recent dance video (from So You Think You Can Dance, a music video, etc), and "redeem" it. We've only just started (it's due sometime in Oct.), but it seems like its going to be really neat!

next week we're going to a conference thing called nations to nations in oslo, norway. all of the other discipleship training schools in norway were invited, too. and there's not much of an agenda, but the plan is to reach out to people in various ways (very broad description...but i dont think anyone here is entirely sure what we're doing because its the first year they've ever done it).
also, i might get a chance to teach a dance and perform it, which would be really cool!