Thailand!

We woke up at 4am and left for the airport on December 13th! Our flight left at 7 and we stopped briefly at the honolulu airport and then 10 hours later arrived in Tokyo! Weird thing was it was Tuesday(the 14th) at like 4pm! We basically skipped the 13th! We then flew about 3 hours to Taipei and had a 5 hour layover there! And finally arrived at our destination, Bangkok, at 3 AM... SO MUCH TRAVELING! but i slept seriously the whole time on the plane.. well other than one of the landings and about an hour and a half of watching like mike.. I didnt even realize i was tired! haha. At every stop someone would make a comment about how they were scared at some point because the plane was shaking so much... but i guess i slept through that too :P

The base here is actually SO nice.. The rooms are nicer than the ones in Kona! There is air conditioning!.. Definitely not used to that anymore! We woke up at around 9 and had orientation (not really sure why because were only here today and tomorrow) but it was fun! Learned a lot about the Thai culture! They took us to lunch at this place called the turtle or something? SERIOUSLY SOME OF THE BEST FOOD I'VE HAD SINCE I LEFT GEORGIA! SO good. I seriously feel spoiled here... but that'll end soon! We are going to nong khai to visit the villages.. As weird as this might sound i would way rather be there in the villages than here! That is where my heart is.

I am so excited!!!!

I love being in Asia.

The end of dts.

Wow what a journey it has been! Sorry I havent written anything in SO long.. They have been keeping us busy! But today was our last lecture day! Bittersweet for sure. Sad its over BUT SO READY TO GO ON OUTREACH! We leave in 3 dayS!!!!

Please keep my team in your prayers.. Our leader still does not have all her funds. I believe that God will provide though. Also, for unity -- so far we are the only team that hasnt had any bumping of heads or anything which is awesome! Pray that continues. I will try to update this if I ever get the chance while I'm over in southeast asia.

I will get email more than anything else though so please feel free to email me at RMCooley92@gmail.com

Have a merry christmas!!!

Blessings :)

Overcome

Another week has FLOWN by! Seriously where does the time go?

This week we were privileged enough to have Don Gillman come speak to my DTS and compassions! I've been asked several times what the topic was this week and honestly, I dont think there was a specific one! Usually when someone doesnt have a main topic its all over the place.... but he was amazing.

The first day he asked us to give one word definitions of what we thought of our grandparents generation, parents generation, and our generation... As we discussed each generation the definitions got worse and worse.. He asked us to imagine what the next generation was going to look like -- it was a scary thought. We all talk about changing people all around us and yeah thats great but change starts with us. We need to make sure we are praying for them and settting good examples... He also talked about setting our priorities straight.. 1)Jesus 2)Others 3)Yourself -->JOY.

We are called to be different, NOT NORMAL! God has called each one of us to something HUGE!...

He also talked a little about testimonys.. I never really went off the depend so I always say that I dont have that big of a testimony.. BUT THAT IS NOT TRUE. He taught us that the best testimony is not what we were pulled out of but what God protected us from! Which is kind of nice.. because I thought wow i have a terrible testimony.. and honestly thats a TERRIBLE thing to think.

One of the most commanded things in the bible is to be courageous! It is used 366 times. But remember.. Courage without wisdom is foolishness.

There is a statistic that 95% of christians will NEVER lead someone to Christ.. Imagine if each christian would just lead ONE person to the Lord!.. The world would be a completely different place.. And quite frankly, it's not too much to ask.

We all have fears in life.. Fear of rejection, vulnerability, loneliness.. Just fear of man in general.. How many times have we missed something HUGE because we were afraid to step out in faith and never even know about it? I dont wanna miss being a part of something big God is doing because I was afraid.

Relaxing

Well last week was VERY relaxed! We had Connie and Craig Kline as our guest speakers! I'm not exactly sure the topic because we talked about Spiritual gifts, Authority, Finances, and other random stuff but it was still good! They are two very amazing people! The first thing that they told us, the thing they live by, is people are way more important than things in any circumstance. They truly live by that and God has definitely blessed them because of it.

Connie is actually our health care teacher (which i'll tell you about in a minute).. Also, she has a HUGE heart for Cambodia! :)

I dont know if I wrote this in an earlier blog or not but justice dts has three different things they wanna equip each team to do. We all got to choose between water purification, health care, and education! I chose health care! We meet every Wednesday for a little over an hour. This previous week they taught us different things on HIVs/AIDs! Then she told us some stories about Cambodia! One was about a hospital we'll be visiting.. I cannot begin to tell you how excited i am!

Daniel got baptized today! We were all so excited for him... I cant even begin imagine the party that was going on in heaven!!

Haiti

Please please please pray for Haiti... There is a tropical storm about to (hit http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11696626)

A whole lot of everything

Matt Rawlins was our speaker last week! HE WAS AMAZING. My brain was spinning. He really challenged us in a bunch of different ways. The hardest one for me is to be vulnerable. He started off saying we need to be vulnerable to God because he makes himself vulnerable for us... Let me just tell you, I HATE BEING VULNERABLE.. I know most people do. But I rarely make myself vulnerable, and when i say rarely, i basically mean NEVER. So I was like all right.. You know, I'll try for God.. Then he was like not only do you have to make yourself vulnerable to God but also to people.. I was like DANGIT! haha. But I'm going to try my hardest.

Another thing he taught us was about intimate reverence(respect). How people from asia rarely have an intimate relationship with God because theyre so used to having so much respect for their fathers and God.. To the point where there is no intimacy. but how the westerners have less respect for their parents and we're used to having a super intimate relationship with families and everything.. but how most people are not used to both. And we need to have both with God. He also talked about how women should submit to their husbands so that their kids can see respect and learn from it. And the husband must love his wife like Christ loves the church so the kids can see intimacy. I love that! I've never heard it put that way..

This weekend was great. Friday night we got dressed up and went to David Cunningham(Lorens, the founder of ywam, son) house(which was incredible) to work a halloween fundraiser. It was a blast! I was in charge of the bean bag toss! Saturday me and mary ran(literally) to safeway(a grocery store) which is only like 1 1/2 miles away but its up this HUGE hill.. I was pretty proud of us. Then we bought some SUPER healthy snack foods and then went to subway where i had the most amazing salad! We came back and cleaned our room SPOTLESS. I was on my hands and knees scrubbing the floor.. It gets prettty gross really fast having 8 girls in one room. Then we went to "candyland" where the compassion dts was working.. It was a huge free halloween party thing. Today we hitch hiked to Magic Sands beach. It was the most amazing day for the beach! We were there for a few hours and then went and got icecream(Half baked -- aka the most amazing thing you'll ever put in your mouth). Then went to the pier and just sat and talked and took goofy pictures :) we were gone literally ALL day.

I'm looking foward to another busy and exciting week! :)

Break my heart for what breaks yours

Since the cholera outbreak in Haiti we've REALLY been interceding for them... But today, it was to a whole new level.. I really felt my heart break for the people of Haiti... Theres an opportunity to go help staff at a base in Haiti after my outreach.. Maybe Gods calling me to that? I dont know.. but please pray for Haiti, they're desperate.

Cambodia

We had our meetings tonight to figure out where we were going for outreach... CAMBODIA it is :) I am beyond excited... We are flying to Thailand and spending approximately 10 days there... Then we will take a bus ride over to Cambodia! There is also a possibility of us going to Laos for a little while.. 80% of the outreach will be spent in an orphanage!!! Our leader is April -- she is from the Philippines! My team is... Daniel, Mary, Seth, Dani, Dax, Rachel, Becca, and Mimi!

They decided to give us a scavenger hunt to figure out where we're going... but at our second clue, they forgot to put the next one.. haha. So we (me, Mary, Dax, and Rachel) looked around where the pigs are for like a good 20 minutes... We were SO sweaty... but we finally found the rest of our team... :)

I cant wait to hear more! Thanks for all your prayers and support :) it's greatly appreciated!!

Walk with God

So last night i took a nap at around 8pm because i havent really slept at all this week. I woke up at like 10 and was like -- I'm going to take a walk with God.. and Just chat with him about EVERYTHING.. and thats what I did! I walked around campus because we're not really supposed to leave by ourselves after it gets dark.. I found this one spot where i could see the moon perfectly along with the water.. I was like all right, everyone keeps talking about you speaking to them in nature -- so i said bring it! hah.. It was the coolest thing. I literally had CHILLS the whole time.. It was awesommmee. The clouds were like in the shape of Asia.. I was like hmm i think that means i am supposed to pray for asia! so i did, especially India. Then I felt/saw some other things.. It was really exciting..

I got back from my walk sooo happy and had SO much energy. it was GREAT :) Just thought i'd share that with yall.

Have a great weekend!

Amy Sollars

This week has been SO overwhelming! In such a good way... God showed me his love towards me... and it was exactly what I needed.. I physically felt him wrap his arms around me! AHH. This week was a challenge for me because so much was going on in the room that i had to close my eyes the whole time and block everything out.. It was really hard but I felt so close to God -- because i wasnt worried about anything that was going on other than just focusing on him!

Amy said she usually prophesied over individuals but she felt that God had SO much in store for our crew... That we would come in contact with leaders of countries and we would CHANGE nations... Even typing it out I get chills! She said a majority of you will stay with YWAM and some of you will become doctors and go back in the mission field.. I cant wait to see what I end up doing!

Those words sound like they could be made up because its pretty generic.. but this whole week she would go to different people and say stuff to them that only they know -- it even happened to me! She is the real deal. ahhh.

On a different note, in the very little time we had off it was great. A group of us are super obsessed with kemps! The best card game ever... but me and my partner, mary, are super competitive! Sometimes it gets bad. haha. But we are a great team.. Last night we were like, lets sit on the hammock! Well the two girls we were with forgot to tell us someone broke it earlier and just kind of fixed it... so we sat down, mary had a cup in her hand, and then SNAPPPP it broke. Mary got soaked.. but boy were we laughing hard..

Day 2

God continues to amaze me. Today was seriously indescribable. He showed up so powerful that I didnt know what to do other than weep... Seriously i cant put it in words..

Then tonight we had worship/ministry... I've never felt Gods arms around me so tight... BEST FEELING EVER.

I love it here, I love what God is doing...

Holy spirit

Oh my gosh... So we are talking about hearing from God and prophesying... Amy, our speaker, just gave her life story and we havent really dived in too much.. but she was praying and then the holy spirit fell and a guy was crying so she had him go up and she started praying for him. She hasnt met him, heard of him, or anything just keep that in mind.

We heard his testimony a few days ago and know everything that has been going on in his life/past. She starts praying over him and pretty much said everything that he told us. It was ridiculous. I've never seen something like that.. Like not that much. I dont even know how to completely explain it!!

I cant wait to hear more and learn more!! :)

Weekend number 2

Well this weekend was just fabulous! Friday night me, Mary, Serra, Daniel, Jon, and Ashton pulled an all nighter playing Kemps (a card game with partners)! Me and mary had the most AMAZING sign EVER. The boys kept getting mad because we were kicking boootyyy :) we took a break at like 3 and went back to our room, very quietly, to get some snacks.. We found out that Daniel eats when he is upset :P soo he ate some skittles, reeces pieces, goldfish, cheeze its.. and some other stuff i cant remember right now.. SO funny. Then we went to the iron man start which they made a huge deal about how we should go to the start because its SO cool! So we went at 5 ... yeah they blew a horn and then went in the water... I'm glad we stayed up all night... but that was lammee :P

We spent the whole day after that at the beach! We hitch hiked for the first time(we as in me, mary, and cam!).. The guy was super nice! His name was Chris.. and when i told him i was a christian he seemed pretty interested, i mean of course he had his guard up... but still! what a start.. Hopefully we'll see him again and i'll be able to share more and more about Jesus! Then we hitch hiked to a liquor store because it was the only place to get water around town.. The guy that picked us up there was also SUPER nice!! We got the most AMAZINg icecream... it was ben and jerrys called half baked! it was fudge brownies, cookie dough and chocolate/vanilla swirled.. YUM. Then we got picked up by people who make fun of christians.. that was interesting! but oh well!

We had to work the 6 to midnight shift at the iron man triathlon.. we seriously fell asleep standing up! We really werent doing anything so they let us leave at 1045! So that was definitely a good thing.

Today we went to the beach again! -- finally getting a little tan! basically the whole justice group went! :) the waves were huge.. like taller than me sometimes! it was so much fun... except when they would play the game we've been playing for awhile which is if you say someones name and they look at you and shoot you with a dart you have to die... so yeah.. it got a little rough sometimes :P

Tonight we went to Daniels sisters house, even though she wasnt there, and played 4 men on a couch with her two roommates! Girls owned 3 to 1 :) thank you daniel! (he messed up a couple times)...

Tomorrow we start a new topic in class :) its going to be great! Cant wait to share what God does!

The father heart of God day 2

Well today we started intercessory prayer! We got to pray for 5 missionaries that are in prison in Laos.. It was super neat! Then we prayed for Tajikistan -- a leader of my group and a student are from there and there is a lot of junk going on. So we just lifted them up.. And different people got different pictures and words and verses.. It was so cool! I've never done anything like that in my life.

Then Ben got up and talked but i'm going to be totally honest, i was SO tired i cannot remember what he said.. I mean I took notes but i don't have them with me right now.

Just felt like posting a blog! I got to skype my best friend, Bryan, today! It was good to talk to him!!

I cant wait till this weekend! We get to help with the Iron Man race!! People are here from ALL over the world to participate!

Wooooahhhh

Well today was the first day of lectures and this guy named Ben from New Zealand spoke.. He is talking this week on the father heart of God. Let me just tell you my world was rocked, already. God spoke to me SO much through him that i was crying the whole time.. I'm not one to cry when other people are around but I could feel God speaking to me so clearly it was crazy. He revealed stuff to me that I had been wondering about. Talk about an answer to prayer!

I have become really close to this girl named Mary and she is just such a sweet person! I feel like we've been friends since we were little. If you could just take a moment and pray for Gods blessing over her life that would mean a lot! We have really connected and i've been able to share with her things i wouldnt share with ANYONE. God is so cool how he puts different people in our lives!

People have also been sharing their testimonies! I wish the whole world could hear the testimonies.. God can change any situation known to man..

I cant wait to further the kingdom with these amazing people.

Be blessed!

Honey I love you but I just cant smile..

Yesterday was another great day! They just keep getting better and better! :) Woke up at 6 and got ready for church and then just jumped on a bus going to Hope Chapel! I liked it pretty well.. It was a little slower paced than my church but we sang some of the same songs!! Then after, me and two of my new friends, Janessa and Andrea went to Bubba Gumps! It had an amazing view of the ocean, of course. :)

Then later most of the Justice DTS went to the beach for the sunset and to jump off a pier.. IT WAS BEAUTIFUL! .. Well what i saw of it.. When we made it to our destination we realized we wouldnt be able to see all of it cause of the trees.. so we jumped in the water (where apparently a tiger shark has lived for a while but isnt dangerous.. :/) and the only way to get up was to climb these HUGE tires.. If you didnt have upper body strength there would be a little problem.. Just kidding, we had some boys to pull you up.. The thing was, you couldnt touch the wall because there were all sorts of sea urchins! scary scary..

Once it started to pour we just got in the sandy part and played Ninja.. I was afraid a shark would come eat us, but we're still alive!!

We got back and played cards.. It's our new thing to do! then we decided to play Honey i love you but i just cant smile.. SERIOUSLY crying i was laughing so hard.. haha.

I know people prayed that my group would be unified.. and God has more than granted that! These girls and guys that I've known for 4 days feels like i've been bestfriends with them for 4 years.. God is so good :)

Classes start today! I'm so ready to be rocked by God!

WOW! Yesterday was SO MUCH FUN! The whole Justice DTS went to the beach :) It had a beautiful tree that made shade and was just GORGEOUS.. I got to see like 5 sea turtles just chilling close to shore! So then there was this HUGE rock and me and my new friend, Andrea, sat there and talked about everything as the waves crashed around us.. Seriously one of the most amazing things i've ever seen.

Then we had the rest of the day to do whatever so a bunch of us walked to walmart which is about a 25 minute walk.. We bought a ton of stuff -- Good thing we had gentlemen with us to carry it back :)

Me and Jon bought 8 packs of cards.. So once we got back we sat at the Banyan cafe under this huge tree playing nerts, BS, and Egyptian Rat Trap! It was seriously so much fun.

After we had a birthday party for Dennis! It was the coolest cake.. It had strawberries, Mango, and Kiwi all over it :) yum yum yum! jk.. it actually wasnt very good, it just looked pretty haha.

Today we are getting to chose a church! I have nooo idea what the options are.. I'm just going to jump on a random bus and go!

Aloha

Well I finally made it here in Hawaii!! :) Getting here was kind of stressful... My flight straight from LA to Kona got cancelled.. Then I got a flight that was to Honolulu then to Kona. So I had find out where to go for the new flight and was sent to the wrong gate... SO I MISSED MY OTHER FLIGHT. It all worked out for the better since I got a complete different flight that was straight to Kona and I arrived earlier.. So I got here and then my luggage came a couple hours later.. I finally got to bed at 1030(430am to my body) and woke up at 3 am for some odd reason!

I'm sleeping on the top bunk of a very wiggly bed hah! Everyone in my room is super nice. Most of them are from Canada!! They all say i have a country accent.. who knew! :)

Today we all got out of bed at around 6 and headed to breakfast! Then we met in the Ohana (which means family) court! We were welcomed by several Natives. They sang for us and prayed over us :)

After, we worshipped and it was AWESOME. Love being around so many people from different countries doing the same thing.

We are having a luau tonight!!

Please keep me in your prayers!

Cannot believe I am leaving in the MORNING! Where has the time gone?? I feel like I was just accepted... Anyways -- I CANT WAIT!! I am finally finished packing and ready to go...

People keep asking me if I'm scared or nervous.. Honestly, I know this is EXACTLY where God wants me. He has reassured this over and over again. I have nothing in me but excitement!

Thank you for all your prayers and financial support! :) Cant wait to share all the amazing things God does!!!

Raising Money

I have been raising money for exactly one month now by working and accepting donations; God has already provided $5,000! I am blown away by Gods faithfulness!