Happy Birthday Earth Calender

So my new year starts on February 8. I don't usually give much of my party time to new years eve. But regardless, I can't deny that it is the start of a new year. and man what a good one 2012 was!

I have been a bit quiet on the blog front in a while. I am working on a new format for updates, but it is taking a while (largely due to my un-suaveness with technology) So here is a bit of a run down from the past year...

Winter Dts 2012. Amazing. Students had new revelations of the Father Son and Holy Spirit, which is freakin awesome. And our outreaches were sooo good! I was in Argentina with Michele Fulginiti and a team of allstar students. Lots of people in Argentina met Jesus for the first time, we helped lots of other YWAM bases and had a general great time cruising around talking about Jesus.

Theeeen it was Endurance DTS. 12 more incredible students. All the usual incredible DTS curriculum with a ton of extra transferable back country skills! Including CPR an wilderness first aid responder certification. And then to top it off - another mind blowingly incredible outreach!

Cassie Horn and I took 11 students to Canmore, Alberta for two weeks and then flew to Cambodia for the next six weeks. One of our students got the opportunity to work with Team extreme and Tidal Waves ministry right here in Montana and he is still working with them now! Canmore was full of amazing evangelistic awesomeness. Helping with local events. And helping my home church, "The Branch" kick off their first ever morning service. Kristy Wilke got a super talented worship team together and came up just for the day to help us kick off our first service with some fantastic worship! And Cambodia... wow... Cambodia. Yeah. What a totally life changing trip. Amazing people. Beautiful country. And a people that is really ready for their Savior to become real in their lives.

I had an epiphany there: "God doesn't need a bunch of westerners people to fly around the world to change a country. Sometimes he just needs a bunch of westerners to come behind his people that are already in that country and help build them up so that they can help change their own people."

And that is really what we did. We were able to play with kids. Teach English. Help out with building projects and just stand behind the local church. We had lots of opportunities to do bible studies with local Christians and help strengthen them. And I know that these amazing people are the ones that are going to see revival in their country.

Since EDTS finished I have been helping our WDTS 2013 school get ready. Jan. 7 class starts!! We are looking at the biggest winter that YWAM Montana has ever seen. How cool is that?!?! I am fortunate enough to be leading a snowboard/ski track on the side. Kind of a bonus option for students that involves a little bit of riding, lots of evangelism and helping the Whitefish Snowboarders for Christ crew get some new Sunday night stuff going! It is gonna be incredible!

So thank you for following along with my ramblings once again. Having friends support me love and prayers is honestly soooooo amazing. Humbling. I am honored. Truly.

One goal i have for this year that is not just a solid goal, but an incredible necessity, is getting my financial support up! I am still about 60% below where I need to be each month. So if you love the above list of fantastic things and want to be a part of the action, join up with me! Because we need each other to be the parts of the Body that we are currently called to. Right now God has me as the hands and so I can't be the wallet. If you feel walletty right now, please check this page out:
www.canadahelps.org
Your donation (if you are Canadian) is tax deductible! If you aren't then its just a really easy way to give! In the search bar, click ywan vancouver. Click on the pink "YWAM Project Funding link and donate away, by clicking "donate now" or "donate monthly"! Do it once. Or monthly. Or whatever you want really! Pay pal or credit card both work. Just specify in the message box that it is to Kris Friesen at YWAM Montana and we are all set. And then you and I begin an awesome new stage of relationship that is team work!!

thank you thank you thank you

love and be loved

-kris-

Cambodia

It's hot. It is melt your face off hot like I've never experienced. There is a lot of rice being consumed. Most of the girls are constipated. And half the guys. I got bit by a big stupid centipede and then I found a scary little scorpion beside my bed. Which is a pad on the floor. Yet in light of all of this, it is an absolutely incredible country. The people are so hospitable. So welcoming and friendly. So smiley and love giving you time to talk and become friends.
We have been here for five weeks now. We traveled through a lot of the country in our first week and the past four weeks have been spent up north in a little village called Preah Vihear. We are living in a little two story house. It is a really fun little community. Our team shares the house with two amazing Camai sisters who teach English here at the house every day to kids from the surrounding villages. We host stuff here all week, kind of like a VBS deal. We tell stories about Jesus. We do crafts that are always linked to Bible stories. We play movies and of course there are always lots of games. We are also working with a near by orphanage every day as well. Our missionary contact here goes to a great little church that we also have been welcomed into. We have helped build some gardens and done all sorts of physical work there to help keep it looking beautiful and in running order.
One of our biggest roles here, has been to help build the local Christians as much as we can. Our students have been doing amazing jobs of running regular Bible studies and meeting one on one with people to disciple them. It has been pretty cool to see everyone from our students to the locals all growing and learning about Jesus together.
We head back to the capital city on Monday to do a bit of ministry there and debrief a bit and then its time to fly fly away back to sweet comfortable western culture. Please be praying for the strength and energy to finish well for our crew. And continued health as we have had no serious issues yet(what a blessing!).
If you wanna check out the EDTS freshly updated blog page for a more detailed run down of this semester, the link is right here for your viewing pleasure!!www.endurancedts.blogspot.com
If you would like to be on my extra detailed, picture and video loaded super update mailing list, please contact me at kris.friesen@ywammontana.org. You can contact me as well at the address if you are interested being a part of these amazing God stories and adventures financially as well.
Thanks again for everything. I love love love and miss you all.
-kris-

Outreach. Part 1. On the fly. Literally...

Outreach. Wow. Already. Six more of the eight to go. What the heck you say? What about the first two? Well let me tell you... I'm sitting on a table at the Seattle airport waiting for the Air Asiana booth to open so we can fly to Korea and then on to Cambodia. But the past two weeks are what you all want to hear about right now yes? OK then. By popular demand I will obey the cries of the masses. Or maybe almost no one actually reads this and I only write that to make myself feel good. Either way here is the super fast run down; we spent two weeks in the Bow Valley. At the Branch Church in Canmore. We helped kick off their first ever morning service, which will now continue on every Sunday morning at 10:30 am. It was a ton of fun. What an awesome group of people. Just trying to live out family and love on the people around them. It was a huge blessing to work with them. We handed out flyers to get the town aware that the church even exists. We volunteered at fundraisers and provided volunteer first aid care at a skate comp and we hit up the tourist spots and chatted with people about life and love and happiness and the Holy Ghost. One of our afternoons some of our guys ended up in the Banff high school chatting with the principal about what we do and why. He thought it was super cool and let them walk up and down the halls praying for the school and the teachers and the students. Super cool. And Saturday night Cassie (co leader) and I were filling up the van to have it ready to go in the morning, and some random dude paid for our gas. As in a $125 fill up. Saw the YWAM logo and just felt he should pay for our gas. never worked with YWAM himself. Just heard about what we do and felt lead to help out. Thanks random Mike from Calgary for blessing us with that surprise!So yeah. Then we drove back to Montana. Changed our gear. Flew from Kalispell to Seattle and here We wait for part two of the outreach. Cambodia. Teaching English. Teaching super basic community development skills. Trying to change a world view of a broken nation. That every human is valuable. That sickness is not because they were bad, but because they leave their crap in their drinking water and live in their garbage. Talking about Jesus with a people ready to really live and be free! Yesssssss. So please pray for us! It is gonna be friggin crazy. And awesome. Please email me at kris.friesen@ywammontana.org if you want to know more by receiving my super cool update letter things. They have videos. And Pictures. And links to things that help you be more of a part of the adventure. Talk to you all soon enough!
love and be loved
Kris

yeah dudes!

Oh, man. Life is awesome! Hard stuff. Good stuff. Crazy stuff. Mundane stuff. New stuff. Old stuff. Shtuff. But dang, Jesus makes it aaaaall good. He really makes all things work together for His good. Speaking of His good - this school I am staffing is getting rocked! We are learning so much. People are crying. Growing. Learning. Throwing off old ideas and paradigms.

But you probably don't even know what "this school" is. Well... it's our usual 5 month DTS(discipleship training school) curriculum, plus a whole ton of bonus stuff. It's called Endurance DTS. It is a little smaller than our usual 40-6- students with only 12. Ages 18-29. But they're rad. I promise. We do outdoor survival first aid. We have volunteered at a crazy 6 stage mountain race. We have been doing sweet evangelism in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park. We have been learning all sorts of out doors skill sets. So it's busy. It's my normal too busy feeling, plus an extra bunch of outdoors teaching on top of it. But God gives the energy we need. Awesome. DTS does 3 months of lectures and then 2 months of outreach. Missions if you will. This school has this outdoors community theme. We strongly felt like God wanted us serving in that area and in community development as well. So after a lot of prayer, a bajillion emails and a few meetings later this is how outreach breaks down (drum roll please)....

We are going to the Bow Valley on September 11th! I know right - amazing! Two weeks of working with the Branch chruch in Canmore. Tons of practical evangelism in Banff National Park and a few other crazy events TBA. Then we fly to Cambodia for 6 weeks. our contacts there are lining us up with some smaller villages to work with. Teaching community development skills and preaching the gospel to a very hurting and torn people. It's gonna be a crazy ride. Thanks so much for all your support and prayer. We are all in this together. Reaching the world as a community together. Me from here with this crew with the support and love from you where you are! How cool is that. Freakin cool if you ask me.

So if you wanna know more, send me your email address. I am starting a sweet new blog style email update system. It's gonna super amazing. Times ten. Get me on facebook, or email me at: kris.friesen@ywammontana.org  It will be worth being a part of. World changing. Seriously. Let's do it together.

Ok. Bye for meow. Now.

-Kris-

Let's do that again!

Holy Shnikies! Class begins tomorrow for another DTS! And not just any DTS, but Endurance DTS! (insert cool trumpet noise and some sort of awesome theme music) Our five staff and twelve students are stoked and ready to go. Ready to learn more about our amazing creator. About deepening our intimate relationship with the God of the universe. About reaching a lost world with His love. And in the case of EDTS, reaching the outdoors community. The backpackers, hikers, climbers, athletes and adventure racers. We strive to learn skills to be better equipped to be His hands and feet and also to learn applicable skills to potentially work in the field we love - the great outdoors! How cool is this school! I mean can you honestly tell me right now as you read this that you're not at least a tiny bit jealous that you are not here as part of this five month crazy adventure? Anyways, it's gonna be awesome. And I am so blessed to be a part of it.

So yeah. That's where things are at here right now. I will be adding another post soon, as the school gets going and there is more to share. thanks for being rad and being a part of this journey. Even if it is only showing interest by reading the updates. Please keep me in your prayers. Please write me if you have prayer requests. Please contact me if you are interested in being a part of what I am doing down here. I am still working on the financial side of this adventure. the relationships formed through that have already been so amazing. Contact me at kris.friesen@ywammontana.org

peace

home sweet home. for a moment...

Home sweet home. Wherever that is. At the moment - good old Lakeside Montana. You should really come visit sometime. It's quite a remarkable place. Anyways... outreach. It was amazing. Tonight all of YWAM Montana gets together to worship Jesus and to celebrate our school being back. We are gonna to share a few of our stories. I am personally going to share about the incredible growth of the seventeen incredible people I got to spend two months with. Yes Argentina was amazing and we saw lots of incredible stuff happen. Yes I have tons of really cool stories. But I only have a few minutesto share tonight and to me the most amazing and the most lasting thing is the change I saw in my friends. Spiritual growth through the roof. Confidence grown on so many levels. New skills and abilities discovered and practiced. New passions found. It was so. stinking. awesome. Seriously.
     Friday they all graduate and start heading home. Me? Well I get a week and a half off. Then, at the start of June we finish planning for the next adventure. EDTS. An outdoor adventure discipleship training school. Sounds cool? Believe me I know! I am super stoked. We already have all the students that we can fit. The three other staff I am working with are so incredible. God is gonna do super awesome stuff this summer. The school itself begins on June 18th. Three months of lectures in our classrooms here and also out in the woods. We like to take every other week and bring the lessons out with us. That's as good as it gets really. Then we head out across the world somewhere (to be determined) to share the gospel with outdoor adventure community and pretty much anyone at all that will listen! We are even entering (staff and students together) in an adventure race. To get out there into the community of people we love. It is gonna be rad. There are two running stages, kayaking, canoeing, mountain biking and two road bike stages. I have never really done anything quite like this myself, so I am excited and a little nervous. I don't want to like run someone off the road with my bike or anything. Unless it opens up a chance to share the gospel... hmmmm... nah. I'll try and keep it safe.
     But yeah. That's about where things are at right now. There are a million other stories and details. If you want to know anything at all, please facebook me or write me at kris.friesen@ywammontana.org and I can fill you in on anything you may wish to know.
     The last thing I have to add, is about finances. If you immediately became less interested, then read no further and just enjoy the update you just read! If however you are wondering how I am doing on this front, or wish you somehow be a part of what I am doing here, read on...
    
So here's the deal. I am basically at the point where I almost can't continue here much longer. I am still $400/ month short of what I need just to pay my bills. I am moving off the base here into a house with a bunch of dudes, which will lower my bills by maybe $25/ month. I have sold a few things and am cutting out everything that I can to minimize outgoing as much as possible. But the truth is I am still just really short every month. And I have come to the end of my own personal limit. I have been praying lots. I fast. I trust God fully. And I still believe that I am supposed to be here. I am SO blessed that there are so many people already praying for me so much and thank you thank you thank you to those that are already supporting me. We make an amazing team. I am excited to get back up to Canada for a few days to share about all the stories of people lives you have helped change by supporting me here. But I still need some more people on the team. On top of all the monthly things, I need to make a few purchases which are just out of my range right now. As I will be spending about five of the next twelve weeks out in the backwoods and mountains of Montana, I have a few gear upgrades that need to happen. My hiking shoes are eight years old. No amount of shoe goo will work anymore. They are dead. RIP little buddies. My backpack is dead. I tried to get it fixed, but the fix it lady said the material is so thin from use that she can no longer sew it together anymore. Crap. So yeah. I need about 4to500 more dollars a month of support and I also need a few hundred in the next few weeks to get the gear I need for the next school. God has been faithful thus far. Please prayerfully consider joining in this next stage of ministry. It really is an awesome opportunity for all of us to reach the world from our various positions.
     I love you all. I will keep you posted on how things are going. Thank you for reading. Thank you for caring.

love and be loved

kris

Captains log. Day 54

This will be a short one. A 'one for the road' kind of update. Yes. So start our travels tomorrow. Four days of travel. Bus. Train. Plane. Van. A bit of debrief in the middle of it all and then we are back in North America. Man. What a ride it's been. Yesterday we helped finish putting the roof on the new YWAM Peeurto Madryn girls dorm building. It was super fun. And to think about that facility will house hundreds of young female missionaries through the years who will go out and reach thousands and thousands of people and we were a part of that whole story is really awesome. Thank you Jesus for all the amazing stories. And growth. And fun. The next report will be from 'home'.
    Pray for our safe travels and hopefully talk soon!

kris