Katie Reid

Introducing Gumption!

*Grrrr I wanted to put some photos up but its not working! HOW ANNOYING*

Oh my goodness I am not good at this updating stuff now I don't sit in front of a computer everyday! But here I am ... IN AMERICA whooo!

I am currently at summer camp, absolutely loving it (though missing you all so much … esp my beautiful Daniel! *Tear*) but loving working with teens in the wilderness!

So I have just finished my first week of camps! It was a trialling experience but many laughs and good times! God did an amazing work through that week! Most of the teenagers that came were kids in foster homes, or broken families so that in itself was tough but a great experience! We had one girl with ADHD and we think she was a little autistic, a guy who was constantly homesick, relationships happening everywhere and a group of native Americans who would exclude themselves from everything! But I have to admit, they were my favourite group! Man they were funny!

A sad point was when one of the girls opened up to me about her fears of being on the street … and as we got talking more she opened up about she is pregnant! SHE IS 13 … man I wanted to weep so much for her!!! But I love how God takes any situation and turns it for his glory! AMEN … the next night I got the amazing blessing to lead her to Christ! HOW COOL IS THAT!!!

Man it is the best experience and so humbling when God chooses you for that!

Hmmm what else has happened … meet some great people here and I have a wife beaters tan! Ahahhahaa

Oh yeah I was introducing gumption … well here at camp we all have to have camp names … and yes the hygiene freak went for gumption … the best cleaning product in the world! The Americans don’t have this product so they think it is just a cool name! Te he! I do tell them it’s a cleaning product, but they just look at me blankly!

So gumption … blonde dreadlocks, fearless wilderness counsellor! Oh yeah!

Well 6 more camps to go and then I have a week in LA then home on the 24th August! Wow not long!

Oh and next weekend for all the foreigners, we are having our first thanks giving dinner! Whoooo

Well I better go, we are off to the movies to see superman! NICE

So here some photos of my new mates!

Bless ya all and can’t wait to catch up with you all!

posted by Warrior for Christ @ 4:20 AM 5 comments

SURPRISE!! I am still alive

Wow ... I can't believe how slack I have become! I have to explain why! I have gone on strike with computers this year! Ahahahah that is half true, but the real reason is I am too lazy to walk up the stairs to the library (past students know what im talking about).

So what have I been doing ... wow so much! I have preached at youth meetings, done many worship services! I have become a guitarist (yesss not the greatest but I can still claim to be one) um ... what else ... I have done MANY kids ministry things (I know Katie Reid doing kids ministry) I have learnt so much about myself and gone to many weekends away for youth ministry things! How cool is that!

But most importantly God has been teaching me so much here! I have learnt who he has made me to be and how I fit in his church and I cant wait to see where he leads me next year! I am so excited!

God has blessed me with the opportunities to go to youth councils, oh and just last week I was blessed to be a leader at the first territorial Officers Kids weekend (Officers Kids are pastors kids sorry for the jargon) but that weekend was amazing! God moved in such a powerful way! PRAISE GOD! There is such a great stirring in the hearts of OK's! Whooo!

Wow I can't believe that in 2 weeks I will be off to America! (fly out on the 9th of June) That is right Katie is leaving the country for the first time in her life and Praise God it is for ministering to his young people! (whooo I got the teens camp NOT kids "Sing hallelujah singing hallelujah *insert dancing now*) I am so excited! (If you want to check out my camp go to the schools site (see to the left) and click on links then camp gifford and im the wildness part whooo we only shower once a week yuck!)

To sum up the past couple of months! God has been blessing me! I don't deserve it, but isn't that the greatest thing about his grace, we don't deserve it but he freely gives it! Amen!

So I hope to give you one more update before I leave and I will try really, really hard to get some photos up! Sorry for the slackness!
Bless ya all and hope God is showing some great stuff in your life!

p.s (don't you love p.s, its like you think its over but SURPRISE there is more te he!) so you can all stop asking, Dan and I are going strong! He is such a blessing in my life and everyday I thank God for him! (Awwww romance te he!)

posted by Warrior for Christ @ 8:18 PM 2 comments

Melbourne Mission! Whooo GO GOD!!!

Wow I cant believe how dodgy I have gotten in updating my blog … but I have to say this time I have an excuse! (Oh WARNING this is VERRRRRYYYY LONG…sorry)

For the past 2 and a bit wks we have been in Melbourne for the commonwealth games! This was so amazing! God really used us to do great things! It just blows my mind away to think that God takes ordinary people and uses them for his glory! It was so cool!

Now I am sure you are sitting there saying “that sounds so cool BUT WHAT DID YOU DO!!!” and in response I say “good question, what did we do?” Te he!

So our class of 8 was split into 2 teams (one being team rocket (THE MIGHTY TEAM) with Jamie, Matt A., Aaron and myself (our fearless leaders being Josh and Lorelle) and the other being team fish (from the fishers of men theme) with Feany, Deb, Carrington and Mat S.(their fearless leaders being Matt Moore and Linda Mills from the youth and kids department in THQ [But Linda we don’t hold that against you, your too much of a champion]). So we have our teams and after 2 days of training and driving down in the bus for 14 hrs straight (we did have food and toilet stops … MANY toilets stops thanks to Jamie te he!)we arrived in Melbourne. We were filled with high spirits, great expectations for the 2 weeks and fully on fire for God! We had the next day (Saturday) off to relax and we did the tourist thing and went in the city AND I CAUGHT MY FIRST TRAM whoooo. This was such an awesome day with the team (however Mat S. was catching up with friends that day as he has lived in Melbourne before) so we arrive home, so pumped for the weeks ahead and to top it off we had a BBQ and STEAK for dinner yessss, but … its funny how Satan tries to steal your joy! As we were all having dinner, laughing having a great time, Mat S. came home and very casually announced that he is leaving! WHAT?! We were so confused we were not sure if he meant going out again, leaving for a day, or what, but after working it out, to our horror he was leaving school! He had packed up his stuff and he decided he is not going back!

Man this hit us like a brick wall! Satan stole our joy that night! We were so heavy hearted! We prayed for our brother and sent him off and looking back now this is probably what brought our year so close! Cause as a family we had to work through this together and Mat was such an awesome guy and we wished him the best! (on a side note, please pray for our Brother Mat and whatever he is doing, we haven't heard from him since).

Even though Satan stole our joy that night I love in God’s word it says

And we did! We refused to let this bring us down! So we prayed harder, we listen to the voice of God more intently because we refused to let Satan win this battle! And HE DIDN’T… AMEN TO THAT!!

So I know that was a long story but it paints a little picture of what was ahead for us!

So for the next 2 weeks we did kids sports clinic (yes that is right for 2 weeks Katie Reid had to suck it up and do kids ministry … and I lived to tell the story! Ahahaha)

We did lots of balloon sculpting and face painting, skate park, 614 Salvos, trains and trams ministry, basketball, hockey, soccer and cricket clinics! The other team went out to the bush area for a week and ran a kids program called kids games where I have heard such amazing stories from them!

My team got to do a nights ‘tram and trains ministries’ and ‘spectators ministries’ where we basically jump on a tram and train and talk to whoever! And at first I was not to keen on the idea cause I believe you have to have a friendship with a person before you have the right to share the gospel with them. But God taught me to listen to his spirit and obey his voice and allow HIM to do his work through me! And it was great! There are so many stories but I will just share 2!

Darren
Darren was a guy I meet on the streets of Melbourne! But let me set the scene … my team were on working at the 614 Salvation Army for that morning (oh and Heather I got to have a chat with cate!) So yeah the 614 Salvos is in the heart of Melbourne city and it’s a drop in centre for the homeless or anyone who needs help! So our role was just to hang with these people and chat to them etc. However Aaron and I (and our dear friend Bing, our Vietnamese team mate) were on prayer walk for the first 2 hours! That was so cool just walking the city praying … but it is just amazing how God works. Like as we were walking I felt God say just stop here! So I stopped and waited thinking he was going to send someone to talk to me … but alas nothing happened! No one came for me to talk to … and the God said ok go now. So I walked on thinking that was a little weird! But hey I was just so excited to be obeying God! So he did this to me many times with the same result of no one to talk to! So I was feeling a little bummed by the end of our 2 hours cause I was praying to be able to talk to someone! But as we turned the corned to go back to 614, our team mate Bing decides she needs to do some banking! Ahahaha she is so funny! So we wait for her and as Aaron and I turned around there was Darren! So we got chatting with this guy and we found out that he hadn’t eaten today and the cup of water in his hand was all he had. So we invited him to 614 to have some food and his reply shocked us! He said “Oh no it is ok, I don’t want to take the food from them cause someone else who needs it more will miss out! I might be able to find some bread or something at home! It is fine” wow! What a heart this guy had! So we continued talking and we discovered he had a 10yr old daughter and they are just scraping by! He had no real food, and no job! So we finally convinced him to go up to 614 and have some food and see if they could help!
Well he went BUT still refused to take the food! But it was such a great feeling for Aaron and I to sit there and journey with him as he waited for help and seeing his face once they worked it all out! WOW what a God moment! To think if I hadn’t listened to God’s weird request we would of missed this great God moment!

The second story is;

Josh
This morning (my birthday actually now I think about it … my big 21st! I couldn't think of a greater present then having such a God moment and being blessed to be used in it!) Whooo
So we were on the Salvos skate park (yesss TEENAGERS) and it was bikes for that day! So our role was just to go and hang out with these young people and we did! We just watched and chatted when we could … but not much deep convo until in road Josh … he was such a good rider and everyone knew it! They just watched as he entered all waving and saying hi josh! It was like Josh owned this place. But you know what as we watch this guy do amazing tricks and all the younger boys give him high fives and cheered, we noticed that he was so humble! He didn’t have a big head about it. He always let others go first on the ramps and if he noticed someone struggling with a jump or a trick, he would just gently give them advice how to do the trick or how to improve! He was great! So I was blessed to have little chats here and there with him!
But the other great thing about this situation was this kid (who’s name I can’t say I think it was like omoa or something) he was so cool! He was almost up to the same standard as Josh! And him and Josh did EVERYTHING together! They road together, did tricks together! And as I was talking to them Josh was sharing how he was his riding partner and they hang out quite a lot! Wow I was so intrigued with this friendship…I wanted to know more, but it was so hard to keep a convo with the 2 of them as they just wanted to ride! We also noticed that this old guy (prob in his 40 who look old school skater … pretty cool for an old guy) was always helping out fixing the bikes and giving pointers to the boys, so we naturally though he worked there! But as I got talking to him he was the 10yr olds father! And that the friendship Josh and omoa have was much deeper then the skate park! They actually have Josh hanging around all the time! The father went on to tell me with so much passion and love how many of the riders never accepted his son cause of his age so he couldn’t hang out with them as they would ride and then go get drunk etc but Josh came along and he didn’t want to drink and party he just wanted to ride and ever since they meet you could separate them! You could just tell in the fathers voice that he looks at Josh as his own! It was so amazing!
Although I didn’t get to have very deep God convos with the 3 of these people I know God was planting seeds! And it was so cool that when we got home our team had a really good prayer time for them especially Josh … cause you could just see if Josh gets saved that WHOLE skate park would! Isn’t it amazing the power of influence!

So much great stuff happened and that was only 2 stories, but the greatest thing I think that happened was that God’s people came together in unity! There were so many different denominations working together under the one name of More the Gold and that was so awesome!

So there is so much more I could tell but that is enough for now! We also got to go to a few Salvos corps (churches) and do some dramas, kids churchs and attend a youth church and that was great!

Oh my goodness my head is racing thinking of all the stuff that happened those 2 weeks!

So the night before we left, we were again high in spirits and much praise went to God, but Satan the little mongrel (ohhh that words does come close to how aggressive I feel towards him) but he AGAIN tried to steal our joy, by the night before as we were coming home from a great night of praise at Waverly Salvos youth church, 2 of the students received distressing phone calls! One was a friend of Jamie’s who had been raped and was in hospital and this stirred up a lot of emotions for her from her past and for her friend! So that was extremely distressing for her! And for Matt. A his close friend was undergoing test as the dr. believe she has a brain tumour and for Matt this stirred up past emotions too from loosing his father to illness. So that night much weeping happened, by the 2 of them but also by all of us together! BUT SUCKS FOR YOU STUPID SATAN it only made us stronger again! We were reminded of the verse in Psalms and as we prayed and wept together we linked arms signifying the unity and the bond of our family that will NOT be broken! Looking back on that it was an amazing time for us all as well!

So all up those weeks were amazing! God worked in so many different ways and taught us all so much! I praise God for the way he is and what he does in my life!

So I hope you are still with me reading this and I hopefully this afternoon or on Monday I will put some photos up to show you all!

Bless ya all and love to hear what God’s been doing in your lives!

p.s God works so amazing ... as I was writing this Mat S. has turned up to the school to chat with us! How good is God!

p.p.s I get to see my beautiful Dan tonight! Yessss

posted by Warrior for Christ @ 9:55 AM 7 comments

WOW! Well needed update!

Oh my goodness! I can't believe how dodgy I have been with updating my blog page! I wonder if anyone even checks this anymore???

Wow so I have been here for 4 weeks now and I feel like I have been here for months! (In a good way). The class has just come together so well, all the students get along really well and we are all getting up to mischief whenever we can! Dahahaha

The first week went so fast! Getting to know all the ins and outs of the school! Learning our daily routine which consists of community prayers @ 7.45-8:00 (personally I think this is not enough time but hey cant complain), quiet time @ 8.00-9.00, Worship/small group 9.00-9.30, class 9.30-10.30, morning tea @ 10.30 -11.00, class @ 11.00-12.30, Lunch @ 12.30-1.30, work sections (this is when we keep our school so nice and clean ahahaha for those who don't know at the school we live on campus so it is our home as well) so I have been on girls toilets and laundry so I am the bomb at cleaning toilets now and doing the laundry (I only do tea towels and stuff not other peoples laundry! They can do it themselves ahahaha)...then we go into 2.30-3.00 afternoon tea, more class and dinner @ 5.30 (old peoples time ahahaha) so that is what a 'normal' day looks like!

But now I have given you all that info, we don't really have a 'normal' day cause they change it a lot except for food times and work sections they are always constant! Te he!

Oh I have so much to say ... So instead of bombarding you with all my lessons I will break them up for you! So it looks like I have made lots of entries ahahaha!

The most exciting thing happening is that on Friday bright an early (6am) we will be off on our roadtrip to Melbourne for the commonwealth games! How fun! Whoooo! I am so excited, as we spend 2 weeks preaching the gospel, doing sports clinics and spending our spare time in the shopping centre down there! (I hear Melbourne has the best shopping centres ever, so I am looking forward to it … though most of my shopping will be window shopping as you don’t have much money when your student! But hey I have all I NEED… AMEN TO THAT!!!)

We have spent these last 2 days learning about the Army History with good old founder of this school Ray Herron! Oh how I loved these classes … can never get to much army history hey Nath! Whooo!

Oh last thing for this entry … tomorrow night we are having a party night as 2 students had there birthday (today and tomorrow) so we are getting dressed up (the theme being as creative as possible) and then finishing the night with a dance party! (we cant actually go out as one of the students isn’t 18 yet so until she is we will just have to make our own dance parties! Te he how fun) So I will have to post some pics for you all!

Oh and last thing … my goodness so much stuff has happened … I have a band here! You heard me right, a band! We are called BASIC (Brothers And Sisters In Christ) and it consist of Daniel Fean as our drummer, Aaron Shaw as our Bass Player, Matt Atfield as our guitarist, and Katie Reid as Keyboard/vocals and Lead Guitar (ahahaha you heard me right! I am now playing guitar for real yessss my dream is coming true! Whoooo) So I will have to post some pics up of that too! Ohhh so much fun stuff has happened! Good times!

Well I will leave it there and I will give you some lessons I have learnt! Ohhhh so many great lessons! I so love it here!

If any of you are looking for purpose or simply just want to get closer to your Lord God, the School is so for you! No matter what walk of life you have come from, if you love God that is all you need! This place is amazing!

Ok enough of my promo, bless you all heaps and don’t forget to send me an email or comment to let me know how you are all going!

posted by Warrior for Christ @ 11:31 PM 7 comments

Well Here I am!!!

So here I am the first day of school! WOW can you believe it I am actually here!!

Well update time ....

Had my fundraiser on Saturday night and praise God He provided! I received over $1200 from my corps and I know that was only by God provision! Whooo! PRAISE GOD

Well as I am writing this we have all my fellow students in the room! How nice! PARTY IN THE LIBRARY!

Well I know this is a very short entry, just want to thank y0u all for the prayers and support!

Bless you all and update soon!

posted by Warrior for Christ @ 6:52 PM 3 comments

Not long Now ....

wow! It has been a while since I have posted anything ... sorry about that!

So life is pretty crazy for me at the moment! Finished work on Friday, my last homechurch group is tonight, my farewell is on Saturday, my family dinner on Monday night AND THEN I move on Tuesday! That is only 5 days OH MY GOSH 5 DAYS AWAY!!! Goodness!

One thing though that blows my mind is how much God provides! He is just blessing me so much and I do not deserve any of this! He is providing money, things I need, and things I don't but are a blessing to have! I just want to say thank you to my beautiful Lord and best Friend! YOU ROCK GOD AND I CANT WAIT FOR THE GREAT YEAR AHEAD!!!

Hope you are all doing well and hope to stay in touch!
Bless ya heaps!

posted by Warrior for Christ @ 12:02 PM 1 comments

Hold on now Katie!!

posted by Warrior for Christ @ 1:05 PM 2 comments