Hey Guys,

What a freaking week since the last update. God has moved in such amazing ways it is blowing my mind. I never expected it to be this life changing, let alone a week and a half into schooling. Here's what's going on:

Over the first week of schooling we talked about hearing the voice of God. I honestly admit that I was super hesitant going into this. That concept was always one that seemed so distant to me. I always knew when God was leading me in a certain direction, but the whole idea of being able to hear him talking to you in the moment was so far out that I looked at it as something that super extreme (and sometimes weird) people lived out. Oh how real it became this past week. We talked about it in classes and then they said "okay we're going to  practice it now" and revealed the locations for outreach (the second half of the program somewhere in the world). They told us to have a name of a place in before we left that morning (it was right at the end of the class). At first I was super overwhelmed by the idea. It seemed like other people were getting total revelations and I had hit a brick wall. When I looked over the list, one location stood out especially to me. I didn't know why because honestly I didn't even know where in the world it was, so it wasn't like it was a place that I really wanted to go. I ended up over thinking it and putting Japan down as the location I "felt" that God was telling me to go. Immediately after leaving the classroom I felt my heart sink. I knew something wasn't right. The location that i had originally gotten an impression about (which, unfortunately, must go nameless) was burned into my mind. It was then that I realized that God was definitely trying to tell me something. I prayed about it for an hour or so and then went back to the school leader and told him what was going on. They ended up changing my pick to that one and all was good. (I will tell more about where i'm going in a little bit)

Worship has been mind blowing. I've always grown up in a structured worship setting. The process of having a 5 song set, playing the chorus chords for an intro, then the verse, then chorus, verse 2, chorus twice, bridge, chorus twice, done was so burned into my memory that I didn't realize how limiting it is. Up here they will play a song for like 10 minutes, then change to another song, then sometimes even come back to the first one. It is crazy. God has completely blown up the little box that I've had him in regarding worship. Although I've always known that it is about so much more than how it's done, He has really taught me that I was skimping out on worshipping big time. It has been awesome to throw everything aside and simply sing out to God and not worry about how bad I sing or what the people around me think. Loving it.

A big story that I want to share happened last week. We were doing a 2 hour session in the prayer room just worshipping and interceding in prayer for people. I felt super distant and like God wasn't even there. That lasted for about an hour and I didn't get it. It was really depressing and I hated the feeling. I tried to just keep pushing through it even though I didn't feel him there. About halfway through I felt like God was speaking strait to me (not like an audible voice, but like an impression he had given) "Do you like how that feels?" and I was like "NO!" (not outloud, haha). I then felt like He said "well, that's how you've been and how our relationship has been for a long time now." Instantly I felt this filling up like I've never experienced before. If that is how my life was living towards the Lord before then I never want to go back to that. It is so lonely and so depressing that I never want to be in that place again. It was so awesome to experience Him in that way and it was yet another reminder of how real and personal he is. I love it!

Work duty has been AWESOME! I didn't think I would ever say that I really enjoyed getting up at 4am to go wash dishes was enjoyable, but it has truly been a blast. Such an awesome team working in the kitchen and it's so much fun. Absolutely loving it.

And now about Outreach...Here we go. I love how I joked with so many people about how I wouldn't tell you where I was going and then said "yeah right, that won't happen." Guess what? It happened. haha. What I will say is that I will be going to Africa. I'm so freaking stoked! It's going to be a wild, crazy adventure and I can't wait to see what happens. I would love to share specifics with you wan though! Please hit me up on skype! (Joshmmorrison <---there's 2 M's, don't miss that or else you'll get the wrong josh morrison). I can also email you personally if you want to know. My email is on the home page of the blog. It's super exciting and I can't wait to see all that happens!

Yup, that was pretty long. There are so many other little stories that I would love to tell you all about. I simply don't have the time to type out a 600 page novel about it! Please hit me up on skype so I can talk with each of you about how awesome this experience is! Most days I have evenings free (which means from about 7pm west coast time on) as well as most weekends. Would love to talk to you guys.

Stay classy!