The adventure begins!
Anyone who has known us for a period of time will know we are not people who sit still for long or are happy with the status quo of life! Over the past few years we have been enjoying the stability of living in the same house, keeping the same jobs and growing as a family. It has been an important time as individuals and as a family .......... cue the call of God on our lives!
We are a family who are passionate about God and a sold out life to him! Chris and I (Elle) have both been bought up in christian homes and attended Christian schools, we have served whole heartedly in churches together and individually and have always felt the call of God on our lives but never sure what that actually meant! Over the past few years we have discovered a way of living out our faith that we have been longing to find for a long time! They call it a 'revivalist lifestyle' or 'living naturally supernatural" and there are people all over the world living this way. We believe this is what God is calling us to and so we want to learn everything we can about it! To submerge ourselves in this way of living we are going to the source, the place where people are seeing amazing breakthroughs in the supernatural and truly living as we believe God intended us to live - Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry (BSSM) in Redding California.
After learning about BSSM through watching/listening/reading materials from Bethel Church we believed we would one day go and do the school but maybe when we were older after the kids had moved out, etc. We were encouraged as we had read that others had gone later in life and seen amazing breakthrough and grown so much from the experience. This all changed when we were introduced to someone at a conference in July 2016 who had just returned from completing 1st year of school. He had taken his young family with him! WOW, it could be done and he told us the value his kids got out of the experience he would have done it again just for them.
That was it! From that moment on, we were going sooner rather than later, the question was just, when? As Declan was about to start school in 2017 we decided it would be unfair to uproot him and move 6 months into Reception so we would aim for the beginning of the 2018 school year (in the US School starts in August and runs till May).
We had already thought about visiting Bethel Church for a conference in 2017 and we finally decided to go and settled on their Kingdom Culture Conference in June. We really wanted to learn from the Pastors and Leaders from Bethel rather than others because lets face it that was who we really wanted to learn from! We had an amazing time as a family on that holiday - visiting LA, Sacramento, San Francisco then finishing our trip with 10 days in Redding and at Bethel Church.
Even the 10 days of 45℃ heat didn't put us off pursuing our dream of attending BSSM! We met people, talked to students and people from the school, I guess you could say we left our hearts in Redding!
Since our return from California last June the researching, planning and action has been happening. For a while without even saying anything to people ....just in case it all fell in a hole and didn't happen. Now here we are at a point of no return - we leave on a flight to Sydney then onto San Francisco on August the 1st.
There is so much more to share, but this won't be our only post before we go, I'll save some info for later on. I do what to share with you just a few facts about out trip and some links so if you want to know more you can have a look :
-BSSM is considered a vocational school in the US so they sponsor our visa and help us to get into the country (this is not guaranteed - more on this another time) however the M1 Visa that we are given does not allow us to work while we are in the US; only to live and Study.
- Our Tuition costs only cover our schooling and everything else is at our own expense
- Redding is well set up for International and domestic Students coming into the town with many Student housing options, help with accessing utilities and options for transport
- You can find out more about BSSM here: http://bssm.net/
- Charlee and Declan have been initially accepted into Bethel Christian School (more on this later too)
- You can find out more about Bethel Church here: https://www.bethel.com/
We would love you to partner with us on our adventure and many people have asked us what they can do to help us out! Following is what we are in need of right now:
- Please pray that our Investment property will sell at the right price to give us some funds to begin our adventure.
- Pray that as Charlee and Declan are tested and placed in grades at school they will be in the right place to learn and be challenged
- We are in need of good strong packing boxes for storing our things, if you have any they would be very greatly received
- God has shown us a plan for how to begin funding this next adventure and we are confident he has it all in hand. If you are led to financially give toward our tuition costs ( we still owe US$7550 between us) you can give searching for us in the search for student box in the middle of this page : https://my.bssm.net/donations/students/search
(please note it is all done in US dollars and donations are not tax deductible in Australia)
Ultimately our plan is to return here to Mt Barker and share what we have learnt and encountered in our time at BSSM and our prayer is that our experience will enrich the lives of everyone around us - that's all of YOU!
Until next time,
Love and blessings to you all,
Elle, Chris, Charlee and Declan xx
We are a family who are passionate about God and a sold out life to him! Chris and I (Elle) have both been bought up in christian homes and attended Christian schools, we have served whole heartedly in churches together and individually and have always felt the call of God on our lives but never sure what that actually meant! Over the past few years we have discovered a way of living out our faith that we have been longing to find for a long time! They call it a 'revivalist lifestyle' or 'living naturally supernatural" and there are people all over the world living this way. We believe this is what God is calling us to and so we want to learn everything we can about it! To submerge ourselves in this way of living we are going to the source, the place where people are seeing amazing breakthroughs in the supernatural and truly living as we believe God intended us to live - Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry (BSSM) in Redding California.
After learning about BSSM through watching/listening/reading materials from Bethel Church we believed we would one day go and do the school but maybe when we were older after the kids had moved out, etc. We were encouraged as we had read that others had gone later in life and seen amazing breakthrough and grown so much from the experience. This all changed when we were introduced to someone at a conference in July 2016 who had just returned from completing 1st year of school. He had taken his young family with him! WOW, it could be done and he told us the value his kids got out of the experience he would have done it again just for them.
That was it! From that moment on, we were going sooner rather than later, the question was just, when? As Declan was about to start school in 2017 we decided it would be unfair to uproot him and move 6 months into Reception so we would aim for the beginning of the 2018 school year (in the US School starts in August and runs till May).
We had already thought about visiting Bethel Church for a conference in 2017 and we finally decided to go and settled on their Kingdom Culture Conference in June. We really wanted to learn from the Pastors and Leaders from Bethel rather than others because lets face it that was who we really wanted to learn from! We had an amazing time as a family on that holiday - visiting LA, Sacramento, San Francisco then finishing our trip with 10 days in Redding and at Bethel Church.
Even the 10 days of 45℃ heat didn't put us off pursuing our dream of attending BSSM! We met people, talked to students and people from the school, I guess you could say we left our hearts in Redding!
Since our return from California last June the researching, planning and action has been happening. For a while without even saying anything to people ....just in case it all fell in a hole and didn't happen. Now here we are at a point of no return - we leave on a flight to Sydney then onto San Francisco on August the 1st.
There is so much more to share, but this won't be our only post before we go, I'll save some info for later on. I do what to share with you just a few facts about out trip and some links so if you want to know more you can have a look :
-BSSM is considered a vocational school in the US so they sponsor our visa and help us to get into the country (this is not guaranteed - more on this another time) however the M1 Visa that we are given does not allow us to work while we are in the US; only to live and Study.
- Our Tuition costs only cover our schooling and everything else is at our own expense
- Redding is well set up for International and domestic Students coming into the town with many Student housing options, help with accessing utilities and options for transport
- You can find out more about BSSM here: http://bssm.net/
- Charlee and Declan have been initially accepted into Bethel Christian School (more on this later too)
- You can find out more about Bethel Church here: https://www.bethel.com/
We would love you to partner with us on our adventure and many people have asked us what they can do to help us out! Following is what we are in need of right now:
- Please pray that our Investment property will sell at the right price to give us some funds to begin our adventure.
- Pray that as Charlee and Declan are tested and placed in grades at school they will be in the right place to learn and be challenged
- We are in need of good strong packing boxes for storing our things, if you have any they would be very greatly received
- God has shown us a plan for how to begin funding this next adventure and we are confident he has it all in hand. If you are led to financially give toward our tuition costs ( we still owe US$7550 between us) you can give searching for us in the search for student box in the middle of this page : https://my.bssm.net/donations/students/search
(please note it is all done in US dollars and donations are not tax deductible in Australia)
Ultimately our plan is to return here to Mt Barker and share what we have learnt and encountered in our time at BSSM and our prayer is that our experience will enrich the lives of everyone around us - that's all of YOU!
Until next time,
Love and blessings to you all,
Elle, Chris, Charlee and Declan xx
