Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

I hope all of you are having an amazing Christmas! After recieving several e-mails expressing the amount of snow that I´m ´missing out on´ in Oregon I have to admit that I am missing the family. I love the holidays with the family, but It really has been good here.

Thank you everyone who has commented on my Christmas video to my family! Seriously didn´t expect it to be quite the hit that it was with really anyone else besides my family. I have really enjoyed just hearing from long time friends, co-workers, and of coarse family from the movie! You can check it out if you want at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/video/video.php?v=517295848602

A little of what we´ve done-- Last night was the main party... oh, back up... I didn´t say much on this but we (our Brazil team) went to a new city in Brazil this past Sunday, called Juiz de Fora, MG... Its in the state next to Rio and its very pretty with awesome people. We have been staying in a Church that´s been treating us like royalty, taking us out to eat every lunch and buying us a great breakfast and dinner to have at the church. We have been playing futbol all the time and had a super fun time 2 days ago with some guys around 18-19 years old who were very good! It was super fun! We also have been doing the first open air evangilism stuff and been to several churches where we have done skits, sung songs, and preach or give our testimonies. I am speaking on Friday for open air stuff so that´ll be new for me. But we have been at this church since Sunday and we leave to go back to Rio on Sunday. They have a website and some pictures of the the past sunday where we did a few songs. http://www.presbiteriana.com/?pg=galeria&id=42

So yesterday was the party and there were all our group and then about 10 other people that joined us and they prepared this really beautifully set up dinner. In Brazil, the party starts on Christmas Eve and you come together at 10 pm and have little ordurves until 12 am (midnight)! Then at midnight you start to eat! and we ate, talked, and danced till 2 am! It was very fun! I was teaching them East Coast Swing dancing and they were teaching us some different samba styles and a Brazilian Square dance thing. It was awesome! I have eaten so well!

So we just were taken out to eat lunch today where the store owner opened up his store JSUT FOR US and so we had a great lunch and then tonight at I think 7 we have a church service here at the church where we are doing a few songs.

So that´s how our Brazilian christmas is going. Thank you so much for any prayers or thoughts.. I miss you all so much but know that I´m doing great and really enjoying the Holiday time here with these people. amazing people!

Merry Christmas!

The Party Continues - Week 2

Hey!

So here´s another quick recap of what has happened since my last post. I wanted to have pictures on here but i couldn´t yet... they are coming, so just hang on!

- Went to this huge rave that I wrote about a little in the previous blog, and it was outta control! techno/rave on one stage, funk on another, and hip-hop at the third stage. It was at an closed down amuesment park that was very similar to a mini-disneyland. thousands of kids, a bunch of dancing (fron 11pm to 5 am, straight techno/funk/hip-hop dancing!!!), and a strong christian influence. The whole point behind the party was to reach kids where they are at and the whole thing was a christian organization that put it on. I got to talk to a few people about ywam and what im doing. A few people were very promising to hear where their heart was at as well as their beliefs. it was just crazying thinking, ´were doing outreach right now at a huge rave with 10000 people!´ crazy cool stuff!

- We had our first official free day on Monday, so we took a van to downtown rio and explored the bazarrs and market places, then headed over to barra(pronounced baha) beach which happens to be the most expensive part of all Rio, and we went to ´Barra Shopping´-- the biggest mall in Latin America!... we went inside for an hour or so but everything was super expensive and i didn´t want to be in a mall in Brazil so 5 of us walked to Barra Beach 30 minutes away and went body surfing and swimming in the South American Atlantic for the FIRST TIME!!! it was awesome! really warm, not like the Gulf though, but board shorts no problem. Later that night we met Roger, one of the guys that picked us up at the airport and has become an awesome friend, and he took all 9 of our team+ one other girl out to eat at what he just told us was a, ´Brazilian BBQ.´ We were all super excited but had NO IDEA what was in store!..... All 10 of us that he took confidentlycan say that it was the best meal we have ever had in our entire lives! i will post some pictures but it was all you could eat with about 6+ servers waiting on us 11 people hand-and-foot! over 12 different types of legit meat-- I ate lamb, steak, pork, ribs, chicken, chicken heart, octopus, heart of a palm tree, sushi, salmon, caviar, several types of other fish, plus other stuff i can´t name and then i washed it all down with fresh coconut milk! ALL YOU COULD EAT! oh man!!! And Roger paid for all of us! oh and then we got desert... some parts of our outreach are really tough ;) I love RIO!

- We´ve been to a few orphanages and that has been awesome to play futbol, music, uno, and dance with the kids (only boys at the ones we´ve been too).

- On this past sunday we went to a Heavy Metal/ Death Metal church. Their whole goal is to evangelize to people in Rio that were Satan worshipers or just into that style of living and music. it was very unconvetional and they liked it like that! It was the first chance our team has had a chance to speak in front on a crowd and I got to speak so I was super pumped about that! It went well and we had a lot of fun with the people!


Future Plans:
-For christmas we are going to a church that is inside Brazil a few hours and we will be with them from this coming Sunday for one week (Dec 21- 28). Really excited about it because it sounds like we´ll have plenty of times to speak, do music and run church services and events.

-We also might be going to the city of God which is a favella (or slum) here in Rio that is actually a movie, ´City of God´and its all about this favella. Very good and powerful movie! We plan on going to the biggest favella in Rio which has over 300,000 people. It´s its own city. the drug lords control everything in the favellas (in the movie, ´City of God´it explains very well how these favellas are run).

-When we return to the Ywam base in Rio, we will be doing the New Years outreach that happens on Copacabona beach so after christmas we will be preparing for that. In January we plan on going to the Christ statue and some really amazingly beautiful/ must see places here in Rio where I´ll deffinitly post some pictures!


Thanks again for checking this out! To all my friends that are in other parts of the world on their outreach, I miss you all and love hearing from you and about what´s going on in your part of the world!

Apartir de Rio de Janeiro

Hey from Rio de Janeiro!

Its been a week and one of the most amazing weeks ever. we left at 8 am on saturday last week after saying goodbye to some of the best amigos i have ever met. Some of the most amazing people in my DTS, and though i am completely one sided on this matter, i believe we had one of the best dts´s ever... we left at 8 on saturday, traveling to Denver, then Washington DC, then to Rio. We arrived in Rio at 11 am on Sunday with ALL of our luggage and all of our people... Amazing... we were expecting to loose at least one of either... We were met by two men who have come to be very good friends, Roger and Lazero. speeding off from the airport we went to the YWAM base in Santa Cruz Acada which is a little outside the main part of Rio but the base (´Jocum´ is YWAM) is located in a favella which is a term for the slums here. The one we are staying in is actually a nicer one but we still can´t leave by ourselves ever, unlike the favella we were just at for 3 days, Borel. Borel is a very dangerous favella with 1 out of 10 men riding around on motorcyles with huge machine guns. the traffic, drug dealing, is HUGE in all of Rio and especially the favellas. There are constant raids from the corrupt police and huge shoot outs but nothing happened like that while we were there except one man was shot in the foot.

Jocum here is amazing with great food, rice and black beans everyday for lunch and dinner combined with either chicken or beef. They made us cheese burgers and first day which was hilarious and very tasty. Theres an amazing futbol field here that is just one ministry lazero runs and me, Benji, Bruce, and Mat have had hours upon hours of futbol with kids and some adults along with basket ball in the marketplace here in Santa Cruz.

The weather has been awesome with a consistant 87-94 degrees and high high humidity but yesterday and today have been raining so its a great break from the pools of sweat that we sleep in as misquitos multch my our entire bodies.

Dancing is huge here as well as all the arts. we have done a lot of music things like playing at a school for kids about 8-16 years old and dancing. me and benji have learned the basics to ´capuara´ and most of the team has learned authenic, brazilian samba. I´m very excited for tonight because there has been a DTS that was from this base here that arrived from outreach the day after we came, so we have been playing volleyball and dancing with them. Been playing uno and just getting to know them. I have come to seriously LOVE these people. so relaxed and layed back, that´s how all the brazilian culture is. very chill and fun loving. everyone loves to party and laugh. But this dts team has been so fun and tonight is their dts graduation ceremony so we´re doing it brazilian style. we are having the graduation at 7 oclock and then we are heading about an hour away to a legit brazilian party of about 10,000 people and gonna party till about 5-6am just dancing, singing, and laughing... i love these people!

oh, did i mention that there´s a pool on the base here...?

our ministry stuff has really just been building relationships and playing/loving on kids which has been amazing. most of every people here, even more so in the favellas, know the gospel competely. they have heard it so much and even at these big parties we´re gonna go to, most of the people are sick about religion. So our approach is to genuinely care about them as people, their social issues, who they are, and not even think about religion unless they open it up for that.

I am praying that God will use our team in awesome ways and if we get to see the result of our actions and our love, that would be such a huge bonus!

and the only thing that could follow that up is... seriously, the women here are beautiful... haha... i plan on finding my wife in the next 3 months.... ;)

Hope you are doing well! I tried to just hit a few things that have happened in just a week. thanks for taking the time to read this!


-Sean O´Connor (aka. ´Sean Connery´)

DTS '08

So this is it. The bitter-sweet ending of something amazing. DTS lecture phase is over and in 4 hours all of the Asia teams (team Cambo[dia] and Thailand) will be leaving for 2 months and in 9 hours i will be leaving for Brazil for 3 months!

I threw a video together really quick with just a few pictures to recap this past 3 months, BUT it was having a horrible time loading so I'll have to throw it up on here another time. I have seriously had one of the best times of my life here in Lakeside, Montana, meeting the most fun people and learn oh-so-much about my relationship with God.

I want to keep it short because I have a lot of friends going to Asia in 4 hours that I won't see for a long time, but I did want to say that I'll keep this blog posted with updates for the next 3 months, giving you details of my journeys, experiences, and what God's doing in my life and in Brazil around me. thank you so much for taking the time to check my blog and see what's going on in my life!




-Sean O'Connor

Hidden Talent and so much more...

So I have failed... Having intentions to write a blog at least once a month (not very tough at all) I realized today that the last one was in September... it's November... 

...I'm over it...

Time has flown by and I have experienced 'the edge' on what seems like every positive human emotion. There's been unconditional joy (especially when the whole DTS team is ice-skating in Spokane), times of revelation (that after weeks of freezing showers we realized that if we turn the shower knob the opposite way it'll be hot...!), excitement that is so uncontrollable it leads to tears (I realized my hidden talent of having the ability to stretch the unusually excessive amount of skin under my chin), and how I can truly pursue a life that is discipled by Christ. 

[Hidden Talent]

For a quick update of what's been going on here:

- It's the 8th week of the DTS

- As of 1 Month from now I will be leaving on my outreach (the second part of the DTS is the outreach phase.

- I will be in BRAZIL for 3 months in the cities of 

- Rio de Janeiro

- Salvador

- Recife

- We will be working in the slums, playing and loving on kids, speaking and playing music, and doing a lot of intercession. We will be hitting up the largest party in the world in Salvador in Feb. This party will have 20 million people and will be a pretty good picture of Hell of Earth. Everything sinful will happen and everything is endorsed and encouraged by the people, government, and culture. This is a big part of our trip, to witness and be a light in this place.

- Oct. 22-Nov. 2 I was in Spokane, WA on our 'Mini-Outreach' which is a time to connect with your outreach team (the Brazil team is 9 students and 2 leaders) and do things like street evangelism, which is something I've never done before but very cool to experience. 

- I have had several opportunities to lead worship and do a lot of music. I have a show this Saturday in a near by town and then next week we have a 'Cafe Night' where the musical people on base will present some of their own music. Super pumped! 

- Swing dancing has been HUGE here and I have gone to a local restaurant that has a live band and dance floor just about every other weekend. All the credit is due to a fellow in the DTS from Seattle, WA. His name is Mark and he is an amazing dancer (specifically swing) and he has an awesome ability to teach. (really funny but as I'm writing he's playing ping-pong behind me and he just asked if I want to go swing dancing friday... he wasn't reading this either... haha) If we don't go to the restaurant we end up dancing in the gym. It's been great! 

So that's a good chunk of what's been going on over here. I've been doing a good amount of photography when I can and I've created a photo album on my Facebook called, 'Portfolio,' so if you enjoy photography feel free to check it out!

Real quick, cause I know this is getting long, I wanted to just write a little something that I wrote in my journal yesterday that I've been thinking about a little bit yesterday and today. Quick background to what was going on- A guy in the DTS, Bruce Kauss, had his knee healed during the morning lecture as three DTS students prayed for him. Crazy in itself I caught myself thinking something right after we celebrated God's decision to heal him. Here's were the journal picks up--

"As we were praying again as a group, I was looking down at the blister on my foot [from dancing] and I began to pray [quietly], 'Father, if you would heal my blister in front of me--if I could watch as you remove even the scar that it will cause and heal it completely, I would be shouting and singing; weeping and praising you because you are real...' My faith is non-existent. 

Would I act differently if I saw a miraculous sign from God that was Blatantly in-front of my face? Better yet, would I act differently if I saw GOD in the flesh, or spirit (... however he could reveal himself without killing me...)? If so, why is that? It comes down to my faith in God's power and the amount I am willing to die to myself and allow my life to be as a servant, doing what God's plan is for me- which includes everyday! Not just the future! It's everyday!"

I would LOVE to hear what you think about this. E-mail, Facebook, write on this blog, call me, text me, ANYWAY you can respond to this journal entry I would love to hear it; and not just a "this is good." Though that gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling, it's not really what I'm aiming for. Truthfully i would much more enjoy a, "this doesn't make any sense. You're crazy!" message because then I can go somewhere with that. 

Wrapping this up, I want to thank you so much for reading this enormous blog and for (thinking positively) sending me your thoughts on what you would do if you 'saw' God. Would you act different? Would you believe or make an excuse why it couldn't have been God? Would you be scare? Any response. 

Thanks again and I hope your loving how your living!

View Larger Map

Brazil Outreach Locations

Link:

Facebook Portfolio

Welcome to Montana!

So it's here! I am currently in Lakeside, Montana and I have completed my 3rd official day of DTS (Discipleship Training School) with YWAM (Youth With A Mission). It has been amazing!

Starting off with a road trip with my parents, visiting the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park, my journey to Montana had an amazing kickoff! Once I arrived in Lakeside I felt such a real and hungry desire from every person I encountered, that I was quite overwhelmed. "This really couldn't be any better." It's only been 4 nights and 5 days so far but already I have grown so close with the guys and girls that have given up their time, money, and heart to 'grow, go and serve.' (YWAM motto)

Today we had our first small groups as we divided into groups of 4-5 and will have times during the week where we can be accountable with other people of the same gender, and really grow together as we challenge each other, love on one another, and figure out what God is doing in our lives. It was in the small group today that I realized how good it has been for me to have the experience of Oral Roberts University and YWAM just in reason that I have been able to more securely identify who I am. After going to ORU my freshman year, I realized that I could become anyone I wanted to because no person there new me. I had the unique opportunity to take my life from Oregon and, in a sense, mold who I want to be. One fear I had was, "is this fake of me? Can I keep this up?" and what I realized in Tulsa, Oklahoma and even more now, in Lakeside, Montana, is that it is not fake but rather me receiving an AMAZING opportunity to live my life in a way that is a better reflection of Christ.  This has been

 completely rocking my world as God has been really guiding my thoughts, feelings, and actions

 as I have been genuinely caring about every opportunity that I encounter to create and further a relationship. 

... It's only been 3 days...  :)

Here's a couple pictures from the road trip. If you want to see more check out my facebook page by CLICKING HERE

Yellowstone

Grand Tetons

A Little Bit of a Big Update

So I realize it's been a while... I am sorry--

I have no good excuse for not recently blogging except that I feel I have been waiting for some 'big stuff' to happen in my life before I blogged again. It wasn't until late last week, as I received inquires for an updated post, that I begun to realized how much has really happened. So here, in my best effort, I will try to update and share a little of what has been going on in my heart and life. 

My Internship at Salem Alliance Church was kicked off 2 days after I got back home from

 school. This is the second year that I have done an internship for the summer and it is rockin! Super fun and a lot of good opportunities mixed with personal

 development and outward relational development. I am the Creative Ministries Director for the Youth (Middle School and High School) which has placed me in the position of video production, photography, web design, and music. It has been amazing developing the Creative Ministries Team (CMT) which is comprised of Middle School and High School students that have decided to step up and lead their peers by living a lifestyle for Christ 'off stage' and offering their creative abilities 'on stage.' That is my main goal for this summer-- to create a sustaining program (for when I leave in September) that will be pushed by students with constant adult leadership. 

So that's where I am working this summer in Salem, Oregon, and through my job, and

 for no deserving reason, God has been blessing me like crazy-- So here's some more of what my summer has been like so far: 

- In the later part of June (June 21-29) I had the opportunity to go down to Lake Shasta, California with a group of 70 High School students. I was doing the music and video for the 

retreat, but I had plenty of time for wakeboarding, tubbing, water balloon fights, and AMAZING conversations and relational growth. This trip is called "RED" and I will post the movie that I created for it on my personal website Tuesday, 7/22. It's about 16 minutes long and captures the heart of what "RED" is about. Check it out! 

Click Here- Go to My Website

-  After arriving in Salem, I took my car into a repair shop to have some damaged assessed. The Damage was from some hail storms that happened when I was at school at ORU in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After several weeks I was notified that my car was 'totaled' as it would cost more than the car is worth to fix all the little dents. Because of this I was able to get 'financial gift' and still keep my car because it runs perfect and the damage isn't noticeable unless you are at the right angle. With the money I got though the ordeal I was able to buy a brand new, very nice, Digital SLR camera and laptop (which I have been wanted to do for a long time). All the pictures on here, I took with this camera.

- I have taken several trips the Pacific City Beach, the most recent trip being July 10 where 

the High School group at Salem Alliance Church (SAC) went. I took my surf board, 2 skim boards, and had a blast teaching and laughing with the Students as our hands and limbs became completely frozen in the unusually cold pacific ocean. 

  

- As of today, I just returned from a Middle School Northwest District Conference called "Youth Quake" where I did music and Video and pictures for. It was amazing with around 200+ middle school kids from Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. We had an amazing band, amazing weather, and unforgettable memories. I saw a CRAZY passion in the students for a life sold out to Christ-- that was amazing! Also, the movie that I made for Youth Quake will be on my personal website also. It's 23 minutes long and took me last night to make when I edited it from 10:30 pm last night to 10:30 am this morning. Check it out 

Go to My Website 

- For the last big news-- Yesterday I received a call from a man named Jeremy West who is going to be heading up and leading the DTS program on the YWAM Montana base. After talking to him for a little while and him asking me some questions, he formally accepted my admittance into the DTS program in Montana; so I will be officially going to Montana in the Fall! 

__________________________________________

So that's where I'm at. God has been blessing me and blessing me like crazy and I can't explain it, but I do hope that this will serve two-fold-- 1.) That you would be reconnected to what's going on in my life currently.   2.) That the grace and blessing that God has given me, would cover over you-- That you would walk in Joy everyday, knowing that you have a purpose, you can make a difference, and that you can right now.

Thanks so much for reading this! I would love to connect with anyone and hear about what's going on in your life so please feel free to e-mail me at:

oconnor.sean@mac.com

Thanks so much!