The YWAM Mossel Bay 2011 Discipleship Training School!
(except Jaques with the green bathing suit)
As you can see from the title of this post, the DTS has officially begun! It's definitely ALOT different than i thought it would be. As opposed to my DTS experience with 33 students, we have only 4 guys! But the Lord knows exactly what he is doing.
But since its been a month since my last post (I am very sorry about how long it has taken me to write an update!) I want to back-track a bit. :]
As you know from my last blog, I was living in Markus (my base director) family's house. It was definitely a blessing staying with them for the month...especially because of all of the delicious cooking by Markus and his wife Lee Marley (yes mom i have been eating well)!
Something really cool that we have been doing as a team here in Mossel Bay is that we have been running a life skills course at the Mossel Bay youth prision! The life skills course thus far has entailed teachings pertaining to what good and bad values are and where they can derive from. It has been cool just to go over some examples of good and bad values and apply them to other peoples scenarios so that they can see these values from a 3rd party perspective and analyze whether they are good or bad in hopes that they see these things in themselves. Another topic we went over with them was about making right decisions. We talked about where our decision making can come from (ex. family, friends, class mates) and how to respond properly to when people say things about us negatively or positively and how to react in a way that is best. They gradually have been becoming more and more responsive and open as they get more comfortable with us which is awesome and with the Holy Spirit's help, i know we can really make a difference in these guys lives!
The first weekend of the month, I went with Fred (Fred is a guy on staff in Mossel Bay with his wife and children who had lived in Mozambique among the muslim Yao people for 13 years to disciple them and to church plant) to Cape Town for a University of the Nations (the university YWAM is affiliated with) conference. The purpose of the conference was to educate people in YWAM about the legitimacy of the University of the Nations in YWAM and how one can complete a degree within YWAM. We also focused on going into detail about the roles of people within a YWAM base as well as some of the logistics of a Discipleship Training School. Upon arriving, Fred and I met with a guy named Floyd Mcclung who was with YWAM for almost 50 years. Floyd focused on developing frontier missioning (involves ministering to peoples who are "unreached" meaning that those people have never heard about the gospel) within YWAM and has now branched off of YWAM to form his own missions organization called "All Nations" which specifically focuses on church planting in the local communities within South Africa as well as church planting in other countries. It was awesome to hear about his ministry and gave me a desire to hopefully do his school in the future since this is basically what Jesus' apostles were doing!
During that weekend in Cape Town, I saw some friends as well as made new ones! I got to say goodbye to the LA team again! it was so nice seeing all of those guys again and i miss them and love them dearly. My time here wouldn't have been the same without ya'll! I also got to catch up with my buddy Adam who i did DTS with in LA. 'Twas so nice seeing that guy and to encourage each other as brothers in Christ should! I also got to meet some new awesome people such as Levi and Shelly! The LA DTS team had sort of arranged a little meeting for Levi and I because they knew we both have some form of vision for business in missions. It is awesome how God arranges situations like that to just build relationship. It was a very encouraging conversation because both of our ideas coincide with one another. We will definitely be continually in contact. Also while on the way driving to Cape Town, Fred recommended that I read this book "wild at heart." While i was at the YWAM base in Cape Town, Shelly had felt the Lord wanted her to give me that same book! Seriously, the book has been changing my life and i recommend every guy to read it. Oh and while in Cape Town, the LA team blessed me with a cell phone for my time here to keep in contact with my staff! The Lord even takes care of the little things. He is so faithful to provide everything i need!
So when I arrived back in Mossel Bay, Jaques (staff member) and I walked to a cricket game in the poor community to support my DTS leaders cricket team. While being there, we saw Jaques rugby coach and we got to a bit of talking. After the conversation, Jaques rugby coach asked me to come speak to the guys on his team about western culture and what I am doing here as well as to come and play rugby with them whenever I can. This was definitely an awesome opportunity provided by the Lord to be able to relate and make friends with the guys in the community here! Jaques and I went the following week to go and play rugby with them and man was rugby more difficult than i thought it would be, especially for someone who has never even seen it being played! The guys were incredibly nice to me while I was playing with them and made me feel just like one of them even though i was the only white guy playing. I got to just talk with a bunch of them and i am definitely wanting to continue to go.
The third week of the month, my base director Markus and his family and I went to Jeffreys Bay (about 3 and a half ours east of Mossel Bay) because he was speaking that week on worship and intimacy at the DTS there. It has been a huge blessing to see a bunch of other South African YWAM DTS' being run because it has been preparation to help know how to run our own DTS here in Mossel Bay. The Lord definitely knows what He is doing! I got to go along with the DTS there to a local medical clinic to speak to and pray with the sick people there. It is awesome how receptive people are to the gospel here! That whole week, God was definitely doing alot within me. The postponement of our own Mossel Bay DTS was completely ordained by God because the Lord still had to do so much preparation in me and just wanted to bring me to a closer place of intimacy. I can remember one night just lying out in a field while looking up at the night sky and just having the Lord speak to me and Him speak back like it was no big deal. I've just been experiencing such a closeness with God like never before and its amazing.
Gahh so that is a bit of a catch up for the most part of the last month! I am sure i've left some stuff out. Oh yeah the DTS started! ill talk about that in my next post in a few days :] Gotta leave ya'll on a cliff hanger ha ha.
