Week 2 of Lectures: The Character and Nature of God.
Life seems to be traveling at the speed of light as of lately..sort of. Each day seems quite long but when I look back, I realize that I've been in South Africa for 105 days already (and yes, I've been counting out of curiosity)! The lecture portion of the DTS is already over the halfway hump by a few days now. This week coming up is already week 8, which means 4 weeks 'til outreach in Mozambique and Malawi!
I've realized that at this point, only those who I've personally spoken to really know what's going on in the past few weeks of my life and that saddens me! Therefore, I hope after you read this post, you all feel updated to satisfaction and if not, feel more than free to shoot me an email! I will respond accordingly :]
So yes, for those who don't know, let me explain the context of the DTS situation over here. The Mossel Bay YWAM base is in its second year running right now. Most other YWAM bases are located on some form of campus or something, but when pioneering a base, obviously that is not within the budget right from the get go! The DTS is happening in a rented out, five bedroom home in a small, white Afrikaner neighborhood called Hartenbos located a few kilometers outside of Mossel Bay. Here we have our weekly lectures with topics, thus far, such as "Hearing God's Voice","The Character and Nature of God","Missions/ Frontier Missions","Stewardship","Laying Down Your Rights", "Sin and Grace", and "Prayer and Intercession". We also live here in the house and here together. Quite different from my experience in Los Angeles on a big YWAM base! But one thing I've for sure noticed is that the Lord loves to bring us out of our comfort zones...no doubt.
The DTS consists of four students from the local Mossel Bay area. South Africa as a whole is incredibly diverse with various different people groups. These students (including the other staff member that is my roommate) come from the Coloured community here in Mossel Bay (with exception to one who lives 20 minutes outside of Mossel Bay). They come from a very poverty stricken area where they dont have much. The Coloured people in South Africa make up of about 10% of the population and primarily speak Afrikaans which is derived from the Dutch language. Supposedly, the Coloured people are the most genetically diverse people group in the world. In America, we would consider them "black" probably out of ignorance, but here there are Whites, Blacks, and Coloureds (and no, the term "coloured" is not an offensive word ha ha).
So yeah, these guys are amazing! But i have to admit again, its quite different living with these guys then even back in L.A. I think it is primarily because of the culture difference and of course the fact that english is not their first language so they primarily speak in Afrikaans. But I am learning a bit of afrikaans and they are learning english much better.
The four guy's names are Denver, Guston, Estiaan, and Nasi. I have to say, when coming to South Africa, I expected this DTS to look MUCH different than it does! I've been learning a completely different side of DTS that I bet most people didn't even know exists within YWAM ha ha. But honestly, I've learned so much and would not rather be anywhere else than where I am because the Lord has made very specific my purpose of being here which has been keeping me going. When these guys arrived (and i say this to show the amount of growth that has occurred in their lives), they barely spoke english and didn't even know that Genesis was the first book of the bible. Some of them had not even gone past the 7th grade in school. But the Lord had and continues to have a specific purpose in these guys lives! In 7 weeks, they have fallen in love with the Lord! They have grown so much and are learning and applying truths that many christians after 10 years do not know. They speak english and read so much better now. I feel like i cant even explain in words the amount of growth that has occurred in these guys!
Our week in general looks like this: Monday through Thursday, we wake up at 6am to have a bible study and prayer time at 6:30 to 7:30. From 7:30 to 8:30 we have breakfast and then from 8:30 to 9:30 we have a time worship and intercession. During intercession, we generally pray for the local government, unreached people groups, current events, and other YWAM ministries. But we don't just pray what we think are nice sounding prayers. We wait on the Lord to hear what He has to say about the issues we are praying about and we pray along side what the Lord speaks to us because the Lord does speak! Amen? ha ha. From 9:30 to 1pm (with a few breaks in between) we have our weekly lectures which consists of the topics that i previously mentioned earlier (with still more topics to come in the next weeks). We usually have a speaker that comes to stay in the house with us for the week for each topic. We have had speakers from Brazil, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. We then have lunch from 1-2pm and after that, the students have work duties which consists of just cleaning some of the house from 2-3pm. On mondays at 3 pm, we have "One on Ones" which are just a time where the students can debrief and talk about issues at a consistent time each week. Of course the students can always talk anytime since we live together, but the purpose is to just have consistency. Then on Mondays in the evening, we have our Bible study night where we walk through the whole story of the bible bit by bit with the students. On Wednesdays, we fast lunch to pray for the local poor communities who don't have much. On Thursdays, we have ministry preparation for friday ministry and in the evening on Thursdays, we have our mission night where we learn about different ministries in missions and crazy stories of how Jesus has changed peoples lives. On Fridays, we still have our morning bible study at 6:30 am, but during the day, we have our local ministries. Our local ministries consist of prison ministry where we go and run a life skills course with the inmates, and a day care ministry where we sing worship songs, teach bible stories, and just have fun with the kids in a community 20 minutes from where we live. The ministries have been going so awesome and last week we had 50 kids in the day care ministry! But yeah.. sorry if that section was a bit boring.. but now you have an idea of what my life looks like!
I want to break down the past 7 weeks of the DTS as best as i can right now to give ya'll a bit of a better understanding of what has been going on! I'll try to be brief so as to not turn this blog into a miniature book haha.
Week 1 was about hearing God's voice. A local pastor who was with YWAM spoke this week. The whole concept that God speaks to us is crazy, and it blew these guys minds. To understand that God wants to be active in every second of our lives and communicate with us and simply lead our lives each day was a completely new concept for them, just as it was for me in my DTS. I mean i knew the Lord spoke, but to the extent that He does really blew me away. This core aspect of our relationship with the Lord has for sure changed the way these guys think and act. During our intercession times, they have been getting words and pictures from the Lord to pray into specific things which has been amazing. They often now walk down to the beach just to hear from the Lord when they are going through circumstances or when they have to resolve some form of conflict that happened in the house. It's so amazing to see their response to the Lord's voice and it has been incredibly encouraging for me. The Lord really does speak! ha ha
Week 2 was all about the character and nature of God. We had an amazing guy named Les from Zimbabwe who spoke for this week. I always get blown away when I ponder about how huge, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, unchanging, and loving the Lord is. Especially as I've been going through the old testament and seeing how often God forgives and just wants to be near his people and wants to bless them, I've been realizing the insane love of the Lord. The fact that the Lord sends his Son to remedy our betrayal towards Him once and for all is insanity. These guys just got blown away during this week while learning about who their God is. Here is a little note i took during this week to show what the Lord was doing:
"Today quiet times were amazing. we read hebrews 3 and 4 together and then we re read it and went through it verse by verse explaining and talking about it. This was definitely the best way to do quiet times that ive discovered thus far. Everyone got so much out of it and the quiet almost exactly coincided with worship. Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing into division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
During worship, the presence of the Lord was there so strong! ive never felt the leading of the Holy spirit as much as i did during worship today. it was as if i was just an instrument being played by the Lord and everyone was able to enter in because of the presence of the Lord that was here!
Worship led into intercession where we prayed for unreached people. Guston and Denver were in my group. While we were going through the steps of intercession, i could tell so evidently that the holy spirit has been teaching them how to pray. it is as if understanding is just being released! after we went through the steps, denver and guston and i all got pictures. Denver said it was if there was a spiritual battle in front of him and that the Lord came with a sword and drew some evil spirit out of him! it was exactly what we read this morning and it was amazing! so after he explained that, guston and i prayed for him and had denver reach out his hands and receive the light because darkness and light cannot coincide! guston got a picture and prayed for the unreached people. these guys are hearing the voice of the lord!
Also Nasi was prayed for today and a word was given him and he started speaking in tongues! The Lord is doing work here!!!"
With the whole "evil spirit" situation that came out of Denver, we have been walking him through that and have all noticed a literal face change in his appearance. He says he can now look at himself in the mirror and smile for the first time since he can remember. We have all noticed a significant different in even they way Denver learns and responds in the group setting. Of course there is still a lot of room for growth and discipleship through his situation since he grew up as an orphan with little to no discipline. But the Lord like i said is definitely doing work in him and we have been fighting alongside the guy through it all.
Week 3 was about missions and more specifically frontier missions. A fellow staff member named Fred who was in Mozambique working with the Yao people for 13 years spoke for this week. Man this week was so challenging for all of the staff and students i believe. We learned about what the Lord thinks about missions and looked up how many verses in the bible even pertain to missions. We watched numerous videos of unreached tribal groups coming to know Christ and this week really burned a passion in all of us to just tell more people about who Christ is. Christ is for everyone and He related to everyones own specific culture. This week really opened up my eyes to the burden that a lot of missionaries from western culture bring to these unreached peoples. We often try to bring "western christianity" as opposed to biblical christianity to these people groups. We all learned about the necessity of simple church and contextualization which is bring the message of Christ in terms that relate to their own specific culture and upbringings. It was a powerful week!
After this week, one of our staff, Ana from Brazil, felt like the Lord was leading her away from our base because of the fact that there were no girls for her to disciple. It was definitely rough seeing her go because she was a huge asset to our DTS but we all agreed it was probably for the best. She is now working with another YWAM base in the Cape Town area.
Week 4 was about about stewardship. Sylmar, a German from Brazil spoke for this week. This week was great for the students (and for me of course)! Money management in general is a difficulty over South Africa..at least that is what I've heard from multiple people. I've also seen it quite a bit myself. It was great to hear Sylmar break down some of the reasons why sometimes God might not provide for certain circumstances. He got the majority of his biblical backing from proverbs. I think this week was a critical break through week for our DTS as a whole. Since this week (and even a bit before), God has provided all of the means to pay for the rent of the house and for the food for the lecture phase of DTS. We have all been blown out of our shoes with how God has been providing, including the students! They literally came here with almost nothing and the Lord has provided all of the means necessary for us to continue on with the school. Initially we were wondering if 4 students would be enough to actually run the school with the logistical aspect of finances. We felt to trust the Lord for the finances even though from a worldly view it was impossible to get the money. Clearly not impossible with the Lord! Like I said, He provided all of the rent and the food for the 3 months of lecture phase. INSANE! What was awesome was at the end of the week, Sylmar gave each of the students 100 Rand (which is about 15 american dollars) to invest in them becoming good stewards of what the Lord gives them. The guys set 10% aside for the Lord and were able to buy toiletries and stuff with the rest of the money and if any money was left over, they were to bless someone who needed money. These guys responded amazingly.
Week 5 was an interesting week for sure. The topic of the week was laying down your rights. What made the week interesting was that we spontaneously found out the night before the week was supposed to start that we would be going to another YWAM base 3 or so hours away for the week and would slot in with the DTS that was going on there for a schedule. The reason being was that the speaker could not make it out to Mossel Bay that week. So that day, we hopped on a bus for Jeffreys Bay. When we arrived there, we found out the DTS that was supposedly going on there just started outreach, so that meant there wasn't any DTS to "slot" into. The thing that made it more interesting was that the DTS leader couldn't make it out that week because of his family, so Jaques (the other staff member) and I kind of had to just go with the flow and figure out a schedule for the week to lead these guys. Initially i was kind of stressed and was just saying to myself "what the heck is going on?!?!" but the Lord COMPLETELY came through and made it one of the best weeks of the lecture phase for the students. As i said, this weeks topic was laying down your rights. Our speaker Dan who is the base director in Jeffreys Bay really spoke into all of our lives. The topic of dying to our own selves and desires is never an easy message to here but it was a great week. Myself and some of the guys one night while walking back to where we were staying got to pray and be used by the Lord to speak into this guys life who was on the street walking around. I was blown away by how the Lord used all of us to speak life into this guys life. We were able to connect him with the YWAM base there to have people continue to encourage and uplift him. So good! That experience really brought so much life into the DTS guys to see how they can practically be used by the Lord when they die to themselves and become open to be used by the Lord in whatever they are doing. Oh and this week we got to play alot of cricket at the YWAM base there. It was so much fun and i really enjoy cricket now!
Driving back from Jeffreys Bay was hectic. The van we got a ride in back to Mossel Bay must have broke down like 7 times. Not the biggest deal but what made it terrible for me was that i was running a fever and had somehow got tonsillitis which was so incredibly painful! I had to go to the doctor to get medication to kill the infection. I couldnt eat and barely talk for two days. But I'm all better now thankfully!
Week 6's topic was sin and grace. Our DTS leader Nathan spoke this week and brought us through the story of the bible as a whole in general. The guys learned about the fall of man more in depth and the necessity of a sacrifice to pay the price of sin. They also learned in depth the severity of what Christ did for us on the cross. It brought the film "The Passion" to life for the guys. We also had a teach from Markus (the base director) about conflict resolution. It was such an important lesson for all of us on how to effectively resolve conflicts with each other and how important to maintain a healthy team it is.
Week 7, which was this past week, was all about prayer and intercession. The guys who spoke the first week, Edgar, spoke again for this week. This week was fully in Afrikaans, so i didn't understand what Edgar was talking about, but i could recognize the guys were really connecting with the message, especially because of the fact that it was in their own language.
But yeah that is a little breakdown of the lessons we have had thus far. This week is the father heart of God! I am very excited
Something cool that we got to do was to visit these guys friends in their community as a team. It was amazing to hear their friends say how different they are already and how much they have changed. I wanted to put up a video of the night but because of the internet situation here.. i may have to wait a few weeks so yeah.. raincheck on that one.
So that is kinda of a LARGE but very small breakdown of what has been going on here in somewhat of a nutshell ha ha.
On a personal level, honestly I've been learning so much through some trials and just through the Lord initiating me in growth. I really feel like this season has been the most significant growth of my life thus far. Many times, I just wanted to give up and go home because it would be easier. At one point I was just asking God "okay im here, so what is next?" The Lord sternly said to me that if im unable to finish well here, how can He give me the next step of my life and entrust me with that? My focus has been to finish well! I've really been learning what it means to die to myself. I mean i have PLENTY of dying to still do, but i feel like im on my way ha ha. Especially with the aspect of asking God "what is my ministry?" I've realized that question is very self centered and 'me' focused. The Lord spoke to me through a book and said that you discover your ministry when you die to yourself and serve. In essence, you lose your life to find it! There are days where i've been lonely, but something i've realized is that its actually not about me! It's alright that I've felt lonely cause the Lord knows I am human, but He is my portion and is keeping me going strong! It's been awesome just to have encouragement from friends back home and from staff here. I've been realizing how crucial and important meaningful relationship with other people is!
Oh yeah... outeach to Mozambique and Malawi is in 4 weeks!!! Ill explain more in detail about it in 2 weeks with my next blog.
There is much more the Lord has been doing but I feel like that is enough for now haha. I've already written a small book and i don't want to babel about myself anymore! God is good...I can honestly say that :]
Speaking of books, read "You See Bones, I See An Army" by Floyd Mcclung. Its been totally changing my view of the church its amazing.
Hmmmm yeah! I think thats all. Until next time..... LATER.
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