HELLO EVERYONE!
It’s been a while…
The Fall DTS Staff team
These are the students and the staff group picture as we went to the Go God conference i Colorado spring.
Let me tell you about what is happening on my missionary journey.
The DTS students and staff just got back from their Christmas break, we will be having outreach training, and then we will split up into 2 teams and leave for team 1 Mexico, team 2 Detroit and Turkey. i will be staying here to help out with the winter school
here a little things that happened in their training week
Throughout these weeks of training, I have seen such growth in the students and staff, it’s amazing to see what God is doing in their lives. Now they are taking action to share what they learn on outreach.
Many are grateful for the YWAM community, how easy it is to make friends, and most importantly how easy YWAM makes it to learn more about God and identity. Throughout these training sessions, we covered many topics and as a staff member, I worked alongside our speakers to help the students grow, no matter where they were in their journey.
These students are very talented, smart, and hungry for learning about God and themselves. I love this amazing group. They learned so much throughout this school year, yet there’s so much more to learn!
There were definitely some challenges along the way, like the question of suffering, and evil— A topic so famously challenging to understand.
It’s amazing to me that although I went through this exact same training as a student in the past, I can still learn, and pick up things from the same topic. You can learn something new from every DTS year.
One thing God has been driving into me this year is learning to love myself. As some of you know, I lived in an orphanage for more than 14 years, and that was a very hard thing for me to go through.
It can be the hardest thing to love yourself.
Sometimes when I look in the mirror I wonder, does God really love me? Am I really good enough?
Am I worthy to be a friend, a future husband, a father?
God has been teaching me this year to be kind to myself; I know I am forgiven by His grace. My past doesn’t define who I am today.
Being in this DTS helped me realize how valuable human life is.
I always knew human life was valuable; something to never be taken for granted. But when you hear the evil that is happening around the world, it’s crazy to think what a person can do to another person: Selling children for money, treating women like products, murdering, assaulting, persecuting. It can be hard not to devalue the life of an evil person.
Human trafficking is a huge, terrible, evil, problem that must be dealt with, yet people rarely talk about it.
Did you know that the USA is one of the highest points for human trafficking?
It feels like there is nothing to be done about it, it is such a huge problem—but don’t give up hope! Thanks be to God, there are ways to reach those trapped in the chains of human slavery.
YWAM, for instance, offers several trainings specializing in human trafficking. There are around 2000 locations worldwide!
As I said before, it can be very easy to devalue the life of a person committing atrocities, why should we care about people who are so disgusting, so cruel, so evil?
Because God commands us to love all people:
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:30-31 NIV)
We have to acknowledge that these people are still just that: people. They’ve had experiences that have morphed them into how they are.
No person is born a monster; it is their experiences and actions that morph them into what they are.
This comes to the hardest Biblical commandment: Forgiveness
God commands us to forgive even those who commit the worst atrocities, he commands us to care, even those who are callous and cruel, he commands us to love.
Even the unlovable.
Now, he isn’t telling us to love the evil inside of the person, but to love the person inside the evil.
This isn’t an easy concept to grasp; some of us spend our whole lives turning up our noses, not remembering that we are also sinners, that we are also slanderers, that we are also gossipers, sexually immoral, prideful, callous, cruel.
“You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.” (Col 3:7 NIV)
My goal is to teach this Truth to the younger generation. In a country so divided by politics, religion, sexuality, and race, we need the younger generation to know forgiveness like God intended.
People aren’t defined by their past—As a victim (as I was many times in the orphanage), or as an oppressor (as Paul, one of the greatest fathers of the early Church, was).
Now, this isn’t an easy thing to teach; but I believe that through your support, and God’s guidance, we can really make a change in this dark, divided world.
You can change the world with your support.
This doesn’t have to just be my calling; it can be yours too!
We all have callings—These can be anything from supporting others, to going into the missionary field yourself! As the letter of James urges, don’t just pray for change.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
Are you willing to be the miracle that you long to see?
Any prayer requests comment below:
I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year! It’s been an amazing journey this year with your support and prayers.
It is an honor to have you on the team.
Merry Christmas to all.
You are all amazing and l Love you all.
God Bless