Outreach time

I know mission trips are supposed to be hard and all, but here's my view as I'm typing this.

Sorry, not sorry

 Ok, that photo was taken a few days ago, but I did take it from this exact spot. See you can even see the glare from the window in the left of the frame. Also warning: I wrote this after consuming a double shot coffee and am still buzzing. So sorry if I seem a bit hyper in this post. I should stick with tea.

Queenstown has been pretty awesome for outreach so far. But first I thought I should do some more explaining on what lecture phase was like. I figured the best way to do this would be to ask myself some questions that I would ask someone who had just done a DTS with YWAM.

So what is YWAM and what is a DTS?
Good question. YWAM is an acronym for Youth With A Mission. So basically it's a whole lot of young people (well, predominantly. Some schools cater for up to 65, but the average range is 18-25) who go out on short-term mission trips, or longer term missions if they choose to go on past a DTS. A DTS stands for Discipleship Training School. Yes we like our acronyms. It's a five month school where approximately three months are spent in lecture phase and two months are spent in outreach phase. YWAM's aim is "To Know God and To Make Him Known". So the lecture phase focuses knowing God, and the outreach phase focuses on making God known. Though both phases have a bit of each. The reason we have a longer lecture phase is because we want to try and accurately display God to other people. If we don't know Him personally, how can we share His love with other people?

You mentioned lectures. What do you learn about in lectures?
ALL THE THINGS! Roughly each week is a different topic. We covered topics such as: Father Heart of God, Nature and Character of God, Jesus as Lord (also known to us as Mark Parker week), Evangelism, Mission of God, Relationships, Holy Spirit... etc. We would also do things such as base work duties (I got really good at cleaning the stove top guys), outreach prep, small groups, outreach team meetings, outreach, and, of course, skiing or snowboarding. While up the mountains we talked with people on the chairlifts (see also: t-bars) and made friends with the lifties at our local mountain, Porters.

Outreach in Chch. Photographic proof that I did stuff other than skiing.

Most of our school on our last school day of the season. Shorts and shades!

So how have you grown over the DTS so far?
Again, good question. The focus for lecture phase, as you read above (unless you skipped ahead and just stopped here because there was a photo above. If so, I'll try put in more pictures for you), is knowing God. I already knew a lot about who God is and knew Him personally, so for me it was a time of learning more about who I am and my identity in Him. I have become a lot more confident in who I am and who He has called me to be. I also got to know God more. I feel like I had all the bases covered previously, but my relationship with Him has gone deeper. There has been so much, it's hard to remember it all at once and to put it into words.

Another photo for those of you who like photos. The view from Porters.

Ok, so now that we got those bases covered, how are you finding your first week of outreach?
Great! As you might have guessed from the first picture, my team's first outreach location is Queenstown. We'll be here for two weeks in total, then off to help with a YWAM family camp for a week. After that we will head to the Philippines for five weeks before returning to Oxford for debrief and graduation. It's amazing to be back in Queenstown. We were here with the whole school for two weeks of lecture phase so being back is great. It's a completely different feel being here for outreach. We're here just to serve and we've been having an incredible impact so far. We're working with YWAM Queenstown who are pioneering a base here. We've been helping practically in the community by helping people in need of an extra hand. Often these are people who have had an accident or disability, or single mums who work two jobs. It's been really exciting to see how these people have been blessed by just a few hours of our time. We've been cleaning houses, washing windows, painting, doing work in the garden, and much more. We've also been up the slopes chatting with people on the lifts (actual chairlifts this time!), and blessing the lifties.

On top of The Remarkables

The boys built a wall for a couple where the husband is blind and the wife works several jobs. Us girls painted and cleaned.

In our outreach teams we each have roles. Mine is facilitating prayer and intercession times as a team. I've got some plans for our family times next week.

Any prayer points?
How nice of you to ask! The team has been feeling really tired for no particular reason so I think we've been experiencing a bit of spiritual attack. So prayer for that and energy in general. Also for the people that we meet that we would be able to love on them and have really good conversations with them (the buzzword for this is "divine encounters"). And of course for anything that you feel led to pray for.

Thanks for reading! (Or just skimming through, looking at photos). Feel free to ask any questions either here or on facebook (but only on fb if you know me, otherwise it's a bit weird).