Mid-School Newsletter

Greetings from Crystal Springs!!
It's hard to believe that I'm already through 6 weeks of my DTS here in New Zealand. It feels like it was just the other day that we were all together at my going away barbeque. These past 6 weeks have been such an amazing time for me learning more about God and getting into a deeper and more intimate relationship with Him. I am absolutely loving it here, it is awesome living in a Christian community! The people and the country are amazing. We live in a beautiful area with the Kaimai Mountain Range beside us, and a beautiful waterfall only minutes away. The vegetation here is so vibrant that it's like life in HD. We have an awesome group of staff and students, and we have really come together as a group and a family during our time together.

Teaching
The teaching has been amazing so far, and has really been a blessing to me. The first week we shared our life stories with each other, then had 2 days of teaching on the character of God.
In week 2 we had Dr. Bruce Thompson speak to us on the father heart of God, and it was like nothing I've ever heard on the subject before. He helped me gain a better understanding of how love works, where love deficits come from and how the enemy uses them against us.
The next week we had Sam Hoffman speak to us about prayer and intercession; it was a very powerful week. Sam is on staff at the base working with the Family Ministries DTS, and is a very anointed and radical prayer warrior. He helped me gain new life in my prayer life and really helped me better understand the power and necessity of prayer and fasting, especially when it comes to intercession. On the Wednesday, we had an event called Big Wednesday, which was basically a big worship and prayer service that went from around 7 until 11. It was an amazing time of praying and worshipping together, and you could really feel the Holy Spirit's presence. It was awesome to see the love of God being poured out through all of us. People were crying, praying, laughing and worshipping together all around the room.
In week 4 we had Mark Parker come and speak to us about the Lordship of Christ. He is one of those guys that you either love or hate, and I loved him! He really challenged us to give everything to God, our hopes, dreams, guilt, shame, bitterness, hate, comforts, sins, everything. On the Friday, we had a day where he took us through the “tabernacle” where we first entered into worship and praised God, then we offered sacrifices to God in the form of things we were holding on to, such as comfort, travel, dreams, etc. After that we made our sin offerings and confessed sins, both old and new, to each other, which was a difficult but amazing time for all of us. We spent some more time in prayer and worship, broke bread and had communion followed by a small feast. It was such an awesome time; it really brought us together even more as a family, and was very healing for everybody.
The topic for week 5 was evangelism, and we had multiple speakers this week. The first couple days were mostly a review of things that I had heard before, but the last day Sam spoke again, this time about reaching out to Muslims and Hindus. It was really interesting, especially since we will be encountering a lot of Hindus during outreach in India and because he lived in Northern India for a number of years, so he could speak from experience.
Finally, last week we had 2 speakers, Shaneane Totorewa and her husband Ray, who are the YWAM New Zealand directors, spoke about relationships, and Cindy Ruakere spoke about your highest calling. Shaneane and Ray were both great speakers. Shaneane was the main speaker, and Ray just spoke a little here and there. They were so real with us about their relationship, their past and basically everything, which was really refreshing. They talked about relationships in general the first 2 days, then spoke about romantic relationships on their final day. They definitely gave us all a better understanding of how relationships should look and work.
Cindy was a lot more intense and in your face about following God's calling on your life, no matter what. The tagline of her message would definitely be “it'll cost you everything.” She's been living by faith for over 12 years now, and she says it's definitely worth it. She really pushed us to lay it all down and put our money where our mouth is. God really spoke to me through her, and I once again laid down my life to Him, including my finances. He led me to put my money where my mouth is by emptying my bank account to pay for my outreach. So I'm into week 1 of living by faith, and I am fully confident that God will provide for all my needs. It's kinda a nice feeling actually!

Music and Worship

As you know, I'm a part of the music and worship DTS here, and I know that some of you are wondering what we do for the music and worship part. There are 3 different schools here, M&W, Surfers and Outdoor Pursuits. We all learn together during the week, and then have weekend activities for each of the different programs. As Musos (our nickname) we spend a lot of time out in nature enjoying God's creation, since that is a way that a lot of people are inspired, but we also have teaching times for how to lead worship and write songs effectively, and activities to spur our creative juices, like writing a psalm or song or poem to God. We are also creating a CD at the end of the school, right before we go on outreach, which will be a compilation of songs that each of us have written.

Outreach
We are now less than 6 weeks away from going on outreach. I will be going to Varanasi, India, which is the holiest city in Hinduism. We will be staying about 100m away from the largest temple in the city. Varanasi is one of the oldest cities in the world, and is on the Ganges River, which acts as a place of cleansing for the Hindus sins. Varanasi is a place that Hindus come to die, and their bodies are burned 24/7 in front of the temple we will be staying near. This is one of the darkest spiritual places in the world, and we will be coming to worship and praise God in the streets and to bring His light to this place. Please be praying as we go for Him to protect us and to light our path in the darkness. After 4 weeks in Varanasi, we will be going north to Dharamsala, which is in the Himalayas, and is where the Tibetan government is in exile. We will be ministering to Bhuddist monks and teaching English conversation classes. We leave for outreach at the end of November, and we come back at the end of January, so please keep us in your prayers.

What's Next?
As I've been learning more and more about the Bible and spending more time praying and listening to God, I really feel He is calling me to gain a better understanding of His Word and to learn how to use my sword (His Word) more effectively. So I have decided to apply for the School of Biblical Studies in Taiwan starting in March. The Taiwan base comes highly recommended by my one on one, Josh, who has been with YWAM for 4-5 years now. He knows multiple people on the base including a couple that have done the SBS. He told me that it is considered one of the best bases to take the SBS at. I feel called to this base because they are on the doorstep to China, which is a place that I feel called to, and they offer a School of Frontier Missions that specifically focuses on China that I would like to do in the future. I believe that God has me in a season of learning for 2-3 years to equip and prepare me to be sent out into His mission field long term, specifically in China and Asia reaching out to the lost, the broken and the least. Please be praying for His continuing guidance, provision and protection for me as I follow His call. God bless!

“Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” - Matthew 25:40

Outreach

Happy Thanksgiving to you all back in Canada!!! I hope you are all enjoying the long weekend, and are spending time with family and friends!! Although I do really miss the turkey and pumpkin pie, things are awesome here in New Zealand. We just had our free weekend, so 10 of us split on renting a van for the weekend, and we went surfing in Raglan, which is on the West coast, about 2 hours from Matamata. We were able to pick up the van early, so on Friday I went rock climbing with my roommate Joep and one of the staff, Epelli. We also spent Sunday down in Rotorua checking out the hot springs and being tourists.

This past week was pretty exciting too, because we found out about our outreach destinations. There are 4 teams going out:

1. Operation: Love Lovu is going out to Lovu seaside village in Fiji for 4 weeks to minister to the least and lost through friendship, service, prayer, evangelism and Children's programs. Lovu is one of the poorest parts of Fiji where people can go without food and water for days, and sometimes even weeks. Our base has reached out to this area a few times in the past, so they are looking to deepen the connections that they already have, and make new connections as well. After 4 weeks, they will be returning to New Zealand to go to drunkfest, which is a yearly festival where over 1000 youth from ages 15-30 come to Northern New Zealand to ring in the new year from December 27 - January 2. It is a place that is rampant with sex, drugs and alcohol, so we are sending in a team to worship and evangelize during this time of debauchery and be a light in the darkness. After drunkfest they will spend the final 3-4 weeks of outreach in Kaitia to work with a church and community there.

2. Operation: Rotuma Restoration is going to be spending 4 weeks in and around Lautoka, Fiji to evangelize, pray and church plant. They will also be spending time working with children and running discipleship camps. After 4 weeks they will then spend 2 days on a boat to go to a small island off of Fiji called Rotuma. This island is a place that our base has reached out to before, and is a 9km x 9km small island that is so small and tight knit that you need to be invited in order to be able to come there. They will be spending 2 weeks there facilitating a discipleship camp and fellowship gatherings, after they will return to New Zealand to join the Lovu team in Kaitia.

3. Operation: Faith will be going to Jharsuguda, Orissa, India to work with Faith Outreach International for 4 weeks to work with the orphanages as well as a bible and worship school, and doing mercy ministries working with the poor and needy. After 4 weeks, they will then either be going to Darjeeling or working with Missionaries of Charity, which is Mother Teresa's ministry, where they will be caring for the sick and dying and the least.

4. Operation: Hope will be going to Varanasi, India, which is the holiest city in Hinduism and is a very spiritually dark place. It is located on the Ganges River which acts as a place for Hindus to be cleansed of their sins. It is also a place where Hindus come to die to achieve spiritual freedom, and bodies are constantly being burned in the street and then dumped into the Ganges. The team will be staying approx 100m from the largest temple in Varanasi, which is also where they burn the bodies day and night. The team will be focusing mainly on evangelizing to the locals on the street as well as the many tourists that come to the area due to it's spiritual significance. They will also be working with Harvest Now, the 1000s of railway kids that are orphans that ride the railways as pickpockets, prostitutes and beggars and working with churches and mercy ministries around Varanasi. After 4 weeks, they will then be heading north to Dharamsala, which is where the Tibetan Government is in exile, and will be working with Tibetan Monks there. They will be connecting with them and witnessing to them, as well as teaching English conversation classes to them.

After hearing the options, Operation: Hope was definitely the one that I felt called to, but I also wanted to be open to wherever I could be used and wherever God wanted me to be. So I put down that my preference was to go to Varanasi, but I would go wherever they needed me. Unfortunately a lot of the guys all wanted to go to the same outreaches, so the staff had some hard choices to make. On Thursday, Josh pulled me and Joep aside and told us that he wanted one of us on the Lovu trip and one of us on the Varanasi trip, and it was up to us. The cool thing, was that that morning, Joep and I had been talking and he told me that if it came to one of us going to Varanasi, and the other not, that he would give up his place for me because God is calling me to Asia, even though Varanasi was his first choice. So when Josh asked, he immediately said that he would go to Lovu, and that I could do Varanasi.

So at the beginning of December I will be flying to India to reach out to the lost in Varanasi as well as to the monks in Dharamsala. Please be keeping us in your prayers as we prepare to go out, as well as while we are gone. Like I said earlier, this is a very spiritually dark and heavy place, and we will definitely need God's protection as we go. I'm not sure if I'll be able to update you all much while I am there, but I will definitely keep you up to date as we get closer to going.

I hope you all are doing great, and I'll see ya in the future.

God Bless!