YWAM & DTS

I have been a part of Youth With A Mission (YWAM) for over 11 years. I must admit that when I met Jose Luis, I had never heard of YWAM before. However, since 1998 when we moved back to Creel to work with Jose Luis' pastor, Henk Kaemingk, at the local YWAM base, I have learned much about YWAM and now can whole-heartedly support this organization. Here is some information from the YWAM website (http://www.ywam.org/):

Youth With A Mission is an international volunteer movement of Christians from many backgrounds, cultures, and Christian traditions dedicated to serving Jesus throughout the world. Also known as YWAM (pronounced "WHY-wham"), our purpose is simply to know God and to make Him known. When YWAM began in 1960, our main focus was giving young people opportunities to demonstrate the love of Jesus to the whole world, according to His command in Mark 16:15. Today, we still focus on youth, but we have members (known as "YWAMers") of almost every age and many of our short-term efforts have grown into long-term endeavors that have impacted lives and nations. YWAM has a decentralized structure that encourages new vision and the exploration of new ways to change lives through training, to convey the message of the gospel, and to care for those in need. We are currently operating in more than 1,000 locations in over 150 countries, with a staff of nearly 16,000.

The Discipleship Training School (DTS) is designed to help you understand God more deeply, live more like Jesus, and identify your unique gifts and purpose to use in missions. DTS is an intensive, residential training course which begins with an 11 or 12 week classroom phase, followed by an 8-12 week outreach. DTS emphasizes cross-cultural exposure and global awareness, preparing students to answer the call to "go into all the world and make disciples of all nations" Matthew 28:19. The DTS is a requirement for applying as YWAM staff, and serves as a prerequisite to all other training programs. The DTS is offered at YWAM locations all over the world. Some schools have a special focus on particular areas of ministry or nations.

If you would like MORE information, please comment on this post or send me an e-mail. Have a great week!

School is on!

We have reached the end of week 4 of the Discipleship Training School - a big sigh of relief! Jose Luis, Jaynie, and I are all still adjusting to the change in our responsibilities and schedule. This explains the lack of posts during the past month.

To catch up briefly - our DTS began on Jan. 11 with 11 students. We are serving as staff for the school while Henk & Edith Kaemingk are the school's directors. As staff, we have some specific responsibilities (leading praise & worship 1 week a month at 6:30 am, Jose Luis attends all of the classes, I am responsible for the kitchen - menu, food purchase, etc, and we help with the discipleship of some of the students). Our day begins with praise & worship at 6:30 am and ends with the evening meal at 6:30 pm. Saturdays and Sundays are a bit different but still busy. We are so thankful for this opportunity to serve God in this way.

Jaynie decided to try to make her hair curly a few weeks ago. The result was one comb tangled in the hair on the top of her head! I could not get the comb loose and had to cut it out. Jaynie now looks a little like the punks of old, but I think that she is beautiful.