Hello all!
We have just finished week five of the lecture phase of this September’s DTS! October is here and we in full swing here on the Sunshine Coast. This month’s update is just a bit of what God’s been doing over here, how we’re doing, and a few other details. As always, we miss you all back home and are so grateful for your encouragement, support, and prayers over these last months of preparation and beginning this school.
As you might remember, we were asked to lead this September’s DTS. The September DTS’s, starting last September, are “tracks” DTS’s. This means that there are multiple tracks, or ministry focuses, that make up the school as a whole. The five tracks we have on this school are sports ministry, youth ministry, reach the unreached, worship and music, and justice and mercy. Each of these tracks are being led by staff members that have a special passion and interest in the area. When the students apply to the DTS, they are able to choose the track they feel passionate about and get specialized teaching and practice in the area. Even their outreaches are geared toward these ministry focuses. Every Monday, students spend the whole day with their tracks growing in the area they feel passionate.
At the beginning of September, mere hours after the last DTS left for outreach, we welcomed the September school to the Waves house where they are staying. It was an amazing first day as far as first days go. The normal awkwardness that us staff have come to expect was just simply not there this time! Many of us remarked on how natural it felt! There was even a spontaneous worship session that night. From the beginning, we were tipped off that this would be a very special school! During the first week, we had a whirlwind of orientation talks, fun activities, and ways through which we get to know the students. One of the regular things we do on all DTS’s here is have a time for all the students and staff to briefly share about their journey with Jesus. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night of our first week, we spent a combined total of about seven hours listening to the highs, the lows, the triumphs, the trials, and ultimately the redemption story of each student’s walk with the Lord. None of the stories are complete yet, but after everyone was finished sharing, both of us could feel the anticipation for the coming months and the ways that God would add to each journey. This first week was exhausting socially, emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually, but we would not trade this time of planting the foundations for an amazing school.
Since orientation week, we have had four weeks of teaching on different topics. In order, they were Recognizing God’s Voice, The Character and Nature of God, and The Holy Spirit/Relationships (which was two separate topics in one week), and The Father Heart of God. Each of the weeks had its own highlights and testimonies, which we want to share a few of with all of you!
The teacher of our first topic, Recognizing God’s Voice (RGV), was one of our very close friends and mentors, Dave Beal. We have talked about Dave and his family in previous updates (his youngest daughter has leukaemia and was quite sick the last years but is now doing much better and just celebrated her 6th birthday; we also spent a week watching the six Beal kids after the January DTS so that Dave and his wife, Jen, could go on a vacation). Dave has an incredible way of sharing about God’s desire for relationship with us and just how possible it is for us to have a close relationship with Him. As the week went on, Dave gave us many opportunities to stop and activate the knowledge he was giving us through small group and individual activities. Some of these activities helped us remove the things in our life that might be blocking us from recognizing God’s voice like unforgiveness or wrong views of God Himself. Other activities gave us time and space to listen for what God was saying to us in the present. Many students came into the week feeling distant from God and feeling like they might be the only ones that God is not speaking to. Even us staff have trouble hearing God sometimes. By the end of the week, many people had recognized God’s voice in their lives for the first time and many others rekindled their intimacy with God by removing some of the things that were acting as barriers. On the whole, students and staff both left the week with new sense of what life with God can be like! It was clear that we are all on a journey and that all of our dysfunctions would not be fixed in one week, but Dave sent us away with tools to deepen our relationship with God over a lifetime, not just a week or five months.
The next week was taught by a person named Nathan who had never taught at our base before. Nathan is originally from the United states, but has been living in New Zealand for the last six years. We met Nathan at a prayer conference last year, and after hearing him teach, we both felt that if we ever led a school we would ask him to come teach on it. So when we were asked to lead a school, Nathan was one of the first people we contacted. He taught on the Character and Nature of God. This topic often has a very similar format each time it is taught. Nathan, however, because he is not a YWAMer, had no knowledge of this and so took the week in his own direction, in his own way. It was amazing! After the first day of his lectures, everyone was intrigued by Nathan’s teaching style and deep insight into who God is. The rest of the week was full of revelation and Holy Spirit led discussion. Some of the main things that Nathan touched on were the humility of God, the holiness of God, the kindness of God, the justice of God, and the goodness of God. He used these topics to show how we can approach the throne of God boldly and with confidence, and also to show why we must fear, revere, and surrender to God. By the end of this week, not only were we captivated by how much depth there is to God, but we were inspired to pursue Him like a treasure. One of the ways which God moved this week is through a simple scripture study that Nathan led. Many gave feedback after this activity communicating how much it had impacted them and lit a passion in them to get to know the Bible! We were so pleased with this week and could clearly see why God put the inkling in both of us to invite Nathan to speak.
The third week of lectures was about both the Holy Spirit and Relationships. Both of these topics should really have their own week, but we just don’t have enough time! Both of us think they should extent the lecture phase by at least three weeks! For these topics, we had a very distinguished speaker who has been a leader in YWAM Australia at a national level for many years. He is our base leader’s Uncle Steve, which is what we call him. During this week Uncle Steve talked about healthy relationships from the context of the Bible and the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He answered many questions from students and helped us understand the principles through story telling. He also talked about the Holy Spirit—this was a majority of the week. Students and staff both have many different experiences with the Holy Spirit from church and denominational background and many other variable, so Uncle Steve started out by bringing clarity to who the Holy Spirit actually is as a person of the trinity. From that foundation, he taught on the unique function of the Holy Spirit and how we experience Him in our lives. We talked about walking in the spirit as opposed to walking in the flesh, the gifts of the Spirit, and the fruits of the Spirit. To conclude the week, we had a time of prayer and ministry where many students powerfully encountered the Holy Spirit and were impacted by Him in many ways! Some students had encounters with God that brought wholeness and healing to areas of their lives and hearts that had been broken by other people and situations. Other students got to know God in a new way. This week had so many fruits that we could see on the surface, but we are looking forward to seeing the longer term impacts that a knowledge of and relationship with the Holy Spirit will have for each student.
This last week we had lectures on The Father Heart of God, which was taught by an amazing couple that has been speaking at our base for years. They have been married for 41 years, originally from America but have spent the last 12 years in South Africa working with YWAM. They are truly like family at our base, when they come their schedules quickly get jam packed with coffee dates, dinners, and walks with old friends and staff members. They carry an immense sense of family and belonging with them which is contagious. This week’s teaching was incredibly impactful with so much revelation of the fathers love throughout the week. On Friday we had a time of speaking truths out, prayer, and a time of giving and receiving gifts that God had placed on people hearts to give. It was such a beautiful and impactful time for so many of us. Many people heard God speak truth into them and were able to speak that out and proclaim it over themselves which was deeply healing for so many people. This day almost every single individual in the room was weeping at some point during the day, whether for themselves as they experienced healing or as they watched others step into new freedom or healing. At the end of the day so many students remarked how they truly felt like a family, many of them never having experienced a place of so much love, acceptance, encouragement and growth. These are the moments we are so incredibly overwhelmed with gratitude that we get to be doing what we are doing. Its amazing that a group of 65 people can feel so connected, loved, and safe, we have an incredible God.
Leading a school has been exciting and challenging thus far. It feels quite different from all the roles we have previously had within the past schools. This past weekend we were taking a walk and chatted about what we have enjoyed and what has been a challenge about this current role God has us in. One of the things we really love about it is that it keeps us in a position of learning. We haven’t done this before and the style at our base is more ‘learn as you go’, which keeps us humble and constantly learning new things. We also love how we feel like we are being stretched to have even more dependency on God. We have 16 staff and 46 students, so as you can imagine there are lots of situations, issues, and areas for growth and discipleship where we don’t have the ‘perfect words’ or ‘sound advice’, so we really have no option but to constantly bring it to God, asking Him for His wisdom, guidance, and grace. We also love leading together, we feel we balance each other really well and that we celebrate each others giftings. There isn’t a struggle for power between us, both naturally taking parts that fit well with our giftings, but also being willing to be stretched into things that don’t come naturally if we can take the load off one another for a moment. We have also loved how supported we feel by the leadership here at our base. We constantly have people seeking us out, asking us how were doing, praying for us, encouraging us, and being willing to give wisdom or advice when we ask. One of the more challenging aspects of this new role has been the balance of not only being involved with the students but also the staff in a different way. We are still around the students lots in a variety of settings, but we also have a new role of needing to be checking in on, supporting, encouraging, and challenging our staff team. We have not been perfect in this of course but have been working hard to make sure we are fully there for them, not only when they come to us, but encouraging along the way as well. We love that we get to do this, but struggle at times to make sure we have that balance. Another thing that is new for us that has been more difficult is leading from the front more often. It’s just not where either of us are as comfortable, but we already feel ourselves growing more confident in this area. We feel so blessed by this school already, the students are amazing and the staff team incredible. We are excited God is molding us the ways He has been--we fully believe we are not only here to be serving the students but also to be growing and learning ourselves.
We feel that we have had a good rhythm this past month with prioritizing time together in the midst of everything. Every Friday late afternoon and evening we take time for us to rest and re-coop. To be honest, we are normally pretty exhausted from the week so our Fridays aren’t super adventurous, but we also take time on Sunday to have time to ourselves as well. Last Sunday we did a hike we really love that isn’t too strenuous for Sam’s back at this stage, treated ourselves to an iced coffee at one of our favorite café’s, and spent some hours resting and having fun at a beautiful beach. And yesterday (Saturday) we took a day trip into the city (Brisbane) while the students were having a weekend away with their outreach teams. We enjoyed walking around, people watching of course, and ended the night with an Ethiopian meal in honor of Karis’ grandma who passed away this last week. As many of you know Karis’ grandparents were missionary’s in Africa for many years and spent time in Ethiopia, so Karis grew up going to the local Ethiopian restaurant in Milwaukee for special occasions. Every individual and couple finds rest and also is rejuvenated differently of course, but we seem to be finding a good rhythm for both of us!
We each have had different more significant things we felt God was working on in each of us this month. Sam really felt God revealed to Him how his easy going personality in friendships and leadership can easily cause him to have a “brush it off” mentality. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but God was speaking to Him how sometimes when he does this, he actually skips over the step of choosing forgiveness for that individual in his heart. In most situations, this is such a simple thing that is easily looked over, but it genuinely has an effect on things. He was really grateful for this revelation this month in the midst of working through relationship and leadership with people. Karis felt really stirred these past 2 week of lectures. She felt God gently convicting her of shutting down out of fear of what those around her would think at times when He was wanting to move in or through her. She has felt quite confident in who she is and not afraid to be who she is, but sometimes the Spirit of God moves in ways that are not traditional or expected, and fear of what others will think has seeped in when she didn’t even realize it. She felt a lot of healing these past two weeks from wounds that had caused this fear and was eager to commit to God an obedience to say and do what He says when He says it in the future. She believes life with Him is the most adventurous and bold life can be, but realized how often she isn’t willing to step out in the larger ways where her trust is tested. She is eager to grow in this, knowing she isn’t trusting in herself but in the Holy Spirit who lives within her.
We have had a lot of injuries so far on this school: sprained ankles, broken fingers, a few concussions, and recently, a broken wrist. It’s not surprising that injuries will happen with a group of 60 young people doing life, being active, and probably pushing the limits at times, but we feel it has been quite a lot more than usual and only a month in. So, we would really appreciate prayer for protection over staff and students, specifically from any more physical injuries. For those with broken bones, please pray for them to have rapid healing and contentment in a season of having to slow down and be listening to what God will teach them in the midst of something that is difficult.
We would also appreciate prayer for the continuing of growth in each student, that they wouldn’t get tired and begin to shut down, but would keep running after all that God has for them in this time. Karis is also grieving the loss of her grandma (her mum's mum) and the fact that she can’t be with her family during this time, so prayers for comfort and peace would appreciated.
As always we are so grateful for each of you, and can feel how much impact your prayers and encouragements have on us. Thank you for doing life with us—it means so much to us!
Below are some photos of the school!
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