The last 3 months has found me mostly offline but it has been a fantastic time of tasting and seeing the Holy Spirit move in ways I have never seen before. September to December found me back in the classroom, but this time as a students on one of YWAM's Discipleship Training Schools (DTS). Lectures were great reminders of who God is and how we are called to live our lives as Christians, but the proof is always in the assessment - outreach in this case. Since July, when I had decided to do a DTS, what I was looking most forward to was outreach and it began this past January.
The first part of my DTS outreach was to help lead a 10 day youth evangelism programme called Mission Adventures (MA). For 3 days the participants (aka: crew) would come to our base in Melbourne to learn about God and then for the remainder of the time they would go into the community to make God known. God did heaps of stuff during MA, but the most outstanding for our team was watching one of our crew be transformed by the Spirit.
On the second day of MA this girl was walking around the base without her thongs on. As this was against the base's rules I naturally asked her to put her thongs on. Immediately she picked them up, looked at me and said "I hate this group", and then she went running away in her bare feet. Western youth were quickly proving to be more of a challenge than my sweet Korean students. That night during praise I sat aside and asked the Lord to show me how to love this girl during MA. The Lord challenged me to stop asking her to behave, and instead to make her know that she belonged. You see, she was the only not-as-yet-Christian in our group, and as youth quite often are naturally rebellious asking her to behave before showing her Christ's love was just not going to work. So, I set it in my heart that I would spend the week just loving on this girl and to let the Holy Spirit do what He does best. It was awesome to see the changes!!! On the first day she would not even sit within 2 meters of our group members, and by the end of the programme she was hugging everyone and making plans to return next year as a reunion! She also went from sitting at the back with her ipod as tool to avoid talking to anyone to sharing a testimony at graduation in front of all the staff, her peers and their parents! It was just incredible to see how the Spirit changed her heart in such a short amount of time largely because she knew that she was accepted and loved whether she followed the rules or not. Incidentally, she also started following the rules - particularly the one about wearing shoes/thongs on property! God works miracles, signs and wonders which are all amazing to experience, but even more amazing than these is when He allows us to partner with Him to show love to someone and their heart is bent toward Him.
The first part of my DTS outreach was to help lead a 10 day youth evangelism programme called Mission Adventures (MA). For 3 days the participants (aka: crew) would come to our base in Melbourne to learn about God and then for the remainder of the time they would go into the community to make God known. God did heaps of stuff during MA, but the most outstanding for our team was watching one of our crew be transformed by the Spirit.
On the second day of MA this girl was walking around the base without her thongs on. As this was against the base's rules I naturally asked her to put her thongs on. Immediately she picked them up, looked at me and said "I hate this group", and then she went running away in her bare feet. Western youth were quickly proving to be more of a challenge than my sweet Korean students. That night during praise I sat aside and asked the Lord to show me how to love this girl during MA. The Lord challenged me to stop asking her to behave, and instead to make her know that she belonged. You see, she was the only not-as-yet-Christian in our group, and as youth quite often are naturally rebellious asking her to behave before showing her Christ's love was just not going to work. So, I set it in my heart that I would spend the week just loving on this girl and to let the Holy Spirit do what He does best. It was awesome to see the changes!!! On the first day she would not even sit within 2 meters of our group members, and by the end of the programme she was hugging everyone and making plans to return next year as a reunion! She also went from sitting at the back with her ipod as tool to avoid talking to anyone to sharing a testimony at graduation in front of all the staff, her peers and their parents! It was just incredible to see how the Spirit changed her heart in such a short amount of time largely because she knew that she was accepted and loved whether she followed the rules or not. Incidentally, she also started following the rules - particularly the one about wearing shoes/thongs on property! God works miracles, signs and wonders which are all amazing to experience, but even more amazing than these is when He allows us to partner with Him to show love to someone and their heart is bent toward Him.
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