Loved ones,
First of all, I would like to apologize for how long it has
taken me to get around to writing this.
I have no excuse, only a deeper realization of how fast time really does
fly by (especially summers!).
Second of all, there are no words to accurately articulate
how truly grateful I am for you and the support you offered me during arguably
the most important time in my life thus-far.
I wish I could sit down and chat over coffee with everyone who supported
me. But due to lack of time, I will use this to attempt a brief summary
of my Discipleship Training School experience with YWAM Denver, focusing on the
outreach portion of it.
The three months I spent in Denver (January-March) were
invaluable. I feel as if I had a lifetime of Godly wisdom poured in to me in
three short months. One of our speakers
described this time as “drinking from a fire hydrant”. We not only trained and prepared for our
specific outreach locations once a week, we also dedicated 4-7 hours each day
in class learning about fundamental Christian issues, such as: the Holy Spirit,
missions, the character of God, the father heart of God, relationships, the
fear of the Lord, and many others. In
addition, we made regular trips to downtown Denver to minister to the people
through street evangelism. I will never
forget this unique time of learning to hear God’s voice in preparation for a
life lived in obedience to Him.
The next two months were spent overseas with a portion of
the group I was with in Denver. I spent
half of the time in Jordan, and the other half in Israel! This was such a
special time of not only living in and learning about other cultures and
serving the people there, but of learning to live in total community with a group
of twenty of us. The latter is a
priceless lesson, and truly rewarding when done in a biblical manner. I may
have had a slight advantage coming from a family of seven!
Our time in each country was spent quite differently. In
Jordan, we spent the majority of our time teaching English to children and
adults in Amman, the capital of Jordan. This was our platform for building
relationships and sharing our story, which was ultimately our goal. We did not go with the sole intent of
“converting”, but to love and to share our personal story of how Jesus
transformed our life if the opportunity presented itself. Eman is a local Muslim lady who I got to
build a strong relationship with and eventually share the Gospel with. I plan
on keeping in touch with her indefinitely. (See picture below). Countless
relationships like this were built, and it was heart-breaking when the time
came for us to leave and head to Israel.
We spent the duration of our time in Israel in Jerusalem,
just outside the walls of the Old City in a place called St. Peter’s of
Gallicantu. Interestingly, it is the
place of Caiphus’ house (the High Priest during Jesus’ life), and the location
of Peter’s denial of Jesus on the night He was crucified. While there, we did not have one ministry we focused
on throughout our time, which made it more challenging to form quick
relationships with locals than it was in Jordan. God truly redeemed this aspect
of Israel by causing us to “randomly” run into the same people almost daily! In
a city of millions, this was truly astounding and encouraging! In addition to
relationship-building, we spent time serving with a few different local
ministries, such as a food-packaging organization, and an orphanage in the West
Bank. A unique ministry we got to do quite often was prayer-walking and
Bible-reading around the city of Jerusalem.
The spiritual realm is quite heavy there, for obvious reasons, and we
spent countless hours engaged in spiritual warfare, claiming the city back for
Christ! On multiple nights, we went to the rooftops of Jerusalem, which
overlooked the entire city and worshiped and prayed- often with curious
onlookers!
I could write forever and never truly convey how intensely
life-changing these five months were to me. I never expected to come back so
deeply impacted. My heart really is just overflowing with gratitude for you and
everyone that supported me- financially and prayerfully. God used you in a
hugely powerful way in my life, and I will never forget that!
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