Last week in Maz

This week we had a speaker come in from a closed country to teach on the school (for his security I will not use his name or the name of the country he is working in.) This was the first time I have ever met him, but he is an old friend of many people on the base. He taught our school on evangelism and foreign missions. One of the main points that he made was that evangelism isn't just going out to the streets to tell people they need Jesus, but that a big part of evangelism is your lifestyle. He talked about how in the country he works in that the Lord told him that one of his strategies would be to keep his house clean and to show hospitality. He told a story about one of his friends who worked in the same country and about the first person he was able to lead to Christ. When he asked the person why he came to Christ he said that one of the main reasons was because he could see the difference in his life based on the way he kept his house and the way he showed hospitality.
During all of the teaching you could see his passion for the people group he was working in. In everything he did and said you could see that his heart longed for that people group to come to know the Lord. I pray that the Lord will help my heart to be as much for the Mexican people as his was for that people group.

This week we also did a lot of getting ready for Outreach. We saw God work in some amazing ways as the Haiti team got in all their money for their Outreach. It came down to the last day, just hours before the absolute last moment they could turn in money. If they didn't have their money they wouldn't be able to go, and the outstanding amount was thousands of dollars, but an anonymous donor paid for two girls to be able to go on Outreach just in the nick of time. It was amazing to see how God worked in every situation. God has been faithful to us up to this point and I know that He is going to continue to show His faithfulness in even more, bigger ways as we go on to plant this base!

"I only need Jesus Christ!"

This week we had Troy Sherman in to speak about "The Cross beyond repentance." The idea of the teaching this week was that the Cross was not just about ensuring that we could all go to Heaven, but that it compels us to so much more! Because of the Cross we are compelled to live a completely new life. We are called to love our neighbor and truly follow the principles Jesus set up for us in the Bible.

We talked about how applying the principles of the Bible could actually solve many of the world's problems, including world hunger and giving clean water to all people. There are two reasons for this: first, all Laws in the Bible are simply descriptions of reality and two, because God gave us the Laws and principles in the Bible because He loves us and wants the best for us. Because of this we should be trying to apply the principles in the Bible because of God's Love, and the ultimate demonstration of this was at the Cross.

We also talked about how the Christian actually has some great responsibilities. God gave man authority on the earth and a freewill, so a lot of the things we blame on God are actually our responsibility. One example is that 80% of all violent crimes are committed by men who grew up without fathers. So someone might blame God for a violent crime, such as rape, committed against them or their family, but that was never in His Plans at all. That same person, however, might be having sex with their boyfriend outside of wedlock which is the number one reason for fatherless children. God did not intend for this to happen, but man has made this problem because of our sin, not His fault. But God is so good that He still sent His Son to die for us to answer any questions about His Goodness! The Cross says to us, "I love you and would never do anything against you, but even if you do have anything you think you can blame on me, I died for that too!"

Troy also really challenged the YWAM Centro Mexico City as well. He is the son of a man who has been one of the key players in YWAM since the beginning, so he has seen tons of behind-the-scenes stuff and has seen bases rise and fall. He told us just how hard pioneering will be and that we really need to be ready for the storm. He also challenged us with commitment because, as he said, "Most of the key players in YWAM will tell you that they aren't the best or the smartest or the most spiritual, but rather that they just stayed when everyone else had left." So I have really been rethinking my one year commitment. I am trying to get my heart to a place where I can truly say to God, "Ok, Lord, I will stay here as long as you want." I am not sure what is going to come out of this, all I know is that God is good and the things He has in His plans for me are the very best things for my life!

As I was thinking about my commitment and was praying about my call to Mexico City I decided to take a walk. I was just wandering through the streets asking God to give me a stronger "yes." As I was walking along the Malecon (the boardwalk which overlooks the ocean) a man came across the street on crutches asking me, "Hey man, what are you looking for?" I told him I wasn't looking for anything to which he responded by offering me some marijuana. I told him I didn't smoke weed so he offered me coke, pills, "whatever you want." I told him I didn't do drugs, so he offered me a prostitute. I said I didn't need any of that because I have now found Jesus and He is better than all of that.

When he heard me say that he had me sit down with him and he began to apologize. He told me that he knew what he was doing was wrong, but that he was doing it because he had no money at all and was just trying to make it in life. He then told me that he really knew how bad it was because he had hurt his knee one day when he was high and drunk. To that I asked him what was wrong with it and he said that he just woke up off a high one morning and couldn't walk and was in tremendous pain. When I heard that I asked if I could pray for him. He said that I could, and then I told him that Jesus died to take away our pain both physical and spiritual. I then laid my hand on his knee and prayed a simple one or one and a half minute prayer for healing and then asked him how he felt. He said his pain was gone, so I asked him to get up and see if he could walk. He got up, took a few steps forward, and then looked back at me smiling and laughing. He started jumping up and down saying that he was healed and that he could walk again! He was probably more excited than anyone I have ever seen after they were healed! I then asked him if he had eaten, he said he hadn't, so I took his crutches up on my shoulder and we walked back to the base for dinner.

When we got here to the base he and I sat down with the base director and he began to share his story. It turns out that he had been a drug mule since he was 12 years old, had been on drugs for years, and hadn't been back to his home in Monterrey in three years. He then took out a bag of weed that was about the size of a sandwich bag and threw it away, saying that he never would need weed again! By the end of the night we were able to buy him a bus ticket back to his home in Monterrey where he had a Christian mother who had been praying for him all along. He called me when he got to Monterrey telling me he was safe with his family, that he was planning on doing the January DTS at YWAM Mazatlan, and that he, "doesn't need weed, pills, or coke, I only need Jesus Christ!"

Faith

When Brent and Heather Madson (the base directors for the YWAM Mazatlan base) had only recently finished their DTS and had not yet really stepped out in leadership in YWAM, someone came looking for them to ask if they would help lead a DTS. That man was David Stephenson, or as most people affectionately call him, Steve-o. Steve-o is the director of the Newcastle base in Newcastle, Australia and I would truly call him a man of faith. He came to teach the DTS on the subject of faith and really what taught us more than anything was his life. His teachings seemed to be perfect for this point in my life and the lives of many of the students as well! He taught a bit about trusting God with our romantic relationships and said, “If you trust God with your romantic life, you probably trust God [in general].” He also used the story of Abraham and Isaac as God asked him to sacrifice his son and from that taught us about how God many times requires of us the things we value most in this life. At that point we have to have faith in Him that He will be found trustworthy with what we give over to Him.

He told us many stories about his life walking with the Lord and how he has been in cases which required great faith and come through to the other side. I was encouraged even more by him when I got the chances to actually sit down with him and listen to some of his stories and encouragements for us to keep strong in our faith. He sat down with the YWAM Mexico City base plant team and gave us some words of wisdom and encouragement as well. Overall it was a great week for my faith to be strengthened and for my vision for the future to be deepened.

We are also getting ready to go to Mexico City and we are all very excited! We have been doing some planning for the Outreach and for planting the base there. Please be praying for us as we get ready for this great adventure. Also, I still need about $1,200 for this Outreach so please ask the Lord how He would like to use you to provide for this need.

Spiritual warfare

This week we had a group of special guests from Kansas City come down to Mazatlan. IHOP, coupling with the Call Institute has begun sending out "Strike Teams" to different strategic locations around the world, partnering with YWAM to be able to greater reach the world. Last year IHOP sent a strike team to Culiacan (the capitol of Sinaloa) and before that they had sent a team to Juarez, so this year they are sending a Strike Team to Durango to finish off enclosing the Golden Triangle in prayer. The Golden Triangle is the area in Mexico between Juarez, Culiacan, and Durango where the majority of drugs from Mexico are produced and sold. This means that this area is quite possibly the largest stronghold in Mexico. So this last week we had the Strike Team staying here at the base before they launched out for the strike. We shared some great times of worship and intercession with the IHOP team and we also received teachings from Sam (the leader of the team) on spiritual warfare. He is a phenomenal teacher and has lived a lifestyle to back up every one of his teachings. His teachings really pushed me to live more of a lifestyle of prayer and fasting and made me rethink how I do spiritual warfare and how I can improve on it in the future.

Also, Monday was the first of three days of prayer here in Mexico. The government has gotten together and realized the situation the nation is in and actually called on the Church to fast and pray for the welfare of the country. This is huge! We fasted, prayed, and worshiped for 12 hours along with hundreds and maybe even thousands of other churches all over the nation. When things like this begin to happen we can see in the Bible that things start to change, and I believe that is what is going to happen here too. This is the beginning of the tides shifting here in Mexico!

Finally, my parents left here on Monday. They were here for about 4 days and it was really a good time for me. It was a little taste of home and a taste of rest as well. I am grateful for their time here, but sorry to see them leave.

Sozoed

This week was phenomenal. A team from Resurrection Church in Greeley, Colorado came to our base simply to bless us. Their church has started using a type of ministry called "Sozo." The word "sozo" is a Greek word which is most commonly translated as "saved" in the New Testament, but the true definition of the word also includes, "to be healed," "to be delivered," and "to be made whole" and this team really sets out to do all of that. In this ministry, groups of two of the team members sit down with someone who has requested to be ministered to and lead the person through an encounter with God that could literally change their life. The person who is being ministered to is lead through asking the Father what He thinks of them, what the Son thinks of them, and what the Spirit thinks of them. The leaders can then see from the responses which one of those connections is strong and which one is weak and then they go deeper from there in order to renew a good connection with the whole Godhead. This usually involves God coming in and healing wounds from things that have gone on in the person's life. This is an amazing ministry and I know that I came out completely changed.
This team came in not only to do this ministry with everyone on the base, but also to teach us how to implement the ministry with others. That meant that for the first part of the week most of the staff and the WISE school sat in on classes which taught us how to lead people through Sozo. The classes were fun and the team really brought new life to the base. Through God working through them I believe this base experienced a move of the Spirit which will keep growing from here.

Relationships

Have you ever thought about guy-girl relationships? Have you ever wondered about how a proper marriage is supposed to be? Have you ever thought about what the right way to lead people is, and then on the other side what it is to truly follow someone? I'll take that as a yes.
This week our speakers were Doug and Jan, a couple that has been coming down and doing work in Mazatlan for years. The teaching they gave this week was about relationships of every kind. We learned about male/female relationships, leader/follower relationship, relationships within the family, and many more. The students were really receptive to the teaching and I believe each person on staff received something new from their teaching. Although I have heard this same teaching before I got new things out of it, whether it was actually new information or simply being reminded of things the Lord has spoken to me about before. One big thing God spoke to me about this week was honoring those who are placed as an authority above me. We also talked about how there is freedom in Christ if you have gone too far in past relationships. We had a great time of ministry on Friday when we all had the opportunity to break soul ties we have made in the past and to get set free from lies we have been believing. It was an amazing time!

Please be praying for our students. We have met the deadline for all the Lecture Phase fees to be in and some of our students still don't have all the money they need. Also, we are all trying to raise money for our Outreach and I still need $1,200 so please pray about supporting me.

Family

This week began with me heading off Sunday morning to Guadalajara for the YWAM National Leadership Conference. The National Leadership Conference is a time when people in leadership from all of the bases in Mexico get together to cast vision and to talk about what the Lord is doing in the country. This year the main focus of the conference was family. We talked about how we need to embrace the family unit as YWAM Mexico and also how we have been called together as a YWAM family. I could feel the sense of family within YWAM Mexico at that meeting as each base shared what God was doing in their area and as we all got to know each other and praised God for what He has been doing and asked Him to do more. It was also a special time for me and the YWAM CMC base plant team because at this National Leadership Conference we were recognized as a team and were prayed over and commissioned to do this work God has put on our hearts. It was amazing to have all these people who have given their lives to furthering the Gospel here in Mexico praying over us as a team. I could really tell from the conference that all of YWAM Mexico is behind us and wants to see us succeed. It was great to feel the support of our YWAM family.

the Father's Heart

God is a Father. However He's not a father who will leave us and fail us like our earthly fathers. No, He will never leave us or forsake us and everything He does toward us is only out of love. This is just a small bit of what the DTS learned about this week with Ricardo, the base director for the YWAM Pachuca base. He has a son and a daughter and really loves being a dad. He has such a father's heart and when he taught you could really feel it come through. He is such a loving man and really cared about each one of us. He was praying for us even before he came to the base and you could really tell in his compassion for us. The teaching was so good and Ricardo teaching it just made it better.
One of the main purposes for teaching on the Father Heart of God is that we as humans naturally seem to link God to our ideas of our earthly fathers, which leaves us believing false things about God. If our father was abusive we may believe that God is going to hurt us as well. If our fathers were hard on us and demanding we may have trouble believing in grace and that our salvation is not by works. During this week we went deep into these beliefs and pulled up our false ideas at the roots. Because of this I believe everyone received healing in one way or another during the teaching and ministry times. It was amazing to watch as God worked in all of our hearts! I can’t wait to see what He is going to do next!

True Worshippers

Have you bowed the knee to the ruling Greek culture, or are you a son of Zion who will stand against this culture which says that it is all about me? This is just one of the topics we covered this week of teachings on worship with pastor/songwriter Saul Morales. We talked about what true worship is and how we could be transformed into true worshippers. True worshippers are those who seek first and foremost the glory and majesty of the King. The problem is that in our culture which is majorly Greek it is taught that the only thing important in this world is oneself. What’s more this culture has also infiltrated the Church in some points and taught us that worship is about what we can get out of it when in all reality this view is completely unbiblical. We are to worship Him for His Glory because He is worthy of it, not because of what we can receive.

On another note we have been talking more and more about Outreach and had our first Outreach team meetings this week. In our meeting we shared a bit of the vision for the base plant and a little bit of what the Outreach would look like in relation to what we have to do for the plant. This Outreach is going to be different from most others in that we will actually be working on getting a brand new base started and as such we will be doing things a little different. For instance we will have a lot of needs starting this base and we will be asking everyone to use the resources available to them to help provide for these needs. We will also be asking the students to help us do things like talk to realtors and get settled in our new base location. Although we know that parts of this Outreach will be difficult, we know that it will be good because this is what God is calling us to.

So now that we know the locations and teams we can all start raising the money we will need for the Outreaches, which will be another step of faith for all of us. Please be praying for all of us to have all the financial provision we need for the work God has put before us. The Mexico City Outreach cost is going to be 15,000 Pesos, which is about $1,200 US. Please pray for God to provide this amount (and more) for me and also please ask the Lord if He would like to use you to provide for some of this need.

Lectures: Week Two

This week for lectures we had the base director (Brent) come in and talk to the students about the Character and Nature of God. It really opened up a lot of doors to see into our hearts and minds. Talking about His Nature allowed us to ask the Holy Spirit to search us and tell us where we had been believing lies that are contrary to His Character and Nature. Many times we start to believe things, sometimes even things we are taught in a religious setting or things we are taught about the Bible, that are contrary to His Character. God desires for each of us to have a correct understanding of Him and who He really is so that we can begin to reject the lies we've been believing and replace them with His Truth.
Also this week we announced the Outreach teams. For the September 2011 DTS we will be having two Outreach teams, one going to Mexico City and one going to Haiti! The DTS staff who are also helping plant the Mexico City base (which includes me) will be staffing the Mexico City Outreach and Tasha (one of our DTS staff people) will be going on the Haiti Outreach. The Mexico City Base Plant team will be commissioned from here in Mazatlan and will be sent out in December before Outreach. After that we will go on Outreach with the team during which we will be doing most of the normal things people do on Outreach along with some of the things we need to do to get ready to plant the base such as finding a location. After the Outreach the Haiti team will come meet us in Mexico City for the last two weeks for graduation and debrief. Then after that the base plant team will be staying there and officially starting the YWAM CMC OP-LOC (Youth With a Mission Centro Mexico City Operating Location). I am so excited to finally get started on this!

-On a side note there was a woman here to speak to the WISE school named Katherine who I had the opportunity to speak with a few times who is really amazing. As I was talking with her it came up that I was a worshipper and a worship leader. When she heard that she said that I should go to Cuba sometime. After she said that I couldn't seem to get Cuba out of my head for a couple days and still haven't really been able to. I wonder if God has Cuba in His Plans for me sometime in the future. I guess only time will tell...

And so it begins....

This week was the first week of lectures for our school and for our first speaker we had one of our worship leaders for the base speaking on hearing the Voice of God. It was such a challenging week for every one of us in one way or another. Some of the students began with classes this week saying that they had never heard the Voice of God before. Others (myself included at times) simply weren't always sure if they were hearing His Voice when they were trying to listen to Him. But by the end of the first day I believe all of us heard Him beyond the shadow of a doubt. The very first day we had an exercise where we all just listened to worship music, got in the Presence of God, and then asked God for an adjective to describe what He thought of us. That led to many people hearing Him tell them something that was different from what they believed or knew about themselves and I believe many people were set free that night. By the second day we were having the students hear God's Voice for someone else in the room, write it down on a card and then we gave it to them. By the end of the week we had a teaching on intercession and were hearing God for loved ones who were unsaved and even for the whole nation of Mexico. It was really incredible to watch how much the students grew in the matter of just one week. These students are really taking the things they learn and running with them. This week was such an amazing start to this phase of the school and showed us just a glimpse of the great things God has in store for us.

Week 1

Well, the first week of the September '11 DTS went really well. We now have almost all of our students, though we are still waiting on one married couple as we pray for their finances to come in. But as for now, we have all our other students in and the rest of our team together. Our team is very diverse with equal amounts of students who only speak English and who only speak Spanish and many students who can speak or at least understand both. Our students also range from 17 years old up to mid-thirties and are from all over Mexico and the USA. Each member from our team is very different from the next, but together we make up a very strong, very unified team.

This week with the DTS we mainly focused on orientation for the students and on bonding. We had class sessions almost everyday when we talked with the students about the rules, policies, values, and purposes of the base and their DTS. We also worked on binding the team together through the staff giving their testimonies, bonding games and activities, girls' and guys' nights, and just spending time together. The thing I liked the most this week that we did both for bonding and to teach dying to your rights was something we called simply "the 18 Hours." This was a time we had planned that we knew would challenge our students and get them out of their comfort zones so that God could work in us as a unit. Basically what we did was the whole base went out to Stone Island (an island just outside of Mazatlan) and had a beach day where we swam, ate dinner, and just enjoyed time together. Later, however, instead of leaving with the rest of the base our DTS stayed there on the beach for the next 16 hours. We had told them that they were only allowed to bring their sleeping bag, a towel, a water bottle, and another item of their choice. This caused them to have to either think of others or think of themselves because they could bring something that would benefit the whole group or they could bring something that would just benefit them. Basically we spent 16 hours out on the beach just figuring out how to survive together which really showed us a lot about each other and how we work together as a group. It was rough and I only slept about 3 hours because I was so itchy, but it was really good for us! Some of you might be wondering why it was called the 18 hours when we only spent 16 hours on the beach. Well when we left we told the students that they had the rest of the day free until 5 when we would meet up and go finish the last 2 hours we still had left. We got the students together at 5 and then took them to a house here in Mazatlan where the staff had prepared a nice dinner for the students just as a way to serve them. We had a great night eating and talking about the good, the bad, and the ugly of our time "roughing it." It was a great time of growing for all of us and an amazing start to what I know will be a great school!

The Week Before It All Begins....

Well, in some ways this has been just another regular week. We have worked on things around the base, had meetings, and had new staff orientation. However, this week has also been very different because we have been preparing for the YWAM Mazatlan 2011 Fall DTS. We have such high expectations for this DTS. We truly believe this is going to be different than any DTS that has come before it or will ever come after. We know that God is going to pour out His Spirit in a huge way and that we are going to experience the Finger of God as He opens up the Heavens over us during this time! We have some great plans for this DTS, but we know that He has even greater plans than anything we could ever hope or imagine!
Yesterday five of the DTS students arrived here in Mazatlan and just from spending part of the day with them we can tell already that this is going to be a lot of fun. When we were at the airport picking up four of them we had all gotten into the van to leave when Tosha (one of the other DTS staff) told me that we actually had to pay for parking inside before we left. So we told the students to hang tight and that we would be right back after we had payed for parking. When we got back out to the van we found that they had all circled up to pray that the Lord would really move in the DTS. It was a small thing, but it was just one more sign that this is truly going to be a life-changing time for all of us! I can't wait to see what God is going to do!

First Couple Weeks Back in Mexico

Well, I am finally back here in Mazatlan, thanks to God and all my supporters! The weather here is HOT, but God is still good and gives us cool breezes from time to time. The first couple weeks have been awesome. God has been showing up in big ways! Only a couple short days after I got here to the base in Mazatlan the whole base packed up to go on the annual Staff Retreat. The staff retreat was in a small town called Mazamitla which is a small town right outside of Guadalajara. There the weather is cool, even cold at times so it was a great change of climate. We brought in a speaker from Louisiana named Ross who definitely carried with him the joy and anointing of the Lord. He was an amazing speaker for the Staff Retreat. He definitely allowed the Lord to use him to speak into each one of our lives and his teaching helped a lot of us figure out a lot about God's calling on our lives and the areas we are gifted in. It was a great time of reflection and refreshing for me!
Now we are back living on the base in Mazatlan and it's back to work and Staff Training for all the new staff. So I have been going to Staff Training classes each morning and then I usually have a meeting about the YWAM Mexico City Base or the DTS in the afternoon. We have been planning great things for the DTS I am going to staff and I am getting so excited! This DTS is going to be a real growing opportunity not only for the students, but I can tell it will grow the staff as well. I know that I will be growing in the gifts God has given me as I disciple the students of this school and as they disciple me! Please pray for this school as it starts in only one short week. Also pray for me that God would continue to prepare my heart for the great things that He is about to do in my life!

Goodbye, Indiana

Well, there is now less than one day left before I leave to go back to Mexico. My time here hasn't always been easy, but it has been good for me. In my time here I have learned a lot but one of the biggest things God has shown me again is that He is Faithful! He will never leave us and He will always come through, though many times not in our timing but His! He has provided for me in so many ways during this time in the States. Though it has been good to be back here and I will miss my friends and family here, I am excited to get back to Mexico to the work the Lord has for me there! I look forward to what the Lord has for me, I know it will be great!

Back Home Again in Indiana!

Well, I'm finally done with my Discipleship Training School and am back in Indiana resting up from my time in Mexico. My time in Mexico was amazing, and as many of you know God moved in huge ways during this time! Now I am home getting ready for the next thing God has in store for me, and I know that the next thing will be even better than the last!

In about nine weeks I will be heading back to Mazatlan to help more young people know God and to make Him known by staffing the September Discipleship Training School(DTS) through Youth With A Mission (YWAM) Mazatlan. That will be a six month commitment, with three months in Mazatlan for the Lecture Phase, then three months in another location for the Outreach Phase. This will be a phenomenal opportunity for me to be able to disciple young people.

After the DTS I have agreed to help pioneer a brand new mission base in Mexico City for a minimum of a year. Mexico City is ready and waiting for the Gospel! Mexico is not only the political center of Mexico, but also in many ways it is the epicenter of everything that happens in the whole country. Because of this it is essential to reach Mexico City for Christ if we desire to disciple the nation of Mexico! As you can see this is a strategic move in bringing the Gospel to all tribes, tongues and nations and I am more than excited to have the opportunity to take part in it!

This will be a great work for the Kingdom, but I cannot do this without the emotional, financial, and prayer support of my friends and family. Thank you so much for all of your faithful support during this last season of my life and your continued faithfulness in the ways God is continuing to use me!

Please let me know if you have a church group or Bible study group that I could speak to about this upcoming phase. I look forward to sharing with you about what God has done and is preparing to do in Mexico!

Chiapas

Sorry to all of you who are regularly following this blog that I haven't posted in a while, but it has been a bit hard to find the time with all the amazing things we have been doing. Since my last post we left Mexico City and went on to the next leg of our journey which was in Chiapas. In Chiapas we stayed mainly at the YWAM San Cristobol base, which was quite a blessing. Staying at the base gave us a good amount of rest as we had beds, we didn't have to cook all our own meal, we didn't have to shop for food, etc. While there at the base the ministry we did most was going out to the streets, especially the city center and doing dramas and one on one evangelism, which was a great success. People seemed Pretty receptive to the Gospel in San Cristobol. Another ministry we did was working with a local youth group. We had the opportunity to teach this great bunch of young people the dramas we have been doing all through our Putreach and then go with them as they took them to the streets and evangelized with them. It was amazing to see their passion for the Work of the Lord and to see how with such little direction they were able to go out and do very effective ministry! It was really encouraging to see them at work and to see how missions and discipleship should really work! After staying at that base for a couple weeks we took a trip to some indigenous villages out in the moutiains. The whole trip was really almost surreal. We were a took a van for about two hours into the mountains where we took taxis as far as they could go into the mountains because the van couldn't go any further. From there we took a small footpath into down the mountain through the jungle for about thirty minutes where we got to the first village. The next village was a two hour hike from the road andyhe final one was about a three and a half hour hike, mostly uphill. The hikes were extremely physically exhausting, but it was worth it! Most of the people in the villages only spoke Tzotzil (their native dialect) and not Spanish so it was fairly hard to communicate without a translator. The women wore their own traditional clothing that they made by hand and the first two villages didn't have running water so we drank, washed dishes, and bathed in the rivers or other holes in the ground. We also slept on concrete floors or wooden benches. The whole experience was a bit difficult but it was amazing to see our brothers and sisters in the faith that live in different ways than we do! We left the villages and spent our last few days at the house of a married couple that is on staff with YWAM in Chiapas. They were very hospitable and really made us feel at home. It was a great, very relaxing way to spent the last few days of our Outreach! Now we are back in Mexico City for our debrief after Outreach, then it's back from Mazatlanfeom here. God has been so faithful during this Outreach and I can't wait to see what He has for me next!

Last Friday we left our temporary base at Jerusalem church in Mexcio City to go with the church on an outreach trip the church takes about every other week to another state called Michoacan. The place where we went in Michoacan was a rather poor, rural area where we worked in some pueblos(villages) called Aguacate, Tuxpan, and Fresnos. These are very small, farming villages in the mountains, and the culture is very different from the much if the rest of Mexico and definitively different from that of Mexcio City! The culture is extremely hospitably and very slow paced, which was a great break from the city life. I got to experience this hospitable culture firsthand because I got the opportunity to go on house visits for most of the day on Saturday. The people there were so kind, accepting us into their houses, feeding us from their meager amounts of food, and really treating us as family. During the house visits we got the opportunity to encourage a lot of people from the local Church, but I really felt encouraged as well. I also got the opportunity during the house visits to lead worship for a man who was housebound with alzheimers. On Sunday morning we split into two groups, with both groups going to different churches in the villages and one person Preqching from each group. My group went to a church that was held on someone's front porch with an amazing view of the mountains, then afterwards we were invited to go to someone's house for a great, traditional Mexican meal. Overall it was a really great weekend and a great ministry opportunity!

Mexico City: Week One (and a half)

Well, I've now officially been on Outreach since last Wednesday and it has really been a blessing so far! We took a 14 hour-long bus ride to get here on Tuesday night and we arrived Wednesday morning. The whole DTS came and stayed with us here in Mexico City for a few days so that people could see the city and maybe catch a heart for it and decide to help launch the YWAM Base that my school leader is planting at the end of this year. The first few days we mainly just took it easy and did what I would call some "missionary sight-seeing" which includes praying over the city wherever we go. At one point we were outside of a castle in the city and the Lord opened up an opportunity for us to somewhat hijack a clown's street performance and do a drama and share the Gospel in front of a huge crowd that was watching him. Since the Central America team left we have been going at a pretty good pace, which has included things like putting on a couple childrens' programs, doing evangelism around the church we are staying at, and doing dramas and evangelism at a celebration of Saint Judas Tadeo where tons of young people go to worship the saint and get high off of inhalants (which by the way was a great success!) It has been so amazing to see how God has been using this Outreach up to this point. He has been moving in some huge ways! I can't wait to see how He is going to move in the rest of this time!

Outreach!

Well, I am leaving this evening for outreach. I am a bit nervous, but I know that it will be a great opportunity to serve Christ and advance His Kingdom. During our outreach we will be doing things like working with street kids, doing street evangelism, praying for people in hospitals, and working with native people groups. Please be praying for me and my group during this time. Please pray that God will open up doors for effective ministry for us. Please also be in prayer for my group specifically. Pray that we will be unified and that we will put others before ourselves. Also please pray that we will hear the Lord about how He wants us to go about advancing His Kingdom and that we will be obedient in that. Thank you all so much for your support in this! I cannot do this alone!

Since Carnaval

The last three weeks have been a really amazing time of learning for me. The first week back from Carnaval we had teaching from Kayle Mumby about the Holy Spirit. His teaching was so spot on. He really challenged me to push into the things of the Lord more and to expect the miraculous in my everyday life. The next week was spiritual warfare with Harmony Brown. That week really challenged me to think more about the spiritual realm and to pay attention to the war that is going on among us. I know that I was set free from a lot of stuff that has been holding me back as a result of that week, and many other people have been too. Finally, last week's teaching was on worship with our worship leader on the base, Greg Brown. Greg really challenged all of us to look at worship a bit differently and to worship in Spirit and in Truth.

On a different note, all the money for my Outreach phase is due on this Wednesday and I am still in need of around $600-$700. Please pray that the Lord will provide for me in this time. Thank you.

Carnaval 2011

During the last two weeks here, Mazatlan has been celebrating Carnaval which is basically just a huge party before Lent. It was really crazy, and I'm not just talking about all the drinking and Banda music. God really poured out His Presence on this place. First of all, there was a huge program called the Invasion that took place during Carnaval, which is where over sixty churches got together and strategized about how to reach this city for Christ, then they went out and did it. In the Invasion over 4,000 people came to Christ. We here at YWAM Mazatlan also took advantage of thousands of people being in this city for the festivities. The population of our base nearly doubled as people came in as backup to help us reach the lost. We split up into four groups, one ministering inside Carnaval, one ministering outside the gates of Carnaval, one working a free coffee shop, and one team just devoted to intercession. I was on the team outside the gates for about the first half, and then I went to the team inside the gates for the second half. We saw such a great harvest! Over 400 people prayed to ask Jesus into their hearts during this time just from our group! It was really great for me especially because I feel that evangelism has been one of my weaker points in my Christian life for a long time, so it was amazing for me to have this hands-on experience and see God work! God gave us some great ideas for ministry too. On the first night I was tied up, with a rope around my wrists and torso, blindfolded, and led and pushed around by two people who were accusing me, then we would stop in a large group of people and preach about how sin binds us and blinds us but how Christ can set us free. Also, God told one group that was inside Carnaval that He wanted to heal people, so they began to pray for healing for people. Eighteen complete strangers were healed in one night, including a mute person speaking. God is so good and He really loves the lost and desires them to come to Him!

Sorry this is a bit long, but God moved in huge ways!

This week was a really uplifting week! For our teacher this week we had a man from the organization Victorious Christian Harvesters named Bob come in and share about evangelism. This man has an amazing amount of energy and passion for the Lord and for seeing the lost come to Christ and it truly showed through in his teaching! This man has shared the Gospel message with thousands of people and is truly an evangelist if I have ever met one. The teaching about evangelism this week was actually a bit challenging for me as personal evangelism has been a weak point for me in the past. Bob’s teaching really helped motivate me to do more in the realm of personal evangelism and gave me a good starting point to work from in that realm. He encouraged us to keep the message simple and to remember the fact that the power is in the Gospel itself, not in something we can do. One illustration he gave was from his earlier days doing evangelism in Mexico. In those days he made some note cards with the Gospel message in Spanish and began to memorize the cards, not really understanding Spanish at all. He then went out and presented the Gospel in what was to him just memorized sounds and people were getting saved because the power is in the Gospel message itself.

To wrap up this week, yesterday our Discipleship Training School took a trip to a small village about two hours outside the city called Apoderado. On Saturday we helped with a cell group and with a youth celebration at which I got to pray for a young crippled man, who felt the power of God, and a young girl with a heart problem.

Today we first learned a fun skit for little kids about God making each of us for a purpose and then went out into the village to share the skit with the kids. We first found about five kids, but they ran and got other kids until we had nearly twenty or thirty as an audience for the drama. We did the drama and then gave the Gospel message and gave an invitation for the youth to accept Christ. Afterwards, the kids were so excited that we were going to go over a block or two to do it again, but as we were on our way I saw a man with a crippled leg that made it so that he could barely walk. God told me we needed to pray for him, so we went over and asked if we could. When we asked we found out he was also mute but could understand everything we were saying. The man said that the leg gave him too much pain to walk on it and said we could pray, so we did. We prayed once, asked the man how he felt and he indicated that the pain had left. One person from the group said we should pray again, so we did. Afterward we asked him how he felt and he said that he had no more pain! So we asked him if he could walk and he began to walk out in front of us! He hurried over to the rest of the tough-looking men in their twenties or thirties nearly jumping for joy and motioning toward us indicating what had happened and telling them to listen to us. We had probably twenty or thirty tough men staring at us, waiting for what we would do next, so we got up in front of them and preached the Gospel, telling them that Jesus wanted to heal them physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally too, and then showed them how they could pray for Christ to come into their hearts. We then led the man who had been healed to Christ. I believe all of those men were affected greatly and that many went on to accept Christ.

As we were leaving, an elderly woman came up to us and asked us if we could pray for her nephew who had a tumor. We said we would and we followed her to his house. We prayed for the man, but the tumor didn’t go away while we were there. We told them, however, that it didn’t scare us that it didn’t happen right away because we believed that it would soon and told them that they should be praying for him as well, but when we said that the elderly lady said that she didn’t know how to pray. So we got the opportunity to share with her the fact that we can talk to God just like we would talk to our dad because He is our Father! The whole experience was truly a testimony to God’s greatness. Glory to God!

this week

This week was a very relaxing week after the stress of the previous couple weeks. We returned to the original schedule with less class hours and got in a new couple of teachers. Our teachers for this week were a slightly older couple from Canada named Doug and Jan. They were amazing. They taught on relationships of every kind, but focused a lot on male/female relationships which made for interesting classes. I thought they handled the topic very well, with all the care that a topic of that weight deserves. More than that, they are really awesome people and you could feel their love come through in all of their teaching. They are really funny and very fun to be around, which helped the week significantly. This week on Wednesday we also had a live webcast with the founder of Youth With a Mission and tons of other YWAM bases all over the world where the people from the base in Egypt were interviewed about what's happening there. If you don't know what has been going on, basically the government has been peacefully overthrown which has caused some major changes in the country (which is one of the major centers of the Muslim world) which have the potential to turn the whole Muslim world on its head.

the last couple weeks

The last couple weeks have been... well... interesting. We had a couple teachers come in and we didn't see eye-to-eye on a few things. Actually, we completely disagreed doctrinally on a lot of things that they taught in class. In fact, I would say that most of the students in my school disagreed with them at least on some points. They also spoke for two weeks and requested extra class time to cover everything they wanted to go over. This made for a very interesting couple of weeks. I got very frustrated, and even angry at times, but I know that all of it is God's way of refining me. This is His way of working all things together for my good (Romans 8:28). He has been bringing a lot of things to the surface in my life, and these two weeks were no exception. Through these last weeks He brought to the surface pride issues I thought I had dealt with but now I realize they still need a lot of work. Although the last two weeks have been rough, I love being able to rest in the fact that He is working everything out in my life to make me into the man He wants me to be.

p.s.

Please be praying for myself and the rest of the people here on the Youth With A Mission Mazatlan Base. We have been passing around a couple different illnesses and couple really use some prayer.

Week three

This last week of my Discipleship Training School was amazing. The subject of the classes was the Father Heart of God. He did some amazing things in my life through everything that happened this week. He has really been showing me a lot about who He is and who I am. He has been really pruning me over the last couple weeks to make me more like Him. This week was a lot easier on me as I think I am getting into the swing of things and the rhythm of life here on the base. God has really been showing up in this time. On Friday I got the opportunity to go to the red light district during the day to do some ministry. It was an amazing experience. We went around the area led by someone from the colonia (Spanish for neighborhood) making house calls and praying for people in that rather poor, rough part of town. When we finally got back to the house we had left from, the children were out front playing so we all started playing with them. As we were Michael (one of the leaders and translators on the base) came outside and told us there was one more person we needed to pray for. We went into the house and found a woman crying and were told her husband had left her and that she had three children. As they continued talking with her I gathered from my limited Spanish that she had started using drugs to help deal with the pain and that she was actually on drugs at the time. She had fallen away from the faith and had started having questions whether or not God still loved her or if He existed at all. Through much prayer and many tears she eventually repented ad came to Christ with her pains.

Today I had the opportunity to go to a small pueblo (Spanish for village) outside of Mazatlan called La Quelite. It took about an hour and a half to get there in a truck-taxi (that's right, here they have taxis where you basically sit on benches in the back of a truck with a cover over it) to get there, but it was worth it. It was a small village in the mountains where things seemed to be very slow-paced and quiet, a nice change of pace from the city. It was a lot of fun to walk around the town and see the simpler way of life the people there live. We had the opportunity to climb to the top of a mountain where there was a shrine to the patron saint of lost causes. The view from there was spectacular! Probably my favorite experience from the excursion was when we all decided to take a ride on some donkeys and horses that were there with their owners in the middle of town. Everyone got on their animal, leaving me with the last pick. I looked around and found the last available animal, a small boy's worn out, sorry looking, tiny donkey. There are some hilarious photos of me on that poor little burro. Overall it was a very good, relaxing day.

week two

This week we sunk into what I suppose "normal life" here on the base is going to be like. Class every day, 2-4 hours a day, work duties 10 hours a week, evangelism, and base intercession make for a pretty packed schedule. That means a fairly small amount of free time and a very tired group of DTS students. We have been pushing it pretty hard, but through all of it God has really been working in and through me. I am so glad to be here being a part of God's Will for Mexico and for my life as well. Today was a good example of how this all comes into play. We woke up at 5:50 so that we could leave by 6 to go climb to the top of the tallest natural lighthouse in the world (right here in Mazatlan) for intercession with a local church, then headed back to the base for a quick breakfast and shower, then we all rushed to clean the base and practice a drama and the worship set for the multi-church youth event we helped put on at 11. After all of that I am completely worn out, but I am so glad that we got the opportunity to partner with a local body to war for this city and to make a difference in some local kids' lives. Though I am sore and exhausted, I wouldn't trade this for the world.

Week 1

This week has been really amazing so far. All the people here are so loving. I love all of the other students and I can tell all the staff really cares about us getting the most out of this experience. Spiritually this first week has been very good for me as well. God has already begun to do some great things in my heart, showing me His Heart for people and showing me what He wants to clean up in my heart. I know that these are the beginnings of great things and that the One who started a good work in me will carry it on to completion. The thing that keeps going through my mind is that I can hardly believe that all of this is real. This has been such a big dream of mine and now God is finally making it happen!

arrival

Well, I got to Mazatlan safely earlier today. The flights were pretty good, but I am pretty tired. The weather here is amazing! The city seems like a place I will quickly fall in love with and the people here are great! Everyone here on the base is really friendly and I can tell they will all be easy to get along with. I can also tell that my Spanish skills will improve pretty quickly because everything outside the base is in Spanish and about half the people here on the base are fluent. Most of all, I can tell just by being here that God is going to do some great things in me here. I can't wait!

final week in the US

Well, this is my last week before I go to Mexico. To say that I'm totally prepared would be an overstatement, and I realize how unprepared I am more and more as time goes on. Actually, last night I was getting prayed over for this trip at Current Church and God kinda helped me realize just how much I am unprepared for what He is going to do. I don't mean that in a bad way, it's more like I have tried to prepare myself for this trip, but I have mainly been thinking with my own intellect about what I want and what I think will happen, but I believe that He is going to do so much more through it! Ephesians 3:20 says that He can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine which means that no matter what great things I think to ask Him for in relation to this trip, He can do (and wants to do) even greater things. God is so good!