England
I am on a mission’s trip with an organization called YWAM. We will be focusing on all of the host cities for the Olympics in the UK.
Prayer Requests
- That there would be unity amongst the team and amongst the staff on the base
- That God would give me his discernment and wisdom
- That I would find time each day in the midst of a busy schedule to get away from everyone and connect with God
- That there would be a vulnerability and depth of relationship amongst the DTS staff.
January 2012 Update:
The past few weeks back in England have been both amazing and challenging for me. The place where I’m staying is based in a town called Harpenden which is within the county of Hertfordshire and it’s the quaintest little English town, which consists of mainly elderly people. So not much happens there that’s out of the ordinary, it’s quite a peaceful place and the people I have met have been exceptionally friendly and pleasant.
The base itself is massive, it consists of about 10 different buildings and around 140 staff, and used to be an orphanage before YWAM purchased it. And with that many staff it is easy to feel disconnected from everyone, I have to constantly push myself to go out of my way to meet and get to know people, and I still haven’t even met the entire staff yet.
I have been working with the DTS (Discipleship Training School) team and have been preparing for the upcoming January DTS with the UK focus; it has been so exiting and encouraging to even be a part of what God is doing in the UK. To give you a bit of a picture as to what we have been working with, we have 20 staff on the upcoming DTS, which is due to the fact that the leaders have felt this DTS would be quite a bit larger, we had expected approximately 60 students, and currently only have 20 students. Registration for the DTS is still open until the end of December for all non European applicants, and is open even longer for everyone inside Europe. We are still praying for more students to apply, but know that if we only end up with 20 there is a purpose for it. The DTS will be eight months long consisting of four months of lectures and four months of outreach. The outreach phase of the DTS will be divided into two portions, focusing on all of the host cities for the Olympics. For the first two months we will be divided into six teams, and will be reaching out to the cities of Weymouth & Portland, Coventry, Cardiff, Glasgow, Newcastle and Manchester. And for the second half of outreach we will be split into two teams and will be focusing solely on London.
Since being here I have come to understand more of what the vision of the base itself is. Something that stood out to me right away was the passion that they have for reaching the UK, and not just in this next year with the Olympics and with the Impact UK DTS but even in the other DTS each team still does a short term outreach somewhere in the UK either before or after heading out to whichever country. And to me it’s so cool to see the heart this base has for the UK, and doesn’t only focus on sending teams to other places in the world. They recognize the importance of making an impact where they are, which is differ to the base I was before. Another thing I have noticed since being here is that the base also has a strong focus on unreached people groups, so many of the outreaches focus on places in Africa and in Asia which seem to be the main sending places for teams from Harpenden.
This next year the base is massively focused on reaching the UK specifically, Harpenden is probably the biggest organization for Olympic focused outreaches in the UK and we currently have about 3000 people who have signed up to come and stay at Harpenden and be a part of the Olympic outreaches that we have been organizing, which is absolutely mind blowing. The base will be literally turned into a tent city during the Olympics as we have nowhere near enough rooms for everyone who is coming. Our heart is that what God does this next year will be the start of a revival in the UK, we long to see the UK which has fallen into a place of apathy awake once again.
Prayer Requests:
. That more students would apply for the January DTS
. That there would be unity amongst the team and amongst the staff on the base
. That God would give me his discernment and wisdom
. That I would find time each day in the midst of a busy schedule to get away from everyone and connect with God
. That there would be a vulnerability and depth of relationship amongst the DTS staff.
Thank you all very much for your love and support, please let me know how I can be praying for you as well.
Be Blessed