Life as a YWAM staffer

Well, its been quite awhile since I have had a chance to write on my blog. Life has been very busy these past 6 weeks since I arrived in Port Credit and came on staff with the JAMM DTS here. As is typical YWAM style it has been a roller coaster ride, with each week being different from the last. It's been so great to get to know the 14 students that have come from all around the world. So much to learn from the variety of cultures!

We started the beginning, getting to know each other and hearing testimonies. I have to admit, that is the one thing I hate about YWAM - your reality comes crashing down. You begin to really realize all too often how much we put on happy-go-lucky faces when we walk into Church and pretend everything is all right. I always new this in part but hearing of peoples stories on my DTS and again now amongst this group, the sadness that is in some of their pasts, the SEXUAL abuse that is in MANY of their pasts, its revolting and disgusting and especially just plain sad. We think being within the Church that we should be immune from some of this but it seems as though there is just as much, if not more of these issues within our circles. The only difference is we try to pretend it isn't true and it is not there. There truly is so much brokenness in our homes - thank-goodness though we have such a loving God who is faithful and loving and forgiving and who gives hope in life.

Another thing I have began to understand a bit more in the last while is on the topic of Spiritual Warfare. I came face to face with it a few times on my DTS, it is not fun, it is instills fear. Once a week, every Wednesday, our group heads down to Toronto for outreach. We have linked up with Project 417 out of the Salvation Army building in Regent Park area to hand out bagged lunches. After the first week of orientation, where Joe (the Director of P417) walked us around the various areas around Regent Park to orient our group to Toronto, a number of the students became rather fearful of outreach. Our second week going out, this fear came out in another effect. After finishing the sandwich runs, 2 of the 3 teams were waiting in the Tim Hortons - our meeting spot. A man walked in, walked around and straight through our group and back out the door and a few seconds later came right back in and charged at Joe and punched him right in the face. Everything was all so very sudden, Joe quickly pinning the man down and two of our guys helped holding him. A few of the students were definitely shaken up at first by the events. We even found ourselves giving of witness testimonies as to what had taken place. We discussed it later and again the next day in class, what is Spiritual Warfare and how did that relate to the evening. The man had obvious mental issues and possibly had stopped taken his meds, it seemed very much that there were issues or demons inside and when he passed through our group something just triggered. There was no connection between him or Joe, it was random... Just to note the students are doing better and our last run went really well, but it really makes you more aware. When you are in circles, learning about our Lord, Satan is going to take any and every little fear and spin into something bigger to distract us and pull us away.

I was talking with a friend who made a very good note. Often we stick our children in Christian schools so they have a good Christian upbringing and well, lets face it - we think a safer experience. BUT are we deceiving ourselves to think that wouldn't Satan be all the more in that place? He doesn't want us to learn about God and he is definitely going to do everything in his power to keep us from our Heavenly Father.

Anyhow just a thought.

Well this coming week is definitely going to be an interesting one that I can't wait for. We will be moving out of our 'cozy' apartments here in Port Credit and moving down into a Church on Parliament and Bloor area for our lesson week on "Jesus in the City", where the speaker will be using various exercises of seeing and revealing Jesus in the context of Toronto. It will be a good lead up to our main outreach as it will be interesting to see how the students react to this week. Some of the luxuries of having TV, Internet and a phone at their fingertips won't be available.

Please pray for our group in this week and that they may continually be open to all the God has to share with each one of them.