Matt Short

     So here’s everything, the short of the long of it. It may be a bit wordy but hang in there and you’ll basicly have a handle on what I’m up to right now. OK here we go…
     We’re in our fourth week of lectures, our topic being, Biblical World View. Lectures run from around 9:30 most days till 1:00 with a short brake in between. A few of the next subjects to come will be such things as Lordship of Jesus Christ, Father Heart of God, Missions, Relationships, and so on. I am a Small Group Leader, a Bible Study Leader, and an Outreach Leader. I’m in charge of Outreach preps which are on Wednesday nights, Media which I head up with another staff member, and Transportation which requires me to plan and organize vehicles for trips or events that we do. On top of these duties I do One-on-Ones with the four guys in my small group as often as possible, which turns out to be every week and a half, to check how their doing and make sure no one is getting lost.
     My small group dudes are Mark from CO, Erik from GA, David from FL, (who are all 19 years old) and Bryan from WA who’s 22. Their a cool motley crew who I have a good time with. Mark’s also on my Outreach Team and Erik’s in my Bible Study Group. We meet every Monday afternoon for a couple hours to spend time together. For small groups I check how each dudes doing and discuss the things that we’re learning in lectures. Accountability amongst us guys is huge too! For small groups I try to make things fun and not so interview-ish so we usually do something cool and then sit down and chat, like climb through tree hedges or go down to rivers to swim and screw around.
     My Outreach Team is made up of a Married couple, Joe and Regula, from Switzerland who’re both in their early 30’s; Heidie from Denmark, who’s in her early 20’s; Lucie from England, who’s 18; Cody and Mark from CO who are both 19 and I. They’re a very down to earth and fun group. We have Outreach prep meetings every Wednesday afternoon for a couple hours to plan and intercede a bit more of the trip. Outreach itself is looking like we’ll fly into New Delhi in India and remain there for a while. From New Delhi the options are limitless but we will most likely wind up in Kathmandu in Nepal. Another place that’s very likely as of right now is Darjeeling in the east of India. We should be leaving for outreach around December 29th and returning the 28th-ish of February. It should only cost me around 2,800 USD for the trip (not including travelers insurance), which is ridiculously cheap! Although I do need the majority of that money in within the next few weeks. Something in me allows me to not be worried. =) So yeah, I’m super excited.
     My Bible Study Group is comprised of 6 of us. We meet every Wednesday in the morning to study a chapter of Hebrews. We’ve been tearing the book apart and finding WAY more than any of us ever had before. I’ve found I love bible studies, meaning devotions are great, but when you bounce ideas off people and really grind things out you learn it better and get more out of each word.
     I’m doing well. Sort of overwhelmed at moments as you can tell from the busy schedule but when I sit back and look at it all, I see it easily could be worse. God has blessed me with amazing students, peers and leaders which makes this SOOOOO much more manageable. I’ve learned a ton about leadership and am beginning to discover my greatest strengths and places needing improvement. It’s different here….. where I use to be able to lead from experience, reputation, with force, and with some style of credentials now I have nothing of the sort. God has been teaching me that in ministry you lead, or serve more like, by anointing not by qualification. It’s good man, humbling and forcing me to rely on Him. Every time I’ve done so since that revelation has gone much better than I’d expected.
     Hope you got all that and might have a bit more of a handle on what I’m up to. Feel free to ask me questions. Sometimes I don’t know what people need to know…. yah know? haha
Rock on,
God Bless
 

Thank you all for your prayers. I am doing well and enjoying staffing this Backpacker’s DTS. It’s the middle of week three right now and I’m getting along well. I’ve found myself constantly on the go lately so today I’ve taken some time to get things done, such as this.  So far in lectures we’ve learned the basics of intercession and worship as well as Identity, Spiritual warfare, Integrity and Holiness. Some topics to to come are Holy Spirit, Father Heart of God, Lordship, and Relationships. I look forward to all that God has for me over these next couple months.

This past weekend I took a group of students up to Arthur’s Pass for an overnight camping trip. We backpacked in which only took about 2 and some hours to a hut. The hut had a couple staying in it and four free beds so a few people slept in that while two guys and I slept in a tent. Three guys and I hiked to the summit of the mountain the next day and it was BEAUTIFUL! It was completely snow capped and my toes were ice cubes, but it was absolutely worth it. The couple we’d met were Christians and I hope to catch up with at another time. They attend a small church in Christchurch that none of us had ever been to so I might check that out.

Over this past week the leaders have organized our outreach teams for this school. The outreaches are New Zealand, Southeast Asia, India/Nepal, and Egypt/Israel. I have been placed in charge of the outreach team to India and Nepal. This outreach will be 10 weeks long beginning late December and will cost $2,800 US, not including my travelers health insurance. Flying into New Delhi we will progressively work our way through India into Nepal doing backpacker evangelism. This will mostly be ministering to the travelers at our hostels, yet where other ministry arises I would love to jump on the opportunity. As well I hope to do some style of video journal throughout the trip. The team is comprised of 6 students: a married couple from Switzerland, a girl from Denmark, a girl from England, and two other dudes from Colorado. As more plans are made I will make updates but as of right now that’s about all I know.

I have all my expenses paid, except for the cost of this outreach. The base is asking that I get as much of this money in ASAP seeing how we need to buy our tickets. I am asking for your help in funding this ministry. I am expecting incredible things to come from this outreach and am EXTREMELY excited to see what God does. 

Please be praying for my team. Pray for opportunities, unity, and focus. As well just pray peace over me in this time of planning. Thank you 

By the way, Sorry for my photo gallery not working at the moment. i’ll be trying to get that back up and running soon.

The Lord is SO faithful! So true to His words! and SO gracious! Over the past year I’ve gotten a desire to shoot documentaries of missionary work. While I was home this summer my aunt and uncle helped me try to figure out what that’d look like but that didn’t go anywhere fast, haha. They can testify to my lack of direction, confusion, and frustration while I was trying to figure out what to do. I felt it was something I was suppose to pursue but, to be honest, I’m just TOTALLY clueless! haha, I thought about buying a video camera but that seemed quite zealous seeing how I would’ve had no clue what to do with it, nor anywhere to put the footage to edit it.

Since being at the base I’ve become friends with a handful of really cool brothers in Christ who have a similar calling and have been a huge encouragement. To bring this testimony of God’s goodness to a close, I am now heading up the media for the Backpacker’s Discipleship Training School with another staff member and learning tons! I’m beginning to refine my focus and learn what I’d like to make documentaries of. The base only has one kinda crummy video camera so most of what we shoot is on little digitals but Praise God, it works! The school is graced with a number of students who know their way around photography, video producing and the editing of both so I’m SUPER stoked to see how this job will play out. On top of all this, we are to be receiving in the mail several of Adobe’s best video editing programs. Though I did not have the tools, the Lord has blessed me with a way to run after the passions He’s given me. Looking forward to outreach, I would love some sort of video documentary to be a large part of the trip I lead. I see this place and time in my life now as a launching pad for me to take this passion into the nation of Asia, specifically China… if ever possible. The base director here at YWAM Oxford is the National Director of Frontier Missions and is big into developing new ministries so I’m in a great place.

God Bless and keep on keepin on

So this weekend a few staff members and I got the opportunity to take a Wilderness First Aid course. Of course I jumped on the idea, especially since the base would be paying for it. =) So we headed up near Arthur’s Pass Saturday morning to join our class of about a dozen students for some sweet rockin first aid learnin. We had a blast, learned tons and I even got to teach a bit. During our night senario the instructors kinda threw us in the deep end, giving us some stokes but not teaching the group how to use them, haha, yeah I know AWESOME! NOT! No one else knew how to use them, so I got to enjoy training everyone on the use of stokes in the dark. I may sound sarcastic but it was actually WAY FUN. The last time I took a course like this was three years ago, so it was great to relearn CPR and all that fun first aid stuff, seeing how I’d pretty much forgotten most of it.

During Staff Training this past week we chose our work duties for the quarter. I’ve taken on: Transportation, meaning I’ll be in charge of coordinating where and when the vans will be used for activities and making sure they are ready for use; Media, which I’m teaming up with Katie on to make a school video and all that fun jazz; Outreach Prep, which will require me to prepare the students for different areas of ministry they may come across… although I don’t exactly know how that will look right now. =) I’m really excited about these though and looking forward to meeting the students.

Today was crazy because we had to sittuate all the rooms with the appropriate beds, furniture, paint and MANY other loco projects all around the base to prep for the students. I met our first student yesterday and they’ll officially begin arriving at the base tomorrow. My small group is four guys all from the states. They’re ages are all somewhere between 18 and 23 and they all seem to be WAY cool guys. The school starts this Sunday and I hear we’ll be leaving for outreach some time right after Christmas. I’m SUPER STOKED and will make sure to keep you updated on how the first week of staffing goes.

God Bless, and keep on rockin as you do