From training to TRAINING

These past weeks have been the busiest ones I’ve ever spent here. God is SO good to keep me sane. :) I’ve spent the majority of my time preparing for the school which is just around the corner. The rest of my time I’ve spent training my staff and helping them begin with the work they’ll be doing.

This past week and a half my staff and I have spent living up the street from the base in a separate house, growing, learning, and studying together. I’ve really enjoyed the time I’ve gotten to spend with them and I’m excited to see how God’s going to use each one of them. I have two guys and three girls on my staff team, and there is 20 students on our school. I’m glad it’s a slightly smaller school especially with only 5 staff members. The acceptance process has been sort of ironic as well. A couple times now we’ve reached 22 or 23 students but each time a couple people back out, so it seems that 20’s a good round number to stick with.

The school begins on October 5th. We’ll have a week of administration things to do and simple short teachings like “Devotions” or “Worship” each day. The second week we jump into things with a couple over seas speakers coming to teach on Backpacker Evangelism. With that broad focus I hope the students will quickly grasp the vision of what we do on outreach and pursue it on their weekend activities. From there, on the third week we go into more intimate and deep topics such as “The Lordship of Christ” and “Father Heart of God”.

All this to say, things are flowing smoothly, though they may be stressful from time to time, God is guiding me with every step. I’ve found it slightly difficult to step right into this job without evident direction but that only helps me to rely on Him more. God is faithful through every trial and tribulation we’ll EVER face. He’s been there done that, no matter what you can imagine. And THAT’S an encouraging thought.

God Bless

The Visions I Serve

YWAM Oxford Base Vision Statement
Our vision is to develop and maintain a Christian community where young men and women from many different nations can come and grow in their love for God, His work, and His world by way of short term, Bible based courses, practical cross-cultural field experiences, and hands-on leadership training.
 

Backpacker’s Discipleship Training School Vision Statement

Our vision is to radically impact the GLOBAL NOMADIC YOUTH of the world with the good news of Jesus Christ. We are called to reach out to these intrepid adventurers by way of relational (friendship) evangelism, hospitality, and discipleship training. We will travel alongside them, eat with them, live life with them, and share the love of God with them. We will be their family. We see them searching. We see them being transformed by the places they have seen and the people they have met along their journey. We refuse to be bystanders. We insist that we have what they are searching for and we commit to sharing THE TRUTH with them, even if that means we are cold, hungry, lonely, and road weary. They are on the heart of God and so on our hearts too.