Matt Short

My teams are off and running on their own!!! It’s crazy to think that the lecture phase of the DTS has already come to a close. It went so FAST but it’s been good… full of challenges, struggles, but plenty of growth. The four outreach teams left last Saturday on December 20th for their respective locations/ministries (Thailand, Australia, NZ/Climbing, and NZ/Hiking) and are doing well.

I, myself, have a bit of time to get my feet beneath me before I run off to provide the teams with pastoral visits and I’m trying my hardest to use it wisely. On that note, MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!! I hope you’ve all enjoyed a wonderful Christmas with your families and taken time to rejoice on this day celebrated as our Lord and Savior’s Birthday. I am partially writing this update to rejoice in the Lord for the testimony He has given me through my travels over his birthday, but first more info on my travel plans these next couple months. So my plans look something like this as of right now:

January 1^st - Fly to Australia and visit Steven and Jessica’s outreach team for 10 days

January 12^th – Fly to Thailand to visit Kieran’s outreach team for a couple weeks

January 27^th – Fly back to New Zealand to catch up with the two NZ outreach teams (Denver and Nicki’s)

February 14^th -20^th – Teams return to base for Debrief week. I’ll work along side the base director to help the students draw together all they’ve learned over this time and sort out how they can use it in their lives. I’m REALLY excited for this week. I feel this week can be one of the most crucial weeks of an entire DTS.

February 20^th – GRADUATION!!!

February 23^rd -26^th – Staff Debrief

March 2^nd – I fly HOME!!!

Alright, now for all of you who are still with me. Here’s a bit of something to build your faith:

I left this past Tuesday with plans to travel to Mt. Cook, the highest mountain in NZ, for Christmas but God needed to get my attention about a few things. That morning I sat reading my Bible and praying when the Lord specifically lead me to Matthew 6:33 which basically states, “Seek first my kingdom and my righteousness and all these things I will give to you as well.” All these things being, all the worldly cares and concerns that man kind values.

Now to level with you, I’ve been quite sick of simply running a program lately. I naturally revert to it and so easily can try to do things by my own strength instead of looking for and trusting in the Lord’s guidance. And God was really trying to grab my attention with this verse. So I took this as a challenge and felt lead specifically to leave on my trip “ill-prepared” in a way of trusting in the Lord’s provision. Thus I removed my cooking utensils, extra supply of food, and warm clothing from my pack. I also felt clear guidance to skip breakfast and get out to the road because the Lord was going to provide a ride to prove his faithfulness. With nothing more than an empty grumbling stomach to lose, I headed out to the main road in Oxford and popped out my thumb.

God is SOOOO GOOD! Of course He provided. Within minutes I was in a car with a gentleman named Sam who took me out to coffee. It wasn’t till half way through our 3 hour drive that I opened up and shared how grateful I was for the coffee and how God was using him to build my faith. I don’t know if Sam was a Christian or not but I’ll tell you this, I challenged him to reconsider his faith in an all powerful God who loves us enough to care about the stupid little silly things.

To shorten things so that this isn’t like reading a book… I wound up in Timaru where I was blessed to be taken out by a pastor I knew. Pastor Gordon Rosewall spoke on this DTS so it was great to catch up with him and share how the school’s been doing. However, Timaru was a bit out of my way and I initially didn’t plan on going there, but that’s just where God lead me.

By around 6pm I was in a small town named Fairlie, well on my way but beginning to lose hope of ever getting to Mt. Cook by night fall. I had just decided to bed down for the night when a car pulled over and offered me a ride all the way through to Wanaka, where Nicki’s outreach team was, if I wanted. That was REALLY cool since the way to Wanaka passed directly past the Mt. Cook turn off. I took this ride with Peter, a plastic surgeon from Christchurch who had done a fair bit of hitching of his own in younger days. Once more, I had great conversations with Peter and got to share a bit of my testimony with him… but that’s not what I’m writing about.

This is a good time for an intermission. If you need a re-fill of pop corn or need to go take a leak. Now would be the best time… you won’t want to miss this next bit.

I had Peter drop me off at the Mt. Cook turn off because I still had a peace about going there, even though by this point I had decided to go visit Nicki’s team in Wanaka instead of hike up to the hut at Mt. Cook for Christmas. It was as if there was still something I needed to do but I didn’t know what. So I got out, FLIPPIN STOKED to be within sight of Mt. Cook by this time of day. I got out my i-pod and had a nice little worship session of my own out in the middle of no where as cars drove by. Once more, GOD IS SOOOOOO GOOD!

A lovely 30 something year old woman then pulled over and picked me up. It was sort of ironic because automatically I recognized her as a Department of Conservation Officer who had helped us previously at Mt. Cook. Thus she also recognized me as a YWAMer and Christian as she said, “Ahhh, good a Christian. I have some things to discuss with you.” Haha, I took a deep breath and went for my spiritual work gloves. Just kidding but I did regret having put my bags in her car at that moment. Joanne is a born again Christian with a wonderful heart. She shared with me some of the struggles she’d been experienced lately and simply opened her heart to me about some serious stuff her friend is going through. I loved being a sounding board. I probably didn’t offer her much consolation but I do believe I helped her process these issues.

An hour and some later we were in Mt. Cook Village and Joanne offered me dinner, the “privilege” of helping her rap presents , and a backyard to sleep in…. so I took it. I was greatly blessed to have a sister in Christ that I could be open with and enjoy some good Christmas spirit with. I loved it! The next morning I got up well refreshed, had a good quiet time, rapped a small present of gratitude for Joanne which I left in her flat while she ran off to work, and jumped back out on the road.

Chapter 2

haha, jk… but thanks for sticking with me if you have. I pray you’re being encouraged by this. Don’t worry there isn’t TOO much left.

Christmas Eve I finally made it to Wanaka where I surprised Nicki’s team and joined them for some Wake boarding and tubing. That was a delightful surprise for all of us but they’d met a hitch hiker who had the hook ups, I guess. I DEFINITELY didn’t complain seeing how I REALLY enjoy wakeboarding! The two nights I spent in Wanaka I slept in the team’s van in order to save money for outreach, so once again, God provided.

Christmas the team and I spent with the backpackers and owners of the hostel having a barbeque which was great! I LOVE my school! It was super refreshing to spend that time with Nicki’s team. I really enjoyed it.

Here’s where the stark contrast that I’m still contemplating begins. My hitch hiking home became SUPER ANNOYING when I got stuck in the stupid town of Methven, an hours drive from Oxford. I couldn’t get a ride out of it for the life of me! It was ridiculous, but I’m still tying to sort out why God provided all those amazing things and then challenged me in this way. None the less, He is good and after staying the night in a hostel I hitched home this morning and am STOKED to sleep in my own bed.

God Bless and be encouraged this New Year, for our God is our great and mighty provider! He is faithful to the end! Amen

With only one week left of lectures and the teams leaving for outreach nerves are tense and anxiety high. Everyone’s stoked for a change of pace but unsure of what will come of the next two months. And though for the most part I am describe my own feelings there I know that at least 80% of the school’s in the same boat.

The students are in a season of shaking right now. The past three weeks have revealed many things to them. The most obvious things are poor attitudes and spiritual struggles, however many good things have also become evident. There was a word spoken by this past week’s speaker referring to “God shakes what can be shaken, that afterwards only what is unshakable will remain” and this describes exactly what is needed among the school right now.

Last week we had a rather eccentric local pastor speak on the Holy Spirit which raddled peoples cages a bit. Nothing “crazy” or “weird” happened the entire week, even though we may have needed it, but that was more due to the reluctance of the school. Then after the last lecture on Friday Bobby, a student who’s carried a hematoma in his leg since the second week of lectures, tripped tearing the hematoma. Everyone gathered around and began to pray, but soon it became evident that this time wasn’t needed for Bobby’s sake but the school’s. The floor was opened up for people to share, confess things, and ask for forgiveness… and let me tell you, we needed it! The school needed to experience a bit of deeper unity and we found it there, being humble, being open, and straight forward with each other.

I’ll admit, I hardly knew what to do at the time, but as I’ve said before, “I am SO grateful for my staff!” I didn’t want to nor felt the need to “lead” that time. Even though I did share some things the Lord lead me to say, I mostly allowed my staff to run things. They stepped up to the plate and proved their maturity in that time, leading as they felt the Lord’s guidance.

My staff and I later met to share our feelings on what happened that afternoon and that too was a great time. We spent a good couple hours just hanging out, praying for each other, and discussing how to lead the rest of the school in this humility and unity. I LOVE IT! I am going to miss my staff GREATLY when they leave for outreach but have COMPLETE faith in them.

In conclusion, the school has one final week of lectures taught by Graeme and Sabrina Walsh on “Healing and Deliverance” then they’ll clean up the base and leave on the 20th. There are four teams: one going to Thailand, one going to Australia, and two others remaining in NZ reaching out to two different genres of backpackers. My role during these next two months is to provide the teams with pastoral help. I’ll be visiting each team at some point, but I’m not there to lead. I’ll be there to support them, challenge them, encourage them or deal with any major problems if they arise.

Please keep me in your prayers as I attempt to walk in the Lords wisdom and challenge these young adults to move by faith. I am SO grateful for your prayers. Our God has blessed me greatly with a wonderful support group. May the Lord bless you for your commitment and support of this ministry. And glory be to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as these twenty students take the good news into this practically unreached people group, defined by the name Global Nomadic Youth (more commonly known as Backpackers). May the Lord bless them with safe travels and grace as they speak.

Amen