so close yet so far

Like a smack in the face, here I am less than a month away from leaving for China! I leave December 5th. It so close I can taste it. I am soooooooo excited to be able to get back. I think about China about 1000 times a day, and it only gets worse the closer I get to it. My team cannot wait to get on that plane to go to the mother land.

Life goes really fast on the last few weeks of the (Discipleship Training School) DTS. It seems that you wake up on Friday everyday wondering where did the week go. I am really busy with meetings with the teams, local outreaches, lectures, practical discipleship, leadership meetings, and accountability times with all the guys on my team. So I am feeling pretty tired from the craziness of the school, so today I took the day off to rest and also to update you guys on what is happening with me. 

Some really cool news from the school is our outreach. Most of the students on my local outreach to the  university are very excited to go on campus and just do what ever God asks them to do in prayer before we go out. This is awesome because most of the time when I am have led outreaches that have been more about meeting people on the street people have most of the time been very timid to do so, but these students are awesome and go for it! Anyways, a girl on our team felt the lord speak to her to go to a certain building on the campus, obediently she went for it. she didn't know really if it was God, but she just thought she would take the chance. So she went up to the building went up stairs and felt like she was supposed to talk to this girl. She did, and led her to Christ! The girl is now being discipled by one of our students! It is so cool to see fruit through her obedience! We are excited to see more! 

My team is so great, we are very much there for each other. I love how we are becoming more and more unified. God totally put each and every member on our team. At first I was kind of sick of my team, but the more and more I get to know my team the more I love them and am glad they are on it. We are learning skits and dances for the outreach, which stretches me and my team a ton because it is not really something we are very comfortable with, but we are learning to enjoy them. We have decided  to fast every Friday lunch to pray as a team for our outreach and for each other, which is vital for the health of our team, for hearing from God, and keeping us focused on the goal. The more I pray the more I realize that God does answer prayer and how important it is. 

I am always up and down with my life. Some weeks I am up and I love YWAM, and some weeks I am down and want to quit, I am glad God is not like me in that way. This week has been a pretty tough week even though it is Tuesday. Discipleship is tough. Its tiring, but worth it. This week is a hard week because I am tired and the constant demand of the school is wearing on me. We are seeing major break through is a lot of our students. Jesus never said it would be easy. I am learning lately that being faithful and doing what you say you are going to do isn't the most exciting, but its the most important thing. I am learning more and more that the christian life is mostly about hearing from God and stick with what he tells you to do despite how you feel. That is what I am learning. I know this is a simple concept, but with ministry from what I have seen with me and other people in it, that when it gets hard people quit. I no longer want to be that way. I want to be faithful to what God has called me.  I hope you enjoyed my update. Pray for me. I need it. 

Here is some practical things that I need/want to share. 

1.Being on staff at YWAM I am not on salary, so I have to raise all my support from churches and members of the body of Christ like you. 

2. I am in desperate need of people to partner with me in prayer. I have people that say they are praying for me, but I never hear from them. It would be great to get people to be committed to praying for me and staying in contact with me to encourage me in the hard times. people that I can be honest with and them pray for me. 

3. I am leaving for Bangkok on December 5th where I will be helping one of our students get his visa to China. It turns out that Norwegians cannot apply for visas to china by mail they have to go face to face with a person at a consulate. There is not one in Hawaii. So we are flying to Thailand then flying up to China after we get his visa. (if you have questions about why this is the most practical thing send me a email) 

4. I need about 1700 dollars more for my plane ticket and visa. I would love it if you would pray and ask God if you are supposed to give. 

back to the drawing board.

I sent out a letter recently. I hope most of you received it. It was mainly concerned with the fact that I am rejoining YWAM and am now on staff here, in Honolulu. I am a leader in a school called "Discipleship Training School"(DTS) I have begun to give young people a chance to encounter God and Missions in a whole new light. I originally attended this school back in September 2003 and it radically changed the course of my life.

The school first, and foremost, showed me what it was like to have a relationship with God. My relationship with God went from believing in Him, because I was afraid to go to hell, to starting to understand that God not only had grace for me to save me from eternal judgment, but that He also had a plan and purpose for my life. I also learned that being a Christian meant more than praying a saving prayer. It also meant that God desired for me to serve Him with my life. I learned that God was completely in love with the each person that He created to live in this World and wanted to have a relationship with each person to the point that they would desire to give up their own lives to live out the calling that He had planned for each of them. His purpose is, and will continue to be, to see all nations, tribes, and tongues give Him glory. That is what my purpose will be for as long as I live, by the Grace of God. 

The most important thing I learned in my DTS is that God is interactive.  Praying is not just upward, it is a two way communication between God and each of us. I learned that I can hear from Him and that He wants to speak to me. This was vital for my relationship with Him.  I wanted something real and authentic and God, speaking to me, was the most real thing that I continue to experience with Him. Anyway, needless to say, I had a great time in my DTS.

Now I have the chance to see God work in students’ to give them a heart for “ The Nations”, to help them understand that God loves them and that He has a plan for their lives, if they surrender to Him. The change is many times quite rapid and over a short period of time. DTS is great because it creates a culture of seeking God. I feel that the Church is supposed to look a little like a DTS, not just here, in Hawaii but that Christians all over the world should be living in community, seeking God together discipling each other, and reaching out to the world together.

My weekly schedule is packed here in Honolulu:

1. We lead a lot of different outreaches from the base; one is to the homeless on Waikiki, the other is to the homeless in another part of Honolulu.  I lead an outreach to the University Of Hawaii campus which is right in our back yard. Just in the last few weeks about 15 students from our school have gone around the campus, praying and hearing from God. He gives us “words” that is special knowledge (i.e. for the people they meet on campus). It’s amazing to see how God speaks to people and ministers to them. People often give a bad name to street evangelism, but I am here to say that God uses it. He wants to speak to people right now in their lives, where they’re at and we are seeing our students experience that revelation. We have ministered to a bunch of people and I expect the outreach to get even more fruitful. God wants to meet with people. God wants to use people to bring Him glory. We do get rejected sometimes, but most of the time it is cool to see how God speaks and, if we obey, what God does through us.  We are going to start working with Campus Crusade for Christ, which is very exciting.

2.  The thing I am most excited about is going back to China. I am leading a team with a girl named Tiffany. We have a team of ten; four girls and six guys.  I will be going to a city in the south for a month and then a city in the north for a month. (If any of you would like more details on what locations please email me, for security reasons, I am not going to put city names and dates.) I am so excited to show people China and hopefully God will speak to them and give them a heart for this nation. We will be working in pre-schools, English clubs, orphanages, and with college students. Our main goal is to bless the long term staff there. We know that blessing them is what will have the greatest impact on the cities in which we work.  We have to prepare songs, skits, dances, and English lessons. We are also in the midst of applying for our visas, buying plane tickets, and making arrangements with contacts in China. So we are very busy.

3. I am responsible for meeting with all of the guys on my team each week in a group and individually, seeing how they are doing, keeping them accountable, and making sure they are getting their work done. It is really amazing to see the changes that are made weekly with the guys on my team. Through these young men I am reminded that God is faithful to meet with us, if we surrender and seek his face.

4. I lead worship here a lot. Last Sunday I led at a local church called Christ Fellowship and I led at our Thursday night meeting at the YWAM base. God has given me a gift to lead and I am trying to develop it during this season of my life.

5. We have lectures Monday through Friday. They are lectures on YWAM’s principles, anything from hearing God’s voice, to evangelism, to spiritual gifts to….. This weeks lecture is on the Holy Spirit so this is always challenging for people no matter what background they come from. So pray for us as we read through the bible, and try to understand what it says about the Holy Spirit! 

There is so much more that I would like to say, but this update is long enough. I am super busy all the time but am thankful for this chance to stay in contact with everyone. 

I miss everyone back in Maryland, dearly. Thank you all for being there for me while I was home. I have the greatest group of friends in the world!

Dan

 Prayer Points:

Pray for my team going to China just that the holy spirit would go ahead of us and prepare the way. That God would use us in a mighty way. 

Pray that God would provide all the money we need. It's due this friday.

Pray for continued break through with the students that God would continue to mold their character through the school and give them a firm foundation to build on for the rest of their lives.

Pray that my leadership ability would grow even further.

Pray for our local outreach that God would grow it and make it effective.