By: Daniel Whitson
I live my life
according to what God tells me to do. Some people call that crazy, but I don’t
mind it because to know God, to see other people come to know him and understand
what real true life is, makes all the negative criticism worth it. I am not talking about the laid back,
“I believe in Jesus just to get into heaven type of Christianity,” but a “Hey,
God is reality. He is not something I make up in my mind type of Christianity”.
He is going to ask me to do bigger and crazier things in my life the more I am
faithful to him.
When I was 18, I
heard a call from God to go and do a DTS (Discipleship Training School) at YWAM
(Youth With a Mission)in Honolulu HI which, at the time, I thought was crazy. I
learned in DTS, that my life was no longer my own if I surrender my life to
Christ, that God ran it, I am not
the boss anymore, and that to obey God was faith because it meant I trusted Him.
As a result, I have endeavored to live my life that way.
Everyday, I pray and
I trust that He is speaking to me and I move in that direction. Every Friday, I
go to Chinatown here in Honolulu, with a group of trainees or seasoned staff,
and we reach out to the homeless. Usually, we try to buy some McDoubles and
hand them out to people on the street. The other day, I was talking to a man
that lives on the street, named Cliff, and he told me that people would come
around tell him about Jesus, tell him to change his heart , repent, but he told me, “All I could think
about, while they were telling me about Jesus, was that I was hungry.” So it helps that we hand out the
McDoubles because it makes room for us to share about Jesus and show them that
we actually care, that we are not just trying to shove religion down their
throats. During my time in the mission field, I have learned that people need
to see that love is genuine; McDonald’s hamburgers apparently help us show that
at times.
Ever since I learned to trust Him, I have lived my life
completely reliant on God, and He has never come up short. I may not see what
He is doing, but that is not up to me because it’s about simple obedience. Obedience helps me to trust God, which
helps me to get to know Him, and as it turns out, knowing Him is eternal life.
God not only wants us to obey Him in order to bring glory to Him, but he also
wants us to obey Him so that we can share in eternal life with Him. That is the
point of faith. That is why I do what I do, to get to know God, and to live my
life as it was meant to be: In complete obedience to God because that is True Life.
One day, I will look back
on the times when He spoke to me and say, “Hey, God this time is hard, but I
have seen You move in my life. I’m going for it, I’m moving forward because I
trust You, and I want to see You move in miraculous ways.” This type of faith
brings freedom, peace, revelation, but it’s not easy. The environment around
you tries to make you feel like you’re a loser and you amount to nothing.
Throughout my time as a missionary, the latter criticisms are all things that I
have felt or heard from people. As I am getting older these negative criticisms
seem to be getting worse, but I trust God. I trust in His faithfulness, not only
because it says it in the Bible, but because I have found Him to be faithful in
my life.
Earlier
this year, YWAM appointed me the new leader for The School of Missions and
Evangelism (aka The SOME)! Through this school God has used people to help
pioneer YWAM India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Taiwan. As a result, thousands of
people have been affected, discipled, and come to know Jesus through YWAM in
these areas. This position is very intimidating to me, but I know that, with God,
I can do anything, I have the confidence that this is going be amazing, and God
is going to work through me in awesome ways. My personal goal for the school is
to send out 45 missionaries over the next 5 years that live and work in
unreached areas. The goal may be big, but I know that God will send us the
right people to train, and inspire to go out. So I’m going for it!
My other job on the
base is to cook in our kitchen, which takes up most of my day. Working in the
kitchen has been challenging for me. It challenges my attitude
and faithfulness. Honestly, I do not have the greatest attitude toward cooking
everyday, but God is challenging me to be faithful and keep a good attitude in
everything I do. However, I am learning things about cooking I never knew before,
and I love working with people in the kitchen. They have been very thoughtful
and kind (and very understanding, too).
My main job at YWAM Honolulu is
to recruit, train, and write the curriculum to make the best missionaries
possible.
There are
a couple of other things I do on the side. First, I lead worship at the base
several times a month. Also, I play the bass in the new worship band, every Thursday, for our weekly
community meeting. I feel so
blessed that God has blessed me with a little bit of musical talent to where I
can lead worship. It’s amazing. Furthermore, I am on a team where we try to
take care of the people YWAM has sent out long term to Asia.
Every week, I share about their ministry and what they are
doing in Asia .Then we pray for them and take an offering. YWAM Honolulu is
trying to take better care of our long term missionaries. Moreover, this is a
way that I can practically help to encourage them, pray for them, and take care
of their needs. Our base is currently running two schools. One is called
Discipleship Training School (DTS), and the other is Chronological Biblical Core
Course (CBCC). Our DTS has 6 students and they are going on an outreach to
Bangladesh, which is a very poor unreached country. We have 3 teams out right
now on their outreach that we have trained and sent out one in Cambodia, one in
the Philippines and one is in New Zealand. All of these teams are serving and
making an impact. We are so proud of all of them and are stoked that they are
bringing the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth. Our CBCC team is
studying the bible chronologically, which is one of the next steps in being
trained at our base. Also, in this program, the students study the Bible
inductively trying to see from the eyes of the original readers, see how they
would have viewed it, and taking that and applying it to their lives now. These
school are the way we train our missionaries, so that when they go out to do long-term
missions, they will be as equipped as possible.
How you can help…
In order that I may
continue to help equipping future missionaries and continue my mission work, the
last thing that I am trying to do is reach a goal of support for the summer. I
want to raise enough money to pay for my staff fees, car bills, gas, and bills
for the summer. $4050 will cover all of my expenses for the summer. This
doesn’t include spending money or savings. I hope that you will pray about
sending me a one time gift to support me through the summer!
Your gifts are tax deductible
Support Address:
Daniel Whitson, 2707 Hipawai Place, Honolulu, HI 96822
Checks made out to
“YWAM” and put my name on
the “For” line
Let me know if you want
to use a CC as well
Even if you can’t
afford to send me support this summer, I would ask that you:
Pray for our school:
· That God would send a lot of students that are
passionate about frontier missions
· For more staff because we are expecting our
school to be pretty big and we need six more staff
· For the right location for our school because we
are out growing our YWAM base and are in need of another location to run the
school
· That
God would raise me up to be the best most effective leader I can be for the
school
Pray for this
ministry:
· That YWAM would have a permanent effective
presence
· That Hawaii would come up with greater
solutions in getting people off the street, into permanent housing, and
bringing people to know Jesus
· That God would bring solution to addiction to
meth in Hawaii
· That there would be revival in Chinatown in
Hawaii
Cell: 443-289-4517
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