10/24/10

The speaker for this past week was Peter Iliyn.  He has one of the top leadership roles for North America. YWAM.  The topic was a lifestyle of repentance.   He told a lot of crazy stories about him, his dad, or people he knows.  They were inspiring.  Peter gave us a lot of information and I am still processing lots of it and learning how it effects my life, but what I took out of the week was:

- you need to truly understand what sin is in order to recognize the need for a relationship with God. Sin is self-centered living.

- Hell is the absolute absence of God.  

- Sin is your biggest enemy not Satan.  

- the importance of repentance and confession.

- and a lot more stuff.  A lot to process.

Some other notable things about the week.  There has been a lot of people getting sick recently at the base, especially my fellow DTS classmates.  There is 5 or 6 of us in a room so germs are easily spread.  Pray that sickness wont be a barrier, preventing us from learning and growing.  Also, I still need some more money for outreach.  If you would like to donate and know how to it would be awesome if you could.  if you want to donate and dont know how email me at elliodo803@gmail.com.  One thing that I wanted from God when i entered the DTS was some guidance about what he wants for my future.  I feel like I am getting glimpses of what he wants me to do and what would really fulfill me.

Things to pray for:

- unity for our DTS group

- guidance for myself, my future, my DTS, and our out reach locations.  There is still a lot of planning that needs to be done with the outreach locations.

- health

- that our minds, eyes, and hearts will be opened to how God is moving 

- and anything else you can think of lol.

Thanks for looking at my blog whoever you are lol.  I plan on posting pictures soon so be on the look out for that sometime this coming week.  

10/18/10

Yo yo.  This past week Amanda Noyes spoke on justice.  She spoke about different justice issues that are going  on around the world.  The issue that stood out to me the most was human trafficking.  I didn't realize how big of an illegal market human trafficking had.  It opened my eyes to a lot of the reasons why people, like prostitutes, stay in the places that they are at.  She also encouraged us and stressed the importance of living out the Christian faith by caring for the poor and less fortunate.

This week Peter Iliyn is the speaker.  The topic is a lifestyle of repentence.  Today was the first day he spoke to the class and told a crazy story about his grandpa.  Through his story it was clear that God had his hand on his grandpa's life.  Something I got out of it was that God has a plan for our life.  Even if it is just minor day to day things, God has a reason for the things that happen.  Even though often times it is hard to understand.  This idea of God having a plan for our life came into play tonight when our group found out what outreach location they would go to.

So last week our leaders told us about outreach.   They told that for two or three week we would all be going to mexico city to serve there together.  The reason for choosing mexico city is because it is the city that a YWAM ministry, megacities, is focused on this year.  Each year, or maybe its two, a megacity is picked by YWAM and selected to be the focus of ministry.  The idea is to try and bring as many Christian into the city at once and basicly start a new movement in the city.  So well be at mexico city for three weeks doing evangilism and service work then the group will split into two.

 The group is to big to all go to an outreach location at once so we decided to split into two groups.  One group would stay in mexico city and go to other towns in the area and the other group would go to the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Tonight was the night that we found out where we would be going.  The leaders didn't just divide the group into different groups and tell us where we were going, instead they choose to let God decide.  The way we did this was by doing this thing with colors.  Our leader, Tym kemp, gave us two colors, gold and silver, representing the two different outreach locations, and then he told us to pray about the colors.  Which ever color we thought God was calling us to we wrote on a peace of paper then handed it to our leaders.  So we each prayed, discerned which color God was putting on our hearts, then waited.  After much anticipation and anxiety we found which groups were which.  It was really cool to hear the stories about how God put certain colors on peoples minds or revealed a color to them.  So I found out that I will be going to Mexico City! Im pumped.  I know God has placed everyone in the right groups and the right outreach locations.  keep praying for us!

10/11/10

Hola mis amigos. I have decided to start a blog as a way to keep people updated and informed about how things are going in Mexico with me and my DTS.  I have been here in Ensenada Mexico for a little over two weeks, so there are a lot of things that I could say. But I am going to try to keep it short and informative.

   

The base I am living at is awesome.  It is what I was looking for.  The base is pretty big.  There are probably about 50 to 60 people on base the majority of the time. The base is also bilingual.  The classes are in English and Spanish. The base is also right on the beach, it's beautiful.  

 My DTS group has close to 30 people in it, which is a relatively large group for a DTS.  Everyone is cool and it has been fun getting to know people.  Within the first five days of being at the school everyone shared their testimonies, allowing us to get to know each other better.  

My schedule is similar for each week.  We get up in the morning at 7 and have quiet time, a daily devotional, until 7:30.  Then we have breakfast from 7:30 to 8.  After breakfast we have base clean up until 8:30.  Then we have either intercessory prayer, worship, or a base meeting for the next hour.  At 9:30 class starts.  A speaker comes each week and we have lectures from 9:30 to 1 each week day.  At 1 we have lunch until 2. In the afternoon, the things we do vary.  It is either work duties, mine is working in the kitchen, local out reach were we go out to the community and tutor poor local kids, have small groups sessions, or Spanish class.  In the evening we have either bible study, free time, worship night, or community night.  Then the weekends are free time.  So my schedule is pretty busy but also rewarding.  

I have already learned and got a lot out of the DTS already, but it has also been challenging.  The first week our speaker was Jack Kody.  The topic was the father heart of God.  What stood out and stuck with me was how our image of God plays such an important role with how we relate and communicate with the Lord,  how  much God loves us, and how we can do lots of ministry but if we don't do it with love it is just noise.  This week the topic is Justice and the speaker is Amanda Noise.  Today we had the introduction and didn't dig to deep into the topic, but it was still really good and is getting me excited for the rest of the week.  The DTS has  been challenging in many ways.  I can see the God is calling me to become vulnerable and let me pride down, which is extremely hard.  But I think by doing so I will be able to grow closer to the people here and allow God to work through me more.  

Keep me and the people in my DTS in your prayers.  Also, I still need money for my outreach phase.  The options are either Mexico city or Haiti/Dominican Republic.  I talk more about them in the next post.  If you want to donate money I can let you know how if you don't already know.  Email me at elliodo803@gmail.com