Winter Quarter sum up

Alas, we're rapidly approaching the end of the Winter Quarter here at YWAM Maui which means job changes for some base staff, new staff arriving, less rainy weather (hallelujah!) and most of all Outreach for our Winter DTS students. It's amazing to see how far they've come in only three months and so exciting to see their fiery anticipation to "go and make disciples" and pour out just as we as staff have poured into them.

-team Borneo-

It feels like just the other day, we were running to and fro from the airport to pick up 30 or so terrified twenty-somethings and now they're headed into the core of Southeast Asia. I'll provide a brief aperçu as to what the last three months have looked like.
At our Maui YWAM base and at every YWAM base throughout the world, we accept students, also from all over the world, to come and train. Our primary school is called a Discipleship Training School (DTS). It boils down to three months of intensive spiritual cultivation in the students followed by a three month outreach to "put feet to the faith" they'd just invested themselves in. So in the several months, the lecture phase, we bring in speakers also from all over the world to come and share what God has shown them. We cover topics ranging from pre-evangelism and basic Christianity, to Hearing the Voice of God (take it from a born-and-raised southern-baptist, prophecy is always an... "intense" topic, much like dancing probably would be, hehehe...) and Godly models for relationships (platonic, fraternal and romantic alike).
Believe me when i say it's an intense schedule. There's only a little time each weekday that isn't fore-ordained for ministry.

-team China-

This group of students is particularly close to my heart. I've been so blessed to work with them in the kitchen, or help to hone their gifts in musical worship, to spend my weekends with, or just stay up late in the guy's house (the "Testoster-home") and talk to. They came to the base already annointed people and after three months, you can see such visible changes in their walks with the Lord. It's so amazing to see people that you've spent so much time praying for laying hands on you and praying for you because you're sick or look sad or simply because they felt like the Lord asked them to.
Not one of them isn't going on Outreach which in itself is a miracle as there was a huge financial need (thankfully God operates from a seperate economy). We saw thousands of dollars come in for these students, some of which may have been the Lord's physical hand directly (if you haven't read my previous blog "hilarious givers", check it out, sweet stuff!).
Every second of time spent on these students has come back ten-fold (turns out investing in people works every time... well unless you're Madoff...).

On Tuesday, we send out the three teams of students to their outreach locations (China, Borneo and Bangladesh). For the next three months they'll be trekking through jungles and sharing the gopsel, or teaching in underground churches (which, much to my dissapointment and possibly yours I'll inform you, are not typically "under" ground). = )
So keep them in your prayers, that God would strengthen them and bless them, that He'd give them His words and His hands to serve, that many would come to know the infinite and personal God of Heaven and that above all He'd receive all the glory.

As for me, this next quarter means a much-needed season of rest on the base. I'm still working in the kitchen however the mouths to feed have dropped for 60+ down to 12 or so. This also gives me more time to serve the base in worship and our local churches, to soak up and pour into the other staff here and also to work more with Revival Maui (also some blog stuff you should check out, "Purity Siege").

-Chelsea and I's birthday Thai food excursion extravaganza!-

I also have some very exciting news to share with you for upcoming days in my YWAM life but that can wait for now.
love you all and i miss you.

Because of the Cross,
Samuel

hilarious givers

i've seen the Lord provide before.
in small ways, in big ways
in subtle ways and obvious ways
in ways asked for and, by human standards, ways that are just plain wierd
but never like He is lately.

Like all schools, this one has some students that can't afford outreach, a mystery both daunting and exciting that's rapidly approaching our avid missionary-to-be's. some need only a couple hundred dollars and some a couple thousand to make this trip possible and turns out God's not even remotely phased by this "deficit".
this is just a couple testimonies as to what God's up to.

there's a white board in the middle of our lecture hall/family room/dining area/foozeball arena/anything-else-social area. On it is a list of ten or so names of students who owe money for outreach. The leaders wanted people to know who needed what so the staff and students would know how to pray as well as how to give. almost hourly, i get to watch with a smile as the numbers go down (it's almost like the stock market, except no smile there).

there's a girl here who owes a couple thousand dollars before she can head off to Bangladesh. every penny she gets is put toward outreach and she's been praying like crazy for God to move. She found 800 dollars placed in her journal the other afternoon. Immediately, the Lord asked her to give it someone else, so she did. no one knew she gave this money away... (well i mean except for me... and now all of you) = ) In only a day, she received another 800 dollars from various anonymous people on the base, some staff, some students.
I love that. If we keep open hands open, God will always fill them. He's just good like that.

another girl here was blessed with every dime she would need for outreach before she even got here, which is amazing. Normally, the students send out tons of support letters, make heaps of phonecalls, scrounge under couch cushions, collecting each dollar sometimes up to the day of their flight. She wrote support letters too. and the money she received, she gave away to those who needed it.

another guy here (this one is my favorite) had a debt of 3,374 big ones. This is before the white board was even posted, nobody really knew how much everyone owed. He was going to bed and there was only one other student in the room. He starts to climb into his bunk and he sees a $100 dollar bill sitting on his pillow. He turned and asked the student if he had given it to him. the student said no and he didn't know who did. he started at getting into his bed again but in the same spot as before, he saw a few more $100 dollar bills. Now he's freakin' out.
"dude, was this you?"
"no man"
he felt something at his feet and looked down to see a small stack of even more hundreds. the two students sat on a bed and counted it all out: 20 of them in all.
TWO. THOUSAND. DOLLARS. right there and no one knows how it got there or how he didn't notice it all at once. in all honesty, myself, this student and some others i've talked to on base, believe that the Lord just stuck His good arm down into the finite and placed a 100 dollar bill on his pillow. When he saw how excited His beneficiary was, He must have thought
"ah what the heaven, i'll give him some more."

a week later, a thousand more came in the mail for him from someone who couldn't afford it but somehow did. 3000 dollars in one week!

{you know what the craziest part is. as i was typing this, there was a knock on my room door. it was this student. he asked if i could come talk to him. He wanted to pray and prophesy over me, you know what he ended up praying for? my finances. he had NO IDEA i was writing this.}

God's just so flippin' cool it blows me away sometimes.

proskuneo

one of the words that our word worship comes from is proskuneo. it means to incline towards in attempt to kiss. it's paints a picture of gentle proximity to the Infinite God. intimacy without impediment.

i know this is a cheesy example but you know in the movie Hitch:
will smith is trying to explain to...um... the other guy... how he should approach kissing the girl (who's oddly named after an allergy medication.. not relevant, sorry... but it is wierd though right? anyway...)

he tells him to lean in real close.
"you go 90, she goes ten."

i'm starting to think that God is permanently bent over, inclined in at 90% just waiting for us to respond to His first move, to lean in only a little so He can sweep us away in an infinite instance.

lately, you could say God and I have been doing a lot of kissing.


I'm getting to lead or help lead almost four times a week this last month or so: twice a week there's base worship (one large-ish and typically louder and one that's more creative, quiet and chill), every tuesday night for the Winter DTS intercession times ( it's called a rumble. it's basically an hour or so of nonstop worship and focused prayer ), then often at the local churches on sundays and friday nights, and then once a month we do a HUGE rumble and pray for purity on Maui.




my heart here isn't at all to brag. i'm replete with limitations when it comes to music. i just remember way back to 7th grade Sam just starting to learn guitar; the shy kid who only dreamed of playing for his Creator with maybe 10 people around once in a while, now leading all the time for anywhere to upwards of 100 people.
it's cool to just see the Lord working my simple, small dreams into His infinite plan and i didn't have to seek these opportunities out. He didn't have to, He's got a lot bigger of an agenda than writing songs for me and yet He, the Creator, loves creating. i don't know, He's just so flippin' good...

..affidavits of the Infinite..

wow, it's been a while. You have my deepest apologies.
the students came back from Kona a few weeks back and again we, the staff, were plunged headlong into the beautiful bedlam that is YWAM life. From the quiet solace of only a handful of people to feed on base to the confused, animal frenzy at the watering hole, i thus re-began my kitchen duties (now clad in a sweet new apron i might add!). = )
In all honesty, the students were really missed. They are such a heartening school. At every chance to serve they do. We never have any complaints from the students working in the kitchen, they're never late, they don't slack off. They've brought so much refreshment to us as staff that we were eager to have them return.
Shortly after, the students from the Fall DTS 2008 returned from their outreach. As God's plan would have it, the locations they went on outreach were the same that our Winter school is headed to in only 5 or so weeks (AH!).
From what i could tell, the returning school brought copious amounts of encouragement to the winter students. We held a testimony night and hosted all the staff and both schools. Each Fall DTS team (China, Bangladesh and Borneo) shared a little as to what God did on their outreaches. There were multiple testaments of lives surrendered to Christ, CRAZY stories of spiritual warfare and even some testimonies of supernatural healings. God is obviously up to something in this unwraveling world. We ended the night with worship and both schools prayed and ministered to eachother. It was awesome to witness and honestly, just what my heart needed. It never hurts to be reminded why I'm here: to know God, make Him known. Love God, Love People. Pretty simple. but i'm pretty forgetful.