Jeff Pratt Week

This week was much more intense than the previous two weeks.  Jeff Pratt spoke on the Father Heart of God.  Rachel & I have both had teachings on this subject, but were pretty impressed with Jeff.  He the leader of YWAM Axiom which is where we were originally headed to until they canceled their DTS.  So we still got to meet him which was pretty awesome.  Thursday morning we had a ministry time where we shared some of our struggles and Jeff prayed for each of us.  It was extremely intense as we sat in the classroom for 4 1/2 hours.  A lot of people experienced freedom through the teaching and ministry so that was pretty awesome. 

Thursday night I took 3 Korean girls to Office Depot because each of them wanted to buy the Droid tablet.  The lady who took care of us seemed to be a little grumpy when she found out that we would be paying in 3 separate transactions.  Then after paying, the girls realized that they wanted covers for it so they bought those then too.  One of the girls paid with credit card so she asked for id which didn't really do any good since the id was in Korean.  I noticed though that the lady started cheering up even as we took longer than expected.  When one of the girls paid in cash, she accidentally pulled out some Korean money which the lady was really interested in.  Anyways, I think the Korean girls wore her down and she seemed to actually be in a good mood as we left. 

Today Rachel and I decided that we needed a break from everything so we're just sitting at Barnes & Noble reading.  Tomorrow, we're not getting for sunrise, mostly because we're too lazy.  We're going to an Easter service at a Vineyard church that we've attended the last 2 weeks.  Then we're going to a friend's place for dinner in the evening in Colorado Springs.  So at least we get to experience some kind of Easter dinner even if it's not with family.

I will end this post with a deep thought from Jack Handey and a fun fact of the day:

One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to
 take my little nephew to Disney Land, but instead I drove him to an
 old burned-out warehouse. "Oh, no," I said, "Disney Land burned
 down."  He cried and cried, but I think that deep down he thought it
 was a pretty good joke. I started to drive over to the real Disney
 Land, but it was getting pretty late.

Fun Fact: Hippo milk is pink.

2 weeks in

Well, I'm sorry that we haven't blogged about our first 2 weeks in YWAM until now.  Our internet at the base has been fairly sporadic so it's been tough to do much of anything online. 

Anyways, we've a good first 2 weeks.  Our team consists of 9 Koreans and 4 Americans.  We also have an American leader and her assistant is a Dutch guy.  We might also have up to 6 more people coming along from the Phase II school.  I think that one of them is Korean, Swiss, and the rest are Americans.  Needless to say, our DTS is definitely multi-cultural.  It definitely has its challenges, but for the most part it's been really good.  Everything has to be translated into Korean which can make it difficult to focus all the time.  I've found that I listen to the English, then zone out for the translation and stay zoned out for the English.  Other than that, I really have enjoyed having the different cultures.  Most of the Korean students are very interactive and have a good grasp of the English language so it's been easy to connect with them.  Rachel and I have really connected well with an engaged Korean couple, In Hwan and Jeong Ah.  I really have just enjoyed their love of life and it seems like they're always happy.  It's been really cool to see.  We are mixed together with another DTS that has mostly Americans on the team.  They're leaving 4 weeks before us because they're doing an around the world DTS which we're a little jealous of but we know we're in the right place.  We're going to be going to Cancun, Mexico for our outreach.  At first we were slightly disappointed, but have since realized that this is where God wants us and we're excited for the opportunity.  We will not spending most of our time on the beach in case anyone was thinking that we're going on a vacation.  We'll be living among the poor there in the slums and helping the locals there.  A YWAM team is there currently and we have heard God is doing a lot of awesome things there.  We leave near the end of June and come back about the middle of August.

Our first week was spent just getting to know everyone and going over all the basics of the DTS.  This past week was our first week of teaching.  Rachel was sick for 3 of the days so she missed most of the teaching which was disappointing, but hopefully that is all that she will miss.  She's doing better now.  Blake Mattocks was our teacher for the week.  He's one of the pastors at a local church here.  He taught on the character of God.  He was very straightforward and a man full of truth.  This next week, we will be learning about the father heart of God taught by Jeff Pratt.  He is the director of YWAM Axiom in New Haven, CT.  That's where we planned on going originally so it's cool that we still get to hear him speak.  Rachel and I have both sat through teachings on the father heart of God.  I'm sure there's plenty of stuff that we missed in our previous teachings so we're hoping to draw whatever we can from his teachings.  I've heard that this is a very heavy week so if any of you are reading this, please pray for us this week.  I believe this is a week where a lot of things get confessed and people receive freedom.  Anyways, I feel like I've been writing for a while so I'm gonna stop now.  I think for some of my future blogs, I will be a bit more creative with some good stories but for now this is what you will get.

Randy