Circuit Riders and other adventures in Lancaster

"God moved in Lancaster this week. Over 300 salvations in less than a week, many other launched into missions and training schools and countless lives touched. God is shifting something in Lancaster, unto America and the World! Ask Him what your part is in it!" – Joel Bomberger, YWAM Harrisburg

In the late 1700's, an English missionary (and keep in mind the English weren't popular during that time) named Francis Ashbury traveled an estimated 250,000 miles on horseback and preached some 45,000 messages about the good news of Jesus Christ. He brought Christianity to the frontier and recruited and organized a band of selfless and radical riders who the world was not worthy of that would in fact change America’s future forever. With nothing but a horse and a Bible they traveled the country. More than half died before the age of 33. When Ashbury arrived in America there were a few hundred Methodists. By the time he died there were over 210,000 and 4,000 preachers.

So what does that have to do with us today? A few years ago God directed a handful of leaders in Youth With A Mission to start a training school based on the ideals of the circuit riders. Jesus' love for us is a simple message and we're all as Christians called to bring the message to the world. The first school in 2011 had 300 attend and lasted six weeks. The next year they ran four schools, and realizing that most American's can't take six weeks from their lives, the school is now only a week long.

Fast forward to Lancaster, August 2013. Having been offered locations by many churches the team turned them down feeling God calling them to the centre of Lancaster. They chose instead to have the training school at the Lancaster County Convention Center which is also a Marriott hotel and the tallest building in the city. The evening sessions were kept free and many, many people attended.

Standing room only in a very large room. During the day about 500 people learned in groups of 12-15 to break off fear and preach the good news. We prayed for each other and encouraged each other and stood on chairs proclaiming the love of Jesus. It wasn't confined to the convention center. Twice these 500 took the streets to bring the Gospel to the people. Probably the most fun I've had in a long time. It's such a great feeling to see people become become encouraged. Myself and Kent had one guy talk to us for two hours. We hardly said anything. He preached to and encouraged himself. Afterwards though his entire countenance had changed. He took us to meet his wife and in front of us he promised to be a better husband, to talk to her and not at her and to listen and read the Bible with her. So good.

Then Friday my parents came down with a church in Belleville to see Noah at the Sight and Sound theater so I got to spend the day with them which was nice. Went for an Amish buggy ride driven by a former Amish who I really liked. He talked about the pros and cons of the Amish and fear of man vs. fear of God. Really interesting ride with an interesting commentary.

Which leads to Saturday. A member of Cornerstone church here in Lebanon, which happens to be the same church the base leader and his wife attend, had organized a worship event a block and a half north of the convention center. It was a little park with this weird covered steps that made a perfect stage. I really have no idea what it's actually for. It looks like it's supposed to be a grand entrance to a building, except there is no entrance. Just a wall of windows. It also didn't escape us that it happened to fall on the day after circuit riders ended. I was privileged enough to be part of the worship team along with three others from our base. I got a little excited and tore my knuckle open on my guitar strings. Bled everywhere, and it was completely worth it. Some others of our base staff had our Prayer Station table up and running and were around talking and praying for the various folk who showed up. Lots of fruit and a solid evening.

This week we finish the carpeting and painting at the base and then Wednesday and Thursday Nick Savoka and his wife are coming down from YWAM Metro NY to speak to us. Saturday we have our second summer missions seminar with Paul Michaels who heads up a ministry in Harrisburg geared toward Nepali refugees who've recently come here after spending 17 years in a refugee camp in India. The preparation begins for the three schools starting in September. Busy, busy are we.

God Bless,
Christopher

Summer in Lebanon

Apparently it's been two months since I've last updated my 'weekly' blog. Oops.

Part of the reason is life gets somewhat monotonous here when there aren't schools running. There are things happening though! June saw the end of the second Spring TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) here, which I was not a part of at all being gone for three of the four weeks between going home and the staff training in Long Island. Good group of students though. Having seen them at the beginning and then again at the end I can see growth in them. As well our ESL program ended and our two students headed back to Brazil. Now we're spending a lot of time preparing for the Fall when we have three schools (DTS, ESL, and TESOL) running simultaneously. The September TESOL has been full for a while now and even has a waiting list. The other two schools are looking to have 4-5 students each. There's this guy (who you may know) named Daniel Giardina who is apparently coming to DTS! Yaaaay! And Georgina from the April TESOL is coming back to do a DTS. I'm excited for this school.

Monday's I've been volunteering at the Hope's Resource Center. (I just spelled it 'centre' and then had to fix it) It's effectively a homeless shelter, sort of. In the winter they would have sleeping arrangements for 2 weeks at a time at a church before moving churches for another two weeks and so on. There were quite a lot of churches involved. Nearly six months worth and I don't think they ever had to go to one church twice. It's more than a homeless shelter though. It provides showers and laundry facilities. A small amount of storage space. It also has three case workers who help those in the shelter get back on their feet. When there was sleeping arrangements, over 30 people a night were staying. By the time the overnight portion ended at the end of April all but 5 had somewhere to go. So it's pretty quiet now. People still come in looking for help and we'll help them as best we can. It's a good place and there is a lot of peace there. Unfortunately I'll have to stop going once DTS starts in a month. Four more weeks.

Two weeks ago we had 25 students here from China. They stayed with hosts families overnight and then came here for ESL during the day. They had a blast and loved staying with their families. They got to tour some of the States. I believe San Fransisco, Boston, Philly among them. They said as they were leaving that the week here was their favorite part. Pretty cool to have the missions field come to us. They came from affluent families which is why they could afford to come here. Affluent enough that some of them have a brother or sister (legally you can only have one child and it's very expensive to purchase a second child). One of them bought a $300 pair of headphones. I wouldn't even know what to do if I had $300 extra to spend in such a way. It's a foreign concept to me.

Anywho, the week went well and that lead into last week. We partner with an organization called Child Evangelism Fellowship which focuses on ministering to children. In our area they put on three Vacation Bible Schools. They give us 30 minutes each day to talk about world missions. Last week was my week to go speak. We have a missionary from China staying with us so he came along as well as one of the base director's daughters. We talked mostly about what it's like to live in another country. Katie grew up in India and she talked about the differences between India and here. I told a few stories from Kenya (including the infamous bus ride to Nyango) and explained the challenges of surviving in a continent torn apart by war where food and water are hard earned. On the final day Bill talked about China and taught the kids some Chinese words. What shocked me was the depth and scope of questions the children came up with. They had so many questions, especially when talking about water. "How much is a well." "Is it hard to drill a well there." "Is there a Hollywood/Bollywood equivalent in Africa?" "What sports do they play?" "Could a Hippopotamus outrun me?" "Would a Lion or a Hippo win in a fight?" It was a good week and was no where near as challenging as I expected. I think we succeeded in giving them a good glimpse of the rest of the world and what it means to be a missionary. It isn't easy to live in another country by any means.

In April our sewage backed up making for quite a smelly situation. While we quickly dealt with the issue there was a little bit of damage to our carpet. The insurance company decided to replace the entire bottom floor. Sherwin-Williams also donated 30 gallons of paint. So we're in the process of painting right now and then later on this week we'll put in the carpet. It's looking pretty good so far.

Next week we'll be involved with YWAM Harrisburg's Circuit Rider school in Lancaster, PA. I think we're going to have a booth there. The final week of the CEF VBS is also next week as well as finishing up the bottom floor. And my parents are coming down to see Noah at the Sight and Sound theater in Lancaster so I'll get to see them as well.

Then come September 4th DTS begins. I'm both excited and terrified to be on staff but we'll have fun. It's a good group of students.

So that's what's been going on lately here at the base.

We're trying to get someone to donate us an in-ground pool. Not having a lot of success yet.

Hakuna Matata,
Christopher

A visit home, and then off again

In one hour or so I leave for a trip to Long Island, New York where myself and four other staff here will be taking a three day training course to prepare us for the Discipleship Training School we'll be running in September. So I'm sitting on my laptop and writing this blog instead of fighting with my the server I'm trying to create.

So it's been a crazy past two weeks. I did not leave myself near enough time to do all that I wanted to do. I did get to go to my 24/7 small group, and I sang in a concert for the retirement of the conductor of the choir I was in a long time ago. An old friend of mine came to church with me on Sunday. It was his first time coming to church in four years. He had some bad experiences with judgmental Christians. He was shocked and overwhelmed at the welcome he received while he was there. The only person that brought up the sin in his life was him. Everyone else was just glad he decided to come. Another old friend drove three hours to visit me. I was extremely blessed. The whole time I just felt blessed to be at home. Though busy. I wasn't able to meet with Pastor Kip as I had hoped to. There were some other things that I also wasn't able to do. I didn't secure as many supporters as I was hoping to either. But it was a good trip overall.

Until the flight home.

So I get to Pearson, fill out my customs form and go talk to a customs officer. He wanted someone else to look over my paperwork so I got sent to the back room. I then sat for two hours waiting for them as the officers sat around talking about their office party and who was going to go buy the paper plates for the meal. It was extremely unprofessional. Finally, as I watched people walk in, go see an officer and then walk out, I see an officer pull my file out. He'd look over it, sit at his computer for a bit, then go talk to someone about something irrelevant to my situation (it's a small room. I can hear everything). 20 minutes before my flight leaves he calls me up and tells me I won't be allowed into the States. He never asked me any questions or anything. I asked him why, and what was different about this time then all the other times. He said "Now we know about it". It wasn't until later that I realized that he had assumed I was being paid by YWAM (which would require a different visa then the one I was asking for, and I would have to have done paperwork beforehand). He told me I could talk with his supervisor if I wasn't satisfied, which I wasn't. She came in and asked me one question "How are you being supported?". By friends and family in Canada, not by Youth With A Mission. She stamps my passport and says have a nice flight. Which left me 10 minutes to clear security and get to my plane which is about a km away. There is a sign after security that says the gate I was leaving from was a 7 minute walk away. I tore a shoelace running. But I made it. Stressfully, but I made it.

Anywho, now I'm back in Lebanon. I might apply for an R class visa (which is $325) so I don't have this problem again. The TESOL course is halfway done. The students all seem to be really enjoying it. The ESL finishes on Thursday. I just said goodbye to the two students since they won't be here when I return from New York.

DTS in September is down to two, possibly three, interested students, so pray that we'll have more come our way. We're praying for 10-12.

I think that's all for now. Yeah.

God Bless,
Christopher

Homeward Bound

It's a quiet Sunday afternoon here at YWAM Lebanon. For a little bit longer. Over the next few hours seven students will be arriving to add to the one staff and two I picked up from the airport an hour ago. They're taking TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) which starts officially tomorrow and runs for four weeks.







These past two weeks have been pretty slow. Mostly everyone preparing for the next school. Planning for our summer outreaches as well as the schools in September. Our secretary is taking TESOL so we've been training a temporary replacement. I was busy doing something... I'm not sure what though. I'm actually somewhat happy with the website now though. I guess I worked on it at some point. It's Sunday afternoon, I'm kind of tired.

In terms of base growth, we have five students who have shown a strong interest in the September DTS, and then the TESOL is almost full as well. We'd like to run a second in the fall as well, but that is dependent on whether the teacher, who is Australian, is able to renew her visa.

Tomorrow afternoon though, I fly home for ten days. I've been telling everyone here they aren't allowed to have computer problems while I'm away. This is my semi-annual "you have to leave the country and then come back for visa reasons" trip. It's going to be busy as I have a long list of people to see and I'll also be singing a few songs with my old choir on the occasion of the director's retirement. I'm excited about that, though I have to start learning the music. My main goal is to do some fundraising because I'll need to buy a plane ticket overseas for next winter as I'll be leading a team... somewhere. Either India or Ukraine, but it's not set in stone yet. It's dependent on how many students we have among other things. I am excited to meet all the new people at 24/7 Church as they recently merged with another church in Burlington. The family got larger!

This morning I went to the church I've been going to which is in Harrisburg (I always end up going to a church which is not at all close to where I live). One of the founders of the YWAM Fire and Fragrance base in Harrisburg led worship and spoke. I had a fantastic morning. Very Holy Spirit focused. Then I picked up two quiet folk from Missouri, a brother and sister. I pointed out how roads in Pennsylvania don't go in a straight line and how the highways are not at all convenient.

Life is good. Challenging, requiring growth, but good.

God Bless,
Christopher

A long overdue update!

So Blogger tells me it's been one month since I last update my quote-unquote "weekly" blog.

In the words of Vizzini: "What in the world could that be?!

Well, I- I could have sworn I saw something. No matter."

We've had a course running here at YWAM Lebanon this past month called a TESOL - Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. It's taught by an Australian lady who travels all over the world. When I picked her up from the airport she had come from North Korea. She figured out I was Canadian from my accent. We had six students who graduated this past Friday. Two of them were staff who wanted to do the course; one had just finished her DTS and is now staying on as staff; one is from Monterrey, Mexico and had just completed an ESL course in Wisconsin where she had learned English; one was a local guy who is going now to Bangladesh and thinking of doing a DTS when he returns in August and the last is from Vermont and is now going to Laos. It intrigues me how this course brings people from all over the world and then sends them right back out. Jon, who is our local student, commented on the fact that he likes the base because it doesn't feel like a Pennsylvania ministry. It has a very international feel to it. I just like leading worship in front of the large Canadian flag. Also my office (yes, I have an office) has a sign on the door that says "In this office 'Z' is pronounced 'ZED' ". So our first Spring TESOL is over, the second begins in two weeks and has nine enrolled students. Our office administrator is taking the course this time so there is a bit of a panic on what we're going to do while she's in class.

The base as a whole is doing well. I'm slowly initiating changes to try and both modernize how we operate as well as have a more professional, welcoming atmosphere. We switched from clear overheads to a digital projector for worship. How people apply has been revamped (and actually works now). We have a former student who just came on staff who has worked years in construction and is fixing up our base. This week we get a new carpet downstairs since a few weeks ago our sewer backed up. While damage was minimal because we quickly fixed the problem and were able to mop and pump out the water the insurance company decided to give us a new carpet anyways. Strangely because the clog happened on our property we're covered but if it were to have happened on city property we would have got nothing. Insurance is a strange beast. So while things here are not perfect, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Also, if anyone wants to donate a sound board we could use one.

I've started leading some of our worship times. Last week we had two visitors from India. They do ministry there with traditional sounding Indian music with great success. Even the hardest hearted Indian I'm told will sit and listen to them sing about Jesus in Hindi. They had a concert on Wednesday night with a Guitar and a Sitar and Thursday they joined me for worship. We had two guitars, the Sitar, an accordion, a violin, a flute and a piano and we all sat on the floor as is the Indian way. It's definitely something I'll remember for a very long time and stands out as one of my favorite worship times. Then Friday night we had two missionaries from Tajikistan visit us. They talk about the vast difference between expectations and reality. They went overseas for four years and had all these expectations that didn't come to pass. Instead they found a challenging country to live in where the gospel is persecuted. Being a missionary isn't always glamorous and it was quite humbling to hear them speak.

I go home for 10 days on May 20th. I'm looking forward to seeing friends and family again. Then I return and in the beginning of June travel to New York for a three day DTS leadership training course because I will be one of the leaders when the DTS begins here on September 4th. That means come December I'll once more be going overseas.... somewhere. Quite possibly Ukraine but it's not written in stone by any means. I'll really have to start fundraising. I hate fundraising. It's important, but I don't like it.

That's quite possibly it for now. My attention span is wearing down and I'm running out of things to say.

God Bless,
Christopher

Update!

So it's been a month since I last sent out an update.

Guess that means that perhaps I should update ye old blog. So here it is!

For the past month and a bit I've been at Youth With A Mission - Lebanon, Pennsylvania (not Lebanon the country). Most of my time here is spent in my office (I have an office!) rebuilding the website. I started out with the online applications as the old system wasn't informing us of new applications or applications just weren't being submitted. Our DTS was "full" and no applications could be submitted. That was rather high priority since it's hard to run a school where students are unable to apply. So the new applications are up and working well and we've seen an increase in inquiries as a result. The new website is taking a little longer. I spent a long time fighting with my virtual server before I finally got it working. Apparently Windows 7. Hopefully by the end of the month I'll have the new site running. As well I'll be mounting our projector next week and moving all our worship from overhead transparencies to a open source worship program. We're moving into the 21st century!

There are a few things I do outside of 'my office'.
Mondays I spend at Hopes Resource Center which is the day part of a homeless shelter. Originally I was just supposed to sit at the front desk and let people in who are registered or help new registrants through the application process. It was quickly discovered that I knew my way around computers and I now spend most of my time there working with records and smoothing out the wrinkles. It's probably my favorite part of my week. I really enjoy it there.
Monday through Wednesday afternoons I help with an after-school program at the Middle School. It's not terribly exciting and we aren't allowed to do a lot but we hope the longer we're there the more impact we'll be able to have on the children at the school.
Saturdays a few of us travel into Harrisburg to work with an ESL school that teaches English to a Nepali refugees that were expelled from Bhutan in the 1990s and have recently come to America after living in refugee camps in India for many years. They say 'Zed' instead of 'Zee' which makes me happy having been taught some British English in India. One of the teachers was confused by this until I explained that all the other English speaking countries in the world say 'Zed'. The Nepali people are very friendly and enthusiastic and I enjoy teaching them.
Aside from that, I help lead worship with my fancy new guitar my parents got me for my birthday.

Here at the base we have a three-month ESL in progress with one student. We had six or so other students who had their Visa's denied, so now there is one. Her name is Dalva and she's from Brazil. Our TESOL teachers arrived yesterday. TESOL is a school to teach people how to teach English. They'll run two one month courses. The first starts on Monday with five enrolled students.

I'm enjoying my time here. I'm challenged daily but I'm constantly offered the opportunity to grow.

Blessings,
Christopher

YWAM Lebanon!

Blogger tells me it's been nearly a month since I last posted. There's a reason behind that. This past month and a half has possibly been the most challenging of my entire life, and I made a grievous mistake that altered the direction of my life. Mercifully God has used this turmoil, entirely caused by me, to grow me significantly and bring me closer to him.

So onto newsy type things! The YWAM Charlotte Spring DTS had 9, almost 10 accepted students making it the largest spring DTS they've ever had. I met a few of the students, seem like a good bunch of people. The WISE school which starts in April has 6 students I think, five from the DTS that is ending next week, and Lucas who was part of the last Spring DTS. They're also running Mission Adventures, which is outreaches for youth groups. One is coming to Charlotte, same week as the DTS starts with 30 someodd youth. Should be somewhat chaotic there. The two outreach groups got back to the states the past few days (without bringing Malaria along with them). I know a few of them want to turn around and go straight back. I'm immensely proud of them all, and the passion they have now for spreading the Word.

As for me, I finished rebuilding www.ywamcharlotte.com and launched it with little trouble. I'm extremely proud of it. That took most of the month working solid on, as I had to learn how to use Wordpress first. Then after a bittersweet farewell with the staff, I moved onto my next season here at YWAM Lebanon in Pennsylvania (not Lebanon the country). I've been here a few days now. It's very different from the fast chaos in Charlotte. Lebanon often runs a Crossroads DTS, which is a DTS for people over thirty. As a result, I think I might be the youngest staff member. There aren't many of us, ten at most. The atmosphere is very relaxed. There aren't any schools running at the moment. In a few weeks an ESL course will begin. Then in April and again in May there will be a TESOL (which is a course on how to teach English). The base's main focus is running schools, but they do a lot of outreach as well. Monday morning I'll be manning the front desk at a homeless shelter. Once I get a background check done, I'll be helping with an after school program at the local middle school. I got to teach English for the first time today at a church in Harrisburg. There are many Nepali refugees who have been granted homes in the area after losing all they had when they were kicked out of Bhutan (east of Nepal, north of Bangladesh and India). Some of them had lived in refugee camps for 17 years. An interesting group of people. Passionate about learning. Very friendly. I enjoyed myself far more than I expected to. My main job here though will be rebuilding the website here, and enlarging the social media footprint of the base. Also, I'm allowed to drive the vehicles, so I'll be doing the odd errand.

Life is challenging, but I've been offered a lot of grace, and really seen God move. My character is being built, and I'm learning a lot, and gaining a lot of discipline.

"We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." – Romans 5:3-5

I stumbled upon this a week or two back. I've read Romans countless times, and yet never seen this. I've been through a lot, and my suffering produced endurance, which produced character, and now I have hope for the future. And God's loved has very much so been poured into me. So I battle on, and do what I can to further the Kingdom.

In the words of Captain Taggart:

"Never give up, never surrender."

Be blessed, and enjoy life and all it's quirks.

Christopher