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
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