Mission Tuesday

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Last week I talked a bit about Mission Adventures, the ministry of YWAM that I am apart of. Today I want to talk a bit about YWAM’s Discipleship Training School. I did my DTS in 1993, when I was 6, haha. I had done 2 years of Bible College and was looking for something more, something that would stretch me more that homework did. I remember the night I made the decision. I was in Winnipeg and coming out of our church parking lot in the Chevette that I rolled in. All of a sudden to the left of me this car came around the corner and I froze. SMASH, my Chevette was done. I went home that night and filled out the application to go to YWAM in Los Angeles for my DTS.

Why did I want to go to LA for my school? I mean there are 646 DTS programs in nearly every country in the world and I wanted to go to LA. Well, to tell you the truth I didn’t know of any other location, and I wanted to go to Disneyland. Also, my friend and mentor, by his life not because he tried to mentor me, Brian Durston had done his DTS there and so I had known about it. In April of 93 I hopped on a bus in Grand Forks, ND and took the 52 hour ride to LA.

DTS is as my friend Curt say’s ” is great, I don’t know why everybody doesn’t do it.” Of course Curt is doing his DTS in Kona, Hawaii right now. I have seen many students come through the DTS and I have watched their lives changed and transformed. Many of them to this day would go back to the DTS and say that it was a pivitol time in their lives and was used to bring them to the place that they are at now.

What is the DTS? Well it is a 5 month discipleship program. The 1st three months, for the most part, are composed of teaching, local outreach (if you are close to a town or city), small groups, one on ones and teaching. The teaching is on topics such as relationships, spiritual warfare, bible study, evangelism, outreach preparation and more. The 1st half of the training generally focusses on us and our lives while the second half of the training focusses on others and serving them.

The last two months of the school is an international outreach. My school went to southern Mexico. We, in Seattle where I served for 9 years YWAM Seattle took teams to Korea, China, Phillipines, Thailand, Kyrgyzstan, Tibet and India. While in these countries you will do work projects, teaching, childrens programs, prayer walks, sweat, get dirty and eat dog. It is great.

If you are looking for something to do that is meaningful, life changing and cross cultural I totally recomend it. Also, if you know of someone else who you think would love to spend 5 or so months doing a DTS it is a great opportunity. Here is a list of some YWAM locations that I totally recomend.

YWAM Winnipeg, YWAM Tijuana DTS, YWAM Pismo Beach, YWAM Vancouver and YWAM Las Vegas. The reason I have only mentioned YWAM locations in N. America is because I have relationship with the leaders there and they are great. If you have any questions please ask and have a good day.