A summary

Six and a half months ago, seven students arrived from Canada, Germany and the US. All of them stayed through to the end of the lecture phase; at this point they had spent roughly 600 hours training, reading, learning, preaching, teaching, worshiping, praying, volunteering and working, all towards being a missionary, whether at home or away! (yes, we did let them go to the beach).

Before they went on outreach three of our students prayed and decided it would be best to return home; so the team that we ended up sending to the nations was made up of four students and two staff. While in the Philippines, one of our students had to return home to help their family. So these are the stories of the three that made it to the end, through all the trials and all the joys smile emoti

While in the Philippines our students were able to work with a YWAM Ministry called the Nehemiah houses. the Nehemiah houses serve to help female victims of sexual abuse, human trafficking and maltreatment, most of whom are between the ages of 7 and 18.
while there, our students made friends with many of these girls. Towards the end of their stay with these safe houses, while they were playing a card game, one of the girls opened up to one of our students and shared her entire story, about how she was abused and how she has forgiven the people who abused her. Although you would never expect a person to share about such traumatic events in their life, it is not uncommon to hear when the redemptive work of Jesus Christ has taken place.

Much of what I heard from our students was about the relationships they built with their new friends around the world. They were able to teach and play games with kids in slums, to do house visits in places flooded in 6 feet of water, they did skits and sang songs, they even got to lead worship in a strip club! they feed and hung-out with kids who are forced to beg for money by their parents. one of our staff was able to meet up with a Muslim family that we made friends with last time I was in Bali. All in all, it sounded like a great trip to me smile emoticon

I love seeing what people look like after they get back from outreach, they are almost always a little messy and smelly, especially after 3 months of minimal showering and washing! but what I like to see is the glow in their faces. when someone leaves on a missions trip, they typically don't know exactly what they're in for; they go out to serve people, but what they may or may not realize is the work that God is doing in them, and often times when they return home, they find that everything has changed... which isn't true at all, in reality they have changed. And forever they will have a different perspective on life, and they will be wrecked for the ordinary.

Thank you Lord for all the work that you've done in our students lives and in the nations, and thank you all who have read this far 


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