Far Side of the World

Blog entry.  August

Existed is the only word that comes to mind right now.  After a hectic month of travel instead of planning, it left only ten days to prepare for DTS.  When the French team left Next Wave turned into a place of chaos while we rushed around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to find this or that, gathering mission information, trying to contact students and having a battle with the laminator.  Anne came down from the England base in Harpenden to give us staff training for the school. This was fantastic!  Although I wish that we had five weeks of it instead of five days.  We talked about the heard behind what we do and the reasons for certain things, and how to handle certain situations.  It was very good.  We also talked about us as a staff team and what things we bring to the team as our strengths and weaknesses and the importance of bringing out the strengths and supporting each other.  Thrown into these ten days we had a day and a half off—which was fantastic!  Although I found it hard to take a day off while knowing that there was still so much work to do.  But resting is an important thing to do.  And now I wish that I had more. 

The students arrived on September 1^st!  It was so exciting waiting for them to arrive!  We were all waiting on the edge of our seats with anticipation.  By the end of the day we had 10 of the now 13 students (one dropped out).  We spend the evening playing a game to get to know each other.  Then, of course, we had a problem with the toilet system…our black water tank (sewage) was full and we needed to go dump it at sea.  But this turned into a good thing because then we got to take the students out for a little “sail”…although we never set the sails.  It was a good time for them to bond together and to get to know one another.  The following day Oli and Grace our 11^th and 12^th students arrived.  They have been crew on Next Wave for 9 months but haven’t done a DTS.  So they prayed about doing one here and felt lead to do so.  They have been home in England for the past month and it was so good to see them again!  I went with Matt to pick them up at the bus station…although they arrived at the train station, but we did eventually find them!  It was so nice to see part of my ship family that I have been missing.  We DTS staff lead some discussion times and lectures this first week about things that would be helpful for the students to know before a teacher comes.  Like the history of Next Wave, the YWAM foundational values (which Capitan Lehman made the Staff memorize before the students came), community life about Next Wave, intersession and I lead one on journaling and quiet time with God.  During this week we also shared testimonies.  13 students (Barbra, our student from China arrived two days late) and 7 staff…that’s 20 10-minute stories on how you got to know God and ended up on the ship.  While listening to the stories of the students it hit me why I believe in this.  If you come to Next Wave with a heart willing and wanting to change there is no way that God wont take you from where you are when you start to a deeper place with him.  I have seen this in my life very clearly and with every single shipmate that I live with.  So I am very much looking forward to how God is going to get them from where they are now to a whole new dimension of life with Him.  And the scary and exciting thing is that I know it will happen with me too.  At the end of the week we did something that we fondly call, Missionary Training Day.  Basically it is a day set aside for the students to be pushed into working together as two teams throughout the day.  From relays to blindfold games to a massive treasure hunt throughout town to spending the night on deck and having to make up a song.  It pushes the students to work together.  Its amazing the things that come up thru it, leaders and followers for example.  It was really hard for the students but at the end they were far more comfortable with each other than they had been before…. and had much more stories to laugh at together.  After taking most of Sunday off, we all headed out to a church that we had been invited too.  It was an AOG church here started by some Brazilians!  So it had quite a Latin America feel with some Italy thrown in.  Lehman gave a sermon and we Next Wave crew got up and introduced ourselves.  Its weird to be refered to as a “missionary”, because now this lifestyle is normal to me.  Its been the majority of the way that I have lived for the past year and a half now…but it still catches me off guard to hear people say it.  I think that its just a lifestyle and it seems weird to lable it.  Afterwards the ladies in the church served us pizza!  SO MUCH PIZZA!  Huge, thick slices with cheese and veggies and meat and eggs (it is very common to have egg on pizza in Europe).  They also served us coke—quiet a luxury!

We are at anchor in the harbour at Syracusa.  The night after church everyone went to sleep.  Because of the heat a lot of people have been sleeping on deck because the bowels of the ship are stuffy and miserable.  But I woke up at 3 am to the sound of drip-dripping.  I though I was dreaming, but then it hit me that I should go check.  So I jumped up and stood under our skylight (the girl crew have the aft cabin with a skylight!) and I felt wet!!!!  “Thank you Jesus!” I said enthusiastically as I bounded out the room, down the hall and up the stairway into the wheel house.  I woke up my other room mate with my enthusiasim.  We have only had rain once in the past three months.  And I missed it very much.  In the wheel house I found it was full of wet, sleepy people.  Some holding blankets and others with bed head hair standing up.  It wasn’t just rain, there was a torrenchel down pour out side! I couldn’t see the end of the bowsprit because the rain and wind were coming down hard.  Next Wave was swinging on her anchor chain and all the crew sat bold upright, eyes intent, watching to see if we were in danger of swinging into any other ships.  Lighting flashed on average of twice every 5 seconds. And the thunder was so loud it rattled your very bones.  I was in heaven!  I miss having weather so bad.  Its very boarning waking up to sun every day. 

And that was our first week of DTS.

We have just finished the second week and are now on a day off…and man, it’s a well-needed day off.   A man from YWAM Ireland called Mike Oman taught our first week of lectures on the Father Heart of God.  This was really good and perfectly timed I believe.  He grew up in Africa and later became a missionary there.  He has stories that will make your heart pound in your ears!  A big theme of this week was giving up control to God.  after all, when it comes down to it he is the only guy who really has control anyways.  this was a tearful, raw week.  I have been blown away by the students courage as they stated the ways that they had tried to take control of their lives.  Pasts have been dug up and shameful histories uncovered…they asked God for forgiveness in front of the whole school!  That’s a scary thing to do.  Very scary.  But I have already seen freedom played out in these areas in them.  Students that didn’t smile very much now can’t stop. Obviously this is a healing journey with God, its not an event that instantly will change everything.  It will take time.  But I am really looking forward to watching their journeys unfold.  Although I am not leaving us staff out of this either.  The teachings were really good for me and totally convicted me of some things in my life too that I was taking the control out of God’s hands. 

All in all it has been an exhausting week: mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.  Please pray for the students, that they will keep their hearts open for God to challenge them, for the staff that God will give us the wisdom and strength to get through each day and for the crew that there will be unity with them and us even though we don’t spend as much time together as we used too.

I feel like I’m all used up.  So I guess that means that anything that I do from this point on is going to have to be God because I don’t have anything left.  Although I am wasted I wake up every morning looking forward to what God is going to do and teach me.  I wouldn’t be anywhere else.  Although I am well glad for a couple days off.