I can't believe that it has been over a year since first stepping foot in New York! September 2012 marks the beginning of my second year in full-time ministry with YWAM Metro NY, and I am so excited about what God has in store for this next year! Our annual DTS begins Sept. 16 and I, once again, will be staffing the school. This time around I have more responsibilities and am excited to see how God stretches me in this time. I will be working with the Compassion Track, like last year, where we will focus on human trafficking, the pro-life movement, and special needs children/adults. I will teach a few mini lectures on human trafficking, help plan the weekly outreaches into Long Island and New York City, lead a girls small group, and be a 1-on-1 for a few girls in the school. Basically, I'm on call 24-7 to be whatever it is these students need me to be. I'll also be in charge of Food Services again. Our kitchen operates as a commercial kitchen (just like a restaurant) and it's my responsibility to make sure the standards the Health Department requires are met. I feed around 40 people, 3 meals a day, and with that comes building menus, massive shopping trips, physically cooking the meals, and coordinating 4 separate teams for cooking and cleaning. It is quite the challenge, but I am grateful that God is allowing me a place to use the skills learned from my Culinary Arts training.
Staffing a DTS is one of the most taxing things I've ever done, but in that comes tremendous growth, thus making it one of the best experiences in my life. Someone once told me that staffing a DTS is like plugging yourself up to a movie screen and letting everyone watch you mess up on a much larger scale. I, inevitably, will make mistakes, but that's how we learn right? Pray that God will turn those "mess ups" into building blocks, allowing me to mature spiritually. Pray that this will be a time of testing and just a downright faith builder by putting me in situations where if He doesn't come through, everything falls apart. I know that sounds crazy, but I don't want anything that is apart from Him, and I thoroughly enjoying knowing God's love for me, demonstrated in the area outside my comfort zone. It's scary, but it's the best possible place to be.
