YWAM?

Youth With A Mission is the largest evangelical Christian missions organization, currently maintaining over 18,000 full-time missionaries. It started back in the 60's by a man named Loren Cunningham. At that time, only older, formally trained men were missionaries. Loren had a vision that he was supposed to help give young people an opportunity to serve on the mission field. Almost 40 years later, I can say that he most definitely has fulfilled this calling on his life! YWAM now has hundreds of bases all over the world and sends out thousands of people every year into the mission field. I am lucky enough to be one of those! The first step to becoming involved in YWAM is to attend a Discipleship Training School, or DTS. Back in 2009 I was able to attend a DTS in Kona, Hawaii, which is the main base. The first 3 months is called "lecture phase". Loren realized that not every person has been lucky enough to grow up in a strong Christian family, so the lecture phase allows you to hear and respond to amazing speakers on basic Christian principles. During my DTS we covered topics such as "the father heart of God", "spiritual warfare", "hearing the voice of God", "personal identity in Christ", etc etc. This is such a time of growth and healing. After these 3 months, "outreach phase" begins. This can be here in the US or international, which is usually the case. Outreach lasts for 2 to 3 months, and is a time to walk out the real Gospel. I, personally, grew tremendously during this time. Living in a small community allowed God to show me things He wanted to change about me, and gave me the opportunity to walk that change out. Deciding to do a DTS was the best decision of my life. It gave me an opportunity to escape every-day life, and just find my place with God. I have personally witnessed and heard countless stories of those 5-6 months completely transforming people's lives. If there is a reason I love this organization, this is it.