From a recent email newsletter:

The Discipleship Training School (DTS) started just over a week ago now, with 21 trainees from America, Canada, Germany, England, New Zealand, Israel, and South Africa. After the new year, we have felt like we’ve really hit the ground running – first in terms of preparation and continuing staff training, and now in all the little details of organising a group this size for activities, housing, food, ministry, etc. We’re glad for Saturdays like this one where we can take time to just breathe and be with each other.

The experience of staffing a DTS in Belfast is new for us and offers some unique opportunities and challenges. The variety of ministry possibilities for the DTS is abundant, and hosting the DTS on the Shankill Road (where we live) connects the trainees directly to a lifestyle of outreach, where we live in the same places as the poor, addicted, and bereaved. As you may know, we don’t have a central ‘base’ in Belfast, and our staff are housed in various flats in the Shankill area, and the trainees are in two different houses about a 15 min. walk apart. Our lecture space is rented from a local church. The challenges, therefore, that are most different than in Closkelt are in managing the community aspect of DTS. We think it’s going quite well, but it’s a lot of work to get meals organised and have people show up at the same place at the same time.

Our DTS staff team are these people: Jonny Clark, the Belfast and Ireland director, is leading the DTS; Mikael is assistant leading with Jonny (as he is also busy with other responsibilities); Renee is staffing and helping train the new staff; Rob is a pastor of many vocations – from prison chaplain to hospital chaplain – and is staffing a first DTS after many years in ministry; Stephanie is a talented artist and graphic designer staffing her first DTS; Bless is helping with the DTS part-time after moving with her husband and son from Thailand where she is from and has been with YWAM for many years. Other YWAM Belfast staff are helping when possible.

The group is strong and talented, but we are a bit stretched after one of our DTS staff had to return home suddenly the day the DTS started.

Yesterday, we announced that our outreach phase locations will be 1. Ireland & South Africa combo and 2. Ireland, Israel & Palestine combo. The trainees have until Tuesday to pray about where they feel they should go, and then we will form the teams.

Locally, Renee and Steph are leading a small group which will be doing children’s ministry in a school on the Shankill and with a church working in a socially deprived area across town. Mikael is leading a small group that will be working in the Feed Cafe on the Shankill doing ministry from there, as well as ministry around town (the group is quite musical, and we’re excited to get them involved in open mics, etc.). Jonny and Rob’s small group will be working with teenagers.

We appreciate your prayers very much.

If you want to stay better updated, you can:

• Follow us on Twitter for insights into our daily life.
• Follow YWAM Ireland on Twitter , where insights and pictures from DTS activities are often posted.

(Someone actually gave Mikael a Blackberry phone before Christmas – quite an upgrade from a phone that was just a phone. After a month of figuring out how it works, he’s trying to use it to communicate while on the go – such as posting pictures from lectures this week via Twitter).

Ok. Enough words.

Thanks for all your love.

We’ve been in Belfast for a few months now, and it’s been cold. Colder than usual, which has come with snow (more snow than usual). I think I might prefer it to the normal Irish winter, which tends to be a combination of dark, rain, and wind. The days are getting longer, but are still short, but in the couple weeks when snow and frost were on the ground, the skies seemed clear and the days brighter, illumined by the snow.

Here are some photos I snapped with my new phone (gifted to me just before Christmas by someone upgrading – the first time I’ve had a phone that can do anything but make phone calls), mostly from windows in our flat:

Before…

In the middle of it…

After…

Christmas Eve at St. Anne’s

Around two dozen persons from Lebanon, South Africa, Israel and Palestine (and other nations) have joined us since 2003 on scholarships to attend DTS in Northern Ireland – typically in Belfast with a reconciliation focus.

We continue this as an effort to integrate faith and a vision for reconciliation to make a real-world impact in places of conflict. The sponsored trainees are recommended by partner ministries in countries of conflict where we send outreach teams. They come to Belfast to receive Christian missions training coupled with a perspective on reconciliation and peacemaking given context in the environment of post-Troubles Northern Ireland. They will then return rooted in their faith to their countries with an ability to build bridges, having ministered alongside YWAM in Belfast on their DTS.

2010
—-
For the DTS starting on 21 January 2010, we are hoping to have 4 sponsored trainees. One is from Israel. One is from Lebanon and has been volunteering with us since the summer. The other two are from South Africa, currently working with two of our partner ministries outside of Durban – World Changers Academy and Light Providers. These organisations are involved in a variety of community projects in their area (links: WCA website and Light Providers website).

If you want to know more about these outstanding individuals, please contact YWAM Belfast directly.

Our needs for them are:

• To cover basic living costs – apprx. £2150 minimum for lecture and outreach phases, per person
• To cover travel costs for the South Africans – airfare and visa costs, apprx. £750 per person.

Will you help us raise up ambassadors for Christ in broken places?

Consider making a donation for this cause – any amount will go a long way.

Donations using PayPal are quick, easy, and safe.  For other methods, please contact YWAM Belfast.

Also, join our cause on Facebook and invite your friends to participate.

You can also check out the ywamireland.org blog post of a similar nature (well, I wrote it, too).

We were about twenty five people that week, meeting in a couple different locations on the Shankill in Belfast. Usually, this annual conference is held in the summer, so our group was perhaps not as diverse as normal, since most people would be busy during the weekdays in November. However, we were a nice combination of YWAM Belfast staff and volunteers, YWAM Harpenden School of Humanities, and Sword of the Sprit gap-year volunteers. In all, we represented the nations of England, New Zealand, USA, Rwanda, Cameroon, Turkmenistan, Norway, Central African Republic, Lebanon, the Netherlands, and Ireland. A good mix, anyways.

Jonny Clark (Director, YWAM Ireland & YWAM Belfast) led us through a brief but meaningful examination of Irish history to set a practical context for our surroundings and the teaching we would have. Our primary guest speaker was Peter Adams (http://www.reconciliationtalk.com), who is involved in reconciliation work in England and overseas. He spoke at length about peacemaking as part of the Christian mission, as well as God’s plan for the reconciliation of all things, and how we participate in that – in relating to people and in speaking about Jesus. He used many stories about his work in Luton (England) with the Muslim community and his work in places like China and the Middle East.

In the afternoons, there were field-trips to community projects around Belfast to see how various groups engaged with the needs of this city. The purpose of these outings were to inspire and spark ideas, as well as connect the teaching with practical application.

[The video at the top was taken at the conference, and I pieced it together from a 75-min talk Peter Adams presented on God's plan of ultimate redemption for all of creation and our call to participate in it (Vimeo - about 30 min.).]

Peter’s blog: reconciliationtalk.com