You can check out photos from our recent outreach to South Africa here.

We’ve also added some thumbnail links to other videos we’ve created in the video section.

Well, we’re nearly through this DTS’s lecture phase. We’ve got just a few weeks left before outreach begins at the very end of April. In summary, what’s happened:

• Mike Oman teaching on the Father Heart of God. (also a nice group shot photo here)
• Derek & Trich Dodd teaching on relationships and forgiveness.
• Jonny Clark and Davy Kidd teaching on the Holy Spirit
• Local outreach in Belfast (my small group hosts an evening for elderly people on the Shankill every Monday at Feed Cafe)
• Patricia Green (founder of Rahab ministries) teaching on human trafficking.
• Jon Hatch teaching on the Kingdom of God, and why Jesus is more than just personal salvation.
• The DTS serving at the Western European Leadership Consultation (WELC) in Dublin.
• A week of prayer, outreach during St Patrick’s Day, and learning about how to work in the Catholic world as an ecumenical mission (taught by Rob Clarke, of YWAM’s Kerygma Teams)
• Jonny Clark teaching on reconciliation.
• Alec Cartwright teaching on ‘discipling nations,’ and why missions is something every Christian is called to, no matter what profession.
• Emmanuel Entee, filling in gaps of our curriculum, and teaching on freedom in Christ.
• Next weeks: a week of outreach in Belfast and workshops, then story telling and evangelism, then a week on worship. (Then outreach)

(A heads up: all the photos linked in the bullet points above are taken with a phone camera, and the quality isn’t great)

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

‘Redemption & Reconciliation: Heart of Christian Worldview’ Peter Adams from YWAM Ireland on Vimeo.

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

Creideamh (pronounced something like kray-jiff, the Irish word for faith) was dubbed the Festival of Faith and hosted a couple hundred people from around Ireland and the world for an outreach in Galway for fifteen days this July. We came along with several other people representing YWAM Ireland to help with the facilitation of the festival and its events – our members doing everything from planning and administration, to electrical work for setting up the festival gazebo on Eyre square, to hosting the various artists who came to perform for the festival.

Renee and I primarily took over the management of festival operations at a local restaurant after its normal closing time, feeding all the festival teams each evening and helping run the festival’s public entertainment venue there, where we hosted musicians, magicians, mimes, and testimony-tellers every night.

Creideamh seemed to have largely been a success. The volunteers got on well and feedback from the community was positive. Teams met in the morning for services, followed by lunch and training, and then would spread out across Galway according to their ministry – ranging from engaging people in discussions about faith to kid’s ministry in local parishes. The artists would perform around town, sometimes on the street, and sometimes in a handful of festival venues.

Well, I could go on, but I suggest you just check out the photos I’ve uploaded to this site (which were also put on the YWAM Ireland Facebook Page, I think), as well as the YouTube video of a member of YWAM England escaping from a straight jacket during Creideamh.

Also check out some of the artists who worked the festival:

• L’Angelus – cajun roots band from Louisiana
• Flip Francis and Sammy Blaze – hip-hop artists from Dallas, TX.
• Crossing the Jordan (CTJ) – band of musicians from four continents, based with YWAM in Harpenden, England.
• Yan Nicholls (E-team) – magician, escape artist, and evangelist based with YWAM in England.
• Collin and Halie (E-team) – acoustic music duo based with YWAM in England.
• Steve Murray – mime artist.

More info at Creideamh website.

Anyways, check it out:

If you’re on Twitter, follow us. If not, just take a peek at the top of the right sidebar of the blog’s main page, and you will see our latest Twitter update (or ‘tweet’) and when we made it. [just look ===>]

Sometimes our lives are too busy for a blog update, or we don’t make proper time, but in just a few phrases, we can let you know what we’re up to using Twitter. So that’s what it’s for (at least for us)! Enjoy.

PS: You can also follow YWAM Ireland’s musing tidbits, news, and events on Twitter.

The end of this DTS snuck up on me like a forgotten birthday (‘Oh, is this what day it is! Do you mean to say there’s only a few left?’). It was different to be the leader of the school, so involved, but to not go on outreach, and then all of a sudden they’re all back in Ireland and we’re really busy, and then a couple weeks later they’re all gone. Whoosh.

I’m writing this over a week since the last student left, and I miss them. They were a really good group of individuals, and also a good team, and I would be proud if they came back to serve with us here.

They returned from outreach in South Africa to a few days of rest, then a week of debriefing with Emmanuel and Janice Entee, over from Harpenden in England. We culminated in an evening of good food, stories, songs and sharing, followed by an informal graduation ceremony where myself and the DTS staff, Greg and Ariette, prayed for each of the ten students.

Last year, I felt the Lord lay on my heart for this DTS the line from the Lord’s Prayer: Thy kingdom come, as a simple prayer to be said and lived out in word and deed. I shared at the graduation a short word about this not being really the end of DTS but hopefully some sort of a beginning of their active citizenship in this awesome kingdom. I read again from Isaiah 61 (actually from Luke 4 where Jesus reads from Isaiah 61), as a scripture that has often come up during this DTS; we stood with the unknown prophet:

The spirit of the Lord is on me,
for he has anointed me
to bring the good news to the afflicted.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives,
sight to the blind,
to let the opressed go free,
to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord.
(NJV)

YWAM Ireland now has it’s own YouTube channel. Check it out.

I recently traveled to South Africa to visit our DTS outreach team and see a few people ahead of planning for a mega outreach from Ireland to Durban in the summer of 2010.

After waiting at our gate only to find out our flights were cancelled, Chris (a staff member from Closkelt) and I were finally able to fly out early morning three days later. Skip ahead 30+ hours, we arrived in sunny Durban – a city of 3.5 million situated on the east coast of South Africa adjacent to the Indian Ocean.

We joined the team after a drive outside the city to a former sugar cane plantation, where a community of missionaries live, going into towns and collecting bread and food discarded by stores, sorting out the bad stuff, cooking or preparing the good stuff, and distributing it to hungry people in local poorer areas. Our team were serving for a week with this ministry, Missions Ablaze, after having worked the last few weeks closely with YWAM Durban in a township called Burlington.

During the course of my time with the team (only about five days), one of my objectives was to gauge the health of the team in spending time with them corporately and individually, as well as do a bit of ground work in preparing to promote a mega outreach YWAM Ireland is planning to organize for July of 2010 in South Africa. About half way through my time in Durban, we migrated across town to Word Changers Academy, a training facility for the World Changers organization, where I was able to see a few of YWAM Belfast’s sponsor students who work with the organization in various positions of leadership. It was really great to sit down with some of these guys and hear how they’re doing, also collecting video clips for helping to promote our 2010 outreach (‘I came to Belfast and served; now you should come here!’) and have them explain some of the things they’re involved in – life skills courses in poor townships, empowering people in health (some townships have an 80% HIV prevalence) and finding work, among other things.

Overall, I was really pleased with the health of our DTS team and their willingness to roll up their sleeves and do practical work with Missions Ablaze, as well as go out with World Changers and teach practical and spiritual skills in the townships. As I was leaving Durban, I was talking to our local YWAM contacts and got some great feedback; one of the leaders of a ministry the team had worked with said they were the best team they’d ever had.

From Durban, I flew to Johannesburg and spent a couple days there before flying back to Dublin. I was able to see Vusi, a friend, graduate of World Changers, former YWAM Ireland DTS student, and extraordinary entrepreneur, who has started various works around Durban related to life-skills teaching and rehabilitation of criminals (please check out the post I wrote about his ministry last year, including video – “Light Providers, South Africa”). He recently moved to Jo’burg to study criminal justice on a full scholarship at Monash University and is also, characteristically, developing a prison ministry there on top of continuing to oversee his ministries in Durban. Aside from just catching up with him, it was helpful to toss around a few ideas for future outreach (especially in 2010).

I had the privilege of witnessing the incredible, community-transforming work our Zulu friends are doing in South Africa. Beyond their own amazing testimonies of personal redemption, they are pouring out their lives into their communities and successfully helping lift people out of crime and abject poverty into living purposeful lives that transform others through local leadership, and through incarnational spirituality.

Consider taking another look at the work of World Changers Academy or Vusi’s Light Providers ministry and supporting them financially. The volunteers generally don’t receive compensation and come from communities in need themselves, where they would be expected to provide for older parents. For about £50/$75 per month, you could sponsor a worker to do this important work full time. Pray about making a donation of £600/$900 through bank transfer to cover a worker for a full year.

Useful, related links:

• Photos I took in South Africa
• Previous blog entry on Light Providers and Vusi
• Light Providers (lightproviders.com)
• World Changers (www.wca-sa.org)
• Greg’s blog (blog.gregcolker.com) – the blog of one of our outreach team leaders
• Zach’s blog (www.zacharystock.com) – blog of a student on our outreach team
• YWAM Durban