Lately, we’re in the office quite a lot, especially myself. I added the job of DTS registrar in mid-January, which has been a lot e-mailing and filing, and since there’s only one office computer, I’ve also been the main person to forward or handle the rest of Closkelt’s office correspondence. Most of my time in the office, however, I’ve been trying to organize the DTS programme, collecting and creating training, administration, discipleship, financial, evaluation, and legal information and organizing it in such a way that new DTS leaders can have a definite place to start and so that experience will be recorded and passed onwards. And we’ve both been using the office to look ahead to the fall as well. Renee has worked on methods and schedules for training DTS staff, while I’ve corresponded with students and organizing potential lecturers, and it’s nice now that she’s taken a step back from the classroom to join me with the work in there.

However, work-weeks mostly spent in the office are new to me, and I think my brain is catching up with the repetition. I’m well used to being in and out of the office in my time with YWAM, but whole days are a new phenomenon. In some respects, I’m good with office work – I’m organized and enjoy writing – but in areas of sorting out detail after detail, communicating repetitive information, and reading various documentation, I’m working out of my weaknesses. I like to make new things or make weak things stronger, and although that’s really the bigger picture of our office work, I’d much rather get the ideas, figure out the plan, and have someone who likes administration making the copies, finding the addresses, and stuffing the envelopes.

Outreach logistics

This week and next week will be crunch time for finalizing all the logistics for the DTS outreaches leaving on the 6th of May. We’re excited at sending out twelve students and two staff between Ireland and India, and we’re happy to serve in order to get them ready to go. The next week will see meetings with staff to double check locations and details, as well as some of the finer details of handling issues within the teams. Our finances person is away, so Renee and I have been doing the budgets for the first time, as well as figuring out exactly how much everyone owes, etc. We are trusting God to bring in about £4,000 to make it possible for everyone to go on outreach.

Our outreach team from the October DTS, comprised mainly of North Americans, crossed over from Serbia to Bosnia days before the declaration. The last we’ve heard from them, they are safe and reacting with intelligence to the situation.

Today, 10,000 Bosnian Serbs (Edit: numbering 100,000 according to CNN.com on 27/02) engaged in peaceful protest in the town of Banja Luka, the town where our team is staying. A minority have apparently tried to rush and attack the US Consulate and are being resisted by riot police.

We are confident that God will continue to protect our colleagues, but we would ask that you could join and pray for extra wisdom for the two leaders (Darcy and Shelby) and their team to know how to handle this tense situation. Pray especially that the Americans are able to communicate well their intentions for being in the country, as citizens of countries having recognized Kosovo will surely feel unwelcome in ethnic Serb-dominated areas, like Banja Luka. As well, the outreach is scheduled for another few weeks in Bosnia and Serbia; pray that appropriate decisions can be made for the timing for traveling back to Northern Ireland.

In the news:

Bosnian Serbs try to attack US consulate (CNN.com)

Bosnian Serbs stage Kosovo rally (BBC)

2008 Kosovo declaration of independence at Wikipedia

Pictures from the Serbian Prayer Walk in 2006

Ministry
• Pray for Jessica and her DTS staff (Sharayah, Cheryl, & Francis), cohesiveness, inspired leadership for Jessica, good staff training for next week.
• Pray for Mikael & Renee in their role in DTS supervision, for vision.
• Pray that God brings staff for future DTSs, for good recruitment.
• Recently, we’ve been updating ourselves with YWAM Northern Ireland’s new, formalized Child Protection Policy, and also sitting through hours of DVD seminars by Churches’ Child Protection Advisory Service (CCPAS) for training in properly doing ministry with children (also in respect to UK law). We now require police criminal history checks from all our staff and students. In obtaining ones from the US, we realize that the procedure and names vary by state and often county. Please pray that we’re able to navigate that process and receive our histories so that we’re released to work with children when necessary.

Home
• Pray for a car. We’ve been blessed with funds for a car, but we’re still looking for one within our budget that’s also reliable. We have a trusted local mechanic helping in the search. A car is necessary because the nearest town is about 10 miles away, and we are no longer on the base meal plan, so we need to do our own shopping.
• Flat renovation. We hope to continue to paint, patch, and replace carpet, etc.
• Pray for good appliances. We’re fortunate to have some stuff passed down to us, but we’re looking to replace a few things which are either half-working and dangerous (our gas cooker/stove) or too small (our mini-fridge). The trouble is also finding a way to pick up any used items we might buy from individuals through the classifieds.
• Please help us pray for the YWAM Closkelt base. Much help is needed in raising funds to renovate a structure sagging with band-aids. Pray for professionals to help us: architects, tilers, roofers, carpet layers, carpenters, etc. We can’t do everything ourselves and run the different ministries. We’re trusting God for the right people…