Last week I had the opportunity to spend a few days with YWAM in Rostrevor training their staff team for the upcoming DTS. It was a great privilege and the first time I had done so since leaving YWAM last year. My contribution to YWAM in the last few months has mostly been limited to web maintenance stuff, so this was a welcome break. It was also nice to be able to give input instead of just receive it (like I do at university).

I covered a few foundational topics for the YWAM team, including:

• History and origins of the DTS programme (plus curricular requirements).
• Leadership.
• Roles of trainees, staff and the school leader.
• Confrontation.
• Strategic planning.

I will be returning in the next few weeks to continue with the training, especially to cover how to plan and lead overseas, cross-cultural outreach teams.

So what does this mean?

We are no longer YWAM staff, though Mikael will continue to work for YWAM in Northern Ireland on a limited part-time basis. Both of us want to pursue developing our gifts in new ways over the next few years. Mikael is entering a three year undergraduate degree programme at Queen’s University in Belfast, and Renee is looking for work – hopefully in caring for adults with special needs, a field where she has prior experience.

We will appreciate your prayers for this new season. We continue to remain committed to seeing justice and mercy for the downtrodden and outcast through living the values of the Kingdom of Christ. Our life in missions isn’t over; this is simply a new chapter.

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.

YWAM Ireland website & Facebook group
For more information on YWAM Ireland, you can visit the updated YWAM Ireland website, or even join the YWAM Ireland Facebook group, where you can stay current with our events and outreaches.

This update is coming a bit later than I intended, but I had no hard drive space to download pictures from my camera, so I had to wait until I could remedy the problem.

YWAM staff from around Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland met in Dublin over the night of Friday 7th of November and the following morning to pray in a new era of our operations in Ireland. In short, on the 8th of November, the works in both the North and the South became united in leadership and vision as YWAM Ireland.

Friday evening we had a time of sharing from Rob Clarke, who has been leading the work in the Republic for about 25 years, reflecting on the ministry of YWAMers and the hand of God during that time. We also had the opportunity to pray in the new leadership, as Rob Clarke passed directorship over any work in the Republic to Jonny Clark (no relation), the director of YWAM in Northern Ireland. The food and craic was great – hospitality provided by the Clarke family – , and having the chance to hang out with other YWAMers we don’t get to see too often was nice as well.

During our time, we had the pleasure of the company and input of Stephe Mayers, the director of YWAM in Western Europe. In the morning, he shared about how to engage in new opportunities (counting the cost, committment, etc.) in relation to being YWAM in Ireland and looking around the island at places for new teams.

We’re excited for the future, and there’s a sense that God has good things in store for our YWAM community – especially good challenges and potential to do new things.

Check out more pictures from the YWAM Ireland event in Dublin in our photo gallery album.

New YWAM Northern Ireland website

In other news, YWAM NI has just released a new website (and replaced the old one). It’s got a simple, blog feel, and has basic information available at the moment. Keep posted as more information on YWAM NI’s ministries and happenings are updated.