April Already.

Whoah! I can't even believe that it is already the end of April. The last few months have flown by. I think the last time I sent out an update was when my team and I came back from outreach in Europe. So, after that, we were preparing for the internship that was coming at the end of January. Now it is April, and they are in the third stage of outreach.
In December, I received a word from God that I needed to be a part of a school that our base was going to pioneer. It is called the Biblical Core Course. Basically it is a three month school that is a running study of the Bible. I really was not to keen on going, because that would mean I could not work with the internship. The school would be going on the same time as the internship, and it would be impossible to do both. So I was really struggling with what God had told me to do, but I decided that Iw anted to obey God most of all. So I started praying for a willing heart. I did not want to go into the school with a hard heart. By the time the school was starting, I was ready to do it. I wanted it for myself. So I moved into the Station Rd house and began the first Biblical Core Course at the YWAM Urban Key base.

One of the amazing things about our school was that we had 5 students, but we were all staff. Me from the arts team, and four of the members of the DTS staff. Each of us is from a different country: USA, Belgium, Chile, Denmark, and Ethiopia. I had received several words from different people before the school, and also during the school, that it would be a time for God to lay a foundation in my life, and that the school would also be a foundation for the base and ministries. Our teachers came from Uruguay to lead, a husband and wife and their two daughters. They are amazing people of God, so full of wisdom and understanding, but humble and relational at the same time. It was a long road for them to get here to London, and we were so blessed and happy when they made it.
The school was amazing. I don't really know what else to say. We studied 20 books in depth, and read the whole bible in the space of three months. We studied the old and new testament, using a method called inductive. We looked at the history of the peoples and of the cities, the styles of writing, the authors, and the culture. This helps us see what the author was originally trying to get across to the audience. From the beginning it broke everything that I had learned before. A lot of teachings that I have had have been taken out of their original context which distorts the message that was intended. It was really hard for me, because I had grown up in church. It would have been easier if I was new to it all! God wanted to show me so much through his word, through these teachers and my classmates.
Even though we learned so many things and studied the history and the different translations, the knowledge is not what our teachers wanted us to take away from the school. The most important thing was our personal time with God, and the revelations we received from Him. You could stuff so much information in your head and be able to recite it when called upon, but if God didn't speak to your heart and change things and reveal new things to you, you missed the point. I know that each one of us, me Mats Angelica Michela and Israel each received SO MUCH from God. I can really see now how God was laying foundations in us, and without a foundation in His word, we cannot effectively teach and speak into the lives of the students that come to the base.

After finishing the school, I moved back in with the arts team, who were just coming home from Amsterdam and Lyon. They had an amazing time on outreach there, and have one more part to go. Just this last friday we began a new DTS, and on tuesday we leave for Sweden. We only have 6 days there, but we have a ton of activities planned: a concert at the university, two youth meetings, a time of intercession, and hanging out with the staff at the base there in Linkoping. After that, our internship graduates on the 29th of April.
This next year we have so many events planned. Our next internship begins on May 31st. We are planning outreach to Paris for a youth summer of missions program, Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival, and London for the Notting Hill Carnival. The next internship in January 2014 we are planning to go to Argentina for outreach and connect with our parent bases there. Then the summer internship we want to take an outreach team to Brasil for the World Cup. With all these outreaches coming up I have to keep trusting God to provide. I am not able to work here in England, because it is a very difficult visa to get and our schedule does not leave a lot of room for work. So please be praying for me in that area, and if you feel led to support me please let me know! Also if you guys could be praying for us as a team, for new strength and new creativity. We need themes for each internship to run on, so new ideas is a good prayer point. Thank you all for your love and support!