The end of one season and the beginning of another...

March DTS 2006 ended just a few weeks ago. The students split off in all directions – some going home, some moving to other locations to do ministry, some just going home to pack and come back to YWAM Kiev. And for the first time in months, the staff could relax.

Torben and I took a 2 day mini-vacation to Uman, a small town 3 hours south of Kiev. Uman’s claim to fame is a huge park built by a Polish lord hundreds of years ago as a birthday gift to his wife. She must have been overwhelmed by the beauty of this garden. Waterfalls, lakes, romantic forest walks...it was lovely. Others must have caught on to the romance of the place – during the 5 or 6 hours we were there, we saw 15 couples there to get married. Brides were everywhere!

In the two weeks or so since we have been back from Uman, we have been planning the next DTS set to start next Wednesday (27th of Sept.), but I have also had a lot of time to think and debrief this last DTS experience. Overall, this DTS was a redeeming experience for me, especially the outreach. It was the second DTS I worked with as staff and I can see a lot of the ways I failed on the first experience. For example, when outreach was stressful and the students hard to deal with, I signed out emotionally and gave it over to Torben.
I was determined that this second experience would not be like the first. But outreach is hard. It stretches you very much. Living in very close contact with 9 or 10 other people, most of which don’t speak your language and nearly all of which are from a different cultural background, is a unique and extremely challenging situation. There were many times, especially in Moldova, where our team began to get tired and whiny, when I would look at Torben and say, “I really can’t do this anymore.” And the temptation was strong to sign out again. But then I did what I didn’t do the first time. I went from Torben to God and told him I hadn’t the strength I needed. And I have heard it so many times it now sounds a bit like a cliché, but God came through for me. He really did. I would tell him I couldn’t do it anymore, but then it would be time for another meeting or ministry and God would somehow give me the patience and love I needed to deal with difficult students or orphaned children.
I am definitely not saying I did everything perfect on this DTS. I had my faults, but I can see that this time, through God’s strength and certainly not my own, I persevered when I felt like giving up.

Another thing I can see much more clearly now looking back is that God must have had a purpose in having us on this DTS staff. It was so extreme. We were on a staff team where neither of us really connected personality-wise with anyone else and we couldn’t even communicate with two of the staff. Of the 14 students, there was only one American and one Polish guy and the rest were Russian-speakers. The school had a feel of being very thrown together and Torben and I never really found our place until outreach, when (Thank God!) we were the leaders and could feel like we were actually doing something worthwhile. I don’t think I even realized just how extreme the situation was until we started meeting with this staff team for the upcoming DTS. Though we have little time to plan, it feels a hundred times more organized and both Torben and I enjoy the others on the staff team.
So what was God doing putting us in such an extremely uncomfortable position for the last six months? We both whined and complained to him so many times when we got “Russian-ed out”, but again and again we had to come to the place where we decided that, even though God’s way doesn’t make sense right now, we would keep walking in the path He had placed before us. Trusting him and looking for him to guide us down what looked like a dark path. And as my mother pointed out the other day, we are learning more during this time than we can know right now.

And so, now a new season is starting in our lives. A completely new set of students will arrive this coming Wednesday to start their own six-month DTS journey. 5 Americans, 2 Uzbeks, 2 Kyrgyz, 2 Ukrainians, and 1 Belarusian. Torben is the school leader under the guidance of the base leader’s wife Vicki. I am part time staff, spending most of my time preparing for the next school and learning more Russian. I am really looking forward to this fall. But more about that school once it starts...

Chasing dreams

Well, outreach is over and we are in the midst of debrief week back here in Kiev. We are doing a lot of talking about what God was teaching all of us during the time of outreach and it is great to hear what everyone is learning. I will write a blog later about how the outreach was generally, but I need some more time to debrief.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about this fall and what it will look like for me exactly. Torben will be the director of the next DTS starting September 27th, but I will be just part time staff. I need to rest in between schools more than a week or two. I need to take some more Russian lessons and I would like to help out some at the baby hospital again.

But lately my dream of continuing my education has been resurfacing. I finished one year of college in Ohio and during the summer after that, I decided to do my DTS in the fall rather than return to school right away. Since then, I have been on the mission field off and on, but my dream of finishing my degree has never gone away. In fact, the desire has grown stronger the longer I work with discipleship training. I want to be a missionary long-term, but I can see that to get an education in psychology/counseling would benefit my ministry a lot.
I run into a lot of people who have been through some awful experiences and because of that, they have some deep hurts. Even in this DTS, I have encountered students with very deep emotional wounds and though I know that God has spoken through me at times to help them, I know it would have helped so much to have some training in how to help them better. Also, I just love learning so much...I know, I'm such a nerd.

So, I've been looking into online learning programs. There are so many out there!! And there are some awesome online psychology programs. Of course, though, the issue of money comes up. I know it's not very realistic for a missionary living on support to dream of going to college. Even with financial aid, I don't think we would have enough. So Torben and I are doing a lot of thinking and praying about how this could possibly work out. Throwing lots of ideas back and forth. We both know that it would be really hard for us to leave missions - this is what we love to do - but it would only be for a time in order for Torben to work while I study. I don't know. Nothing is certain with any of it. These are just thoughts we've discussed the past few weeks. We've commited to be here at YWAM Kiev for another year, so I know these thoughts are premature unless a financial miracle happened. I'm just dreaming...