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...