I think the way DTS impacted me can be summed up by two main themes. First, during this time I decided I want to live my whole life in surrender to God, choosing to seek his will for my life. Second, through our experiences in the lecture phase and on outreach, my entire worldview changed! Pretty impactful!
Lecture phase was a process of head knowledge finally becoming heart knowledge. Having grown up a Christian and knowing the textbook answers to the big questions, (shoutout to the PKs) I was seeking a deeper relationship with the Lord and wanted to see the bigger picture of His plan for the world. I came hungry to understand my own salvation, but I knew that I’d likely have to undergo a difficult process of asking God to reconstruct parts of my relationship with Him, with the Church, and my identity. During DTS so many of my questions were answered. I saw personal breakthroughs and I gained enough of a Biblical foundation to help me trust God and his promises through my questions.
The community at the YWAM base also had a huge impact on my faith! Serving together and being discipled by my 1-on-1 mentor as well as other staff and students, I saw how amazing it can be to be surrounded by people from different backgrounds and cultures who are all pulling each other closer to Jesus!
A big turning point for me was in Week 8 of lectures when our Base Director, Tom, gave us an introduction to the topic of Worldview. I realized that so much of the tension in my walk with the Lord came from trying to reconcile my Christian faith with my secular worldview. (Spoiler, it can’t be done.) At the end of the week Tom asked us the question, ‘Will you submit to Biblical truth, even if you don’t like it or you disagree with it?’ Wow. I always knew there were parts of the Bible that I didn’t like but I thought the answer was that I had to train my brain to like them. Or worse that, like my culture teaches, it’s okay to pick and choose what you like to create ‘your truth’. Tom’s question made me realize that God doesn’t care if we dislike Biblical truth- what he cares about is that we submit to it. Through this submission, He reveals His heart to us and we gain understanding of why doing things His way is so much better than trying to do things on our own.
Outreach was an incredible experience of putting to practice so much of what we had learned in the lecture phase! It was challenging but I began to enjoy the difficult times because, for the first time in my life, I was suffering with God and turning to Him for my strength and comfort. Outreach also gave me a heart for friendship evangelism; I realized I can’t take for granted the easy opportunities I have to share Jesus with friends or strangers in my own country. God also broke my heart for young women in places like Central Asia and Muslim countries with different worldviews to me.
Over the whole six months I grew a dependency and intimacy with the Lord. I have started to see two things more clearly: First, the picture He is painting for my life! In terms of my calling/purpose, the Great Commandments and the Great Commission are more than enough for me to be getting on with. Secondly, in trying to rewire my brain to see the world from a Biblical Christian worldview, I have started to see more clearly the picture God is painting for the world – how and why we are where we are in history and what our role is as Christians. God spoke to me about why he has given me the passions and interests he has, and I will be heading back to YWAM Maui in September for the School of Biblical Foundations and Missions where I hope to gain a deeper understanding of worldviews and cross-cultural missions.
The theme for our school was ‘His view, our delight’ and that’s exactly what God kept highlighting to me. Through the Biblical foundation I gained in lecture phase, personal discipleship and what God showed me about himself in a Muslim country, I learned how important it is to seek His perspective in everything! And that even when we can’t see His view or don’t understand it, He just wants us to trust Him. His view is always better than ours!
-Anna, a student from our Winter 2022 DTS