Monday 25 April 2011

Life in Denver

The past few weeks have been so amazing here in Arvada. God is rocking my world, and I'm learning a lot. This is a brief update...as it is late and I need sleep.

The first week of teaching was on the Biblical Foundation of Worship, and was taught by an incredible woman of God named Mary Jean. She really pounded in the truth, and trained us in being students of the Word in order to being able to present a pure and acceptable offering of worship to God. One thing she said that really stuck with me was that I need to go beyond just being challenged, but I need to allow myself to be changed.

Last week was an incredible blessing!! Caleb and Erin Paxton (http://ywammusic.net/profile/eineblume) taught on the topic of songwriting. They encouraged us to look beyond the form of the music, and recognize the spirit behind it. I was also given very practical assignments that helped me write creatively, and that I will be able to use in the future as well. I can't express how much these two (and their lovely daughter, Blessed Aisling) have impacted me. They are incredibly beautiful people!!

I have been making a lot of friends, and so enjoy community life here. One thing that is very different from my DTS (besides that my current school is 1/8th of the size), is that there are several schools going on at the same time, but our meals, work duties, worship time, intercession groups, etc are all together as a community. There are two DTSes going on, a School of Ministry Development (also known as Phase II), and my school - the SOW. One of the DTSes is a multi-culture DTS, and a majority of the students are from South Korea. All around the base there are little posters to help us learn Korean. :) It's been fun to get to know other students, as well as try to learn a few phrases.

Also... each week (or maybe it's every-other week) the YWAM base posts a "videocast" on their youtube page with updates along the way of what we are doing. I was on last weeks video cast, so check it out. :)
http://www.youtube.com/user/ywamdenverweb


Blessings!!
Lindsey

Sunday 10 April 2011

YWAM Denver

Last Monday, I arrived in Arvada (a suburb of Denver) for the YWAM School of Worship. I am so blessed to be here, and am really enjoying getting to know the people in my school, as well as the others on the base (campus). Here's an update of the last week:


Miracles are already happening! The first day I arrived I was choosing a bunk in my room, and just decided on one top bunk. As I was climbing up onto it, I noticed something on the headboard, and found a check! It was left by a previous student, and was written out for $150, but the "payable to" line was blank. :) Up until that point I didn't have all my tuition for the school, but was overjoyed and so blessed to find that check for me. God's faithfulness is astounding!
In addition to the SOW, there are three other schools happening at the base (campus), and it's been really great to be apart of the community here. There are 11 students in my school, 9 girls and 2 guys. Some of our teaching sessions are all together as a base. This week has mostly been an introduction to the base (history of YWAM Denver, base manual, etc), and getting to know each other. Next week, things should start falling more into a regular routine. We already have our first song writing assignment for the SOW, and I'm pretty excited about it.

On Thursday night a group of us from the base went to a church about 45 min south of here, to hear Bill Johnson (pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, CA) speak at a healing conference. It was very powerful, and God spoke to me about some very impacting things relating to hosting the Holy Spirit, and walking in awareness of His presence. He also talked about honoring when others recognize the Spirit, even if we don't "feel" it or sense Him yet. It was very powerful, and at the end Bill had a word of knowledge about people needing physical healing. We didn't stay the entire time, but when we left i know that over 60 people had experienced healing in their body! Praise God!

I'm hoping that about once I week I will be able to send these updates and let you know what God is doing. I'd love to hear from you as well, if you want to let me know what I can pray for or share what God is teaching/revealing to you!

Prayer requests/Praise reports:
1) I have had a really sore throat and a bad cough for over a week now. The air is really dry here, and I would really like to be totally healthy, especially since this effect my voice.
2) Please pray for one of my school leaders (Andrew, and his wife Rachel), their 3 month old son, Levi, has been really sick lately and had to be hospitalized the other day. I'm not sure all that is going on, but it's hard on both of them, and for Andrew to be pulled away to that while trying to staff the SOW.
3) Praise God for team unity in our school, and how much we have already been bonding with each other. God has really blessed us with being able to be vulnerable with each other, and stand in the gap for each other's needs (not only through prayer, but 2 girls also offered to help out one of the guys in our school who has feeling a lot of financial stress).