On YWAM and 25 years of Christian Ministry

DTS outreach in Malaysia

I turned 48 yesterday.  Not a milestone birthday I grant you (save for the joy found in reminding myself I’m not 50 yet) but it did cause me to reflect on an actual milestone anniversary in my life.

25 years ago this month I arrived in Melbourne Australia to attend a Discipleship Training School (DTS) with Youth with a Mission (YWAM).  It was essentially my moment of entering “full time ministry”.  I know, as someone who has openly questioned the concept of “full time ministry” on this very blog I realize I am navigating a theological minefield here but bear with me.

It was 1989 and the Christian ministry world was very binary for me at that time.  When God calls, you have one of two options:

* either pastor a church and counsel people’s problems all day long

or

* become a foreign missionary and see the world as you bring the Good News to new lands. 

I knew which one I wanted to do…

Of course all this happened because I had one of those “moments” where God really shakes you up.  I hadn’t really gone to church much between graduating high school and turning 21 preferring to focus on other things…like myself!

But a Bible study I was invited to by a mentor of mine at the time followed by many reflective discussions in the bar afterwards soon had me “on fire” again.

However I was still nervous about blowing all the money I had saved to move to Los Angeles and become an actor on a 6 month missionary school in Australia. Truth be told,  I purposely applied to the Melbourne school 1 week after the cutoff date with the hope that I would be rejected.

I wasn’t.

In fact I got a call from Melbourne and Tom the DTS leader told me they received my application late but had prayed about it and felt I was supposed to come.

Now in these days of Skype and the internet an international call is as common as phoning my neighbor but for a suburban raised American in 1989 a call from Australia where they had prayed and felt God wanted me to go?

Forget Hollywood…I’m goin’ to a land “down under”

Yes, my shorts scream ’80s

A Good God

And let me add about how much God loves us.  About a year or two before I went to Australia a young Australian guy named Peter visited our church for a while as he traveled the world.  My dad employed him for a few weeks in his flooring company and so we got to know Peter pretty well during that time.  Peter wasn’t just from Australia…he was from Melbourne Australia.

So when I arrived in Melbourne in September of 1989 (after an excruciating Detroit – Denver – L.A. – Honolulu – Sydney – Melbourne flight) it was Peter who was waiting for me when I landed.  I stayed my first week before the DTS with Peter’s family who practically adopted me as one of their own during my time in Melbourne.  (Australian readers may appreciate memories of that first weekend include eating fish and chips and watching Hey Hey Its Saturday)

My point though is I was young, away from my family, and in a strange land for the first time in my life.  So God arranged for a loving family to watch over me in my new home away from home.  In all of the cities in all of Australia I knew only one Australian personally before I arrived…and he lived 30 minutes from the YWAM base I would be attending.

There are no coincidences…

God is just cool like that

Discipleship Training School

The DTS itself was an experience I will never forget and it really confirmed in me that I would be in some form of ministry and that it would be overseas. Melbourne was so much more cosmopolitan than anything I had ever experienced growing up in suburban Detroit.  I tasted curry for the first time in Melbourne.

I was 23 year old and had never had a curry!  (Now I can’t go a week without it)

The DTS gang waiting for a train

Our  DTS  was very International and had about 23 people in it from Germany, Switzerland, Egypt, the U.K., New Zealand, America, as well as the Aussies.

I kinda knew then this was the life I wanted to live.  I loved the clash of cultures and cuisine.  I loved talking about God through the lens of other people’s experiences and upbringings.

My time with these new friends were full of adventures as we learned, worked, prayed, and played together.  I even developed a crush on one of the pretty young YWAM base leaders.  Turned out she also had a crush…but alas, not for me.  Thats ok, it cleared the way for Tammy a year later 🙂

I later went on outreach with the DTS to Malaysia and it was there that I picked up a book called Heartcry for China. I read it twice in the jungle and thought for the first time my next move may need to be to Hong Kong.

Turns out Hong Kong was where the journey took me but it wasn’t where it started.  It started 25 years ago at a YWAM base in Melbourne Australia. So thanks to all you who were part of that chapter of my life.  I have many fond memories and it laid the foundation of where I am today!