“All men are equally lost, but not all men are equally needy.” Dr. Ralph Winters
Like the medical term “triage” there are some in our world who’s spiritual and physical needs are greater than others. I feel an obligation to go to those who are in the highest need. I am pursuing this idea for the sole purpose of bringing God’s glory to everyone in my generation. I will go, because my God is worthy of it. He is worthy of every nation, tribe people and language worshipping him with radical obedience.
How can you go about doing that?
I think there is only one way to describe how you do that. Follow God’s leading, without it, you will do nothing even if you want to. So that is what I am going to do. Follow God. how does that look from week to week, day to day? I have prayerfully moved to CDA to be in an internship. This internship is a primer for a 6 month program called the “DTS”. In following what God has told in obedience, I am confident I am following God’s call by being at this YWAM internship.
The internship is just like school, but instead of learning English, Math or History. I get to learn how to be a obedient Christian. With serving in the community, diving into main discipleship issues, reading books about Lordship, Discipleship, Missions, Bible Inductive study, Thai culture/language classes. Everything with the purpose of preparing me for my outreach in Thailand for 8 weeks.
What is the week’s schedule?
Mondays we start with Worship and Intercession, both are meant to find what God’s heart is really focused on. Worship is never the same, sometimes we sing, sometimes we go out into nature and find all the wonderfully perfect things God has made, while still sometimes we find ways to describe God.All of the worship is focused on bringing more glory to God.
In intercession we spend an hour with a group of people pleading on behalf of those who don’t have the option to, before God. The topic is never the same, each one being something of high potency; Abortion, Politics, Unreached PG’s, the Persecuted Church, the lost in America, unity between church’s, etc. I think this is something that everyone should do, and it sets the standard for the rest of the week. How would you act if your heart was aligned with how God feels once a week? I know I work much harder because of it, so I can do justice to what God has burdened me.
After worship and intercession, we do a Discipleship class where we are going over books that challenge Christians to True Lordship/Discipleship/Surrender. In the last quarter we read “Radical” by David Platt, the book challenges the new believer, calling them to live with obedience that is set on pleasing him. I just wrote a paper on the book, and I think it articulates the ideas of the book very well, if you would like it. Leave a comment with your email and I can share it.
On Tuesday, I have a missions class and Thai Language class. Both of these classes are a blast, each of them challenging me to constantly learn more, this upcoming quarter I will be doing the advanced Thai class. Hopefully I will be able to speak well in Thai by the time I get to Thailand. In these classes we just go over the basics.
On Wednesday, We have Seek and Soak, Base ministries, and Evangelism class. Seek and Soak is an hour of silence, specifically for you to be pursuing God. It is one of the most refreshing times, out of all our classes. For Base ministries, I first choose a ministry to help with, than which ever staff member leads that ministry gives us stuff to do for it. Just little tasks to get our hands dirty. For Evangelism class we learn how to evangelize and how to have our defense or “apologia”1 Peter 3:15. the purpose is to challenge us by going out and doing it, Go and learn by doing evangelism. It is a challenging and refreshing class.
Thursday’s start with Acts of Service, in it we clean, basically everything on base. After that we have inductive study, which is a very detailed way of studying the bible to find the truths being told accurately. It is one of the most useful tools I have ever used, it goes over everything you will need for any type of bible study. Next up is our men’s group, where we start to learn more about each other, the purpose, is literally to grow in relationship with the other young men going through the DTS.
On Friday’s there is Base Bible reading, for it we spend an hour reading and discussing books of the bible with everyone on base. Then Acts of Service again, this time it is focused on doing outside things that require a lot of physical labor. Once that is done I have an elective, last semester I learned the Thai Alphabet, it took a long time but I finally got it down and can read in Thai. It’s not the most fluent thing yet, but it is a work in progress for sure.
So the point of this schedule is to have a constant growth towards using my time in Thailand to the best of my ability, to make the biggest splash in Thailand. Of course, it is only a short term mission, if I labor hard now it will have a bigger impact than if I don’t (Hosea 10:12). So what is the next question?
How long is the DTS and when does it start?
The DTS starts on Oct 4th, 2021 it goes until March 11th, 2022. So, it is 6 months divided into 2 different phases. The first phase is focused on knowing God. Its described as the lecture phase, consists of 12 weeks of different speakers coming and sharing specific topics every week. These speakers are people who have lived their lives in obedience to God and teaching in topics that they personally excel. After phase 1 is over I move into phase 2.
Phase 2 is focused on making God known, we will be spending 8 weeks in Thailand. Each day will be spent ministering to the people where we are. This is where I will finally have the chance to do everything I have been learning for at that point the past year. I am anticipating a lot to come from this time, with literal sweat and tears that I am putting in now, I pray God moves.
To say I am excited is an understatement, I can’t put to words the way I feel about going to Thailand. I am extraordinarily excited for this trip.
You might be asking “who are you going with?”
I am doing all of this work with an organization called YWAM. It’s name is an acronym that stands for Youth With A Mission. A bit about the origins of the organization, the founder, Loren Cunningham was given a vision of waves of youth going into the whole world. This vision was given to him as a 20 Year old youth, if you want to read the whole story it is here. Today, they do this by discipling and championing young men and women to follow God’s call. By bringing each one through lessons of what God’s character is like and than having them share it with people they do not know around the world.
I am blessed to have the opportunity to be a part of God’s plan. This is something I know will be life changing, I look forward to seeing how God forms me and builds me in this consecrated time. The potential for success is very high, I know however, that any good thing comes from God. I also know that I am in desperate need of prayer, because God can be moved by it, and without prayer I am nothing.
So, to the one who is reading this. I would like to make a request to you. Would you consider praying for this trip? for this time set apart for God? would you pray for the finances? and most of all pray that God is present in the trip.
Prayer needs.
So, lets get some information about the trip that you can pray for! First: To get on the plane to Thailand $7000 is needed, as of right now I believe there is still $6000 left to raise. After the cost, there is COVID, the country needs you to have the vaccine to go as of right now, there are plans that I have heard of that changing in August. If you go you will also have to quarantine for 7-14 days. I will try to keep this information updated.
This trip to Thailand starts in late December, it continues to early March.
Should Thailand be a priority? Yes, and here are some statistics that show you why. There are 113 People Groups (PG) in Thailand, out of all PG 77 or 68% of them are Unreached. The total population is 70,000,000 of which 61,500,000 are unreached. For those of you who are confused on what “unreached” means, it is a term that missionaries use to determine a PG priority. An unreached PG has less than 2% Christians in it. Meaning that it is statistically impossible for them to evangelize to outside PG without outside assistance.
The main religion is Buddhism with 88.7% of the population or 62,090,000 people, with 455,000 evangelicals in the northern part of Thailand.
You can find more information at Joshua project or here. Specifically for Thailand’s unreached peoples, this site has an incredible amount of information that has to do with missions.
I have one last question. Would you like to participate in the Great Commission? If so, I would strongly encourage looking into how you can help! To participate doesn’t always mean you go, it can mean giving financially or supporting with something more physical. As I am pursuing to fulfill my call, I would encourage you to consider giving to my ministry, I can only do so much of this work without a fulltime job. So to allow me to do best on outreach, I need funding. But, With what ever you do, follow God.
Thanks for reading!
