Lisa Whitaker
We had the honor of Lisa Whitaker come from NJ to teach us about Biblical Worldview and how ideas have consequences. She challenged us to allow God to make heart changes and mind changes during the week to align our views with God's view.
She went through multiple worldview such as Deism, Naturalism, Post-Modernism, Communism, New Age, Islam, Religious Christianity and the Kingdom. Through each one we looked at 6 questions: Is there a God? What is God like? What is the origin of humans? What is the purpose of life? What is wrong with the world? How do you make it right? It was so challenging as she went through them to recognize that some of our world views come from other world views than the Kingdom worldview.
Abby Capo, from Austin TX came up for the week to help interpret. We were so blessed to have her with us as she has much experience and background with Biblical Worldview Workshops.
Lisa and Abby, became family, by joining almost all activities during the week such as our bi-weekly game night, that Renca leads. It is always a fun night of interactive games and getting to know each other better. Well, this week, we did baby shower games to honor our daughter! The Price is Right: Baby Stuff and Guess the measurement of Carole's waist: Jonathan won both!
At the time I was 35 cm but I am way bigger now! :)
Then Renca divided us into groups and we had to come up with a funny story using 14 words that she picked: 7 baby words like bottle, birth, Carole, diaper etc and 7 random words like Gallaudet University, pencil and Angelina Jolie! We have some storytellers in our group! We laughed so hard.
Since David's Tent is now complete, the YWAM base has started "Family Nights" again on Tuesday night. It is a night where the Family of YWAM DC all gets together to worship and receive a message from a local pastor in DC. This week, Dan led worship. He did a great job and asked all the drumming on base to join him to get the bass and beats up for the Deaf to be able to engage and "feel" the worship! The prayer room was rocking!
Week 10- Thanksgiving Retreat-Revival
Todd Miller and JoAnn Smith
On the road again . . . we drove about 4 hours to a campground in PA to celebrate Thanksgiving together and learn about revival in the bible and how it starts in us!
Kari Olney has had it in her heart to restart the Thanksgiving Retreat for christians on RIT and Gallaudet campus to come together for one week of fellowship, teaching and fun! This retreat happened in the 80s and she and her boyfriend, Casey Analco, a current student at Gallaudet, planned and led the week with a team of others.
Renca led worship (above), Casey led small group (below) and Kari led devotional time.
Todd Miller, the pastor of Connect Deaf Fellowship in the Valley Forge PA area was able to come out for two days and stir up our hearts for a revival with God. He spoke from the NT book of Acts and shared that if we want to see revival, revival has to start in our own hearts first, then our community and then it can spread.
His message really touched our hearts and ignited sparks in each of us. He also lead us through us activities. The one below demonstrated how we were created to live in community depend on people in our community. He shared "This is the way that God designed us to live as Christians, supporting each other in community." Both nights, we ended our class with powerful prayers for God to start revival in us and in our community!
We had the honor of having Joanne Smith teach us again teaching on revival in the OT, clearly explaining the revival when Josiah found the book of law, when the Israelites came back to rebuilt the temple and the walls of Jerusalem, Jonah and more.
Fun Pictures from the Retreat
Kari throw a snowball at the boys when they were taking a picture and they captured it!
Prayer for Thanksgiving Dinner, the Dinner and some of the woman that served us in the kitchen with Kari and Casey (below).
Hanging out!
And for Thanksgiving Day, the Burning Embers (BE) team performed for the last time! And I (Carole) was 6 1/2 months pregnant! Can you find Dan and I's daughter in one of the play pictures?
Week 11-Missions
Chris Hughes
We had the pleasure of having C
hris Hughes, the pastor Deaf Calvary Church in Fredrick MD with us for a week teaching "Missions". This was another challenging week were he asked great questions that made the students really think why they are serving and the heart of missions! As one of the students shared afterward, he really "kicked us in the butt, in a good way".
We also had the students pick a favorite week topic and teach it to all the students and staff as a way of practicing teaching and testimony sharing for outreach! Each of them did an amazing job of really processing the week of teaching and then making it they own teaching. It was amazing to see them all teach from what God has taught them.
Two of the five picked Evanglism, Taylor and Danni, they did not even know they other one was teaching on the same topic. They did an amazing job teaching from their heart. Taylor used the concept of evangelsim is an overflow of your intimacy and relationship with God. And Danni focused on some questions our teacher challenged us with such as Who are you? and finding out who you are through knowing who God is!
Caleb taught on the Father Heart of God and it was awesome. He mainly taught about how God wants relationship with us! It is all about relationship! He started with the heart of God was not the actual heart but the center or main purpose of God just like the heart of America is in DC. He made it his own and shared from the heart of a son and some deep experiences that He has with his own earthly father.
Destiny taught about the different world views we learned about during the Biblical Worldview Week. She went through She went through each worldview such as Deism, Naturalism, Post-Modernism, Communism, New Age, Islam, Religious Christianity and the Kingdom and shared some important things about the worldview that she learned.
Claudine shared about the power of worship, prayer and intercession. She went through each one and gave a clear definition and then shared an experience that she has had with God related to worship, prayer and intercession. For example, she shared about worship and then testified about how she got lost in worship with God when she was leading at David's Tent this year.
They all did a great job!
Week 12-Incarnational Ministry
Bob Aryes and Matthew Belwood
Our last and final week, we has two amazing teachers, Bob Aryes and Matthew Belwood, from Deaf Teen Quest (DTQ) come out and teach Incarnational Ministry. They taught from their experiences working with Deaf teens and led us in many practical activities to make us think about how we interact with each other, how our wounds can become scars through Jesus, how to be good listeners and so much more!
They were both great teachers and so intentional about getting to know the students outside of class!
One of the activities, Matt asked Dan to share the story of how he met me (Carole)! After sharing, Matt picked out some do's and dont's from Dan's story of how to build relationships with people in DC in order to share Jesus with them.
One don't was that Dan waited 6 weeks for me to show up to his church or bible study again in Santa Fe and I did not show up. But then the 7th week when I did show up, he did not get my information. But the next day he pursed a few of our mutual friends and got my information and texted me. So the lesson was "Do not wait for the people to come to your door, but do pursue them gently when you find them". We also did many listening activities and practiced asking good follow-up questions! It was a great week to sum up and end the lecture phrase with!
We are so grateful for all of our teachers who came and shared with us throughout the 12 weeks! Each of us have grown in understanding and experiencing who God is through you!
End of the ASL DTS Lecture Phrase and YWAM DC 2014
As a family, went to Red Robin on Friday night to celebrate the end of lecture phrase of the DTS. Our students each went home for a 2 week Christmas break to see their families. They arrive back to DC Dec 29th, having a few days here to prepare before they fly out to the Philippines on Dec 31st! They will be in the Philippines, serving and loving God and people for about 2 months, arriving home Feb 24th, 2015. We are so proud of our students and staff and excited for what God will do in the Philippines. Thank you for praying for them!
As an ASL staff team, we debriefed the 12 weeks on Sunday talking and testifying all that God did in each one of us and through us. We are so grateful and thankful for the 7 amazing staff that served with us this past year! A special blessing goes to Gabriel and Brandon who will be moving on from YWAM DC and ASL ministries. We have loved the time we have had with you and bless you on your continual journey knowing God and making Him known on earth!
Monday, Jason Hershey, our base director led the all the YWAM DC staff through a debrief of the year 2014. We wrote everything up on a white board! It was amazing to see all that God has done starting from Jan to Dec. Then as a team, we went out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and then had fellowship and dessert back at the base. It was good to be altogether.
