Our Journey with Christ

Outreach Stateside Part 1: Gallaudet Univeristy

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For a week of outreach we are at Gallaudet University in Washington DC, the only Deaf university in the world.

The first day we were on campus God placed Matthew 5:13-16 on my heart as the scripture for our team as well as the Christians on campus at Gallaudet. It is where Jesus calls us the salt and light of the world. When we arrived I saw Neal and Jennifer, Christians students at Gallaudet University that we met last year during our worship/prayer meetings. I joined their table and was able to encourage them and share what we were doing this week. I was reminded of the salt and light passage and declared there were the salt and light on campus. Two mins later, Neal gets my attention and shares that all the tables in the cafe place were dark esp the table that we were sitting at! I had to take a picture of it! The sun was shining so bright on our table! It was God speaking to his sons and daughter that they are the salt and light on campus! It was so encouraging!

It was midterm week, so as a group we prayed and asked God how to bless the students and share the love of Jesus with them. Our group got a bunch of fun destressing activities to do. So our group is there in the afternoons blessing students with free 10 min massages, a fun photo booth, face painting and fun activities like that to give them an opportunity to destress from the week. In the evenings we are having christian dance parties, short teachings, games and fellowship again to give them the chance to take a break from school. We have been meeting many students, encouraging the christians and building relationships. It has been so much fun to go as a group. Here are some pictures from the week!

We ended the week with picking up some students from Gallaudet and worshipping at David's Tent. It was officially declared a flood in DC on Friday night to end the Gallaudet week but Jesus was still worthy of being worshipped! It was a fun night of dancing, playing the drums and muddy feet!

Blindfolded by our Students: A Surprise Date Night

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So Monday, our students asked us to keep Wednesday night free. They asked us to dress up and not to eat dinner at the base that night. Dan and I were excited about what they had up their sleeve!

They meet us at our room and blindfolded us and guided us to throughout our building up ladders and through doors! It was fun to trust them and to be guided by them!

Dan stole a quick dip and a kiss as we were waiting for our next instructions from the group!

I love my husband! He is so fun!

The ASL DTS group surprised and blessed us with a date night on top of the roof of our church to say thank you and show their love and appreciation of setting up and leading the school! It was a blessing to have a night alone and to be served! They brought us a water and hot tea, a fabulous dinner: salad and veggies and rice and meat for Dan and coconut ice cream with fruit for dessert!

Renca signed a LOVE song for us as entertainment and all the students joined in for the ending of the song! It was so much fun to see all of our students join together to show their love for us with fun and laughter!

As a group, they have an amazing gift of creating and setting an environment for intimacy. It was so easy to have an amazing date night with Dan! I know that God is going to use these gifts to create places and guide conversations for people to enter an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus!

Please pray for the unity and love that our students have to continue to grow within our group as well as towards others so that Jesus can be known through our love for each other. This week we are at Gallaudet University, loving and blessing the students during midterm week, pray for us and each of our gifts to glorify Jesus as we share his love and truth with others!

THEY LOVE US!

We are so blessed to be serving with Kayla, Renca, Kari, Liza, Tabitha, Shelby, Josiah and Brandon!

We LOVE YOU TOO!

Soul Winning: Leading someone to Jesus through pen and paper

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Brandon: the Soul Winner

Jesus "came to seek and to save the lost"(Luke 19:10) He "went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.” (Matthew 9:35). Not only is this what Jesus did but God gave us a mandate to "go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation" (Mark 16:15).

Well, a couple weeks ago, in Lancaster PA, during a conference, we attended called Circuit Riders, all 500 participates in conference were send out on the streets of downtown Lancaster to do exactly what Jesus did and called us to do preach the gospel, the good news, to all creation.

Dan and Alissa Matiya, one of our amazing friends and volunteer interpreters for the week decided to encourage some of our students to be bold and share the gospel without an interpreter. As there will be times where God calls us to share and we will not have an interpreter there. Through some struggle, our students start writing with people sitting on porches or on the streets. Brandon started a conversation through pen and paper writing back and forth with a man about his car and then led it to Jesus! He asked if the man had heard of Jesus and he said no. Brandon explained who Jesus was and what He did and how He was Brandon's best friend. The man was interested and Brandon continued to share and finally with confidence and boldness asked if he wanted to start a friendship and relationship with Jesus the man said yes! Brandon was so excited he turned to ask for an interpreter to say a prayer together but the interpreters encouraged him to continue with writing! So he did! He wrote out a prayer and the man read it to Jesus. There is another lost son brought back to His father because Brandon believed that the gospel is "good news" and shared it with boldness and compassion! It was all Jesus softening hearts and guiding Brandon!

That evening at the worship night for the conference Brandon got to share his testimony with the 1,500 people that came to worship! It was such a joy to see Jesus shine through him!

During the conference, we were blessed to stay at the First Mennonite Deaf Church in Lancaster PA. The church blessed us by making dinner for us one evening and then we were able to attend their church and have fellowship with them afterwards! Above is a picture of us and the church jumping!

The weekend after the conference, both the ASL and David's Tent DTS was enjoyed a relaxing day at the Hershey farm. Jason Hershey, the founder and leader of YWAM DC, home is just outside of Lancaster! We got to meet his parents and other family members!

The ASL group jumping at Jason's farm! They love jumping pictures!

A Typical Week: ASL DTS

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I am sure many of you are wondering what does a typical week looks like in the ASL DTS outside of classes? Well, I decided to write a blog about it!

Three times a week, we have corporate worship in the prayer room as the ASL DTS. The students rotate leading the group in worship! It is amazing the different ways, we can worship. Today Josiah lead the group in worshiping God with our bodies by walking in a circle and taking turns thanking God for something! We also have corporate worship times on Tuesday and Friday nights, where the whole YWAM DC community comes together to worship God. People from the community are invited as well!

Every week, the staff teaches a different culture piece of Heaven, such as the culture of faith or happy holiness or courageousness or excellent stewardship etc. Then the students study the culture piece during the week to make it their own. Every Friday, we pick a name out of a hat and one of the students teach the group the culture piece and leads us in an activity walking out the culture. Last week, Shelby taught on the culture of having an unoffendable heart, living a lifestyle of grace and forgiveness.

On Friday afternoons, Dan leads the group in Bible Study. This week, we watched an ASL paraphrasing of the creation story as well as a lesson related to it and then broke off into groups and created dramas sharing the story of creation using only gestures! The groups were amazingly creative and fun!

Had family fun day at the zoo! A great time of getting to know each other! And as we were walking Josiah lost his sunglasses and realized it as we were going to see the pandas! He thought I won't be able to find them. But Tabitha said have hope! Everything is possible with God. And shared the story of Loren Cummingham, in the book we are reading as a school, Is that Really You God? losing 5 dollars and how his mom said let's pray and as they prayed she heard that it was under the bush and they searched under every bush and they found the 5 dollar bill! So we prayed! Josiah left and came back without them so we prayed again! Kari had the gift of faith and after we prayed said she will go with Josiah to look for them. As they came back we all noticed his sunglasses in his hands (You can see them on his head on top of his hat in the picture above-Josiah the guy next to me to the far right of the picture. This was after he found them again!) It was an amazing testimony of Gods faithfulness and answer to prayer. It built faith in our group and as we arrived back we were able to testify of the goodness of God!

Week 2: Inner Healing: A week of Victory and Freedom

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This week we had the honor of having Johnathan and Priscilla Langone, who are pastors at Creekside Ministries, http://www.creeksidefishers.org/, in Ind teaching us this week for a week focused on Inner Healing: A week of Victory and Freedom. Jonathan and Priscilla are amazing radical followers of Jesus. They are both Deaf which was amazing to have them be able to teaching and minister to our students in their native language, American Sign Language. They were radical atmosphere shifters, always bringing us to a place of thankfulness and praise to God!

The week started with discussing the culture of honor and how we are called to honor one another by speaking things that "is helpful for building other up according their needs, that it may benefit those who listen" Eph 4:29b. And acknowledging the work that God is doing in other people's lives. And valuing others with who God made them to be and their story, journey of life that God has brought them through. We went around and honored each other by speaking truth about who they are and what things we have seen in each other. Already, there was healing happening as we spoke God's truth and identity into each other. I knew that God has big plans for the week.

Throughout the week, each student (starting with Dan and I) had an individual session with Jonathan and Priscilla and me giving them the opportunity to pray through mother and father wounds, hurts from their childhood and choose to walk in forgiveness. They also taught basic principles of the bible related to inner healing and the life of abundance life that Jesus died for us. Such as the power of forgiveness, and how forgiveness is a choice, a fact we choose, which then our feelings come into agreement with our decision. We all become more vulnerable before God and opened ourselves to know God the Father, Jesus and Holy Spirit better and saw miraculous things. We had a time of worship and prayer for more of God to come into our lives and praying over each other and speaking out our new identity.

(Jonathan leading us in saying "Thank you Jesus!")

On Thursday, after each student had their session, we shared testimonies. We all prayed that our walls would be thrown down and that we could be open with each other, and yes they were! Shelby started with her testimony of what God had done this week, which opened up others to be honest about even more areas in their lives that God still wanted to heal. Liza continued with the testimonies and it broke openness in the room. God still wanted to do so much in each of our lives and we were open. Each of us were courageous allowing God to heal deep wounds. We all learned that testifying what God has done open doors in other people lives for healing. We allowed God to have victory in our lives and experience the joys of walking in freedom!

God finished the week with a BAM as Jonathan and Priscilla had dinner with Jason and Kimberlee Hershey. And they stayed for the WHOP prayer meeting from 7 to 9. Jason asked them to join him and help lead the prayer time for Gallaudet University and the Deaf in DC. Praying for people who are saved to be revived and the lost saved. We had about an hour of worship when Jason asked them to come and pray. Jonathan stirred the room with a heart felt and powerful prayer calling back Gallaudet University back to its original design to train and send out pastors and missionaries. Passion for the lost invaded the room. Priscilla followed with an encouraging word that in every face we see God and for us to open our eyes to see him in every face we met. And prayed for DC in general from the white house to the homeless. Their prayers ignited the room for the heart of God. We prayed in small groups for Gallaudet University. The room roared with prayers. Afterwards, Brandon Josiah and Tabitha lead the prayer room in songs from their hearts in ASL. I interpreted them and the band created choruses with the same spirit and message. Brandon song was to turn it up the spirit of God in DC, Josiah sang a song of wells springing up and Tabitha's was how the word of God was bubbling up all around us and we could not contain it! The room was filled with rejoicing and song and signing as everyone joined in as the Deaf lead the choruses!

Other praise related to worship this week is that Kari decided to dive into learning the drums and has been playing the drums during worship sets following other drummers to keep the beat! Liza has always wanted to learn the guitar and voice lessons. This week she decided to declare it and share it with me. I get excited. She had it was hard to share because she has shared it in the past and many people have said that she can not because she is Deaf. I said you have a beautiful voice, as she has the ability to speak and you can sing and play the guitar! She was excited. A couple days later in the prayer room, God put the idea in my heart to give her my guitar that I got. So I left the prayer room immediately and got my guitar and wrote a letter and left it on her bed! She was overjoyed when she saw it and Dan already given her a guitar lesson!

Jonathan and Priscilla were amazing! Dan and I enjoyed getting to know and having the opportunity to fellowship with another couple who is RADICAL for JESUS! We know that this week was only the start of a friendship and partnership with them to bring God's kingdom here on earth!

Week 1: Setting Kingdom Culture and Living Lives Centered around the Presence of God

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Week 1: Setting Kingdom Culture and Living Lives Centered around the Presence of Jesus

This week we had Jeremy Baldwell and a crew from YWAM Harrisburg, PA come and impart what does it mean to live in the kingdom culture. We were together with the David's Tent DTS. We are people of thankfulness, who love happy holiness, live a life of excellence and an unoffendable heart, who are radical initiators and servants. We are world changers, and people who set the temperature in the room and change the atmosphere, bring Jesus's light wherever we go. Walking into God's heart for the lost and the world and declaring that we will go! Lord, here I am send me! This was a week of creating a family tight bond with each other through honestly sharing and times of seeking the Lord.

Highlights from this week:

Brandon sharing his testimony, as we took turns sharing testimonies in the large group, getting to know each other from the ASL DTS and the David's Tent DTS. As Brandon shared his life story and how he was rescued from darkness and into God's marvelous light, most of the group was opened up to share more deeper things afterwards. Many were brought to tears by the power of his testimony!

During one of the worship nights, Renca was moved to tears rolling down her face. As she was crying, she felt a hand wipe her tears from the right side of her face. Her left check was still pouring from tears. She assumed that a friend next to her had wiped her check. As she felt her right check it was completely dry and as she opened her eyes no one was sitting next to her or close enough to wipe her check. She checked again and her check was dry. Jesus wiped Renca's tears from her check!

Jeremy decided to champion a Samuel (a student in Davids Tent DTS) by encouraging him to lead us in worship in the stairwell of the church when the evening before, he heard Samuel and Rachel (his girlfriend, who is on our staff) worshiping Jesus together on their free time.

Another worship night, toward the end of the 2 hour set, Michelle, a girl in the Davids Tent DTS, felt like one of the Deaf people had a song that was supposed to be sung out. Everyone looked at Brandon. As Brandon, closed his eyes, he said my heart is pounding so hard and fast right now. And he began to sing. He signed "Come Holy Spirit, come Holy Spirit we will dance we will dance." His eyes were closed as he was worshiping the Lord, and as I interpreted I asked the worship band to create a song based on Brandon's worship and they did. As the room started to sing the chorus we all broke out into dancing. Brandon is still signing his song to the Lord on the floor with his eyes closed. As she opens his eyes, he is overwhelmed with the whole room (50 people) dancing around him he starts to cry and falls to the floor with joy. He eventually gets up and dances with the room, worshiping Jesus!

Our group practicing sharing the gospel with each other in our training groups!

Josiah heard the voice of the Lord clearly and obeyed by stepping out in boldness and courage and asking someone he has wronged for forgiveness. He went so much better than what he expected!

Liza became a voice for the voiceless as she shared the statistics of the people who know Jesus in the Deaf community with the class, 2-4 %, making the Deaf community the 4th unreached people group in the world. Which led the both schools into an intercession time for the Deaf community and for workers to be send out into the harvest field! We had a break and during the break, as a school the students choose to continue to pray for the Deaf community with the same heart and mind. As we were huddled in a group praying, the David's Tent DTS and Harrisburg crew were praying for us!

Tabitha wrote a love poem to Jesus, about how she was madly, passionately in love with him. That He was all she wanted and who she dreamed about all night and woke up thinking about in the morning. She lead us in an hour of worship as she read out from the Psalms and her own poems for an hour, creating a place of worship to Jesus corporately through ASL. Then she taught us about the culture of faith, "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" Hebrews 11:1. Afterwards, she led us into an activity to step into faith. She partnered us up and had one of us blindfolded and trust our partner to guide us to walk and then led us into running. Each of us learned more about our own walks of faith such as when we fall our partner was always there to pick us up (Jesus).

Fourth of July fireworks at the National Cathedral hill and seeing fireflies sparkle in the night afterwards.

Friday night worship/prayer set, where Dan interpreted most of the 2 hours and lead the whole room in signing, "DC to Jesus"! Jason made Dan get on a chair and sign it for all in the room to see! It was a prayer meeting with an explanation point! An amazing worship set of unity among the staff, as Kayla typed words of the songs, Dan interpreted the songs, Rachel read out scripture and Carole worshiped and interpreted prayers.

Spending time during the week, creating vows to Jesus. Dan lead a ceremony in the Bishop Gardens, celebrating Jesus, speaking our vows aloud, taking communion and receiving a ring as a symbol of the commitments each of the students made and promising to hold one another accountable to our vows.

Below are pictures from the ceremony!