Why YWAM?

Youth With A Mission

YWAM stands for Youth With A Mission, and is a non-denominational, missions organization. Their main focus to know God and make God known to the world. There are roughly 1,200 YWAM centers found all across the planet, in almost every country.

YWAM’s ministries fit into three categories: Evangelism, Training and Mercy Ministries

If you would like to know more about YWAM, the reason for why we do what we do and more information on what we do please visit https://www.ywam.org/

Why did I choose YWAM?

I grew up at a YWAM base from the age of 2 until 8 years old. Even though I don’t remember much, what I do remember was quite impactful. I enjoyed the community living and being surrounded by so many Jesus lovers. I have many family members who are still involved with YWAM, and so I already knew about the organization, it’s focus and vision. I knew I could trust it, and I just had to figure out which country the Lord wanted me to go to. I also knew YWAM is more focused on experience, and that is what I was after; experiencing the Lord’s love, while learning about it.

Discipleship Training School

A Discipleship Training School (DTS) was created to train people on how to spread the gospel, bring them more intimately with The Lord, help them find their purpose and part in the world, and create new experiences. There are two parts to a DTS: The lecture phase which teaches you about God and His word, and the outreach phase which focuses on applying what you’ve learned in a cross-cultural experience. You can find more information about DTS’s at https://www.ywam.org/dts/

Why did I do a DTS?

Ever since I was 11 or 12, I’ve been planning to a DTS. I exposed to DTS with my family being involved with YWAM, and with my own to desire to grow in my relationship with the Lord, there was little chance I wasn’t going to do a DTS. My older sister joined YWAM and did her DTS in 2015 at a base in New Zealand. When she came back she seemed almost like a new person. Her experience had transformed her, she became closer to God, went through a lot of healing, had so many cool stories about when Jesus showed up in others lives and the physical. Hearing her stories made me want to do one even more.

My own relationship with God wasn’t very deep. I felt like He never talked to me. I believed our distant relationship was how things were made to be; He was the big guy in charge, too busy me. I didn’t think there was much to Him other than being a supporter and someone who once and a while said “Yes” to my prayer. I didn’t know him. I thought going on a DTS would increase my love for Him and we would grow closer. I also saw it as an opportunity to go on a cross-cultural trip and gain experience and more knowledge of the world. I was, in fact, correct about all of those, but I didn’t realize there would be so much more in store for me once I was there.

I did my DTS in April of 2019, was delayed and unable to join until May, 2019. Due my absence, in order to graduate I had to join another DTS in September, 2019 for three weeks. The Lord then gave me the opportunity to stay on longer with the team and I officially graduated in November. Doing this school completely transformed me. I had people on staff, who knew me when I first came, say they didn’t even recognize me after I graduated. I went through so much healing, learned an insane amount about who God really is, and grew in my spiritual gifts. My intimacy with the Lord has grown incredibly, and I have grown in recognizing His voice. I was also able to join this second DTS during their outreach phase, but I was no longer apart of the school and considered it a missions trip, or the beginning of my mission work. I learned a lot about different cultures, spreading the word and working as a a team during this trip.

Although this whole experience was rough here and there, I wouldn’t change it, and wish I could a DTS again.

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