If I learned nothing else from this trip so far, I
learned that God is Love and that He loves us more than anything. He has a funny way of bringing you on
adventures that move and amaze you.
If you asked me three months ago what I would be doing right now, I
would never have guessed that I would be living in Cambridge England with an
amazing group of people. In just over
one week’s time, I feel like our team, which is made up of 9 students, and
almost just as many leaders/staff, is already family. This place feels like home, and it is amazing.
So, to rewind a bit, I arrived in Cambridge last Sunday at
around 1:30pm just in time to join the team for lunch. People continued to arrive throughout
the rest of the day. It was really
exciting to meet the people who I would be living in community with for the
next nine months of my life. We
spent the remainder of Sunday getting to know each other, settling into our
houses, and hanging out. To say we
live in community is quite a valid statement. We live in three houses all in the same neighborhood. There is a girls’ house with 5
students, and two young adult leaders, then the guys’ house has 4 students and
2 young adult leaders and finally, the head leader of the YWAM Cambridge DTS
and his wife and new adorable baby live in the third house.
The DTS officially started off on Monday. They decided a good way to have us get
to know the area would be to have us go on a scavenger hunt throughout the city
of Cambridge. (Side note: We live in Arbury, which is a short
bike ride away from the city center, so getting to and from town is quite an easy
commute.) We students decided to
do the scavenger hunt together as one group so we could get to know each other
better. (At this time, only 7 of
the 9 of us had arrived because of Visa issues, and a broken hand that
potentially needed surgery.) It
was a beautiful, sunny day in Cambridge, so it was a fantastic day to explore! To say that Cambridge is a beautiful
city is a major understatement.
Going around the city just reminded me of how creative God is. I, being obsessed with architecture,
was in awe of the beautiful, historic buildings, streets, and alleyways that
make up the city.
As I was biking/walking around God reminded whispered to me,
“See this here; this is for you. I
brought you here to share with you my artwork.” It was really neat to see because as people would ask me why
I chose Cambridge. I really had no
answer. God didn’t say to me,
“Becca, I want you to go to Cambridge.”
To be honest, the name of my particular DTS sounded cool. It is titled, Revival and Reformation.
The focus is more of a revival and reformation in Cambridge, but well, I
want revival and reformation within my life! So, I said alright, sign me up! It was just really neat to have God affirm to me that I am
in the right place.
Teaching started the next day. Basically the week is scheduled to have teaching Tuesday and
Wednesday mornings, as well as Tuesday evenings. We have prayer and worship for two hours every afternoon,
which is AMAZING! The people from
this team are so talented! The
musical ability that makes up this team is astonishing. Not that amazing ability is what is
needed for worship, but let’s be real, it is an extra perk! It is such a blessing to be able to
worship with people who worship with their whole heart. It is not just saying the words to the
song, but it is living the lyrics.
The worship is ALIVE! After
prayer and worship, we typically have some free time, unless it’s your rotation
to cook dinner. YES, that includes
me! I will be learning to cook
here! It’ll definitely be an
adventure! In the evenings, we
will either have free time, planned events, or we will go to Cambridge House of
Prayer (on Thursdays) where we get together with Christians around the area who
have a passion and heart for prayer.
We have a lot of other activities scheduled within our week, however, I
will not bore you with the details now.
I can explain more at a later time.
One major part
of our week is outreach. We have
outreach every Saturday. The first
time we went on outreach, I was paired up with Peter, the leader. Outreach includes walking around the
city, talking to people, hearing about their lives, and sharing the Gospel with
them. Anyway, the first person
Peter and I came to, Malachi, was really interested in what we had to say. He was involved in the
conversation. To my surprise, he
was not just listening to be polite, he was actually actively listening. Now, knowing God, I should not have been
surprised that He is able to work through simple interactions to bring people
to Himself, but I was surprised.
And I am so happy to share that Malachi came to the Lord that
afternoon!!! Malachi was not
the only person who came to the Lord last week. Four others gave their lives to Christ, and one woman was
healed of a pretty major knee injury where she lived in constant pain.
I would love to go on an on sharing in major detail
everything that is happening while I am here, however, then I would be writing
a book. I do want to share some
overall highlights about the teaching that has been happening here so far. The first week, we had the privilege of
having Shephen Mbewe speak to us.
Shephen is an amazing man of Christ who has so much to share. He reminded us that God is a missionary
God. He is a God of the nations,
not just a God for a select few.
We are not to reduce God to small tribal gods who are only there for
your and your family’s needs, but to realize that He is there for all and we
must not keep Him to ourselves. It
is not our responsibility to bring salvation to people, but to carry the Gospel
to people and to bridge the gap between the unreached and God’s Truth.
The speaker for our second week was our own leader,
Peter. He spoke on Jesus: the
God-man. He reminded us that Jesus
was fully man when He was here on earth.
Jesus grew up right here on earth like everyone else. He asked questions, learned, submitted
Himself to His parents. He got
hungry. He got thirsty. He got tired. He was betrayed and misunderstood. Yes, we have all heard that before, but do we really think of
what that means. He left
everything He had up in Heaven to come down to face agony just for us all so
that He could be united with us once again. That is love. True
love. I have truly been in awe of what God has done in my life with all the teachings, worship, and quiet times that have occurred over the past few weeks. I am so blessed to be able to have this experience and to share it with such amazing people.
I am going to end with an amazing poem that Peter shared
with us. It is called, The Vision, by Pete Greig.
The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.
They laugh at 9-5 little prisons. They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday. They wouldn't even notice. They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won. They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport.. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence. They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying. What is the vision ? The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.
Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation. It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games. This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause. A million times a day its soldiers choose to lose that they might one day win the great 'Well done' of faithful sons and daughters.
Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"
And this is the sound of the underground The whisper of history in the making Foundations shaking Revolutionaries dreaming once again Mystery is scheming in whispers Conspiracy is breathing… This is the sound of the underground
And the army is discipl(in)ed.
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms. The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain".
Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them ? Can hormones hold them back? Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them ?
And the generation prays like a dying man with groans beyond talking, with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and with great barrow loads of laughter! Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.
Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.
They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive inside.
On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide. Would they surrender their image or their popularity? They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.
With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days, they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.
Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.) Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus. Their words make demons scream in shopping centres. Don't you hear them coming? Herald the weirdo's! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.
And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon. How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great 'Amen!' from countless angels, from hero's of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.
Guaranteed.
Wow. That is
all I have to say about that.
Wow. I want that to be me. I want my DNA to choose Jesus, and I
pray the same for you too!
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