Holiday Weekend

The last couple of weeks were spent studying 1^st and 2^nd Corinthians, marking the end of our 9^th week in SBS. Thanksgiving was an incredibly welcome break from routine! Some things we’re thankful for:

Wednesday night we got to spend some of our extra free time playing cards with an awesome couple who are the closest thing we have to parents while we’re here. Over cards and pumpkin pie we got to talk about dreams of the future and hear their wisdom on the subject. He was a pastor at 21 years old and they’re now YWAMers who work to help this base stay connected to the churches in the community. They’re a huge blessing!

It’s been snowing for almost two straight weeks

We got to be in America, enjoying a big American Thanksgiving this year!

We got to decorate the house for Christmas this weekend! We caught the tail-end of some Black Friday deals (just before the stores closed for the night) to get some decorations, and spent Saturday decorating and making gingerbread men and skyping with the Shevenell side of the family while they decorated too!

Aaaaand last but not least, I (Amy) am especially thankful for a return to routine after four days off! This week we’re studying Hebrews and we'll have Ron Smith teaching us. He and his wife, Judy, founded the SBS back in '81 and now they live/work on this base. We’re super excited for the week! 

Good Memories!

The promotional video for DTS Equip is finally finished! (Note: We didn't make this video. The awesome YWAM Montana Video Production team did!) For those who need a little memory-jogging, DTS Equip was the 6-week leadership seminar we did over the summer. DTS stands for Discipleship Training School, which is the 5-month school that is the entry to all things YWAM. Equip has specific training for DTS staff and school leaders, but also had some super awesome all-around leadership pointers.
So, without further delay, check out the video! (Yes, we're in it!)

DTS Equip from YWAM Montana on Vimeo.

Studying, Learning, Growing…and Giving Back

Still chugging away like the little engine that could! Luke (last week) was our biggest week of the quarter in terms of homework, so from here it’s downhill until Christmas! This week we’re doing 1 & 2 Thessalonians and Philippians. The small books feel like a HUGE break! I even got to spend some extra time baking today! We’re enjoying every day and having the chance to study each book. We’re looking forward to the rest of these 9 months…it feels like it’s already going by so fast!

What about after SBS? After someone has spent 9 months studying the Bible full time…then what? God’s still clarifying our particular mission, but here’s something really cool that CAN happen: Titus Project! SBS was never meant to be ONLY personal enrichment. Having a solid biblical foundation is super awesome when you have a vision for changing the world through the word of God—Titus Project is run at only a few bases around the world, and is the outreach version of SBS. Here’s the team from our base that are out doing it RIGHT NOW:

So they were at the base here for about two weeks, working really hard to get as much information as they could about teaching cross-culturally, and putting together basic teachings to bring with them. Then they go to developing countries where pastors don’t have the opportunity to learn about the Bible, and they teach them basically what we’ve learned in SBS—how to study the Bible well. Often times they find that the pastor in a given village is only the pastor because he was the first one there to become a Christian. They know very little about the Bible, and have no idea how to study it properly (even simple things like looking at the context of what they are studying), and so they can be teaching some pretty messed-up stuff. Titus teams go in and teach inexperienced pastors like that to study the Bible and thus introduce whole villages to solid biblical teaching. It’s awesome!

Here’s a short video so you can get a better idea of how it works:

Titus is still one of our “maybe” options for post-SBS. There are a few others that we can explain over the next few weeks. We’d love for you to pray for us to have continued clarity over the next 8 months!