A Taste of What it's Like Here

At the DTS (Discipleship Training School) here in India, we are learning SO MUCH!! From various wise people sharing what they’ve learned, but mostly from God teaching us DIRECTLY. We have a lot of times where we get together and communicate with God. Spending time listening to him, praising him, sharing with others what he wants to say to them personally (prophetic), and creating with and for God, our Father.

Kay, here’s the latest crazy story. We were learning about using art prophetically, and so one of our leaders had us get into little groups (of like 6 people) and she randomly gave each group a number. That number matched a name of someone in the DTS (but we didn’t know who). Then in our groups, we prayed and asked God what he wanted to say to that person. God then gave us some prophetic words and pictures. With that, we were supposed to do a little artistic presentation. One guy played guitar, I sang out the words, and the others danced/acted it out. I was thrilled with how much everyone in my group participated, and how God spoke to us. I was starting to feel really good about being able to bless that random person. When it came to presenting it to the rest of the class, we still didn’t know who this person was. Then after our performance, Fransiska (our leader) said that the person was…. (you wouldn’t believe it)… “Zoe”!!!! Me!! When I heard that, I freaked out. Too shocked to really say anything. That whole time I thought I was singing specially to someone, it turns out I was singing to MYSELF! But I was mostly just bursting with laughter at how FUNNY God is! He is such a crazy guy. Every time I think I have him figured out, he does something new to completely surprise me and catch me off guard. :D

As for adjusting to India and it’s cultures (for there are many), I feel like I’m doing pretty good. Even though I miss all you guys back home, and certain things that we can’t do/eat here, I don’t actually feel homesick. I have not yet gotten to the point of culture shock or anything. I LOVE the food (and it’s normally not too spicy), and am surprisingly not sick of rice and dhal. However, I strongly crave fresh fruits and vegtables, especially leafy green lettuce and green smoothie… mmmm. BUT, whenever I get the chance (which actually isn’t very often) I buy fresh local produce here at the market. But I have to remember to get my Indian friends to buy it for me because they always raise the price for a white person…. :/ But let me tell you: bananas at home are NOTHING like the ones here! And the pineapples are like 40 cents each and very juicy and sweet…. Ya. Great food here. The weather right now is like BC in the summer time (except more humid), so I’m getting the summer that I missed this year in BC! Lol. All in all, I’m really starting to feel like this is my home. J

Now I’ll try to give you an idea of what we do here. Throughout the week, we have teaching, base worship, prophetic worship, base intercession, DTS intercession, work duties, interest groups, one-on-one, small groups, local outreach, dorm prayer, creative track time, and fun times!

Teaching: We get a different speaker every week come and teach a subject. The first week was specifically on using the arts prophetically. Using our creative abilities/gifts to share what God is telling us. The week after that we learned about hearing God’s voice. But it wasn’t just a bunch of methods and head knowledge, rather it was mostly hearing stories of how God speaks, the promises that he makes in his word, and then APPLYING that listening to our lives. There were a lot of times where we went privately and asked God stuff, and for Him to show us stuff and he did! This week was about God’s character. WOW! There is just so much to learn about that. Again, it was mostly based on what He and others say in the Bible. Seeing how he makes promises and fulfills them. My favourite part was when our teacher had each track get together and present something on God’s character, ask his Spirit what we were to say, and then presenting that through our art form. So, us musicians wrote a song. It’s basically about how God’s love never fails and his light never faids. I would love to show it to you sometime. :)

Base Worship: Every Monday everyone here at the base (including the university students, and all the leaders and staff) get together and worship God. I love this. There is always just SO MUCH freedom of expression. It’s really led by Jesus, and his presence is unmistakably there. I always find myself smiling and laughing deeply. :D

Prophetic Worship: Everyone in the DTS gets together and we worship God prophetically through our various arts. That means that we just spend time with God and listen to what he wants to say, and we thank and praise him for all that he does. But sometimes we as humans can only express so much on our own. That’s why God gives us his Holy Spirit who can show us what to say and how to express it. That’s pretty much what prophetic worship is. But the prophetic basically comes down to just HEARING GOD and SAYING (which can be in all sorts of ways, including art!) it out. This is one of my favourite activities because none of it is about us, but it’s all about God. I get so sick and tired of life being all about our human needs and about trying to make our lives perfect. I find that the only way to be content is when we look outside of our own world and see Jesus…  

Base Intercession: This is when everyone at the base gets together to pray for certain things. Intercession basically means to intercede on other’s behalf, asking God to help them out. This is also very prophetic because the Holy Spirit (God’s spirit) very often tells us things in specific what to pray for or how to pray for it. Or, he’ll give us a picture/vision/word or something that are promises that he will fulfill (God literally ALWAYS fulfills his promises – even when it’s not when we think he will).

DTS Intercession: This is pretty much like the one I just mentioned, except that it’s just us DTS students that pray. I love this because it’s smaller and people tend to feel somewhat more comfortable with sharing what God shows them.

Work Duties: Every day all the staff and students do an hour or two of different assigned jobs around the base. I feel SO blessed with the work duty that I have. It’s dinner clean up in the evening, so it’s nice and cool (most other people have to work in the afternoon heat outside :/). There’s about six of us (both DTS and university students) that work together and it goes by quickly and fun. I also love it because it reminds me of home because the job that I did most daily there was dishes and dinner clean up. :)

Interest Groups: Every Monday we get into groups and do something fun that we like. Last time a bunch of us went on a hike up a rainforest mountain (some of the others even went bare foot!). I have pictures of that adventure on Facebook. It was SO MUCH FUN. I felt like some tribal jungle girl or something. There were some parts where the bush was super dense that we had to make our own path, and other parts where it was super steep that it was like rock climbing (kind of). The view was beyond spectacular. It was so hard not to burst out with praise to God. He is so powerful and creative!! I really enjoyed the plant life (even though I knew none of the names L ) around us, and the various (and really colourful) butterflies and dragon flies dancing about us as we hiked. It was kind of serial… except of course for the fact that we got drenched to the bone and smothered in mud (lol). But it was hot, so it felt nice. :)

One-on-one: Where each student can spend alone time with a staff, sharing life and praying together. It’s so nice to have that sort of mentorship.

Small Groups: About six or seven students and one staff get together and hang out. Share life, pray, or just chill/create relationships. (crazy, eh, how we have to schedule time to hang out ;)).

Local Outreach: Every Thursday, everyone at the base goes into their separate groups and their outreach location to share with those people how much God loves them. The slum area that my group goes to, there are people who’ve been delivered from evil spirits, and others who have been healed from being paralyzed etc. Most of those people have accepted Jesus so we go to their houses to encourage them and the other believers, praying for them and talking with them etc. We’ll also be hanging out with the children, playing with them and teaching them songs and stuff. We’ve only gone there once so far and I can’t wait to go more times.

Dorm Prayer: We students get together to pray for each other. Sometimes it’s guys and girls separate, and sometimes it’s everyone combined. Either way, it’s very much student-lead (which I love!).

Creative Track Time: This is definitely one of my favourites!!! It’s where everyone goes with their specific creative track and gets teaching, or develope their skills, or practise stuff… In the music track there are about ten of us students. Three guitarists/singers, one rapper/DG, one keyboardist, two drummers, two singers, and some weird cellist/singer from Canada. Lately we’ve been doing a lot of song writing exercises. Today we divided into two groups and wrote a song based off of the theme that God gave the base at the beginning of the quarter, which is “Arise, walk in Truth.” I’ll see if I can post a recording once we’re finished. Oh goodness. I am REALLY loving this! I found that I have grown musically already. I really enjoy playing with such talented musicians. but mostly just having so much time to improvise and play around with total freedom! And even now, I’m seeing my dream come true; for people to be impacted by God through what I play (I can’t believe it!). I feel so blessed. SO SO blessed.

Fun Times! Ya, there’re fun. It’s on Friday nights and we just hang out and do something fun, like watching  a movie or concert or something. This week we’re doing talent night (which I’ll be playing for!).

Please pray…

• That we in the DTS would have unity together. That Jesus would really draw us together so that we would together as one. That all our abilities and giftings would be drawn out and compliment each other.
• That we would not become proud. That even though god has given us skills, that we would still be humble about them and recognize that it was God who gave it to us. That those who may be more talented in some areas wouldn’t look down on those who aren’t. That we would not look for fame and performing to please people, but to just communicate and encourage.
• That God would reveal to us and the leaders where we’re supposed to go for our outreaches in December and in April – May, and that He would provide the money.
• Please pray against the spirit of sickness amongst of us DTSers. There seems to be at least one person (sometimes more) who is sick and can’t come to classes. Oh, and thanks so much for your prayers for my health. So far, I have not gotten sick once! (except for a small sore throat that only lasted about a day). I feel so blessed and well protected. So you’re prayers are helping, keep it up! J
• Please also pray for us as we do local outreach every week. Pray that we would be able to communicate God’s amazing love in ways that people will understand. That their hearts would be opened to receive all that God wants to give them.
• Thank you so much for all your support! I feel so blessed to have such amazing friends and family. :)

(wow! sorry this post is so LONG!)