06/10/2018
Hello my faithful supporters! Welcome to a special retrospective edition of my updates! I figured as my time in Discipleship Training School at Youth With A Mission comes to a close it would be good to take a look back at some of the crazy experiences and radical changes that have taken place over the past five months. As well as what has been happening these past two weeks and what the future holds for me and for my updates. Although it seems impossible to sum up the craziest season of my life I will give my best, so here goes. (This ones gonna be a bit longer so bear with me)
The Discipleship Experience
These past months have been insane. A time of such growth that I would not recognize myself between now and the beginning. I showed up with the expectation of having crazy adventures and learning about God on the side, but it quickly became my growth in God becoming the best adventure of all. My whole identity, purpose, even my reason for living changed when I realized whose I really am and as my relationship with God grew so much more intimate than I could have ever imagined .
If I were to choose four major things I learned about God it would be that He is love, He is worthy, He will provide, and He will never stop pursuing.
He is love:
I felt his unchanging, unconditional, personal love. I used to live in the illusion that God would love me more if I tried hard, if I raised my hands in worship, or if I knew more about the bible, but God completely destroyed any lies I believed about Him and revealed a glimpse of how much he loves me and how I will never have to strive to earn His love. That His love for me never changes and supersedes all mistakes or successes I could ever make or have. There is nothing I can do to make Him love me more or less.
He is worthy:
I have always loved worship, but never knew why I did it. Now I know: God is worthy, it is in his nature, in his character. He loved us first, He created us and asks for all of us, not just a part. God is the only one worthy of every single part of my life.
He will provide:
I was always under the mantra of “God only helps those who help themselves” but learned oh so quickly that a life surrendered to God requires humility. Relying on God because there are countless times we cannot help ourselves. He will provide the strength to get through, He will provide the patience to love someone, He will provide the money to get by. To trust in God at all times because He can do literally anything, God can and will provide.
He will never stop pursuing :
During my school I looked back on my life countless times, looked back on all the mistakes I made and how God redeemed me. How He never stopped going after me relentlessly to show me His love and bring me to the place of repentance and forgiveness. And through this I know that if I fall away from Him in the future God will pursue me until I’m back in His arms.
All in all I can say that after this season I know God more and love Jesus a whole lot more.
The Outreach Experience
Now the outreach, putting all I had learned to the test for two months in the Himalayas. I would describe the trip as messy and rewarding. From spiritual attacks to food poisoning it was rough, but through the pain God brought us wondrous things. The amount of live we were able to touch and to tell them about the love God has for them, the amount of healings God did through us, the Holy Spirit was moving. God definitely taught us all about perseverance and relying on His strength, because when it’s your third day of puking and you have to go out into the slums for the day to play with children there’s nothing that you can do but rely on God to make it through. But I learned that God almost always rewards perseverance, to see the joy on the faces of the children, to see the blind see, the lost come to believe in Jesus, just to see that us making the effort to push past the crap to reach those people makes the difference.
God can often use us best when we are weakest.
Trekking
Now I have not informed you all about my latest excursion into the outback of the Himalayas when we went trekking for two weeks. It was a bit different than the kind of trekking I was used to as there were villages with “hotels” we would stay at and they would make us food. We took a seven hour bus ride, followed by a five hour Jeep ride to get to our first destination and the next day we began. We hiked for five and a half hours, then hit a block in the road due to construction and had to take an extra three and a half hours straight up the side of a mountain. We finally got to a village for night and trekked another eight and a half hours the next day, finally reaching our base village.
We knew nothing about the place we were going, nobody from the group we were with had been there. They expected that we would be talking to unreached people groups, but when we got to the village it turned out that the entire village was a Christian. We spent a lot of time encouraging the church as well as doing some healing ministry in the surrounding villages. Each village was about an hour hike away. Near the end we hiked to just outside a non Christian village about five hours away where we stayed in a small church on the floor. We shared the gospel to the other village, had a church service with the believers that were there and the next day started the trek back.
A crazy story from the trekking was when we had the church service for the believers in both towns. We decided that a member of the group would share about the Holy Spirit to the church at the end of the service, and that we would pray that they would be baptized in the spirit. When we started praying things went nuts! People were speaking in tongues and falling over and encountering the Holy Spirit for the first time. I even heard one nepali speaking English! All this lasted for almost two hours before it started calming down. After that the people were so on fire for God and just wanted to tell the other villages more and more. God was so faithful.
“We almost dooooone, but we almost diiieeeeed. God sent us to almost diiiieeeee.” -Gillian Champion
The Future…
Now it is time for this season of my life to end and a new one to begin. And I know what you are thinking, Could this be the end of Ben’s lovely updates? Will this be it? What could I possibly do with my life if I’m not reading about his life all the time? Well have no fear, because I will not be stopping with my updates. I will continue to try my best to update you all of the happenings of my life.
As for my plan after graduation, here it is: I don't know. I'm going to be living in New Zealand for a bit, not.sure if three months or six but that's it so far. I've considered doing a second level school with Youth With A Mission either a school of biblical studies or a school of worship. Until then I will be hopefully living in a van bumming around New Zealand, I will be doing a combination of working and traveling, but that's what I have so far. I will go forward with both ears to the Lord listening for His word and guidance.
Prayer Requests
Guidance for the future
Health and safety
Finances to not be an issue
To be able to find work
That I will continue grow in my relationship with God after the school
That my faith may increase
For divine appointments
For the Himalayas and that everything we did and seeds planted will grow and the name of Jesus would spread
Moving Forward
I just wanted to give another huge thanks to all of you that have been supporting me and praying for me. Even to you who just take the time to read what I write I thank you, it means so much to know that people care and are praying for me. I love you all and will continue to pray for each of you.
“I lift my eyes up to the hills
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord
The maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip
He who watches over you will not slumber…”
- Psalm 121:1-3