NEWS LETTER
LORRAINE MCINTYRE - YWAM MELBOURNE CHURCH PLANTING DISCIPLESHIP TRAINING SCHOOL 2010
Hello to everyone back at home! I hope this letter finds everyone well. I am definitely so blessed to be doing the DTS with YWAM and felt it would be good to share with you what has been happening over here in Melbourne!
First of all, a bit about the school and what exactly it is I am doing… Well the DTS is a six month course which allows you todiscover who you are in God and who God is, deepening your relationship with our heavenly dad and as a result, freeing you up to live the life He wants you to live – in relationship with Him and others, with a heart for people who don’t yet know him.
The first three months consist of mainly of lectures and evangelism, the next couple of months are the outreach phase. In our case we are going to Indonesia and at the time of writing we have just finished the lecture phase and are about to embark on an adventure to Indonesia (31st May – 30th July). I am very excited!
God has been so good over the course of the DTS so far – lots of great stories but I only have space for a few. Because our DTS has a focus on church-planting, our school runs off-campus and we are housed in one of the roughest areas of Melbourne in a suburb called Sunshine. It is a very multi-cultural area with probably the majority of the community being Sudanese or Vietnamese. Most afternoons we go out into the community for evangelism. There is no set formula, other than to go out into the community as a team and just put what we have learned about sharing our faith into practice. Lately we have been hanging out at this Vietnamese café and built up relationships with the locals. Some of the people we meet there are at this café nearly every day as that is their life, so we have been able to meet them regularly and chat to them about what we believe, although one valuable thing I have learnt is that evangelism is more about listening than anything else, letting God show himself through us really through how we relate to them and to each other. We have ended up praying for a lot of these people, including Muslims and Buddhists! We have also had many opportunities to invite the people we meet back to the house for a meal and have had some come along to a house church we are involved in on Friday evenings. I have also learnt that evangelism is completely natural and that you don’t have to necessarily have a strategy or put on a programme – it is about being yourself, being open to letting God use you and then loving others and demonstrating God’s love to them through our actions and through valuing them.
I have seen God’s provision so obviously over the last couple of months. People have just randomly donated furniture and other household items which we’ve needed. YWAM are also in the process of finding another house so they can expand the work they are doing out in the Western suburbs, and so we have also had so many other people offer to donate that we have enough to furnish the next house as well as this one! A couple of the students still have to pay off outreach fees and we have seen God miraculously provide money for this. We held a film night last week and despite not many people from the base being around to attend, we still managed to raise around $800 and it was all run on a donations only basis! I have also personally see God provide - one really cool thing which happened was that, after having given my hoodie away to a homeless person, a couple of days later, the neighbour just randomly gave me a coat – and it was a very nice red coat too which fits perfectly! There are many other stories I could tell you but I am going to run out of space so I’ll leave it there!
I feel I have grown so much in my relationship with God and am sure that during outreach I’ll see even more of who God is. I feel like I am so much more aware of who God is and who I am in him, and of my authority and inheritance in Christ. The main thing is that the school has given me the ‘keys’ to live my life how God intended and I have so much more focus and direction and purpose than before so I am very excited about the future and about living out what I have learned! I am currently praying about staffing the next DTS which is a creative arts school. I would be taking care of the music side of things. I am
also considering doing a basic leadership school (which is basically an internship with YWAM and is two years long), meaning I could be here for the next wee while. This means I will have to completely rely on God for finances, so please pray that that God would confirm to me that this is the next step I should take and if so, that He would provide all the finances I need for this.
I think that is about all the most important stuff covered – please continue to keep me in your prayers – I really appreciate your support J I really believe prayer works and God is waiting for us to claim His promises, waiting for us to step out in faith and work with Him – He wants us to cry out to Him then He will move, as he is a God who values us so much He wants to work with us. We are created in his image and have the capacity to love as He does, with the help of the Holy Spirit. ‘Don’t be afraid – only believe’ (Mark 5:36). So let’s all step out in faith and believe that God wants the best for us! I think that calls for a celebration every day!!
Thank you for taking the time to read this and have a blessed week!
Lorraine x
Summary of prayer points…Protection and safety during outreach (physical, emotional and spiritual), finances, God’s will for my future - that He would speak clearly to me and I would be open and trust Him completely, that I would continue to grow and learn and keep running the race, no matter how tough! Thanks!
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