Being in an environment like YWAM, you become exposed to your biggest fears and insecurities within a matter of a few weeks. The longer the time invested, the more difficult the process (DTS) gets. The daunting questions about your future, your relationship with God, yourself, and other people become more complex in nature, because the bar is constantly being set higher in a fast-pace, 6-month journey. We continue to dig deeper, view things a lot more introspectively through Christ, so that we can then project that out into the world. This means that God is always revealing the innermost parts of our being—sometimes things you didn’t even know were there—and the revelation turns to freedom and redemption, and can then be used to transform other people’s lives.
Initially, I believed this weekend trip was going to be a joy ride, with cool people and great friends. Little did I know what a crucial role this weekend was going to play in my life.
Ironically though, the week that most impacted me in DTS was not actually a week, but a weekend. It was one of the arguably most simplistic times in this DTS: Holy Spirit weekend. Initially, I believed this weekend trip was going to be a joy ride, with cool people and great friends. Little did I know what a crucial role this weekend was going to play in my life.
All of us piled into vans, and arrived at a summer camp about an hour later called Camp Firwood. Fast forward to us unpacking and exploring the many activities available on the site (i.e. beach volleyball, kayaking, canoeing, swimming, paddle boarding, etc.), and now all you’re left with is lectures and worship. Our speaker was an incredible, passionate woman of God, whose goal was to transfer that same excitement she had for the Holy Spirit onto us. And in the end, what stuck with me was not the teaching, but what I experienced with family in Christ.
Before YWAM, I was a very cynical, do-it-yourself type of person who did not want to open up and be vulnerable or transparent about things passed surface-level bonding. Humor was—and sometimes still is—a tactic I use to distract myself and other people from digging deep. Avoiding questions and deflecting them back at the other person is also a major way I prevent letting anyone in, which I believe is a direct link to a fear of rejection or not being understood. However, Holy Spirit weekend was a highlighted time in my life as when I finally allowed someone to listen.
Letting people pray and intercede for me was the outlet for my issues and an open doorway for Christ to work in me.
The type of freedom that comes with verbalizing is indescribable, and because of that I do believe that being transparent has a correlation to the spiritual realm; the weight lifted off my shoulders would have never happened had I continued to hoard my own emotions and struggles and tried to mend it myself. Letting people pray and intercede for me was the outlet for my issues and an open doorway for Christ to work in me. It was also the first time I truly felt a part of something; part of a family in Christ whose center goal is to be unified as one, where we we bear each other’s burdens and partake in one another’s joys.
Written by Cossette Drewes
