On September 7, I flew from Alexandria, Louisiana to Houston, Texas, then to Los Angeles, California, and finally to Lihue, Hawaii. Since then I have been in the little walking town of Waimea on the island of Kauai as a student and missionary in a YWAM DTS. YWAM, or Youth With a Mission, is a Christian organization founded by Loren Cunningham. I love everything about this program because their values are so Christlike. You can read more about YWAM’s values here. DTS stands for Discipleship Training School, and it’s broken down into two phases: lecture and outreach. Lecture phase is three months, where we are trained in classes, outreach in the local community, work, etc. Outreach phase is three months, and there we apply all that we learned in another nation. Not every DTS is the same, but the one I’m in focuses on a small family unit, so we only have a total of 10 students. To read more about that, see this site.
Essentially this next six months will be a season of sitting at Jesus’s feet and learning, then doing what I’ve been taught. Every week we have a different speaker who teaches on a new topic.
Interspersed throughout the week are classes, intercession, one-on-one, small groups, outreach (which, for me, includes working on a poi farm harvesting taro on Mondays and working in a school on Fridays), evangelism, team time (Nepal prep), and work duties.
During Week 1, Josh Gobel taught us about discipleship, and how Jesus must first be your Lord and then your Savior. We were all really challenged to count the cost of following Jesus (Luke 14), and then we all made the decision that He is worth it.
Christian Fox taught us during Week 2 (this past week) about hearing God’s voice. Our team fasted media in order to focus more on the subject. I doubt I have the words to adequately explain all of the amazing things that happened this week, but I will try.
On Monday during our first class session, Christian asked if we had any questions. After answering a few small questions about what we’d be studying, he began to share the prophetic words God had given him for us while he was preparing to come teach us. After sharing his first one, our jaws dropped. Everything he said was so spot on! Immediately we were all interested in what this man of God had to say. He shared about how to recognize God’s voice, how God speaks, what to do with God’s words, etc.
After class and lunch, we went to our outreach locations. For me, this meant I got in a van with three other students and one staff member to go to Kaina’s poi farm to harvest taro roots. We worked in the mud gathering the roots for about two hours, then Kaina let us pray for his injured ankle before he drove us through the river to get back to our van. Monday night we had another class session, then we got to practice hearing God’s voice for ourselves. We were told to ask God what He thinks of us personally, and then we had to ask Him what He wanted us to change in our daily schedules to get closer to Him. In response to the first question, God gave me a picture of a swing set, and through that He told me that He sees me as His daughter, and that I didn’t have to earn His love. God answered the second question by showing me a thought bubble and telling me that He wanted me to think of Him more often throughout the day and ask Him what’s on His heart/mind. Our last assignment was to read a passage in Psalm and ask God to speak through that.
On Tuesday morning I started out the day by sitting in the living room and doing my homework in Psalm while eating breakfast. I read the select passage over and over again, and I didn’t get any earth-shattering revelation. The only thing that stood out to me was the word “mercy.” I did some research in a nearby Bible dictionary and gathered a deeper understanding of the word, then I felt like I needed to just get up, so I stood up and carried my breakfast plate to the sink. I stood there for a few moments, not sure why I was hesitating. While I was pondering, my friend Laura walked over and continued a conversation we had had previously. While she was talking I felt led to share with her a painful and uncomfortable experience I’d had in August. As I was sharing with her, I realized that this experience was what God wanted to emphasize to me in my study of Psalm: that His mercy has already covered that situation and I don’t have to keep reminding myself that it happened.
During class Tuesday morning Christian Fox shared the rest of his prophetic words with our class. When he got to mine… Well, I cried. It was so spot on it was amazing. He said literally word for word what God had said to me the previous evening when I was asking Him my assigned questions. Class continued and while he was talking, Christian demonstrated what it looks like to be Spirit led. He would say that we were going to do one activity, then pause and say, “Nevermind, God wants us to do this, so we’re going to do this now.” The activities he led us to do brought the class so much healing and freedom from rejection, shame, unforgiveness, etc. The deliverance we each experienced made a practically tangible shift in the atmosphere. At some point during the morning before we left our class session, God showed me a picture of me standing on a dirt path. To the left of the path was what looked like a poi patch, but the vegetables were moving and my path was standing still. I didn’t know what it meant, so I jot it down in my journal and left it alone.
After lunch we did our work duties, then we had class again. This time we got to practice hearing God for other people. All of our names were written down and put inside a cup, then Christian’s daughter Maiya went around and gave us a name that was not our own. Without looking at the name, we had to seek the Lord and ask Him for a word for this person. The catch was that we only had one minute to hear His word and write it down! It was so exciting. After the minute was up, I opened my paper and found Laura’s name written on it. I turned around to tell her, only to find out that she had gotten my name, too! (Not on purpose.) We went into a corner and shared the words we had gotten with each other. For her I saw large, oval rocks stacked on top of one another, and above the stack was a tornado. God was saying that He is a mighty, rushing wind, and He is bigger and stronger than any fears or doubts she may have. Instead of destroying those fears and doubts, however, He is allowing them to stay to make her stronger and to give her a specific testimony to reach a certain audience.
After I shared the word I had gotten for Laura, she shared her word with me. She said she saw a place that looked like an orange canyon, and inside the canyon was a valley, and inside the valley was a river, and inside the river was a body (my body). However, the river and the body were still. All around the body were different rocks, but up ahead was a specific rock in my path (even though I wasn’t moving). Although I wasn’t sure what her word meant, I shared how it reminded me of the picture God had given me earlier of me on an unmoving path. Neither of us knew what it meant, but it was okay.
Christian announced that we were going to start another activity. During this activity, we got in groups of three. Two of the three would pray and ask God for a word for the third person, and the third person’s job was to be very honest about whether that word was for them or not. My partners were Natalie and Jared, and they selected me to receive the words first. Natalie said God gave her a picture of me standing facing orange canyons in the distance in front of me. I got so excited! Her word aligned perfectly with Laura’s! I still had no idea what it meant, but I was growing more and more excited. Clearly God was trying to prepare me for something! Jared’s word for me was something I think I will revisit in the future. Tuesday night when I got home I asked my friend Chris what he thought of the words, and he shared that the first thing that came to his mind was Waimea Canyon. I grabbed a tourist book nearby and looked at the picture, and Laura confirmed that it was close to what she saw in her picture. My curiosity kept getting stronger and stronger.
Wednesday morning half of our class shared their personal testimonies, then Josh Gobel trained us for evangelism. During lunch I had my one-on-one time with Abby, one of the DTS directors. Basically during this time I process what has been going on and share with her anything that’s on my heart. (Of course I shared about the words that I had received on Tuesday!) Wednesday afternoon we had team time, which is a designated time for us to prepare specifically for outreach. Since it’s early in the school, we are basically doing group bonding activities to build our relationships and learn more about each other. During Week 1 we spent this time taking personality quizzes and sharing our results. This time we shared what we are most excited about for outreach and what our biggest fears were, then we prayed over those fears. After that we went geocaching, which was SO MUCH FUN. It’s basically a scavenger hunt for adults, and I found the first one by a cave in a camouflaged pill bottle. Madison found the second one in a pile of rocks at a nearby fort. (I am definitely geocaching everywhere I go from now on!) Wednesday night we were blessed to spend time with a local missionary couple, Cindy and Leroy. They shared several testimonies with us from their adventures of following Jesus to California and Hawaii and Africa.
Thursday morning I had a graphic dream that I was a child being chased, then a woman being chased, and then an outsider watching the woman get murdered. I woke up and had an anxiety attack because of how real the fear from the dream was; I couldn’t help but wonder where this dream came from. At intercession Thursday morning, I found out that our topic was Brazil, and my brothel experience (shared here) came flooding back into my mind. I realized that God had given me that graphic dream to move my heart to intercede for the women being exploited by the sex industry in Brazil. That morning my prayer was passionately heartfelt, and I yearned with all my being for God to intervene on behalf of all those involved in the sex industry. God showed our group several pictures and confirmations that He is, in fact, moving on behalf of His children over there, and He restored our hope.
During class we participated in an activity where we wrote our names in a corner of a piece of paper and folded it once. We passed the paper around and listened for God to share a word for each anonymous paper owner, so we ended up writing prophetic words for at least 15 people and receiving words from them. This activity was also timed – we only got one minute to do each paper! When I got my paper back, I couldn’t wait to see what it said, and I secretly hoped it would shed more light on the whole “orange canyon” word I had received on Tuesday. Surely enough the word “orange” was written on my paper from two different people. One of them said “tomorrow, I keep hearing orange.” I got so excited! Tomorrow (or Friday) I was going to find out what all of this meant! (All of the other words on the paper also ended up being super relevant as well.)
For the rest of the morning Christian Fox taught us about original design, or discovering who God made us to be. After another typical Thursday afternoon, we had Thursday night class. We began with worship, and while we were singing Shekinah Glory, I told God, “I want your fullness!” In response, He showed me a picture of a waterfall that ran into a lake. I asked Him, “How do I get that?” Just then Christian encouraged us to ask God what strongholds were in our hearts, so I did just that. Immediately God responded and showed me a stronghold I had been ignoring for a long time: fear of not being good enough. Before my Father I forgave those who have made me feel like I wasn’t good enough, then I repented of believing that lie. A few minutes later, Christian came and asked how I had responded to the strongholds topic. I told him what had happened, then he asked if he could pray with me. I answered, “Yeah, sure! I want God’s springs of Living Water.” While he was praying, he said something along the lines of how God’s Living Water would be poured out to me, just like in the picture of the waterfall, and it wouldn’t stop at the lake, but it would continue to flow to others, like a river.
Once he said “river,” a piece of the puzzle fell into place. I realized that in the picture God gave me of me standing on an unmoving path and in Laura’s picture of my unmoving body in a still river, I wasn’t moving because of a stronghold in my heart. However, that stronghold was now taken care of and erased, so I wouldn’t have to be frozen anymore. It felt like one more thing clicked into place to prepare my heart for whatever Friday would hold.
Friday morning, with high expectations I went to the local high school, where I do outreach through volunteer work. The only odd things about my typical Friday morning were that I got lost several times and then went to the high school Bible club before I left. After lunch we had our small group time, where we shared and processed the week’s adventures. To close our small group time, we listened to God for a word for the other members of our team (on anonymous sheets of paper, of course). We met up with the rest of our team and exchanged words, then went back to dinner.
After dinner we were divided into two evangelism teams. My team was going to Hanapepe to the Friday night festival. (We all went there the Friday before for Family Night, but this night our group was going to specifically evangelize.) After arriving, we got into a circle and prayed for several minutes, emphasizing on breaking through any fears we might have about going out, then we were divided into pairs.
My partner was Chris, and as we started walking back to the heart of the festival, I shared with him that while we were praying, God showed me the picture of what looked like a turtle’s belly, so that might indicate who we should talk to. We walked around and talked with a few different people. Three different people said no when we offered them prayer, and one family of believers said yes. We still didn’t feel like we had talked to the one that God wanted us to talk to, though. I looked at my phone and saw that we only had 15 minutes left of the original hour we had for evangelism.
Discouraged, we started walking to the far end of the festival where only a few booths and people were. Aimlessly I walked up to a man’s table where he was selling handmade wooden toys. I really didn’t expect any conversation, so I just started playing with the wooden puzzle in front of me. The man there started a conversation with us, and eventually he ended up talking about how he and his wife adopted children and things like that. All during the talk I continued flipping over the wooden pieces, rearranging them, and listening to the man talk randomly about himself and his life. As the puzzle pieces started fitting, some of the things he was saying started clicking in my brain. The way he talked about his life, his wife, his children, and his job were different. As I put the last piece of the puzzle into place, the man casually mentioned God. I looked up at him, then down at the puzzle that had fixated my attention for the past 10 minutes. The puzzle I put together was the exact picture God had showed me during prayer! I looked up at him, excited, and asked if we could pray with him. He said yes! Chris and I talked with him for a few more minutes, then we prayed with him. God gave me a picture for him, and God gave Chris an encouraging word for him, then we left. It was one of the most fulfilling moments I’ve experienced that testified of God’s direction and faithfulness.
As far as the “orange canyon” word, the only thing I can relate to it was that, while talking excitedly with a woman named Tara about geocaching, I was asked if I had been to the Waimea Canyon yet. I smiled and looked at Chris, then looked back at Tara and said I hadn’t, but I sure would like to go. So who knows what it means? I don’t. But I trust God and know that He makes all things work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). Whenever God feels like shedding more light on that situation, I’ll be happy. But if He feels like hiding it for me (note: not from me, but for me) for a little while longer, I’ll still be happy. It’s such a privilege to just be able to have an intimate relationship with the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He calls me His, and that’s more than I could ever ask for.
P.s. I’m continuing my media fast Monday-Friday. I’ll only be checking social media once before I go to bed during the weekdays, and on either Saturdays or Sundays I’ll post an update of some of the great things God did throughout the week. If you want to support what God is doing here in Waimea or if you want to help to send me to the outreach phase, feel free to donate here or here. Also, if you want to send me mail, my mailing address is:
- Tiffany Burke
- General Delivery
- Waimea, HI 96796
Take a moment to stop and ask God what’s on His heart. He’s waiting to talk with you. God bless!!!
