And this season comes to a close

Oh Canada, our home and native land...

I'm back home (well, in Calgary at my sister's, which is close enough), after two plane rides, it feels good to sleep in an awesome bed! It's hard to believe that I'm here though, and that I don't know when the next time is that I'll be going back in Costa Rica. I didn't realize how difficult it would be to leave my "family" that I've been with for almost one year. You build such strong friendships in YWAM, and you build them quickly because you all live, eat, and breathe in the same space! I'm missing it already...

I should write a bit about what went on the last couple of weeks though, just to close this time. The second last week of class was awesome because it was recording week! Each of us got to pick one song that we'd written for "Song Cafe", and record it at the recording studio of Ale Fernandez. He's a good friend of a couple of the guys at YWAM San Jose, and he was excited to do it for us. It was a really unique experience, quite tiring, but fun too! I have a new respect for sound engineers, because once a song is recorded their hard work begins. Sometimes they can spend days on a 30-second block of a song just to try and get it perfect. It takes incredible patience and expertise. So, in the end, he put all of our songs on a c.d. for us (seven songs in total) and two of my classmates who went on outreach sold the c.d.'s as support. They all turned out awesome :).

The final week of class was an amazing one because we had the opportunity to have Kenny Peavy from California with us. Kenny is seriously what I'd call a Christ follower. He speaks through the Holy Spirit, and never has notes when he talks. It's amazing and difficult at the same time because everything he says is important, so I decided to record our classes so I can listen to them later. He spoke about the Kingdom of God, and did some inner healing, and just general talk. I'm still processing what I learned with him, but it was amazing. He lead worship on our graduation night and it was INSANE! He calls everybody to be free of the fear of man and to just worship the way God calls us to. It was incredible to see everybody literally in God's presence and just worshiping the way God made us to. We also had some inner healing the last day, which was breaking lies that the enemy speaks over us. Whether that be family curses, past hurts (etc.), we need to get rid of it all in order to keep walking in faith with God. I could write a whole blog about the week with Kenny, but I won't bore you. If you want to know some cool stories, let me know!

We also had our last song cafe on Wednesday of the last week which went well. My song was based off of Ecclesiastes 3, which talks about seasons. God brought that passage to me in DTS, and then brought it back again the last week of class. It was awesome to hear everybody play for the last time.

SOW Grad night!

The last few days of my time in San Jose were just spent hanging out with people, eating, and chatting. It's been an incredible season, and I can't wait to go back (whenever that may be!). Still praying about this upcoming year and what it holds for me...thank you to everybody who supported me during this time, I'm so grateful every day that God called me there. Because now, I'm in it for life with Him.

-Revelation 19: 7-9

God is constantly shaping me

Two weeks to go and nearing the finish line of the SOW! Again, I apologize because it’s been a few weeks since I’ve blogged and that always makes updates long. I promise to include lots of pretty pictures to make it interesting though :). 

So we’ve had three speakers since Bruce came, plus a week of outreach stuck in the middle of that. We just finished week ten and it’s time to reflect…

Jorge Jimenez, a Tico (moved to Montana) taught on “Bringing Worship to the Nations”. It was cool to have him teaching because he lead the past SOW at the base here.  He posed a lot of difficult questions which made all of us pause and think. We had one day where we went downtown to a park and just worshiped and prayed for people. The first place we tried to play, a policeman told us we couldn’t but luckily he told us where we could go and play (two blocks away!) so we happily skipped over there. This was a bit of a turning point for me, and changed my view of public evangelism...

Honestly, I almost detest doing public evangelism because it’s always so “in your face” and I hate that. It doesn’t come easy to me to able to go up to random strangers and get into a solid, deep conversation about God. However, music is a totally different story.  Music has a power over humans in ways we can’t describe. God created music with the intention to stir our spirit and move our emotions and I definitely saw proof of that in the park. People would just stop and listen, even though we weren’t singing secular songs. We got to pray for a lot of people, and two of my classmates even had lunch with one young woman who was most likely a prostitute. Somehow when people see you worshiping a God who is real, who loves you, and who’s having a conversation with you, that changes everything. Everything. After going to the park that day it made me want to do the same back home and see if I get a response…I know cultures are different but humans are all the same. We constantly seek and crave
one thing: love

Our group downtown after worship

We had a visit from a friend of Chove’s (my leader), by the name of Ryan McBride and his lovely wife, Elise for week eight. This was a really great week and he taught on the “Heart of Worship” which basically caused us to really dive into 1 Samuel. He talked mostly about King David because no matter how much crap David got caught up in in his life, he was extremely quick to repent and his heart was always to please God.

Another topic Ryan touched on that brought me revelation was being ruled by fear. He said: “Is it possible that fears that the enemy plants in your mind are really just a tip-off to God’s best for you? Just as a scarecrow is a tip-off to the best corn in the crop, could we be missing out on God’s best for us because we’re ruled by fear?” Wow. Pretty powerful, and it made me think about how much stuff I shy away from in my life because I’m scared of failure, or something else. Ask yourself what your fears are, and then apply that question. I’m sure God will give you some great answers.

One of our fearless leaders, Pancho (from El Salvador)

The week after Ryan we headed off on Sunday to the northern province of Costa Rica, Guanacaste to do a mini-outreach. We stayed at the Nicoya YWAM base and it’s very different from San Jose. It’s super hot there, way out in the middle of nowhere, and outdoor showers are the norm. I’d been there once back in December for a base retreat, and loved it so I knew what to expect a bit.

Hazel and Kourtney eating breakfast

We had a great week of bible distribution, speaking in church services, leading worship, doing a bit of music teaching and just hanging out with one another. I think that was a highlight for me, just the fact that it was the seven of us (plus two of our staff, Chove and Pancho) and we got to hang out with one another…a lot. At the base here there’s always other people around so you don’t necessarily get quality time with just the students in your school. We had a lot of good laughs and great times. Another highlight was doing bible distribution…in the pouring rain. Now, folks from Canada who are reading this, I'm not merely talking about a sprinkle of rain or even our “worst” rainstorms. This is like God decided to flood the earth for a second of time. It fricken down poured for an hour. In that moment, I’d never felt more like a missionary, “persisting in the rain to continue to hand out bibles to people who didn’t know God”. It makes me, Hannah, Kourtney, and Chove laugh when we talk about it.

Josue and Hannah at breakfast time, one doesn't look so pleased....

Sharon and Kourtney being their awesome selves!

It was a good trip though, and the best part was we found no scorpions in our beds…just the shower.
Poor Hazel…

Catching the bus to head back to San Jose after our week in Nicoya

This past week was a bit of a jumble because our original speaker had to cancel so we had classes via Skype with a favourite person of ours…Bruce Hammond! He spoke for two days, and one of the big things we studied were the 7 different Hebrew words for praise! English seems boring in comparison, only having one word. But honestly, we were meant to praise God in so many different ways, and there’s so much scripture about worshiping God. We couldn’t get through all the scripture because there was so much! Bruce posed the challenging question: How come people can get so excited and crazy at sports games in front of each other, but when it comes time to worship, people are afraid to let go?

Such a good question, right? How come we get excited about something that has no eternal impact but we fear being seen as ridiculous when it comes to getting ecited about God? I’m asking myself that question too, not just everybody else. I’m the same way! It’s a constant battle dealing with the fear of man! I would love to just dance however I want, but because nobody else does, I’m afraid of being seen as…ridiculous? Crazy? Or what about just passionate about God? What if people don’t think I’m crazy and all they see is the fire I have for Jesus? I’m too quick to make assumptions about what I believe people are thinking about me. Maybe it’s time that I asked God to take that fear out of me
completely…

Last weekend we had a surprise birthday for Maaike, who's staff of the current DTS, and who staffed my DTS (and was my one-on-one). Needless to say, everybody loves her...she's amazing, wise, funny, sweet, and crazy. Oh, and she loves pirates...a lot! So, secretly we planned a pirate themed party for her, complete with decorations, music and us dressed up as pirates! As she was walking up to the dark house, we turned on the Pirates of the Carribean movie soundtrack and got some of the guys to jump out at her in their pirate costumes. We had a super fun time, here are a few pictures from that...

Mar (base leader) and Maaike!

Me, Hannah and Kourtney...our best pirate faces!

My friend Adolfo (who's on staff)...yes folks the knife is legit. 

SOW plus two of our staff!

Anyways, so many things God is teaching me through class, through the amazing people here on base, and just through daily life in general! I have a blast and I’m so grateful every day that He called me to YWAM San Jose for this season, to a real, deep relationship with Him. I would be nothing, wandering aimlessly through my life, trying to make decisions on my own. My life is completely different because of Jesus and everyday I’m grateful and amazed to be called his daughter...

One of the beautiful sunsets you get to see in Nicoya at the base

The half-way mark

Hey everyone,

Hard to believe it but I’m halfway done my S.O.W. already, we’ve finished our sixth week, and time is flying! During DTS it felt like time went pretty slow, but it’s quite the opposite this time around.

These past weeks I feel like I’ve been receiving so much amazing teaching, and not only that, I’m retaining it…woo hoo! During DTS it was almost chaos: living with ten new girls from different countries in one room, trying to retain all the new information you were getting, and just trying to figure out YWAM base living in general…at this point most of that no longer applies so it frees me up to process what I’m learning in class right away.

Our crazy group!

Week four we had the privilege of being taught by Douglas Johnston, who staffs the BCC on base here (Bible Core Course, another secondary school). The topic was humility, which is such an essential part of being a worship leader. You can’t have the fruits of the spirit without first having a base of humility, everything stems from it.  Douglas did such a great job of weaving truth that we needed to hear, but with a background context, that some of the passages I’d read many times suddenly made so much more sense! Another thing I really enjoyed was the mixture of Douglas speaking to us, but also giving us scripture to figure out, and then present what we learned to the class. When you’re not just spoon fed information, you tend to retain it better, so that was super refreshing and good for us.

Last week was spent learning about the Holy Spirit, the part of the Trinity that’s the most forgotten, and least talked about. I was super stoked for this week because for me, the Holy Spirit was a bit of a mystery and something that seemed so foreign. Vanessa Pavely (wife of Spencer who spoke during week one) was our speaker, and it was a total blessing to have her. She’s incredibly knowledgable in all aspects, and her deep relationship with God is obvious and so encouraging. Her ministry is focused on inner healing (repentance, that word sounds so harsh and serious, but it’s not), intercession, prophecy, and just intimacy with God in general. We also had an afternoon where we practiced prophesying over people on base, which was super cool! God gave me some encouraging words for people and I got to pray for many of them. It was a tiring week because I received a lot of information that was totally new to me, but it was an amazing one.

Bruce Hammond from Texas spoke this week about Musicianship and it was an incredible week (they all seem to be). Bruce is an amazing example of what it means to be humble and generous as a worship leader and as a person in general. He poured and poured into us all week, he has so much to offer in terms of his musical talents and as a speaker. He really took the time to get to know all of us, our backgrounds, and what we wanted to learn. He’s one of those people who loves to invest in people, no matter how long he’s with them, and we all appreciated it so much. It was awesome too because he’s so sarcastic and definitely dished it out, which all of the North Americans appreciated (Latinos and Gringos don’t quite have the same sense of humor). By the end of the week though, he had a few of our staff throwing back some sarcasm his way. It was great J.

One event that happens every two weeks in SOW, is something special called ‘Song Café’. Every student has to write their own song, often based off the topic of the week (not always though), and then we hold an event to perform them for the whole base. Our first one was a little nerve-wracking for all of us I’d say. I’d never written my own song, plus I had to be vulnerable and share it with people. We also have to explain our song and where it came from. Afterwards, the audience is supposed to critique our song, which was also another scary aspect. Our second song café was a little better though, we knew what to expect, however we had a MUCH larger audience; two visiting teams who were on outreach, plus a lot of staff and students. It was really fun though. If you want to check out the video of the song I wrote, I posted it on Facebook because it didn't want to load here for some reason. 

So far, I’m chugging along, loving the school, learning so much in every aspect: in the school, just living on base, learning guitar…it’s all great. I honestly thank God every day that I’m here, in Costa Rica, at this YWAM base with amazing people, getting to know Him better. That He had the plan for me to be here during this season learning crazy new things every day, giving me revelation, and teaching me to fall in love with Him and worship. I say thank you, thank you, thank you…

My awesome leaders bought me cake for my birthday....and made me stick my face in it.

My second adventure begins

The three crazy Canadians in the School of Worship (ironically Hannah is wearing an American sweater...)

So I’ve been back in what I now consider my second home, Costa Rica, for one month now (already!). After a month- long visit back to Canada in March, I returned to YWAM San Jose at the beginning of April to do a secondary school, School of Worship.

During my five month DTS adventure here, I discovered rather quickly, that I had an honest passion for worship. I’d grown up playing piano, joined jazz band, and eventually went to study music in university for a couple years, so music had always had a presence in my life.  But one of the first times we had worship as a whole YWAM base, I experienced God’s presence in a way I never had, and it made me thirsty for more. I now realize worship is probably the strongest time that I hear God’s voice and connect with Him. I love and look forward to those times so much.

It feels awesome to be back on base and to see a lot of the people that I missed. Obviously, I miss quite a few from my DTS who aren’t here, but YWAM is about building really deep relationships that will last no matter where you are in the world. It’s so cool how God brings you into an amazing family who you get to know really well, and this new, strange country ends up being your second home. 

So, School of Worship has a similar structure to DTS in terms of how classes are run. We have a new speaker every week, talking about a different topic, but focused on worship and specifically worship through music. In the end though, it’s all about going deeper with God, getting to know who He is more, and discovering who you are in Him. So far it’s been amazing, really.  We’ve had four weeks of classes and I love each speaker in a different way, I couldn’t pick a favorite. Each speaker brings totally new things to the table, each have different teaching styles and ways of helping you learn. It’s so cool!

In SOW, there are only seven of us (a bit of a change from the twenty-two in my DTS), so the atmosphere is quite different than DTS class time. SOW feels more like a place to not only get information thrown at us, but to discuss it amongst ourselves, ask questions, or even question the information given. I definitely find it easier to learn in an environment like this, so I feel like God’s been giving me so much revelation!

First week of classes were taught by one of the base leaders, Spencer Pavely (also one of the awesome Canadians on base…go Canada!). He taught on the Foundations of Worship, so basically what you need to possess as a daughter/son of God before you go and lead people, and that involves knowing God’s character and who He is. There’s always a topic of the week, but often we end up talking about everything and anything, that’s the cool thing about it. If the speaker is being lead by the Holy Spirit, you can get so much out of a class.  I love when Spencer teaches because he’s honest, speaks from experience and has an awesome Canadian sense of humor… which often involves corny jokes with some sarcasm thrown in for good measure!

Second week was a bit of a mash-up between song writing classes with Marcello Rojo, and Hans Wust speaking about our identity as worshipers. Both were incredible! Marcello makes his living as a musician, teacher, and song- writer. He’s an unbelievable pianist and can come up with a new song in two minutes flat (rhyming lyrics included, no joke!). So he basically walked us through the process of song writing, and the difference between writing worship songs versus maybe more commercial music. It was definitely a blast, and in the end we came out with a few new songs written by our class as whole.

Hans Wust is a local Tico, and is one of the most honest people I’ve ever met. His quiet way of speaking combined with his ability to challenge you to be honest with yourself definitely shook some things up in me. He spoke a lot about finding a community of people that you can be totally honest with. That’s what being the church is all about…community, honesty, and accountability. Feeling like you don’t have to hide whatever things are messed up in your life at the time. Having the total freedom to share with people and have them walk alongside you and support you through those struggles. No pretending, no pressure of having to be perfect, just being brutally honest. That’s how we should try and be as the Church. Alongside that, knowing your identity in Christ, instead of your “worldly” identity was another subject he touched on quite a bit. Identity is something we all struggle with, and it’s been something I’ve had to “un-learn” almost. In society we’re taught that worldly things define who we are: what we study, our job, the instrument we play, what sport we’re good at. But any of that could be taken away in an instant…so what would you be left with? I’ve been slowly learning to put my identity in Christ, and the fact that I’m his daughter. It may not seem like a lot, but it’s more than enough for me.

Last week was also taught by a local Tico, David Bastamente  Alongside Hans, David is a brutally honest guy, and has an incredible, incredible testimony. He’s an unbelievably talented guitar player as well as singer, and leads worship at one of the Vineyard churches in Escazu, about twenty minutes from the base. All week with him was basically about being raw, real, and again, insanely honest. He shared his struggles, testimonies, and stories of his life, and expected us to do the same. The basis of what he taught on was finding that community, that family you can belong to, and be totally raw with. Again, that’s what being the Church really means. You need to have those brothers and sisters you can go to without having to put on a mask, and pretend to be the perfect Christian…there’s no such thing. We’re all God’s broken daughters and sons, no matter what. The point is to bring our failures and brokenness to the cross and to be forgiven. It was a challenging week in terms of bringing up things that we maybe didn’t want to bring up, but in the end that God forgives and heals you of.

It’s been an amazing time of learning so far, God is so awesome and I can’t wait to see what else He’s going to do during this time. Before I sign off though, I want to introduce my School of Worship family:

Hannah: fellow Canadian, my amazing leader for my outreach to Brazil, a singer and guitar player, loves chocolate, super crazy and funny.

Joe: from Colorado, was part of my DTS, plays guitar and is just a super chill, awesome guy.

Josue: from Costa Rica, was also part of my DTS, plays drums and loves to bother me like my older brother does.

Kourtney: another fellow Canadian, did her outreach to Costa Rica while I was doing my DTS, plays piano, same sense of crazy Canadian humor Hannah and I have.

Hazel: from London, England, plays the flute and has a hilarious sense of British humor (I don’t think she’s too scared to have three Canadians living with her).

Sharon: from Singapore, plays guitar, really honest, and loves to have fun with the other crazy gals in her room!

Back in the frozen tundra

Our outreach team to Brazil

I realize I haven't blogged in over a month, and I apologize. I didn't bring my computer with me on outreach to Brasil so it was a little difficult for me to blog. Hopefully I'll be able to cover all the important points of outreach though!

So the adventure has drawn to a close, I've officially graduated from DTS in San Jose, Costa Rica. Crazy to think that five months went by so fast, I never thought I would say that! I flew back into Toronto to see my brother on the 25th, and now I'm in Calgary visiting my sister for one week before I head back to cold land of Winnipeg. I had some crazy adventures on outreach in Brasil and even though some of it was hard, the amazing moments totally over shadow the not-so-great ones.

Basically our outreach was divided into five weeks of different ministry in Brasil. We were supposed to stay the whole time on the YWAM base in Rio, but that changed once we got there.
Our first week was spent at a church in a town about 20 minutes away called Xarem where there was serious flooding. We ended up doing kid's camps there, church services, and hanging out with youth. We were supposed to help with clean up of the flooding but they said what they needed most was financial aid. Luckily we were able to bless them that way and they could continue with rescue efforts. The hospitality of the church was incredible, I've never experienced anything like it! We wanted to be there to bless and serve them, instead they wanted it to be the other way around! It was amazing.

Our team with church youth in Xarem

Paloma, one of the youth from the church

Second week was spent in a totally different environment. We ended going into one of the most dangerous favelas (slums) in Rio called, Parada de Lucas. This is a community that is still run by drug lords, so there are men standing around on corners in bullet proof vests with automatic rifles...they're not the police. We were warned we "might" see guns, so I took that as probably not...definitely not the case! It took a little while to get used to the shots that were fired off in the middle of the night but eventually we calmed down. In the community there's a YWAM "safe house", so that's where we stayed for the week. While there we did a lot of testimony sharing, worship, kids camps, and dramas. One of the last nights we did a prayer walk around the favela with the pastor and we prayed for many of the drug lords. God really broke my heart that night because I realized if I cared so much for these people, how much does He care for them and want the best for them? That's definitely a huge aspect of God that I came to learn about on outreach.

A view from the roof of our safe house

The third week we moved to another favela, but this one was pacified. Since both the World Cup and Olympics are coming to Brasil, they're trying to clean up the city and make it more secure for everyone.  So there were no drug lords standing around with guns, only the police hanging out making sure everything was going smoothly. It was neat to compare the two communities and we had two totally different experiences. We ended up doing a lot of painting, some worship, and praying for people in the community.


Fourth week of outreach we went to another church in a different part of Rio. The first night that we arrived in Rio we did a service at this church and after that they asked if we could come back for a few days. Again, the hospitality of the church was incredible and no matter how much we tried to help with food prep, or cleaning dishes, they insisted on doing it! Again, we did quite a few church services (testimonies, worship, and sermons). We also got to do house visitations for church members, so we got to talk and pray for them. We also did a lot of painting, cleaning and organizing for the pastors at the church which was really cool for us. Even with the language barrier we were still able to communicate and have a really amazing time there with them.

Our final week of ministry was spent in the heart of Rio during Carnaval! Our DTS team took part in a four day "camp" (ministry) called "Impacto Carnaval" with 300 hundred other youth from other parts of Brasil (and one other YWAM team from Holland!). In the morning to mid-afternoon we slept, had free time, devotions, and training and then around 8-11 pm we gathered together to do worship, testimonies, a message (etc). After that, we went to the streets! From 11 pm until 5 am we talked with people who were out at Carnaval, we got to pray for them and just hang out. It was an incredible experience! For me, since I'm a North American, I'm used to people being so closed off and not wanting to talk or hear abut God at all. Latino culture is so different! Even if they don't share your point of view, they still love to talk with you and share what they think. Latino culture is all about relationships and quality time, which is different than North American culture. It was encouraging because street evangelism is something I find challenging, I'm not somebody usually comfortable going up to strangers. Carnaval ministry was incredible but really, really tiring at the same time. The last night our whole team prayed for strength and refreshment and God totally delivered! It was so cool to see everybody on our team talking with people, sharing and nobody was tired until we took the metro back to where we were staying. All in all, Carnaval ministry was one of the toughest ministries we did, spiritually and physically, but I would do it again in a heart beat.

Part of our team at the metro, heading to Carnaval



The last three days before we flew back to Costa Rica were spent in debrief. We got to hang out, relax, and talk about what God showed and taught us all over outreach. It was awesome to have that time to spend time altogether without being busy planning ministry (etc.). We got to enjoy each other for the last time before we all went our separate ways.


What I just wrote about is literally a fraction of what we did and what went on. It's hard for me to only share the big points, but that's what DTS is about I suppose. You learn and grow so much internally and there's so much that goes on under the surface that only God knows about. It was my personal journey and I don't regret one second of it. Every situation I went through caused me to grow, every person that God put in my life had an impact on me. I went on this journey with twenty one other people and I love each one them. So it's the end of that adventure and the start of a new one for me! I'm back home for a few weeks and then I get to head back to Costa Rica for a secondary school...School of Worship! Worship is something that is so important to me and God really revealed to me that it's one of the ways I best connect with Him. I'm excited to go back to San Jose for another three months and really dig deeper into His word and grow more. Although it won't be the same adventure, I'm looking forward to this new one.

Thank you for your support the past five months, for your prayers, and for reading this. I feel blessed to have gotten to go on this journey and who knows...maybe it will inspire somebody else to do a DTS.

Our DTS graduation night

Blessings...

Nicole


-Ecclesiastes 3