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!