Brother Andrew

So we have a speaker here at Holmsted named Al Akimoff and this man has stories about missions that are truly amazing. However my favorite stories were the ones that involved a man called Brother Andrew. If you have read God Smuggler then you know who Im talking about if you havent I really suggest that you should.

Brother Andrew is a missionary that went into communist countries carrying the Gospel with him. There are many different amazing stories in the book God Smuggler about how God provided in amazing ways.

So I read the book God Smuggler long before i had even heard of YWAM. It is an amazing story one that I would recommend to anyone.

So when I heard that Al Akimoff new him and worked with him for many years I was Highly impressed.

However the most amazing part of this story is what Brother Andrew is doing now. Apparently Brother Andrew is ministering in the middle east to the taliban, hamas and al qaeda groups. He flys around the middle east and these different groups send their black mercedes to pick him up. These dangerous terrorist groups roll out the red carpet for this 80 year old man who comes to tell them about Jesus. That is truly amazing.

The countryside

We decided to go for a walk during the my first week here. This should give you an idea of how beautiful the country is and the fact that I am deep in the country.

DTS and YWAM

So these are some of the DTS Staff members,(The child is the son of the director of the base) the staff members are the people that tell me what to do and take care of any concerns that i may have. There are around 20 or so full time staff members at Holmsted and none of them are paid they all raise support for their time with YWAM. This is the same for all people in the YWAM organization and there are roughly between 20,000 to 30,000 people working with YWAM (None of them paid). They have bases all over the world there are over 500 bases located in different countries around the world.

The name of the program that I am in is called DTS(DiscipleshipTrainingSchool). This is a program where people of all different ages come(Single and Married). We take classes in Theology and Evangelism while trying to find our calling in God's kingdom. We do this for 3 months and then we are sent to another country for 3 months on "outreach" and it has to be cross-cultural so it cannot be the country that you are from.

The snow

This is the first day that I arrived, the ground was covered in snow (its melted by now). I made my first snowman, I know im from charleston and we dont see snow ever. However it was a good time just getting outside, (Im pretty sure it was warmer outside than it was inside.)

My room

So this is my room there are 4 guys in this SMALL room. Eventhough it is small it is the warmest room in the house and they say its because all the water pipes run around the outside of this room which heats it up. Everyone in the house says that they sleep with like a sleeping bag and a comforter on and they say that EVEN then they are still cold sometimes. I was able to sleep with just one of the comforters you see here but even then I was too hot sometimes while I slept. This does not bother me, because its only room in the house you can walk into and feel like you can take your jacket off. So this is my room its small but its the warmest room in the house and so I am overall pleased with my room. Oh and my bunk is the left middle bunk.

Inside

Yeah I know

So I arrived at the airport at 7:30am on Friday and I made it to Holmsted around 8:00am. It was weird at first because I was somewhere that I had never been, with people that I did not know and I was expected to live with these people for the next 6 months. Everyone was new to me but there were people there that were on staff and I also met people that were "trainees" which is what I am.

There are aound 21 "trainees" or people that are involved in DTS. They have been arriving anywhere between yesterday afternoon and now, which it is 9:00pm on Saturday.

Holmsted

Holmsted Manor

Right now a lot of you are probably thinking that this house is really amazing and your right it is really amazing. However it is the coldest house I have ever seen or been in.