Our first week we had a speaker named Karri Manning here speaking on ‘The Character and Nature of God.’ Karri is, to say the least, very outgoing and VERY loud, but boy did we love her. I think she was the perfect speaker to have our first week. She pushed us all to come out of our shells and speak up, and she exceeded all our expectations of what the first week was going to look like. (Side note: in high school, I HATED taking notes, and I took about 20 pages of notes in one week with Karri. She’s AWESOME.) 

Here are a few things from my notes that I think we all gleaned from the classes this week:

1. God is good! She pounded this into our heads all week.

2. God is our father! “God is not a reflection of our earthly fathers, he is a perfection of them.” 

3. God is a God of unity! That’s a big one for us, considering we’re going to be living together for a good 5 months, and we’re learning how to live in unity and it’s awesome!

4. God is a Merciful God! A lot of points from this characteristic stuck out to me. But mostly “It’s not about being good enough, it’s about being who God made you to be.” 

And the big one: 5. God Disciplines! Yikes! I know for me, and others, this was a hard thing to hear about. No one LIKES being disciplined, but we definitely learned a lot about why it’s important to be disciplined. Karri shared an analogy that really resonated with me and a lot of other students. She told us about her dog, who was a great dog, but always wanted to be free and run in the streets and such. One night the dog got hit by a car, but thankfully survived perfectly fine. After that Karri decided to get the dog a shock collar and when it was used on the dog, he got really confused. When God disciplines us we get confused and ask “Why would you do that, or let the happen to me God?” But it’s because God wants to protect us and keep us safe and seeing that is a beautiful thing. 

 Overall, I think we all learned so much from Karri and it was such a great first week.

Following a great first week came an equally great second week! Our second teacher was Dow Saunders, and his topic was ‘Hearing God’s Voice.’ Now Dow, in comparison to Karri, is very soft spoken but just as outgoing. The first day he was here he blew us all away by sharing words that he received from God for every single one of us! They were all so encouraging and it was really cool for all of us to have this guy, who didn’t even know us, come and have something to share with us from God. It was a very good preface to what was going to happen during the week.

Something that stood out to me the most was Dow’s great knowledge of the bible. I just counted in my notes and he gave us over 57 verse references to all the things he talked about this week. Things we discussed include: Steps to hearing God (Submit to God, Resist the enemy, Expect an answer), How knowing his character helps us hear him, Obstacles to hearing God, Heart conditions to hearing God, Guidance, Prophecies and Promises, and Intercession. 

Every night he would give us an assignment that in retrospect has really helped us all grow. We had a lot of time to just sit with God and ask him questions like “What are you revealing to me about yourself?” “Where have I heard you speak to me before but I didn’t know it?” “Where have you been active in my life?” and “How do you see me?” (This one prompted a letter from God, which turned out pretty successful for most of us). Today was his last day and at the end of the class we decided to go outside and have some worship time and it turned into a good 2 hours of worship/prayer/intercession, which was a perfect way to end his topic. 

Even with our awesome speakers, YWAM San Fran as a base, and all of us as a DTS have been experiencing some crazy stuff! A lot of people around the base are sick and a few have even had to go to the hospital (we’re all back at the base now, and getting better! [Praise God (:]). So if you all could be praying for health that would mean the world. And a few students and staff have received not the best of news about loved ones back home and we’re all dealing with that together. So also be praying for strength and comfort in these hard times. 

You are all so great! Thank you for taking the time to take interest in what we’re doing here at YWAM and supporting us in all the ways that you do! Will write again soon! (: