Seventh Week?

This is the seventh week right? Okay... Well to start off the week we had the DTS team from LA to stay with us for a week. There are 45 of them and that's only half of them that's here, the other half is in another DTS base. It was just unreal to me to have that many people doing the same thing as me, but in the same time it's great because that means more friends. LA base have more international students. They have people from Finland, Russia, Kazakhstan, Germany, Sweden, and somewhere else that I forgot, but it was really cool.

The speaker this week is Peter Iliyn. He's a Russian descendant. He starts the first day with the story of his dad's childhood. It was really heart-breaking to hear it. I'm going to try to make the short, but here it goes. His father lost both of his parents when he was only four. He was adopted to a family and worked making whiskey. His brother kidnapped him and brings him back. He's adopted again to a family, but the lady of the house wants a little girl not a little boy. He works in the farm and the barn. He has to be awake four o'clock in the morning to collect chicken eggs and if he miss one he gets beat up, which happens very often. Remember that he's still four when he does all this. He lives with the lady for four years and when her husband died the lady brought him back to the church and said in front of the congregation that he's a good for nothing and all he does is make trouble. He got adopted again by a family and he works the same job as he did before, but this time the family really wants to adopts him. But an unexpected thing happen, his brother found him and told him that they're uncle is going to adopt them. He had to make a choice and decided to go with his brother.

Peter's father always tell his life story when he used to be small, but instead of planting the seeds of bitterness to Peter, his father planted the seeds of gratefulness. THAT left me speechless. The life that he goes through is enough to leave God, but it didn't. He was grateful. You can focus on "I" and you can be bItter, or you can choose to focus on "Emmanuel" and you can be bEtter. Tragedy happens and it's up to us if we're going to live in it or move on and let God do great things through it. God can take the most broken people and turn their life around. Would you want to be that person?

I just finished my book report and the book is titled "Blue Like Jazz." "Our behavior will not changed long with self-discipline, but fall in love and a human will accomplish what he never thought possible." God changes our character with the passion of His love and the statement above shows that we can’t do anything without Him. It’s hard to do something for someone when we don’t like the person, and when we fall in love with God, only then do we have the fuel we need to obey.

God is so generous. The fact that He gave His son only was proving enough, but one thing from the book that stuck out to me how prideful we are sometimes to think that we don’t deserve His love. “In exchange for our humility and willingness to accept the charity of God, we are given a kingdom. And a beggar’s kingdom is better than a proud man’s delusion.” That statement just described what I want to have and the only way to have that kingdom is to be humble and be willing to accept His love.

Well... Now moving on to ministry... Basketball ministry is making a really good progress. We're able to finally talk to the Chinese kids. It was hard just to talk to them, but now they're starting to open up a little bit more. The goal by the end of DTS is just to be able to pray for them.

Today is Halloween and we're going to have a dance party for the people in the base. We made our costumes and I'm dressed as a sack of potatoes. It's going to be fun and it's been a great time. I heard that next week will be the best lecture week. So I'm looking forward to do that.

I love you all and God bless you all. Thank you for reading this and thank you for the support and prayer. I will be seeing you soon.

The ACTUAL Sixth Week

First of all I just want to apologize for last week's title. It was supposed to be the fifth week. Sorry again... Well... Moving on... So this week was definitely different than the usual week. Our speaker got the date wrong and didn't come for the week so he/she is coming this week. So our DTS director, Steve, improvised. He invited two local pastors (David from Reality and Aaron from Icon). He also asked Tim Svodoba, the director of YWAM San Francisco and one of the directors for the YWAM international, to speak.

This whole week was completely focused on the church and missions. Aaron was very passionate about the church. He plays with numbers and statistics and shows what's San Francisco all about. San Francisco is #11 in the most influential city list, but they're number one if we're talking per capita. America is the most influential nation. I know this sounds cliche, but if we change America we can change the whole world. Aaron also gives an idea what if all the churches in the world tithes. Ready for this? It would eradicate extreme poverty. The next question? What can we do in the second year?

There are 800,000+ people in San Francisco Bay and there are only 8,000 people who goes to church. The statistics said that 99.5% is unreached in San Francisco and how many missionaries are in here? Virtually NONE. Zero. This city is completely messed up, but the good thing about that is that there's so much we can do. So please pray for the .5% people so that God is able to use them to reach the lost. The statistics also strengthen the reason why I'm here. It wasn't a mistake that I'm in San Francisco doing my DTS.

David talked about the kingdom of God and how it transforms this world. He also talked what's God's mission, because God is a missionary God. God wants to restore people back to Him. David also talked how the churches are usually inward and focus on themselves. Churches is supposed to be about movement, influence, and discipleship. A lot of people would be willing to die for that, but not that many would be willing to live it out. The kingdom of God requires a response. Are we willing to respond to it?

Tim talked about missions. Mission starts with us allowing God to break our heart for what breaks His. Sometimes God called us to a place that's not our place. To a place that's really different than us. We come to this this world not to be Saviors. We're here to love them with the love of God. As humans, its hard to just love someone unconditionally. I'm trying to learn to love like how God loves. I want to love this city like how God loves this city. I went to San Francisco State on Friday to do a prayer walk and I realized that the more I get to know San Francisco, the more I fall in love with it. I want to love where I am.

Tim also talked about self-righteousness. The thinking of, "I'm okay and you're not okay". Well... That's not how we're supposed to be. The right thinking is, "I'm not okay. You're not okay... But that's okay." It starts with being humble and being teachable.

Basketball ministry is starting to grow. There are more people that comes regularly. It's just good to start building relationships with those kids. The hot chocolate ministry this week was probably the best that I've ever done and I hope it will become better. My partners for the night were Audrey and Bethany. We were able to make a new friend, named Ethan. We just talked to him and another person comes up to Bethany and started talking to her. A couple minutes later Bethany pulled my shirt and I looked back and saw the person who's talking to her, Jeff, started crying. Turns out that his friend is really sick and he really cares for him. So Jeff asked if we can pray for him. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Ethan asked if he can pray with us also. We prayed for Jeff and his friend. After the prayer I gave Jeff a hug and he said that he's going to have the best sleep ever. It made me happy knowing that just a prayer can make him that happy. He also told us not to stop doing what we're doing and that he wished that he can go back in time and do what we're doing in such a young age. It was a great encouragement. We also prayed for Ethan's friend who has cancer right now and is currently in the hospital. I might go out with him for some coffee this week.

Well that's all for this week I guess. Today is the first time it rains the whole day and yesterday the Giants won!!! They're going to the World Series. I got hooked to baseball here, because all the staffs are Giants' fan, but yeah I guess that's all. Please keep me in your prayers and thanks for all the support. Thanks for reading this also. Have a blessed week and I will be back next week. God bless all of you.

Sixth Week in San Francisco

Can you believe it? It's been more than a month since I've been here. If something were to happen right now and everybody get sent home; I would say it was all worth it to spend this past month just knowing about God and His love for the lost. I think the one thing that I get is that God's love is unconditional. I know that most of us know that, but do all of us embrace it? For some reason sometimes I felt like I don't deserve that love and I have all right to feel like that cause in fact I don't deserve it, but by God's grace He loves me even though I've broken His heart so many times.

I'm sure the parents know what I'm talking about. A lot of us kids, especially teenagers, have caused you grief and sorrow a lot of times. It's somehow hard not to rebel for us teenager, but in the end of it all. You parents wants the best for us. Even though sometimes we kids don't understand. Us kids can feel like we know what's for us and maybe us kids are right, but that doesn't change the fact that our parents wants what 's best for us. I realized that this week and I'm still realizing it. So... First of all... Thanks Mom and Dad for your guidance. I'm grateful for what you've been doing.

So... Let's talk about what has happened this week. We learned about Spiritual Warfare. I know, I know... First time I heard it I thought it was going to be those weird stuff with casting out demons. Well... It's still like that, but I'm talking about the Spiritual Warfare that's going on in our everyday life. GASP! We fight in Spiritual Warfare everyday? Yes! It shocks me as much as it shocks you. As a Christian, we're walking opposite of the world, that itself is a Spiritual Warfare. We're being attacked by the enemy on our walk with God. Sometimes we let them gets us. One example is letting what the world tells us becomes truth. What the world tells about us is a lie.
Ex: You're ugly, you're not worth it
Sometimes we let those lies get to us. How do you fight those lies? By simply speaking the truth. God made us to be wonderful. He died for us! If we're not worth it, then why would He go to all the trouble to die for us? One thing to keep in mind that I learn this week is not to focus on the enemy. Keep your focus on God! The enemy is real, but he's not greater than God.

Well... That was intense... On a happier note, ministry went well on Friday. Mike and I went to do our usual prayer station. We walked out of the building and we barely passed 2 blocks before a woman stopped us and asked for prayer. How great is that! When we didn't expect anything, God brought somebody in need. The rest of the day was pretty hard. A woman came up to us to give us money. We told her that we don't play for money and that we don't need it, but she insisted so we got one dollar. We used it to buy a drink.

Basketball ministry on Wednesday is still a hard work in progress. There are more kids coming and we're starting to build a connection with them. I'm just happy that they want to play with us. And on Saturday, we had a Chocolate Galore for the woman in the area. There are at least 100 woman that came. We just simply give them chocolate, hot chocolate, and let them make their own jewelry. We also have a prayer station so they can be prayed. We were just being a blessing to these people.

Thank you for reading and I'll keep updating. Please keep praying for the people in this area. They're still fighting with addictions. Only God is able to change this city. Thank you for the support and the prayer. You guys are welcome to visit also. Just kidding... Well if you guys want to, I'll try to meet you guys. Thank you once again for the support and the prayer. God bless you all!

Fourth Week in San Francisco

            This week has completely given me a new passion for bible study. I never thought bible study could be exciting.  I’m currently studying the book of Jonah. It’s still in progress, but it’s been a new whole thing. Most of us see Jonah as the guy who gets swallowed by a big fish, but as I study it, there are much more than saving Nineveh (the city that Jonah was sent to by God).

Art (the speaker this week) is a really great man. He is really generous. He kept treating us to In-N-Out. He bought us donuts also, but that’s not what makes him great. He has such a passion for bible study. It’s contagious! He gave us a Message Bible, which was really good. I use it for my devotional; it’s just so much easier to understand. Art also told us about different Bibles and why there are so many.

Every Friday we’re released to do ministry on our own. We’re given a partner to do it. My friend, Mike, and me did something different for our ministry. We cut a piece of cardboard and write, “Free Prayer”. We were making a prayer station. We also decided next time that we’re going to bring our guitar so we can attract people. We’re going to do worship songs. So please pray for us and the other students with their ministries.

My friends and I found a new type of dancing from France. The movements are random and fluid. It’s called tecktonic. We have fun doing it, even though we don’t know what we’re doing. We looked silly, but that’s the point. We laugh at each other.

I also met a friend that I haven’t seen for almost 5 years. I get to see her on Saturday. I basically spent the whole day with her in an Indonesian community eating BBQ. This week is also Fleet Week. There are fighter pilots flying around doing aerial acrobat. It was a good day.

Tomorrow, we’ll be studying about spiritual warfare. I really don’t know what to expect. I heard that the speaker is really good. Well… Learning new things everyday. Thank you for the prayer support. Miss you all. God bless!!!

Third Week In San Francisco

So... The third week is finally over. Can't believe I've been here for almost a month. Well... I found out that I've been bitten by some kind of insects every night. So every time I woke up I have a huge bite mark. Yeah... You can laugh at that if you want.

So our speaker this week was Gayle Keapproth. The topic was "Hearing God's Voice". I learned a lot. Why do we talk to God?
No... It's not for guidance. It's for relationship's sake. God is a communicator and all He wants from us is our affection for Him. He wants a love relationship and love relationship's nature is to keep growing. Relationship without communication is a bad one. I've been spending my quiet time with God in the playground. I just feel like I belong there. I'm starting to enjoy just being in His presence. My biggest challenge this week was to start discerning which is God's voice, and which is my desire. I love the fact that it's been another wonderful week.

Me and my friend Mike was chilling at Coffee Bean. We saw a woman in front of us and we decided to help her. We bought her a drink and food. She started talking about her life and we prayed for her. She started crying. I believe that God has touched her. Ministries like this happens everyday to each of us. It became our lifestyle. God has truly changed the way I see everything. I'm learning to see others through His eyes.

This coming week we're going to learn about the Bible. It's going to be amazing once again. Every day I'm learning something new. We're not perfect as people, but God is and that's why He's matchless. We're serving a God like no other. Nothing compares to Him. Praised be His name.

I hope that you guys will keep me in your prayer, because the spiritual stronghold here is strong. Thanks for all the support and thanks for reading.