One week down so far. Hard to believe. In a lot of ways, it feels like the first week of college, in that so much has happened that, on one hand, it seems like it’s all gone by in a flash; on the other, it’s hard to even imagine life as it was a few weeks ago, back in Oregon. The hard part in writing this is even figuring out how to begin, because I could very easily go on for quite some time. On Saturday morning, about eleven in the morning Pacific time, I arrived in the San Diego airport. I found the YWAM staff that was there to meet me without any problems, and we spend the afternoon hanging around San Diego and waiting for some other people to arrive. We finally crossed the border and made it to the YWAM base in Ensenada around nine in the evening. Our base is located about an hour south of the border and a few miles south of the downtown center of Ensenada, right on the beach. Before YWAM bought this base, it had been an unfinished hotel.

In this Discipleship Training School, or DTS, we have 17 students, from 7 different countries, including English speakers from the US, Canada, New Zealand, England, the British Virgin Islands, and Switzerland, a girl from Quebec, and five students from Mexico who speak minimal English. It’s definitely been fun to get to know people from such a wide variety of different backgrounds, and discovering that even a common language doesn’t always directly translate (for future reference: toilet paper is the “loo roll” in England). It’s been especially fun to have the chance to use Spanish. There are only four guys in this particular DTS: me, another American named Kelvin (who speaks minimal Spanish), an 18-year-old Mexican named Iván (who speaks minimal English), and Guero, YWAM’s 37-year-old security guard who speaks no English and decided to complete the DTS after three years with YWAM. My Mexican street Spanish has definitely improved, and every night before we go to bed, Kelvin and Iván usually teach each other choice phrases in the other language with me acting as intermediary when necessary. Through these informal lessons, among other things I have learned the rich variety in the Mexican usage of the word “pedo,” or “fart.” You can use it literally (“echando pedos”), to ask “How are you doing?” (“¿Qué pedo, guey?”), or to say “I am really drunk” (“Ando bien pedo.”)

They keep us fairly busy. Every morning, we get up about 6:30 to shower and get ready and begin devotions by 7:00. At 7:30, we have breakfast, and then we usually have a base-wide meeting from 8:30 to 9:15 or so. At 9:30, we begin the classroom part of the DTS. For this, they bring in a variety different speakers on different topics and we have about three hours of lecture in the morning. Lunch is at 12:30. Starting around 2:00, we have some sort of afternoon activity planned: for example, small groups, service projects, on-base work, etc. This being our first week, one day they sent us on a scavenger hunt to try and locate various touristy items in downtown Ensenada, utilizing public transportation to get there and back. Luckily, one of the Mexican girls was in my team, or else I probably would have wandered back across the border by now. In the evening, there is usually some sort of worship meeting or Bible study, although it depends on the day. Every Saturday night, we go to Ensenada’s red-light district for a ministry called Bajío to pass out hot chocolate and soup to the locals there. Sunday morning is church, and Sunday afternoon is mostly free (hence, this update).

In keeping with the general tenor of the last few weeks/months/years, this past week has been full of surprises. The first one came as soon as I got on the bus at the airport, and was asked, “So, you stoked about the arts focus of this DTS? What instrument do you play?” It turns out that (unbeknownst to me), in between the time I had applied to the DTS and the time that it had started, there had been some organizational changes. All DTS’s are focused on three central themes: discipleship, evangelism, and service/mercy missions. Exactly how this plays out in each individual DTS varies, depending on the particular character, interests, talents, and leading of the staff. In this case, the staff had felt led over the past few months to do an “arts focus” for this DTS. Exactly what this means has not yet been determined, as we will be the first group to do it, but broadly it is expected that we will use some combination of visual arts, music, and drama in some sort of ministerial capacity while on outreach. Which leads to surprise number two: when I arrived on base that first night and started talking with some of the staff, they kept on discussing India as the probable outreach location. For those of you that I haven’t told: the way a DTS with YWAM works is that there are two parts, a three-month school (which is what I am in right now) and then a two-month outreach (which we will be going on beginning around April 1). The main thing that drew me to this particular DTS in the first place was the chance to be back in Latin America and use Spanish, and throughout the application process, I’d understood that the outreach would be in Latin America, so India came as a bit of a surprise. I’d never really thought much about India before, and what I had thought was not particularly enticing.

So, like I said, this “arts in India” thing is definitely not what I would have looked for. But, looking at these developments in the context of the rest of the story, I wonder if perhaps that’s why it worked out this way. If I’m honest with myself, I think that a large part of my reasons for wanting to do medical translation in Latin America was not so much to fulfill a genuine calling as to pad my résumé. I wanted to do something that I could get back after five months, say how many starving children I’d helped to feed or how many houses I’d helped to build, and use whatever skills I had gained in the process to try to get a good job once I got back stateside. Somehow, I don’t think that “spent five months learning how to play keyboard in a YWAM worship band” has quite the same ring to it. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe God is offering me the chance to really get to know him and trust him, but doing this requires that I first be stripped of everything that I am bringing to the table. The things that I am most inclined to value and take selfish pride in—language, impressive-sounding community service, etc—have to be taken away in order for me to really realize that there are no terms under  which I can come to God except unconditional surrender. Once I have realized this, there will be amazing things that happen, things that I couldn’t have imagined or even known to ask for, but it will be His story, not mine.

Though, as with any growth experience, it has had its frustrations, I certainly don’t mean to imply that it has been a bad experience. On the whole, I am really enjoying being down here. The people on base are very friendly and even after only a week, I think that we’ve bonded quite well. As with every other time that I’ve been down in Mexico, it’s been incredibly refreshing to be surrounded by people whose faith is so fresh and passionate. I think that a good part of what makes YWAM so wonderful, but at times also very difficult for me, is that it tends to draw people whose strengths compliment my own. I am good at thinking things through and analyzing and worshipping with my head. YWAM tends to draw people who are much more heart-oriented, passionate, excitable, flexible. I think that this might be the fulfillment of something that someone told me almost three years ago: “God gave you a good head, and he will use it to His glory. But he also gave you a good heart, and that’s what matters more.”

While I could continue on for a long time, I should probably wrap this up. For those of you who are praying for me: thank you. Please keep it up. My biggest need at this time is just that I will be able to listen to God, grow closer to Him, and hear whatever it is that he’s telling me right now without my head getting in the way. Trusting day by day is something that doesn’t really come naturally to me, but it’s something that I’m having to learn quickly. Also, the adjustment to life down here is a bit difficult. It’s wonderful being surrounded by really great people who like to go out and do stuff, but at times it can be difficult to find my quiet, alone time. Also, please pray about finances. While I have enough saved to support myself through the end of the DTS, I am not sure if I should send support letters out or not, and thus far have not received anything like a clear answer. Finally, I haven’t been sleeping all that well since getting here, so continued prayers for sleep would be appreciated.

One final thing that I think makes for a fitting close to this week. On Tuesday, when I was feeling particularly frustrated by all of this, we were asked to take 45 minutes to go out by ourselves and write a letter to God so we could look back at the end of six months and see how things had changed. I went down to the beach by myself and started venting, saying how I was tired of trying to give stuff up for God, trying to serve God, and never being sure what it was that God was doing or asking me to do. As I was in the process of writing all of this down, an old Mexican man with a little dog walked up to me and asked me in Spanish if I knew how to write. I said yes, so he asked me to write down a poem that he was composing. He started waxing eloquent about how beautiful Ensenada was and how much he enjoyed the company of his dog and the beautiful day. When we finished, he started talking to me about God, and said that I should always remember that God has a plan for me, and if I follow him, these plans will be realized (or something like that; he was a bit difficult to understand). I guess God has a sense of humor. “Calm down there, kid,” He says. “I’ve got you covered.”