This last season, we’ve been running a worship and prayer focused DTS, and we’ve received a lot of new vision for worship and prayer ministries, and have been somewhat frustrated that we’ve not been able to put a lot of legs to the ideas we’ve had. A few months ago the idea came to us to retool the School of Worship to work with a small group of students, and effectively turning it into an internship.

This spring we will run the SOW with a group of 5 or 6 intern, and it will take place over 20 weeks, rather than the typical 12 weeks for lecture phase. The extra time is going to allow the interns to continue working around the other areas of the base, as many of them are long-term staff. Also it will allow us time to do more hands-on ministry, effectively putting legs to the ideas that the Lord has been giving us over the past season.

The academic portion of the school will be more small group driven, rather than class-room driven. We’re actually planning to do the classes in our living room, rather than the classroom. We’re going to be doing a fair bit of teaching ourselves, doing some video series, and having a few speakers come in to teach.

Doing some of our studio recording in 2009

In addition, the interns will be participating in worship for Mission Adventures, our weekly workshop night, our afternoon worship and prayer times. We will also be running a week long worship seminar for the local church, and a city-wide prayer day, which the interns will staff. Finally we will be doing some studio recording, with the hopes of distributing original worship music for free via Podcast.

We’re very excited about this next season, and we have a great group of interns, many of whom are already practically family. We’re looking forward to seeing the level of worship and prayer in our community raised, as we invest into this group of key people.

School of Worship will be starting in about 6 weeks. We have a lot of prep to do, so we’ll be right back at it after the weekend.

This week, the DTS got back from their outreaches. One team from Panama, and Costa Rica, and the other from the Dominican Republic and southern Mexico. We’ve got the pleasure of spending these last few days talking about their experiences over the 8 week outreach, and the entirety of the DTS, which began in late September. It’s a real blessing to see the changes in each of the students, and to have been a part of what God has done in their lives in this season. Many of the students are planning to come back to work with us in some capacity, and others to go other ministries, or to go home, and live out their calling there. It’s a time of a lot of emotion, as we’ve all become quite a close knit group over these last 5 months

Tomorrow, the students will graduate, and most will depart (at least for a little while) on the weekened. Things will get quiet for us for a little while, until the worship and prayer internship, which we are leading, begins in April. Some of the students graduating from this class, and some of the staff who helped us run this school will be working with us as part of the program. But for now, we’ve got a lot of preparations to make.

Lindsay, during the photo shoot on Saturday

Gemma’s approached several individuals to contribute to the book, and we’re in the process as putting it all together. Gemma’s overseeing it all, while Steve, along with contributing as one of the writers, is doing the graphic design. We’re hoping to have the whole thing ready to print this summer.

This last week, we had Lindsay (www.thespangs.com) come and do a photo shoot, for the images in the book.  Her memory card crashed after the shoot, but somehow she managed to save the pics, so we’re still on track.

We’ll share more about this project as we approach completion, and we’ll be selling copies of the book to.  So feel free to contact Gemma to pre-order a few…dozen

Lost of cool attractions

This week Steve was off to Costa Rica, to visit the outreach team there, after Gemma came back from visiting the other half of the DTS in the Dominican Republic.

There are nine students and two staff on the Costa Rica team, which arrived about two weeks ago, from Panama, where they did their first month of outreach.  This week we worked at a Children’s ministry, in one of the worst neighborhoods in Costa Rica.  We don’t have any pictures of that, because I didn’t bring my camera, for fear I may get robbed.

On my last full day in Costa Rica, we went on a fun day to an eco-park called La Paz Waterfall Gardens, where we got to hang out, have fun, and see some really exotic things from monkeys, to jungle cats, butterflies, waterfalls, and a whole lot more.  I got lots of cool pics, and a couple of them are here in this post.

Next week, the team will actually be spending part of their time sitting in on Spanish Language classes.  One of the Mexican students will be sitting in with the intention of learning how to teach Spanish as a second language, as she hopes to do it at our base after she joins staff here at the conclusion of the school.

The following week, the team will be in the jungle, where they will finish their outreach, before heading back to Ensenada for debrief and graduation.  In the mean time, Steve has to get up ridiculously early in the morning to catch a flight back to San Diego, but he’ll get to spend the weekend at home with Gemma and the kids.

A beautiful 85 foot waterfall

The DTS outreach team left here on December 17th, and has been doing ministry at the YWAM base in San Pedro DR.  They’ve been doing a whole host of different ministries during their time there, wrapping up with building a Homes of Hope house with a group that came from the US.

Gemma left here on Friday night to go and visit the team, having to fly out of Los Angeles, she traveled all night, to get to LA for a 7:40am departure.  Gemma will be with the team in the DR for their last few days.  Tomorrow the team will be departing for the second half of the outreach in Oaxaca (a state in southern mexico).

Steve’s been at home, alone with the kids, trying not to make too much of a mess.  In a few days, we’ll trade places, with Gemma taking care of the kids, while Steve heads off to San Jose, Costa Rica, to visit the outreach team which is arriving there today from a month in Panama.  the students will arrive back in Ensenada or, or around Feb 11, and graduate on February 16th.

We’d like to wish you all a happy New Year, as we leave 2011 behind, and begin 2012.  We’ve had a relatively quiet holiday season, as there were very few of us who stayed on the base over the break.

Gemma and David

Gemma’s recovery from the surgery has been going well.  She had her stitches out the other day, and under doctor’s orders, she’s going for walks everyday.  She’s still regaining her strength, so she’s not walking far right now, but will be walking further, as she get’s her steam back.  We just got back for a walk down by the beach with the kids.  It’s beautiful and sunny, as I’m sure it is where you’re reading this from

The kids had a wonderful Christmas; any time where they can eat as much candy as they want is wonderful.  They’ll head back to school on Tuesday, as everything get’s back into gear.

The two of us have the rest of the week off before we start back.  Gemma has appointments on Wednesday and Thursday for her US visa.  She’s been using visa waivers for the last couple of years, when she needs to cross, but she’ll be getting a B1/B2 visa, which will be good for 10 years.  It will make travel a whol lot more convenient.

After the break, we’ll be in a season of preparation for the School of Worship, that’s scheduled to start in April.  Gemma will be able to focus more of her attention on the kids, now that her health is starting to improve.  Steve has also picked up a few extra responsibilities with one of our IT guys leaving. He’ll be overseeing the YWAM web site…which you may notice, looks a lot like this one.

Anyway, have a wonderful 2012!

Steve and the kids at the beach.

The cyst was too large to treat by conventional means, and with a family history of endometriosis, the doctor felt that she needed to go in and take a look, and remove the cyst surgically.  We scheduled the surgery for yesterday, at a local hosptial here in Ensenada.  During the surgery, the OB/GYN quickly realized that rather than removing a large cyst, she had to remove the entire ovary, as it had become one large cyst.  The other one was out of place, and when she went in to check it, she found an endometrial cyst on it too.  She had to remove about half of the remaining ovary, and also cauterize some spots of endometriosis.

Gemma spent last night in hospital, returning home this afternoon.  She’ll have the stiches out on the 29th (Gemma’s 29th Birthday) and should be fully recovered in about a month.  Please keep our family in  your prayers, this holiday season, as Gemma recovers.  We’re very grateful for the generous gifts which made it possible for Gemma to have the surgery.

Star of David

All that being said, the kids also had their Chrismas pagent last night.  It was a wonderful little break from the business of the week. (Although you can put making costumes on the list of things to do!) The even was actually held in the auditorium on the YWAM base, not 100 feet from our kitchen window, so it was nice to just wander over there, have a seat, and see the kids do what kids do; be adorable.

So David was dressed up as a star (of David) along with his whole class.  They did a song and a dance about the Christmas star.  Maya’s class were dressed up as well, but not as anything particular.  They did a dance with ribbons, and Maya tried to steal the show…of course.

Maya; the show stealer

Afterwards, we had a great prayer time with the DTS, as they prepare to head out on their outreach this weekend.  We’re down to the last minute details, with the school, and when they leave, we’re officially on vacation for about three weeks.

Today we have two doctors appointments, in preparation for Gemma’s surgery, which is a laparoscopy, to remove an ovarian cyst, and a uterine myoma.  We were very blessed that we managed to raise all the money we needed for the surgery very quickly, and the surgery could happen as early as tomorrow, but more likely Monday.  We’ll post more on that later.