Well, it's almost time- We leave for Peru tomorrow!!! The last two weeks have been really crazy. During our last week in Boston, our funding situation seemed dire. We owed YWAM $8,888 and needed to get the majority of it in to go to Peru. We didn't get it in on time. Our team left for Peru this past Monday and we stayed behind, because all the money we "had" was in checks in the mail. However, God provided in His timing and a day later our tickets were bought for just a little later than everyone else's. As of now, we only need another $500 to finish off our tuition. This means that in two weeks, God raked in $8,388 for us. WOW. Talk about provision. We have been seriously amazed seeing our funds come in. We have also been provided for in other ways, like our car parts that we needed being bought for us by strangers when we didn't have the money to get them. Everything's just been ridiculous. We spent last week completely busy every spare second, learning the rest of our dances and dramas and preparing tracks for the Peruvians. Then this week we had a chance to go back home and see our families and some friends. Now we're leaving in just a few hours for the airport in Washington DC. We have a 9-hour layover in Columbia so if you would pray for smooth sailing for us, that would be appreciated. We won't have much time to be on the internet once we get to Peru, but count on another update from us and pics, videos and the like once we get back, which should be on the 21st. See you all soon!
-Josh and Devi
YAAAAAAAAA!
Last Week Before Peru
We are back in Pittsburgh now. Boston was sweet but exhausting. We have been incredibly busy, using most of our "free time" last week to do street evangelism. This week we will still have a crazy schedule, because we are trying to learn about the Peruvian culture, learn the rest of our dances, and still have class and chores, etc. We need your prayers for more supernatural endurance and for the rest of our funds to come in.
In the past three days, we have got $1,500 donated to us to help us go on outreach. If that's not God moving, I don't know what is. We still need $2,000 by the end of the week to be able to leave the country. Our faith is being stretched monumentally every day, waiting to see if we will really go to Peru or not. We are waiting and trusting that wherever we go, God will give us the strength to do what He wants us to do. But it's a little scary.
Keep praying for us, and pray for the Leatherwoods. Help them out if at ALL possible.
Josh & Devi (and Luke)
New Plans
Our team was informed today that we are no longer planning on going to Mongolia. The airfare was too expensive and most of us didn't get the amount of funds we needed. Incredibly sad, but we are trusting that God is planning something greater for our DTS.
So, the new "plan" is to do outreach in Peru. We will be doing the same things as we would have in Mongolia, just in South America now. We still need roughly $5,000 to be able to go on this outreach. We need those of you who follow what we're doing to help us with this money. Know that it will be diligently used to further God's kingdom.
We are planning to leave the US on May 23rd. While we are still here, we are doing several outreaches in local neighborhoods. We go into an area, do a dance and get people's attention. We invite people to come watch the performance and afterwards, engage with them and use the dance as a way to open up conversation. Once we get talking, we try to talk to people about Jesus and see what they need. We try to pray with as many people as possible. We've done 3 days of these outreaches: 2 in neighborhoods in Somerset and one at Harvard Square.
Stress levels are running high among our team. The change of location threw everyone off, along with the leaders, and now we must really focus and trust God. We desperately need your prayers!
We will be getting more information about the specifics of Peru within the week. We will post this information as we learn it. Don't forget to "like" our page on facebook and also keep in contact through email. Send us your prayer requests!
Much love, Josh and Devi
No one likes to talk about money
But we still need $4,000 ASAP. Please donate. Click the paypal "donate" button on the right hand side of the blogspot page. If you are reading this on facebook, go here to get to our blog page to donate through paypal.
THANK YOU we cannot do this without support!
God just keeps being crazy
A bunch of progress is being made in our team and in us. Most of our hearts are being broken and changed and remolded in a better way. We have been getting hearts of flesh instead of stone since day 1 of being here. The Holy Spirit is continuing to unify and unify and unify us.
Today we were told that we need to have our lecture phase funds PLUS $2,000 by tomorrow night at 9 PM or we will not have the money to go to Mongolia and do outreach there. So basically, the two of us need $5,000 in or on its way to us by tomorrow.
Surprisingly, the lack of funds among our team has not caused stress so much as more giving between the students. We all have been compelled to give our own funds to each other, and are coming together even more than before. God truly uses everything for His glory. I know that sounds cliche but it's TRUE!! It's been really fascinating to see love and repentance and hope emerge from not having enough money. We have come to the conclusion that God's will is good and His plans are going to be awesome, whatever they are, wherever He has us go.
Sweet.
First Legit Outreach
Today we went on our first legitimate evangelism outreach. We were in this apartment community in Boston, close to the team's new building. We split up and went around to different buildings and told people we would be putting on a show soon for free and we wanted them to come watch. Then some of the staff performed a dance and afterward, we split up again to just talk to the spectators and hear their stories. Then more of the staff did the skit we are currently learning, called "the clincher", based on the song by Chevelle. The skit illustrates the message of salvation in a simple, tangible way. After it was done, we found people to talk to and asked them what they thought, and just engaged in conversation. Half of our team lead someone to Christ today. It was completely awkward on some levels, being the first "formal" group evangelism we have done, but overall was good. We played with and talked to a lot of children. They wanted love and had many questions and it was good to give them what they need. Several adults opened up to us too. There were some people who were making fun of us, but that's to be expected.
Tomorrow we are learning the rest of our skit, along with another, and then we also have a few dances to learn. We have been incredibly busy the past two weeks, and desperately need prayers for strength! Also, we are really feeling the pressure of getting all our funds in. We still need about $7,000 to go to Mongolia. Our faith is being stretched and stretched...and stretched.
Don't forget to send us your prayer requests! We love to hear from everyone at home. We miss you guys and love you!
More soon, Josh and Devi
New Location
We are now currently in Boston. It is our 3rd week here. The first week was pretty hectic and we spent a lot of time running around the area and moving out the graduating DTS class and moving ourselves in. We had 3 women come and prophecy over some of us during one of our classes. That weekend, have of our class did "outreach" at an Ivy League christian conference called "Closer". The original plan was to have us minister to the students in small groups. However, once we got to the location, they told us they no longer needed us, and that we couldn't even sit in on the conference. We were about to leave and then things changed and they allowed us to stay, for free. So we got to experience hours of worship and listened to Heidi and Roland Baker speak. Then we came back for an evening session with the rest of our team. A lot of people got "slain in the Spirit" and there were many physical manifestations, like falling over and stuff.
Last week our speaker was Brenda Lewis. She talked about the impact of our stories and we practiced how to share the important parts with each other. Last week our team got a lot closer because we were basically required to be open and vulnerable with each other. It was difficult but our unity is increasing because of it.
This week our speaker has been Jeff Pratt, talking about the father heart of God. Naturally, many of us had things to confront and things about our past that we need to get healed from. Today we spent 3 hours in prayer over one another for just that.
The amount of things we are learning about God and who He actually is, is ridiculous. We are excited to relay the information we are learning to everyone else once we get back.
And of course, and update on our needs...we still need $7,000 for Mongolia!! We need you guys to pray for our provision and help give if so lead. Also, continue sending us prayer requests through facebook and email. We love to help on this end as much as possible!
much love, Josh and Devi
Week 4
We have a definite destination! We will be leaving on May 23rd for Mongolia and then we should be back in the states on June 20th. We will then have a week to recover from jet-lag and get chill and then we have 17 days of Joshua Generation, which can be checked out here on facebook.
Last week we talked about pride, and along with that, insecurity and integrity. We had about double our usual class time last week and were just loaded with information. I will post notes up here during the next entry. This week we are learning about the cost of discipleship. Notes to come on that after this week is complete.
We do need prayer. We still need the majority of our funds especially now that we have a destination, because they are buying plane tickets. Please continue to pray and support.
-Josh and Devi
Weeks 1-3 !
Hey everyone, so we're on week 4 of our Discipleship Training School and things are going well. In case you didn't know, we are not actually in Pittsburgh, we're about an hour south in a smaller town called Belle Vernon. It's the "country" (not like Ashville though ha) and incredibly hilly. We've already learned a TON and are in a constant state of absorbing information and applying it to our lives. We are the only married couple among the students but there is one other married couple on our staff, from South Korea. We have 3 students here with us from South Korea, 1 from London, 1 from South Africa, and 1 student from India. One of our staff members is from Peru as well so we are experiencing a lot of awesome diversity. We have had 4 speakers so far (Nick Savoca, Debi Tunney, Tim Burgan, and Lance O'Brien) and are on our 5th (Sam Dharam). Aside from these we have been spoken to by 2 local pastors and have had the opportunity to attend a local church weekly and one week we went to another Assemblies of God church. The church we've been to regularly is non-denominational, called Christian Center Church which is physically attached to the dormitories here. We are staying with a lady who attends this church, and has volunteered the upstairs of her condo for us so we could stay together :) She is awesome and the living arrangement is going great. For more information about YWAM itself and our class go here.
As far as what we've learned already, the information is really vast so I'm going to do my best to summarize.
-Relationship with the Lord/Worship
-Destiny-purpose
-Friendship, love, and acceptance
-Challenges and success
-Adventure
-Understanding (being known for who we are)
-Intimacy
-Identity, value, and uniqueness
-Joy and pleasure
-Purity and holiness (freedom from guilt)
*Jeremiah 29:11-14 "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile." God's plan for us is Himself and His fullness.
We learned that our hearts are thirsty for the water that only Jesus provides, water that will keep us from ever thirsting again. It's only in this water (Jesus Himself; John 4:13-14 "Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.'”) that we will get the stuff above ^ that we need. We also learned about the distorted view of God we usually have, and the truth about who He really is. God's character is not based on how our earthly fathers are, or how we have been treated by other people. He is intimate, with us, holy, loving. The problem is getting our hearts to believe what our heads already know is truth about Him.
We learned a lot about God being trustworthy and a provider. He doesn't hold out on His kids, He gives us what we need. (Psalm 103- He will fulfill and satisfy.) We also discovered that encouragement is "oxygen to the soul" and we spent a day writing deep encouragements to our classmates.
