DTS Graduation and more.

Well I’m all done with the DTS and I have until the 22nd of June until the Counseling School starts. I’m living with Nathan and Cole Anderson in their house with their friends Lucho and Jill and I couldn’t have asked for a better place to spend this time. Everyone speaks English, the house is quiet and I have plenty of time to read, write, and process the last 5 months. Testimony Alert: My parents filed my taxes and instead of the 400 dollars they thought I was going to get back from the government I received 900 into my account through direct deposit giving me enough money to pay for the first 3 months of the counseling school and since no German speakers signed up the school its going to be in Spanish and ENGLISH!

Coming back to the Pichilemu base was full of mixed emotions. Many being good, like getting to talk more to the other team coming back from Argentina, getting encouraged by the directors, and not feeling the pressure that I was getting from my classmates of being unsure of their next “life step”. On the other hand however, 10 minutes after getting off the bus I was being introduced to someone in the Counseling school and she was totally rude to me, literally just walking away in the middle of our introduction to talk to someone else she already knew. I didn’t take it too personally but I prayed about afterwards as I walked up to the cross at the top of the base to have “Back – in - Pichilemu” quiet time and this is the verse I got:

1st Peter 3:8-9
“To sum up, let all be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit; not returning evil for evil, or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing.”

And it hit me, just because I finished a DTS the last thing I should do is now is think that I’m somebody special. Something I’d been feeling during the theoretical phase of this school was that there was an “YWAM Hierarchy” and that while I was still doing the first step everyone else acted as though they were “above” me and had generally more wisdom. Now that I was done I was getting the same attitude from the students who were wrapping up their counseling school and the importance of humbleness struck me with a deeper understanding. Doing YWAM schools can be such a beautifully positive experience but the more you accomplish the MORE humble and Christ-like you should become. Now that I’ve finished my DTS I need to consider others better than myself more and make more of an effort to listen, encourage and learn from people who may be doing their DTS or have never done a DTS. I ran into the girl that blew me off in the kitchen after my quiet time and I apologized to her for not waiting while she talked to her friend to say goodbye and I told that I’d love to learn from her some of the things she’d learned from her counseling school since I’d be taking it soon. I also told her that I may have come off frazzled in my introduction because I’d just finished 6 hour bus ride and that I’d just finished my DTS when another counseling school girl interrupted our conversation to tell me snottily “Y’know you’re DTS is over yet!”. I didn’t know if she was talking about the 2 days I had until graduation or the fact that you use the things you learn in the DTS for the rest of your life but I could think was “Wow, I guess I won’t be learning how to make good first impressions in the counseling school.”

We can’t let the victories that God has given us make us think that we need Him less.

As I’ve seen in the DTS when I give up the control I have over my life to God then he’ll use me in ways I never thought possible and bless me and grow me tremendously. And I’m glad those girls gave me some attitude because it made me remember the second that I think that I’m more holy and begin to look down on someone who isn’t as “Christian” as me than I’ve missed the point completely and forgotten our perfect example. God can give me a language, protect me, provide for me, speak to me but if I don’t have love than I received it all for nothing.

After the graduation ceremony I was talking to this one worship leader whose my age whose band played in our team’s first stop on the outreach in Manentiallis and he told me that since we’d been there the people we’d partnered with had planted a church and that the band was going to play there in 2 days. When I casually told him that I thought I’d be fun to play harmonica with the band he got super stoked and invited me along, and I said yes.

Going back to Manentiallis for a day and a half ended up being a really rad blessing and I’m glad I said yes to the opportunity. God used it to show me that all of the families that invited me back to their houses really meant it and I was received so warmly. It was a lot of fun being able to communicate so much more after I’d learned all the Spanish I had picked up on the outreach and I had a great time playing music with the band who kept encouraging me to play harmonica solos in the middle of the songs. After the 4 hour service (whew!) we went back to the same house we’d live in on the first week of the outreach because the family’s youngest son Santiago was having his fourth birthday party and we were all invited. The next day some of the kids I’d gotten to know 3 months earlier took me on a hike to these beautiful hilltops, definitely worth the 13 dollar round-trip bus fare I was kind of stressing for some reason.

These first couple pictures are from our last 2 days in Santiago before coming back to Pichilemu for the graduation. When my amazing family asked me when homemade Chilean meal I wanted for my last day with them I answer Empanadas, not know how extremely labor intensive they are to make, but that didn’t stop them from creating one of the most delicious meals I’ve had here to date.

I used the first second I had free when I got back to Pichilemu to buy oatmeal and fruit, because I NEED to get back on my 300 calorie breakfasts and dinners. The eleven week white carbohydrate & vegetable oil diet has finally ended!

Check out the beautifully snow capped Andes you can see from pretty much anywhere in Santiago.

Woo Hoo! All finished with the DTS and I found out when they accumulated all the grades for the tests, book reports, homework and everything I got a 98%

Back in Manentiallis with my old family again.

Group shot of the band.

Here are some gorgeous shots of the hike I got to take with some of my school friends.

I got to play some music when we got back for the birthday party. The last time these guys play in this house it went on for hours and no one could stop them, this time I was part of the unstoppable concert.