They might not think they're being impacted, but they are...

Hey All!

So I missed a couple weeks, sorry about that.  But needless to say, it has been an AMAZING couple of weeks.  Two weeks ago we had Cindy Mendrell from Ohio.  Cindy is on YWAM Metro NY staff, but is based in Cincinnati. She runs something called Project C.O.O.L (Community Outreach Of Love). What that is is Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on steroids.  Instead of taking one house for a week, what they do is take an entire block/neighborhood for one day and completely transform it.  Anyway, Cindy spoke to us about the Nature and Character of God. Whether the students realize it or not, it is very impactful on everyone who hears it.  Her teaching is never exactly the same every time she speaks because her teaching is very much a question and answer kind of teaching.  She teaches based on what answers she is given.

 

Last week we had Jim Erhman from YWAM Axiom in New Haven, Connecticut. Jim is involved with an organization called Love 146.  What they do is help raise awareness for what a terrible thing human trafficking is.  As well as, work with other organizations to help get girls, and boys out of human trafficking, mainly sex trafficking.  They work mainly in Asia, Philippines, and Thailand a majority of the time.  They just celebrated their 10^th birthday in NYC. The birthday gala was put on by a professional golfer’s wife who also has a heart for seeing the end of human trafficking.  They had all kinds of famous come and speak.  One notable person was former President Clinton.  Every two years President Clinton heads up a Think Tank of the top thinkers in the world and they talk about what they think are the top 5 most important topics.  While he was talking, President Clinton said that for the next Think Tank, in two years, Human Trafficking will be one of the topics.

Anyway, Jim spoke to us about Biblical Worldview.  He spoke on Theism, Deism, Nihilism, Middle Eastern thought, and Post Modernism. He has such an awesome teaching style.  He loves to have fun with what he’s teaching.  He can share something totally and completely serious, but with and underlying joke making you unsure whether it’s okay to laugh or not.  He was such a chill and cool guy. He began every lecture with a question, a “get to know you” question, nothing serious.  Even though they weren’t serious questions, they still caused you to think.  Jim’s week was a very “thinkful” week.  He caused the student’s to really think about how they see the world, and why they see it that way.

Today (Monday, October 15) Dan Sneed, a Pastor from Los Angeles California started his lecture week on Identity.  I will post an update at the end of the week about this week.

Hope all of you are doing well!

With the wind,

Mark

They think they have an idea...but they really don't

Hello everyone!

We meet again! This is now my second blog update regarding this school.  I hope all y’all have been doing fantastic.

We just began our first week of Lecture Monday morning.  We have the awesome privilege of having Kristy Wilke from YWAM Montana.  She is bringing an amazing word on Hearing the Voice of God and Intercession this week.  Which to me, is the best first week topic ever.  This week will kick off the roller coaster of a ride that DTS is.  The students have absolutely no idea what’s in store for them.  A lot of them think they have a slight idea, but in reality, they have no idea.

One thing that I’ve noticed in the two weeks since students have been here is that while praying over the applications of the students, the staff had more or less tried to figure out who would be friends with one another, and a really awesome thing has happened.  Friendships that we didn’t even think about are forming.  The least likely people to be friends are becoming friends.  It’s awesome to see what God can do when we put things in His hands.

Just in the three days that Kristy has been here, my mind has been blown so much.  Even though this is my second time hearing her speak, and now my third lecture phase with YWAM, I am continuing to learn more and more about God, and how He speaks.  Without realizing we do it, we put God in a box.  A box of how He can, and cannot speak. But God being how amazingly awesome that He is, speaks differently to each every person.  Some people are more pictorial than other people. And others are more verbal than others. Then you have those that can be either.  Or some are spoken to completely different if that’s how they respond best. Yesterday we had a little exercise to practice hearing God’s voice.  And some AWESOME things came out.

It’s crazy to think that this is only the beginning of what will no doubtedly be an amazing five months for everyone involved.  The students are thoroughly enjoying it so far.  And they still have sooo much to learn and to look forward too!

Thank you to everyone who has been supporting me, whether it be financially or prayerfully, it is very much appreciated!

With the wind,
Mark

Smithtown, Bellport, the City, and back to Smithtown...and so it begins

"Okay, so here's the list of what needs to get done before the start of the next DTS" says the director of the school in our weekly staff meeting. "We need to touch up paint in the theater, the dinning room, the lobby.  We need to paint all the doors in the girls wing." I'm sitting in my chair at the table thinking that I really shouldn't be surprised by this list that will no doubt be growing and growing and growing...did i mention the fact that it'll grow? We are in pre-hell week mode right now.  Pre-hell week is the week we begin the swarms of lists of stuff to do, and fix, and buy to get ready for the up coming school. Next week we have the joy of entering hell week.  The week where we tackle all of the above said lists.

You're probably wondering what I've been up to these last 6 months since the last school ended.  I know i would be.  And I'll tell you exactly what I've been up to.  Nothing.  I mean, yes, I've been here at the base doing whatever needs to be done.  But that's it.  Nothing exciting has happened.  We were all prepared for a crazy busy summer of summer teams.  We were all geared up to be swamped, and we had...one team.  The entire summer.  But that one team was AMAZING.  They were a BLAST to hang around and get to know. We spent that week in the city doing Prayer Stations, and helping out with a mobile food pantry, The Relief Bus.  We also spent one day at Lighthouse Mission in Bellport. Lighthouse is also a mobile food pantry focusing on Long Island, mainly Suffolk County. Aside from that, during the summer, us, as a staff, would try to do one ministry day a week.  Whether it be Prayer Stations in the city, helping out Relief Bus, or helping out Lighthouse Mission.

Alright, back to what's going on with the next school.  As of right now, we have 19 accepted students.  4 guys and 15 girls (quite the ratio, huh?) But with that said, it shall be an amazing time nonetheless.  Both for the students who are about to have their worlds rocked, and the staff, who know kind of what to expect, but at the same time, not at all.  Every school is COMPLETELY different from the previous school.  There's always that fleeting thought in the back of your mind when every school starts, "what if this school doesn't get along with each other". Well, for one thing, it will definitely make for some interesting dynamics during lecture phase, and certainly outreach. But from all the stories I've heard here, and at varies YWAM bases in my travels, I have yet to hear a story where that was the case.  The norm for DTS's is within the first week to two weeks, people become best friends with a select few, and just "normal friends" with a bunch of other people.  I say "normal friends" cause let's be honest, who is "normal" nowadays? No one...and it takes a special kind of person to do a DTS.

This is just the first of many updates to come.  I'm hoping to send out updates at least every two weeks. But I am going to try to send them out every week.

With the wind,
Mark

Around The World and Back Again

Wow, where to start? The past two months have been some of the most up and down of my entire life.  They’ve been some of the absolute best, and not quite the worst, but close. In the past two months I’ve been a part of 24 hour prayer in DC for the ending of abortion in our Country, I’ve been to Cambodia to work with human trafficking victims, only to teach English for two and a half weeks, and I’ve been to Thailand and worked with an organization in the red light district for two and a half weeks.

Washington DC

Our two month outreach phase started with us heading to Washington DC to team up with Jason Hershey and YWAM DC. Jason and his wife moved to Washington DC 7 years ago from Tyler Texas to pray and intercede for the ending of abortion in America. A couple weeks after moving to DC he ran into a bunch of people LIFE sieging at the Supreme Court.  What LIFE sieging is is when one person, or more than one person, puts red tape over their mouth with the word LIFE on the tape. They then stand at the steps of the Supreme Court and cry out to God for the ending of abortion in our Country.  When Jason and his wife moved to DC, his wife was pregnant, and had the baby in DC as a “protest” against abortion.  Every year since his son’s birth 8 years ago now, on March 8, something major has happened towards the ending of abortion. Through a series of prophesies and scripture verses and such, we are believing that abortion will fall in America on March 8, 2013.

Now what we did while we were there with Jason and YWAM DC was, we did LIFE sieging about 4 or 5 times, as well as help him start a 24/7 prayer house.  In order to do this we all took time slots throughout the day so we would have 24 hour prayer the entire time we were there in DC. During that time of 24 hour prayer everyone could feel the shifting of something in the air.  It was so amazing! Being in DC and being a part of what happened there was an absolute gift from God! It just might be the second best experience of my life, only behind my DTS almost three years ago. It is so hard to put into words exactly what happened in DC, but it radically changed the way I view prayer and life in general.

Phenom Penh, Cambodia

Once our ministry time in DC came to an end, it was time to pack all of our bags and head back to NY for a quick one day turn around.  We arrived in NY and went straight to bed.  We then had the next day to unpack, do laundry, and repack for a month and a half in Asia, firstly being Cambodia.

Once in Cambodia, we spent the first three days together as a team in Phenom Pehn getting acclimated to the time difference of 12 hours, as well as seeing different touristy things in the area.  We were able to see a Buddhist temple where people went to worship, as well as see the Killing Fields from the genocide in the ‘70s.  After those three days, our team then got split into two teams, one team stayed in Phenom Pehn, and the other team travelled to Battambang in Northern Cambodia.  Both teams ended up teaching English to children.  The Phenom Pehn team, the team I was a part of, taught in a Christian school, and the team in Battambang taught children in a nearby village to where they were staying.  Both teams had an AWESOME experience.  All though, there was one day that team in Phenom Pehn just about died.  Very often in the afternoon, we wouldn’t have any ministry planned, so we were responsible for doing our own thing within our group.  Well, fortunately, we learned of a pastor of another church right around the corner from where we were staying, and it turned out that he had two schools that he needed help teaching English in.  We were told that we would have three hours. So we figured we’d do an hour of English teaching, and then gather the students together for the last two hours, and do skits, and games and such with them, we had the plan “okayed” by the pastor, went to the school, with the pastor, and talked to the principle, who turned out to be the pastor’s brother. Okayed the plan with him, with the pastor there, and went to our classrooms. After the first hour, we had a break gathered together to talk about what we would do, and were told that we had to go back to our classrooms.  Confused, our team leader went to the person in charge, who at this point is an intern, because the pastor and the principle both left.  He said, “No, you have two more hours to teach”.  So that day we ended up teaching English for three straight hours, on top of the three classes we always taught at the other school, not a very fun day either.

Bangkok, Thailand

Sadly our time in Cambodia came to a quick end, and it was time to travel to Thailand.  Once in Thailand, we spent our first day in culture orientation, and a scavenger hunt so we could get to know the area a little bit better.

Our first day of ministry we worked with an organization called the Ruth Center, and what they do is they work with older people in slums.  What our team ended up doing was clean a small area of a slum.  We were there for about three or so hours, and by the time we were done, it didn’t look like we had done anything, but we had collected something like 20 bags of garbage. After that…our plans completely fell through.  We had originally wanted to work with a YWAM Bangkok ran organization called BJD (it stands for something, I’m just not sure what at the moment).  What they do, is work with the neighboring college campus and get the college students to come and hangout and to learn about God.  Through this organization, countless students have accepted Christ, and in turn, have done DTS’s with YWAM. What ended up happening is we worked with an organization that worked in the red light districts of Bangkok for our remaining time there.  We “mapped” the four major red light districts in Bangkok. By “mapped” I mean, we walked up and down the streets in these red light districts with iPhones/iPod touches or whatever we could use, writing down names of bars, questionable restaurants, and questionable massage parlors. After we were done with that, we then helped them set up a resource room for when other teams come in to help them. By far, our time in Thailand was the heaviest of our three locations.  But in its own way, it was really good. We surprised the students the last three days we were in Thailand.  We told them that we were going to a slum about three hours away to help a couple that was just starting an organization that ministered to the slums.  But in fact, we took them to an island resort for three days of outreach debrief.  It was a time of much rest, as well as processing both for students and staff alike.

Coming home

Finally, it was time to say goodbye to Asia and head home. We had a 30 hour travel day to finally arrive States side again. Our journey started at the Bangkok airport. From there, we took a six hour flight to Seoul, Korea. Unfortunately we were only there long enough to get off one plane, go through security again, and get on our final flight home.  From Seoul, we had a 14 hour flight to JFK International Airport. It was a crazy long day of travel, but once we landed everyone was happy to finally be home. We landed a little before 10 am on Thursday, March 1.  We then had the rest of Thursday, all of Friday, Saturday and Sunday to rest and catch up on sleep, as well as begin to acclimate ourselves to this time zone again.  On Monday we began our debrief week which was absolutely amazing! It was so cool to hear the students take on things that happened throughout DTS as well as Outreach.  On Saturday, March 10, we had our Commencement ceremony, and then it was official, the students that we had spent the last five or so months doing life with, were officially graduated, and some had started leaving already. By Monday the 12, all the students were off the base.

It was sad to see them leave, but I know that God has some absolutely amazing plans for each and every one of them.  Some are coming back to staff with us, others to staff at other bases around the country. But if there’s one thing I know in YWAM it’s this, “it’s not goodbye, it’s see you later.” I know for a fact, that I will see all of them again at some point or another.

Thank you everyone who prayed for me, and the rest of the team! I definitely felt your prayers!

With the wind,

Mark

Final Update before Outreach!!

Hello everyone!

It brings me great joy, and great pain to tell you that we have just finished our three month Lecture Phase of our current school.  The past three months have been a roller coaster of a ride for everyone involved. The teachers were absolutely amazing, bringing truth to every single student’s life. Granted, not everything has been a piece of cake.  We have had our troubles this school, just like every school does.  We’ve had to send one student home, one student left voluntarily, and another student felt like they weren’t supposed to go on Outreach.  Saying good bye to those three students was not easy, but God knows exactly what He’s doing, and we have to trust that whatever happens on Outreach is the greatest thing for the remaining students.

Our last speaker of the school before Christmas break was Nick Savoca, the base director of the base here.  He spoke on evangelism.  As always, he delivered a very energetic teaching, covering every major and important point about evangelism.  On Friday, we all went into the city to participate in a mini outreach.  We set up three Prayer Stations in various parts of the city.  For those of you who don’t know what a Prayer Station is, it’s a portable table with a banner that says Prayer Station, and it’s just a place where people can come to receive prayer about anything and everything in a very non-judgmental way. Nick Savoca had the idea for Prayer Stations while in the city about 15 years ago doing a prayer outreach one afternoon.  Now, there are Prayer Stations on every continent.

We have two separate teams getting ready to leave for Outreach this week.  One team is leaving tomorrow for India and Nepal who will be working with church plants, orphanages, churches, as well as doing mercy work also.  They are all getting really excited about finally leaving, after the previous three months of preparing for the day of departure.  The second team leaves on Friday for Washington D.C. While in D.C. we will be helping the new YWAM base there launch their new Prayer House. We will also be participating in the March For Life march on the 23^rd of January, walking under the K.I.D.S (Keep Infants with Down Syndrome) banner.  After the march, we will then drive back to New York for a quick one day turn around, and then head to Cambodia for two weeks.  While in Cambodia we will be working with human trafficking victims, orphanages, as well as recovering prostitutes. After our two weeks in Cambodia, we will be traveling on to Bangkok Thailand where we will be doing a lot of the same work as we did in Cambodia, working with human trafficking victims, working in the orphanages, as well as recovering male and female prostitutes. It is going to be a very heavy and hard month for students and staff alike so please keep us in your prayers while we are gone.

Thank you to anyone that has committed to supporting me monthly, it is very much appreciated! And to those of you who have sent a one-time gift, thank you!! It is very much appreciated as well.  It means a lot to me knowing that people are supportive of what I do. And to those of you who have committed to praying for me while I’m here on staff for the next two years, I feel those prayers every single day!! Thank you!! I appreciate every single one of you so much!

With the wind,

Mark Vaccaro