Today was our first day of class and we began with an hour of worship with the entire base down in the MPR (multi purpose room), which is right next to our classroom. There are 2 schools starting today, one being our CDTS and the other being a Principles of Christian Counseling school. We shared short testimonies today, a brief history of how God brought each of us to this point of coming to this school and we are really excited about our group and getting to know more about each person that God has brought here. We have 4 single ladies in our school, one from Vancouver Island, B.C., one from New Zealand, one from Eugene, Oregon, and one from Ann Arbor Michigan! We also have a single guy, who is the closest one to our age, from Idaho, along with 2 couples. One couple have been pastoring for the past 30 plus years, most recently in Idaho, and the other have been on the mission field for the past 20 years, he being from Tennessee and she from Germany. You may wonder why people from so many different walks of life, and people who have already been in ministry for over 30 years would want to come here and do a Discipleship Training School, and what we discovered this morning, we are all in a time of transition and all wanting to know God more, to have a time "set-aside" to know God in a more intimate and personal way. We are all thirsty. I realized this morning that no matter what place we are at in our walk with God, whether we have been pastors/missionaries/etc., for years and years, we are all just no more than a child of God and noone is beyond needing refreshment, encouragment, and a time of being built up.
Last night we started off with a big bang. One thing that is unique to the Ywam, Salem base is their ropes course. I can't describe for you exactly what a ropes course is, but I will tell you our experience last night with ONE segment of the ropes course and it will give you an idea of what it is. I guess they have over 6000 people come through the base to do the ropes course every year, including local business people, the air force, army guys, schools, etc. It is used as a team-building exercise and also a tool to help you to overcome your fears. They took us to the 'zip line' last night and gave each of us a 'harness' (even Dakota, who now holds the base record for youngest child to ever go on the zip line). You may ask what a zip line is??? We'll, it is a wire that runs from a platform on a tree that is 40 feet high and runs 800 feet long and you are attached to it by your harness and a metal hook that hooks onto the wire and once you jump off of the platform you can go up to 45 mph. Check out the pictures below. Carson did fine, but I didn't do so well, especially having Dakota with me, once we reached the platform 40 feet up in the air, I began to panick and didn't want to jump off the edge. I began to doubt that the ropes staff knew what they were doing and was just certain that Dakota and I were going to fall. We'll, we did jump, and we did go 45 mph on the wire, hanging by our harnesses, but we didn't fall.
This is supposed to be a lesson on 'trust'. Will we trust God to jump off of that platform that he is asking s to jump off of, even when it seems foolish? I know that I (Kathy) have a long ways to go in trust and I look forward (not to the difficult lessons) but I look forward to going deeper in trusting God during our stay here and our time overseas. Check out the pic's below, one is of the tree we climbed and jumped off of and the other if you look closely will see the zip line that goes between the trees. Oh by the way, mommy screamed the entire way and Dakota didn't make a peep, she just asked in the end to "dain" (again)....:) Oh to be more like a child.
Dakota is feeling more 'at home' here and is even eating a little more in the dining hall. She is already really comfortable with her nanny Carol, we call her Grandma Carol, and when we say the word "grandma" to Dakota she really perks up! :) She fell down the stairs here in the dorm yesterday so she has a black and blue eye, but other than that she is doing well and her temper tantrums have lessened and she is now sleeping all the way through the night in her new surroundings!
Thank-you all for your thoughts, prayers, and support, our thoughts are with you as well.
Love, Carson + Kathy +Dakota
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