Six years ago, our family found ourselves living life the only way we knew how. We owned a business, worked really hard, lived in the home of our dreams, and were very involved in our local church. However, like many Americans, we had tons of debt and the job was literally killing me.
After returning from a business trip, I had an encounter with God that changed my life. It not only changed me, it also changed our family. Remember the scripture in Matthew 4 where Jesus was walking on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and saw Peter and Andrew casting their nets? Jesus calls out to them and says, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." The story continues with the two immediately leaving their nets and following Jesus. This is the kind of encounter I had with God. He was asking me, my wife, and my two daughters to leave the lives we had, the friends we knew, and the places we loved to follow Him. This meant our girls would have to leave their school and their friends. It meant that we would have to leave our home, sell our business, and leave the church family we had grown to love for over fifteen years. Change is never easy, but with God's help, we too decided to lay down our nets and follow Jesus.
Five years ago our family pulled onto the YWAM Tyler campus to start our DTS with a minivan packed full of stuff and hearts packed full of hope. We didn't know what the future was going to hold, but we agreed, as the Freeman family, we were going to follow God whereever He led. Remember that debt I was telling you about? It was close to six figures, but in less than two months, God took care of it. The stress of business had sent me into a deep depression for two years, but God took it away.
God gave us the provision we needed to step into His calling for our lives.
So, what is a Discipleship Training School (DTS)? To me, it's simply a time where we create space in our lives to press into God by hearing from Him, learning from amazing missionaries from all over the world, and fueling our faith to the point where we are ready to do something about it. For my family, it was an invitation to step out of the status quo and step into a faith-filled adventure with God. My daughters had read the miraculous stories in the Bible, but now they were experiencing God do the miraculous. They have seen God make the lame walk. They have seen God make the blind see. How amazing is that?
Youth With A Mission has been following God all across the globe for over fifty years. God's call on YWAM is to simply create an opportunity for people like you and I to respond to God's call, to train and equip us, and then send us out to help Him complete the Great Commission.
So, here's my question to you ~ Do you want to be a fisher of men?
... about how your family can do missions together.
