DTS: Death To Self

Well, today was the first day of classes.  And I absolutely loved it!!

The guy who spoke was the guy who sort of started this DTS.  We found out a lot behind the history and I don't want to write three hours worth of lecturing into this post because I don't have that much time, but in short, this DTS is very different than any other DTS's for one main reason.

We don't have a base.  Almost every other YWAM DTS in the organization has their own base.  It's like a campus.  It's safe, and contained, and the students don't get as much experience outside the base as we do.  This DTS doesn't have a base, we live in a hotel that is on the water and is in the middle of Port Credit, Mississauga, Ontario.  We are surrounded by all kinds of people and ethnicities and cultures, and in some cases even crime which we will witness on a higher level during missions/outreach(sex trafficking).  So part of the training for this DTS is actually living in an idea of what our outreach will be.  So that's kind of awesome.

Then we talked about DTS in the respect of meaning, "Death To Self".  I can't remember word for word very much, so here's my notes from it.

- Only when you experience the true feeling of losing God and losing Christ can you appreciate the crucifixion, and THEN the joyfulness of the resurrection
- The Christ even has two moments in it: the crucifixion and THEN the resurrection.  In order to appreciate the resurrection you must know weakness, fear and trembling first.
- Death has to work in you in order for life to come out
- When you die to yourself, public opinion is neither here nor there(who cares what anyone thinks about me or what I do?)
- Paradoxically, rejoicing comes out of being in sorrow.
- When Paul feels like everyone has abandoned him, he lets his friends know that straight away!
- Pual says that he dies daily.  Meaning that he had suffering every day of his life.  Do we experience this?  Why not?  Why is suffering such a shock to our culture?  Why have we shielded ourselves from suffering?  Why do we call it Good Friday when really on that day there was so much suffering and sorrow?  We need to be open to suffering, because out of suffering comes much joy and much more appreciation of the resurrection.
- Israelites are the ones who wrestled with God.  So should we and WILL we wrestle with God in our journey.

So yea, that was our first day.  Then we went and bought ice cream and I helped to make dinner for everyone!  We only have to do it once a week, so I'm already done for the week!

I shall see you all on the morrow.