God Knew!

In July of 2019, I flew to Australia for 5 ½ months to do a DTS (Discipleship Training School) through YWAM (Youth With A Mission). Salem Academy was a stepping-stone of my decision to go to Australia. Moving to Salem forced me to step out of my comfort zone and try new things. I was also given the opportunity to go to Europe my junior year, through the school. It opened my eyes to my love for travel and meeting new people. As I continued my time at SA, I was challenged my junior and senior year in Bible class, with Karen Haslebacher, to find what my own faith was. I became more and more confident in my GOD.

The first three months of my trip I was in Newcastle, Australia, for the “Lecture Phase” – which is a 12 week course that had a different topic and speaker each week. We had topics such as “The Father Heart of God,” “Evangelism,” “Relationships,” and “Hearing the Voice of God.” The lectures brought me a new understanding of who God is, who God says that I am, and what my relationship with Him really looks like. I found true purpose and identity that I thought I could never find.

For the next part of my trip we were to go on “Outreach” (missions trip) and take everything that we’ve learned during Lecture Phase and put it into real life work. My Outreach was to Nepal. Nepal is a Hindu country and is quite dangerous to express Christian faith openly, so that was something we had to prepare ourselves for. We also had to prepare for a more active Outreach. We were told beforehand that on this outreach it would include trekking to remote villages. I was worried about that one thing. During my senior year I injured my knees in soccer, and have not been able to fully recover from it. While being in Nepal and being more active, the pain increased quite a bit. We took “practice treks,” but in the middle of them I was frustrated with my pain and inability to persevere as I had wished. After praying a lot and talking to my parents, I decided to talk to my leaders and tell them that I could not go trekking. Two days before we were to leave to trek, our leaders decided to split the team, half to go trekking and the other half to go to a village called Chitwan. I knew that I shouldn’t, but I blamed myself. I wasn’t the only one that was impacted by this; it affected my whole team. Little did I know that GOD had something amazing planned.

As our team split, my team was introduced to a Hindu girl. One of my friends, Amaris, befriended her and started talking to her about her relationship with CHRIST. One day she came to where we were staying to hang out with Amaris. Amaris is an extremely talented musician, and was playing a song she wrote for the Hindu girl. Two of my other friends and I were sitting downstairs in our room and could hear the music. We decided to intercede for them. I remember saying, “GOD I know that this has been a season of planting seeds, but GOD I also know that you see the desires of our hearts, and GOD I desire to see a salvation today.” Fifteen minutes later, my friend Amaris came downstairs and said that the girl had given her life to Christ! We were so happy!!

After we met back up with the rest of our team that had been trekking, we found out that they had a salvation as well. A witch doctor in the mountains had given his life to Christ. GOD knew! If we hadn’t split, we wouldn’t have seen both of those salvations. Something amazing came out of the mess, and I will forever remember and cherish those moments.

I would recommend a DTS to anyone and everyone. It doesn’t matter where you are in your faith. There is no judgement, and everyone there is going for the same purpose, to deepen their relationship with CHRIST. I am not the same person that left almost a year ago, and I thank GOD that HE gave me this opportunity!