GRADUATION (a guest entry by Anna Van Rootselaar)

Congratulations to the Justice DTS graduating class of YWAM Blantyre 2011/12. After a busy Friday and even Saturday morning of preparation (cooking, cleaning, cooking, arranging furniture, cooking, and cooking), the grads started receiving their guests. We all had lunch together out on the kondi (back porch). Daniel (the base leader) informed the guests they had some choices for their meal: there was chicken or chicken, rice or rice, cabbage or cabbage. So we all ate chicken, rice and cabbage for lunch and then moved inside for the actual ceremonies.
Grad started with a time of Praise and Worship. The Malawians we have met are all quiet, unassuming, gentle, kind people...but then they start to worship. In worship they become dynamic, animated, exuberant, full-body, full-voiced worshippers. The drums start, the voices are vibrant and harmonic, the bodies move, the whole place starts to shake. And I can’t help but realize that worship is a cultural expression of our faith and God accepts it all, no matter the expression as long as the faith is real.
The graduates followed worship with 10 minutes of 30 second testimonies, which at first I thought was an indication of African time but which turned out to be the students taking half a minute to speak of one highlight of their time here.
The Identity Drama followed. Drama is a tool used for outreach and, since it is set to music with no speaking parts, it requires no translation. In this drama four characters depict the despair of the blind, the hungry, the lame and those who mourn. Then Jesus comes and takes their burdens on himself. They are set free; He is stronger than the chains of their burdens so He is able to cast off those burdens. It’s very powerful.
Patric C and Shona then shared their testimonies, speaking of the powerful things God has been teaching them and doing through them while they were here. Interestingly, a Malawian missionary spoke at Shona’s home church in Switzerland and through him, Shona felt called to come to YWAM Blantyre.
The Everything Drama followed. In this piece, the basic creation-fall-redemption story is told. A young woman is formed by the Creator. They share a warm, loving relationship until she is tempted by the other. Soon she is looking to money, alcohol, drugs, witchcraft, impossible standards of beauty for her salvation, her identity. These things only drive her to despair and she is soon on the brink of suicide. But the Creator steps in, taking on the evils that tempt and freeing her from them so that she can again be in relationship with Him. This drama is so moving, and when it was presented in church on Sunday (today) it moved many to tears and led one woman to speak. She said the drama was her story: she had run away from home into a life of drinking, drugs and prostitution and as she was considering suicide she met Jesus and she is now, more than 20 years later, free to live with Him, in Him, for Him.
The graduates finished their presentation with a time of prophecy. I think the most intense part was when Ali stepped forward and indicated he had a word from God for one particular man. Ali told this man God wanted him to be hopeful, to know that he was a source of hope to those around him and to never lose hope because God was with him always. The man sat in tears receiving this word and could only bow in prayer when Ali finished. Our friend Patrick M (he calls me Momma as a sign of respect and affection) finished by calling forward the sick who were prayed for and prayed over—just as these students have been praying over and for the sick in dozens of other times and places throughout their outreach.
The Vice-chair of the board of YWAM Blantyre addressed the graduates, challenging them in the calling that lies ahead of them. And then the graduates received their certificates. As each one came forward, a staff member told us something unique about the student and his/her contribution to DTS. We prayed over the graduating class to close out our celebration. What an incredible gift from God to be able to participate in this day.
At dinner late Saturday evening, the staff presented their students with special awards—all inside jokes relating to the unique experiences of each student: Ali got a bra, Patrick a toy pig, Anna and Andy a toy car.... Each award involved a story, and invoked enormous amounts of laughter and good-natured kidding. It was a privilege to share their stories.

A note from Travis:
It has been such a blessing to have my parents here for this short amount of time, I'm astonished that they are already going to be leaving on Wednesday of this week. Though I feel like I haven't done enough with them outside of the base (the DTS has been very busy with coming to a close) but I know that it has been a good time of rest and relaxing for them and also encourages them in seeing some of the work that I've been doing in Malawi and the way of life here as well. We did get to do one Jesus movie showing last Sunday so please remember to ask them about it as I'm sure they have some stories to tell from that evening as well.

Thanks again for all the love and support
Blessings in what ever this season of life is bringing you through.

Peace and love
Travis, Anna and Ron Van Rootselaar

3 Weeks Living the Village Life

As you may have read before, the team and I took off for three(3) weeks to go and do some evangelism in a Muslim village nearby to Mozambique. We set off on the 14th of January and came back on the 5th of February. We have just been resting till now and been trying to figure out what is next. Most of the team left again yesterday (Friday) to head down to southern Malawi, where it’s nice and hot, for the last week of the DTS outreach phase. I stayed behind so that I could over see what is going on from here as well as the fact that my parents are coming on Wednesday and need to plan their trip out here as well as be here when they get here. I thought I would just write a quick update about some of what we did as well as one or two of my own highlights of or time away.
We split all the students into three teams for our time away, each team being assigned something to do each day and then work on a rotation through-out the time. One team would be on cooking each day, one would be on local ministry and another on Jesus Movie. In the afternoons the cooking team would be in charge of running a kids ministry for about 2 hours. We’d turn up the music and the kids would flood in from all directions, even though lots where already there. They would do some dancing, games as well as a short drama or bible skit (always need to be doing our Christian input of course). Over all the kids’ ministry went really well and on our second last day we had one big final party for all the kids with some drinks, candy, face painting and other games. There was really a great impact made on the kids as we could see within about 2 weeks there was already a change within some of them.
The second team would be doing local ministry each day, meaning that they would go around and do door to door ministry, or walk around the local market and talk to people. One of the highlights for people doing local ministry was going to be well to collect water for the day, it was a time to talk to the women of the area and just be helping to them, pumping water and helping with their. It also made talk in the way that the locals would get a good kick out off some of the white foreigners caring water on their heads or in different ways.
The third team would be the Jesus Movie team, pretty self explanatory. The team would be going out at night to show the Jesus movie in different villages nearby. We also did two trips out with one team to show the Jesus movie in a couple farther away villages. So we would go out for 3 days or so and show the Jesus Movie all three nights in a row in three different villages but have a main centre place to sleep. One of my highlights was during one of the three day trips that I took the team on. A lady came to us one morning looking for prayer; she said she had back pain as well as pain in both of her feet. We started praying for her, and nothing happened, prayed again and nothing happened, then Pastor Size (our contact out that way) starting talking to her. Once they had finished talking back and forth the conversation was translated and he was saying that she came to us for prayer, but that if nothing happened when we prayed that she would go straight to the witch doctor. This motivated us even more to press in and keep praying, we were now crying out to God for a miracle to take place and for this woman to feel a touch from God. After we spent a couple minutes praying we said amen and all looked at the women with anxious eyes. She looked no different to us but said that she was feeling less pain in her feet and that her back was healed. We were excited that God had touched her but wanted to see her fully healed. After praying for some more time she said she was better and walked away with her two kids. The next day though she came back and was looking so much better and said she slept so well that night and was so grateful for our prayers and concern for her. It was amazing to see the power of God fall even though we knew there was a battle going on inside her and for her life. God conquers all!
The second highlight for me was on a Friday night when a team and I went out to show the Jesus movie. The church we were at was surrounded by trees and there was very little open space to do the movie but we still had a great turnout of about 400 people or so. After we had finished watching the movie, maybe 100 people gave their life to Jesus and we had called people forward to healing I went forward to pray for people. The first person Benito and I went to go pray for was talking to Benito and he was translating for me. We prayed and he said he was feeling, Amen Jesus, but then he started speaking in English about what was going on. I was in shock as I stood there talking to him, hearing about the last 3 years of this young guy’s life and the pain he had been suffering. This was the first time I had ever prayed for someone, God heal them and then find out that they speak English. I was able to chat with him about life and what has been going on and then just felt the need to pray a blessing over him. Over all it was a great experience and was in a great time where I was just getting into the routine of praying for people, not understanding anything and them being healed and not being excited about being better. But both of these experiences where a true blessing from God and really was perfect timing.
The DTS is just about over now, the students are off on their last week of outreach like I said before and we are here at the base just doing some administrative things and getting reading for what is next. In March it looks like I will be helping either doing some church planting and also planning some work with a church already in Blantyre, doing some outreach with some of their members. I’m excited about the rest of my time here as I really don’t know what it’s going to look like yet but that’s part of being a missionary, you never know where God is taking you, all you can do is hold and enjoy the ride that He’s taking you on and man am I excited for that ride.

Like I always say, feel free to e-mail me with any comments or questions about what I’m doing or with anything really. I normally reply pretty quickly as I really appreciate the e-mails.
Many blessings from myself and the team here in Malawi, Thanks for all the prayers and support that you have given all of us here. May God bless you richly.

Back in Blantyre

Hello everyone.

The team and I are all back in Blantyre after our 3 weeks stay in in a village close to Mozambique. It was really an incredible time with a large number of people coming to Christ in a Muslim area and also we saw many different healings. I will write again hopefully soon with some of my personal highlights and our team highlights but for now am still recovering from exhaustion and just having time to rest and relax.

Thanks for all your prayers and support as the team and I were away.

Blessings