I am loving Las Vegas and I love this city and all God is doing here through YWAM. Las Vegas is a city of incredible need. Today all the DTS students and I went on an unplanned day without any classes to end of our orientation week. We went to the 'strip' section/main touristy area of Las Vegas and it really opened my eyes.I cant help but as a christian but see that everywhere you go see everywhere you go see incredibly broken people trying to mask there pain and be happy. In Las Vegas you can have open alcohol everywhere and drink anywhere (even on the streets), and in your vehicles as long as the main driver is not driving [VERY different from in canada!]
There are no such thing as liquor stores, you can just buy alcohol openly in grocery stores. Slot machines are absolutely everywhere, they have no clocks absolutely anywhere in Vegas to tell you what time it is. Many of the time you have to walk through the casino/slot machine part of the hotel in order to get to your rooms. In the strip and freemont street, since drinking is allowed people walk openly very drunk all the time.
Vegas is a spot where its very hard to do ministry and where other ministries have tried with very willing hearts and unfortunately failed, (evven YWAM itself had another base almost 5 other years and quit before Rich our base director now felt called and started our base we have now which has lasted almost 16 years)
It is difficult but I believe even though that sometimes ministering to these people can be really difficult, we are called to outpour MASSIVE quantities of love on them as christians; we are not called to hate traffickers like the world would. As christians we are called to defend those who are oppressed and i have to reminds myself that even traffickers fall under that category too... not ALL of them make the choice to violate and sell these girls and some of them are being forced into it. They came into the country with the promise of a good job, and went from being trafficked into forced labour to being working under a pimp in the sex trade and selling girls. Just like prostitutes, if they say no-they are beaten until they comply.
From Monday to Tuesday we had speaker a speaker called 'Phil Gazley' here with us. Phil will be here alot during the course of our school and he is the founder of an organization called YWAM City Initiatives. This organization trains YWAMer's/missionaries and people who have done a DTS who want to work more with human trafficking ministries and get further involved but don't really know how, the tools necessary to do so.
He talked to us about the importance of helping refugees, people who are at risk, and runaways. Its important that we pour into young peoples lives and prevent them FROM going into the position of running away etc. rather than just helping them once the act of human trafficking itself has already happened. There is so much we can do besides being 'right there and in there' that can prevent and help stop human trafficking. Not everyone can necessarily go into those really dark spots and it's ok if we don't. Once a young person has ran away, within 30 days they will become trafficked. Phil also mentioned that it is important that we DON'T blindly throw out statistics of human trafficking, because none of them are accurate.
The first day we had 12 hours of teaching crammed in from Phil and it was awesome. We also had the opportunity to talk openly with Phil and ask him alot of questions during our free time, etc. and he had meals with us.
On Wednesday & Thursday we all shared our testimonies and our stories. For me, it was especially difficult to open up; the first few days were difficult and although i felt like i wasnt getting to truely know people. As some of you who really know me, i tend to ramble and not get my words out straight-Once it was all done and over with, it felt very reassuring and it felt like i knew people alot better.
On Wednesday and Thursday of this week we shared our testimonies. On Thursday night we had Commitment service (to those of you who arent YWAMer's, and havent yet done a DTS-i'm not gonna spoil it by telling you what it is!) And on Friday we went to the strip and had a hike at Mount Charleston.
It was a very good week and i cannot wait for what is what is next!
next week we have Paul Childers coming to speak on 'Hearing God's Voice.' Paul Childers [prounced Chill-ders not Child-ers] is one of the main founders of photogenX. I am very excited to meet him! Although he is not on the photography aspect of photogenX, he is still very knowledgeable and our school is VERY lucky to have him speak here.
PRAYER REQUESTS:
-finances.
please pray for finances, if you would like to sponsor me and would like to know what my needs are for the rest of this school, please e-mail me!
-that God would continue to prepare our hearts for all we're learning on this school
-that i would continue to grow in lifelong relationships.
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