Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Summer work teams

So a big part of what we do here at YWAM Montana is that David and I run a program called VWAP (Vacation with a purpose). We have church groups, youth groups, families, whoever wants to come and they spend a week with us. They do a lot of the manual labor things that keep this campus running. VWAP teams are an invaluable resource to our campus. A few of the things that the teams have done this summer are: paint the entire inside of the preschool, build a fence around the playground at the preschool, side the entire facilities building, landscape around the facility building, roof 2 houses, dig a french drain behind one of the buildings, side and build a porch on the front of the student center, tear down several old buildings on the base. This isn't even the whole list of what these teams did while they were here.
We also get the opportunity to introduce the groups to what YWAM does and to give them a bit broader view of missions. We had meetings at night with amazing times of worship and different speakers came and challenged them. One of my favorite memories from the summer was with one of the girls from a team from Pennsylvania. We were hanging out in the library on base. She picked up a book that was on display about Nepal. She walked up to me and had this overwhelmed look on her face. I asked her what was going on and she asked me why this book about Nepal was on display and what did I know about the country of Nepal.
I tried to explain to her that Nepal is one of our bases "target Nations". Where we meet with missionaries from Nepal, find out their needs, and then train and send teams from our base to meet those needs. She just starting tearing up. I asked her what was going on and then she told me that for several years she's felt like God was telling her to go to Nepal but she never knew how that would happen. I don't know what will come of it over the years, but I feel like a spark was lit in her, and that she was left here so excited about how God was going to get her to the country of Nepal.
So although all the physical work that gets done on the base is amazing, what really keeps David and I excited about the summer work teams is seeing young and old people getting excited about missions. There were kids who had never been out of their state and they come here and spend a week with people who have literally been all over the world. It's hard to put it into words, but we just feel so lucky to be a part of what goes on here during the summertime. I'm also really hoping that more teams will come summer.
here's a few pictures of the teams that came for the summer.