As Queenie and Pappy drove away this morning, I stood and waved until their car was out of sight, in honor of Elliott tradition. Ava was however speeding around the Ohana (family in Hawaiian) Court on her new bike with her friends. Thus, the Elliott family Hawaiian Vacation Part II is officially over. (Part I was when Tia was here.)
Now I am realizing just how quiet it is around the campus. You see, the first quarter of school for the DTS students ended just before my parents got here. So many of our new friends had to leave for outreach or home. Of course we have many friends on staff who have stayed, and some students who are staying to become staff...but the always buzzing hum of students is gone. For the moment. The new January quarter will begin soon and hundreds of new faces will arrive. Here on the YWAM Kona campus they run about four DTS schools(Discipleship Training School) each quarter, along with a few secondary schools, such as the School of Worship. There are also the University schools, such as the School of Dance, or Counseling. Total there is an average of four hundred students each quarter, in addition to about 200 staff. Right now the only people here on campus are the staff who live on campus (about 20% of the staff) and have not traveled anywhere for Christmas.
So, you can see how it is super quiet now!
Please be praying for Ava, because while she has made friends with a lot of the kids who won't be leaving...she also has friends who have already left, and now there will be many new kids to arrive.
The DTS school is what Ava and I attended in Nashville. It is a three month school where the students (of every age and Nationality) basically get to know God more. There are 12 different topics for each week, with twelve different incredible teachers/speakers. It is an amazing learning time. After the "Lecture Phase", the students go on a two or three month outreach. This is when a new quarter begins and the new students come in. It is an ongoing cycle through the year. The kids I am teaching in the Learning Center are the children of the leaders of these schools. Most of the leaders and their families go on outreach with the students, at least for a few weeks or so. I actually have a boy that will be gone for the month of January to Cambodia with his family and the outreach team. It will be so exciting to hear about his adventures when he returns. The experiences that these children are getting are priceless....as well are the students in the DTS. After outreach, the DTS students do a number of different things....hopefully it is the next thing that God tells them to do! Some return to work with YWAM in the country they just had their outreach in. Some return home, or go to college. Some become staff with YWAM here, or on another YWAM campus. Hopefully ALL of them go out to impact the earth for God's glory, and help usher in the Kingdom of God! That is YWAM's mission: TO KNOW GOD AND TO MAKE HIM KNOWN. I love that!
Okay...now about the small things...for the past few weeks God has been giving tiny gifts to me to build my faith! For example, every time I would pray that I needed something, or think it, or write it on my fridge....He would bless me with it! Now I am talking about very specific things....like an air mattress for my parents to sleep on when they arrived here...it showed up in the "boutique" (which is a place where you can drop off unwanted things and you can also take anything for free-like a free thrift store). I needed a room divider to separate Ava's "room" from mine....and I found a brand new very nice Chinese room divider in the boutique! One night I was admiring someone's fake Christmas tree....I mean this thing was white and sparkly (not quite my type), but I just wanted some sort of tree for Christmas! The very next day, someone brought up a 6 foot, living Christmas tree to my school. The other teachers asked ME if I wanted it! Then they busily began finding me a tree stand, ornaments, decorations, and even someone to trim it for me! So when my parents arrived here for Christmas they were in shock! I felt so blessed that God would go out of His way to give me the things I ask for. Seems a little crazy, since He says numerous times in the Bible that He wants to bless us! My favorite example was the day I was walking to my school and random people whom I didn't know kept saying hello and good morning to me. I thought, what's going on today? God said to me "IT is because you are so beautiful!" Then, when I arrived at school, there was a very very large banner about my classroom (put there by my Secret Santa) that read, "Ms. Elliot, you are BEAUTIFUL!"
Ha! God really knows how to get a point across to us!
It is as if God has been saying to me, "See? I can provide for you the small, specific things that you need and want! Don't worry about the big stuff! I can definitely handle providing you with money to pay you bills! I want to show you how creative I am. I want to give you the desires of your heart!"
And I believe that God wants to give you all the desires of your hearts too! He loves you so much! So, expect some unexpected things from Papa God today. Ask Him to bless you in a creative way. He will!
