Kinda Sorta Drowning

It is almost like we leave too soon. It's almost like there is this constant droning in the background that reminds me that I will be in Asia in just over a week. Like I'm slowly drowning in the expectancy and excitement.

But I should tell you about this last week.

The teaching was on Revival and Church History. Sheldon (who is my one-on-one [the dude who keeps track of me during this whole DTS]) taught this past week. Sheldon and I are really similar. Especially when it comes to talking Theology all the time. Basically, there was a whole lot of church history and theology. I enjoyed it a whole awful lot. But what I loved the most was how much Sheldon just focused on truth. The truth must be stood up for at all costs. And I also loved how Sheldon kept telling us that we can change the world. He said that he would use the examples of history to show us, over and over again, that God can use only one man to change the course of history. I may sound crazy, but Sheldon said "you can change the world" often enough that I'm starting to believe it. Besides, with God, all things are possible. So don't be surprised if I change the world. You were forewarned.

Other than the teaching, this week was fairly normal. We "celebrated" Thanksgiving. Which looked a lot like chicken, mashed potatoes and salad. Not the traditional Thanksgiving at all. But I didn't mind. It was a day of thankfulness, and that's the point of the holiday anyway. I didn't miss my family more than usual, so it wasn't disappointing to miss all the traditional aspects. The DTS is really starting to feel like a family, so I'm betting that is why I wasn't too homesick: I am a man of many homes (and I happen to be at my home in Jamaica).

Our dance for outreach is coming along. We still need a LOT of practice, but I cannot wait to do it once we get to Asia. Over all, it's just gonna be hard to not get too caught up in focusing on outreach this last week while we still have classes. But God is good and He will give me the focus I can't manufacture on my own strength.

Thank you for your prayers for unity! The DTS is starting to feel more and more like a family, so I'm excited about that. Continue to pray that funds come in. Most of the students still need funds, but we almost have everything at this point! Pray that God prepares us for outreach and for strength during outreach. 

Thank you so much!

Hopefully, this weekend I will be going into town and to the beach. I haven't made it to the beach as yet, and I'm hoping to this weekend. We shall see. Nothing like fun in the sun.

In Christ,

Timothy David Ardent

A Really Cool Puzzle (aka end-times)

This week we were supposed to be watching a DVD series for the teaching. We didn't. Instead Ricardo from JaHOP taught. And He was awesome. So it was way better than a DVD series.

This week we studied the End-Times and the book of Revelation in the Bible. It was intense, and interesting: intenseresting. I learned a whole lot this last week. Before this week, I had heard so many different End-Times theories that I had assumed that it was all guesswork. But this week I saw that there is a whole lot of text on the end-times throughout the whole Bible. It turned it from an untamable beast into a solvable puzzle. I don't want to fill my blog with end-times theology though. I'll keep it more on what I got out of the whole week's teaching as a whole. A statement I remember that the teacher shared with us is this; "[end-times] reveals Jesus' heart and leadership." I was reminded that how, no matter what we study in the Bible, everything is just there so that we can discover Who Jesus is. And the end-times are no different. We see Christ in Revelation. I mean, it is called "The Revelation of Jesus Christ." I also saw how much hope Christians have. We have hope now, and hope for the future. We will get to rule and reign with Jesus. We will get to spend eternity with Him. "What is everything we struggle with when compared to that future glory? For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Cornithians 4:17-18).

There has some serious tension in my DTS that came to a head this past week. It has just been spiritual attack after spiritual attack. Our unity as a team has been suffering and it really became a reality this week. But thankfully the staff has been helping us to work through it and it is getting resolved. But we need constant prayer for unity. The spiritual battle is strong.

Because of the spiritual attacks, we were not able to do evangelism this week. So sadly there is nothing to report there. But we did have a time of prayer from 10pm to 3am Friday evening into Saturday morning. It was good. We were able to begin the process of restoring trust and working towards unity during the time of prayer and worship. We also prayed about our outreach in Asia. (Some people on the team still need funds! Please pray and if you would like to partner with us let me know and I can talk to you about sending funds so that all the students can go on outreach) But after the prayer time is when God struck me. One of the staff was with us in the prayer meeting and her son (named Jay) was there sleeping on the floor the whole time. When the meeting was over (at 3am) she asked me if I could carry Jay home to his bed. Of course I said yes. On the way down I stopped for a moment and Jay opened his eyes and saw the stars. I saw him look in wonder at the stars and said, "the stars are cool, huh?" He just nodded in response. Then I took him to bed and left to go back to the prayer room. On my way back up God spoke to me and said, "You know how you were carrying Jay down and he saw the stars and just looked at them in wonder? Thats Me and you. I'm holding you as you look at My stars in wonder." When God showed me that, I just lost it. I was sitting on a step at three in the morning crying because God showed me how He is just holding me. It was a really amazing moment I got to share with God. I love how God moves the most powerfully in the smallest moments and brings His to light in the darkness.

I keep realizing that it is all about the love of God. I think it is a worthy endeavor to spend the rest of my life constantly discovering God's love all the more.

Also, God showed me that fasting (food, or it was sleep in this case) is a way for God to teach us more powerfully. Because fasting is a time of chosen weakness, and in the face of the weakness your walls and resistance are lowered. When your resistance is lowered, you can receive truth and it can bypass your walls. That's why we fast. So now you know.

Then, after God spoke to me and made me cry, I got to Skype Karissa at about 4am my time (8pm her time) and I got to show her my sunrise via Skype. It was really amazing. Long distance relationships does have perks at times. It was also just good to talk to her and pray with her. Even this far away, (16 hours away, if you were wondering) pursuing Karissa is a Joy. 

Random moment when Tim tells just one reason why he likes Jamaica:

I just love warm culture, and Jamaica. I was at church today and a random stranger asked me if I could hold her son as she went to the bathroom. Nothing says trust like allowing a random white person to hold your son.

We are preparing for outreach. It has been fun. We are learning to eat with just our right hand, and learning a song in one of the languages used in the country we are going to. We are also putting together a dance as well. We have had only one practice, but I'm already having a lot of fun with it and cannot wait to do it as part of our outreach. I leave in two weeks from today: December 7th. We have the plane tickets for over half of the students! I cannot wait to see all that God is going to do.

Pray for unity, as I mentioned that before. And also that everyone in the DTS (and the staff too) would raise the funds to be able to go. Pray that God prepares me for outreach and that culture shock won't be too hard to overcome. Thank you for your prayers! It means so much to me to know that I have many praying for me and my team during this season.

In Christ,

Timothy David Ardent

Meeting God

Here are some videos and pictures from last week!!!!

Here are some glimpses of driving through Jamaica.

This is Kingston

As a rule of thumb, I love culture. But what I love more than culture, is getting to know the heart behind the culture. That is what this week has felt like to me. A week of actually begining to understand Christian culture. How there can be one Man who just creates a unique culture where ever People encounter Him. It's like I'm finally getting to meet God after all these years. It is beyond amazing.

This week our speaker, Lenny, was really good. The topic was Spiritual Warfare and Deliverance. I learned that I am a Weapon of Mass Destruction. (#WMD) Because I have the kingdom of God living inside of me. And nothing can withstand the Kingdom of God as I bring it to earth. That's deep stuff. I hope to learn that for the rest of my life. Because what God has been showing me is that my whole life is just getting to learn of His love over, and over, and over, and over again. And then Heaven comes to earth and I get to do it for eternity. In the process, I become who God created me to be and I walk in my destiny. The thing that can transform a man the most is to encounter the love of God, and never lose the hunger to experience that perfect love forever and into eternity.

I could almost leave it at that. That is almost the highlight of my whole DTS. But God did way to many epic things this past week for me to leave you out.

Evangelism was splendid. We went down to the bus station with Lenny and set up worship as before. Right when we first got out of the van Lenny yelled up to three girls standing on a second story balcony and asked if they knew Jesus. It was a moment when I said to myself, "this will be different.... I'm not sure if I'm ready for this." But I didn't see Lenny after that. We set up worship and I lead it by playing guitar for about a hour or so. Then Jule (our German student) took over worship and I went out to declare the love of Jesus. I got to talk to a younger boy, a woman received healing on her leg, and my friend and fellow student Jordann got to pray over a police officer. It was a beautiful time of expressing God's love and seeing healing. I love how I get the privilege of being God's child and being able to see miracles often. Missionaries are spoiled, they get to see miracles really often. This is one of the reasons I'm looking forward to be involved in missions.

this is where we did evangelism:

Wednesday. YO! Wednesday.

So Wednesday night I was about ready to go to bed around 10:30pm. All of a sudden Kyle (a Jamaican student) gets a call, FREAKS OUT and runs out of the room I was in. I just take up my stuff and decide that I'm going to bed. Then Kyle yells out to me to come in to the prayer room. NOW. I come in and Nicky (another Jamaican student) is doing some sort of spiritual battle. Yelling, declaring the name of Jesus, all that goodness. I start praying. Nicky leaves the prayer room and Kyle follows her. Not to long after that I follow them back up to the Rec room. Nicky is talking to Tarik (another Jamaican student) and he is helping her to see that there is a spirit of anxiety that is effecting her. We try and reason with her, but it isn't helping. I pray over her because I have overcome anxiety before, so I found a scripture and prayed it over her. Then we all pray over her. She tells us of pain in her arm. We pray and God brings some healing. We decide that we should praise God for the healing and that is when it starts to get good. The Holy Spirit comes upon her and she starts laughing like crazy. We are all sitting there and just enjoying what God is doing. Then she goes to the other side of the room and it sounds like she's talking back and forth with God. She's doing that for like 30-45 minutes. She finally comes back and is all like, "YO! God is so awesome you guys!" She told us how God had given her new eyes so she could see herself with the beauty God created her with. Then He gave her a new heart a "heart of flesh." She also described God's huggs as "so warm." It was intense to witness just seeing her react to God. We didn't see God there with Nicky, but dude it was so real. Just so much yes.

I also believe that I'm going to be more active with songwriting. I believe that God has given me a gift with words and that He wants me to use that gift to write songs. I'm excited about that.

We got our visas for our outreach location. Also, with plane tickets for outreach, we are going to be leaving a week earlier than we had planned at first. We will be flying out the 7th of December for our outreach in Asia instead of the 13th. We will basically get an extra week for outreach. I'm very excited. I leave in 22 days. It is nuts. I don't know if I'm ready, but I trust God. I'm really excited for outreach. It's just coming up so fast.

I also got a letter this last week. My mom (who is a genius) had my family and close friends write words of encouragement and it even had something from Karissa in it. This week was just a week of only good things. God's gifts just make me feel so loved. I'm amazed at all the people He has put into my life.

Continue to pray for unity in my DTS. Pray that as God shows me His love that I continue to let it define me. Pray as we still need some funds raised for outreach. Testimony: Jule's parents just donated $10,000 out of the blue. We were all in shock. God is so good, but we still need more. Please just continue to pray!

In Christ,

Timothy David

Relearning Everything

I'm pretty sure the whole process of life itself is to learn what you thought you knew all over again. You take what you think you know, and actually learn what it means for real. Over and over again. That has been eighty percent of this whole DTS for me. Taking things I know as truth, and taking them to make them a reality I can now live out of. From possibility to reality. Pulling the dream world into the real world. Because God lives in a "dream world." Us humans just refer to it as the supernatural. I believe what Walter Wink said: "History belongs to the intercessors who believe the future into being."

Last Saturday we spent 7 hours of travel time from Mobay to Kingston. It's almost across the whole Island of Jamaica. We magically fit 17 people into a 15 passenger van. It didn't feel very magical, but we all got here in one piece. We had the joy of staying at a town house on the outskirts of Kingston (which is the Capitol of Jamaica). It is very nice, but hard with so many people inside a single house. Let's just say alone time is more valuable than a trained T-rex who happens to be your pet and a vegetarian. We got to spend our days at the Jamaica House Of Prayer (JaHOP). We learned about using the Bible to pray, how worship is an overflow of our relationship with God, and how to actually meditate.

I cannot use words to describe how much the worship at JaHOP is one of the most beautiful things to enter my ears and exit my lips. It is no surprise to believe that worship will be the currency of Heaven. I especially love spontaneous worship. If you don't know, spontaneous worship is when you simply sing out a chorus to tell God how amazing He is. It is a song you've never heard before and is usually a song God "downloads" into your heart. That is what I believe music was created to be: an outpouring of the heart through the lips; with instruments. That is the worship I am most passionate about. And it was amazing to experience that every day at JaHOP.

The teaching was also very good. It was mostly facts I know, but facts that needed to impact my heart and change my life. The most simple things are the most profound. Like, worship is just an expression of our relationship with God. Prayer is a two way conversation
Or the fact that Jesus loves me. I will never stop being taken aback at those truths. My passion is to allow those truths to grip my heart and never leave my life the same. The glory of those truths is that when they imbed themselves within your soul, your whole life reacts and is changed. Do not expect me to come back to Colorado the same. Because these truths are changing me every day.

Before we left JaHOP for evangelism, we watched this video called Sons of God. It is about healing and evangelism. God still heals people today because He loves them. The purpose of healing is to tell others of God's love for them, and show them that God cares enough about them to actually fix their sicknesses. So we went out into the streets in Kingston with that on our minds. Now, my group didn't heal anyone, but evangelism was still good. We prayed for people and encouraged them to be bold in their faith. Then we worshiped on the streets of Kingston and declared over Jamaica that it would conform to God's purposes. It was also a time to remind me. I was reminded that I know of God's healing power, but I don't act with that knowledge in mind. God gives knowledge and then we are accountable to that knowledge and ought to live out of it. It was a reminder that I have so much, it is foolish and selfish of me to keep it all to myself. If I claim to love people, I will show them the love of God. It is something I need to learn to live in.

One of my favorite teachings was on meditation. Before I came to JaHOP, I didn't know how to meditate. Real meditation is taking a verse and reasoning through it with God. It is basically a Bible study with God. I wish I could tell you all he told me, but that is literally pages full of information. It is one of my favorite things ever.

On Friday we got to help JaHOP with an event they call ignite. We went to Calabar high school and had a time of worship, prayer, and testimonies. I got to share my testimony. Can I just let you know of how awesome God is for a moment? I used to have a fear of public speaking. A real, sincere, can't-keep-my-thoughts-together fear. But God just took it away within these past 6 months and I can now speak to a crowd without shaking and wanting to sit down RIGHT NOW. So it was cool to share my testimony and tell the students of the reason of missions. ("Missions exists because worship doesn't" - John Piper. God wants everyone to know His love. If people don't go and tell others of a God worthy of worship, they can't know God or worship Him. Because they have never heard His name, they are missing the whole purpose of life itself.) It is also amazing to see Jamaicans pray. They pray with such passion, I love it.

We also got to go to a conference called "God Centred." The conference talked about how if we actually believe in Jesus our lives should be changed. We should live radically different life than just a "Good lifestyle" but God's lifestyle. Not to live Christianity on our terms, but on God's terms. A call to Christ, nothing less. Depending on the Holy Spirit, and allowing Him to change us. I enjoyed it and was challenged by it.

Also, Karissa has been at an evangelism conference in Melbourne Australia. Told White was there and he shared a lot. Karissa shared with me how evangelism should just be an overflow of God's love within us. I've actually learned a lot just by what she told me about it. It complemented my weeks teaching really well. It's really cool to see God work like that. God is awesome. Karissa is doing really well, of you are wondering. She's growing into an amazing woman of God. I'm so proud of all that God is doing in her life. And I'm proud of how she is responding to God's love and living out of it. I'm dumbstruck that I get to be pursuing this beautiful woman of God. There are moments when I find life almost too good to be true. Yet, it is true. Leave it up to God to make things too good to be true the reality I get to live out.

Keep praying for me and my DTS. Passion and pursuit needs greater unity, especially with outreach coming up so fast. I cannot believe it is a week into November. Outreach is coming up so fast. Also pray that the changes God is working in life will not fade but only grow stronger with time. Thanks!

In Christ,
Timothy David

Broken to Wholeness

Sometimes you just need the straight up truth. Someone to look you in the face and tell you that you might be acting out of pride. Straight up. That's what this last week was: the hard truth. It was also inspecting our past to see the root system behind our reactions to pain.

The week was called "Identity In Christ." But it focused more on making us whole rather then focusing on who we are in Christ. If we are broken, it is a lot harder to act out of our true identity. So instead of focusing on who we are, we focused on who we are not. It was not what I was expecting. There was a lot of introspection and processing this past week.

The main thing that we talked most about this week was called "the divine plumb line." There is this verse in Amos 7:7-8 where God shows Amos a plumb line. (for those of you who don't know, follow this link to know what a plumb line is.) God then tells Amos that He will not show Israel mercy because they have abandoned His plumb line. We talked about how God has a plumb line (His word) and how we tend to swing away from His plumb line; either to rejection, or rebellion. We also looked into the ways we have been hurt in the past. And how necessary it is to surrender that hurt to God so that we don't act out of that pain. Instead we give our pain to God and be whole, and wholly His. Which is much better than being broken, and bringing our broken pieces to Him. But it was a crazy intense process and I had to do SO MUCH introspection.

I discovered, over the course of this past week, that brokenness is more of a reality in myself then I had ever realized. I was able to go back to un-dealt-with-pain, and give it to God instead of taking that pain and running away from God with it. It was a long week but a good week. I'm not going to go anymore into depth, because it was really personal.... but I wanted to let you have an idea of what has been going on.

For evangelism we went to another part of Mobay and worshiped. We also went around praying and talking to the people around the shops. It is kinds funny to see people react to random white people worshiping around their shops. You get quite the odd looks. I also believe that I made the day of a random taxi driver who enjoyed my worship. I was able to talk to him before we left and he was really impressed with YWAM being bold enough to simply worship on the street corner.

I got to see my friends Alex and Rachel from the Belize DTS again! The Belize DTS is on their last week of outreach and they are spending it at our Mobay base! They came in Friday evening and I got to talk and hang out with Alex and Rachel. It was really cool to get to see all of the Belize DTS again. We also had a game night with them as well. It was really fun. I always enjoy getting together with other competitive people and having a good time. Sadly, we left Saturday to come to Kingston for the week to learn from the Jamaica House Of Prayer (JaHOP). But it was good to see them for even the short amount of time.

This week was just an opportunity to learn how to become a whole person instead of a broken person. A week with good friends. And now I get to find out who I am In Christ all on my own. Let the adventure begin!

In Christ,

Timothy David