To say that this week was busy would be an understatement. We held our largest-ever love feast and graduation ceremony as well as American Thanksgiving all in one week. oh, and guess who had a hand in planning both... yep, the ministry and leadership development School. On top of that about half of us are also planning two local Christmas outreaches alongside the Salvation Army for the next following two weeks. Plus, our entire class is in charge of planning our big Christmas Outreach that surprise... is only one week away! We are all a bit over our heads but we're excited to see what the end result will be.
To help with Love feast prep my ministry circle helped out a ton by preparing 200 watercolor leaves to use to decorate the table they did really awesome and they are all super special.
What is Love fest? It is our quarterly graduation event. This quarter we graduated the Classic DTS, Outdoors DTS and the BCC On Location schools. For the first time ever and surely not the last we outgrew our base and had to rent a hall! You may recognize this hall its the same from out 50th celebration! This week we hosted our staff, students, their families, friends and our local church community for an awesome night!
Pertaining to the love feast I was in charge of audio + visuals overall and then throughout the week because of my role and Presidents Assistant I also became in charge of our offering initiative that we launched during this event. I created the graphics to help portray the goal of the partnership. We are calling it an ambassador program where by giving nominally each month to YWAM Lausanne you will receive exclusive communication that connects you monthly with the base. You will learn about new Outreach locations and schools, you'll receive updates on campus life and our expansion project. This partnership will allow you to have insight into the inner workings of our base so that you can know exactly how to pray and how to support us in our endeavors. The concept is rather awesome but executing it in a week... wow that was a lot of work!
I think that it has a bright future, we may just need to do a little tweaking between now and it's next introduction at our forthcoming events. ;)
On Monday night we also had our report back from our Outreach teams that arrived home they were the Classic DTS and Outdoor DTS they went to Albania, Macedonia, Croatia and Bosnia. It was fun, they sang songs and shared all of their statistics and ways that they were able to impact the nation through Hands-On Outreach. It was cool because not all the stories were just like "hey, this person got saved" but, they were about how they actually interacted with people and shared Gods love through their testimonies and stepping out in faith. They were able to do things such as buy a guitar for a super super skilled young adult that they met in the village and bless him as well as his church with the ability to have worship. Each quarter we take an offering that the teams can take out to use towards blessing those that they come in contact with. The stories are always so different for each Outreach and I always love to hear the unique ways they use it. Whether it be this with the guitar or buying beds for people who can't walk in Africa school supplies for underprivileged children or investing into scholarships for students its always amazing. They always pray and God always gives them the most unique but perfect ways to utilize those funds.
Let's get back to talking about big Christmas Outreach this weekend. On Wednesday we went scouting out to the location which ended up being way cooler than I think any of us ever imagined. It's on a very busy street corner at a very busy bus stop with lots of foot traffic. its next to a McDonald's and a large shopping mall and we get it for the entire day.
I'm on the hospitality and set up team so this week i got to help plan out the layout and setup for the event. We will also be creating holiday bags to give out, They are very traditional to the area they'll have mandarin oranges and cookies and nuts in them. We will give them out at a table where we also explain who YWAM is . We will have a stage with a worship band and a kids tent where they can decorate cookies color and even make their own ornaments. Another section will be a Christmas tree where people can write down their prayer request on ornaments and put them on the tree but also take home encouraging words on Christmas ornaments to bring back to their home. This will also be a prayer area where people can request prayer and receive it from our team.
We spent a lot of energy in a very short amount of time planning this Outreach event it's come up on us surprisingly fast. We want to use the skills we've gained this week in our event management training to execute this event the best we can and we want to get down to even the smallest detail such as our doggy biscuit station. Yes, I know that sounds kind of crazy but it's become kind of become a base thing now that wherever we go we find dogs and we take photos and we share them with everyone. I think it's super fun so when we were praying it's definitely something that came up. Having a doggie station with doggie treats will open the opportunity for people to minister to dog owners.
We took a team trip to Ikea to get all the things that we needed in preparation for this event and it was quite the night given it was Friday on one of the busiest weeks since the 50th anniversary we are all a bit tired but I think we made the most of it. We then we came back and for a class of 20 students we bake 25 pizzas and watched a Christmas movie is a fun way to close down the week.
I'm excited to see what the next week holds (hopefully some snow) and the lives we get to impact through it. I will also be honest and say that I will need a lot of Grace there is a lot happening in a short amount of time and I'm feeling a little ill prepared however I know that there's strength in numbers and I know that our team has been trained well in our event management training that we did this week.
As long as we don't let our emotions drive the boat I think we're going to make it through well.
Fun fact, sometimes when i need to get my brain off the craziness i force myself to learn a new thing, and this weekend i learned to crochet cable knit! I love to crochet but i've been intimated to try this stitch but its came out great!
Please click below to see more about what i do at YWAM Lausanne and how you can partner with me as we approach the end of the year. https://www.beautiful.ai/player/-Luqmkc7SGyOkUSEiO7O/Missions-Presentation
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