Alexander Blom

The DTS has started! We are in the middle of the second week and there are already exciting things going on!

We are with a group of 19 people with 11 students (4 guys and 7 girls). It is a great group and it is great to be part of their walk with God.
It has been great to see them taking the first steps with God these first weeks. God is showing me to be thankful with these first steps, knowing that greater things will come in their lives when the time is there. However, as a staff team we need to have the courage to challenge them as much as they are open for.

The first week we had lectures about the Nature and Character of God. This is always the week of building the foundation in the lives of the students. Without knowing who God is, you cannot move in other topics as Hearing His voice, Lordship, and so on. However, we need to pray that they may know God in the biblical sense: experiencing His character for themselves, instead of knowing who He is as in head knowledge.
God has been challenging me more in that this week; having been in these lectures more times now. I know God, but do I truly know Him? Getting to know God is a great journey. I will never be at that place here on earth where I could not learn more about Him.

Right now there are a lot of exciting events happening on base. We are involved with one of them with our DTS: bringing bibles in every house in the suburbs Michelton, Enegorra and Keperra. We received from a church in Brisbane 10.000-15.000 bibles and we found a great way to bring them in (almost) every home. We are focussing on families as a base so the Go Teams (local ministry office) have researched the things that a healthy family needs to have. Therefore we made a package for each house with something in it that represents each of those, and one of them is a bible.
In the same time, the Go Teams is developing a website where we are promoting different services of churches and businesses around these suburbs. We are doing this out of a servant heart, just to bless those services. They are there but not a lot of people know that they are there so we want to be a blessing for them by developing a website for them. The website is almost finished and it will be in the air any day. (www.gohelp.com.au) We have made a leaflet with the different points of what a family needs with the website on it. We put this leaflet in each of the packages for the houses.
Who can say no to free gifts, focussed on families and offering free services around? Our heart is not to make us known as YWAMers or Christians but to be a blessing and to trust God He will use the packages, bibles and free site to change peoples lives. Please pray with us that God will use these projects in powerful ways for the coming years to come.

As a DTS we are part of all this by making all the packages and bringing them to the houses in the suburbs. We are blessed with great weather this last week and we are praying for the same weather the coming week.
It is great to see the students already step out in this form of evangelism / missions. It is not difficult, because who does not want to have a free gift? So everyone is enjoying it and most are thrilled to be part of bringing a bible in all these houses!

In the same time we still have lectures this week on Intercession and Hearing Gods voice. Please pray with us for breakthroughs in the lives of the students: that they may grow in their ability to be aware and to recognize His voice. And that the Holy Spirit will break the lies of the enemies in their minds, that they are not able for other lies.

Thank you for your support and prayers!

The BLS intake is finished and the last preparations are being done before the DTS starts on Wednesday the 15^th of February! It is heaps exciting and I am sure it is going to be a blast.

The last 3 weeks of BLS intake have been great. I had lectures about different topics of leadership and had to lead different activities as intercession, worship and small groups as a preparation for the DTS. I feel God has been preparing me this last 3 weeks through the BLS intake and in my own times with God.

I know these 6 months of DTS are going to be different than the last DTS I have been staffing. I know what is coming, what is expected from me and what challenges are there on the way. I have grown in knowledge and understanding; now I am excited to see those understandings more being imparted into my heart and being lived out in my life.

But this DTS is not going to be about me or anyone else in the staff team. We are so excited for the 9-12 students to come and privileged to be part of their journey with God this coming 6 months. We are going to build on the foundation, Jesus, in their lives and my prayer is that we are going to build golden temples together with the Holy Spirit.

Please pray with us that this is not going to be a ‘normal’ school, but that students are going to fall in love with Jesus and will have powerful encounters with Him.

Learning to play guitar... awesome!

And back Down Under! First of all I want to wish you all the best for this coming next year. May God bless you and may He revealing Himself more to you this year 2012!

I am back in Brisbane! It is great to be back in Brisbane. I arrived here the second of January. It totally feels like coming home. It is the third time now I have come back and it has been a totally different than last year. Last year when I came back we had the floods in Queensland and it felt like a new start. This time it is more of a quiet come back with just reconnecting with people and friends on base, picking it up again where I left it.

This last two weeks I have been involved in the training of the new staff on base; I have been staffing the TAA. Exactly a year ago I received my own training which is called TAA, which stands for Training and Assessment. The purpose of the training is to prepare the new staff to train and assess the students for the DTS they will staff. It was just great to help with this training, to be part of pouring into the new staff and to get to know them a little better. There were 14 participants in the training and 4 of them have been students on the DTS I staffed last year. It is just great to now be part of their preparation to step in some leadership and I am excited to see them step out while they will be staffing a DTS.

Now this coming 3 weeks the BLS (Basic Leadership School) intake is coming up. We will have 3 weeks of lectures and preparations for all the staff who are going to staff the schools coming up in February. I am looking forward to pick this all up again and to get ready to staff a DTS. My hope is that I will be able to apply what I have learnt this last year, by staffing my first DTS and by doing the School of Pioneering and Leadership in Norway, in this new season. And not only that, my heart is to pass it on to the staff on base, especially the ones I will be close with staffing the Sports DTS.

Then after the BLS intake the school will start soon. On the moment we have for the Sports DTS a big staff team. We have around 9 staff members (6 guys and 3 girls) and around 12 students (5 guys and 7 girls). The school will start on the 15^th of February. 12 students would be great for the Sports DTS, but we are praying for more students. Not because it is about numbers, but because we have the staff team for it. Would you please pray with us for some more students?

• Second of January:                                     Arrived back in Brisbane, Australia
• 8 January – 20 January (2 weeks):         Staffing TAA
• 22 January – 10 February (3 weeks):     BLS intake
• 15^th of February:                                          Start Sports DTS!