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Me and the rest of my Asian outreach team.

Well, I’ve got a lot more details about my outreach to Asia… Our visa applications and passports are on their way to the embassy and our flights are booked. Please pray that the visa process will go smoothly!

Also, we’ve been given final costs for the trip. The total is £1,470 (British Pounds) which is about $2,900 (US Dollars). God has already provided most of that for me, I just need a remaining $500 to pay for the outreach. Please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to help me go on outreach. (Details about how to do that.) I will also need funds for daily living expenses like laundry, notebooks, weekend meals, etc.

I want to ask that you join me and my outreach team in praying for Asia and specifically for the city we’ll be in. Here are a few areas that we are focusing on in prayer:

Value of Human Life - Policies of the government have helped to cheapen the value of human life in the eyes of many people. The results of which are 25,000 abortions per day, orphanages overflowing with “bad luck” (unwanted children) and lack of care for disabled people.

Materialism - Asia is, in many ways, driven by materialism. The government actually publishes materialistic goals for the people called “The Five Wants”. Apparently it is not uncommon for people to say “Money is my god”. In their quest for money many people have become workaholics, even sleeping at work and only going home two or three times a week.

Idolatry of Education - This is tied in with materialism… A “good education” and a degree are the aims of all children. Average high-school students go to school for 14 hours and then have 3 additional hours of homework. This is unhealthy emotionally, physically and spiritually!

Sexuality - “Traditional” values in Asia have eroded. Prostitution is a huge problem and most men in the city we’ll be staying in frequent prostitutes. The UN estimates that there will be over 10 million Asians infected with AIDS by the year 2010. That’s just 3 years away!

Religion - The people as well as the government are very suspicious of organized movements, mostly due to past experience with “foreign” religions. Many people believe that science contradicts faith and view faith as superstition. At the same time these people put a lot of stock in fortune tellers and horoscopes. There are also many small eccentric cults throughout the country.

Fear, Control and Un-Forgiveness - The government uses fear to control society and people. Historical bitterness toward various groups (Americans, Europeans, Other Asians, Christians, Buddhists, etc.) is taught and encouraged.

Additionally, please continue to pray for me and my fellow students as we continue our studies and prepare for our outreaches!

This photo was taken on the beach in Newcastle, near the YMCA camp we went to.

Well, today marks the end of my first week here in Northern Ireland and what a week it has been! With so much activity and such a great amount of information to absorb that it feels like much longer.

The week started out with orientation, where we went over a lot of the “nuts and bolts” of life here on the base at YWAM Closkelt. From what our “work duties” (chores) will be to American/English words not to say. For example, “pants” means “underwear” here, so we need to say “trousers” instead. All of the guidelines are designed to make the community living as uplifting and beneficial as possible for all of us.

After orientation we piled into some buses with a few days worth of supplies and went to a YMCA camp in a neighboring town for some team-building activities including ropes courses and trust games. I think my favorite team activity was when we had to build a raft and race across a lake. It was freezing cold, but we had lots of fun. We were able to have some times of worship together and we even got to explore the town of Newcastle a little bit. (I splurged and got an artery-clogging popcorn chicken from KFC. It was delicious!)

Here I am outside KFC!

On Thursday we were presented with three outreach options which include Ireland (Northern and/or The Republic of), Serbia and Asia. After the lecture phase our DTS will split into three teams and each one will go to a different location for the outreach phase. Each location offers unique ministry opportunities and each team will be performing different tasks. There are things I could learn at each location and certain parts of each appeal more to me than others but in the end it’s up to God. Please pray for me as I seek God’s direction in deciding where to go.

Near the end of the week we returned to the YWAM Base and enjoyed two wonderful lectures: Hearing the Voice of God, and Irish History. One of the speakers, Mike Oman, said something really simple but I think in a nutshell it says what this DTS is about for me. Talking about Hearing the Voice of God, he said: “Sheep know their Master’s voice,” and “When we know our Master, we will know his will.” My goal for this DTS is not simply to know more of God but to know God better so I can follow his will for my life.

More photos from my first week at DTS.

I want to say “thank you” to all of you who prayed for me and my flight situation. I ended up on the very next available flight and arrived at the YWAM base safe and sound around 11pm.

I’ve not had much free time, and I don’t think that I’m going to have much but I will do my best to keep this blog up-to-date. I’ve posted some pictures from my first two days that you can check out. We’re about to leave for a couple days of team-bilding camp so I’ve got to run, but I wanted to thank all of you and let you know I’m here safely and loving it so far!

Photos from my first week at DTS.

Last week Dad, Steven and I went to Uzhgorod with a team of other YWAMers for our annual Christmas program in the orphanage. I really feel like this year went even better than last. You see, last year the orphans where just that to me: “The Orphans”. But a year later, after multiple visits to the orphanage and our week long summer camp, they aren’t “The Orphans” anymore… they’re Sasha, Evan, Aurthur and Joseph. Oh, there are more then four of them, but my point is now they are individuals. We have relationships, we can communicate much better, I know them and they know me.

Here’s a sort of travel diary of our time in Uzhgorod. (more…)

Matthew Hill, BBC Correspondent:

Healthy new-born babies may have been killed in Ukraine to feed a flourishing international trade in stem cells, evidence obtained by the BBC suggests.

Disturbing video footage of post-mortem examinations on dismembered tiny bodies raises serious questions about what happened to them.

Ukraine has become the self-styled stem cell capital of the world.

There is a trade in stem cells from aborted foetuses, amid unproven claims they can help fight many diseases.

But now there are claims that stem cells are also being harvested from live babies…

Click here to read the rest of “Ukraine babies in stem cell probe”

This is almost unbelievable, I hope it’s not true. I don’t know what to say. Please pray for Ukraine. Pray for the unborn. Pray for the children. Pray that God will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children.

[Update:] The Daily Mail has picked up the story and has more details.

Warning: the article is very graphic and disturbing.

The babies who are murdered to order - Matthew HIll, DailyMail.co.uk