6 days until outreach!

Hello Family and Friends!

I can't believe it's already December. This DTS is going by way too fast. I love it here. I am having an awesome time and wish it was longer. This base really has become like a second home to me.
Outreach is rapidly approaching (we leave in 6 days!) and I am reminded all the time of how blessed I have been by all of you and your giving. Thank you again! As outreach approaches, please continue to pray for the funds to come in for some of my other team members as well as safety for us all as we travel and spread God's love.
Speaking of outreach, we are not going to Haiti as was initially planned. As far as I know no one there really had room for a team as large as ours, and it really seemed like God closed that door. I have peace about this change and I truly believe that God closed that door to us.  So, we are not going to Haiti. But, we are still going to Mexico City and the Dominican Republic!

Last week (11/29-12/3) was outreach preparation week. We began it with a house build on Monday and Tuesday. Throughout the DTS in groups of two or three we have been able to join with visiting teams to help them build, but this past Mon/Tues we got to build a house as a whole DTS. I really love building homes with homes of hope.
The family we built for is a single Mom and her three daughters. The mom divorced the childrens' father many years ago because he was a drug addict. The mom and three daughters live in a place called Maneadero.  On the hill they live on there is no running water, no electricity and they live on a dirt road.  Their home was built from scraps of wood. As I remember it only had one window which was on the door. I had the opportunity to go into the old "house" as the mother was preparing tortillas for us (yum). There were gaps in the wood where you could see light from the outside. They had two double or queen size beds and a few bookshelves/dressers. It was pretty crazy. They were living there.
Anyway, we built them a new house with no gaps in the walls, two rooms, three windows and a strong door. The mother worked alongside us on the house and made lunch for us on Sunday with help from her mother.  When we gave them the keys to the new house the mother receiving the home cried. She was so thankful. And it was awesome to see the look of surprise and joy on her face when she walked into her house for the first time. It was super cool too because we gave her a new stove and just earlier that day she had been telling one of my friends about how bad her current stove was.
The rest of the week was spent learning dramas for outreach. Originally I hadn't wanted to do dramas on outreach, but as time has gone on and now that we've learned them, I'm pretty excited about preforming them. They are really good dramas.
      
This past week was on Spiritual Disciplines. Our speaker was Jeff Pratt. It was a great week. Jeff is an awesome and engaging speaker who uses lots of stories and movie clips to make his point. He had some awesome things to say. My favorite part of the week though was Thursday. On Thursday we went out to this beautiful place right on the ocean with lots of room and places to be alone. For four hours we got to hang out there, just us and God. Alone time with the one who created all the beauty of nature. Alone time with the one who sent his beloved Son to die for my sins. Alone time with the one who calls me the crown of creation. How lucky am I to be called His child!
I found some absolutely beautiful places to hang out, and it was really just an awesome time to hang out with God and admire His wonderful creation. When I am in a beautiful place, like where we went that day, I am reminded of just how amazing and awesome my God really is.  My time with God on Thursday was very nice.  I loved hanging out with my Father and would love to have another day like that.
       
Lecture phase has been awesome so far, and I am looking forward to this coming week as well. Our topic is Spiritual Warfare and it should be a great one to end the lecture phase and send us out.  I'm not really sure when I will be able to blog next but I will try to get some updates out while I am on outreach. I am so thrilled that I have been able to do this DTS and am so excited for outreach. I know God is going to be with us wherever we go, and I can't wait to see what he has in store.

Dios te Bendiga,

Kayla

One of the places God and I hung out on Thursday.

The Old house (left), next to the new house (right)

Some of the DTS ladies.

Kim, me, and Lena

 

If you would like to see more pictures, visit my facebook. :)

DTS Update (10/14 - 11/8)

Hello everyone!

So, it's been a month since my last blog post. Oops...
I can't believe it but, I'm already on week 7 of my DTS! Last time I wrote we had just finished up week 3, Justice week with Amanda Noyes.
Our topic for week 4 was "A Lifestyle of Repentence" with Peter Ilian as our speaker. It was a good subject and I learned a lot.

One of the most awesome weeks of DTS so far was definitely week 5. The subject was on Worship, but what really made it extra special was our speaker: Kenny Peavy. Kenny Peavy is a worship leader in Los Angeles on the weekends, but the week days he has dedicated to missions work. He is filled with the Holy Spirit and God uses him in amazing ways! It is amazing what God will do with a person when they are completely open to Him. God gives him prophecies for people and also shows him the right things to say to touch peoples hearts. Wednesday of that amazing week I got just desperate to hear God's voice. I felt like I wasn't hearing him and it was really frustrating. In class Kenny had all of us stand up who felt like we weren't hearing God. So I stood. Then he had us just tell God what we wanted, tell God how awesome he is, and then just listen. So I did, and God just starting speaking truths to me. It was absolutely wonderful :). The rest of the week was awesome, and I got to finish it off with a quick visit home for the weekend. Woohoo! If you'd like to listen to some of his music, you can at: http://www.myspace.com/kennypeavy.

Last week (week 6), we had a wonderful, joyful woman named Brenda Lewis come and speak to us about Destiny. Basically, walking with Jesus is our destiny. Of course he has a plan for us, but our relationship with Him is the most important thing about our lives! Jesus is our purpose. The teaching was great, but this week personally was kind of a hard week for me. God has really been pushing me to have Him as number one in my life and the complete center. I need to trust that He knows what He is doing. It's not always easy to do what God wants. DTS is not an easy carefree time. God is working, and sometimes when God works, it hurts. God has taken me out of my comfort zone, and it is hard! I'm working on trusting Him and making Him my comfort zone. God is really the only secure thing that there is.

DTS Outreach! 
If you haven't seen on facebook, I found out where I'm going on outreach! I am going to... drumroll please... Haiti and the Dominican Rebublic! I am so, so excited to go :). The way we decided where we were going was pretty cool. We were given two colors, silver and gold. Each color represented an outreach location, but only two of the leaders knew which color represented what. We were each given a piece of paper and were given 20-30 minutes to pray about which color we should choose. I was automatically feeling like gold was the one to pick. So I prayed about it, and due to my original feeling of gold, I chose gold. Gold just felt right. Anyway, when they announced which color was which, I was so stoked! Haiti and the Dominican Republic were totally the places that I wanted to go, and it was so awesome to know that God wanted the same thing :).

Last week I found out that outreach is going to cost $3,000 USD. And guess what! Due to the amazing generousity of all of you, I have my outreach fees in full! Thank you so much for all of your support, I feel so incredibly blessed by it. Thank you!

So far we only have a basic plan of our outreach. It all begins around December 17th, when our entire DTS will be flying to Mexico City. We will all be in Mexico City together for Christmas, (it's going to be so weird to not be home!) and then on January 1st the Haiti/D.R. outreach (my outreach) will be getting on a plane and flying to Santa Domingo in the Dominican Republic. From there we will take a 12 hour bus ride to Haiti. We will be in Haiti for 2 1/2 to 3 weeks. From Haiti we will take another 12 hour bus ride back to the Dominican Republic, where we will be working from another 2 1/2 to 3 weeks. Then on February 7th or 8th we will be flying back to San Diego/Ensenada for our last few days of DTS.
I am so extremely pumped for outreach and I can't wait to see what God has planned for us! 

As we are preparing to go/when we are on outreach, please be praying for these things:
*finances for those who still need them.
*protection from sickness.
*for the hearts of the people of Mexico City, Haiti, and the D.R. to be open to Jesus.
*for the cholera outbreak in Haiti.
*for the people affected by Hurricane Tomas. Luckily, Haiti only got a glancing blow, but there has still been some flooding due to it. And these people have dealt with so much already.
*unity in our group
*and for all of our personal relationships with Jesus!

Thank you so much for reading and for your prayers :)

Love you all,

Kayla Knowles

Beginning My DTS (9/25-10/13)

Hi everyone!

I'm afraid I'm not the most consistent blogger, but I'm going to try and get some fairly frequent updates in here :).

Currently I'm on my third week of my DTS, and it's been a very busy few weeks! Including me, there are 7 girls in my room. Don't worry, we all get along :). We're all in bunk beds which definitely saves space, and we also each have a half wardrobe with some shelves in it.

A typical day on base for me begins at about 6:30 am, when I drag myself out of bed to try to be ready for the day and out of my room by 7 for my personal quiet time with God. Then at 7:30 we have breakfast. At 8 we all pitch in and tidy up the ywam base. At 8:30 we have either intercessory prayer, worship, or a base meeting where we all worship/learn about God together. Beginning at 9:30 am, we have our lectures. Lectures go until 1pm (with a break or two before then), and at 1 we eat lunch. 2pm brings either spanish class or small groups. And then at around 3:30 we have either exercise or our work duties (currently mine is maintenence), and those are scheduled until 6pm, but always with exercise and sometimes with work duties we're done before then. After dinner we either have scheduled activities or free time. 10:30 we have to be in our rooms, and 11 we are supposed to have our lights off. Whew!

First week was mostly introductions to the things that we will be doing during the DTS, such as intercessory prayer, worship, and the basic guidelines.  We also all did our testimonies, and it was pretty cool to get to hear where everyone is coming from. We had our first worship night, which was amazing. God was totally there with us, and it was so awesome to be able to sit in His presence and worship Him.

The second week (this last week) Jack Kody came to speak on the Father Heart of God. I have been blessed with a wonderful Father here on earth, and I am so thankful that I have such a great example of how God feels about me through my Daddy :).  Hearing about this subject was so awesome. It was amazing just to hear about how God's love for us is unconditional, and about how I can never do anything that will make him love me less. We read a lot from 1 John that week, specifically 1 John 4, which is an amazing chapter of the Bible that talks about God's love for us. And it's all about Father God's love, not Jesus', God's perfect love for me and you. The Creator of the universe chooses to love us! Yet another thing from that week that really stood out to me was when our speaker said that God invited us to come on this DTS with Him. We didn't decide to go and then ask God to come. He invited me so that I could spend time with Him and so that He could spend time with me!

And now on week three we have the awesome Amanda Noyes (who used to direct the high school program at my church) speaking on the topic of Justice. Justice is a pretty heavy topic, but the information is so important to know. Today we talked about human trafficking. Human Trafficking is a very hard subject to learn about, and it is so sad to think that it is such a huge issue.  It is so difficult to have hope when faced with all of the information about human trafficking, and my heart breaks for the young girls/women trapped in sexual slavery. But we all have to remember that with God, there is always hope.  God has a plan, and we just need to seek after Him and ask Him how we can help. And we can always pray. Pray without ceasing.

Although it's hard to be away from home and I miss my family, friends, and boyfriend a lot, I am so glad that I am here. I know that God is beginning to do some awesome things in my life and I am excited and nervous for what lies ahead! Thank you so much for your prayers and support, I am so blessed by you all.

Much love,

Kayla Knowles

New Donation Options

Hello Friends and Family!

Due to the amazing generousity of you all, I have raised almost half of my fees for my Discipleship Training School. I am feeling so blessed and amazed by how God is providing for me!

I am still accepting donations via mail but I also have two new ways in which you can donate online. The first way is to donate through a Paypal Account: djknow@gmail.com.  The second way in which you can donate is directly through the YWAM website.  If you choose to donate this way, I have very important directions that you must follow to ensure that the donation reaches my personal YWAM account.  Here is the link for the YWAM donation: https://ywamsdb.wufoo.com/forms/ywam-san-diego-baja-payment-and-donation-form/

When you see the drop down list titled “Your Payment is for...” select “Tuition Payment or Product Purchases”. When asked “Please provide us with any further information regarding this payment.” Please write “tuition payment for Kayla Knowles' Ensenada DTS Fall 2010”. This is crucial to your donation going towards me personally. Once you have filled in all of the information, click “submit” and you should receive an email shortly regarding your donation.

Thank you so much for your generousity! I am so excited for what God is going to do in my life and if the lives of my fellow students.

-Kayla Knowles

My Next Right Step

Dear Family and Friends,

I have recently been accepted into Youth With a Mission's Discipleship Training School. Youth With a Mission is a Christian organization that operates to spread the gospel and serve others. Part of mission work is fund raising, without help from others I will not be able to attend this school. The full school fees add up to about $5,600.00. I do not have my full fees and am counting on God to provide for me. Please help me by donating money toward my Discipleship Training School.

The Discipleship Training School is made up of a three month lecture phase (beginning on September 26th, 2010) in which the other students and I will be learning more about God and his heart for us and the world. The feel of the lecture phase is similar to attending college, I will have assignments to complete and books to read as I grow in my walk with the Lord. If you would like more information about the curriculum you may visit http://ywamsandiegobaja.org/dts_curriculum.aspx?menu=DTS.

The next phase of the school is the two month outreach phase (with graduation February 11, 2011).  During the outreach phase the other students and I will be traveling away from the base to serve and share Jesus' love to people in need. I feel that the YWAM web page describes it best: “As a second phase of the Discipleship Training School, specially organized teams are sent out for 8 weeks of evangelism in cross-cultural situations. The emphasis is on the application of principles taught in the DTS lecture phase coupled with teaching on evangelism concepts and practices, equipping students to share their faith in a variety of ways.” (http://ywamsandiegobaja.org)

I have felt a call to spread God's love to others specifically through missions work since I was about 11 years old. I began to look into YWAM after a friend of mine attended a Discipleship Training School in Australia and absolutely loved it. Originally I applied to an arts focused Discipleship Training School in Boston, Massachusetts. Then last August I participated in a house build with my church and YWAM in Tijuana, Mexico. I absolutely loved the experience of helping a needy family and showing God's love through serving others. After that experience, my focus changed. I realized that I did not want to attend a school in which a large part of the outreach would involve me preforming for people instead of serving them and working with them. So I withdrew my application to the Boston school and applied at Ensenada.

I am pursuing a YWAM DTS because I believe it is my next right step in my walk with Jesus. I want to learn more about Him and grow in my relationship with Him. I want to serve others and show them Jesus' love for them. I want to be ruined for the ordinary.

If you would like to help me attend this school, you may donate via the online donation featured on this blog.  Even if you cannot afford to donate right now, your prayers are very much appreciated as I prepare to attend this school. If you would like to partner with me in prayer throughout this DTS as well as receive an update midway through, please email me at kayla391@gmail.com.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration,

Kayla Knowles