SOE YWAM OZ Director

Tom Hallas

As I mentioned before, this was the very first SOE held in Australia.  One of our teachers was Tom Hallas who was the Australia National Director.  Tom had visited the Anastasis with his family to help lead a ship DTS  when I was on board in Greece and it was there that I had learned about this school.

Tom was a very intense speaker but his heart for Australia and evangelism was easy to feel as he shared and taught.  Tom was not living on the base at this time so we did not get to see him and his family all the time.

The SOE was held at what used to be a Catholic property.  It was a wonderful facility in a nice farming community.  During the school I had to do a project on the Gospel and the poor, so I did research on what poverty was as defined by the local community and social services and what was actually being done to combat and relieve poverty.  This was in a community where when I arrived at church for the first time the greeter welcomed me and said “You must be from YWAM”.  I asked him how he knew and he answered, “Easy.  You were walking to church.  Everyone else drives”.

Tom Hallas

The results were rather interesting.  Depending on whom you asked, up to 35% of the community were living in poverty.  The questions I was working with were:  1. How do you define poverty 2. Based on your definition of poverty what percentage of the community would be poor 3. What was your group doing about the situation.

I had a very enjoyable time doing

Tom Final Pic!

this project and learned many things I had not known before.  For example,  the Salvation Army was the only organization in the area that was reaching out to meet the full needs of a person ie  Spirit, Soul, and Body.  The Catholic outreach called Saint Vincent De Paul did not see themselves in any way related to the local Catholic church so would not in any way direct people in need to that church.

Well, that is enough rambling for today.  I hope to continue this monologue later…..

SOE Begins

Kalafi Moala

It was on the School of  Evangelism that I first met Kalafi Moala who was the SOE director and at that time the Asia and Pacific Field Director for YWAM.  Kalafi was also the founder of the Pioneer Ministries base in Honolulu where I worked for three years before coming to Japan.

It was through Kalafi’s heart to reach the unreached that much of the work of YWAM in Asia and the Pacific was begun.  Kalafi’s passion for the unreached was very apparent and through the SOE my vocabulary took in terms such as  ”Unreached People Groups” and the “10-40 window”.  Part of the school requirement was to research an unreached people group.  This involved several trips to the library in Canberra, a very interesting city indeed.  I did research on Illokano speaking tribes in the north of the Philippines.  It’s kind of hard to believe that it was not that long ago that we could not do our research on the internet but had to rely on taking a trip to the library!

The understanding that I received of the millions of people in the Pacific and Asia arena who had never heard about Jesus even one time while we had so many full time workers in areas that had received the gospel so long ago deeply impacted me and was probably a major factor in my eventual long term call and work here in Japan.

School of Evangelism

A long time ago in a past era of Youth With A Mission (YWAM) when a student completed their Discipleship Training School (DTS) it was customary to go on to take a School of Evangelism (SOE). That  is what actually happened in my case.  I took my DTS in England at a training base called Ifield Hall which is now no longer a YWAM property.  The DTS has given me two claims to fame, one of which may be lost in the dim memory of YWAM annals.  On my DTS I was in a small group with Colin Harbinson who until his DTS was a high school teacher (or perhaps a head master).  I forget some of the details as it was in 1979 when I was a little younger than I am now.  Colin brought into YWAM a drama that he had originally written for his school which was called “Toymaker & Son“.  Our DTS took this drama into  the Plazas of Venice during our outreach phase.  My second claim to fame was that Lynn Green was my small group leader.  Now while “Toymaker” may have faded into YWAM history Lynn still lives on.

After serving on the Anastasis for about two years helping the re-fitting process in Greece (where I got my next claim to fame as the first person to ever steer the Anastasis while using her own engines) I left to do my SOE in Goulburn NSW Australia.  This base is no longer in use by YWAM as shortly after the SOE they moved the base to their new facility in Canberra.  My claim to fame here is that this was the first ever SOE held in Australia.  Now I was showing some photos from that SOE to a few friends here in YWAM Japan and they strongly urged me to post some pf the pictures, especially the speakers we had on the school.

I plan to do this in a soon-to-come post but thought I would just give a little more of my journey in YWAM before closing this post.  After my SOE I joined YWAM Honolulu (when they were still Pioneer Ministries) in Manoa Valley right next to the University of Hawaii.  During my three years there before coming to Japan I took time out to do the Biblical Counselling School in Makapala on the Big Island of Hawaii.  Yes, you guessed right, YWAM no longer has this base either.  My claim to fame from being in Honolulu was surviving the lettuce soup summers and living in “Calcutta Mansion” where the cold water shower we used was out in the garden.

Finally I moved to my present country, Japan,  and took part in YWAM’S first ever School of Frontier Mission (SOFM) at yet another YWAM base – Yotsukaido -that is no longer used by the mission.  Well, I am tired of typing so will give it a break for now and look forward to posting some of those photos from my SOE in the near future.

LDC Training

For  me this has been a loooong time coming. Monday morning is now officially one of our two weekly staff training times.  This became a reality as we entered this season after the DTS.  I have been using the materials that Rhonda & I studied at the LDC (Leadership Development Course) in Taiwan.

As well as going over the materials we have several team building games and exercises.  In these pictures you can see two different teams working together to build a free standing tower, using just newspaper and cello-tape. We previewed the activity by looking at the different kinds of team players there are and then set to work as a team!  Both teams were able to make a tower that reached to the ceiling and were very impressed with their results, seeming to  enjoy the experience as well as learn about how they and others function on teams.

The theme that I have been teaching on so far has been self-leadership.    Our staff have been challenged to complete the sentence:  ” The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to………..”

On Tuesday afternoons David also teaches on the theme of leadership from his own material gathered through his years as a pastor and leadership in YWAM’s Schools of Worship.  This is just part of our continued efforts to support and nurture the ministries and callings God has entrusted us with in these staff.