Introductions, arriving, and being raw before the LORD

Where do I even begin? I'll try to start at the beginning, but knowing me I'll just jump around and hopefully my points will come across.

I've been here in Carlisle for a month now and DTS started two weeks ago. Our first students arrived on Friday, August 31st and our last student arrived on Sept 14th. We are now a complete family...all of the members are present and accounted for. There are 10 DTS students, representing 5 different nations, and 7 staff members, representing 3 nations. I suppose it'd be easiest to list in order of arrival.
DTS students:
Jayce (24) from FL, Ben (18) from Canada, Lee (32) and Pip (30) from England (and married), Carolyn (25) from England, Lucy (22) from England, Ashley (18) from CO, Grace (23) from England, Nath (23) from Australia, and Hye Won (25) from South Korea.
It thrills me that our DTS has started and that the students have finally arrived, all safe and sound.

Our staff consists of our base and school leader, Richard Lowe, Emma, who led my school and co-led my outreach to South Africa, Jemma from England (she did her DTS at another English base, Holmstead Manor), and Jeremy, Naomi, and Jenean who were all on the school with me. Jemma, Jeremy, Naomi, Jenean, and I are all doing BLS (Basic Leadership School) which means that we're incredibly busy and loving it and stressed and trying to figure out what it means to be a leader all at the same time.

We had an introductory week that began on Sept. 3rd. Basically trying to introduce YWAM to the students, what we're about, what we want them to get out the school, possibly scare them, show them that God is so much bigger than then ever dreamed of.... We started off with the mighty John Campbell Sr, who is a brilliant 75 year old Scotsman who is drenched in the living, breathing, active Word of God. He talked about rejoicing in the Lord always..based on Philippians 4:4 and delighting ourselves in the Lord. With the joy of the Lord, any benefit should be spiritual.

We then moved swiftly to Richard. He spoke on faith and what kills faith, based on John 20:24-29. He said that "Trust is resting in the evidence of God's character and Word."....just brilliant. He also spoke on growing through feeding on the Word, studying God's ways with man, prayer, reflecting on the character of God, and welcoming God-given challenges. "Trust is the most fragile aspect of love, therefore investing trust in others is risky." So true...and so hard to be that vulnerable and risk our hearts.

We prayed about God's original design for the school and the schemes of the enemy during this time. We had some amazing times of intercession and lifting each other up to the Lord.

Probably the most impactful part of the week for me was our ministry time with Darren. Darren is a man who just flows with the Holy Spirit. He gets words and pictures and prophecy for people. He is incredibly open to the working of the Spirit and although it can be a completely new experience for people and sometimes unexpected, it is also an incredible place for people to be raw and wrecked before God. Students began to get emotional healing and physical healing as well. They just got flooded with God's love and His heart. Well at least I got flooded with more of Him. I know that I'm going to be given a task that is too big for me to handle on my own, but I'm not meant to handle it by myself. He's preparing me for the huge-ness of going into the nations and being part of a ministry that is just incredibly intense and will grow me and allow others to see His heart for them....I feel like I don't even have the words for the magnitude of it all.

That commenced our first week with students....