Julia LaRen Shatswell

Leadership track has flown by! Just two short weeks until students arrive!!

Running towards Jesus alongside approximately 110 like-minded young adults who are also willing to do hard things and growing in their relationship with Him is SO inspiring. There is nothing else I would rather be doing than to challenge myself to surrender everything by pursuing Jesus with my whole heart. This picture is me and my sweet friend Nissi on arrival day for Commission Camp!

These past 2.5 months our schedules have been filled to the brim with class, contending, intercession, high school Commission Camp craziness, work duty (cafeteria dish pit!), serving the YWAM Kona campus, RTC training every other week (think CrossFit – physically and mentally pushing us to our limit), serving our Maui Ohana (family), and experiencing so much mental, spiritual and physical growth. The picture below is from our quick trip to Maui to deliver supplies donated to the YWAM Kona base. With our track, we were able to deliver over 300 boxes of supplies to our friends in the Maui relief efforts.

Praise report! I was able to co rent a little car (we are splitting the cost) with my friend Glory. We had prayed that God would give us a Honda CRV for us to share at $250 each. We posted about it on Workplace and THE NEXT DAY a woman messaged us and said she had an extra car that she wasn’t driving which was the exact brand and was willing to rent it to us for that exact amount! We said, “Thank you Jesus! and Praise God! Hallelujah!” 

Our class time (2+ hours a day) has been mainly focused around leadership training. I have learned that a true leader is a servant leader who leads by example. I cannot ask my students to do things that I myself am not doing or willing to do. For example, if they don’t see me keeping my room clean how can I ask them to keep their spaces clean? It felt like going through Leadership Track was like having a delicate heart surgery because we had to be reflective and analytical about every single component and allow God to peel back the layers, expose the truth of our thoughts and intents of the heart, pick out the broken pieces, and stitch us back together so that we can lead and disciple this next group of students with integrity and wholeness. My prayer was that God would rid my heart of pride, insecurity, and anything else that was preventing me from total freedom and surrender and that all that would be left was His perfect peace. I have grown so much in this season and now it’s time to put all that I’ve learned to practice. 

The next group of students arrive for the Discipleship Training School (DTS) in just three weeks! Arrival day is September 29th. I know God is sending the best of the best to us in order for them to be trained to know God and to make Him known. He is raising up this generation as ones that are to be rooted in his Word. Every day and everywhere I go, I find that people of all ages and every walk of life are hungry for the Truth. They are hungry to know their true identity. They are looking to be understood and encouraged by knowing their original design and what the heart of Jesus is for them. I think the best part of staffing this DTS is getting to walk young adults through this journey of learning about what God thinks of them and show them how to see, and confidently use the gifts and talents they were given. It is such an awesome thing to “see” them as God sees them and speak a unique vision over their life, and challenge them to answer the call to proclaim the Hope that is Jesus for my generation!

What are my next steps? 

• Circuit Riders: I am on my way to leadership/worship leading training in Huntington Beach California! I am at the airport as I write this. 🙂 I was blessed to have a short day layover in Seattle to visit with my family this past weekend! While in Huntington Beach our team will be working with Circuit Riders getting more training. I am super excited because I get to be apart of the worship leaders training group! (September 15-22)
• Further DTS Preparation (September 25-27)
• DTS Students Arrive! (September 28th) 
• Outreach Team Preparation and Planning for outreach (Dec 18th – March 13th)

My prayer list:

• For love to abound! (Philippians 1:9-11) 
• God would give me His compassion (Psalm 24:3-6)
• For unity for our DTS, Outreach team, and Room girls (1 Corinthians 1:10, Ephesians 4:1-4)
• Wisdom through fear of the Lord so we can lead well (Proverbs 9:10)
• That God would give us energy, joy, and strength (Nehemiah 8:10)
• That we would recognize and throw off anything that hinders us and run the race set before us (Hebrews 12:1-3)
• We would speak words of life and encouragement (Ephesians 4:29)
• Divine discernment over our students and DTS: wise as serpents and innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16)
• That God would give us his strategy to reach this generation (1 Corinthians 10:3-5)
• That love would be our highest goal (1 Corinthians 13)
• My prayer over our outreach team time (Ephesians 3:14-21)
• Favor and financial provision over this year in ministry. (Matthew 6: 26-34)