MY YWAM Journey

Dear friends, 
 
I am very excited to share the next chapter of my life journey with you as I prepare for what I believe might be one of my biggest God adventures yet. 
 
I am two months away from being a graduate of the George Mason University with a BA in Global Affairs, concentration in media, communication, and culture, and a minor in Nonprofit. While at college, I had an amazing opportunity to continue my love for dance by serving as vice president on DanceWorks. In addition, I was a part of InterVarsity, a Christian ministry on campus, for all four years, with three of those years serving as a small group leader to an amazing group of young ladies. Starting college, I never thought that I would be a small group leader because I thought I didn’t know enough or was just simply was not good enough, but God had a different plan. 

For the past ten years, since God gave me a family through adoption and I accepted Jesus as my Savior, I been learning that God had a plan for my life even bigger than my wildest dreams. I understood that God created me for a purpose, had a destiny for me and had been preparing, teaching and training me for something big my whole life. From living in extreme poverty for the first seven years of my childhood, and then in the orphanage for the next six, God has been shaping and preparing me to be used in His bigger plan, even if I could not always see it. My past shows just how powerful our Lord is and what He can do even when life seems dark and hopeless. So now I want to use what I learned through my experiences, my education, gifts, and talents for His Kingdom and learn how to effectively share the love of God with those who are in spiritual, economic and physical poverty.  
 
That’s why I have applied and have just been accepted to a Compassion Discipleship Training School (DTS) at Youth With A Mission (YWAM) Los Angeles. The mission of this school is to train and equip young people to respond to a hurting world by ministering out of the compassionate heart of the Father. This training will begin a couple of weeks after I graduate college, on January 6, 2018, and run until June 17, 2018. 
 
The first twelve weeks will be a Lecture Phase, helping to deepen my knowledge of the Bible and God’s character and equipping me to bring the Gospel to the hurting world. The cost of the lecture phase is $3185, which includes room and board, tuition, books, and school-related transportation costs. It does not include my airfare or transportation to LA. 
 
Following this classroom training will be an Outreach Phase, where for about three months we will be applying the learned principles, practicing leadership and bringing the love of Jesus to people in need in practical ways. The Outreach costs could range from $3,000 to $4,000 in total, depending on the location. Some locations that Los Angeles DTS have been to before are Colombia, Ecuador, Thailand, India, Nepal, Mexico, Panama and Costa Rica. 

I would like to invite you to join me as I take this leap of faith serving the orphan, the widow, the poor and the isolated, sharing God's love with people who need it the most. I ask for your prayers, encouraging words and financial support as I embark on this journey. 

All I want is to have God in the center of everything I do and to use my education, gifts, and talents for His glory, serving His Kingdom. Sometimes I gasp at the thought of the need to raise almost $9,000, but as much as this number scares me, I know, there is nothing impossible for the Lord! 
 
Will you walk with me and also share my story with your friends and invite them to pray for me and join me on this adventure?!
 
With love,
Anastasiya