2024 DTS

Hello everyone, 

We love to share an update on the Discipleship and Training School which we started in the middle of January. 

We have in our DTS 21 amazing students and 5 staff members from 16 different countries - South Korea, Switzerland, USA, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, UK, Netherlands, Germany, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, India, Malaysia, and Australia. 

We invite you to join us in prayers and support for this DTS journey as we get to know God and make Him known among the nations!

School Theme

1. "Transformation to Transform Nation"

"From transformation in our life to transformation into the nations"

As we prayed about the school theme for the DTS, we received a heart to equip students from various nations to not only experience transformation in their own lives, but also to be transformational agents by demonstrating and sharing the love of Christ in their nations and in the social spheres to which they are called.

In particular, God poured out the following five words on our hearts:

"transformation, depth, diversity, nations, and blessing."

Transformation 

When the disciples met Jesus, He didn't just change a part of their lives, He "changed/transformed" their whole lives. As 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, they were completely transformed into new creatures when they met Jesus. Regardless of what students have experienced in life and what they have come to believe about their identity, we believe that God will use this season to bring about a new "transformation" in their lives.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17

Depth

We also pray and expect that students will build a "deeper" relationship with God through this season. Through our lectures, community life, and outreach, we hope to learn about who God is and how He communicates with us on a much deeper level than before. We also expect to experience deep spiritual growth as we pray and think together about how we can move from head to heart and from knowledge to application when God speaks to us and teaches us.

Diversity

We believe that the "diversity" of this multinational community of DTS is an opportunity to learn so much from each other. 

We believe that diversity is not a challenge or a difficulty, but an incredible opportunity and privilege to learn to recognize, love, and embrace our differences as Jesus loved us. We believe that as it is difficult to see the beauty of a puzzle when the pieces are separated, but when they come together, we can discover a complete and beautiful picture, so we believe that when God binds our diversity into loving unity, we will discover the beautiful richness of community.

Nations, a blessing

God has called us to go to the "nations" and be a "blessing." We pray that our students will not only experience transformation in their own lives, but that they will take the transformation in our lives to the nations and be a channel of blessing to transform the nations. Regardless of what sphere of society they are called to go into, we want to challenge them to live as a missionary, showing the love and fragrance of Christ wherever they will go.

And this is our key bible verse: 

For I am about to do something new.  See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness.I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. Isaiah 43,19

Bible Reading

We challenged the students to read the whole Bible during the DTS. It takes great dedication and effort to set aside a time to read the Bible.

One of the important values of YWAM is "Do First, Then Teach," so we decided to read the Bible together during this season and invited the students to come to our house every morning at 7am to read the Bible together.  We were expecting 3-4 students at most, but the first day we had 15 students come over to read the bible together with us. We ran out of chairs and Jana had to sit on the ground 🙂 We still have close to 10 students coming over every morning to read the Bible with us and start the day together with prayer.

We truly can see the hunger and passion the students bring and the desire to grow and encounter God on a deeper level. 

Thank you for all your prayers and support for this upcoming 5 months as we will lead this school. 

early morning bible readings at our place 

Thank you

We also want to express our thankfulness to each one of you who has been praying for us. We started our married life back at the campus in an apartment. We have been praying for a place with a living room so that we can serve and bless the many young missionaries who are being trained here, and God faithfully answered our prayers. 

Seeing so many students come and read the Bible and pray together, and many of our friends and staff members feeling God's love and joy during their visits at our home, gives us so much joy, thankfulness and gratitude. All these moments make us realize how our Vision is truly coming true of being able to be a channel of God’s blessing to everyone around us.  

Prayer requests/financial support

Thank you again to everyone who has been praying and supporting us :) We can't tell you how much it encourages us in the midst of ministry to know that someone is listening, caring, and praying for us! 

Some specific prayer requests: 

1. Pray that the lives of our DTS students will be deeply transformed during the course, and that they will have experiences of encountering God personally that they have never had before.

2. Pray that the diversity brought by the international staff and students will not be a stumbling block, but a valuable opportunity to learn about God's love and inclusion.

3. Pray for outreach locations. Pray that I would make good decisions based on God's wisdom, not on our experience or own ideas.

4. There has been an unexpected change in the compulsory health insurance in Switzerland that has resulted in a large monthly expense (900 CHF per month).We are currently preparing the paperwork to apply for a subsidy from the government. Please pray that the subsidy will be approved.

5. The season we are currently in is more busy than usual but we trust God his daily grace, joy and fun as we are investing in all the students around us. Please keep also praying for us as a couple that we can keep learning to love and serve each other and to stand together in everything that we are facing.

Thank you so much.

Much love 

Jana & SeongEun Kwon