Before going on outreach to New Zealand I was a bit skeptical about doing my DTS outreach in a Western nation and working with Christians. However, God reminded me of Paul and how part of his calling was to encourage and build the Body of Christ.
We travelled from North to South and our main mission was to call young people back into missions. New Zealand once was the largest mission-sending nation in the world but nowadays people are quite apathetic towards the Great Commission.
Our ministry in New Zealand wasn’t only working with young people though. We got to experience a lot of different aspects of missions that included anything from doing yard work to running church services and doing evangelism on the streets.
Everything started off in Auckland, the largest city in NZ, where we got to run the first assembly of the new school year in a Christian school and teach Evangelism classes there. We weren’t only able to broaden their worldview and speak into their lives, but also able to encourage their teachers.
Other than that we did evangelism in Auckland, a lot of intercession over the city, visited youth groups and helped with a project called “City Lights”, where a bunch of volunteers help out in their community for a weekend.
Our next destination was Tauranga, where we had the privilege of living in a Marae, a traditional house of the indigenous people of NZ (the Maoris). After giving us a Pohiri (traditional Maori welcoming ceremony) and a feed as they call it, we got a little introduction to the Maori culture. It was interesting to see how many Christian elements they have in their old and rich culture.
Most of our time in Tauranga we spent cleaning and repairing things around the Marae to bless the Maori people. The tribe we stayed with loved us and put on a Hungi (a traditional feast where the food is cooked on hot rocks) for us. We got to eat delicacies such as rotten corn (they hang corn under a waterfall and let it rot for 5 months) and fish heads.
We also got to help YWAM NZ out at a Maori kids camp where the main objective was to redeem the Maori culture and to teach the kids traditional dances and songs and how they can glorify God through their culture.
During our first week in NZ the Lord spoke to one of my leaders that we were to change one of our outreach destinations and go to Hamilton instead.We had no idea why He was leading us there but in the end it was a week of real breakthrough for our team and one of my favourite weeks of all of DTS.
One evening some former YWAMers shared their story with us and led us into a time of prayer, which ended up in an on fire time of prayer and worship. I have never seen the Holy Spirit manifest Himself in such a strong and powerful way before. People were vibrating as if they were electrified, laying on the floor, shouting to God for breakthrough, prophesying, running,… I personally had been a bit frustrated for a while and was literally shouting to God for breakthrough and all of a sudden peace overcame me and I knew breakthrough had come. This night didn’t leave me the same. After that I experienced one breakthrough after another, grew in confidence and knew what it meant to cry out to God in full desperation.
Just the next day I was talking to a guy during evangelism who wanted to challenge me and prove to himself that all Christians contradict themselves and really have no idea what they’re talking about. I could tell that he had read some of the Bible before. He was constantly throwing verses at me and asking me the most difficult questions. On a former outreach I had been in a similar situation and last time I had no idea what to say. This time though, God gave me answers to questions I never could have answered on my own. After a while the guy got quiet and listened to what I had to say.The same night I had the chance to pray with a young girl whose Dad was in jail, whose Mom didn’t care about her and who was heartbroken and had no idea about her true value. I got to pray for her, cry with her and just hold her and show her the Father’s heart for her.
After Wellington we took a ferry down to the South Island and our first stop was in Nelson. Here we did a lot of community work, helped out at a youth center, ran a programme for intermediate kids, did evangelism, intercession against the New Age stronghold in that area and all kinds of other things.
Next we drove down to Christchurch where we worked with some local churches.
The first day I helped out at a programme called “Music and Movements” where Moms and toddlers come to the church twice a week to sing some songs. It’s supposed to be evangelistic but they haven’t seen one single salvation in eleven years. When we asked them why they thought it was that way, they admitted they were kind of apathetic toward sharing the gospel and that they never really mentioned God because they don’t want the Moms to feel uncomfortable. They were ashamed to speak of God within their own church, where people would normally expect to hear about God. This is actually a quite common thing we experienced in that area of NZ.
Another example: A few of us were asked to run a 2 hour youth service. The youth pastor told us that they normally play games, have a 5-minute God talk and then hang out. We felt to teach on the Nature and Character of God and to touch on commonly held false views of God. I ended up talking for about 45 minutes and the kids paid attention the whole entire time.
Our last destination was freezing cold Dunedin in the South where we helped in a school.
One day we got invited to have some tea at a women’s art class,. Two of us went and I was asked to hold a Bible study on the spot. That was kind of funny, especially because I’m never able to remember references from the Bible.The only 2 references I know are John 3:16 and Hebrews 11:1, so I chose the latter and spoke about faith. Hebrews 11:1 (Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.) is one of my very favourite verses and I often need to remind myself of it.
After a two day road trip back up to Auckland we flew back to Perth where my whole school met up again for a week of debriefing. It was a bittersweet time for me to see all of my friends again, exchange outreach stories with them and to see them leave.
We cleaned up this woman’s yard. Her son on the right became mentally ill after his Dad tried to drown him at the age of three. He doesn’t talk to his Dad anymore but won two silver medals at the Beijing Paralympics last summer.
Most places we went to we tried to go to the High Places to do worship and intercession over the area. This picture was taken on One Tree Hill in Auckland
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