Hey so it's about week 6 or so into the School of Worship here in Denver. That seems really crazy to me that we're already halfway done. It feels like we just got here. Time flies when you're having fun! Yeah!

Anyways, what have we been up to? Music. And more music. I like it. We've been writing songs and developing them as a band. I only brought my electric guitar here thinking I'd be playing pretty much only that. But considering we have three electric guitarists, one violinist, and one vocalist in my cell band that hasn't exactly happened. We all switch up according to each song and what that song calls for. So far I've played electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, drums, and I've sang for some songs. It's fun. I'm thinking about writing my next song on piano....

Here's a picture of my cell band:

(l to r) Erika (violin, piano, vocals); Tony (guitar, bass); Tommy (guitar, drums); me; Will (cell band leader); Sophie (vocals)

We have class each week in the morning, with topics ranging from Worship in the Word to "Worship Evangelism" to the history of worship and stuff like that. Last week we had Rob Morris and he was awesome. Hands down, my favorite speaker I've ever had in YWAM, DTS or SOW. His message was simple: Love God and love people. And we had many a good discussion over this. He was probably the most motivational and inspiring speaker I've heard, and he doesn't even try to be that. He just had conversations with us. He said God's heart is for justice, for the poor, the lost, the brokenhearted. Who did Jesus usually hang out with? He is the founder of the organization Love 146. Its purpose is to fight against child sex slavery, and provide safe homes and the like for victims. www.love146.org.

This week we don't have teaching. Instead, we are preparing to record our school CD. It will be 7 songs, handpicked by John Connor (former SOW Director and producer of the album) from the songs we have written as students. My first song, titled All For You was picked to be one of the songs, which I'm pretty excited about. I'll definitely do an update once the CD is out.

There you have it. Thanks for stopping by.

Chris

Back in Denver

That's right. I'm back in Denver. I apologize, I never plastered a final outreach post. Busy. And I forgot. It was awesome, though. I learned a lot, had a lot of fun, and made a lot of really good friends. Some of which I am now seeing back in Denver at different schools.

I'm back here for another 3 months and I am doing the School of Worship. We have 12 students in the school. There are two "cell bands" in which we each write songs and then as a band we work with those songs and play together. It should be interesting and a lot of fun. This first week is just legistical stuff, and we haven't played any music yet. I'm excited for us to do that. I'm ready to play.

It should be interesting to see how we're going to play songs in my cell band because we have 3 electric guitarists, 1 violinist, and 1 singer. No bassist. No drummer. So... yeah... it should be interesting. We'll see what happens.

I'm here with my good friend Jordan from back home. He did his DTS in Australia last year and went to school this past fall. He decided for sure he was going to do the SOW with me just about 2 months before the school began. So he dropped out of college for the time being, and started to apply. He didn't have any money. So he needed $3,500 in a month and a half. Kinda crazy, eh? Well, he worked a lot and sent out a bunch of support letters. He needed at least half of the money by the time we showed up at the base here (this past Monday). We drove down together and he still needed over $500 just for that first half. This was Saturday morning. By Sunday afternoon he had it all. Not just the half that he needed for sure. All of it. For the whole school. God is the ultimate provider. It was really sweet and really exciting to see Him come through. And now we're here together and it's going to be awesome.

Our first song is due Monday. The theme is "Arise." I haven't really started yet. These next three months should be sweet.

Chris

We are in Ushuaia. It is most definitely the most beautiful city I have ever been to. Mountains and ocean and wonderful people.

It´s usually around high 40s or lower 50s I would guess, and if the sun´s out, it really gets nice. Yesterday was our day off from ministry times, and as a group we went down to the ¨Fin Del Mundo¨ or the End of the World - the very, very tip of South America. Unfortunately the path to the very tip of it was closed for some reason, but we were about a 10 minute hike away from it.

We´ve been working with specifically 3 different churches here in Ushuaia and have done services for them and have hung out with the youth and we did a program on the main walking strip and a TON of people stopped to watch. It was really cool. Because there´s so many people (tourists and locals) walking there everyday.

This week should be really good. We have lots of cool things planned, and we´re really getting to know the people here, especially the youth around our age. It´s incredible how well you can connect with people and get to know them even with a language barrier.

We have an awesome opportunity this week too. We will get to personally meet and even do a service with Loren and Darlene Cunningham who are here this week for something. They are THE original founders of YWAM; they started it all up in 1960. It´s pretty exciting.

outreach update

Hey, so things have been pretty busy the past couple weeks here in Argentina. We spent 5 days up in Chaco, in northern Argentina. It gets pretty hot up there. It was consistently over 100 degrees everyday, and I wouldn´t be surprised if it hit 110 or 120 a few days when we were there. We wouldn´t do any ministry in the afternoons just because it was so ridiculously hot, nobody was out in public. We had siesta time, which are good for naps.... unless you´re in Chaco. I´d fall asleep and 10 minutes later wake up in a pool of sweat. So instead of napping, we just sat and talked with each other and the neighborhood kids. It was fun.

The people in Chaco were so cool. The pastor and his wife were so hospitable and made us great food. We did our drama called Forgiveness to the song ¨Some Will Seek Forgiveness, Others Escape¨by the band Underoath for the first time there. It´s a powerful drama. The first time we did it there, the pastor said to everyone that he never cries in front of other people, but during that drama we made him cry in front of his entire congregation.

We did a lot of work with the youth of the church, and they were so fun to talk and work and hang out with. One night we went down to the main plaza where a lot of people hang out at night and did a program, and a ton of people from the church came with us. It was a lot of fun. They were all about taking photos with us too. I swear one kid took about 6,388,298 photos that one night.

After the 5 days we headed to the bus stop where we would head out to Compana and when we showed up, the whole crew from the church was there waiting and they had made big signs for us and even gave us all gifts. One sign had all our names on it and another said ¨Thank you for come to Chaco!¨ Awesome.

The past 3 days we spent in Compana and it was a similar story. We spent a lot of time with the young kids and youth there. We did a night out at the plaza there too, and earlier in the day we had even taught the kids from the church some of our dramas and they performed one.

We had 3 services in 3 days while we were there and performed dramas and taught at every one. The first night I gave the message. I talked about finding true, lasting joy that comes only through Christ. Later on, I´d like to post a blog on just that message, and the whole idea of it. Last night I played electric guitar in the worship band. Like I said in my last blog, the worship is so laid back and spontaneous compared to back home. About 5 or 10 minutes before the service started, they told me they wanted me to play guitar. Then I (hopefully) find out the key of the song and from there we play. No chords, nothing but the guitar and wing it. Fun stuff. Then they wanted Rosie and I to play a worship song, and that was another just ¨Ok, come up and play¨deal. No practice or prep or anything. So we went up and played Open the Eyes of My Heart Lord. It went well, though, I think.

Now we´re back in Quillmes (Buenos Aires) till 4 AM this next morning and we head out on our 50 hour bus trip down to Ushaiua.


Please pray for me and the team that we don´t just go through the motions but that we really seize the opportunity we have here and give it everything we´ve got, because when we do step out and do that we´ve seen that huge things come out of it, and it´s totally worth it.

Until next time, chau!

Hola amigos! Como estan? Bien? Bueno.

I´m writing from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Our team has been here for a couple weeks now, and I thought it was about time to update this blog.

I bet it´s pretty cold in Minnesota, but here it´s, well, not cold at all. Today, it´s just over 100 and it´s always pretty humid here. So I´ve been drinking a ton of water and eating a ton of ice cream. The ice cream (helado) here is amazing.

So we´ve been staying at a church here and they have been incredibly nice and hospitable to us. They cook for us every day and night and the food is amazing. And they´ll offer you seconds and thirds and I´m sure they´d give you ninths if for some inhuman reason you made it there. They just love to feed us and help us out and hang out with us.

Our ministry has consisted of mostly dramas and testimonies and some preaching. We go to a lot of churches around the area - there seems to always be a church service somewhere, every time and day of the week, not just Sundays. We also have just set up shop in certain public places. There is a walking area in downtown Quilmes (the suburb area of Buenos Aires where we are staying) where there are tons of shops and always tons of people. We´ve done some programs there and some people stop to watch and listen to us. It´s pretty cool. And we pray for divine appointments to be set up and we can already see that taking place sometimes. For example, a few days ago we did a program in a park where afterwards some guy came up to Mark (one of our leaders) and said he had come there to just think and he was really moved by the dramas.

The churches here are pretty sweet. None of them are very modern and nice, but man, do they worship. You can really see the passion here and it´s inspiring. I love it. It´s also pretty spontaneous. Back home when I help lead worship for North Heights or wherever else, I´m used to knowing what songs we´re playing a week ahead of time or something and then practicing with the band 2 hours before the service and always having chord sheets. They wanted me to play the past couple evening Sunday services at the church we´re staying at here and I had none of that. No practice, no chords, no words. Just play. It was actually pretty fun and it was actually amazing. It was the most intense time of worship I´ve experienced in my life, let alone led. We were singing a Hillsong tag over and over that goes ¨Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Our God Reigns¨and we probably played that for at least 20 minutes straight. People were crying, on their knees, hands in the air, and it was just so cool to worship with mixed culture like that.

Please pray for our team, that we would continue to be unified and build deeper connections with each other, and just that we would be excited about our ministry, that it wouldn´t just become routine and boring. I really want to be open to the Spirit´s calling and what God has for us, but most importantly, those we meet. I want to give this outreach my all, otherwise I won´t get everything out of it that God has planned. That would be a bummer. So please just pray for excitement and motivation and inspiration and a heart for the lost, so that we can show them at least a glimpse of hope. At least a glimpse of true life. A glimpse of Jesus.

LoveChris

shooting

I'm going to just paste an email I sent out to friends and family:


Hey everyone, so I'm sure you all have heard of the recent tragedy here at YWAM Denver. I want you all to hear from me personally. Early Sunday morning around 12:30, a gunman entered our base and shot 4 staff. I was coming home from a concert in downtown Denver, just pulling into our parking lot when I (along with two other guys) heard the shots. We didn't know what they were at first, then seconds later saw the gunman running out of the building towards the lake behind our base. He got away before we could get out of the car and see who he was. At this point, though, we still didn't know what was going on. Then a student ran out towards us and was yelling and obviously distressed, but we still couldn't make sense of what she was saying. Then a staff member opened the door the gunman had just run from and she was yelling, "Somebody call 911! Call Peter! Go get Peter! Call 911!" Then I looked towards the door and I saw Tiffany (staff member who was shot and later died) lying near the door and I saw the blood. Then it became real.

Anthony (staff member intending to drop us off at the base) told us to get back in the car, so we did and we drove to Peter Warren's house. Peter is our base director. We told Peter and his family and a few minutes later left to go back to the base. By this time, police were all over the place. An officer had a pistol pointed at us and yelled at us to stay back. So we left and headed to Anthony's house, all the while in absolute shock. It was unreal. I was shaking like crazy. I have never experienced such terror in my life. The minute we arrived at Anthony's house, we got a call to go back to the Safeway parking lot by our base to talk to police. So we did that, sat there for a few hours, eventually got on a bus and headed to the police station.

We were at the police station all night. I was considered an eye-witness and I was interviewed for an hour or so. It was at 4 a.m. or something like that and it seemed like forever. I got no sleep that night and around 11 a.m. we got on a bus to go up to Eagle Rock, which is YWAM Denver's second campus, located about 40 minutes up into the mountains. We stayed up there until this afternoon (Tuesday), because until yesterday it was unknown whether YWAM's shooting and New Life Church's shooting was linked and whether the YWAM shooter was still on the loose.

This afternoon we moved back into our base. Tiffany and Phil's memorial service is tomorrow morning (Wednesday) at Faith Bible Chapel - right by our YWAM campus. Peter and others continue to declare that this is going to be a celebration of their lives, because we know that they have never been more alive than they are right now. I did not know either of them too personally, although I have talked with them multiple times.

Personally, I've experienced waves of pain, sadness, anger, confusion, depression, fear, shock, and just plain numbness. But I'm not lying when I say that I've never been more thankful to be alive. I ask 'why' a lot, and we may never know the answer to some things life and why things happen, but I do know this - God is good. God is faithful. God is love. And God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is the one constant in life. Wow, all I can say is my life is not my own. It is Christ's alone. And to be honest, I've never been more excited in my life to just.... live. And to live for Christ alone. There's nothing better.

And that's what I'm learning through this experience.

I can't tell you how much it means to me and how much it means to us as the YWAM Denver community to hear from all of you and the prayers and support from you. Let me tell you, when you pray for us, it's doing stuff. I can already see it, even though it's been just a couple days since the event. I'm so excited to see how God is glorified through the aftermath of this tragedy.

Our team still plans to leave Thursday for Argentina. Please continue to pray for us as far as our outreach and also just for healing and the families of the victims and just this community.

The past couple days, everyone asks everyone how they're doing. Yesterday when someone asked me that I said, "I'm ok. I'm alive. And if I wasn't... I'd be even better." That's the hope we have in Christ.

I love you all.

Chris

Outreach

Hey. Life is good in Denver. God is good, God is faithful, God amazes me.

So a couple weeks ago I went home for Thanksgiving and was able to be with family and friends and it was wonderful. And then I was sick last week. But now I'm getting better. And in just a few days we're heading to Argentina! Wow. These past two and a half months have just flown by for me, and I'm really excited for outreach. Here's our team:

This past week we had outreach prep, which was preparing for outreach with dramas, learning how to preach, learning how to teach English to kids, skits, songs, games, and other things. I'm in our dance, one skit, and three dramas. My two favorite are Marionettes, which is a really creepy "attention-getter" drama, where I act as a demon and control someone else. It's weird and creepy, but I think it's way sweet. And it'll definitely get people's attention I think. My favorite is Forgiveness, which we act out to a song by Underoath. It's intense at the end, and I think it will definitely move people. I play Jesus.

This week we have one last speaker come in to speak on Bible study. Hopefully I'll learn some good stuff. Then on Thursday at noon we leave the base for the airport. And off to Argentina. Pray for us. Love you all. I'll update if and when I can on outreach. Until then, adios amigos.