I thought it was about time that I sent an update about what I am up to.. it has been a while!
In July I moved from London to Harpenden (30mins north of London) to live at the Youth With a Mission base. I am studying to complete a DTS (Discipleship Training School, like Bible College) and am here until the start of December.

I had some reservations about coming to live on the base (I thought it was going to be a bit like living in some kind of hippy commune!) but within a few days of arriving I knew it was the right thing to do. There are 13 others in the School ranging from 17 to 27 and we all live in one building. Luckily everyone is easy to get on with because we spend all day every day together! The base itself has around 30 permanent residents and we get to hang out with them quite a lot which is fun.

We have had a real variety of things going on so far. For the first 5 weeks we had 4 hours of lectures a day with a different theme and speaker each week. The base ran a conference called Re Engage for two weeks and we attended that as well. It was a pretty intense schedule but we got to hear some really great speakers (and messages).

The biggest thing I have gotten out of this time so far is how important and relevant the Bible is to daily life. There is a module in the course called “The Old Testament Template” which looks at what God has to say about how to run a country. We looked at what the Bible says about topics as diverse as the things we take for granted like sanitation all the way up to economics and separation of powers in government. I feel very lucky to live in a country where these principles have generally been applied.

We have just been up to Liverpool for the weekend and had a short outreach to the people attending the Matthew Street Music Festival. It was a fun time and we did some crazy things.. Like holding up a sign in a busy street that said “Free Prayer”. When someone approached us we either prayed for a specific need or prayed that God would show us how He designed that person. People were so encouraged that some of them went and got their friends and we had a queue of people waiting to be prayed for!

Tomorrow we are going to Bedford to help at a camp for 80 underprivileged kids. There will be shooting, archery, kayaking and more. They come from backgrounds that just can’t afford to do this kind of thing normally so it is an exciting time for them. We will be there to help run things and to encourage the kids and share with them about our lives and what God is doing in us. It should be a lot of fun.

I have tons of photos of Liverpool and the rest of my travels here: http://dereke.smugmug.com/gallery/5810574_v6akM