Awaken DTS YWAM Kona
Hello everyone! My name is Nicolas Song. Most know me as Niki. I am currently fundraising for my mission trip to YWAM Kona and I want to share my story and have others embark on this journey with me.
“Who am I?”
As a young man, I couldn't help but ask myself “Who am I”? It is a question that I constantly ask but never seem to be able to answer. However, when I ask my friends and family how they would describe me, there seems to be a clear understanding of who I am. They describe me as: ambitious, spontaneous, moody, passionate, sensitive, stubborn, emotional, genuine, driven, loyal, and dependable. They also say that while I am a little bit reckless and all over the place, when push comes to shove, I am there and I will do my best to help with all my heart. The people around me are able to clearly describe who I am to them, but why do I feel so confused and lost? In my confusion, God has responded to me with this verse.
“‘Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.”’ John 21:18
I have wandered around for a long time trying to figure out who I am. I adopted different philosophies, different world views, experienced different lifestyles, but here I am now trying to follow Jesus.
Something that has been on my heart a lot this year is the act of obedience. While I am not exactly sure what obedience even looks like and what I am being obedient to, so far it has been a lot of silence, a lot of waiting, a lot of wondering what will happen and a lot of heartbreak. It has also been surrendering my own desires, wants, and personal goals, jumping at a moment's notice to serve, and stretching myself so thin that I wonder how I didn’t snap. But amidst all this, a still voice has spoken to me to expect great things to come. A voice of reason has said to me that a revival is coming. I listened to the call of revival and have been asking how I can help.
In the midst of my journey to obedience and revival, I was able to meet a group of bohemian christians from YWAM Kona. YWAM is an international volunteer-missions organization with their name as their description: Youth With A Mission. These youth are eccentric, talented, full of life and just wonderful. They come from all over the world to gather in Hawaii, Kona for a program called “The Awakening” which is a discipleship training school. In The Awakening program, the focus is to learn just as the disciples of Jesus learned through the Bible and by following what Jesus had done.
The group from YWAM Kona that I was able to meet had attended “The Awakening” program and my experience with them can truly be described as a culture shock. This group would constantly proclaim the goodness of God, and tell of how great God is over and over again in so many different ways that changed my grumbling heart to jump for joy. Seeing how they acted made me wonder what made them so different from everyone else. They felt so set apart from what I had experienced so far. They came with purpose and desire to stir up revival in New York City. As someone who grew up in NYC my entire life, I could never imagine NYC experiencing the revival of God NYC is as stubborn as the people who are in it. But I saw first hand that revival was coming.
So I decided to go. Abruptly and recklessly I decided to go. To the worry and unease of many people around me, I decided to enroll in the Awakening program at YWAM Kona. My initial intention for enrolling was to bring back revival to the ones around me and to New York City. I wanted to go through the same training as those young adults from Kona in order to be equipped for the call of revival that is coming. While this was my initial intention, as I have prayed more and more about what I can do to partake in the revival, God has responded to me again with John 21:18. At first I questioned why I kept getting this verse over and over again, but after some thought I believe it may have to do with my ambition and my pride. The obedience that God had called upon me was aimed in the wrong direction. I wasn’t truly surrendering myself and was still holding onto my own ambitions and desires. My pride was clouding the initial reason that convicted me to go. My purpose for going to YWAM was for all these things that I thought I could change once I came back to NY, but God has been revealing to me to be more internally motivated. He has reminded me that this revival is for me-- That going on this journey is for me, that I am the one being revived and that going to YWAM Kona isn’t about how much I can do when I get back, but how much I will grow while I am there.
As much as I want to make it about how much I can and will do, it isn’t about that. While my intentions and goals have been clarified, I realize that I am incapable of going on this journey by my own strength. I need emotional support. I need prayer. I need financial support. I need people alongside me on this journey as I walk into the wilderness. I also want to share what God is doing through me. I want what is happening to me to happen to others.
If God has put it in your heart to partner with me, I would love for you to be a part of my journey. I am excited to partner with whoever may be reading this and to bring all the blessings I may receive while away back to NYC.
What specifically do I need partnership in?
First I need to get to YWAM. It is a volunteer based missional program meaning that I have to come with my own funds to do missions. So if you can and are willing to support me financially this is how the cost of the DTS (discipleship training school) is set up. There are two costs that have different deadlines that I need to fulfill in order to be a part of the program.
Lecture Phase:
Total Needed: $4,095.00
Due Date: Sep 20, 2021
Lecture Start Date: Oct 1, 2021
Outreach Phase:
Total Needed: $6,000.00
Due Date: Nov 25, 2021
Outreach Start Date: Nov 30, 2021
I will also be doing other fundraiser events so be on the lookout for those as well!
Secondly I need spiritual partnership. This is what I am looking for more than anything. I would like to think I am a self sustaining Christian and I could do it on my own, but I realize that this is just not true. I am a product of prayer more than anything so a couple things to pray for me include:
1. To let down my pride and surrender - To surrender and follow where God is leading me. I often rely on myself and my own experiences to get through things. I like to think I am a capable and reliable guy, but ultimately I can not rely on myself. I need to have a humble heart in order to properly receive and serve.
2. An open heart - I need an open heart. There are a lot of different cultures and different experiences that I will be going through and if I don't have an open heart to experience God, I would be doing a disservice to myself and those who are in partnership with me.
3. Wisdom and discernment - I have never done something like this before. I have no prior experience in something like YWAM. I need the wisdom of the Lord and his guidance or else I will walk blindly and claw and hold onto anything that may give me comfort. I am quick to decide and a little reckless in thought, but I really want to have the proper wisdom and discernment in my actions.
4. Confidence and boldness - With doing something new there are a lot of fears and doubts. With any big life changes there will be anxiety and pressure. Despite the fear and doubts, I want to go with confidence in Christ and to be bold through the Holy Spirit.
Please pray however God may be telling you to pray for me!
Something that I really want to ask when praying for me is that those prayers may also speak to your heart. Although my circumstances of going on missions may be different from your own, I know God will speak loudly to you if you pray over these topics.
I will be doing my best to track my experiences with God throughout this whole process! Everything from this fundraising, to the lecture phase of the DTS and finally the outreach phase, so please be on the lookout for future updates on my journey!