First Week of Fascinate

Finally trying to start a blog again!  So here goes...
We are four weeks into Fascinate and God is rocking our world!  I will try to catch you all up on what has happened so far.

first day!

Our first week started January 5th, 6th and 7th with Dan Baumann as the speaker.  As staff we had been preparing the way for months but this was the first experience the students had with Fascinate.  We greeted them to the Community House with a fire tunnel of prayer, love and affirmation.  We knew that their culture and the culture of fascinate were about to collide and we wanted our culture to overtake theirs quickly!  We had been seeking a culture of honor and thankfulness for a while.  We felt almost immediately that it happened!  Go God!  I think it was definitely uncomfortable for some of the students at first but they quickly knew that Fascinate was where they were meant to be in this time.  Some of the comments from students were heard that weekend were that they were so glad they said "yes" to this, even though many didn't really know what they were agreeing to.  lol.  Sounds familiar!


After the fire tunnel we worshiped together for the first time as a whole class.  We sang our class song "Oh my King" by stay the shores (Brian Fannin's band). Then Dan Baumann welcomed everyone to Fascinate and to YWAM. He gave a brief description of YWAM.


On Friday, Dan shared his testimony and it was an amazing time.  We broke into groups and processed and prayed together.  A repeating theme we heard that affected them, was how Dan had asked the guy that beat him everyday to be his friend.  One student really got rocked by that and started to pray for his enemies.  From that day on, you can see a huge change in him and the joy he carries at giving that to God and using his greatest weapon the Kingdom has, LOVE!


On Saturday, Dan talked about hearing God's voice.  We did some practical exercises in hearing Him speak to us.  We spent time listening and writing down what God was saying about us and our futures.  It was awesome and I know some people heard God, or realized they already hear God, for the first time!  Dan brought the revelation the God is more committed to fulfill his purpose in your life than you are to finding it! YAY! GO GOD!


I remember thinking the whole weekend that "this feels like a DTS!"  As staff we were overwhelmed with thankfulness at God's faithfulness in the weekend.  It went beyond our expectation and my heart was overflowing with joy! We were already seeing lives changing and eyes being opened to God love for them and who they were in Christ.  I had a student tell me that he had sang about, talked about, prayed about being a friend of Jesus but this was the first time he had ever felt like Jesus was his friend!!! Love it!!  
Thanks Dan for your overwhelming confidence in Jesus using Fascinate!


Melo