COLIN and HEATHER McGAIN and their children STEVE, 15, and ADELE, 12, are spending several months in Hawaii where they are completing a Youth With A Mission (YWAM) course. Known as the Crossroads Disciple Training School, it is aimed at encouraging a closer walk with God and equipping people for mission. They write of their experiences...

We have now completed five weeks of the three-month course. It is certainly challenging us to walk closer with God. The four topics so far have been as varied as listening to the voice of God to world child poverty and how we can get involved in beginning to alleviate such a massive problem. We heard figures about Africa's crisis and the orphans in villages after being ravaged by AIDS. We have learnt to pray the Bible out loud and were walking around the room sounding like kooks all reading the Bible out loud. With some extremely passionate people here, the noise was almost deafening. During that same week we looked at prophecies and the end times through the Old Testament and Revelation.

Two weeks ago we had the most draining but certainly the most rewarding. We watched a series of videos by Dr Bruce Thompson from New Zealand. He explored the relationship between a person’s upbringing and their personality type. He discussed the consequences when we grow up 'love starved' or have a 'love deficit' and how we learn to cope with it. We often swing from one side to the other as a way to deal and cope with pain. God has designed our lives to be in plumb with His. Sharing in small groups about childhood as well as adult experiences was powerful. Because the class is so diverse, some of the stories were heart-wrenching and tragic as well as deeply moving. It brought tears to our eyes to hear stories of adults wishing their fathers were there watching baseball with them or simply hugging them or telling them they were loved and affirmed. One American guy had been so hurt and verbally abused and degraded by his parents that he was able to speak to them as if they were in the room. He yelled out in colourful language to express the depth of his feelings and emotions. At the end of it, he had much more insight into his situation and no longer felt that they had control over him. Physically it was like a great burden and weight had been lifted off. He was able to begin to see them as God would see them. Another lady shared about being conceived from an affair and how her mum used to say that her step-dad was not her father so she shouldn’t spend any time with him. We saw deeply wounded people say they have never been so free.

Last week, we looked church mission strategies. They have the most incredible statistics about the growth of Christianity and other religions throughout the world, including the suggestion that within 50 years China will not only be the strongest country economically but may become the biggest Christian nation in the world with the amazing rate of conversions. Presently half the people in the world live in the developing areas which is called the 10/40 window. Most of them have never heard about Jesus. Out of the 24,000 people groups in the world only 14,000 have the Gospel. The amazing thing is that when you preach to these groups they are 110 times more responsive to the Gospel than in the West. Yet most of our efforts are where the Gospel already is.