Biblical Principles for Transforming Nations: One Last School

Hello, dear friends and supporters. I have returned home from my BSN outreach in Africa. It was a very challenging and life changing experience, and unlike with my DTS, I will actually write a full blog post summarizing my Africa trip, because it was shorter and less personally transformational. It was personally transformational, just not on the scale of my DTS outreach (I think that's pretty common for YWAM secondary schools).

However, this is not that blog post. This is about my immediate future. My extremely immediate future.

On Sunday, September 27th I am returning to Madison for one last Bible school before hopefully joining staff with YWAM there. The school is called Biblical Principles (or Perspectives) for Transforming Nations (heretofor referred to as BPTN).

The BPTN 12 week course that focuses on how the Bible has affected the world throughout histroy, and what the Bible has to say about each facet of society, such as education, science and technology, civil government, media, and more. It requires having done a BSN or another YWAM Bible Core Course, such as the School of Biblical Studies (SBS). It has an optional 3 months outreach to a location that is as of yet undertermined, but as of right now it does not look like I will be doing that for various reasons.

One of the reason I think God has called me to do this school (I didn't just decide to jump into another intense school 10 days after BSN, that was His decision) is because long term I believe I am called to staff DTS, and I think that the BPTN will have answers to many worldview questions many DTS students have, especially in terms of the Bible's relevance today. How can a collection of ancient documents, some of which are over 4000 years old, have anything to do with modern life? Well, I intend to find out so that I can help other people find out the same things.

"So, how can I help?" That is a great question! Well, as of right now, I have 505 dollars to my name, and the school costs 3500 dollars (that's including the 8 books they are ordering for me that I'll be reading during the school and then getting to keep forever after that). However, I believe this is the first time I am publicly announcing that I'm even doing the school. I can't remember if I ever even made a Facebook status about it. Bascically, I applied months ago, but was only accepted a few days before I left for Nigeria, so I was very busy and forgot to announce on here that I'm doing the school, and that is why I am so behind in finances.

So, time for the prayer requests...

- Finances: I need 3000 dollars, ideally in 7 days. It sounds impossible, but I've seen God provide a lot more in a lot less time. I'm not worried about it at all, becuase I am 100 percent sure God has called me to do this school, so I know He will provide. I just don't know how. So if you cannot support me financially, please be praying that others will, and that opporotunities for me to share my ministry goals and needs would be opened. 

- Focus and Patience: The BPTN sounds like a very hard school. As I shared, there are 8 books we'll be reading, plus daily homework, research papers, and a big research project where we will come up with a specific area of society we would like to see changed, and then come up with an actual plan that we will inact after the school is over to start to make that change happen. All of this is happening in just 12 short weeks, so I imagine it will be very fast paced and very stressful. I'm excited, but apprehensive. Please remember to occasionally pray for me to have focus and patience over the course of the school. 

- More Students: As of right now, there's just 4 students, and two of them are current YWAM Madison staff. I believe this school has a lot to offer, and I know there a lot of YWAMers out there who have done a BSN or SBS and have things in society they wish they could change, but they don't know how. Well, if you're out there and reading this, please pray hard about doing this school. I've talked to a lot of people who did the last one, and others who are familiar with it, and it sounds like a really transformational school. I know there's only a week left, but doing crazy reckless things for God is kind of the name of the game in the missions field. So please pray, you never know what God might have you do. 

So, there's that update. I leave again in a week. Until then, I hope to see as many of my friends in the Twin Cities as I can, and I hope to do as much fundraising as I can. Somewhere in there I will try to squeeze out a blog post containing a summary of my BSN outreach, but until then, thank you so much for reading and praying!

God's Blessings,

Chris Hickey