2015 Recap: From Missions Training to Missions Work

Imagine this: You're crammed in the back seat with three other people, in a car going over 100 miles per hour, on a highway full of potholes, in the blazing heat, on less than 4 hours of sleep for the past two days, in a country you know very little about (and what you do know mostly has to do with terrorists), with a man brandishing an AK-47 sitting in the front passenger seat, and the people in charge of your team are in another car, with no way to get in contact with you. That happened on our first full day in Nigeria.

A lot of our trip to Africa - heck, a lot of my past year - was like that car ride: exhilarating, exhausting, uncomfortable, full of uncertainty, and moving way to fast. It was an amazing year, but at this point it all feels like a blur, so it's hard to succinctly summarize. Let me do a rundown of everything I did...

Here we goooooooo!

I started out the year working at Menards, pushing carts and loading people's purchases into their cars. It was the same job I'd held back in 2013 before my Discipleship Training School (DTS), so I was very comfortable there. However, for much of the winter we were fairly shorthanded. It wasn't until the spring, as I was preparing to leave, that they hired a bunch of new workers. I got to train in a bunch of high school kids on my last week.

Then, at the end of March, I went to Madison, WI to take part in the Bible School for the Nations (BSN) with Youth With A Mission (YWAM). Over 4 months of biblical study, we read through and discussed the entire Bible. We learned how to study the Word on our own, and we learned how to teach it to others. While there was lots of good fellowship, it was a college-level course, and there were many late nights for all of us where we were reading, writing, or researching for our teachings on the minor prophets or the epistles.

Some of my lovely classmates handing out lemonade for a fundraiser. 

 

We had a picnic one weekend at Devil's Lake State Park, and we did some hiking. I did not participate in this specific activity, I merely documented it. 

Nerf wars happened often as a way for us all to decompress after a long day of class time and homework.

Laura had a mini-breakdown while we were going through the laws of Deuteronomy and labeling the purpose of each...and every...one. If you've read Deuteronomy, then you know how mind-numbing that sounds. It was.

At the end of July, we split in to 4 teams and went to various places in Africa. My team went to Nigeria and Tanzania (both the mainland of Tanganyika and the archipelago and Zanzibar, which together make up the nation of Tanzania...fun fact!). It was 7 weeks of almost constant travel, teaching, and preaching, all while roasting in our fancy clothes (Africans are always well dressed people, no matter what the temperature). I'm going to do a whole blog post describing more in depth each segment of the trip (I'll try to remember to come back and link it here), but for now I will just say that it was one of the most difficult experiences of my life...but it was also one of the most rewarding as well. 

Arne giving a teaching on Zanzibar. 

 Amy riding the former governor's pet tortoise at his mansion in Taraba State, Nigeria.

A young Zanzabari girl proudly shows off the crab she just caught on the beach. 

A beautiful Tanzanian sunset. 

Near the end of the trip, a few of us got to go on a safari in Ngorogoro crater.  

 The graduating class of the 2015 Madison BSN! 

I came home to Minnesota for a grand total of 10 days (8 if you count the 2 days I went BACK to Wisconsin for my best friend's wedding), I was back in Madison for yet another YWAM course, the Biblical Perspectives for Transforming Nations school (BPTN).

It took me over 48 hours to get from Tanzania to my home, and I spent less than 24 hours at home before I left to go back to Wisconsin for this wedding. I was super jet lagged, but I still got to be a designated driver afterwards.

BPTN was the most academically challenging 3 months of my life. The school had a focus on bringing revival to different "spheres of society", but we also had a few weeks on church history to provide context for what the church has looked like over time and what it's supposed to look like. We had many hours of reading each night, discussion questions based on the reading each night, we had to write lesson plans based on something we learned in class that day a couple times a week, and we had an ongoing research project from the beginning of the school to the end, which for me became a 30 page paper on how to get every "sphere" involved in getting jobs for the homeless in Madison. 

The BPTN students (minus myself and Glory who presented the day before) presenting their research projects on how to bring about revival in small, specific ways.  

P.D. presenting a person or even for our timeline project (one of our MANY projects), in which we each made little synopses of significant church figures or events and made a timeline of all of church history. 

 Halloween is a big ministry opportunity for YWAM Madison, when "Freak Fest", a city hosted Halloween party, comes to their doorstep. At the Phos House, a YWAM owned building near campus, we handed out thousands of cups of hot chocolate and hot dogs to partiers.

The entire 2015 BPTN graduating class!

The BPTN ended in early January of 2016, and since then I have been home, recuperating from a busy year, attempting to stay active in occasional ministry roles, and preparing for what's shaping up to be an equally busy year...because in April I will be returning to Madison to help staff and teach on the 2016 BSN.

That's right: I'm voluntarily going back...and I can't wait! 

This is something I was praying about all throughout the end of BSN and BSN outreach. I've known I would eventually join staff in YWAM since I started my DTS back in early 2014, but God kept calling me from one school to another.

During my DTS I met a team from YWAM Madison who was on their BSN outreach, and they convinced me I should take that school. Then, during BSN, every teacher or staff member or friend who had participated in the previous BPTN, or even just knew about it, suggested that it would be the perfect school for me. So, I applied and was accepted right before I left for outreach, which left me very little time to even announce that I was going to do it.

During BSN outreach I had talked with one of my outreach leaders about how I was considering staffing the BSN. He highly encouraged me to try it, because it is a great way to develop teaching and leadership skills, as well as solidify the teachings you learn on your BSN (because I'll get to sit through all the teachings again, and even do some of them myself). So, during BPTN, I applied, and a few weeks ago I was accepted to staff!

Again, I'm going back to this...

So, in early April I will be returning to Madison to begin my staff training for the BSN. In the meantime, I am looking for people who will be willing to support my monthly. To start with I'll only need a few hundred dollars a month, but at the end of the lecture phase there will be an outreach (the locations haven't been finalized, but I'll be sure to update everyone as soon as I hear where I might be going), and for that I'll need money for flights and ground fees for another country for a few weeks.

What I'm trying to get at is that I need people who will be committed to supporting me over a long period of time. A lot of people giving a few bucks a month can make a big difference. When I was doing schools with YWAM I usually just needed a one time commitment, but I know this is the start of a career as a missionary. I need to start preparing for the future, and that means finding people who can make a long term commitment to stand by me and help me to accomplish what God has for me.

If you feel a prompting to give, please contact me, either through Facebook or through my email at christopherpaulhickey@yahoo.com. There's multiple ways you can give. You can write me a check, give to my PayPal (which is through the Yahoo email above), or, if you want to give a tax deductible donation, you can give through YWAM Madison's website (just make sure to designate that the donation is for Christopher Hickey).

Even though last year was insane, it was still probably the most fulfilling year of my life. I learned so much about the Bible, about how to study it and how to get the most out of it every time I read it. I learned about missions work, about how to teach and how to preach, and how to give your all in whatever field you're called to. And I learned about myself, about my own strengths and weaknesses, about what I excel at and what I need to work to improve.

I made many amazing friends, from many continents, all of whom I've learned from and who I know will go on to amazing things. I found an amazing girlfriend, who's just as dedicated (actually, probably more so) to missions as I am, and with whom I share many hopes and dreams for how we can change the world together.

We're cute.

2015 was a year that I am sometimes still surprised that I survived, especially with this desire to basically do it over again. There were a lot of times when I was frustrated or scared or overwhelmed, but God continually brought me back to a place of excitement and desire for more.

This year I won't be taking classes or doing homework...I'll be teaching in classes and grading homework. I won't be researching books of the Bible for a homework assignment, but I'll be doing it to impart knowledge on to others. I'm accepting a whole new level of responsibility that I am both excited and terrified by, but I am firm in my belief that this is what God has called me to do, so I will do so faithfully.

Thank you all for walking alongside me throughout 2015, and I hope you will continue to do so with your prayers, encouragement, advice, and financial support.

God's Blessings,
Chris

An American Christian's Response to the Refugee Crisis

Photo Credit: Brandon Stanton, "Humans of New York"/ http://www.humansofnewyork.com/

"We survived but we’re dead psychologically. Everything ended for us that day. That was our destiny. That was our share in life.” That is a quote from a Syrian man, talking about himself and his children after the death of his wife during the civil war, and their escape to Turkey. One of the many stories shared by humanitarian and photographer Brandon Stanton (known for his ongoing social media photography project, "Humans of New York"), this particular photo grabbed me for reasons I can't quite put into words. 

You can read the rest of this story here (it is part 4 in a 7 part interview with the man in the middle). It made me tear up. It filled me with rage directed towards the perpetrators of this civil war. It gave me some complex feels. But, more than anything, as I started to think of the reactions of some of my American friends, family, and acquaintances towards the plight of these humans, I got really, really angry.

Hey, Christians? Yeah, you who claim to have something more to share with the world? The ones who say that everyone has a greater destiny than they can possibly imagine, because of a God who created them for greatness? Are you offering compassion of any kind? Are you showing love in some way? Here's a great way you could show the love of Christ to families like this: practice the Biblical virtue of hospitality and let them come to a place that is safe and where they can be shown the love of Christ that you supposedly have to give.

"When I offered a blanket to a man in the name of Jesus, the man said, 'Who is this Jesus? Since I left home he has given me food, a place to stay and now a blanket. I want to know him.'" 

Photo Credit: YWAM Madison. To donate to their upcoming outreach to Greece, go here.

At first I wasn't sure about how we as a nation should respond. As grieved as I was about the situation of these human beings, I was still unsure as to how I wanted my country to act in response. After all, isn't a government's first and only responsibility towards the welfare of it's citizens? 

But I'm currently enrolled in a Bible course that is all about how to take the teachings and principles of the Bible and use them for a revival in our culture, and I was starting to feel pretty freaking hypocritical about even hesitating to offer a helping hand. I believe that was the Holy Spirit working on my heart, moving me towards a more Biblical response.

I cannot in good conscience stand by and let the greatest opportunity to show love to the destitute that has happened in my entire generation to happen without trying to take part. If there is something my country can do I want it to do it, supposed national security risks be damned. All we do by rejecting relief opportunities is breed further resentment towards our nation by the rest of the world anyway, so in the long run it is, from a purely selfish standpoint, in our best interest to help these people (although I do realize that looking at what's best for it's citizens in the long run isn't exactly what the current generation of leaders excels at). 

In the words of Uncle Ben, "With great power comes great responsibility", and in the words of John the Disciple, "But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?"

Photo Credit: christmasforrefugees.org

Compassion doesn't mean to feel bad for someone on the other side of the world and pray that they'll be okay. That's a great starting point, but if that's all you've done, you haven't actually shown compassion. Compassion means to suffer with them, or, to use a biblical phrase, "to bear one another's burdens, and so to fulfill the law of Christ". It's not just a suggestion of Christ, but a command, to show compassion, which means actually doing something to show that person that you are walking with them in times of strife.

Now, I'm in no way suggesting we just let the tax payer dollars pay for these people's needs until they (if they can ever) go home. If the general, non-Christian population of this country doesn't want to help, I'm not expecting them to. They have a right not to. 

All I'm asking of the U.S. government is to let these people into our nation. From that point onward, I'm calling out American Christians to put their considerable amounts of money, time, and resources where their mouths are and to step up in an act of faithful obedience to our call to serve the poor and needy (I'm not assuming that every Christian in America is in a place to do this, but I do think every Christian in America should be trying to figure out how they can).

I spent just a few weeks working with Afghani and Pakistani refugees in Rome last year, making friendships and hearing heartbreaking stories, and just that little bit of interaction has brought this current crisis very close to home for me. I met some truly extraordinary men who had simply been put in circumstances more extraordinary then they could handle. 

A group of Afghani refugees in a park in Rome that we helped serve a meal to with a local church.

Most had fled from the Taliban, and most had left their families in the relatively safe country of Iran to go and try to find work in Europe. Whether that was the most loving thing for them to do for their families or not is not what I want to comment on, but rather I'd like to highlight how brave and self-sacrificing they were to attempt a journey like that. My heart broke for each man I met, and if I felt free to do so, I would go back tomorrow and spend more time with them, trying to learn their language and culture and trying to help them help themselves and their families. 

However, with where I feel God calling me in my life right now, I can't just hop on a plane and go to Greece or Turkey to help out like I want to, and like many of my friends are. BUT, if these human beings, made in the image of God, have the chance to come to my neighborhood, you can bet your britches I will be trying as hard as I can to help them to feel welcomed and loved in this time of overwhelming transition.

"Do unto others as you would have done unto you" is a really simple guideline for showing love. All it requires to utilize is a small amount of empathy, and then you'll know if you're actually showing love in a Biblical way. If you can put yourself in someone else shoes, then you know how to treat them and how best to serve them.

So, to summarize my rant, I really really really want to help and I am pissed off that there are so many people who claim to share the same God and the same values as me that are asking our politicians to keep me from being able to help. 

To those people I have only this to say...please, shut up and let them come. 

"Let the little children come unto me."

***

This was mostly copied from a Facebook rant I made, only to realize it was pretty long and that I hadn't posted to my blog in awhile. For a brief update on how my missionary schooling is going: It's hard but almost over. Over Christmas break I'll probably finish my update about my outreach in Africa. I haven't had time to finish that because of my current business with my coursework. After that I will hopefully have some exciting news about where I am headed next in my missions work.

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

The Last Post Before Outreach

If the title didn't clue you in, this will be my last post before outreach. I won't be bringing my laptop with, so I probably won't be doing any blog updates in the 7 weeks I'm there.

HOWEVER, I have made a Mail Chimp e-mail list, which will allow me to send out mass e-mail updates to specific groups. If you would like to be added to an e-mail update list, send me your e-mail address on Facebook or e-mail me at christopherpaulhickey@yahoo.com (because of some weird Yahoo policy, the first update I send may show up as spam and you'll have to un-spam it or something, according to Mail Chimp's website). The updates will be shorter than my average blog post, and may just be a prayer request, or a short story of something cool I saw or did, or something I recently learned. I'll still have this blog for a bigger update every once and awhile though.

Now that that's out of the way: We leave for Nigeria this Wednesday (tomorrow). As I write this, it is less than 48 hours away. I've paid off all my outreach fees, the visas arrived yesterday, and I'm mostly packed. I am at this point extremely excited and ready to leave ASAP!!!

I spent all yesterday deep cleaning the kitchen (wiping and scrubbing every surface, organizing pots and pans and oils, cleaning after dinner) as one part of our massive "Leave the building looking better than we found it" movement. It was actually pretty fun, even if it was suuuuuuper grimy. The building is looking pretty spick and span, but we're finishing the last few projects today.

It's starting to feel kind of empty around here. Quite a few people who were living here are not going on outreach. Some are going to college, some back home to work for awhile before their next big move in ministry, and some aren't sure what's next. But it seems every day someone else leaves. That's another reason I can't wait to leave for outreach...this unusually quite building is a constant reminder that the lecture phase is over, and people are moving on.

I really don't have a lot of time to add much more, other than some prayer requests. On every outreach team, mine included, we still have some students who don't have all their money yet. Some are still trusting God for thousands of dollars (although not everyone is leaving this Wednesday, some teams don't leave till Saturday). Please pray for God to release those finances for those who are still in need. Prayers of thanksgiving would also be appreciated for our visas finally arriving and for the money that has come in already would be appreciated. And lastly, one of my outreach team members, Glori, is headed back home to Tanzania today with her sister Asifiwe. It was cheaper for them to go home for a few days and then get flights within continent to their respective outreach locations (plus they wanted to see their family again before their next big adventure). Please pray for safe travels for them, and that all the money they need would arrive in time for them to join us on outreach.

Other than that, please just continue to pray that the hand of the Lord would be over our whole team as we travel about a country that none of us know much about, and we prepare to carry the intense responsibility of teaching God's word to hundreds of people! I'm sooooo excited!!!

If I had more time, I'd go on and talk about the last few weeks of the school. However, I will say this: We made it! We read through the whole Bible in 4 months. None of us are experts, obviously, and each teaching left us with more questions about the book than we had beforehand. However, I think that's kind of the point. They wanted to make us into life long learners, and they succeeded. I want to keep studying the Bible and continue to learn all I can from it's pages.

I have learned so much already, but it's just a sliver of what each of the 66 books has to offer. And now I'm ready to go share what I have learned with others, who will in turn share it with others, who will in turn change their nations! That's the beauty of Word.

God's Blessings,

Chris

URGENT PRAYER REQUEST: Battle With Us For Our Nigeria Outreach

Hello all! This is not a full update. We just had an outreach team meeting, and I just wanted to share some of what came out of it and ask for prayer regarding our preparation process for outreach.

Basically, we are still applying for our Nigerian visas, and the process has been much, much more complicated and upsetting than it needed to be. There has been a ton of communication error, dropped calls, unclear instructions, that sort of thing.

Also, while none of us have all of our money yet, we have multiple team members who have been seriously struggling financially, and who feel like there is something God is wanting to show them or reveal to them before He releases funds to them, but that they are unable to see clearly what that thing is He is trying to show. They feel like it is being obscured from them somehow, and there's a lot of frustration.

After talking and praying through the situation, we felt as a team that there was a lot of spiritual warfare going on surrounding this outreach. It seems like the enemy is trying really hard to end this outreach before it even begins, because this is a pioneering outreach. No team from our base has ever been to Nigeria. We don't know what to expect, but we do know that when we do go, we'll be laying the groundwork for future BSN teams, either from here or other partner bases of ours.

That scares the enemy a lot, because Nigeria is already in the midst of a huge revival, and in the ten days we're going to be there we have the potential to change THOUSANDS of lives, not just ourselves, but also through the people we will be teaching, who will pass on our Biblical instruction and disciple other new believers, who will in turn disciple others, and so on and so forth.

Basically, we could start another huge wave of Biblical discipleship that goes on for generations.

We're really excited. There's so much potential here. We're running a program that is so influential and useful for changing nations, there's certain countries who have had high up government officials ask YWAM for BELT training for themselves. So the fact that we'll be running the first seminar in Nigeria of many is really exciting, but also a TON of responsibility, and the enemy knows that, and is trying to frustrate us and get us to quit before we make a beachhead in that nation.

So I'm turning to you for prayer. I'm asking that you'll partner with us and pray for a few specific things. Here we go...

- Prayer for finances: All 8 of us in total need about 28,400 dollars for the whole outreach (as well as some that are still paying off lecture fees). Also, many of us have plans immediately following this outreach that will require funds as well, so we'll need those finances now or very soon. On top of that, we'll need to pay for the visas in the next few days, and the plane tickets shortly afterwards. Please pray for that specific amount of 28,400, as well as a more general prayer of future provision for the stuff after the BSN.

- Prayer for confidence: We talked about how we don't have doubts at all that God can and wants to provide for us, but that many of us are for some reason still worrying, which we realized probably has something to do with the enemy sowing seeds of doubt and worry. Many of us have been feeling discouraged and that is not a good place to be in when you're about to pioneer a new ministry. Please pray against any condemning words from the enemy against us, and that God will fill us with confidence and assurance and peace about what we're about to do.

- Prayer for unity: As I've shared before, we are the most diverse team on the school, not only in terms of race and nationality, but of personalities as well. In a high pressure environment, like our outreach will be, it is easy for personalities to clash and for cultural sensibilities to be offended. Please pray against disunity and that we'll be able to love each other, and the people we're teaching, well.

Hopefully I'll be able to put out a bigger update on how classes are going soon. For now I can say we've been going through the Epistles the past few weeks, and it's been REALLY amazing. My theology has been challenged in a lot of ways, and while I haven't made any radical changes, studying the original intent of why Paul wrote Romans or 1 Corinthians has forced me to rethink why I believe what I believe, and if certain verses I've always read as one thing can really mean that, if that makes sense.

Sorry if that's a bit rambling. Like I said, a proper update will hopefully come sometime next week, as my family is coming to visit me this weekend, and the rest of my free time will be going to preparing for a teaching on 2 Peter next Tuesday (the outline is due on this Friday, and yet here I sit writing this update).

Okay, that should be good. Again, prayer for those specific things. Also, for my finances in particular, I have 1500 dollars in my outreach fund here, as well as 500 dollars that was recently pledged to me that should be coming in soon. Praise Jesus! So I will soon have near to half of the 4200 I'll need for outreach.

Thank you so much for reading and praying, and as always, please feel free to contact me on Facebook or e-mail me at christopherpaulhickey@yahoo.com (although I don't check my e-mail very often...Facebook is a MUCH better way to contact me) if you have any questions or encouragements to share.

God's Blessings,

Chris