Calebs Journey

It’s Been a Crazy Year

Aloha! Once again, I am sorry it has been so long since my last update. I hope all of you are doing well in this year of constant twists and turns. Let me tell you, this year has been a wild one for me.

I started off this year working 70 hours a week between Starbucks and an overnight caregiver job with an elderly couple whom I adore. I was working these jobs to help earn as much money as possible to do my Biblical Core Course (BCC) in Kona, Hawaii at the base I had been at the year prior for my Discipleship Training School (DTS). Well, a week before my BCC was set to start, I was informed that it had been cancelled due to COVID-19, then a couple hours later I received a call saying that they felt the Lord was telling them to push forward with the school from home using google classroom for assignments and Zoom for classes. This meant that I would spend 10-12 hours/day in my room for the next three months. Being someone who doesn’t do well in situations where I feel stuck, I immediately shut that idea down in my mind, but told them that I would pray about it. Then I got in the car to go for a drive and pray. I didn’t even make it out of my neighborhood before hearing God ask, “Are you doing BCC for me or to live in Kona?” I made my decision right there and called them back to tell them that I was going to move forward with BCC.

The next three months were nothing short of miraculous. As I diligently studied the word and learned how to not only read it, but apply it to my life, I watched as my life began to transform. Not only did I remember the word in an incredible way, but my relationship with my dad began to change. This was something that I have been praying about for many years. During this time, I watched as my dad went from someone I felt like I had to love, to being someone whom I genuinely enjoyed being around. My dad became one of my best friends over a span of two months; if that doesn’t show the transforming power of God in my life, I don’t know what will. Throughout these first two months, I began to really wrestle with the idea of committing two years to full time missions and staffing this year’s July DTS. As I prayed about it, I felt the Lord pushing me in that direction. So, in my last month of BCC, I flew out to Kona and quarantined for almost three weeks while continuing my studies. BCC transformed the way that I view both myself and God! It was a three-month period that I will never forget! I am now considering a School of Biblical Studies (SBS) which is essentially a nine-month BCC. The main difference is that in BCC you inductively study around sixteen books of the Bible, whereas in SBS you inductively study all of them. In considering this I do feel like the Lord is asking me to leave Kona to study at a different base sometime in the future.

Our DTS students flew out about a week after BCC ended. I, along with three other staff, quarantined with them for another two weeks so that we could distribute food and start having one on one discussions with them. After this,we jumped directly into three months of lecture. Each week we invited different speakers to come and teach on many different subjects relating to personal growth in our relationships with God and the ability to effectively share Christ with others.

I thought that my main job in this time was to walk with the students as they were challenged to grow, which I did, but I did not expect God to continue working in me and changing me as much as He did. I have been in a “dry season” in my relationship with God for the past six-months, but He has used this time of struggle to show me how to recognize His presence in other ways. Looking back, this has been a huge blessing to me because I no longer have to wonder if He is real when I go through seasons of not “feeling Him.” Instead, I can look at the ways He has transformed me and the fruit that I have seen in my leadership when I invite Him to lead me, and then listen. I know this does not sound like much, but it has really helped teach me how to listen to my emotions without being led by them. I think this is a lesson our society desperately needs to learn.

Once lectures ended, my co leader, Hannah Schulteis, and I led a team of six into the local Kona community. At first the decision to stay in Kona was difficult for me, but as we prayed about it and began to ask God to align our will with His, God gave us both a deeper love for this area. Throughout this year, He revealed to the leadership of YWAM Kona just how much we had been neglecting our own home and the local people living here. We had been using it as a place to train up and send out thousands of missionaries all while neglecting the brokenness in our own backyard. Influenced by this, Hannah and I decided to partner with a local organization called Kona Kids Outreach (KKO). Throughout planning, we really felt the Lord’s blessing and were able to move into outreach excited for what He wanted to do.

Through a miracle our team ended up in a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house on a beautiful ranch in Kona Hawaii for only $120/night. That can barely get you a decent hotel room out here! (I would love to share more on that story if you would like to hear it.)  In prayer we felt the Lord telling us that He was going to give us a free 15 passenger van to use on outreach, and He did. We were able to go into outreach with fresh faith!

The ministry of KKO focuses on the Marshallese children and youth living in Kona. We helped to plan and facilitate worship nights, guy outings, park events, and tutoring sessions. We also participated in random events, including the assembly and distribution of goodie-bags, packing shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child, and driving several youth to church each Sunday (followed by afternoon hangouts / discussions about the sermon!). Hannah and I also felt the Lord telling us to help on the ranch with practical work while loving on the workers there, so we did work there 1-2 times a week!

This outreach was different. We did NOT see 100s of people give their lives to Christ, we did NOT see the blind being healed, and we did NOT see people delivered from demons.

But here is what we DID see. We DID see our students begin to walk out of mindsets that have been holding them back their entire lives. We DID see our students forgive people for prior hurts in their lives and the freedom that comes with that. We DID see complete transformation in the way that two of our students handle conflict. We DID see ranch workers experience the love of Christ. We DID see rest and life restored to the ministries that we partnered with. We DID see transformed views of local outreach. And I DID see a new confidence birthed in me that I had been seeking for years.

Our outreach wasn’t about seeing hundreds turn their lives to Jesus. Our outreach was about loving and serving everyone that we worked with so that they could take a break and enter back into their ministry feeling refreshed and ready for whatever comes next. And in the end, we were privileged enough to be a part of restoration between white people and the islanders. Here’s how: this past Friday 12/05/2020 our entire school performed a blessing in the Hawaiian language to those who had taken the time to train and equip us for outreach on the island. Something that we thought was a nice gesture turned out to be an answer to generations of prayer. As we finished our song, one of the locals began to respond. While struggling through her tears, she explained how this was the first time that her family and her ministry (Holoholo) had been honored. For YEARS they have been blessing and honoring YWAM and the local community around them, but nobody had ever honored them. She continued to explain how her grandma has prayed her whole life for something like this to happen, and how this is the beginning of restoration within the islands. It was a very powerful moment. I cannot explain how big of an honor it was to be used by God as part of an answer to the prayers of generations.

I recognize that this has been a long update, so I’ll keep the testimonies to a minimum, but I would love to share more. If you would like to hear more, just ask! Moving forward, I am planning on staffing around the base for the next couple of months before visiting home in February when my first nephew is born! I am very tired after this intense season, but am praying about staffing another DTS beginning in April.

After living in ministry for the past seven months, I have recognized a need for more financial support. I am living day to day just fine, but the reality is that if I am planning on doing ministry long term, I need to begin an emergency fund, an outreach fund, and a savings for retirement. After praying and thinking about it for the past several months I have decided that I need to raise roughly $700/month more than I am currently making. I have no problem explaining more in depth about the “why” behind each of these, but I don’t feel like that is the main purpose of this update. Please contact me if you have questions.

Like I just said, finances are NOT the main purpose of this email, but I still ask that you pray and consider supporting me financially in this journey that I am on. I would also love your support in prayer over my life, that the Lord would continue to support, mold, and grow me into the man that He originally intended me to be. If you feel led to support me, or would just like to talk, please contact me at caleb.tate@ywamships.net or shoot me a text to schedule a call at (678) 665-2070.

As always, I love you all and am genuinely thankful for your support in any capacity! I pray that this holiday season is full of blessings and growth for both you and your families.

Mahalo,

Caleb Tate

What’s Next?

BCC (April 2020)

What is a BCC?

BCC, or Bible Core Course is a 3 month course at YWAM (Youth With A Mission) in which students read through all 66 books of the Bible, studying 15 of them in depth. I will be taught how to practice the Inductive Bible Study method. Upon completion of the course, I will be able to form a solid biblical interpretation, and then apply the Bible in context to my own life.

I am so thankful for everyone who supported me throughout DTS and made that experience possible. I realize this may feel like I am asking for a lot and very quickly, I am. I do plan on using as much of my own money as possible to pay for this trip. However, it has become clear to me that I will not be able to pay for it all by myself, so I am asking you to help me in any way possible. This could be in the form of actual money, or if you could donate a plane ticket.. anything helps. The Lord has definitely called me to this school, so I know He will provide. All I ask of you is this… pray. Ask God if you are supposed to be a part of this next step of my adventure. If He calls you to donate financially, I will be receiving all of the donations through Paypal or paper check, or, email me with any other ideas or advice you have on ways to make this happen.

How much will I need?

Send Checks to:

Please, do not hesitate to email me with any questions/concerns you may have. You can reach me at cymt2019@gmail.com

Recap of What Has Happened So Far

July 2019 – November 2019

July 5th began what became the greatest season of spiritual growth in my life at my YWAM DTS (Discipleship Training School). I was in a position where I only had one focus, my relationship with Jesus. Throughout this time, my class of ten had ten weeks of classroom learning, each with a different speaker. Our first week we dove in head first with “Hearing God’s Voice”. It was a wonderful week full of practicing the art of listening to Him with FULL PERMISSION TO FAIL. After this week we learned about “the Character and Nature of God”, “the Cross and Forgiveness”, “Identity and Calling”, “Relationships and Sexuality”, “Holy Spirit/Spiritual Warfare”, “Biblical Worldview”, “Lordship and Fear of the Lord”, “Impact Week” (a different speaker each day), and finally “Missions”, where we had guest speakers share their experience on what is and what is not useful in the missions field. Each week presented its own unique challenges and opportunities for growth which I LOVE to share about, so please email me if you have any questions!
After months of growing with Jesus and learning more about who He says I am, it was time to spread His love. For me, and four other students, that meant going to Cambodia for a couple of months while the rest of the DTS class made their way to the Solomon Islands to preach and evangelize there. None of us knew what we were about to get ourselves into.

We spent the remainder of our time on the YWAM base in Poipet and in the surrounding schools and churches. We started our day as a team with devotional time, each student leading once a week for 30 minutes. In devotional time we shared what God was teaching us.

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Monday through Wednesday mornings the team would split up into two smaller teams and go to private schools to teach English to children varying in age from 6-16. Thursday and Friday morning ministry would change from week to week depending on the need of the community. After morning ministry we’d head back to the base, recover and prepare for the afternoon ministry which ranged from doing maintenance around the base, or teaching English at the base, to giving the Holy Spirit free reign to do whatever He chose. Our evenings were spent at New Life Church which doubled as a Christian -based English school on the weekdays. I was blessed enough to teach the same group of people for an hour every evening. In this setting we had the opportunity to spread the love of Jesus and operate from a place of servant leadership.

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