Monica Villagomez: DTS Recap

For the past five months I have been participating in a school Discipleship Training School, for the first three months I was in the beautiful state of Montana where it was there during the lecture phase that I had a realization of who God really was.
Lecture phase was fantastic; Jesus worked so much in my life, and the lives of my fellow DTS’ers. It was an awesome time to live in constant “ Community”. Our days began with worship, what a blessing it was to get to spend every morning worshiping Jesus corporately. We then went into bible overview or intercession. Then we had lectures, we had topics from the Missions and pioneering all the way to Father Heart of God. Each week God showed me who he was and how much he loved me. I could feel the wounds and hurt from my past begin to heal. I was able to discoverer my true Identity in Christ and come to the realization that he calls me his daughter!
This whole time in Montana was just an awesome process of Jesus showing me how faithful and good He is. He is always so good to give us more as we continue to run after Him. He always has more to teach us more to show us, and deeper places to bring us to. What an honor is has been to allow him to take me deeper and deeper. I came into this school, with so much hurt and even doubt but Jesus came in and took my heart and began to put it back together showing me that it is ok to trust again. The base did a commissioning for all the DTS students before we went out on Outreach. and we all made signs, one side was a before statement, the other side a after statement, basically just stating what Jesus has done is us through DTS, mine read, Filled with Brokenness lost in shame................ Filled with Purity Found in freedom

I can honestly say that I learned so much form my fellow DTSers we all went through a journey together and came out as new creations in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefor if anyone is in Christ He is a new creation, the old is gone the new has come".

That's not all! The next two months we went on outreach there were five different locations, Cambodia, South Africa, Taiwan and the Philippians, Thailand, and Iceland. I of course went to Iceland. However that was not my first choice I was determined to go to South Africa, But God had other plans and met me there. Iceland was not at all what I was expecting. I found myself challenged, stretched, and at most times at loss for words but at the same time I have never felt so close to God. I realized that I had to lean into him to trust in him that he knew what he was doing and that he was going to use me while I was there. During our time in Iceland we had many opportunities to serve such as helping out with the local churches, helping with the Salvation Army, youth groups, downtown night ministry, and even children's hospitals. God used us through building relationships with the people of Iceland. They learned that they could trust us as well as God. They learned that God would never leave them or hurt them. It was really awesome being able to watch some of the transformations unfold before our eyes. At times the team struggled; we lost sight of why we were there and doubted that we were even making a difference. Many times we would come home discouraged or frustrated because we weren't seeing any fruit or people didn't want to listen to us. we realized that It was not about us, that God could save the whole country of Iceland and not even need our help, but he wants us to be apart of a big picture we cannot do it on our own we need Jesus. We learned that it’s just living life with him and through the way you live and love Jesus people can see. That. Overall I loved outreach, my team became so close and we were able to make awesome friendships that will last.