A Youth with a Mission

Session 29: Ninth Story, Feature story: Ashley Wire, ARCC Student
December 2, 2009

“When I heard them talk about Youth With a Mission, it was like a knife to my heart,” Anoka-Ramsey Community College (ARCC) student, Ashley Wire said, “I told myself, I need to look into this.”

Wire was a student at ARCC during her junior and senior years in high school, but before returning to college as an undergraduate, she decided to take five months away, after high school graduation in 2008, from “the real world” to spend time building a stronger relationship with God.

Youth With a Mission Discipleship Training School (YWAM DTS) is a 5-6 month Christian missionary training school geared toward young adults. “A DTS is about knowing God and making Him known,” Wire said, “It holds onto the call to make disciples of all nations and baptize them in the Holy Spirit.”

And YWAM’s mission is just that, while describing what a DTS is, they say that it is a “group of young people who are passionate about knowing God and making him known to all the nations of the earth, and every tribe and tongue across the globe.”

A DTS is split up into two phases. “The lecture phase is three months and outreach is two months,” Wire said. The lecture phase, Wire said, is about them empowering the students, and teaching them to walk in boldness with the armor of Christ. Wire spent the lecture phase in Denver, Colo., and for outreach she had the choice of Ukraine or Mexico. “I was pretty convinced I would go to the Ukraine then,” Wire said, “but God had other plans and I went to Mexico instead.”

Wire said that she had been to Mexico in the past, and so there wasn’t much of a culture shock for her, “but it was challenging,” Wire said. She said one of the biggest initial challenges in Mexico was the rain. “It was short lived but it felt like the rain was keeping us from being effective and doing street ministry,” Wire said, “But God used that to refresh us.”

Street ministry was what Wire’s team did most often during the week. It consisted of skits, dances, music, personal testimonies and altar calls, which were invitations to come forth and express a desire for a personal faith in Christ.

Wire said that one specific street ministry event still stands out in her mind vividly. “We had set up to do street ministry in a random muddy street, in the middle of nowhere,” Wire said, “there really was nothing around, there were a bunch of dilapidated huts, muddy roads and no one there.”

Her team went out to find people to come to their ministry outreach that evening, “It was awkward,” she said, “walking up to strangers, some of which were breastfeeding their babies! It felt so weird.” Wire said that she was assigned the responsibility to share her personal testimony of faith that night and give the altar call and was really worried because of the situation. “I began to take on all these unnecessary responsibilities and thoughts,” Wire said, “But God really came through that night.” Wire said that all their skits and dramas went perfectly that night, and so many people became Christians. Wire said, “It just blew my mind of what I thought God could do in a small place.”

The most fun days of outreach, Wire said, were the ones when they weren’t doing street ministry. Wire said that nearly every day except Sundays and occasional Saturdays were spent doing street ministry. “It was fun when we’d hear from God some days to just make it about the kids and relationships with the people there,” Wire said. Whether it was basketball or face painting, Wire said, “Just being there was enough to catch people’s attention.”

Since returning to her home in Elk River, Minn., she has continued attending Anoka-Ramsey as a part-time student with the desire to get into the nursing program. She also works part-time at a group home. Even though the trip was over a year ago, Wire said that it has had a lasting impact on her life. “It’s really given me the tools to deal with life in the real world,” Wire said, “I became so solid in my walk with Christ,” Wire said, “I had been a Christian for years before, but to have that concentrated significant devotion was a time to teach me and refresh me.”

Wire said she would definitely encourage anyone who is interested to pursue a DTS, “I’d tell them to be prepared to have their heart changed and life turned around. It really rocked some of my traditional mind sets,” Wire said.