Youth with a mission (YWAM) is a global movement founded in the 1960s by Loren Cunningham after he’d seen a vision of waves reaching out to every country. Loren believed God that he would provide, and pave a path for Youth of this next generation to reach out into all the earth! This movement has spread into 180+ different countries, and has 20,000+ workers stirred up to champion youth. Everyone in Ywam is a volunteer from the students, school staff, finance office, kitchen staff, media staff, to the leaders; nobody earns any salary. We all either collect from the gracious support from others who give into those who are sent out, or simply trust God to provide.

YWAM ROGALAND

Ywam Rogaland, our base in Norway runs many different schools such as Backpack Discipleship training school (DTS), Wind & waves DTS, School of worship (SOW), Bible core course (BCC), and School of ministry development (SOMD). The DTS’ run as a school from Jan-June season and Aug-March as a primary school so typically the first thing people take when coming to YWAM is a DTS. Students will apply for a DTS and we accept students from any part of the world so our base has been mixed with up to 16 different cultures at times! In DTS there are two phases: the lecture phase, and outreach. The lecture phase is where the students are in Norway and learn from 10 different teachers with different topics throughout 10 weeks. These teachers again come from all over the world. The lecture phase is a time where the students get to know God in a deeper way than when living a regular life, but get to learn from teachers who’ve given their life to serving God and studying the word. 

The lecture phase sets them up for success to take on the Outreach phase where a few different teams are formed of 6-8 student and 2 staff leaders. They’re sent into all of the world on a short term mission trip of around 9 weeks. The DTS staff prepare local contacts within the countries that they pray about and choose. Then the Local contacts set up the ministries that the team will do when they arrive. They get an introduction to the culture of the country and off to the races they begin ministry! Then at the end of Outreach they debrief, have a few fun days and head back to base in Norway. After arriving at base there’s usually one more week of debrief teaching to give time to reflect on the 6 month experience, then they’re sent out to go back home.