Genesis 1:1

Here is the YWAM pilgrimage website:
http://mrmdts.org/schools/pilgrimage-dts/

This blog is dedicated to Erin and Jeff Burton's trip to New Zealand to experience God like never before.  We are going to a Pilgrimage Discipleship Training School (DTS) through Youth With A Mission (YWAM). YWAM's mission is "To Know God and Make Him Known." The Pilgrimage DTS is a school which uses Backpacking as a platform to share the gospel.

People have been asking us "Why now?" We want to make Jesus the highest priority in our lives and our marriage and for us that means taking some time out to find out what that really means. We have prayed about this for several years and it has been in the works since we got married two years ago. At this point in our lives we are able to take some time out between finishing our degrees and starting our careers. We're hoping to learn a lot about ourselves and about Jesus and use what we learn as a strong foundation for the rest of our lives. We also feel that we can take what we learn back to our hometown to help build up our community in Christ.

The reason that we chose New Zealand is because we know several of the staff members there and know that the base in New Zealand works well with couples. This is important to us because we will be there for 5 months. We compared this location with several others as far as price and experience and they are all fairly comparable. We prayed about New Zealand and felt peace with going there. We are both interested in the backpacking experience because we will get to travel some of the beautiful landscape of New Zealand and witness to other backpackers in a casual campfire setting.

We leave for New Zealand on October 10th and return March 1st. Our trip is broken up into two segments. The first three months are training in New Zealand. The last two months we will be doing outreach in Southeast Asia. Our training will be both spiritual and physical. We will learn in a classroom setting for part of the time and out on the trails for three separate weeks. Some of the topics that will be covered include learning about God's character, how to pray, and how to present the Gospel. On outreach we will use what we learned to spread the gospel by partnering with local churches, doing practical work, street evangelism, leading church services, and through prayer ministry.