Well, now it comes down to crunch time with decisions. I have finished the course and am ready to move on. But to where? What should I do next? There are not a great deal of options right now, but these are some of them: My Decision After much consideration, I have come to the conclusion that I will end up staying on at the Corrientes base for up to one year. I will now explain how I came to this decision below, as it was not one made lightly. I Could Not Return First, I need to make it clear that returning to Australia or New Zealand was not one of my options. Why? Because I knew when I was leaving there that God had told me clearly I would never return there to live. So for the rest of my life I expect to be a fugitive in some other country, working in some way for God. Not only this, but I also know that God has called me to Argentina, and I have learned over the years that when God calls, I continue in what He has called me to do until He tells me to do something else. To do anything other than this is to invite unrest and worry into my life. While I continue to obey Him there is a complete peace that surrounds my whole being. Why YWAM So then, why decide on staying at YWAM? Not looking at Corrientes, but the whole YWAM organisation, it is actually one of the last places that I would ever have wanted to join. Even the thought of doing the DTS course which I have just finished was not something very high on my list of "wants." I just could never see myself as a "YWAMer". I had met some people which I considered wierd when I was quite young and when I found out they were part of the YWAM crowd, it tainted my view of the organisation for a long time. It never occurred to me that some of my good friends were also part of this very same organisation. The vision of YWAM is to know God and make Him known to others. This is done through practically helping the poor and needy as well as working in schools, training people, and working alongside of local churches. Yet before I even knew about all of this I knew I was going to stay. Doing The Course The thing is, that as I was travelling towards Corrientes in the 11 hour journey from Buenos Aires, I had a strange feeling in my soul that I would be staying here for a while, even though I was turning up in person just to say I would not be doing the course. When I arrived at the base for YWAM in Corrientes, I absolutely hated the place. The buildings were unfinished, there was mud everywhere, and the whole place was tiny. I was ready to leave again right then and there. That was when I heard God speak clearly to me, telling me to stay. It was like a thought that cut across every other thought in my head. I cannot explain it any other way. Everything in me wanted to go and I was thinking at the time of how I could make my excuse to leave. Now God was telling me that I should stay. The more I tried to leave, the stronger the feeling was that I should stay. I did not like it, but I have learned many times now to obey the voice of God. So I stayed, and am very glad that I did. A Vision While I was in Buenos Aires, during the months that I had totally forgotten that I had applied to do the DTS course in Corrientes, I was reading a book about Lauren Cunningham, the founder of YWAM. While I was reading this book in my hotel room, I had a vision of me sitting in a certain type of chair in a room that I had never seen, writing a report on this book. I shook it out of my head, thinking that I would never do such a thing and wondering what it was all about. Well, several weeks into my DTS course, I was given this very same book to read and write a book report. I had totally forgotten about the vision many months before. One weekend I was required to watch the phones, and so was sitting in a building on the base that I had rarely been in. Suddenly the vision that I had in Buenos Aires came back to me, just as I reached the same part of the book that I had been reading there. Now I was living it. Everything that I had seen in the vision in Buenos Aires, I was now doing, including the chair and the room. It was clear confirmation that I was in the right place, doing the right thing. Further Confirmation Even during the first weeks of the course I was sure that I would be staying on here. There was not really any way that I could explain it, but it was sort of a deep knowing that I would stay. During my times of prayer I would wrestle with this, wanting to be sure that I was doing the right thing by staying on. After all, there were some of my trusted friends who were telling me that they did not agree with this. Eventually, through prayer and much consideration, I made the decision to stay. I immediately felt a peace about my decision, and knew that it was right. The timeframe that I set to stay was around one year. Normally I would commit to more time than this, but this felt right to me, and it was accepted by the Director of the base here. Only later I discovered that two years was normally the minimum accepted commitment. Staff That Agreed As the course continued (I made my decision to stay actually quite early in the course, and confirmed it again at the end), I spoke to some of the staff members about my decision to stay on. I was very surprised at how many of them already were certain that I would be staying on, even before I had made any decision. There were more than six staff members that had already felt certain that I would be staying, and none that considered that I would not be staying. I took this also as confirmation of my decision. The Final Say Of course there is always a choice involved. Sometimes we do things that are wrong, or make decisions based on emotions. I do not believe that I have done this, and am sure that I have made the right decision for now. At the end of my time here I will pray and find out what God wants me to do next. I suspect that I will not be staying any longer than the one year, but only time will tell this for sure. Until then, I will be found in Corrientes. What I Will Do Now that you know I am staying, you may be wondering what I will be doing there while working on the base. Well, the short and most truthful answer is that I really do not know. However, I do suspect that I will be involved in the area of communictions which does involve computers but also video conferencing and sending out letters and other items of communication. In addition to this could also be translation, working with some of the schools there, and perhaps helping to build the buildings. But really, I have no idea. These things will be decided on the 10th of January when we are all required to be back at the base again. That will be our official day of starting. After this day I will be able to tell you what I will be doing there. So expect an email then with more information. Summary So this is what I expect to be doing over the next year. After this I really have no idea, but when the end of the year rocks around I will be searching out my alternatives. It could well be that I do end up staying longer, but right now that seems very unlikely. It is possible that I will explore one of the other options listed above. So if you were wondering, "what now?", you now know. If you have any comments or thoughts on this, feel free to let me know. Have a great day, Rob.