Marcelo At YWAM Denver

As a kid growing up my parents always took me to church and tought me right from wrong.  They loved me with an unconditional love for which I am so grateful, because I didn’t always make it easy for them to love me.  When I was about 13 I can remember going to a youth group event and being shaken to my core.  That night while I was laying in bed I asked myself one of the toughest questions I’ve ever asked, “if I die tonight where would I go?”  At that point in my life I realized that my relationship with Christ wasn’t anywhere near as good as He wanted it to be.  At that point I truly gave my life to Christ.

I wish I could continue this testimony with stories of how I totally sought after God and my relationship with Him grew, but that is not the case, unfortunately.  through out high school and college I struggled a lot with being accepted by my peers and, because of that my relationship with God suffered greatly.  I began to worry more about what my friends thought of me and how I could become the popular kid.  This lead to me making some really poor choices throughout high school and college.  Even though I knew what I was doing was wrong and not what God wanted for my life I still continued to go down this destructive path.  There would be times that God would give me a reality check and I would have a mountain top experience with Him, but that would only last a couple of weeks then I was right back to doing the same old things.  After living this way for so long I began to realize how truly empty I was inside.  All the things that I’d been doing and all the friends  that I thought was bringing me fulfillment seemed to all of the sudden leave me feeling empty and alone.  I knew from growing up in the church and being involved with youth group that God was reaching out to me and wanting to have a relationship with me.  But I had no idea how to do that.

At this time a friend of mine was in Arvada Colorado doing a Disciple Training School with YWAM Denver.  About four months after I felt like God was calling me to start a brand new relationship with Him I get a phone call from my friend who is in Colorado doing this DTS.  He calls me and tells me all about what he is doing and how God has transformed his life.  He then tells me, “Marcelo I think you should come out here and check this place out and think about doing a DTS yourself.  So, I agreed to go and check the place out for a couple of days just to see what all the hype was about.  While I was there I could feel God’s presence and I wanted more.  Before I left to go home my friend told me that he felt that God wanted me to come back the next weekend and start my Disciple Training School.  Now in order for me to come back the next weekend and start my training I needed 3,500 dollars, which I didn’t have at all.  So, I told my friend that I would pray about it and if God really wanted me to come back, God would have to some how provide me with the funds.  I’m pretty sure at that point God chuckled a little bit.  I made my way back home thinking there is no way that this could ever happen.  By the time Wednesday rolled around and I still didn’t have the money I pretty much knew that it wasn’t going to happen, but God had other plans, because on Thursday I got a phone call telling me to pack my bags and head to Colorado, because my DTS had been paid for.  I couldn’t believe it, but it was true all of the money that I needed to start the school had come in.  So I packed my bags and headed out.  During my Disciple Training School (which is five months long, three months of lectures and two months of outreach to another country) I learned how to have a deep and intimate relationship with God.

After my DTS I took some time off and went back to work for two and a half years, then I felt the Lord calling back to YWAM and full-time ministry.  I left my job and decided to do a leadership training school with YWAM Denver.  The school was called Phase Two and it is designed for people who are serious about going into ministry full-time.  During my Phase Two I began to really seek God on what type of ministry he wanted me to get involved in.  He never really gave me a specific answer, but He did challenge me in the area of serving.  I began to serve wherever I was needed and through that God revealed to me that serving was the type of ministry I was called to.  After praying and talking with several people about joining YWAM Denver staff I felt that joining staff would be a great opportunity to continue to serve and also to grow deeper in my walk with Christ.  Being on staff is not something I get paid money to do, my reward is seeing the lives of young people transformed by God.  I will be on staff for at least a year and a half serving and disciplining in whatever way God wants to use me.  Thank you for allowing me to share with you a little bit about how God has brought me to this place in my life.

God Bless You