2nd day of outreach!

Hey everybody,
Wow it was good to be home and it sure went fast. It was awesome to be home and see friends and family and just spend Christmas at home. It was a very busy yet refreshing week. Renita and I feel charged up and ready for outreach. Thank you to all of you who shared Christmas greetings with us and sorry to the many we did not get to see, especially the body at ACTS. We look forward to seeing evreryone in mid march when we are home for break.
Outreach has officially started! We just wanted to let you all know that our team and Renita and I made it safely to Kingston by Bus. We are staying at Danya Hess's (our other staff person) parents house even though its a bit crowded, it is sweet! Our view looks out over the City of Kingston which makes up 1/3rd of the population in Jamaica. Propery we feel placed to stand interceding for what the Lord wants to do in Jamaica.
Today we went out to minister just down the road from where we are staying. We held an open air worship session and we got to talk with people and just bless them and chill with them. Super Awesome! We have a lot planned for the week ahead so continue to keep us in your prayers as we move forward into what God is doing in Kingston, Jamaica. We will be ministering in churches, youth groups, schools and lots of prayer walking through town. We will also continue to do open air worship tmes in key spots in Kingston.
Please pray for us as outreach leaders that we would lead with wisdom and really care for the team and be lead by the Spirit and for our marriages. The leaders are John and Danya Hess and Renita and I.
Also pray for the students - Annina Bernhard, Stephanie Tronson, Shawn Milton, and Matt Cassel - that they would hear clearly from the Lord and walk in obedience. Our group is awesome! The students rock and their hunger for God is a really fun thing to walk beside! We appreciate your prayers!
May the Lord bless you and keep you

God's Grace is Sufficient!

Wow so the last three weeks were by far the busiest weeks of the DTS thus far. We had Thanksgiving, Go Broncos! It was a great dinner we had turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes rolls, just like a nice normal Thanksgiving meal except for the 85 degree weather, shorts, t-shirt, sandals oh yeah. It was real fun! But we definitely missed home. We did also go around and share some things that we were all thankful for which was awesome!!

As for the DTS, the school has been very good we had three different topics taught in the last three weeks; The Father/Family/Mother heart of God, Spiritual Warfare, and The King and His Kingdom wich included Discipling Nations and People Groups. The Speakers were great and the class really enjoyed them.

We are sadened to say that we did have a student go home that I(Josh) poured a lot of time into into. Please pray for him. He really struggled through the school and he just decided that enough was enough and he chose to try to run from his problems. So please pray for him, his name is Jordan. This was hard on everybody so pray for the other students and staff as well. We were all rooting for him!

We did a couple other things outside of the DTS. We had a pastors prayer breakfast which was totally awesome. We hosted about 30 different pastors from different parts of Jamaica and just shared our vision as YWAM Jamaica and internationally. We got to share our vision of St. Vincent and Mayreau being discipled as well, which was really cool. It was a lot of fun to be a part of small steps of uniting the church of Jamaica for Jesus! We also did quite a number of various different outreach's hear in Montego Bay. We did get to serve by doing some demolition for a christian deaf school and we also got to go to nearby church and give the service. We look forward to doingg another church service at another church this upcoming weekend. Its awesome!!

We also got to baptize one of our students on the DTS, Silvia Moser, a 27 year old from Switzerland. Renita has worked very closely with her being her small group leader and Silvia asked Renita if we would baptize her, so we got the honor and priveledge to be apart of that big decision in her life. Honestly it floored us to be apart of that. We will never forget it!

Outreach is also coming together for Kingston Jamaica and St. Vincent and Mayreau. Please continue to pray for the Lord to really pave the road for us as we go to minister. Outreach starts on the 28th of December. Sounds like we will be working with the schools in St. Vincent and Mayreau in Devotion times in the morning and also evening services at different churches and kids events. We have a couple contacts that we will be working with when we get there so we are super excited as a team! We will also be doing a lot of servant ministry like just cleaning streets offering our services to random people and hopefully having their hearts softened and doors will be opened in sharing the Love of jesus with people.

Praise: The Lord has asked one of the DTS Students -Shawn Milton- to help pioneer YWAM SVG with us. He is an awesome 24 year old Jamaican. Please be in prayer for him as he tries to raise finances. If anyone is interested in supporting him just e-mail me.

Woohoo! We are coming home in 7 days! We are really looking forward to spending Christmas with family and friends. We will be attending Weaverland Mennonites 1st service on the 20th and we will be speaking at ACTS Covenant Felloship's service the same day. We look forward to seeing a lot of you guys there!

Thanks again for all your prayers. Trust me Renita and I really feel like the last three weeks we have been carried because we know that we would not have been able to do all that we did with out His grace and your prayers.

On the 9th Week!!

The Last two weeks have been awesome!! The 8th of Nov. to the 13th we went to Mandeville Jamaica and stayed at the YWAM base there. That week we really focused on doing outreach in the community there and team building exercises as we prepare for outreach in our individual teams. We got to go out into the town, going door to door spreading the good news of our Savior and praying with people. We got to work in the school on the property and teach in class about friendships and the qualities of a good friend. We also got to go to hold a youth service at a local church and go to a old persons home for retired veterans. It was such a great experince for us as a school. We got to sing for people, cry with people, hold people, and just show the love of God to so many people! Truly awesome!

So our outreach though for real is coming up in a little over a month. Our school is going to two different Nations besides Jamaica for outreach; St. Vincent and St. Croix. Renita and I and another couple on staff will be heading up the St. Vincent team. There are 4 students on our team. We are truly excited about this. Our team is really gelling well and the Lord is really speaking to each person on the team.

After the week in Mandeville we had an elder Jamaican woman come share on REDEMPTION and RELATIONSHIPS from the 16th to the 20th! It was truly an awesome week for Renita and I to listen to her teaching and really soak it up. She has been married for 51 years and she always tells us that her marriage continues to grow stronger each day! She is a truly precious woman! This really sparked a lot of things in the students and Renita and I were able to walk through/minister to some students at a real heart level. It is really awesome to see God be made bigger in persons lives knowing that God is actually using us to further His kingdom plans in other persons lives. We are so grateful for what the Lord is doing. Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we step into things that are unkonw to us. Praise the Lord they are not unknown to Him!

As far as outreach goes we are coming along well with direction for evangelism and ministry and accomadations, Praise God for all this! We have a contact actually on Mayreau who is the pastor of the only church on Mayreau. This is a huge answer to prayer. The pastor is really excited for us to come and minister and work along side him. We desire as a mission to partner and build up the local congregations not seperate them and hold ourselves higher than the church. This is also a very good thing as we go into long term relations with the church. We are super excited!!!!

We are doing well as a couple as well. We are looking forward to coming home for Christmas in three weeks. But we are really enjoying ourselves here in Jamaica working with the school. Its quite intense but We continue to look at each other and say "This is benefiting us more than the students." We are so blessed to be where we are even though it is hard in a lot of ways! Thanks to God for His Grace. We would be lost with out it. Thank you for your continued prayers!

7th Week: Fire to Freedom

Wow, the last three weeks have been much fuller than the weeks past. We are doing well though. The Lord is giving us Grace and He is pursuing Renita and I passionately right now. We feel like He is really purging us even more, which is kinda hard right now. But We know that it is for our own Good!

The DTS is full. We had a wonderfullast two weeks, just a little fuller than we would have liked. We didnt get to have a weekend off, we actually had a 13 hour lecture on Sat. and a 8 hour lecture on Sunday. So Renita and I are looking forward to this weekend and the students as well. This past week of teaching was on Discipline and living a life that is Concious to God. The week before that we had a Sexual Purity teaching and it was filled with ministry and some of the students and staff being set free from footholds and different things. At the end of the week of Sexual Purity the students wrote up a Covenant to God and they were given Purity Bracelets. It was excellent. The Lord used it and He is prospering us all!

One of the main things that you can be in prayer for is our planning our short term outreach in January and February. We bought our tickets and we will be flying to St. Vincent on the 8th and we wont be getting back to Jamaica until the 18th of February.

Also this upcoming week we will be going to another YWAM base in Jamaica(Mandeville) for the week. We will be evangelising and also building Team unity as we get ready for our outreach to St. Vincent. Thank you so much for all your prayers. Much blessings!!

Fire to Freedom: 5th week!

This past week and a half has been awesome! The Lord is moving and setting people free including Renita and I. We both feel like the Lord is really using us even though we are so not perfect at all. Jesus is truly walking with us, or should i say we are actually learning to walk with Him. This last week of teaching was about the Fear of the Lord. For us it really made us look inward and repent for a lot of different things that we carried for a lot of our lives. The Holy Spirit is really teaching Renita and I a lot in this season. And the students are having visual breakthrough. We got to pray with some of the students that came to us on their own and Jesus set them free from some deep stuff. Continue to hold the students and us in your prayers.

This past weekend we got to do some evangelizing in the town of Montego Bay. We took 120 meals into down town and we passed out food and prayed a lot with homeless people. It was quite an amazing experience. The students loved it and it impacted them greatly. We do evangelism once a week, last week we went to a deaf school and just loved on them. God is using us. Its awesome!! We just need to learn to step out more, we know we can be doing more!! Thank you so much for your constant prayers for Renita and I. We feel like our marriage is at its strongest point and we pray that it will continue to get stronger. We do covet your prayers and ask that you would continue to pray for breakthrough in the students lives. Thank you so much for your prayers!

This upcoming week will be even more exciting. The speaker is Nancy Harper. She is from Canada but has spent twenty years of her life ministering in the Caribbean with her husband and children. I believe she is speaking about deliverance and identity. Pray for us! The Lord is faithful!!

Josh and Renita

"But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners!" -Romans 5:8

From Renita and i both we hope all is well with you. Here in Jamaica it is beautiful and busy. We are full-time staff/leaders now with the Discipleship Training School (DTS) here in Jamaica. For those who are not familiar with the DTS, it is a 5 month long school split up into two parts. The first three months is lecture phase filled with teaching, trainins and also evangelism once a week. The next two months after lecture are called "outreach." We will be headed to St. Vincent for our outreach working with schools, street and door to door evangelism, orphanages, sports evangelism, colleges and many more things. This DTS has 14 students (at the bottom of this message they are listed by name if you would like to pray for them and staff too). We have six differnent nations represented in this school; Jamaica, America, Switzerland, England, Canada, and Barbados.
This is such an exciting time for us seeing these students being set free from different things that they have lived with for so long. It truly is sweet! The students are hungry for God and it only stirs us up as staff to be the platform that they can stand on. We are here to help them grow. We are not their God but their never-ending attow pointing them to Jesus! We got to hear all the students testimonies and man was it beart breaking. Some of these students are coming completely broken, some carrying lots of baggage and some are ready to go save the world... so awesome to have all these students going after God! We are slowly in the spirit unpacking the things that these students have been burdened with. Please be proclaiming God's truth and victory over the students and us as staff as we expose the lies the enemy has planted in some og the students and us. Pray that they would receive revelation of God's jealous burning love that crushes the head of the enemy! Specifically some of the things that coming up against if you want to pray for freedom from in the DTS is the spirit of rejection, fear of man, pride and a religious spirit.
GOD IS ABLE!
The spiritual warfare is pretty thick right now. We have been reminded from a vision that Renita had last week in the early morning. An angel came and told Renita to follow her out to our living room. In the living room stood twelve angels and thhe main message they gave to Renita was the "By the Blood of Jesus, We as Saints of God have Power in the heavenlies." In the vision she also sensed there was demonic influence among the DTS. We have been strongly encouraged as staff by God's encouragement through this vision to pray and Freedom will come to these students! Every single One! The Lord is really speaking to us! Its quite ridiculously awesome! God is working for His glory!
Please be in prayer for Renita and I in this season. Its quite busy and we need a continual supply of grace from our Father to not only walk in love with these students but to really call forth their destinies that are hidden in God! We are doing well as a couple. The Lord has been gracious to us and extremely faithful. We have felt the attack on our marriage the last two weeks the spiritual atmosphere became thicker but we have been able to walk in victory in the midst of the battle!! Praise God that the Holy Spirit is here with us and He is our comforter and our protector! We appreciate your prayers and we can honestly say that Renita and I not be able to do what we are doing without your prayers, so Thank You, Thank You, Thank You for your prayers! Amidst the business of the DTS Renita and I are continuing to discern the will of the Lord for our lives, what that is to look like day-to-day AND how our lives are to be used over the next months and few years to position us for God's best and His glory. We are really learning to lean our everything on God and the whispers of the Holy Spirit!
We do miss home quite a bit, hanging out with friends and family and especially our home congregations ACTS and WMC! We love you guys and are praying for the Lord to continue moving in both churches!! We have plugged into a great church here in Jamaica, it's just a little hard walking into our church and not really knowing anybody, but we know that we are exactly were God wants us!
We are especially joyful though right now! My parents, Tim and Sandy Lapp were just here with us and we enjoyed a super fun weekend full of cliff diving, rook, walking and talking, and really praying and ministering to each other! The same was true a month ago when Renita's parents, Ron and Erma Weaver, came for the same amount of time. We are really blessed with the families that we have! Thank you to everyone who sent candies and cards and money and lots of other things for us! You made Renita smile especially big with clothing and choclate!!
Thank You!
This past week there was a building committee meeting in Lancaster to talk about the building process of the base in St. Vincent and Mayreau, unfortunately Renita and I were not there to attend. We are still in need of people who are willing to help! We do now have a blueprint for the base in YWAM St. Vincent and Mayreau. The Lord is speaking and moving in the whole process!! It is so exciting to see God moving in the Caribbean! If you would like to get involved please e-mail us!
Thank you again for taking the time to read our blog! We appreciate and miss all of you! We pray that you are blessed and encouraged as you read and pray! Go Bless and may you walk knowing that it is not you who live but it is Christ that lives inside of you! Gal 2:20!
Josh and Renita

Pictures From the Last Two Weeks

Pic 1: The whole DTS, Staff and Students. 6 nations in all. 14 students and 7 staff

Pic 2: DTS lecture teaching (Bill Landis teaching on Gods Character)

Pic 3: Me picking a coconut for my parents and Renita.

Pic 4: Starfish found snorkeling in Negril.

Pic 5: Dave Alexander teaching on "Truth."

Pic 6: My awesome parents and Renita and I

enjoying a night out!

Hey Everyone!!
Josh and I are doing well here in Montego Bay, Jamaica. We just had the privilege of celebrating our one year anniversary this past weekend! We took time away at a resort close by to celebrate our marriage. We had a great time of relaxation, refreshment and hearing from the Lord!!!

My parents came to visit us!! We had such a good time. It was great to have a piece of home come to us!!! The picture of us is at Dunn's River Falls. We also got to go to Rick's Cafe and watch Josh and many more crazy people jump off a 40 ft. cliff.

Last week for us was an eventful week. Our base director here had her mother pass away unexpectedly. We as staff made a 5 hour drive to St. Thomas for the funeral. Four days after the death of our director's mother we recieved tragic news from the other YWAM base here in Jamaica. Cameroy, son of a ywam Jamaican staff leader, was stuck by lighting killing him instantly. Shortly after this event members from the same base were in a car accident, thankfully no one was seriously injuried. We have heavy hearts for the family and the other base here in Jamaica.

The two pictures here are of the staff at the two YWAM Jamaica bases. We are having worship time one of them and a group photo in the other.

Josh and I as well as YWAM Jamaica have felt this heavy attack from the enemy within the last month. From things being stolen to the events above.

We are looking forward to the upcoming Discipleship Training School(DTS) staff training which starts on the 14th of September. We have currently 8 staff and 16 students for the DTS which begins the 21st of September. This week we are just running around getting ready for the DTS.

We thank all of you for reading our blog and for praying for us as well. Please feel free to email us and just let us know how you are doing. A pray that has been anwsered is our computer is fixed and we should have it by this weekend. Praise the Lord!!! thank you for keeping that in your prayers! Plus we didn't pay anything for the fixing of it!

May God Bless you. May He make His face shine upon you. Be His witnesses!!
With Much Love to all of you!
Josh and Renita Lapp

Jamaica!!

Well we packed up and said good-bye to all our friends in St. Croix. We had an amazing time with Kings Kids and enjoyed seeing the youth grow and also reach out to the community. It was a challenge to say good-bye yet excited for the next step. We are now in Jamaica, we arrived safely last thursday. Thank you to everyone who kept us in your prayers. I (Renita) was sick for 3 days before we left for Jamaica. Even on the plane ride my stomach was not yet settled. Praise the Lord that my health is fully back! You can pray us in your prayers as we adjust to the culture here and get use to our position here on the base. Also communication will be harder for us. Our laptop needs a new hard drive and we are unable to use it right now. So the next month will be challenging for us to communicate but we hope to do our best and keep all of you informed!
Blessings and much love!
Josh and Renita lapp

Kings Kids!

Wow this past week has really been awesome and intense. The campers from the island are doing great. We have had several kids leave on the account of missing home and also just the intense environment. The camp is really for kids who know the Lord, although half of the kids that came never accepted Christ as their own Savior. Now all the kids who remain which is 16 campers in all have accepted Christ. Two of the Girls, Elizabeth and Rashan left beacause there mother said they had to and the left sadly because they were begining to see Jesus for the 1st time. So pray that the seeds that were planted in the 1st 3 days would sprout in their hearts. The teachings are great. Very basic but deep teachings as well, sometimes I wonder if the kids are grasping the teachings but the main focus of Kings Kids is to never underestimate the students/kids. The teachings are filled with all kids of dramas and exciting events that the campers get involved with. Like the picture above on the left. It is wonderful, we have seen significant growth in all of the kids. They are understanding the teachings. It really is excititng to see lives being transformed right in front of our eyes.

Renita and I are helping as much as possible. We help lead worship every night and we try to sit in all the classes that are held. I am helping with the Basketball outreach team and Renita is helping with the Dance and Coreography team. This coming weekend we will go off the base and do evagelism through sports, drama and dance. We are so excited to be apart of this camp. Please pray for us. Our schedule is full from 7am to 9:30pm so pray for strength and that our hearts would continue to grow for the Caribbean youth. Pray also for our Marriage as well. we are begining to realize more and more how key it is to keep our marriage healthy and thriving at all times as we are here. Praise God that He is Good and he has kept us from falling!!

We have received word that our permits for Jamaica are coming as well so praise God for that. We are planning to leave for Jamaica in the next two weeks to start preparing for the upcoming DTS that we will be staffing. Continue praying though for our permits because we dont have them yet.

I leave you with a verse in John 12:23-24 "Now the time has come for the Son of Man to enter into His Glory! I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels-a plentiful harvest of new lives." read on into the next verses. God is good!

The Kids have arrived!

The last two weeks in St. Croix have been pretty full and amazing running "Jericho Kids" which is a VBS for about 45 kids ages 5-12. It was a blast. Most of the kids who came live in the project areas of St. Croix. It is truly a blessing for Renita and I to be here in St. Croix at this time. Also, just yesterday, Sunday the 19th, We started "Kings Kids!" There is a team of 58 people from Puerto Rico and some of them were the founders of Kings Kids 20 years ago. There are 21 kids here from the island being students in the camp. The camp is two weeks long and they stay overnight here the whole time. The Camp is filled with Jesus, they do work duties daily, they have 2 hours of teaching a day from teachers who just are pouring out their hearts for these kids, they have dance and drama or sports ministry tiem everyday. The heart of Kings Kids is to not ever underestimate the children or teenagers. There are staff here with the team who have been in Kings Kids since they were 8 and are now having their own families and living a life after God. Some of the staff on the Puerto Rican team a just 8 years old. Last night was the introduction to Kings Kids and it blew Renita and I away. Kings Kids is saturated with God. The team coming from Puerto Rico and their hearts... is something to be admired! They are so excited even though this will be there 7th week straight of Kings Kids. I pray that Renita and I will be able to catch whatever this team has and live it out daily.
During the next two weeks our job is to watch and learn. The Heart of the Puerto Rican team is to model the camp for us so we can model it elsewhere. We are so excited for this next two weeks so please pray for us as we are surrounded by teachers who are even 10 years younger than us we want to feel God's heart beating excitedly within in them and have beat even stronger than it already is in our own hearts.
Our plan is still to go to Jamaica after the two weeks of Kings Kids. We will be staff on a 5 month long Disscipleship Training School. We are still in need of Work Permits to be released from the Jamaican Consulate so pray that these permits come asap. We refuse to let the enemy work in our lives.
And we just want to say thank you again for all the support that you all have given to us through prayer, finances and friendship. We are truly being blessed greatly here and pray that you all will reap the benefits as well! Blessings!

The last month in St. Croix

The school that we are attending here started last month on the 11th and we have one more week to go with it. This "DTS Equip" school has really been a helpful tool for Renita and I as we think and processing pioneering . It is focused on leadership in YWAM and what that really looks like. We have had proffessional teaching and great staff leaders to disciple us as we go along in the school. We are so blessed to be here and receive excellent advice and words from the Lord. We are doing well as a married couple. We are as healthy as ever and the Lord is really teaching us to love one another more. We praise God for all the people who are praying for us and supporting us. We miss home a little bit but the Lord is giving us grace to walk out in our calling. Thanks to all!!

Here in St. Croix

The past few days that we have been here in St. Croix have been extremely life giving. We were invited to the YWAM Caribbean Strategy Conference, which in short is family time for all the YWAM leaders in the Caribbean. There was about 65-70 people here and 17 different nations represented. They talked a lot about just going back to the roots of their faith, not even as YWAM'ers but as followers of Christ. We also had the priveledge of ferrying to St. Thomas where the Moravian Missions movement began when Moravians sold themselves into slavery to reach the slaves in St. Thomas. Those few that went understood that spreading the gospel is more important than their own lives and it was really good just to meditate on that kind of radical lifestyle.

It was really good for Renita and I to be there to attend the conference just to see how all these leaders bond together and strategically pray for different ways to reach out not only in the Caribbean but the rest of the world and especially the unreached and children. Renita and I are very excited coming out of that time and going into a receiving of teachings time as we enter the DTS Equip on monday may 11th. Please pray that Renita and I will have the ears to hear God and the willingness to obey what he asks of us. Thank you all so much for praying for us! Bless you as you seek his face!