In the beginning...

My name is Steph Reynolds. I am a neuroscientist, an environmentalist, an artist, and most importantly, a Christian. About a year ago a friend of mine said to me "Steph, you have to do a YWAM." I had never really thought about YWAM as a possibility in my life before this point, but I said "Yeah, I do have to." And that is how I got here.

YWAM stands for Youth With a Mission and is a non-denominational Christian organization that has bases all over the world. I am currently doing my YWAM DTS (Discipleship Training School) in Mata Mata New Zealand. The DTS takes 3 months to complete. In this time I will learn all sorts of things about God and how great he is. After this time I will be sent on an Outreach mission trip to either India, China or Fiji where I will do anything from children's ministry, to prison ministry, to street evangelization, to building things or cleaning things, etc. I don't know what this will include but I am excited to find out!

For the past four years I have been attending University in Calgary. In April 2012 I graduated with a BSc. majoring in Neuroscience with first class honors. I was spiritually, emotionally, physically and mentally exhausted. But I knew that I would be attending YWAM in September and that is all that kept me going. And now finally I am here.

After about 24 hours of traveling I have finally arrived in New Zealand. It is everything that I thought it would be, but colder. It is spring here so the temperature is above zero, but it is very moist and there are no heaters in the buildings. I don't think I brought enough warm clothes! But it will be OK, God will provide. He got me here safely and that's all that matters!

Before I left Canada, I was packing and told my Mom that I was planning on taking a sleeping pill on the flight from LA to Aukland, because it is a 13 hour flight. Mom said that that was a good idea, except if the plane happened to crash and no one to wake me up to save myself. And then she proceeded to say "Well, actually if the plane crashed you would die anyways so maybe the sleeping pills were actually a good plan." Comforting. Thanks Mom. Needless to say, I did not take the sleeping pills, but didn't crash either.

I know that God has great plans for me while I am here. He has been preparing me for the past few months. He has been placing wonderful people in my life to support me and mentor me on my spiritual journey to New Zealand. He even was purposeful in who he placed beside me on the airplane. On the flight from Calgary to LA, I was seated beside a cute little Philippino lady named Esther. When I told her that I was travelling to New Zealand for YWAM, she got so excited! For the rest of the flight she told me about her journey to finding God. She was such a wonderful lady.

In March or April sometime, I managed to jab a Q-tip into my ear and nearly broke my eardrum. It was the most painful thing that I have ever experienced. I thought that I would surely go deaf. But luckily I didn't, my eardrum was just a bit bruised and battered. But since then, it has not been the same, and flying really hurts when the pressure changes. I had no gum with me on my flight, but Esther did. She insisted on giving me a whole pack of Juicy Fruit gum. It was so nice, and helped me to make it through my flights. I still have the song in my head...

"Get your skiis shined up
Grab a stick of Juicy Fruit
The taste is gonna move ya
Move you up
Move you out
The taste is gonna move ya when you pop it in your mouth"

"Juicy Fruit, it's gonna move ya
It's got a taste that gets right through ya
Juicy Fruit, the taste is gonna move ya"