Dear Family, Friends, and Other Supporters,
Another month has gone by and I’m sending my newsletter for the month of February. However, this newsletter will be a little different. I’m using this newsletter to reflect on this last 6 month season of staffing my first Discipleship Training School. I also want to take the time to express my gratitude to all of you for enabling me to do this. I’m sending out some physical copies of this letter as well as digital ones just to ensure that everyone will have access to it. I hope you enjoy reading this letter and that you all are doing well.
I left my last newsletter off on a cliffhanger as I had just flown to India and was talking about how it had already been a crazy experience after only the first couple of days. I ended up spending 10 days in India, which really was quite an adventure, but one I really enjoyed. The first few days I spent resting, getting settled in, and preparing for my teaching. I would lock myself in my room and work all day on preparing my notes, PowerPoint presentations, and whatever other materials I would need for my teaching. Then after a few days, my teaching began, and I spent the following 5 days teaching in the Mumbai Discipleship Training School.
My time teaching was amazing. As I mentioned in my last letter, this was an insane opportunity that is not usually offered to people my age. I got to speak for a whole lecture week (14 hours of content) on Hearing God’s Voice. There were 10 students and 10 staff in the school, so I was speaking in front of around 20 people each day. I was nervous at first, but after the first session, I found my groove and was really confident throughout the week. I believed that God had called me to India, brought me there, and therefore had equipped me to do this work. I still wanted to walk in humility, knowing God could use anyone, and feeling blessed that he chose to speak through me.
While overall my teaching went very well, it did not come without its challenges. It felt very fitting for the end of a season that was defined by challenges. The biggest challenge of my time in India was the language and cultural barriers. Contrary to what I thought, not all Indians speak Hindi, actually only a portion of them do. Every different state in India speaks a different language, and because people come from all over the country to do this school, they all speak different languages. While someone was translating my teaching into Hindi, hardly anyone spoke Hindi, so really English was the most common language. Even then, their English was very broken, so sometimes it was hard to tell if they were understanding.
The other thing that was a challenge was the cultural differences. I still remember flying into Mumbai, seeing all the slum areas, and being completely in awe. I had seen slums in Nepal before, but these Indian ones were so much bigger, and practically covered the whole city. I realized the extreme poverty, and simultaneous great wealth, of the city I was flying into. While I expected the culture to be very similar to Nepal, it was actually very different, and I experienced a lot more culture shock than I expected. It was hard to go through this when I was by myself. At times I felt very alone, which was strange because I was surrounded by people.
Despite these challenges, God still worked in big ways, and there were so many cool testimonies from the week. The first thing I want to emphasize is how God was so faithful to speak to me this week, allowing me to prepare everything that I needed, and guiding me along every step of the way. Not only that, but he was so faithful to teach the students and give them understanding. I was humbled when I realized how little I could do given the language and cultural barriers, but was in awe when I realized how much God could do when I gave him room to move. We did several activities where the students practiced listening to God’s voice and some really cool things happened. Both students and staff would come up to me after class and tell me how God was speaking to them in so many ways. Students realized how important it was to read their Bibles, how much God wants to speak to them, and all because God desires a deep and personal relationship with them. Most of all, I’m grateful for my time in India because God taught me so much in my personal quiet times with him.
It really felt like the perfect finale to this outreach. I loved being able to take everything that I have learned, put it all together, and then pour out everything I had. As I wrapped up my time overseas and began to fly home, I had a long layover in Germany. I actually got to leave the airport and go visit the city of Frankfurt for the day, and what a fun experience that was. While I was all by myself, I really had so much joy as I walked around, because I just knew that Jesus was with me wherever I went. While I saw some beautiful sights, I had some even more beautiful times of reflection, that I was really grateful for.
I look back now on these last 6 months of staffing my first Discipleship Training School, and I can confidently say this was one of the sweetest seasons of my life. God taught me so much, I grew a ton as a person, and I really got the chance to apply everything that I’ve learned. I worked a lot on my leadership skills, especially as I interacted with students, and got the chance to disciple them to look more like Jesus. Outreach was quite the adventure, and really the biggest challenge of anything I had faced to date, especially with all of the adversity we had. I felt humbled over and over again in this season, but also felt more built up into the person I was created to be, so there is no doubt in my mind that this is what God had called me to in this season.
So some of you may be asking, “What’s next?” Well right now I am home with my family in Colorado. I’m spending around 2 weeks with them, one just resting at home, and then another week on a relaxing family getaway ski trip to Montana. I’m taking this time to reflect on the last season, rest and enjoy the break, and prepare for what’s to come. In March I will be going back to Colorado Springs, beginning training again, and preparing for the next batch of students to show up at the end of the month. I’m staffing another Discipleship Training School, which will entail another 3 month lecture phase of working with the students, and then another outreach to the nations!
For that, I want to say thank you, to each and every one of you. I try to say it a lot, but that’s because I truly am so grateful, and I frequently think about my supporters. I realize that I could not do this without you guys. I feel so thankful to have a network of people behind me that truly see the value of what I’m doing, and more than that, want to partner with God to see His Kingdom advance. It is such a blessing to be able to do the work that I do, and I hope that you guys feel equally blessed to be able to be a part of what God is doing. This is not my ministry, it is God’s ministry, and both you and I are lucky to be a part of it. I hope this goes as a small token of my appreciation, but know that I’m thankful more than words can express, and so grateful from the bottom of my heart for each and every one of you. It is such an honor to do what I do, and I can’t wait to continue working with you all, and for us to see how God moves next.
Sincerely,
Jacob Frenzen
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