Sample DTS Weekly Schedule

The above is only a sample!  Your particular school will undoubtedly have a slightly different schedule based on the daily or weekly activities you engage in during your school.  The two biggest examples are the Boarders DTS in January and the Sports DTS in July.  They both have set weekend and daily activities that differ from the ‘normal' school schedule, and on top of that there will be other community life events most weeks and weekends that will help to keep things interesting.

A Day in the Life

Waking up is never easy, but there’s so much going on in my mind these days that it’s hard to stay in bed. I want to get up, get moving and not miss a minute of the day. My bunk mate is snoring the morning away as usual. I don’t know how he manages to stay up even later than me on a nightly basis and still make it to the last few minutes of breakfast, but he’s always there. I’m not even the first up this morning; one of my other roomies looks like he’s been reading his Bible all night again. Probably not, but I like to imagine he does. 

As I wash my face I think back to the great talk I had with a couple of the Bible Core Course students last night about what they’re learning about the book of Revelation in their class, and how it’s so different than what they have always thought about it. Breakfast is the comfortably familiar cornflakes and toast which I supplement with a bit of yogurt. I exchange good mornings with a wide variety of students from more countries than I care to count this early in the day, finish my breakfast and head back up to my room. 

Next comes one of the highlights of my day- spending some quality time with God to talk to Him about all that’s going on in my life at the moment, pray for my classmates, staff, family and friends back home. I find that doing my quiet time in the morning really is the only way to start the day off right, and when I do miss it once in a while I find I feel the effects in an almost tangible way. I figure the best way to “know God” is not only to hear about Him in lectures and from people around me, but to spend time with Him. It works that way with everyone else I know, why shouldn’t it be the same with my creator? 

This morning we have community intercession as a base, and the thing we’re praying for this time is human trafficking- a bigger issue than I thought. It turns out there are at least 30 million victims of trafficking in the world today, with another million each year. It’s the second most profitable crime in the world behind drug trafficking. The leader of our prayer group is extremely passionate about it and we spend the time praying intensely before reporting back what the Lord spoke to our group. We then take a quick second to set up the room for class and I grab a quick cup of coffee to scatter the remaining cobwebs from the attic before lectures begin. 

This week’s lecture topic is “The character and nature of God”, and our speaker has been intense! He’s challenged lots of the ideas I had about God and why He does what He does. It’s been fun in a challenging sort of way. The best thing about it is I feel that despite the topic being kind of very spiritual and ‘out there’ I’m still learning things that affect my everyday life and walk with God. It gets me excited to go and share what I’ve learned with people that don’t know! 

We have a break for snacks, warm drinks and fellowship half way through our lecture morning. All the students from the various other schools also gather downstairs for fresh fruit on this particular day. It’s cool to hear everyone talk about what they’re learning in their own lectures. Upon our return to class the school leader lets us know a few more details about this weekend’s mountain trip where we get to go hang out and hike around a beautiful Swiss mountain town, as well as info about next week’s local outreach to downtown Lausanne. It looks like I’ll have a chance to share with people sooner than I’d thought! 

Lunch comes quickly after that, and today is chili con carne with cornbread- a definite favorite of mine. I’ve also got my weekly one-on-one with Mike, one of the dts volunteer staff, so we go up to the sunroom to talk and eat. I always enjoy these meetings, as Mike has so much to offer despite being only a few years older than me, and he’s always so open. You can tell he’s got a really deep spiritual foundation and is for sure meant to be doing what he’s doing.  

Before lunch hour ends I have enough time to run and switch over my laundry which is actually key because I forgot to use the slot I signed up for yesterday, and one of the base staff was kind enough to trade spots with me since I’m down to my last pair of socks. It’s cool, despite being very busy people with lots to do and sometimes families and kids and everything else, most of the staff really go out of their way to make us students feel welcome and included. 

Next it’s on to my work duty, and I was lucky enough to land a spot on the maintenance team. At the beginning of the school we got to choose from the available work duty options such as meal cleanup (very social and varied one), housekeeping (more rhythmic and simple one such as vacuuming the stairs daily), hospitality (something new every day!), bathroom cleanup (more fun than it sounds), child care, and others. Being on the maintenance team means I play a small part in helping to keep the base running by changing light bulbs, trimming hedges, moving things around and, today, building a fence! It’s great to be able to get outside most days and do some physical work, and it also gives me a chance to think about what I’ve learned during the lecture times. The guys on my team and our staff supervisor spend an hour and a half digging holes for the fence posts and getting them set up, and by the end we’ve made a lot of progress. 

After a quick shower I head to meet my small group for an outing to the waterfront area of Lausanne. Last week was a full-on serious discussion and we went pretty deep talking about our pasts and struggles, and so this week we were all feeling like something a bit more chilled out. We walked around the beautiful lakeside and played on the playground equipment before grabbing some of the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted at a hotel/restaurant called Movenpick. I definitely ruined my dinner, in a good way. 

We had to race back to the base to make it in time for the evening meal of tortellini and bananas, which, while very simple, was still very filling and delicious. Afterwards there was a bit of free time before our once-a-week Community Meeting where the whole base gathers to worship and hear a message from one of our world-class visiting speakers. Tonight we heard from an amazing old-school YWAM’er who shared a string of stories where God provided in miraculous ways. I found it super-encouraging and relevant since I still need a bit of the finances necessary for my upcoming outreach. 

We actually just found out where we’ll be going on outreach a few days ago. It was quite a process actually, as we were told our options and were given only a couple days to pray and seek counsel about it before we had to submit our choices. It was really incredible to see how God spoke to all of us students through a number of ways like in our personal prayer times, through the Word, through peace or a lack of it, or through other people. I think someone even mentioned seeing writing in the sky… 

After the meeting everyone went down to the dining hall to enjoy a wondrous array of brownies and oatmeal cookies with peach iced tea on the side- all thanks to the hard working hospitality team. I took some time to talk with some of my classmates about how crazy some of the speaker’s stories had been, but it was already pretty late and I wanted to write this letter out to you before the end of the day. Now it’s very late and some of my friends are still here and awake, so I might chat with them a bit before heading to bed. That sounds good.