About

This blog began as Dan Snyder and Seth Blanton prepared to leave on a big adventure in the summer of 2012. We two "hillbillies" from the mountains in Waynesville, North Carolina had decided to fly to New Zealand - the land of hobbits - to learn about God and become holy. That was the general idea, as least. What we were really doing was doing a Discipleship Training School (DTS) through Youth With a Mission (YWAM) - an international, interdenominational Christian organization whose mission is to simply "know God and make God known."

During our DTS, we spent 3 months in Tauranga, NZ, at a YWAM base run by Marine Reach Ministries, a branch of YWAM that specializes in using ships to spread medical care and the gospel to isolated locations. These three months of "lecture phase" thoroughly changed our lives as we lived in community with young people from around the world, learned in interactive lectures, worshiped, prayed, served, and encountered God in an incredibly new and real way. Then, when the 3 months ended, we embarked on an outreach trip to Cambodia to apply what we'd learned and take in still more as we served, taught, built, loved, and prayed in a completely new culture. There we learned what it means to truly depend on God when things are hard, and we discovered how His faithfulness always comes through.

After finishing DTS at the end of November 2012, we explored the beauty of New Zealand for a couple weeks and flew back home. Seth had decided to stay in Waynesville for a while, working at the public library and as an intern at our church, the Vine of the Mountains. From there he moved to Johnson City, TN for a while to attend East Tennessee State University (ETSU) and care for his grandparents there. Now he is back in western North Carolina, working as the ministry assistant at the Vine and studying for a certificate in Outdoor Leadership from Southwestern Community College.

On the other hand, I (Dan) had decided during DTS to return to the base in New Zealand to staff the next Justice DTS which began in January 2013. I ended up going on outreach to the Philippines and then returning again to lead the Go DTS (now Go Pacific DTS) which began in July 2013. Following that school's outreach to the island nation of Vanuatu, I returned home to North Carolina for a few months, even then knowing that God was calling me back to YWAM in New Zealand, this time to help launch a whole new DTS - the Pilgrimage DTS, which began in October 2014. This new school is based at the same YWAM Training Centre in Tauranga, NZ, but it includes elements of backpacking and camping throughout the lecture and outreach phases. I have now led two such schools over the past 18 months, and also completed a second-level YWAM school called the School of Outdoor Adventure Recreation (SOAR) Basic in Bishop, CA. At the moment, I am a member of the Training Leadership Team (TLT) of the YWAM base here in Tauranga and will continue to lead the Pilgrimage DTS for the time being.

Stay tuned to this blog to find out what holy mischief I get up to in New Zealand and to learn how you can partner in the work that I am doing to transform the lives of young people and spread the good news to the ends of the earth! Also, I now send out monthly email updates that have mostly taken the place of this blog. Click here to sign up for those!