Hey there,

my name is Sarah and last year I did a Discovery Internship at YWAM Harpenden for 3 months, working in 3 different areas: grounds/maintenance, kitchen and hospitality. I can say that, this was some of the best months of my life, where I gained so much knowledge and experience about God, myself and the world. Only after a few days at the Oval (that’s how our base is called here) I felt so welcome by the humans here, who I was just beginning to get to know. They took me to London and to church and so after a few weeks I already connected with dozens of people, until the end of my time it should be much more. The funny thing was it felt like every second week during my time new people came, so it was kind of hard for me to remember all the new names. People here are warm-hearted, open for any advice and every time there for a good conversation. It didn’t took a long time and I felt quite familiar with the “Oval-Family” – and it is really kind of a big family here.

It is a longer story how I landed at YWAM Harpenden, but I started my Internship beginning of may. This was my first time with YWAM (I haven’t done my DTS yet) and I was very excited about getting to know this organization, it’s main contents and projects. Perfect possibilities for this were the weekly Intercession times and Tuesday community meeting. Apart from these days a really good start into the week was the Monday morning worship – a time to connect with God and to worship Him together with the community.

Generally we have so many different cultures here, from Brazilian people (like my roommate) over Africans until people from Hawaii, I guess we have over 20 nationalities represented here. So I was able to learn a lot of diverse cultures and from humans, who had incredible stories to tell.

At halftime of my time as a Missionbuilder (another name for Discovery Interns), I was able to meet a DTS-team, which was a lot of fun and a good thing for my understanding of a DTS. Because it was the first time I came here, I just heard people talking about the DTS, but couldn’t imagine how it looks like until that point, when the DTS came back from outreach. One of my highlights at YWAM Harpenden was to listen Loren Cunningham preaching, who was visiting our base for a few days.

However, people who come here are definitely welcome to live out their gifts and passions and above all to develop them and their personality in such beautiful ways. 

Furthermore, from what I want to tell you is, that I had the privilege to be part of a lovely flat and awesome Missionbuilder team. Through the time we spend together in form of everyday working in different areas, chilling with them in the Lounge and meeting everytime for meals, I made great friends. We even travelled abroad twice on the weekends, one time to Ireland and another time to Scotland and it was fun, fun, fun.

All in all I just loved this time there and am so grateful, that God led me to this place. My gratitude especially goes to the fantastic leaders and companions and I’m thankful for the possibility to have grown in faith and relationship to God. 

That’s what I wish every visitor at YWAM Harpenden, whether for a shorter or longer time, I am convinced it will be an incredible time of your life!

See you soon YWAM,

Sarah.