40 Days: Daniel Leadership Institute

For Paul and I, the 40 Days at Wilderness North meant 40 days of intense fellowship, serving, learning, discussing, speaking and being in the great outdoors! We learned so much during this time, it’s difficult to sum it all up. 

If I had to put it into a word I would say it was a time of renewal. The Lord was speaking to me about what was most important in life and calling me to return my focus to those things. The reason I went into ministry was to “love children to Jesus.” God had brought me to Minnesota to remind me of my original calling. During this time, I reviewed my most important commitments and had the opportunity to consider where I have come from and where I am going. Not only was this experience personally meaningful, but having my husband along for the 40 days was a blessing to our marriage.

We were asked to share devotionals and our life story with our new friends because we learned that “relationships are built when we reveal ourselves to others, and they reveal themselves to us.” These were key times when I got to further reflect on how the Lord had worked in my life. I was reminded that when the Lord called me into ministry, He had promised to give me as many children’s souls as I could see stars in the night sky. I have been taking Him up on His promise, and plan to continue by reaching children in public schools.

Playing guitar and leading worship through song reminded me of my original desire to use the gifts God had given me to minister to others. With a few exceptions, I had not picked up a guitar or lead worship vocally in the last several years. The “Daniel” environment of encouragement allowed me to ease back into this type of leadership with confidence. It was gratifying to hear how others were blessed by it as well.

I also learned a great deal from the lectures which focused on the practical steps of public relations, building into others, decision making, communicating with a purpose, recruiting, management and accountability. 

Before attending this training, I was asking how I could help others gain ownership of our vision for reaching out with the love of Christ. The session on “Building People” gave me the answer. We were taught that you cannot change people but the way you treat people can change their attitudes. These new attitudes can then cause people to change themselves! Now I realized I could motivate teachers by giving them evangelism tools and a chance to practice them; thereby building immediate confidence. They feel good about themselves when they accomplish their action plans and experience success. This gave me a new approach as I empower teachers to make a difference in the lives of students.