You'll know your outreach location within the first month of your DTS. Your school leader/s will present the locations to you and from there you'll pray about your top 1 or 2 options.

This is a time to practice hearing God’s voice as an individual and as a collective, without placing pressure on the outcome. Your leaders are also praying and once they receive student choices, they set about creating the teams before announcing them within the following days.

While we do our best to be prompt, we also don't rush matters as important as this. We like to encourage our schools to hold things with an open-heart and open-mind, knowing that we are called to simply go and that God will encounter us and others no matter where we are. As we say around here, "we go to people, not places".

As the DTS is a full-time, 50+ hour week, it is unlikely that work can co-exist alongside the requirements of the school. There are exceptions when a job is infrequent and able to be done as light-work in personal free-times, however it can be difficult to manage time well when living amongst a tight-knit community that is always on the go. We don't like to be unnecessarily restrictive, so feel free to hit us up and chat about it if you have some light work you hope to continue during your lecture portion. Outreach would be the most difficult with limited internet access and inconsistent schedules.

If this question is motivated by the hope of supporting yourself financially while on the school, we want to encourage you in one of our core YWAM values which is "Practicing dependence on God". We all do this as a community that lives by faith with finances and are supported solely on the support of family and friends who believe in the call and mission, and particularly believe in the person God has called. We will journey with you toward fees being fully paid!

The DTS comes in two parts, Lectures & Outreach. The school is not complete until both parts are fully participated in, resulting in a “pass” grade in the University of the Nations.

Only under unique circumstances will we consider a student being able to complete just the Lecture phase without participating in Outreach. This means the default is that every student/applicant for the DTS is signing up to a full 12weeks of Lectures, followed by a full 8-10 weeks cross-cultural Outreach, concluding with 1 week for re-entry, debrief, and graduation.

While we do get students spanning a wide-range of ages, schools are most commonly between the ages of 18-28, although we do get older students too, particularly married couples in their mid-20’s to early 30’s. We're also open to 17yr olds, providing their caregiver signs for them on certain documents and so long as the student turns 18 during lecture phase (the first 12 weeks of the school).

We like a staff-to-student ratio of no more than 1 staff to every 5 students, and even then we try to have more staff on hand to journey alongside the school. This means our schools are typically around 25 students with 6-8 staff, although we do have wiggle room for more students as we feel lead. This is so that our students have access to more quality time with their staff, leadership, and visiting speakers. We love a good family-feel in our community and we value intentionality and accessiblity in our relationships.

The DTS has 3 houses on a hill overlooking the city of Whangarei. Staff and students all live on-site to ensure a family environment where staff are accessible and modeling what they teach. Students share a room with others, usually around 4 others, depending on the size of the school and the housing available at the time. We try to let you know as much as possible about your sleeping space ahead of time, so go ahead and ask us what the housing is looking like for your school of interest if you would like to know more.

We're big advocates for DTS in general and would champion you in your choice whether with us or elsewhere! A few points that are very 'us' would be...
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1) We have a unique flavor as a YWAM community in NZ that is distinctly 'kiwi' and very intentional with the story of missions in this country, especially as it pertains to the communities we work amongst in Northland.
2) We're passionate about bible literacy: We have a 12-week, second-level Bible course designed to take graduates deeper in bible knowledge after completion of DTS.
3) We're a young, urban community which pioneered a new location in the city in 2023. Previously we operated out of a rural base which YWAM owned for 33 years. This means that although we are 'new' in our city, we are well established as a training and sending location in the region.
4) We love our city: We work with many local ministries and encourage students to accompany staff frequently.
5) We love cross-cultural missions: We believe we can invest deeply into both our local calling and our global calling, and that God has more than enough innovation and grace for these to co-exist.