By: Dallas DeWitt
The Joshua Wilderness Institute, at its core, has always been a place for a young adult to be set apart. A place to remove distractions and focus singularly on who God is and how He desires them to live. JWI ran for twenty consecutive years before covid ended the year early and subsequently shut the program down. In the fall of 2021, the leadership at Hume got the “flywheel” spinning again, and we are thankful to have been able to graduate the first class post-pandemic!
When Jen Smith, our Associate director, and I came on to restart Joshua, we had a passion for shaping the future of JWI and walking in obedience to how God wanted to use this transformational 9-month program.
The first thing we did was to rewrite the mission statement of Joshua:
THE JOSHUA WILDERNESS INSTITUTE IS A 9-MONTH DISCIPLESHIP PROGRAM EXISTING TO DISCIPLE 18–24-YEAR-OLDS TOWARD LOVING GOD AND HIS WORD IN ORDER TO SET A FOUNDATION FOR A LIFE WORTHY OF THE GOSPEL.
Everything we do at JWI is for the purpose of a student knowing God and His Word. If they have a relationship with Him… living a life worthy of the gospel is a natural outcome. From classes every day rooted in scripture, new weekly speakers, five trips (2 international!), the community, and willingly setting aside addictive distractions, it is impossible not to mature spiritually. We say that Joshua is “9 months for the rest of your life,” a place to set the foundation for HOW a student is going to live their life, and truthfully… Joshua is a difficult program.
We ask students to leave behind social media, video games, movies, music, and put romantic relationships on pause for nine months! That is HARD! Why would we do that? Why does that matter? Students are more distracted than ever before; teenagers spend an average of 7 hours a day on their phones! Students need a reset; they need to see just how distracted they have become with media. The goal of what we call the “Joshua Fast” is to singularly focus on a relationship with Christ and be present with Him.
Watching students this past year lay aside distractions, form community, learn to love God’s word, grow spiritually, and apply what they are learning has been the most rewarding experience of my nine years here at Hume.
We are excited to start a new Joshua year with a brand-new class this upcoming September! As I write this, we are looking for 15 more students for the class of 23-24. Do you have someone who could benefit from 9 months of community, learning, and discipleship?
Please continue to pray for the Joshua Wilderness Institute staff and for this upcoming class of students as they embark on what it looks like to live a life worthy of the gospel!
Dallas grew up as a missionary kid in Peru and had stints in Florida, Alaska, and Virginia along the way. He and his wife Julie met at Hume as summer staffers in 2006 and moved to Hume Lake full-time in 2015. For seven years, Dallas worked as the Meadow Ranch camp director at Hume as well as a Winter Camp and the Hume International Camps director. He has a passion for missionary kids/TCK’s and seeing young adults grow in their understanding of who God is and what it means to live a life worthy of the Gospel.