You know that moment when you realize you forgot to hit "
Send
" on your last
two
updates?
Oh boy, here we go...
Meet Ohana Court.
It's been the focus of our work here in 2018. In Hawaiian, "Ohana" means "Family" and that's exactly what we've done - turning a neglected multi-use arena into a warm, inviting atmosphere where God can be glorified and families can come together in every way.
Daniel is our constant helper! It is fun to bring our kids along, they also open doors for ministry!
With the help of our YWAM family, we've painted and cleaned, repaired and upgraded it from the inside out. It needed a lot of love!
Now we are working on training up teams that can carry on serving with excellence the audio/visual needs here to free us up for what God is stepping us into.
We continually feel like God is teaching us how to pioneer:
we have ended up taking on some of the largest, messiest areas on campus where we are able to implement systems and pave the way for sustainable excellence after we are gone. This has been His training ground for how missions work is done relationally. God has been doing intense work on our hearts as parents and strengthening our marriage team, difficult but worthy lessons on how to fight the enemy and glorify Him in every area of our lives!
A few of the things we've undertaken over the past six months:
Managing (and fixing up) one of the largest dormitory buildings on campus
Scheduling, training teams and continually maintaining/upgrading the main auditorium/multipurpose court (Ohana Court)
Supporting every classroom on campus with their audio/visual needs
Hosted a Small Group for Music Track students from the Revival and Reformation secondary school
Hosting a marriage small group, following Brian Brennt's Culture Shift: Marriage book
Day-to-day discipling of several teams of work duty students
We're busy! :) But God's grace is
always
enough. And in this season, we are calling out for Him to
increase our capacity.
He is pushing us and opening doors to further build up a live and studio Production team in the midst of our other responsibilities.
Sowing into Long-Term Plans
One thing we have learned is that we will need a legitimate method of entry into closed Muslim nations - you can't exactly knock on Algeria's door as "Christian Missionary" and expect an approved visa! As part of our mobilizing into working in the Muslim world, we feel God has refined our vision for bringing a team in that has the ability to capture the sounds of worship in these regions. This team will give us the legitimate reason for entry (publicizing culture and local music) while also bringing in radical hearts on fire to see the Muslim world ignite for Jesus!
This is where the Production team we mentioned above comes into play. We are actively pushing on launching a DTS (and even a second-level school) Track that will teach the skills necessary to film, record and produce interviews and worship sessions on location. We also want to take the music created on campus and
get it out
- the world needs the sound of real missions hearts!
We love you.
Thank you for your financial support and prayers, they mean the world to us!
God has shown us the power of prayer over and over again, so please share your requests with us!
How you can be praying for us this quarter:
The right people to join our Production Team that will train to join us in the Muslim world
Direction on our next trip, we are praying into doing a "vision" trip soon to a possible next location for us
Continued financial provision for us and our fellow workers here
Continued strengthening of our marriage
Wisdom in parenting two toddlers (!) in the midst of our schedule
- Jeff and Cheri Willecke