What a whirlwind of a few months!
Someone recently said that our ministry is like Aaron and Hur, lifting up Moses’ arms for the victory -
We may not always be the front leaders on stage, but we are working hard to hold up the vision and empower the work of Christ, both within YWAM and also our local community!
Cheri has continued to staff with the School of Worship, which means she has been doing:
- Discipleship - healthy life conversations 😊
This generation is facing eating disorders, mental health crises and the battle of the mind like never before!
- Pastoral care and mentorship - praying and processing both the beautiful things and the hard things, with staff and students
- Hospitality, tech/AV, grading assignments, washing dishes, shuttling students to stores in town - serving wherever there’s a need!
In addition to running three schools per year on this campus (one bilingual in Korean!) plans are in motion to continue spearheading songwriting and recording efforts in the nations, in new languages as they are just being translated for the first time!
We just commissioned 17 more students back to their home nations as worship leaders this past quarter alone! Woohoo!
Cheri has also been helping lead worship and prayer times, support the OMT Bible translation efforts, and write/record new songs!
Jeff maintains the entire YWAM campus’ audio/visual everything - every classroom, auditorium space, Prayer Room - and he has helped design much of it, whether he will tell you that or not. :)
Just this summer, he helped facilitate 500+ youth through the summer camps here on campus, plus another 70+ youth at a church conference, and also served as a camp counselor for VBS at another church!
Jeff has helped order and put together 60 sets of Bible translation equipment, that have been sent to the nations - each one of these represents at least ONE NEW LANGUAGE for the Bible!!
The OMT team has been working hard to train teams going on outreach, to not only help with translation but also pass it along to the local YWAM base so that they can help continue and multiply the work within their networks on the ground!
Even this past week we heard of a new translation starting in the Congo, embraced by the community and catching even national favor and attention. Go God!! :)
Through the Spring the Lord started to really challenge me (Jeff) with the level of community involvement I was engaged in.
During a normal gathering here on campus, a local pastor had come and simply shared about how community involvement by the church can be a giant game changer. During that message, I found myself justifying how much I was giving to the community. As soon as I started this justification process I knew that:
1 - God was wanting me to open my heart to more community engagement, and
2 - My excuses were really lame.
My quick math helped me realize that I could condense my entire annual community engagement into just a couple short weeks of time. Sure, each of those things has value… but God has called us to Hawaii too. Not just the discipleship and training of other missionaries.
The best thing about challenges from the Lord is that when He sends a challenge, it’s usually immediately partnered with opportunities. The most iconic example would be praying for patience. It’s always stretching, but it’s good. :)
About a month ago I was asked to come help at a local church that desperately needed help with sound. This is super fun because as I have chosen to step in and help from even the first week, I have watched the shift from the worship teams just trying to survive, to being able to relax and actually worship. This brings the whole church into a greater place of being able to fully lean in to the Lord and engage during not only the worship times, but also the message and everything else! The next part is finding more people who can help in Audio and train them, too.
The fruit that this church has been seeing in just the past few months has been phenomenal - from dozens of salvations, to watching a family surrender their lives to Jesus right in front of us last week, to 70+ youth coming to a last-minute conference and getting radically touched by the Holy Spirit… we are stoked!
Jeff has been coaching soccer for a few seasons now! He is getting to be known as Coach Jeff around town! And it has provided sweet opportunities to connect more with the local non-YWAM community.
Another super impactful piece of my (Jeff’s) community involvement has been serving at the luaus and the Kuauli Cultural Festival with Island Breeze. Island Breeze was formed to help connect the Gospel to tourists and local islanders through island-style song and dance, and I keep discovering little bits of how direct this presentation is: chants that are directly the text of Joshua 1:9, dances and chants that depict a battle between angels and demons, that declare a war against evil. Island Breeze has fought to help bring back hula in a culturally-redeeming way for several decades, and it is a joy to be able to help serve in any way that we can.
When I share it in an email, it’s easy to feel like I might be overwhelming you or you might even be thinking “How do we fit all of this together?” Sometimes, we have crazy days… but often it’s just a choice. A Yes to the community is a No to a small request on base, or maybe a delay in accomplishing a task for an hour or two.
I think it’s part of the faithfulness of the Lord as well. As he has asked us to step up our intentionality in one place and provided opportunities for it, He has simultaneously brought others to start carrying things that we once were the only ones for. It’s so incredible to see the Lord do it because it ends up becoming multiplication of our time and efforts, instead of simple addition (or subtraction!)
The end result is Life for everyone!
Jeff built a new drum room in Ohana Court, saving the ears of everyone!! :)
On top of everything else, we have been loving and parenting our little tribe the best we know how. :)
Daniel and Isaac have finished school for the year, and have moved up to 3rd and 2nd grades! Amelia LOVED her first little quarter of pre-preschool (called "Keiki Corner," it's a parent-led co-op for littles aged 2 and 3 on campus.) And big news... drumroll please..
We are homeschooling this year!! And loving it!
God spoke very clearly to both Jeff and I (Cheri) and the boys were also super excited about the opportunity! We're not sure exactly why the change for the year, but we know His plans are ALWAYS the best we could hope for. :) It will also enable us to be more mobile for travel!
Thank you for your support!
Without your financial gifts and prayers, none of this would be possible!
If you feel the Lord asking you to give, we would love your partnership in advancing the Kingdom!
We are tax-deductible through YWAM, below:
Mahalo!
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