April Newsletter

“The Dream of God”

Happy April, friends!  I pray this letter finds you well.  Fortunately, I found some time to write a bit now that I am on Spring Break and I don’t have any books to study.  I know that you might be interested in hearing about the things I’ve learned in the School of Biblical Studies, and I promise to share more about that in my next post.  Today, however, I felt like the Lord wanted me to share some vision about the call of God to go to the nations, and also to invite you to partner with me in this mission that the Lord has been revealing.

About this time last year, the Lord sent me to Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in Kona, Hawaii to do a Discipleship Training School (DTS), where I learned how to develop my relationship with Jesus and show others how to do the same.  In my DTS, one of the things we learned about was a very simple discipleship model called Discipleship Making Movements (or DMM for short… As you can see, YWAM uses a lot of acronyms).  DMM is a tool that missionaries can use to start house churches that will quickly multiply, and cause a powerful movement of the Word of God in the nations.  And after we learned about this method and practiced it a ton, we got to put it to good use in our outreach to the nation of South Sudan.  

With my outreach team, I was blessed to have the opportunity to meet one of the many unreached people groups in the world, the Toposa tribe of South Sudan.  Not long ago, the Toposa people (a tribe of about one million) were completely lost, never having heard the Word of God, seen a missionary, or told the name of Jesus.  They were once totally unreached by the Gospel, and then… God sent a missionary.  About five years ago, a team of Kenyan missionaries called, ‘Seeking the Lost Mission’ (SLM), came to find out if the Toposa people wanted to know about God, and through some miraculous responses to prayer, God opened their hearts to receive the Word of God.  SLM was hoping to start one-hundred house churches in five years, but through the wonder-working power of God, over 100 house churches were planted in the first four years!  The work that God has been doing through DMM completely changed the Toposa tribe and brought peace and provision to their communities where there was once terrible war and famine.  Now, there is hope for healing and restoration through the powerful new story that God is writing in their lives, and this movement of God’s Word is even reaching out to other neighboring tribes as well!

Being able to partner with ‘Seeking the Lost Mission’ really opened my eyes to a whole new reality of what life can look like with God, and I was so empowered by seeing how the Word of God can transform a nation in a very short time.  Also, the Toposa people, who were still new in their faith just like me, inspired my heart so much by the way that they worshiped God continually, despite the extreme circumstances of their life in the bush.  I was truly changed by this experience and it gave me the heart to want to work with other unreached people groups in the nations, those who are desperate to hear the Good News of Christ.  Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, “how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!” (Rom 10:14-15 NLT)  The greatest calling in my life is to go to the nations equipped with the Word of God; this was why God led me to missions, and why I decided to do the School of Biblical Studies after I finished my DTS.

Before SBS started last Fall, I was asking God to give me his dreams and visions for the future, to put his desires in my heart so that I could be aligned with his will for my life.  It wasn’t long before God began to answer that prayer by speaking to me about the desperate need for Bible access in the nations.  You see, in South Sudan alone, there are over sixty indigenous languages spoken, but in 2018 the literacy rate was only 34.5%, making it the third-least literate nation in the world according to the World Population Review.  Therefore, many people in South Sudan are not able to read the Bible even if there is a written translation available.  I remembered doing DMM and seeing the desperate need for audio Bibles in the tribes, and the Lord began moving my heart to take action.  Shortly after I returned to Kona for SBS, the Lord started connecting me with one of the YWAM bases in South Africa whose mission is specifically focused on making the Word of God accessible through Oral Bible Translation (OBT), which is an extremely efficient and accurate method for translating the Bible.  I also found out that the base has a specific mission to serve unreached people groups in South Sudan and several other African nations.  The connections that the Lord has placed in my life have been so influential throughout this process of claiming the dream of God’s heart.  

Over the last six months, I have been rigorously studying the Bible in the School of Biblical Studies (SBS) here at YWAM Kona.  I have learned more about the Word in this short time than I ever knew was possible, and I have discovered the unique authority that the inspired Word of God has to catalyze transformation in our hearts.  I have three more months left until I graduate from SBS, and then I am planning to come back to Washington to do some local ministry with my home church in Aberdeen. I am super excited to be able to pour into my community again and connect with my family back home. Then I am planning on joining a teaching outreach in September called Titus Project at YWAM Montana, where I will learn how to teach the Bible in the nations, and then go to South Africa for two months to put my biblical studies into practice.  This opportunity opened up very recently as I was praying about the next step in the path that God has placed me on.  After completing the Titus Project, I am hoping to go through the Oral Bible Translation school in South Africa so I can start taking action.  This path would put me in the perfect position to be able to help with facilitating Bible translation for unreached people groups around the world, like the Toposa tribe.  And, with my training and experience in DMM and teaching the Bible, I would be equipped to both bring new Bible translations to people who have never had access before, and also to give them the tools to study the Word and use it to disciple others within the community.  God’s ways are so much higher than my ways, and of course, he can and will change our plans to be in alignment with him, but I believing for the dream of God to see Bible translation, distribution, and education in the nations, and I hope that now you do too!

As I write this letter, I am constantly reminded of how faithful God has been in leading and showing me the way forward.  Most recently, my friend was praying for me late at night when we were just finishing up our studies, and the Lord spoke to both of us very clearly about the nations of South Sudan and South Africa being two nations God is marking my heart for in missions.  As he prayed, it felt like a branding iron was searing an image of the nations of Africa into my heart, and I did not doubt that this was the Word of the Lord.  Even as I write this letter to you I am feeling the fire of God burning within my heart, and the hunger to get back to Africa.  I know that the Lord is speaking to some of you about this dream of God too, and I am praying that he will show you how you are called to partner in this mission of seeking the lost with me. God has revealed some big visions and dreams for the future, but if he only asked us to do easy things, we wouldn’t need his power and grace to be able to fulfill them.  I pray that as you were reading this, God touched you in some way and you might even be moved to partner with me in this mission to bring the Word of God to the most lost and unreached people groups in the world.  If you would like to be a part of fulfilling this dream that God has shown me, please prayerfully consider giving to support my training costs for the School of Biblical Studies at YWAM Kona. I still have quite a bit left to raise and the deadlines are very quickly approaching, so I would love your help in this matter (one-time or monthly contributions can be made very easily via PayPal by visiting the ‘Partners’ page in the top menu). I would also love to connect with you either in person or by phone to share more about my fundraising goals for the future, and how you can be a part of supporting my mission long term.  For more information, please send a message via the Partners page.  I am so grateful for all who have continued to support me in this mission, and I’m excited to share more with you in my next post! (I assure you there will be another very soon)  Please SUBSCRIBE to receive email notifications when I post an update on the blog and check out the Prayer Wall to see how you can be praying with me for the dreams on God’s heart to be fulfilled (more updates coming soon).  Thank you!