Category: Monthly Newsletter

Mini Update

Hello friends and family, I just wanted to get on here and share a quick update as I have been very busy with the schoolwork in SBS lately (really the past 8 months, haha). The Lord just reminded me that I was planning to write a little post about what I have been learning through my studying the Word of God, so I thought I would just share what God has been teaching me recently. Also, be sure to read all the way to the end because I have a video to share with you as well.

God’s grace is more than enough…

These past eight months I have read through 64 out of sixty-six books of the Bible, each book five times, using the Inductive Bible Study Method and receiving tons of teachings on the historical background of every book. It has been some of the most rigorous and intensive studying I have experienced in my life, and it has been extremely challenging, but I have learned so much about God. I have been stretched beyond any limitations I previously thought I had, but now I know that there will always be something new to discover about God in His Word, and I want to keep learning for the rest of my life.

In this season of SBS, the greatest lesson that I have learned throughout countless hours of studying the Word is that God’s grace is more than enough for us. There is nothing more challenging to the flesh, and yet, satisfying to the spirit than to spend one’s time pouring over the Word of God every day. But it truly takes miraculous grace to walk through nine months of intensive Bible study and not give up part-way through. Haha, sometimes the only prayer I can muster up before I start another chapter is, “God please help me, I cannot do this without you Lord, I really need you God.”

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

2 Corinthians 12:9

I have to tell you though, this place of totally depending on God’s grace and being completely humbled by His Word is the answer to every prayer that I prayed before coming to do my SBS. The two things I asked God for as I was preparing to start this school were, one, to make me more dependent on God in every area of my life, and two, to humble my heart to the Word of God, teaching me to walk in the fear of the Lord and obey all that Jesus commanded us. It is such a testimony of God’s faithfulness to see how He has brought me through this season, and how everything I asked for he has delivered so completely.

God has done abundantly more than I could have ever imagined, and even now as I am writing this and reflecting on these past eight months, I am hit with the goodness of God as I recognize how He has endlessly pursued my heart with His love every single day of my life. I remember the day that I walked though the doors of the church, and I experienced the amazing love of Jesus coming into my heart for the first time in my life. Since that moment, I have been desperately seeking after the things of God, and I have come to know the Lord in such a special and intimate way in this short time. But I am still so hungry for more, and I know that this life with God is never going to lose it’s lustre as long as I keep coming back to that first love. Of course, life with Jesus is not easy, and He never said that it would be. I have had many times where I felt tested; some tests I passed, and some I failed at miserably, but through all the ups and downs, God has been so faithful to me. I don’t know how I could have ever done this without the Lord and His amazing grace carrying me every single step of the way.

The Word of God has totally changed my life, and I am really excited to read the last two books and graduate from the School of Biblical Studies at the end of this month. Its so wonderful, and yet, sad to be at the end of this season of SBS because my life has truly been transformed by studying God’s Word in the community I’ve found here in Kona. And the Lord has walked with me through so much healing, growth, and redemption from the life I lived before. But now I can say one thing for sure, that even though I have been constantly filled with the Word of God, I am still so hungry for more of what God has in store, and I cannot wait to give away what I have learned to others who are also seeking after the things of God, both in my church back home, and in the nations.

If you are inspired and would like to learn about the Inductive Bible Study Method that we use in SBS, or maybe you would like to start your own at-home Bible study with your family and friends, I would love to hear from you! Please reach out to me via the Partners page and let me know what inspires you to learn more about God through His Word. Also, please consider making a contribution to partner with my mission to bring God’s Word to unreached people groups in the nations, or visit the Prayer Wall to find out how you can join me in prayer. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have had to receive the Word of God, there is nothing more valuable than that, but to give it away to others who are seeking the truth is the most amazing experience and I cannot wait for more opportunities to share God’s Word!

“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!

Hello family and friends!

I am so sorry for the delays in updating everyone about the mission work we are doing, I have had extremely limited access to internet and cell service while I have been here - which has been very interesting! I am currently on outreach with a YWAM team in South Sudan, preparing to go out into the bush with a local ministry called Gospel Fire International (GSI). We are going to be working with tribes who have had virtually no access to the Gospel, showing them the Way of Jesus Christ, and learning about who God created them to be - the beautiful culture and traditions of their people. God’s faithfulness has been so evident in the past month of outreach, I know that He has amazing plans for the next part of our mission as well, I have so much to share!

I am so excited to share all of the amazing works that God is doing in the short time we have been on outreach! This nation has such a diverse population, over 65 different tribes and over 120 different languages spoken here, and in the heart of the capitol of Juba, we have experienced life from a very different perspective than what we are used to in America. The foods, the languages, the customs are all so very different… I’M LOVING IT!!! I have never in my life met a people who are so warm welcoming, so loving and joyful, and so excited to hear the Word of God! Everyone loves Jesus here! Our focus over the past month here has been to build relationships and connections through reading the Word of God in small groups, and praying for individuals and families who need healing and freedom from spiritual strongholds in their lives. We have seen so many lives changed by the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through us, one lady we prayed for healing got pulled out of her chair and started walking for the first time in three years, we saw her at a local church the very next day - she walked there! Another time we saw a drunk man get slain in the Spirit on the street, when he came to he had no idea where he was or how he got there, but the man was completely sober and he said that Jesus came in to his heart and the door was opened to him to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, complete freedom in Jesus name! Even last week a woman heard the Gospel for the first time and she accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior, her whole life has shifted in a matter of days and she said she is more joyful than ever and she has seen the glory of the Lord in her own life! God is doing truly astounding and awesome works here in South Sudan, these are just a couple of the many amazing testimonies of God we have witnessed during our short time here. We are so blessed to be able to do God’s work here in the nations, God has such a big heart for the South Sudanese people, and our hearts are so filled with the joy of the Lord in seeing how He is transforming this nation through discipleship and the power of the Holy Spirit.

We are so grateful for the power of Holy Spirit working in us, paving the Way for the future of these communities who have been touched by the heart of God. The Lord gave us a huge opportunity to have an enduring impact on the church of South Sudan, by sending an angel to us in the form of a local pastor who invited us to speak at his church. We were able to teach the leaders of the church about the Discovery Bible School (DBS) model we have used to share the Word of God in homes all over the city, and we plan to stay in contact with this church when we go back to the states so that we can follow up and sustain the work we have initiated in the local communities. God is so good! We are praying for more people to be discipled in the Way of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that South Sudan will be a nation marked by unity and fellowship in the church. We hope that you will also join us in praying for discipleship making movements in this nation, and interceding for the unity and stability of the church of South Sudan, our prayers are making a huge impact on the healing and restoration of this beautiful nation to the original design God has for her. I will make some videos when we get back from the bush to share more stories and talk more about Discipleship Making Movements (DMM) in the nations, but for now I have to go finish packing for the second half of our trip!

Please be praying for the unity and strong faith of our team as we embark on the second part of our mission in the unreached tribes of Eastern Equatoria, South Sudan. We will be staying in tents for one month at a missions base in the wilderness, guided by the Holy Spirit and our local ministry leaders as we engage local tribes in the Word of God, perhaps this time will be similar in some ways to the time the Israelites spent in the wilderness with Moses, haha. We truly appreciate your prayers so much, I do not know what we would do without our family of amazing prayer warriors in the states. Also, I just want to give a huge thank you to all of my amazing supporters who have made this mission work possible, I cannot express the immense gratitude I have in my heart for each and every one of you who have supported me in pursuing the call of God on my life, and I am so excited to share with you about the next steps God has directed me in after DTS. I love and miss all of you so much! May the Lord bless you and keep you and make his face shine upon you all the days of your life, in Jesus mighty name!

Amen and Amen!