Missions Moment

One of the unique things about our Mission Adventures program is when we do what we call a "Missions Moment".  This is a very simple time, where our staff share with our students about amazing things God did in their lives on a short term missions trip.  the above picture is of one of our staff Brittany sharing with the kids about her time in Africa.  These times are amazingly powerful, and always end in students drilling our staff with questions like, "Did that REALLY happen?"  Or "I want to do stuff like that....but I am afraid...how can I do this type of stuff?"  These Missions Moments provide amazing times for yourth to have their eyes opened that God can use simple people, faults and all, for His glory in amazing ways.  This particular story from the picture above Brittany shared how God changed her heart completely about loving the African people while on outreach.  How God can change our cold hearts if we allow Him too.  This Missions Moment, as usual, was an amazingly powerful time.

Tough Lesson from Back Surgery

As I write this, it has almost been two weeks since my back surgery.  I am happy to say, that it seems that things are going well in terms of my recovery.  One day at a time.  I am still sore, but each day it feels better. to be honest, these two weeks have been hard for me, and I have been forced to look at a sad fact about myself.....I often define myself by what I do....rather than who God says I am.  I remember taking a walk a few days after my surgery and the Lord asked me, "Tim, if this is what I had for you, for the rest of your life, would you be content in that?"  In other words, am I content with simply being loved by God, or is my drive in life fueled out of my accomplishments.  Honestly, the answer scares me at times.  So this two weeks i have had a lot of time to read, relax, and simply not do much.  It has been hard, but good as well!  I finally managed to finish my 100th devotional, and will be sending it to the editor soon.  Traveling with Lewis and Clark has inspired me so much to grow in my walk with Jesus, and these devotions will reflect that.  I'll keep you posted on how the process goes, but be sure to get ready to order a copy when they come out!  Thanks for your prayers everyone, I will go back to the office on Thursday...don't worry...one day at a time.

Unique Training Times

One of the things I love about my ministry is I get an amazing amount of opportunities to teach young people about evangelism.  One thing that we implement in our Mission Adventures training is dynamic training times. Rather than have one person speak for 3 hours on Evangelism, we typically have 5 separate stations that groups rotate between every 20 minutes.  Each station is very interactive, and our staff "facilitate" almost more than we teach, because we want the students to dig deep and come up with their own conclusions.  We cover an amazing amount of material in 3 days of training.....if you think of it....that is 15 hours of training in three days for groups!

One of My Favorite things To Do...

One of my favorite things to do is go into the kids' rooms when they are not in there, and just look around.  These are special times for me.  If you look at the above picture, it is of the boy's bookshelf. I took this picture this morning.  Notice the rattlesnake tails, the model airplanes, one whose tailwing is busted off, a statue of a cowboy,a random nail.  A perfect picture of a little boys world. Observe the picture below of the girls' bookshelf, three ponies neatly in order. Again, a perfect picture of a little girls world. I love to imagine what the kids were doing when they were playing with these things, and each time I look at things like this I can almost here the time slipping away.  When I do these things, I take time to just thank the Lord for the blessing to be a parent, and then I ask the Lord to give my children the dreams of their heart.  To me, looking at the kids room after they have been playing in it is such a special time, and I kind of get a bit sad when I see how quick it is going bye

Oatmeal on Sunday

I am a big believer in traditions.  I remember as a kid, my own family having their own traditions, and now that I am grown and have a family of my own, I love being able to make family traditions.  One of them is Oatmeals on Sunday.  For the past few years, every Sunday evening we as a family have Oatmeal for supper.  It started with the mindset that oatmeal is basic, and simple, and that we need to remember the simple blessings Jesus has given us.  I remember growing up as a kid watching my grandfather from Finland eat oatmeal every morning.  He would eat it straight out of the pot, and occasionally he would ask me to sit on his lap and eat with him.  Those were the times that I felt like a king.   I hope all my kids will one day look back with fond memories of Oatmeal on Sundays.  Another tradition is the Walter family walk.  usually every night, rain or shine we take a 2 1/2 mile walk with the kids.  Love those walks. Both Oatmeal and walks more than anything are another way we can spend more time with the kids, and I cherish them.

Mission Adventures and Youth Pastors

One of the things I love about working with Mission Adventures is it always forces me to think big picture when it comes to the church.  The above picture is of a prayer map I have in my office.  It is a map of the city of Salem.  Each of those little bright tags are the names of local youth pastors I have the privaledge to work with.  Youth Pastors play a tremendous role in the body of Christ, and working with Mission Adventures allows me the amazing blessing of coming along side them and serving through our outreaches and other things we do.  These bright tags represent warriors for the youth of our city.

EXIT Outreach

To date, we have hosted three EXIT outreaches, in which we have used local youth groups to hand out over 1500 Bibles, pray for people, and simply bless our city. Youth groups have covered every EXIT (12 of them) in our city, and proclaimed the name of Jesus. This has been an amazing way to connect with local churches, provide a great outreach for youth groups, and get the name of Jesus known in our city.  After our most recent EXIT, we had a youth pastor tell us that a man walked into his church the following Sunday after EXIT and said someone had given him a Bible at an Exit, so he decided to come to church!  God is so good! Why not try EXIT in your city?

Seeing the Big Picture Helps

Running a Mission Adventures program is a tough job, and many times I find myself discouraged, wondering if all of the work I do is worth it.  After all, I have not seen a huge growth in our program here in Salem in terms of Spring Break and Summer numbers goes.  So I have to remind myself that our MA program here in Salem is just one of many, and that we are making a huge impact for the Kingdom of God on a global level. The above picture shows the impact Mission Adventures has had this past year.  What an awesome God we serve, and what a privaledge to provide that many students with life changing missions trips.

Buy a Book, Make a Kids Summer Vacation Awesome!

The above picture is the cover of Anders' 4 page story he wrote.  He wrote this to sell for $3.00 to try and make some money for his summer vacation.  This was all his creative idea! He put some serious time into typing it out, and drawing the pictures.  I am proud of the little fella, and think it is awesome that he wants to work a bit to make some money for his vacation.  Let us know if you would like a copy.  It comes included with hand drawn pictures, along with a signature from the future famous author!

Simple Ways to Share Jesus

The above picture is of our "Coffee for a Conversation" stand we put up in our city with Mission Adventure groups.  Coffee is a big thing here in the Northwest, so we utilize that to share the Gospel.  Young people set up the stand, and simply ask people if they would like a cup of free coffee.  Usually, the people will ask why they are doing it, and then starts the conversation.  This is a whole lot of fun, and it gets people sharing their faith, while at the same time blesses the people of our city with some great coffee.

Spring Time Has Come to Oregon!

Thought I would post this awesome pictures of the kids we took a few weeks back when we were taking a hike.  One of our favorite things about the Northwest is the endless outdoor opportunities it offers. So, when the weather finally clears after the seemingly endless rain, you usually can find the Walter clan spending their weekends hiking and enjoying the outdoors.  I like this pictures because it actually has all 5 kids looking at the camera!

Praying for Our City

The above picture is of a Mission Adventures group that recently came for a Spring Break trip.  They are praying over our city at one of the coolest statues in Salem.  It is a statue dedicated to the early circuit rider missionaries who first came to these parts to bring the Gospel to native tribes.  These guys would ride hundreds of miles on horseback from settlement to settlement to preach the Gospel. Why do we have high schoolers pray at this point?  First, we want to challenge the students to know the history of the cities and towns they live in.  So we encourage them to know their cities better so that they can strategically pray for their cities.  Second, we need the prayers of our Mission Adventures groups for our city.  Their prayers make a huge difference, whether or not they see it.  And third, we want to engage and challenge the students minds in regards to praying creatively for their cities.

Feeling the Love from Local Youth Pastors

The above picture is what I was greeted with when I rushed into my office the first morning we had 30 high schoolers here for a Spring Break trip.  A local youth pastor donated 1,000 Bibles for us to use for our EXIT outreaches that we do in our city.  To give you an idea, of how cool EXIT is....in 3 hours youth groups from our city handed out 992 Bibles in 3 hours!  We will be doing this outreach all summer long with every Mission Adventures group that comes through.  That's one of the cool ways we as Mission Adventures are able to continue to build bridges with local churches and youth pastors....by providing simple, creative ways for them to get their students engaged with people and sharing the Gospel.  So, I am willing to take these seemingly endless practical jokes that some youth pastors in the city play on us.  I think it is a good sign, that bridges of relationship are building, which is a good sign the church is looking beyond their four walls, which is a good sign that the Gospel is getting out to our city.  But may it be noted, that the particular youth pastor who did this has it coming...as revenge is a dish best served cold!

The Battle Book

Above is the picture of what I call the Mission Adventures Battle Book.  I bought it for like $2.00 at a Walmart some day on impulse.  It has become to me an amazing reminder of God's heart for the lost, as well as a reminder of how our battle is not against flesh and blood.  Every Friday morning we bring a group of staff members downtown Salem to share the Gospel with people.  That's rite, no strings attached, just pray, and speak to people about Jesus.  This is my favorite 3 hours of the week.  Our group usually consists of between 5-10 people.  After our morning is over, we write down the names of all the people that we spoke to, and the prayer needs in relation to them.  We then give the book to one of the ladies on our base who spends the next few days interceding for every person we wrote down.  Many of the people we never see again, some, we see answers to continued prayers.  This little book has taught me a lot.  It has taught me that Jesus dies for all, and no matter how crazy a person life situation is, He can rescue them.  It has shown me the weakness in my own strength, and how we do not have the ability to help everyone, but we do have the message of hope to give freely to everyone.  It has shown me the power of prayer, and how prayer is the most important weapon we have in this life.  It has also shown me that their is a bigger agenda than my own selfish one, and I am reminded of that every time I see the countess needs of the people we have written of in this book.

Being obedient is better than looking for results

This past Friday morning as usual we went downtown Salem and witnessed to people on the street.  I was walking along this street, next to a bus station when I saw a guy running to catch his bus.  I immediately felt the Lord say to me, "Tim, you need to speak to that man."  As he ran by me, I chickened out and let him run bye.  "Lord, if he misses his bus then I'll speak to him." I said as he ran buy.  Sure enough, his bus pulled away at the nick of time and there the man stood.  As he began walking in my direction again, I felt the nudging of the Lord to speak with him yet again.  I let him walk rite buy me, as the fear of man took over.  I turned around and walked to the corner he was standing at and began to approach him and once again chickened out.  As I hung my head in shame and started walking away, God's voice was so clear when He said, "Tim, stop and speak to that man, for I died for Him also."  So, I did.  After four attempts to get out of speaking to his man, I finally gave it to the leading of the Lord, and obeyed.  For the next 20 minutes I had a wonderful conversation with the young man, and was able to share the Gospel to him.  As he walked away, I learned a valuable lesson.  To be obedient is better than to look for results when it comes to evangelism.  The guy did not give his life to the Lord, but he did let me pray for him and his sick grandfather.  What fruits will that conversation bring forth?  I have no idea.  Was it worth it.  Absolutely.  Why?  Because that is what God asked me to do.  My job was to be obedient.

Why Thursdays Bother Me

Thursdays bother me. Let me share why.  Every Thursday, all of the staff here at YWAM Salem get together for intercessory prayer.  I find, every week, that I am bothered by a few things. The first is that  I have to take an hour out of my day to not focus on myself, or my agenda.  Intercession has nothing to do with me.  And that bothers me.  The second thing, is that I am forced to look at the bigger picture of the needs of the people of the world, which makes me get out of my little comfort bubble I like to hang out in.  And that bothers me. The third thing, is that I am faced every Thursday with a terrible truth....I am a selfish man at the core, who honestly many times cares little for the things on God's heart, but cares much for my selfish ways.  And that bothers me.  Yes, Thursdays bother me.  And this is good.  It is good to be bothered of the things of God.  It is good when God reveals our hearts, and the issues that we need to deal with.  I hope God continues to bother me every Thursday, so I
may grow closer to Him and his heart.