Fall Quarter Has Begun at YWAM Salem

YWAM Salem is a busy place as we move into our fall quarter.  Yesterday 24 students arrived for our Fall Missions DTS.  15 Koreans arrived for our Fall Korean DTS.  13 students arrived for our Fall Basic Leadership School.  You top on all those new students, a major project going on on one of our main buildings, a ropes course which sees 4,000 people go through a year, the local stuff I am doing with Mission Adventures, and you have yourself an extremely busy YWAM Campus!  One great thing about YWAM, is there is no "work yourself up the ladder" mentality.  One day I'm leading outreaches for high schoolers, the next day I am cutting cucumbers in our kitchen for lunch prep.  Everyone serves to help keep the ship afloat at YWAM Salem!!

Above picture is the other day as I was helping with lunch prep!  Scary thing to see me in a kitchen!  Serving in the kitchen with students offers great time for discipleship, not to mention a lot of fun.

God Created the Missionary

The above video sums it up as to why we love being in missions.  The voice is of YWAM's founder, Loren Cunningham.  May we all be inspired to see God glorified in our lives more!

YWAM Salem Fall Staff Conference

Every September, for three days we have our YWAM Salem staff conference.  It is always a great time. This was a special conference for three main reasons when I look at it.  First, is we got to hear an amazing challenging message via the internet from YWAM's founder Loren Cunningham. What an amazing man of God!  He has literally been to every nation on the planet, and his message was tremendously inspiring to all of us YWAM'ers. I would highly suggest watching it by clicking on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-Tr64QyL8s&feature=share&list=PLRjvOusQuQkodw3rlmR15sX6rbLon8PPx and start around minute 42. It is a great message!  The second reason our conference was special was that we were able to pray out and commission the starting of YWAM Yosemite!  For the past three years, a couple has been in training at our campus here in Salem, and are now going to pioneer a YWAM base rite outside Yosemite National Park!  We are already discussing getting Mission Adventures started there for next summer!  The third reason the conference was special for me personally was I ran into a past Mission Adventures student named Peter who is on his way to Montana to go do a DTS there and go into the mission field!  And it was his time with Mission Adventures that played a vital role in that process!

Above picture during a worship time at our Fall Staff Conference

Above picture of Peter and I.  Peter came to Mission Adventures two years in a row...now onto the Mission field!

Above picture of Annie and Juba.  A beautiful picture of the multi-cultural beauty of being a YWAM Missionary.

2nd Annual Youth Pastors Olympics a HUGE Success

On September 11th, we hosted our 2nd Annual Youth Pastors Olympics.  It was a huge success, as we had around 40 local youth leaders from our city attend.  Compared to 9 last year, that is quite a growth margin!  The youth pastors competed in 16 events, and our winner received half of a missions trip through Mission Adventures, among other things.  Unfortunately, your going to have to wait a couple weeks before we have our video made of the Olympics, so stay tuned!  We were able to raise over $1,000.00 for a local organization helping military families in our city.  Check out there website at http://www.sovah.org/.  This Olympics I believe will continue to grow each year.  We had over 19 different churches participating as well.  Please stay tuned for the video, and thank you all for your prayers for this event!!