Year End Review

I thought I would share some pretty interesting stats with you all. Im not a huge stat guy, but we kind of have to keep some stats for our Board of Directors here so that we can keep growing, improving, etc..  First, Ill just share a few from Gospel Focus, and then below a broader picture of all that happened here at YWAM Salem. Gospel Focus Ministries did at least 5246 hours of evangelism in 2019 collectively. We had around 17,000 gospel focused conversations within those 5246 hours. aw many come to Christ (I don't give numbers on that because time is the only true test of a conversion). 

At YWAM Salem, We had 95 students complete their DTS In 2019. 

We had 59 students completed a Secondary School (FCM, CBCC, SOAM, SOMD)

We had 21 students and 18 staff participate in the B2B this last summer (many of whom will be duplicating the seminar on other YWAM campuses).

We pioneered 2 new Secondary schools: SOAM and SOMD.

We had 180 students come through Mission Adventures.

Ropes had 2966 participants on the course this year.

FAN continued working with international students on 3 college campuses.

Refugee Ministry hosted a weekly gathering of 70-80 refugees in the Salem and coming alongside many of those to assist them in their transition into American life. 

Students Comms had an average of 327 leads,154 successful calls, and 30 applications per month. 

Accounting processed finances for around 135 missionaries from an estimated 4,000 donors. 

Community Life hosted 12 events, put on 24 tea times, tirelessly cleaned all of our buildings, and took good care of hundreds of guests.

Facilities kept our campus running, added a new vehicle to our fleet, put in a new concrete pad, planted over 30 trees to our campus (and way more pretty flowers), overhauled Meadow mobile, put in a new mail system, fixed hundreds of holes, light bulbs, fences, doors, pipes, sinks, windows, and toilets, and oh so much more!

Kitchen prepared (way over) 48,000 meals this year! 

We survived a broken water pipe, a theft of our maintenance shed, and a whopping case of the measles. 

We had 55 people volunteer their time and effort to keep our ministry going. 

We had 11 people join our staff team and two (possibly 3) new babies added to our kiddos. 

We sent out 8 adults and 8 children to be long term missionaries overseas and added two others as Frontliners. 

And we planted a base in Morocco. 

Pilgrims Progress and Gospel Tracts

Every Thursday I lead a book discussion group with the staff of Gospel Focus called "Dead Dudes at the Diner", because we only read books that were written buy authors who are now dead. We just spent 4 months in Pilgrims Progress. What an amazing book. My all time favorite actually. Please pray for our Thursday morning book discussions as this is that time in the busy week where we all can take a breath, relax, and just discuss amazing books, which is coupled with Bible study.

Personal Gospel Tract

One of the requirements of our Face to Face internship is our interns have to write their own personal Gospel Tract. So, I also did the same thing and many times will hand them out after I speak with people, etc... Can I ask you to please pray for each of these little tracts to take root in the hearts of those whom read? Its a simple thing, and to be honest I have never really been a big fan of tracts, but over the years and through experience I have grown to be fond of how useful they can be, especially within the context of giving them to a person you just had a conversation with.

Gospel Focus Podcast

Joe runs our podcast and has done a great job

This year we saw our Gospel Focus podcast really develop into a unique component of our ministry. We officially had 30 podcasts by the end of the year, all very unique. Please subscribe to it via i Tunes, pod-bean, or Spotify if interested.  We would love your feedback! One unique thing about this podcast is how many guests we have regularly, Christian and non Christian.

Speaking in DTS's on Evangelism

YWAM Discovery Bay DTS. They went to Vietnam for their outreach.

This fall I spoke in two DTS's on evangelism. In November I went to YWAM Discovery Bay, WA with Abby and Autumn and taught a week on evangelism. Then in December, I went by myself up to YWAM North Idaho and spoke in the DTS there on evangelism. I love teaching in the DTS's, and seeing students come alive to the gospel and our need to share it with others.

Abby and Autumn on the shores of Discovery Bay

YWAM North Idaho DTS students. They went to Thailand for their outreach.

Face to Face Fall 2019

Face to Face Graduates Fall 2019

We recently completed our 2nd "Face to Face " evangelism internship. We had 5 interns (one could not be at the graduation ceremony so he is not in the picture above) and I cannot express how impacting this internship has been in the lives of our interns. We look forward to starting a new internship in January, as we have 11 interns joining us! Summer we had 4, Fall we had 5, Winter we will have 11! So encouraged by how this is growing and impacting those who do it.

Family Life

As we come to the end of 2019, we ponder all the amazing things that have happened in our lives. God's faithfulness is truly humbling. From the home we are able to live in via the amazing generosity and kindness of our friends, to having groceries in the frig, and seven kids healthy and vibrant are blessings from God. We celebrated our 20th year Anniversary, this past October, as well as our 20th year in full time missions with YWAM. Time has flown bye! This past year we saw my folks as they were here for a month in April, then we saw Sarah's folks in August when we met up with them in Canada for vacation. The kids are all doing great. We still love and enjoy homeschooling, and the kids are doing very well in it. Anders (17) has been very busy flying, and working towards getting his instrument rating. He also stays VERY busy doing house projects for his mom. He is also working 4 days a week on a horse farm to earn some extra cash. Aidan (15) is wrestling 160 as a 10th grader and is loving it. He continues to be our entertainer and loves playing airsoft with his buddies, and is currently in the musical play "Newsies" with a local theater group. Abby (13) can always be found in one of two places...her room reading a book, or in the kitchen baking something. She loves reading and baking, and once a week she gets together with our pastors wife and he grandaughter (Abby's best friend) for Bible study and dinner. She also stays busy a few times a month having a job babysitting some friends toddler. Autumn (10) continues to create plays, circuses, and other forms of entertainment for the family. She is our family 'Dutch Blitz" champion as well. Annie (8) stays busy with school and entertaining her younger brother. This year she started choir and seems to really like it a lot. Alistair (6) enjoys school, playing anything he can with his siblings, and wearing ties....all the time. Adalynn (2) keeps all of us on her toes, and we think may be the most  clever of all the kids, as she has a lot of "teachers".

Five out of the seven went out Trick or Treating in October

Alistair next to our Thanksgiving turkey

Aidan getting ready to cut down our Christmas tree

Abby and Adalynn looking for our Christmas tree

Speaking in Churches

Some staff sharing in a local church

This fall I have been very buys sharing in local churches about Gospel Focus and in particular about our Face to Face evangelism internship. It has been a huge blessing to get the word out more about the ministry and see more local people getting involved. I shared in five different churches this fall, so that got a but tiring, but it was still great!

An Old Friend

Andre and me having some coffee, catching up. Spoke the whole time in Russian which felt good. Im rusty, but still got it! :)

I was recently surprised by an old friend we knew form our time in Russia, Andre Derkach. Andre and I have known each other for almost 18 years, but have not seen each other since we left Russia. He showed up in Salem as he was traveling on a trip. It was so great to catch up and hear what God is doing in his part of the world. I remember praying over Andre and his team as they were going to plant a YWAM work in Armenia. the ministry there exists today, but Andre and his family were blacklisted so know he is back in Rostov-on-Dony in Russia.  One of the interesting things that came from our conversation is he invited me to come and speak on evangelism at the YWAM Western European conference this coming April, which will be in Minsk, Belarus. He then asked me if after that I would come down to the south of Russia to teach in one of his DTS's. So, all that being said, I ask your prayers for wisdom if I should do this. This is how YWAM works, very relationally. So though Andre invited me, that does not mean I have been invited as he has a team of people that he works with that plan things, etc..Sarah and I are contemplating maybe trying to make a "return to where you came from" trip for our 3 oldest, and maybe try and take them with us (Anders, Aidan, and Abigail) and travel back to St.Petersburg during our time in Russia to visit old friends, show the kids where "it all started". Prayers for wisdom appreciated. Ill keep you posted. the cost alone to do a trip like this would be huge, so we have to weigh out a lot of things. At the same time, what an amazing opportunity possibly to do ministry back in that area, and see old friends, and have the kids see where much of their younger life started! 

God moves mountains to reach the individual

Fall has started which means we are back on the college campuses. 

Our Fall Face to Face internship has recently started. One of our interns is a guy named Alex. Alex grew up in a radical Muslim family in Oman. He was sent to school in Pakistan as his father wanted him to become a radical as well. Long story short, Alex ended up at one point coming to the states and a man handed him a gospel tract at a pivotal point in his faith journey, and Alex came to know Christ. I met him one day when I was doing evangelism, we went out for coffee, shared about our Face to Face internship, and he "reluctantly" decided to do it. I say reluctant because he his very nervous to share his faith with people given his background, but especially to Muslims. Yesterday was his second time out with us and we were on a college campus. First lady who approached us was from Saudi Arabia, Muslim, and was searching for answers! It was as if God literally sent her to Alex. They spoke for over an hour. It was his first time sharing the gospel with a Muslim other than some of his close family members. As we debriefed our time, he was overcome with joy at what just happened, and he was so encouraged to continue the conversation with this lady. God still moves mountains to reach the individual. That is the lesson Alex took away from yesterday with us.

Dead Dudes at the Diner

Every Thursday we have a thing called, "Dead Dudes at the Diner". It is a book study I lead with our staff and we take books written by dead dudes and we study them. For the past 5 weeks we have been in my favorite book of all time Pilgrims Progress. Please lift up our times in prayer as it is kind of that point in the week where we get to just take a breath and receive. So much of our ministry is pouring into the lives of others, so this hour and a half is such a rich time to be refreshed!

Face to Face Graduation...and the Beginning of a New One

Our first ever Face to Face Graduates! 

We are so blessed to have graduated 4 out of the 5 Face to Face interns this September. The 5th intern needs a bit more time to complete his internship. We hosted a graduation night where our interns shared about their past 3 months doing our Face to Face evangelism internship and it was SO ENCOURAGING! All of them shared very personal things the Lord had done in their lives during their time with us and we are so excited to see Face to Face grow. All four of the above people you see are continuing to work with us in some form or another! That is a good return rate I think! We recently began our Fall Face to Face internship, and we have 7 interns. Pray for us! I truly think the Lord has his hands on this unique internship. We already have possibly 15 interns for January! God is moving.

Fall DTS Has Arrived...which means more evangelism

First day with DTS students we do some introductory training on what the nest 3 months with us will hold

Our Fall DTS students arrived the end of September which means we have 30 new young people who we will be doing evangelism with every Monday afternoon downtown and on some college campuses. These particular students three months from now will be heading to Thailand, Egypt, and Israel for there two month outreach. What a privilege to be able to help equip them in evangelism!

This past months Temple Talk was at the Unitarian Universalist Church. Please pray for Rick, that he would come to know Christ. We have been doing talks with him for over 5 years. 

Pulpit to Pavement

Our latest Pulpit to Pavement outreach was the largest we have had! We have 32 pastors join us for the event and it was a fantastic time to do outreach with pastors, build new relationships, share about the ministry of Gospel Focus, and simply do the Great Commission with our city pastors! What momentum is building for this unique day that we host 3 or 4 times a year!

Our office was packed with Pastors for Pulpit to Pavement! What a fun day!

Anders the Pilot

In September, Anders hit a milestone and received his private pilots license.  We are very proud of him as he has worked so hard to get it. At 17, our son is flying airplanes! Funny thing is is I feel safer with him flying me in the air than driving me around town in a car! The above picture is of him and I after he took me up in the air. I was his first official passenger. He has not yet been able to convince Sarah to go up with him yet :)!  The Lord is a great provider. First, he has provided amazing organizations like Experimental Aviation Association to help kids like Anders pursue their interest in flying. Second, he has provided amazing mentors for Anders in this field in so many ways. Lastly, He has provided all the financial needs Anders needed to receive his license through scholarships that Anders earned for his hard work. What a faithful God we have. Its humbling when your 17 year old is more accomplished than you'l ever be! :)  Praise God!

Family Update

Family picture at Crater Lake

All is good with the Walter clan. Summer is flying bye, and because of the unusual cool weather here, it has not even felt like summer has begun. This summer we have seen our oldest turn 17 (Anders), and our youngest turn 2 (Adalyn) . In a week we will be heading to Canada for summer vacation to meet up with Sarah's folks just outside Jasper National Park, in BC. Summer has kept us busy with berry picking, hiking, and trying to be outside as much as we can because we know soon enough the dismal northwest rains will begin. I am excited to be heading to Wisconsin in September to meet with a supporting church of ours, as well as in October I will be heading up to teach a week on evangelism at YWAM Discovery Bay, WA. The kids are all doing great, each so unique and different in their own ways. Sarah keeps the ship running and afloat, and I buy groceries. We are truly grateful for all of the prayers and financial support we receive from you all. No words can express our gratitude enough. Thank you so much for believing in us, our calling, and our ministry. We are forever grateful!  Some of you have asked about me being more specific for needs and prayer requests. Twenty years in missions, and it is still always tough for me to make our needs known...pride can be a not good thing at times! So, here are some major needs we have...three in particular at this time.  First, we unfortunatley lost a large supporter and presently need to raise funds to compensate for what we lost. So please pray for provision in this regard. Second, we still need to raise about $700 for the rest of our homeschool curriculum, and third, we are in need of a new computer. Our old one is essentially done, so I am relying on using my work computer at home...not the best option. Those are our two major "needs" at this time, and thank you for praying for them!  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE check out our ministry website to see all the ins and outs of what we are up to. God is doing some great things!! https://www.gospelfocusministries.com/

Evangelism, Temple Talks, and Interviews

Arielle doing evangelism

Recently, we have had a few different YWAM campuses ask me about our ministry. By God's grace, they have all been very impressed with what the Lord is doing through Gospel Focus and want to talk, etc.. Recently, one man from YWAM Discover Bay came down for a week to check things out. It was a fantastic week being able to pour into a like minded evangelist who is trying to "push the ball uphill" at his YWAM location with evangelism. You would be surprised at how hard it is to convince YWAMers to do evangelism...but it is. I am real encouraged, and the Lord is doing something with using Gospel Focus as an example for other YWAM locations about how to be very local, and yet still impact the nations. Join us in prayer, I cant really put my finger on it, but the Lord is expanding Gospel Focus in many areas...and I am wondering if He may be asking me to start this ministry in other areas of the world. I don't know, but please pray with me for wisdom!

One of our Temple Talks this month was at the Salem islamic Center. A church recently sold them their building!

Cole and Joe interviewing Brianna, and ex Mormon for our podcast

Summer Mission Adventures Ends

One of the busy days with Mission Adventures students this summer

We finally came to an end of the Mission Adventures season this past week. For the past 5 weeks, every Wednesday we have been facilitating evangelism for all these MA teams. In total, I think we did evangelism with 200 or so high schoolers over the past five weeks. It has been a lot of fun, and we hear great feedback from the students on what the Lord did in their life on those Wednesdays. Gotta say, after running the MA program for years and years, it was nice to only be responsible for one day during the 5 that the teams are here!  

Face to Face Continues

This is Kaleb. He is a pastor here in Salem who is one of our Face to Face interns. Great guy, growing so much in evangelism!

We are coming to the mid way point with our first 6 Face to Face interns. So far, the internship has been going fantastic, and I am very excited to see what we can do with our next internship which will start the end of September. So far, we have been getting great feedback from all our interns, and it is very clear to see why God has led them all to do Face to Face. For all of them, the Lord is working in different specific areas related to evangelism. For one of them, it is learning how to listen better, to another, it is learning how to ask good questions, for another, it is learning how to be okay with being rejected. The list could go on and on, but at the end of the day, all of our interns seem to be enjoying Face to Face. We look forward to when all of them complete it and we can then have a good time of debrief and feedback. We presently already have 4 interns lined up for fall, and most likely will add more. Thank you all for your prayers, and we ask that you keep praying! By the way, if your interested in checking out some new additions to our website, please do by going to www.gospelfocusministries.com and check it out. You also can hear our latest podcast in which we interview one of our DTS students who is an ex Mormon. Fascinating discussion!!  

Gospel Focus Podcast

I just wanted to remind you all about our Gospel Focus podcast. We are 20 episodes in, and have been hearing great reviews form our listeners. This is another neat feature of our ministry as we strive to come along side the church and equip for evangelism. If your a podcast person, please subscribe to our podcast and give us your feedback! Stay away from the first 2 as they were pretty choppy! :)  Go to https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gospel-focus-podcast/id1440255303?mt=2 to subscribe!

Evangelism and more Evangelism

As you all know, Gospel Focus is a full time ministry of YWAM Salem. Therefore, not only do we equip the body of Christ in Salem to do evangelism, we are also the primary evangelistic ministry of YWAM Salem. This means that every 3 months, we get a new group of DTS students to train, disciple, and send to the nations.  The summer quarter is an extra busy one for us as we have 13 DTS students going out with us every week, and on top of that, we have 4 straight weeks of doing evangelism with our Mission Adventures program students, which is about 30 high schoolers each week on Wednesdays. We also have the usual people from our city who are a part of Gospel Focus joining with us, as well as our 6 Face to Face Interns. It is busy, but a good busy. So please pray for strength, patience and that we would use wisdom in all situations. Its going to be a great summer of reaching out to our city.

Face to Face Evangelism Internship

Last week we started our Face to Face Internship. We have 6 interns, from all walks of life. Nate in the picture above is a corrections officer who wants to learn how to talk to people about Jesus better. We have a senior pastor, a youth pastor, a retired lady who runs a women's ministry, and the leader of a local college outreach program all doing our internship. We are so excited about this and already are hearing fantastic feedback from our interns. It is going to be a very busy summer running these internships, at the same time as leading weekly evangelism for our Summer DTS students as well as Mission Adventures students. Bring on the coffee. 

All Hands on Deck on a YWAM Campus

Being part of YWAM Salem is such a blessing. One of the reasons for this is I am forced to look outside of Gospel Focus many times and serve the YWAM Campus in many different ways. One of them, is I sit on our leadership team which requires quite a few hats. But one of the great things about being in a community like this, is how we can all help each other when needed. Last week we helped pour a new concrete slab for our Ropes course on our campus and it was a fun time, as you can tell by the above picture, we will do whatever we need to do to make things work!  Jeff and Fred in the above picture are legends here. Jeff has planted over 15 Ropes courses all over the world, and Fred has served faithfully in our maintenance department for years. I learn a tone from guys like these. Mentorship for free!

Pulpit to Pavement

In June we hosted another Pulpit to Pavement outreach. I believe we had about 15 pastors show up and we had an amazing time of fellowship and evangelism. One of the highlights of this day was when a very skeptical pastor of evangelism came, and by the end of the day, he was so encouraged  and even convicted about his heart towards evangelism. Another highlight was that one of the pastors who came, has signed up to be one of our interns for our Face to Face Evangelism Internship! How amazing that a senior pastor would do this with us! We are so blessed every time we do Pulpit to Pavement and we look forward to the next one in the fall time. 

Some of the pastors who joined in on the day

Berry Picking and a Birthday

Oregon is an amazing place to live....in the summer. :)  We have been having a great time on weekends picking blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, etc. The other day in about an hour we picked 48 pounds of blueberries. I wish I could say that will last us for a long time, but not so lucky. I give it a few days and they will be gone. I blame the kids.  In June we also celebrated our little Annie Rose and her 8th birthday. 

Annie Rose on her birthday

Face to Face Evangelism Internship

We are excited to start a new component in our ministry. This month, we will be starting a 12 week evangelism internship for people in our city. I am SUPER excited to see this thing started. The internship is designed to accomodate the busy lives of normal people, and will be a great asset to our city. We are matching people up with mentors from Gospel Focus who will walk alongside them the full 12 weeks. In the internship they will do 12 hours of evangelism, Temple Talks, follow up meetings, training times, memorize scripture, and even develop their own personal gospel tract. Debriefing times, and personal interaction with lost people will make this a super unique experience. We have a few people who will be our "guniea pigs" as we try this out, and our hope is that this grows into a thriving program in our city! Pray as we begin to put things in place for it. My hope is to see people who come through this and complete it then begin to take others through it. Multiplication is the idea!

Toolbox and Temple Talk

For Mays Toolbox we had a man from a ministry called "Be Bold Ministries" come and share his testimony. He was an ex gang member who came to know Christ and know runs a ministry which reaches out to gang members. This guy was shot 4 times and stabbed 11 times! His word was very encouraging and challenging to all who listened. 

Our Temple Talk this month was at the Salem Islamic Center. As it was Ramadan, we decided it appropriate to engage our Muslim friends in discussion. Turn out was less than excpected, but the discussion was deep and rich none the less. 

UFO Festival Recap

Our "Phone Home" outreach at the UFO festival went fantastic, thank you so much for your prayers! We had around 20 people join us in the outreach, and we literally hand hundreds of conversations through the day. The above picture is of our "Mother Ship" tent. All day long, we had people lined up to ask us questions about their spiritual beliefs. Hundreds of people heard the gospel!  One young lady surrendered her life to Christ, and so many seeds were planted in the hearts of people. We spoke to Satanists, Gnostics, Atheists, Pantheists, etc...the list could go on and on. For me, one of the highlights of the day was seeing a guy from a local church take a huge step and simply talk to one person. That was a huge thing for him to break out of his comfort zone and talk to a stranger. He did it! I love being able to walk alongside people in their journey of evangelism. 

Some of us were able to gather for a picture. Literally impossible to gather all those involved because of all the ministry going on!

Pastor friend of mine joined us. We had around 12 people from our home church join us. It was awesome!

One of the many thousands of different characters at the festival.

High Schoolers, and Korean DTS students

As the school year has come to an end, we finished another year of evangelism with one of our local Christian high schools. Every other week for the course of the school year we have taken these students out to do evangelism on college campuses and in our city. We look forward to next school year working with them again.

This past month we had the opportunity to take our Korean DTS students out to do evangelism. This is always a challenge given the language barrier, but with a few interpreters we got to see these students step out in boldness to proclaim the gospel. In two weeks they leave for Asia for their 2 month outreach.

Two Birthdays and a Visit from Grandpa and Grandma

From mid April to mid May my folks were in town. They sure got their fill of grandkid time. The above picture is of the first evening they were here the kids put on a home made circus for them. May also saw two birthdays as Aidan turned 15 and Abby turned 13. Time is flying bye. Our two kids who were born in the nation of Finland are now in their teens!

Aidan turned 15 on May 6th. He is our wrestler, life of the party kid.

Abby turned 13 on May 8th. She is our bookworm and baker.

Monthly Temple Talk and Toolbox

In April we took people to a Progressive New Thought church. It is by far one of the most frustrating Temple Talks I have had in a while. If your not familiar with Religous Science, please get familiar with it as it is growing all across the nation. Pray for Rev, Maur, the man who is the pastor there. Our temple talks continue to be eye opening for believers as they intentionally hear about other religions and see how much the gospel is needed in our city. At the end of May, we will be taking people to a Mosque in town for our next Temple Talk. Pray. 

This month at the Toolbox I led a training time on "The Art of Conversation. How to start, maintain, and end conversations about Jesus."  We had a great turn out and I think it went very well. Pray for these monthly equipping times at the Toolbox.