The "New Normal"

Like the rest of humanity, the Corona Virus has forced me into adjusting what ministry looks like during this time. To be honest, despite the disappointments, there is so much opportunity. Since we cannot go do evangelism on the campuses or on the streets, we are spending more time seeking the Lord in what He has for our ministry during this time. Right now, we are focusing more on the equipping aspect of our ministry. Once a week I lead an evangelism training time for our YWAM staff. Once a week I lead an evangelism training time for our Face to Face interns. Fridays I host a thing called "Quarantine Conversations" which is an intentional discussion with non believers. All of these things of course we do on ZOOM and other social media platforms. So when we lump all these things together, along with normal prayer times, strategy times, it is amazing how full a week can become. Please pray for us as we continue to adjust and navigate Gospel Focus at this time. 

Family Time

January and February are our snowshoeing months. 

Up until the Corona Virus, we were doing our typical family stuff this time of year. Some hiking, some snowshoeing, and we celebrated two birthdays as I turned 43 and Autumn turned 11. During the "home in place" measures we have been doing our best to walk 3 times a day, which amounts to 8 miles a day, and weather permitting taking hikes in the mountains. But even that is getting limited as state parks and national parks are closed! All things said and done, we are truly grateful to have a roof over our head, food in the frig, and to date we are all healthy!

The kids and I on my 43rd birthday

Autumn Beth turned 11 on March 23rd. She is still our spitfire, very opinionated, and independant risk taker of the family.

If you squint your eyes and look about half way up you will see a plane in the background. That was Anders flying over us on one of our hikes. Any clear weather he has, he is up in the air earning hours towards his commercial license.

I took this picture hiking one day with the family. I love them all so much, and these times go by to quickly.

"A Year With the Giants"

Many times I get asked what I do for personal devotions, study, etc.. This year I decided to read a different autobiography or biography on some heroes of the Christian faith every month. January, was John Paton, February was David Brainard, March was St. Patrick, and April I will be reading the biography of Amy Carmichael. I absolutely have loved doing this in my personal devotion time. I cannot help but evaluate my Christian walk when you read these types of books. 

February Reading

March Reading

April Reading

Winter Face to Face Internship

The above is a screenshot of two messages one of our Face to Face interns shared not to long ago about his experience doing our Face to Face evangelism internship. I think it sums up very well what God is doing through the lives of all the people involved. I thought I would let the words speak for the internship. This winter, we had 15 interns, and all were set to graduate until we all had to go on lock down for this Corona Virus situation. January, February, and most of March was packed full of evangelism with our interns. We had 14 signed up for our Spring Internship, as well as already 10 signed up for our summer one. At this time though, we have to put the internship on hold. Please pray for us as we navigate the months ahead. 

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.