Face to Face Graduation

 

Above is our "ZOOM Graduation" for our Winter Face to Face Interns. It was definitely different, but felt great to see these guys get their certificates. We presently have 5 interns doing our internship, and have intentionally kept our number smaller as we navigate things with COVID. The internship is going fantastic, and we are seeing tremendous fruit from it. I think one of the fruits I am most excited about is how we have staff members now who graduated from our program, and now are working with us! This is a such an encouragement to me, and I hope a good indicator of the effectiveness of the internship Our desire is to grow and multiply evangelists, and it appears that is happening through Face to Face. Please pray for us as we continue to invest into seeing others grow in their witness. 

YWAM Salem Summer Quarter

 

The Summer here at YWAM Salem has been interesting. As you can see, YWAM Salem has moved outside for all our gatherings. We have a DTS running, and basically the other summer ministries like our Ropes Course, Mission Adventures are virtually shut down. To put it into perspective we typically run around 5,000 people through our Ropes course a summer...that is now below 500. Our Mission Adventures Program runs around 250 high schoolers a summer...that is now 0.  But, despite all of this going on , we have seen the faithfulness of God in so many ways. One way in particular is in the area of finances. We saw an $85,000 deficit in our yearly budget because of COVID. The Lord, in His faithfulness thorough a massive fundraiser all our staff were engaged in, we able to raise that sum to help us see it thorough the year. We did have 3 students who tested positive for COVID, which was sure a trial, but we are past that now and in the clear. Prayers appreciated as we navigate what the fall may look like here at YWAM Salem. 

Welcoming new students, staff, and volunteers for the summer

Family Life

 

Despite the COVID reality, we have been doing our best to keep life normal this summer, which for us means doing a lot of outdoors stuff. I (Tim) have taken the younger kids camping a few times, and we have tried to do as much hiking as we can. The above picture is of Sarah and I along the Pacific Crest Trail. The kids are all doing great. Staying busy during summer doing things kids should do...reading books, being lazy in the sun, building forts, etc... The boys have taken up Kayaking, so between that and airsoft matches with their friends they are rarely seen now a days. I guess the newest thing would be as Anders is approaching his senior year of High School, he is beginning to think through the next step. This looks like it may take the form of him going to get his AMP in Aviation Mechanics possibly. We have visited a local Aviation school, and he really enjoyed it. Time will tell!

The kids have picked a lot of berries this summer

A day at the coast

Hiking with 5 of the 7

Camping along the Metolius River 

Anders flew out to meet us for a day of hiking. He cannot get enough of planes. 

Letters and Lyrics

As we continue to navigate this time during COVID 19, I am starting a new training component called "Letters and Lyrics...Lessons for the Past, Lessons for Today".  Once a week, we will be studying a letter from past church fathers, theologians, missionaries, etc and with it we will be looking at the lyrics of some classic hymns and studying their history and theology. As we look at these letters and lyrics, we will see how diving into this type of stuff can make us more evangelistic today in our every day life! Our first one is this Friday and I am really looking forward to it! Join in if your free ab able!

"Take a Walk With Me"

When we all went into "Shelter in Place", I began to take 3 walks a day, morning, afternoon and evening. Its great exercise and when its all said and done for the past 8 weeks I have been walking average of 8 miles a day! This has also helped me to loose about 10 pounds which is great, but I guess thats not the point of this post. Anyway, I began to see the same people all the time on my walks, and one day it occurred to me that I have never share the gospel with people in my neighborhood. Sad, but true. I have a ministry in our city thats sole purpose is to share the gospel, and yet, for some reason, I seem to turn that light switch off in my neighborhood. Well, this COVID 19 thing has been a blessing to me as it has given me a new perspective on the mission field of my neighborhood. So now, when I go on walks, I ask the Lord for witnessing opportunities, and boy has He given me them! I shared this with others in our ministry, and it has been so encouraging to see others joining in this. The fact is that rite now, by the nature of being "stuck at home", I have to be that much more intentional sharing the gospel with people. Don't worry, I keep a good 8 foot distance! Please pray for these daily walks, and the many who have joined with me in doing likewise. 

Mormonism

For the past 5 weeks, our weekly Evangelism training has focused on Mormonism. A local friend here who grew up Mormon has been leading our time, and as more people join in our ZOOM meetings, more and more questions pop up which means we simply extend the training each week. It has been eye opening and so beneficial. Actually led me to reach out to our Mormon neighbors the other day!

Weekly Temple Talks

Since Oregon went into "Shelter in Place" back in the end of March, I decided to try to set up our Temple Talks via ZOOM. So far, it has gone really well as we have had on Temple Talk a week since then. ZOOM has opened these up to anyone who would like to be a part, so it has been great having people form all over the globe join us! Please continue to pray for these times as we continue to build bridges with non believers, and ask sincere questions to challenge their worldviews and thinking. We have had talks so far with: Unitarian Universalism, Unity Path, Sikh, Muslim, Bahai, and Buddhist. We plan to continue these for as long as we can or until we run out of people who can host our discussions!