Disciple all Nations? Yeah, we’re doing that.

Life at YWAM Tyler is quite the cultural experience.

Recently, 18 students from around the world came to our campus to participate in a Multi-Cultural Discipleship Training School for the next five months. These are 18 students hungry to know God from places like Haiti, Brazil, South Korea, and Columbia. It’s exciting to see how God is drawing people to come and be part of our training programs.

All of these students have in one way or another been impacted by the Advancement Department, which is where we work here at YWAM Tyler. Some of them heard about us through our marketing efforts on social media. Others signed up because someone told them to go check us out, leading them to our website.

Our regular posts on the internet kept them all excited for the great adventure ahead of them. Over the last six months, our discipleship team coached them over the phone, prayed with them, and encouraged them to not lose heart as they were seeking to raise funds and get their visas.

In 2018, we didn’t have enough students applying to our April quarter to even run a school, so it was cancelled. This year, we saw an applicant increase of %200! We were thrilled!

Email communications went out regularly to help prepare them for their trip. Blogs were read and videos watched to get them ready for the journey they were about to embark upon. Our office also prayed for them weekly in a special prayer time set aside for the applicants, asking the Lord to help each student get their needed funds, visas, and documents to travel.

After all the hard work, it was exciting to finally see the international group being introduced at Family Night, which is our weekly worship gathering. Here’s a picture taken of most of the group with Loren Cunningham, founder of YWAM, and Leland & Fran Paris, directors of YWAM Tyler.

Please be praying for this school! It’s called the School of His Intimacy, with John 15:15 being a key verse for them ~ No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

Just this week, I published a blog for YWAM Tyler that our Strategic Frontiers department put together from a recent trip to India and East Asia, celebrating the translation of God’s Word for a tribal people group who’ve never had a Bible to read.

A young man we work with at YWAM Tyler, originally from a country in East Asia, is part of this people group and has been working on this translation for a few years now. Right here in our own backyard, Mark would sit at a little desk with his computer for hours everyday simply because God told him to translate the Word into his mother tongue. It’s been exciting to see the completion of the New Testament, and now he’s working on the Old Testament.

YWAM is part of a global network of ministries seeking to end Bible poverty! If you’d like to read the story, here’s a link to the blog: A Tribal Village Welcomes God’s Word.

Last week, as I was thinking on this idea of ending Bible poverty, this phrase came to my mind ~ We are the poorest of all if we have the Word yet aren’t reading it ourselves.

It’s hard to believe there are still people groups in the world that haven’t heard about Jesus, but not only that, there are people groups who don’t have access to the Scriptures because the Bible hasn’t been translated in their language yet. As Americans, we have tons of Bibles on our shelves and access to every translation ever written on our phones. Let’s be reading them people!!! Seriously, let’s be students of His Word.

Richard and I read through the Bible yearly. It’s a deep conviction we’ve had for years and can’t ever seem to shake. Each year we contemplate, does God have us doing something different in our quiet time, and the answer is always the same … Nope! So we then prayerfully consider which translation and plan we’re going to do for that particular year!

I’ve grown tremendously simply by making time each day to read the Bible. God’s Word is a sword, cutting to the very core of my being. It’s a warm blanket, bringing comfort when I’m discouraged. It’s an oasis in the barren moments of life. What a rich treasure chest, I get to explore. What a deep well of living water, I get to drink from. I pray the Word is finding it’s place in your life each day too.

“Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts.” (Jeremiah 15:16)

This weekend YWAM Tyler will host a worship and missions conference. It’s going to be a great event. If you can’t be here in person, watch the sessions via a LiveStream on YWAM Tyler’s Facebook page. Like and Follow the page so you will be updated when each session starts. Seth Yates from YWAM Kona will be a featured worship leader this year and our Arts Department have an incredible presentation of #Unearthed, our theme for this year’s conference.

I hope these stories encourage you. We’re not in the pictures or even going on the trips, yet since we are part of YWAM Tyler, we are also part of what God is doing through these stories. YOU ARE TOO! Your partnership with us is reaching people around the world with the gospel message of Jesus!! Praise the Lord!!

God is winning in the nations my dear friends!! Thanks for partnering with us.

To close, I’ll share a couple fun pictures of Audrey. She played volleyball this year for the first time at her school. The coaches, pictured with Audrey below, were awesome, teaching the students the basics of the game but also encouraging them in their journey with Jesus. We love Christian Heritage School and are so thankful Audrey gets to be part of this community!