A Work in Progress

Vancouver DTS 2014/2015

So I have this heart’s longing to communicate with the world around me just what it is my family is doing, just what it is we have given our lives to be a part of, not because I hope that people would in some way understand me better but that in the hopes that I could possibly elicit some reverberating heart beat to join the movement of God in their own life – because from one ordinary heart to the next it is possible to say good bye to the ‘American Dream” and serve God with every single flaw and every single vice in tow.

Nathan and I are quite ordinary people. If we are each other’s standard in which ordinary is measured, I am quite astoundingly ordinary for that matter. Yes we are quite your typical prairie grown, small town kids – quiet lives appeal to us as do years marked by memories made in the close comfortable proximity of family and friends. Our stories both apart and together possess no unusually flashy details that would place us on any note worthy pedestals. I can make an easy case, that with the ordinary odometer tipping the scales of very high, it was a small miracle we had the unsound wherewithal to step out of the very ordinary into the little less ordinary life of a six month Discipleship Training School in Vancouver.

So just what in the world is a “Discipleship Training School” and why would anyone decide to do something like that? I will answer the latter first, we had a somewhat loose yet like minded objective we set out to achieve as newlyweds and that was to start with a foundation of partaking in a missions/ministry based experience for two major reasons; 1. to learn more about God and 2. to grow our faith. So is the premise of our story. The Discipleship Training School came up in a handful of options and I suppose in the end we just went for it because of a few personal recommendations and the appeal that DTS appeared to focus more on overseas missions in developing nations.

So we embarked upon what I am sure will go down in my short life here on earth as one of the most personally challenging faith altering experiences of my life – not a small feat for this ordinary girl. God began the long and gruelling process of transforming this stubborn hearted, pride filled prairie princess. I am living proof, God is patient. I left our Discipleship Training School 6 months later with complete relief that I could finally return to the ordinary life!

God of course had planted in my heart seeds that in time would take deep root and unearth a calling into full time ministry! What an amazing God, he is anything but ordinary and gracious enough to call just ordinary folk to take his hand and jump! This was not an easy endeavour by God and it took me three whole years to even acknowledge the idea of our family doing full time ministry– three years for me to even entertain the idea that my life could look very different than I had imagined! After overcoming the sheer panic at the thought of saying goodbye to my dearly loved ordinary life, God began to shower me with an overwhelming desire to obey Him! And so one day I uttered out loud these mere thoughts of returning to Vancouver to do full time ministry and my ‘not as ordinary’ husband was sold.

In September 2013, our family started working for Youth With a Mission (YWAM). YWAM operates in nearly every geopolitical location around the globe with one unified purpose; to know God and make Him known. There is a great two minute video you can find here which gives an over view of YWAM. So what about YWAM Vancouver? Just as any organization does, YWAM carries some fundamental values, but each location offers the unique flavour of the local culture. YWAM Vancouver is no different, and the location we have chosen to join forces with has a heart for both frontier missions – going to places that do not have a viable church - and urban missions – which is reaching the cities for Christ. YWAM Vancouver staffs about 40 missionaries – each with individual desires to work with their God given gifts and skills they possess and to serve outside the box in areas where needs arise.

Before leaving our lives as we knew it, into the unknown world of being missionaries, Nathan and I sat down to join our hearts and ask God if he had a mission statement he would like us to focus on as we stepped into ministry and this is what we got;

Our passion is to see hearts so inspired by Christ’s love, that they must live their lives recklessly and totally for His glory.

We have had the unreal opportunity to explore with God this last year what this mission statement looks like serving at the YWAM Vancouver location. It has been amazing to see this vision unfold before us in the form of young people opening up to have their lives transformed for the Kingdom of God. Nathan wrote in our last email update a brief note on one of the lives we have seen God take from the pit of despair and suicide to a life full of ambition and dreams to see Christ taken to the lives of the people in Myanmar,

"One of the buzz words I've been hearing in Christian circles recently is 'multiplication', the idea of making disciples that make disciples that make disciples and so on. It's been truly inspiring during the start of this DTS to watch a former student, one that we as staff poured countless hours into, now taking what he's learned and discipling four more young men. God is so good!"

Witnessing this story is truly more than we could have ever dreamt or imagined possible. It has been a completely humbling experience to be in the mix of God’s unfolding work.

The YWAM Vancouver DTS is in the throes of preparing to go on outreach, with hearts ready to say “yes” to what God has in store. One of the most exciting aspects of outreach is watching as God builds into each individual and no matter what degree of transformation takes place, each life returns home with a heart that has grown and changed. God in His perfect timing never misses out on an opportunity to draw the most he can from a situation, and so it is no surprise Nathan and I have been evaluating God’s calling and purpose for our lives.

As we dive more into our role here at YWAM Vancouver and work towards seeing hearts passionately changed for him – we have seen God expand our vision and widen our dreams. God has joined the desire to see lives discipled and transformed with the desire to seeing these individuals mobilized to go to the least reached places of the world. These hopes and dreams have really shown us how God reaches into the willing heart and places visions and longings that would look dramatically different without him.

I speak of the beginnings of our missionary story and where God has taken us, because I know this is not who we would be or where we would have ended up without the deep searing mark of God’s grace and leading in our lives. We are absolutely passionate about our God, and we have a burden to see the hearts of others stirred to something more, something deeper than the ordinary. We along with the community that supports us are living proof that it is possible to join God's story.

The Vancouver DTS staff and students will head out into regions of Thailand where Christ is not known, where the church is not viable and where people are trapped in slavery and oppression. It is only the second season in our life that we have prepared with the staff and students, and though this year we will cheer them on from Canada, I cannot help but well up with absolute delight at what God has in store.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
Isaiah 55:8-12


With love and the grace of Christ,
Jenny


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