March Update

Intimacy Unto Fruitfulness

My time in South Sudan was epic. My team was unified as a family. Friendships were made with the South Sudanese. And we experienced God’s Kingdom advancing in many ways.

I could write about Moses, an alcoholic for 30+ years. But after some of my students shared the gospel, he rededicated his life to Jesus and stopped drinking!

I could talk about the message one of my girls gave where nine youth gave their life to Jesus!

Or the time we met, talked with and prayed for the Speaker of Parliament for South Sudan and a Major General in the SPLA!

But more than the stories, we were a team first and foremost marked by intimacy with Jesus and intercession. It was that intimacy that then produced fruit through us.

One of my favorite memories of seeking the face of Jesus as a team was during our second 24 hour Burn set in a bombed out Catholic Church where we worshipped and prayed under the stars, scorching sun and in the end, rain! The church was built in 1981, but two years later was bombed and used by the Arabs to store their weapons.

We slept in tents on a Catholic compound nearby, which was a battlefield during the war. Many Arabs and South Sudanese lost their lives on the land where we stood. But where death once covered the land, life was proclaimed for 24 hours straight.

We started at 8 p.m. with a two hour corporate time. We lifted the name of Jesus up while breaking down strongholds through prayer. We prayed against drunkenness, corruption, violence, passivity, laziness, etc. and replaced it with freedom, purity, peace, creativity, etc.

I know God heard our prayers and a shift took place in the spiritual realm. During the 22nd hour, thunder rolled in and a light rain fell; an outward expression of God’s glory wanting to fall in the city and country.

There are so many more stories to share about lives that were changed but for me, watching my students’ hunger for the Lord increase and their desire to share the simple gospel everywhere they went was my highlight.

In the end, the goal was not to have a good outreach [although we had a GREAT outreach], the goal was to look more like Jesus.

I believe this is my team’s testimony. Yes, people were saved, healed and delivered. But my team looks more like Jesus now, than three months ago. And that is the sign of a great outreach.

Words We Prayed Over South Sudan

1. Exodus 19:5-6, “You will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

Priests invite, lead and point people to Jesus. Israel was called to be priests to the nations surrounding it. May South Sudan be the same. A nation marked by the presence of God which points other nations to Christ.

2. Revival will spring forth from the city of Yei. Revival is a fruit of a righteous kingdom seeking community. We pray this over the YWAM Yei base we stayed at.

Lessons Learned about Leadership

1.    Servant leadership - Philippians 2:6-8

2.    Do, then teach

3.    Attach students to Jesus

4.    ALWAYS speak Life

5.    Encourage students in what God is speaking to them

6.    Presence center leadership

7.    Unoffendable hearts - Thick skin but a tender heart

8.    Stay teachable

9.    Brokenness - Daddy, daddy, what else can I learn?

10.  Lay down my rights

He Stole my heart, so I'm stealing his last name!!!

I’m getting married!!! On May 11th, Kevin and I will say “I Do” in La Jolla, California. It will be a small beach wedding for family and a few dear friends to help celebrate our glorious day!

Kevin is from Kansas City, but we met at the Kona YWAM base on New Year’s Eve of 2010. We started dating in September 2011 and continued our relationship from thousands of miles apart these last three months. We are so incredibly excited to start our “happily ever after”! And thrilled to never be apart for that amount of time again.

We will continue to work with YWAM with the intention to staff the lecture phase for the next Community Transformation Discipleship Training School starting at the end of September. We are also praying about the possibility of helping start a long-tern art community plant in Cape Town, South Africa!

What’s Next?

Debrief

We just finished a week of debrief with our students. It was a time of remembering what the Lord has done as well as commissioning our students as they go home or back into the nations.

This next week, we as a staff will debrief the last six months of our Community Transformation DTS.

LJRD Seminar

Soon after debrief, I will be transitioning to focus on the Let Justice Roll Down Seminar I will help staff from May 18 - June 8 in Kona.

The seminar’s title comes from Amos 5:24, “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” The main thrust of the seminar is to equip and encourage missionaries to engage more fully with works of justice and active peacemaking in their given context by becoming true allies to the poor and oppressed. We've organized a beautiful array of veterans in those fields of work to speak at the seminar and are so excited to host them at YWAM Kona. We currently have 30 participants signed up and are hoping to round out about 40. Pray with us that this seminar would be a real catalyst that could birth a movement of missionaries embracing the margins of the earth with the mercy of God! We hope for nothing less.

The Mainland

After the seminar we will be on the mainland, USA for a few months visiting family and friends in Omaha and Kansas City.

We are planning an Omaha reception in June - date, time and location to be determined..

There will also be a Kansas City reception.

We would love to see as many of you as possible in the process so please get in touch with us as we are beginning to organize our mainland travel plans.

Thank You

Thank you for all the love, support and prayers you continue to show me as I serve with YWAM. The more I listen and learn, the more I understand how blessed I am to have such a large support group. I hope to see many of you this summer!

 

New Support

Kevin and I are in need of additional monthly supporters. We couldn’t do what we do without the financial commitment of our faithful friends and family who want to see the Kingdom extended through our ministry.

We count it a privilege that the Lord has asked us to partner with him in YWAM and particularly Community Transformation. We are asking you to PARTNER with us, financially and prayerfully. As you join us, we know the Lord’s heart is blessed as we collaborate to see his Kingdom come on the earth.

Support:

Send checks to: “The Storehouse” at PO Box 540782, Omaha, NE 68154-0782.

Please do not write my name on the memo line of your check, simply include a note designating “Lindsay.”