August 23rd Update - Crossroads DTS

We have learned a lot during DTS. These lectures have been informative, inspiring, and life changing for us and our walk with Jesus. Here are some of the topics we have covered: Fatherheart, Renewing the Mind, Relationships, Lordship, Holy Spirit, Spiritual Warfare, and Missions. So much has happened during this time of learning and opening our hearts to the Lord. 

Alissa was able to open up much more than before. Especially after a class we had on Prophetic Dancing one night. She rediscovered her love for the movement in Flag Dancing and a gift for displaying the Lord's love through dance. Alissa and one of our classmates now have a flag dance choreographed so that they can display it during outreach.

Michael discovered a gift and passion for Deliverance during Spiritual Warfare week. We were able to see people in our class set free from spiritual oppression and generational curses. After seeing the healing people experienced, Michael was empowered to continue in this ministry. We were also excited because Michael’s gift of tongues was activated for the first time while taking someone through deliverance!

In preparation for serving on outreach, we had a Sunday Takeover of the nearest church. Our team ran worship, presented announcements, gave testimonies, performed dramas and dances, preached the message, served communion, and made up the prayer team. Michael volunteered to deliver the message. His sermon was about the seed-like nature of our faith. Matthew 17:20 reads: “Jesus says “...Truly I tell you, if you have faith like a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”” Having the faith that a mustard seed has means that we are willing to plant it and see it grow. The mustard seed will never become a tree if it stays in our hands. Like the parable of the talents, where increase only came when it was invested, our faith will never grow if we’re so afraid to lose it that we never take a risk.

Before going international, we served for one week at YWAM Zion in Whangarei, New Zealand. In our time on base, we prayed for and ate with the homeless, prayed and worshiped in the local hospital, prayer walked through gang territory, and went out through public streets looking to share the love of Jesus. What has been very important to us is that everywhere we go, whether we have a long conversation about God or 10 seconds passing on the street, we are a representation of Jesus.

June 23rd Update - Crossroads DTS

Thank you all so much for your support. We have received enough to pay for our flights in time to go on outreach! We can barely contain our excitement for going around the world to share the gospel and put what we are learning here into practice. The lectures here are going great, and our weekly evangelism has been preparing us for sharing wherever we go!

We will be leaving for outreach August 16th. With almost two months before we ship out, we still have a lot more training and practicing to do. 

I do have one update on our payment options I mentioned. The link to Givealittle and to pay directly to YWAM Nelson are not actually tax exempt. These are foreign charities that are not set up in the US so they do not count towards donation amounts for taxes. The Givealittle charity can help reduce fees for us to put towards YWAM Nelson while we are still in NZ. We will turn off the Givealittle payment link once we are done with our DTS.

We have also already found out where we are going on our Outreach! We had a reveal event and found out the 3 places we will be going to!

First will be 2 weeks in Sydney, Australia where we will be ministering to refugees. These people are coming from China, the Philippines, and other places around the world. They are going there to escape war, persecution, and other various issues from their home countries. This creates an opportunity for us to help people from several different countries all in one place. 

Then we are going to travel to the Philippines for 3 weeks and support some of the mission bases there. After that we will go to the Taiwan for 2 weeks before returning to Nelson NZ. We are really looking forward to going out and helping people around the world!

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported us so we could get this far! And if you would like to help support us through our outreach, you can go to our Support Our Mission page to see how you can help and take part in our mission!

April Update - Next Mission

We are now back in the US, grateful for all of our friends and family that have been supporting us. From here, we start looking forward to where we will go next. 

After much prayer and seeking guidance, we have decided to take a Discipleship class with YWAM (Youth With A Mission) called Crossroads DTS. While YWAM typically focuses on working with youth, this class is specifically for older people/couples who are getting into missions. We are glad to have jumped into missions when God called us. We also realized that we want to work with others in being closer to God while we are out ministering to others. 

If you would like to support us, or have questions about expenses and the YWAM location, please visit our Support Our Mission page for more information. 

Azua, Dominican Republic - March Update

Over the last few months we have been striving to increase the self sufficiency of the mission base. Projects with this goal in mind include building a chicken coop, establishing a vegetable garden, and setting up solar panels.

Throughout most of January we were building the chicken coop. Although it took several more weeks after finishing to actually get chicks, we are now raising 12 pullets.

Our pet project has been the garden. This has been a far more involved project than we expected when we set out. Clearing the an area to plant involved digging out far more tree stumps than we anticipated. The dirt here is largely fine gravel, and we've had to start a compost bin to get more fertile soil. So far we've started tomato, bell pepper, arugula, and basil in egg cartons. Once these seedlings are larger, we'll move them into planter boxes.

The solar panels were our primary need. The power grid in Azua is very unstable, with frequent outages and fluctuations. At some points we don't have enough power to run the fridge and freezer. Other times, surges of power will break any electronics plugged directly into an outlet. Having the stability of our own power source will allow us to support larger teams coming in, and allow us to devote the money that has been going to electricity to further ministry. This has been achieved with the support of a church from Wisconsin, U.S. who raised the money to pay the steep initial costs. They do regular outreach missions twice a year here, so when they came this winter they sent people who could help install the panels for us. After three weeks of work, we are finally off the grid.

Two woman from Germany also came to the base here as volunteers for a few weeks. They have been going to two different schools in the area teaching English.

Patricia and Sophie from Germany

2024

Azua, Dominican Republic

This is the second time we have come out to the DR thanks to Rodney at the YWAM (Youth With A Mission) base in Azua. Michael came out first at the end of July. He went back to the United States to be married in October, but now both of us are back in the Dominican Republic.

September Update

Things have been going pretty well here. It took a while to get acclimated to island life, so I'm sorry I haven't uploaded anything. But I did want to give people an update on what has been going on out here. It's been slow going here, but we are making progress. We've been fixing up the base we have here so that we will be better suited to hosting large groups of missionaries. We are cleaning up a lot and making repairs on different buildings, painting bed frames, clearing out debris, and ordering bibles for outreach opportunities. 

We have been able to do some work with the community as well. We host a children's swim class every Saturday, which has been fun. About 15 families come out here every time and hang out with us as their kids swim in the pool. Other events and church groups come out also. One had a seminar on their group and how to reach others in their community. And we enjoy building our relationships with the local pastors, which helps us have more opportunities to do outreach.

Speaking of outreach, we were able to have some of our staff go out with one of the churches to bring Spanish Bibles to a community that was very much lacking any chance of getting them. This community is poor and desperate for the word. We were pretty moved by the people there and how happy they were to receive Bibles from us. 

2022

Azua, Dominican Republic

We were fortunate to be able to join a mission team sent by our church, One Life, to a YWAM (Youth With A Mission) base in Azua. In the eight days we were there, we helped clean up the mission base, organize a wedding for five couples, assist in long term building projects, and join the ministries of the local team. On a more personal level, Alissa told the stories of David and Esther to kids at a park during one of the base's outreaches. Michael shared his testimony at a Wednesday night church service.