If you have served with YWAM anywhere in the world and are now living in Ireland this day is for you!

Join us at 10am for tea and coffee at YWAM Ireland’s newest Centre – An Cuan on the shores of Carlingford Lough in Rostrevor, Co. Down. Stay with us for a great day together which includes inspiring worship, good food, time to chat with old friends and to make new ones as well as a chance to tell your story.

The Gathering is free of charge to current / former YWAMers in Ireland plus their families but advance registration is essential. Child care will be provided during meetings.

Why not make a weekend of it – bed and breakfast is available at YWAM Rostrevor at the special rate of £10 person/night (under 12′s free of charge in their parents’ room) for the nights of Friday 27th and/or Saturday 28th. Places are limited; please reserve early (on the registration form below).

Questions? Call YWAM Rostrevor in Northern Ireland on 028 4173 8492 or email ywam.rostrevor (at) gmail.com

Online registration for The Gathering is open here.   Deadline for registration: 18th April - please mark the date in your diary now!  We look forward to meeting you.

Derek and Trich Dodd – long-term Irish YWAMers – will be joining us and will give a message to encourage us all.

Directions to An Cuan will be sent to you on receipt of your registration.

France – Sweden – Ireland                                             en français

You’re bursting with ideas, your story is captivating and you would like to put it in writing, but you are not sure of your talent as a writer…

This workshop can help you!   Catch your reader’s attention – learn how to write so that you’ll be read!

Janice Rogers, our guest speaker, has been teaching principles of written expression for many years and is the author and co-author of numerous books.

Dates / Locations:

FRANCE:  17 – 19 May (Ascension) at YWAM Champagne (Le Gault la Forêt), east of Paris.  Arrive Wednesday evening, depart Saturday night or Sunday Morning.  In English & French.  Cost €135 (Euros) includes housing, meals and training.

SWEDEN: 21 – 25 May at YWAM Restenäs, north of Gothenburg on the picturesque West Coast.  In English & Swedish.  Cost SEK (Swedish Crowns) 180 includes housing, meals and training.

NORTHERN IRELAND: 28 May – 1 June at YWAM Rostrevor, half way between Dublin and Belfast on Carlingford Lough.  Arrive Sunday evening, depart Saturday morning.  Cost £165   (British Pounds) includes housing, meals and training.

Janice Rogers and her husband Jim have been full-time missionaries with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) since 1966, ministering in 64 nations.  Since 1974, Jim and Janice have produced literature, films and other media with the goal of involving more people in missions work.  Janice led the first Authors Training School in YWAM in 1986.  Since then she has trained hundreds of writers from more than 30 nations in writing schools and seminars.  Her students have used their training to write countless books, magazine articles, film scripts, and material for websites.   Since her training emphasizes universal principles of communication, many of her non-English speaking students  have learned how to write in their own language.

Janice Rogers will teach such topics as…

* how to write a compelling story

* the writer as God’s servant

* identifying and addressing readers’ felt needs

* tightening your focus

* how to build your stories with dramatic scenes

Janice has written and edited a number of books, including five with her brother, Loren Cunningham, the founder of Youth With A Mission and University of the Nations. Their first book, Is that Really You, God? has more than 2 million copies in print in 105 languages. Their most recent collaboration is The Book That Transforms Nations: The Power of the Bible to Change Any Country.  Janice and her husband Jim work with YWAM Woodcrest, a University of the Nations campus in East Texas dedicated to training missionary communicators.  They have three grown sons, all involved in missionary work, plus seven grandchildren.

Some testimonies from previous workshop participants:

The Writers’ Workshop was a valuable experience for budding authors as well as ordinary participants interested in improving their basic communication skills for newsletters or brochures. Having Janice Rogers share from her depth of experience as a writer whose books have been published worldwide was a tremendous opportunity for our community. I highly recommend attending the Writers’ Workshop! Warren Keapproth, Director YWAM Madison, Wisconsin, USA.

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I highly recommend Janice Rogers’s teaching for anyone interested in honing their writing skills. Janice can help both seasoned writers and beginners alike. Janice helped me develop both my writing skills and my confidence to write. Peter J. Iliyn, North American Director, Youth With A Mission.

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Janice Rogers is an engaging and dedicated teacher. I found that her clear thinking and precise communication made it possible for me to grow very quickly in my understanding of the art of writing. Jim Stier, former International President of YWAM.

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My husband Geoff and I attended the YWAM writer’s school led by Janice Rogers in 1986. The techniques and insights we received there transformed us from readers to writers. We took what we learned and started writing. To date, we have written more than 160 books. Janet Benge, author.

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Places limited, be sure to reserve yours soon via our online registration

The next morning, these pictures took on special meaning as the assembled leaders considered ship ministries within YWAM. Jesse Missa of Marine Reach explained that 80 percent of the world’s population lives within 100 kilometers of a navigable waterway. A ship can provide a platform for medical ministry, a place of training, and a home for workers. Jesse’s ministry alone provided over 7,000 dental surgeries in 2011 and ministered to 34,000 people. He said YWAM has a goal to operate 40 ships by 2020. He and others in YWAM ship ministries want to see three ships for Japan alone.

John Dawson recalled the leading of God in YWAM to create ship ministries as well as a university. He remembered the time in 1977 when two YWAM families had twins on the seventh month and the seventh day seven minutes apart. “This caught our attention,” John said. “These events within our family story were part of a prophetic confirmation that the birth of the university and the release of the Anastasis signified a family partnership between the siblings, in this case the University of the Nations and YWAM’s Ship Equipped Ministries. Over the years we began to see that there is a deep purpose that God has for this.”

The YWAM leaders commissioned an eldership for YWAM’s Ship Equipped Ministries: Jesse and Princessa Misa, Ken and Robin Mulligan, Brett and Karin Curtis, and Brian and Anne Sloan. They also took an offering for the medical ship Marine Reach New Zealand is trying to purchase for the Pacific Region. They have raised $300,000 toward the $1.2 million purchase price. The 47 leaders pledged a total of $12,000.

In the prayer and discussion, YWAM leaders expressed enthusiasm for the renewed emphasis on ships within the mission. This emphasis began way back in 1964, when Loren Cunningham led an outreach team in the Caribbean to help people suffering in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane. He had a sense from God that this small four-year-old organization would have a ship. Only a few months later, a man offered Loren a ship. In the prayer time now at the Global Leadership Forum in Tijuana, Christine Colby of the University of the Nations prayed, “Father, I thank your for mercy that you can again trust us with your dream. Help us steward this dream so it will look like what you intended for it.”

In other discussions, the Global Leadership Forum added the Middle East to the Central and South Asia Field, considered models for expansion, witnessed an offering taken in South Asia and given to Southern Sudan and pledged their involvement in Global Outreach Day.

The GLF also affirmed an addition to YWAM’s foundational values. The new value is “Communicate with Integrity” and states that, “YWAM affirms that everything exists because God communicates. Therefore, YWAM is committed to truthful, accurate, timely and relevant communication. We believe good communication is essential for strong relationships, healthy families, communities and effective ministry.”

The meeting ended with communion. The bonds of care that could be seen in painting crews on the first day of the meeting ended in words of blessing shared with each other. Said one leader from Nepal, “I appreciate being part of the eldership, how we emphasize family. We need family commitment and bonding with each other in order to move forward and grow.”

“2012 is a significant year for the UK. With all the things YWAM is hoping to do surrounding the Olympics, it is a significant year for YWAM as well,” said Hayely Bullen, who is leading the prayer team.

Participants sign up on the Brick by Brick Website, taking a “brick” of time, and pledge to pray. All the bricks together build up to create a wall of prayer for the UK during the Olympic year. People have already begun filling time slots.

The initiative is open to both individuals and groups, inside YWAM and outside, and every person is encouraged to use the time as they feel God leads. Each prayer slot will have a different feel, depending on who initiates it. Individuals can take an hour each week, or at random as they have time. YWAM bases and churches can take a day, week, or month, and format the time to fit their personality. Bullen is putting together resources on the Website to give people ideas.

“Instead of giving a format, we’ve given people lots of resources and a list of things to pray for.”

Brick by Brick is not about YWAMers joining in a year of prayer already in progress, but making it integral to the next year of the mission.

“I feel that this is something God has said we need to do as YWAM,” Bullen said. “Not just have YWAM join in a year of prayer that was already happening, but as YWAM, having a year of prayer.”

YWAM Harpenden, where the Forever team is based, is taking the first week, and will kick off the year by reading through the Bible over a four-day period. Other bases have shown interest in doing a 24-hour worship session. The Brick by Brick site has a list of resources to help direct the prayer and give people ideas. The field is wide open, Bullen said.

Following the old adage of ‘Do first, then teach,’ the team at YWAM Harpenden organized a week of 24-7 prayer in October to prepare for the coming year.

“Before I could ask other locations to pray for a week, I wanted to be able to say I had done it. In Olympic terms, this was the athlete’s warm up. We wanted to stretch some spiritual muscles so we would know we could do it again,” Bullen said. “During the time I’ve been here, that’s never happened.”

The week was focused on intimacy with God, and truly had an impact on the staff who participated. Bullen hopes that the attitude of prayer will grow as people join the Brick by Brick movement around the world.

“God often does things in layers. The surface layer for Brick by Brick is to pray for the UK during the Olympics, that it would be a nation that blesses other nations,” she said. “The layer underneath, I am wanting to see YWAM learn how to really pray in unity for things again, to take our prayer to the next level.”

Original article: Praying for Norway

The Norwegian people of 4,8 million woke up to a national tragedy this morning.  After the bomb explosion in Oslo centre yesterday, it became evident that more than 80 young people also had been shot to death at a political youth camp, by a 32 year old Norwegian – probably the same person who made and released the bomb.

The government buildings, including the office of the prime minister, look like a battlefield. How could one extreme nationalist do this alone?  There are many questions.

As believers we ask ourselves what to say to non-believing victims and their families.  The horror at the island, where the youths were killed, was a hell-on-earth experience.  500 young people were running for their lives as the gunman was executing them.  Some escaped by jumping into the sea, but even there they were shot at.

No YWAmers were killed or wounded yesterday,  but as Norwegians we all feel the loss and the pain.  Personally I have two children living in Oslo center, they were both safe. Our son works close to the bomb centre, but he was not at the office yesterday. We have lot to thank God for!

Please pray for YWAM Norway;  that our staff, and the entire body of Christ, will be anointed to point at Jesus in the days of sorrow and grief.

Terje Konradsen
Chairman, YWAM Northern Europe

Yan Nicholls is leader of Forever, the team coordinating YWAM’s outreach efforts at the London Games.  “I have been involved in evangelism in YWAM for over 20 years, I’ve done over 100 outreaches, and I can tell you that this outreach is different!” says Yan. “We will do all the classic outreach things – performing arts, soup kitchens, litter-picking, as well as many of the things that we’ve done at past Olympic outreaches – visitor hospitality, stewarding, translating.   These are exciting, and God will use them.  But there are different things in this Olympic outreach too, and they are the result of what God has spoken to us.  In that sense, we’re no different to any YWAM outreach: we ask God to show us what to do, where to go, and He does.”

So what are these “different things”?

Season of outreach

First of all, this is not just an outreach focused on the period of the Olympic Games: this a season of Olympic outreach. This means that teams can come to participate in outreach events via Forever any time in 2011 and 2012, and be part of the Olympic outreach.

This is reflected in Forever’s focus on outreach in the Olympic host cities.   This may be the London Olympic Games, but there are six other locations hosting events – Cardiff, Coventry, Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle, and Weymouth & Portland.  Forever has been building networks and relationships in each.  This has included gathering Discipleship Training Schools (DTSs) from across the UK and Western Europe in the cities to partner with local churches for a week of evangelism.  This networking means that teams can be plugged into any Olympic host city to get involved in events that play to their team’s strengths and callings and to the hosting churches’ needs.

To the nations and the nation

“Often, our Olympic Games outreaches have been about reaching out to the nations as they descend on one place for this amazing sporting and cultural event,” continues Yan. “This is a crucial element of any Olympic outreach, and applies to the 2012 Games outreach too.  After all, communities in London speak over 300 languages, and we will be sending outreach teams into these communities.  We will touch the nations through the 2012 Olympic outreach!”

“But a key aspect of the 2012 Games outreach is that we don’t want to touch just the hearts of the million visitors to the Olympics.  We also want to impact the host nation, the United Kingdom.  We will be involved in outreach the length and breadth of the nation, aiming for both a short-term and a long-term impact.”

The key is in the Forever name.  “In Forever, we are not just about seeing people’s lives changed for eternity through short-term outreaches,” comments Yan, “but also about establishing long-term YWAM teams in each Olympic hosting city, so that there is ongoing, long-lasting impact for Jesus in the communities we work among.”  Having such long-term goals written into the team vision is a bold innovation for a YWAM Olympic outreach.

Focal points

One further pioneering aspect of Forever is facilitating this radical team-planting strategy.  For the 2012 Olympic outreach, Forever has created six focus areas – Arts, General Missions and Service, Prayer, Social Justice, Sports, and Youth and Children.  These are areas that outreach teams can get involved in, but they also form the basis of the teams being planted.

Such a clear focus is already bearing fruit:  two Forever teams are being planted in London, one of them isjust a javelin throw from the Olympic Park.  One is an Arts team, the other a Social Justice team.  These two teams will combine the short- and the long-term.  They will coordinate outreach teams during the Olympic outreach, especially as they will have built up strong links with local churches.  But their team members are also looking to continue to impact their communities long after the Games have finished.

“It’s great that people can come from across the world to do outreach during the Games in a place like Stratford,” says Lucie Barnsdale, Forever’s Social Justice coordinator. “But I believe it’s even more exciting that they go home knowing that their work is part of a bigger, longer-term outreach effort that will continue to bring Christ’s love to communities.”

Getting involved

So the 2012 Olympic outreach is up and running.  The Forever team is already taking bookings and hosting teams in this season of outreach.  Forever Newcastle’s representative, Andrew, is coordinating six teams over this summer of 2011.  That’s around 60 people involved in outreach in one city, which is a great start.

But what’s needed now is for YWAMers worldwide to catch the vision and bring outreach teams (YWAM teams or local-church teams) to the London Games, particularly during the Games themselves.

“It’s going to be quite a few weeks!” jokes Yan. “We’ve deliberately kept the costs low – a ten-day outreach for just £125 – to facilitate as many people as possible from all over the world to come. We have four venues for orientation conferences that can host up to several thousand each.  From there the teams will be sent out to their outreach destinations. We’ve already been told of up to 1,000 young people coming from Norway, 200 from Sweden, 250 from Kona … I believe that this Olympic outreach could be used by God to start a fresh and powerful move of the Spirit across this land, and across the nations. What an opportunity not to miss!”

All that is needed now is for YWAMers (this includes YWAM Associates naturally) to come!

Visit www.forever2012.com for more information and online application forms.  Together let’s transform this nation and the nations!

We’ve just posted three new stories on YWAM Organic.  You can view highlights at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0QQ1Qb_mSE or you can view each story by going to www.ywamorganic.org. Take a few minutes now visit us at  www.ywamorganic.org and take a look at some quick short stories of the work God is doing through Youth With A Mission around the world.  Invite your friends to take a look too.  Every few weeks we will be adding a new story to the list of stories in the hope that viewers will be encouraged, challenged and inspired to pray, to give and even to go.  Here are some of the most recent stories:

- Young women are not the only victims in the red light districts of Thailand. The men who visit looking for sex are hurting and in need as well. They are trying to fill that need and hurt with love and intimacy. Yet, the love and intimacy that they seek in a red-light district is not the answer. The MST project seeks to help them find what they are truly after.

- Wedged between the ancient Aztec kingdom in the North and the Mayans in the south, is the home of over 150 distinctive people groups which are still largely unreached. This is the land and the people of Oaxaca.

- Whether a homeless man living on the streets or a runaway with nowhere to go, YWAM San Francisco is there to love them with the love of God, and they look to communicate that love in the best ways.

- YWAM Malaysia explains the heart and goal of Youth With A Mission around the world and how you can be involved.What do urban ministries and eating elephants have in common? Find out on, “The Waiting World”.

- 2 million tourists visit Pattaya, Thailand every year. Pattaya is also the home of over 20,000 prostitutes and around 2,000 slum dwellers. Welcome to Pattaya, Thailands home of Surf, Sand, Sun, and Sex.

Visit the Harvest Field! Go to YWAM Organic at www.ywamorganic.org

updated 23rd July2011

After some research, this is what I discovered:

Pink salmon is found in freshwater, not far from where it was spawned and is often farmed. It eats a diet of plants and has less flavour than red salmon. It is used in recipes that require a mild-tasting fish. Sadly, some salmon farmers add colour enhancers to the diet of these fish to fool consumers into thinking that they grew in the wild.

On the other hand, red salmon lives in the wild, swims great distances in salt water and returns to freshwater to spawn. It has a varied diet of plankton and crustaceans, and has more protein content and more omega3 fats in it. In other words, it is healthier and has more flavour.

So, if we were salmon, what kind would we be?

The flavoursome kind who have left their comfort zone and tasted some of the cultures of the world? A people who have faced up to challenges because they are going against the flow, taken risks and grown mature because of it?

Or would we be the kind who stays in the security of our comfort zone, sticking to a familiar diet, and not straining ahead to greater things?

Paul describes himself a “red salmon” in Philippians3 v 12-14

“I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: by no means do I count myself an expert in all this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward – to Jesus. I’m off and running and I’m not turning back.

So let’s keep focussed on the goal, those of us who want everything God has for us.” (The Message)

Salmon are at their most flavoursome at spawning time, just before they die. We too, are called to die – not physically, but to our own longings and desires in order to live for God and to be life-givers to others.

This Easter I encourage you to take a little time to reflect on salmon eggs and not just on chocolate ones!

May you have a blessed Easter time!  Shirley