50th Anniversary.....!

15th September 2010, posted by Deborah Cruz

Firstly - sincere thanks for praying on Sunday night for us along with the other missionaries. We hear it was a blessed time - praise You Lord!

Now, whose 50th? No, not Sandro's and mine - we've just celebrated our 8th month 'anniversary'! And very nice it was too. So, what's with the title? The answer may surprise you - YWAM (Youth With A Mission) started in 1960 with Loren Cunningham's vision of waves breaking on the shores of beaches across the globe. The waves then turned into young people taking the gospel out to the nations. Maybe we're used to the concept of young people having an experience in missionary outreach at St Paul's, but in 1960 NO ONE was doing this and there was a very set way to become a missionary - at least 3 years of Bible College, be married, have experience of leading in home country were minimum requirements. But comparatively few people were 'missionaries.' So, this radical idea that young people might actually have the capacity to be called by God, receive some training plus *key part*, application and discipleship  so they actually become more conformed to Jesus' likeness and go straight out onto a missions outreach was not always received well. But it worked for Jesus sending the disciples, it works today and, notwithstanding its imperfections, this great family or movement (as it's best described) has been enormously blessed and used by the Lord for yes, 50 years!

YWAM has developed, matured, made horrendous mistakes and learned from them, but the core values are still the same, even though strategies and methods will change depending on the context and times. There is still the belief that a human being of any age is able to respond to God's voice and do His will, that availability to God is worth more to Him than our abilities, that history is His Story (no, not Michael Jackson's!!). And what is His Story about? The great theme of the Bible is to redeem people and make them agents for His Kingdom, to reach more and more people, until "the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea." Hab 2:14

The best (only?) way to 'understand' YWAM is to stay around a YWAM base for a few days and I often wish you all who are supporting Sandro and me could do just that! (Oh, no! I hear you cry). But I guess this is just because it really is based on relationship - in a YWAM base there can be various cultural backgrounds, ages, denominations and even languages spoken and it shouldn't really work, but, Glory to God, it does.

May the glory always go to God.

Love and hugs

Deborah (Sandro sends greetings, but didn't write this!)