Hey friends!
I’m alive and well in Cambodia!
On February 18, my team and I will fly back to America to debrief and graduate. It’s a ways off but I wanted to take a moment and update you on what’s happening next in the life of Linds.
Over this past quarter, God has spoken and worked greatly in my life. I’ve wrestled through a lot and I’ve been challenged in many perspectives. I think the best way to describe what he has done would be a paradigm shift in the way I view my life, ministry, and focus.
I began to look at my life, the efforts I was making, and the fruit of those efforts and came to a realization that if you took YWAM and organized ministry away, if you took church culture and the Christian environment out of the picture, how kingdom building would my life actually be?
With that question, I started asking myself and God countless questions about the purpose of ministry, vision, and discipleship. I want to grow to a place where I’m confident my life is missional regardless of what organization or environment I’m in.
As most of you know, my staffing commitment with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) is up in September and so I had been praying about where God is leading next. To be honest, I thought I’d be at YWAM Honolulu for quite a while working with the DTS and in the marketing department – two of my passions. However, I’ve noticed that God has been shifting my focus from short term discipleship schools to a more long term view of discipleship and ministry.
A couple of months ago I was on the island at our local Safeway. As I was checking out I was talking to the cashier about her day, casual small talk. In a moment, this thought popped into my head, “I bet she’s never heard the gospel. I bet the doesn’t know Jesus”. In a space where I had the perfect opportunity to start a conversation that was already flowing, I stayed silent.
My desire is to be in a place where when it comes to people knowing truth, silence is not an option.
And so as I looked at what would grow me the most in the areas where God has been leading, I realized that YWAM’s School of Missions and Evangelism (SOME) fits perfectly into the things God has been speaking.
The SOME is a similar format to a DTS in the sense of a ten week lecture phase and a ten week outreach. This is a school focused on being better equipped to walk out the life I believe Jesus calls us to as his disciples. With a heavy focus on evangelism, it will equip me to be more confident in sharing my faith and explaining the gospel to those around me. It also emphasizes leadership development in areas that will equip me in public speaking, team leading, and cross-cultural communication.
As it turns out, YWAM Honolulu will be sending a number of our staff to YWAM Yosemite to pioneer this SOME. This intrinsically fits with both YWAM Honolulu’s vision, and my own, of being multiplicative and greater-Church focused (not self contained to Honolulu).
On March 6, I will be coming home and spending a month working and preparing to go to Yosemite, California at the beginning of April.
As I will be a student in this school, I am needing to raise an additional $4000CAD to my current support base. If this is something that you would like to continue or start partnering with me in, you can donate here: lindsaylaidlaw.ca/donate
[End of year giving to YWAM Vancouver with a post-date of 2017 will be receipted.]
I would love to tell you more about what God has been speaking and the things I’ve been learning! As always, feel free to shoot me a message and say “hello!” I’d love to hear what God is doing in your life right now and how I can be praying for you!
Talk soon,
Lindsay