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Twists, Turns, and Ministry

This summer has been one of many ups, downs, twists, and turns.

We tried to share an update several times only to have something change before we could get it out! If you are reading this we must finally have something solid to share, haha. YWAM Minneapolis is still working through a transition that has had plenty of twists. Recently though, there has been fresh hope with new people and vision potentially coming into the ministry. That being said, the new things don't really fit into my calling long-term. That led us to see what other opportunities are out there. Which leads to...


The Big News!

We will be moving back to Germany early next year. I have been accepted on staff at YWAM Hurlach with their Bible Department.

YWAM Hurlach is in a castle that was acquired to host outreaches for the 1972 Munich Olympics and has been a training base since. They have had a long-time influential Bible department that has been in a bit of a slump since the pandemic. They are looking to ramp that back up and we are excited to be a part of that. Hurlach is a little village in Bavaria, about 40 min West of Munich, and 30 min south of Augsburg. It is about 90 min from Dori's parents which will be a big blessing for Dori and the kids. I have taught in the Bible school there a couple of times, some of the pictures I took are below.



Summer Ministry in Minneapolis

Now that we got through the big news, we can talk about what has been happening in Minneapolis.

In June, YWAM started borrowing some space from a ministry called Source which has quite a few projects. We have helped out with their weekly food shelf which typically serves 300-400 families a week! Some of our bilingual staff will greet, register, and pray for those coming in for food. The rest of us help with gathering and distributing the food. Each family gets a full shopping cart of food.


Chick-fil-English

A local Chic-fil-A with former YWAMers on the management team saw an opportunity to help their staff. They have a handful of Latin American team members who barely speak any English. They decided to see if they could help them somehow. They reached out to us and asked if we could help them with some English classes. We have a handful of bilingual staff and all of us have lived internationally and know the struggles. Four of us formed a little team to offer some help. We meet at the Chic-fil-A once a week for two, 1-hour sessions. We have helped a handful of them with forming some basic phrases to make work and life a bit easier. Our participants are really sweet, most work two jobs to support themselves and family back in their home country. A couple of them are working to bring their kids here. It is not easy living cross-culturally, not knowing the language, and being separated from family. It's a joy for us to offer a helping hand. It has been highly appreciated by the participants and the management, so much so another store has reached out about starting it there as well.

We technically do it for free, but it is Chick-fil-A, so of course they make sure we get our fill of complimentary chicken. Win-win-win.


Other Ministry

We have also supported some contacts in St. Paul who have begun to see their very diverse neighborhood as their place of ministry. We are looking also at how to serve more with our church here.


This Fall

There are a lot of things going on, questions to answer and adjustments to be made as we begin to transition to Germany.

Some of the main things we are looking at for this Fall:

September, YWAM is partnering with a local church to run a weekly discipleship course.

October, I will be teaching for a week at the Bible School in Ozarks, Arkansas.

Mid-November, Baby Erik is expected to make his appearance.

December will be recovery and readjusting to being a family of four.


Prayer Requests:

  • How to navigate this transition wisely. How to stay involved and leave at the same time.

  • Transition to becoming a family of four!

  • We are juggling a lot of things right now, especially with a pregnancy and a toddler. We need a bit of wisdom on how to get through this season.

  • Logistics involved with moving to Germany (Erik's documents, selling almost everything (again), a new place to live, and my visa, to name a few)

  • Finances:

    • We will eventually need airplane tickets

    • We are pretty tight in support, sometimes we get a little behind and need a little boost to get everything squared away.

    • A specific need we have: It was time for new brakes on our car. All said and done it was about $1,000 that had to go on the credit card (We don't like doing it that way, but brakes aren't really optional). We use our car for life and to get to/from ministry.





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