A Wonderful, Shocking Surprise.

We are leading a Thailand outreach in June off of this Spring school!! Can you believe it? I feel as though we just returned from the beautiful country (well, i guess we did). It is unreal to us, and we were not at all expecting this! What a blessing!! 

This team is completely opposite of our last experience. What do I mean by this? Well, for one, the budget it $1,000 less per student, which for the students is amazing, and as a team...a very tight budget. Secondly, we will be traveling shorter distances, due to the financial side of things, and we will actually be staying in more rural villages rather than in the big cities. Which honestly, Ted and I are thrilled for this. I believe the students will really enjoy this as well. 

We do not have anything set in stone, and even if we did I probably at this point wouldn't write to share because things can change so quickly and easily. For example, as of right now we are okay to lead the team to Thailand, though the budget is very tight. We will need to be completely frugal in our spending on housing, food, transportation and such. IF for some reason YWAM does not think Thailand will work with this budget, then we will most likely be asked to lead somewhere in South America. 

Ted and I are willing to lead anywhere, but our heart and our goal is to head back to Thailand. Now that we have already experienced the culture once, we feel ready to lead this team to the same country, yet with a entirely different experience.

Prayer Requests: 

•  We will begin to call travel agencies to find the cheapest tickets possible tomorrow. Please pray for favor!
• Guidance in where to take the team, and what ministries to work with while we are in Thailand. 
• Guidance in how to be frugal as we began to budget everything in. 
• Our students coming in on Monday. Please pray for immediate team unity! (We had such an amazing team unity last time and would love to see that once again)
• We have 11 students who are international students. Incredible yes, but it does make it a bit hard for us as we begin to get Visas for each.  (by the way it is very rare to have over half the students be international, we love it!)
• Peace for Ted and I. 
• Balance with our daily jobs, as leaders outreach and small group, as a couple, and with the Lord first and foremost!

 We love you! Thank you for standing with us through prayer and/or your financial support! \

Love, Jami Joann

We Plan, He Directs.

Have you ever planned for something, thought it to be set in stone, and have it totally change right before your eyes?

Well the last blog that was written, is basically completely changed in almost every way. So scratch it. 

Ted and I are now on the Discipleship Training School staff as small group leaders, once again. My first thought when I heard this news was, "Yes!!" and then my second thought..."Wait, God what about our season?" and I was quickly reminded of how God is working in us to be more relational with his children, why not lead a small group and learn to love, lead, and really relate with people as Christ would. 

As for Ted and I...we are almost coming up on our 1st year anniversary. About three months now, crazy huh? We have walked through so much this year in learning what it means to love. Love is unbelievable when you love as Christ loves. When you are selfish,well it's undesirable, you know?

We both have really grown a lot, even in the past 2 weeks, in our love relationship. Seeing each other in who they are in Christ, encouraging each other in our strengths and challenging each other in weaknesses. We do have our down times as well, we have by no means perfected this! (Many of you married folks are probably laughing right now). If you have any advice for us, please, please let us know!

Another prayer request: 

We are also leading a youth retreat the weekend of the first school. Totally unrelated to YWAM. A couple here, asked Ted and I to pray about leading this at their church. Right now the church does not have a youth ministry running, and their are about a dozen teens needing leadership.

 Ted and I do not feel led t lead the youth group, we do not feel like this is for us. Yet, we are leading the youth retreat. We are leaving on Friday evening and coming back on Sunday afternoon. Ted and I will be leading them in bonding activities, as well as many "sessions" that we will teach on relationship with God, peer pressure, purity, and their dreams and goals. 

Please pray for us, as we still have to put together the weekend! Please pray for us as we meet the students, and also begin working in our new departments. 

Once I know what Ted is doing officially, aside from leading a small group and outreach, I will let you know. We are curious too!!

Love you, thanks for reading our blog!

Jami

A New Season

We begin again! Another season of changes, challenges, and growth headed our way.

Beginning on March 31st, four new schools roll in; A Phase 2 leadership program, a School of Worship, a regular DTS and an around the World DTS.

Ted and I are still awaiting the moment where we get called into the personnel office and told if we will or will not be working with a school this spring. We are pretty sure that they are not putting us on a school staff. The reason why: we are traveling to Alaska!

The most opportune time to travel to Alaska, for Ted's family and his friends, would be the beginning of April. So for the first two weeks of April we will be in the beautiful state of AK! The downside of that would be the fact that since we will be gone for the first two weeks of the schools, we cannot work directly with the schools as small group leaders.

We've talked about this, and both agree that it is for the best. We feel like this is a new season we are entering, one of a lot more growth, a lot more challenge and change. So we are okay with the thought of taking a break for three months from deeply discipling students. God has really stirred in our hearts for us to work on our relationships with our friends and staff, we look forward to this!

This is a small season for Ted and I to grow deeper in our relationship with God, which will ultimately lead us into a deeper relationship with each other.

Also, Ted has not been home for two and a half years now, and he misses it greatly! He is very excited to show off his home, the places he grew up, and the beautiful land.

A few things we do now for sure... I (Jami) will be working, once again, in the kitchen office as the assistant. I worked there about a year ago this spring, so I have an idea of what the job entails. I will mostly be working on the menu, and meal instructions. Planning the menu, but mostly working on putting the meal recipes together for breakfast, lunch, and dinner each day.

I remember last year I was planning our wedding while doing this very job, so when we do have down time, it is pretty awesome. I remember this job is very up and down, meaning when we are busy we are really busy, and when we aren't there is nothing to do.

So, what will I be doing to make the most of my time, since I am not planning a wedding, you may ask? Well, I hope to be planning an outreach to Thailand.

Many of you know, for those of you who do not...Ted and I loved Thailand and want to return this summer with more students. As of right now we are working on what is called an outreach proposal. We just put together the dates, the times, the cost, the budget, the housing, food, ministry and let them know our heart, and they pray about it and talk amongst the elders and decide.

This is a h u g e prayer request! Please pray that we will be able to lead this outreach, and hopefully this summer!

Another prayer request, on the smaller side of things...Ted and I recently invested in a YMCA membership. We were given a huge deal since we are YWAMers, so that is a blessing. The prayer request is: discipline! Many of you may have noticed the weight we both have gained since being together. We both really feel led to be healthy again. So please pray for us, as this is a huge transition from eating whatever we want, whenever we want to being aware of our health.

Thanks for taking the time to read my rambles!

Love, Jami Joann