What’s YWAM?

What is YWAM? Youth With A Mission is a global, Christian organization seeking to primarily help young adults to “know God and make Him known.” YWAM has over 800 operating bases in 145 countries. Involvement with this organization is broad, but the most common way of participating is by attending a six-month Discipleship Training School (DTS). These schools are usually made up of students from all over the world, ranging in age from about 17-30 (there are schools for older adults and families as well).

The typical DTS is structured into two phases—lecture phase involves living on a YWAM base and attending classes for three months, while the outreach phase involves serving on a three-month mission trip that is typically in another area of the world. Students cover a variety of topics from international speakers during the lecture phase before going out and putting feet to their knowledge. We both attended YWAM schools in New Zealand.

What We’re Doing With YWAM

We currently live in the YWAM ministry house in Christchurch and host missionaries or people who contact us through the base or through mutual friends. We also use the house to host gatherings for prayer nights, house church and traveling speakers. The home was given to YWAM Oxford a number of years ago with one condition—that it would be used for ministry.

In addition to hosting teams we attend various meetings and events at YWAM Oxford—which is about 50 minutes outside of Christchurch city. Sometimes we connect the DTS students with local outreaches in Christchurch. Because YWAM is short term and the students are always coming and going, we hope to act as a bridge between short term evangelical outreaches and the long term discipleship that needs to take place among people they minster to. However, this takes time as we are still new ourselves and are learning about opportunities in town.

Noah is also redesigning and maintaining the YWAM Oxford website/twitter/facebook, while Kate is currently serving as the Earthquake Relief Coordinator for anyone contacting the base for information.

What’s the house like? It’s a medium-sized home with multiple rooms outfitted for incoming guests. In regards to small mission teams staying here, the main back room is large, which facilitates worship, prayer, team meetings and general hangout time. The downside to the house is that there is only one bathroom and shower.

When we arrived the house was in need of repair due to wear and tear from previous residents and uses. We spent the first six months working on the house. It is now in much better condition, though there are still several big projects waiting to be done (and earthquake damages have put hosting on hold for the time being).

Some of our Guests in 2010-2011.

Our Experience With YWAM

Noah attended a YWAM DTS on the North Island of New Zealand in 2000. While Noah was participating in his outreach on the South Island in 2001, it was the city of Christchurch that God strongly put on Noah’s heart. He wasn’t sure what form it would take, but he knew in time God was calling Him there and that one day He would reveal His plan. When Noah met Kate in 2005, he shared this with her.

Kate participated with YWAM through a Marine Reach DTS, on the North Island also where she lived on a medical ship. For outreach, they sailed to Fiji, where they traveled around the outer islands, offering free medical care and spiritual teaching to isolated villagers. During the last month of her outreach, her team lived on a remote island off the coast of Vanua Levu with a small village.

YWAM was a great experience for both of us, as we were both challenged to grow in new areas, made lasting friendships with international friends, and were a part of making God known in our specific areas during outreach. Upon Kate’s return to the States, we kept the dream in the back of our minds, always wondering about God’s timing for the move back to New Zealand. For Noah, it had been almost a decade of preparation and growth since being given this prompting.

It wasn’t until January 2009 that we felt God release us to pursue NZ. As we prayed and researched in preparation for the move, we got reconnected with a particular YWAM base near Christchurch—Oxford, and we were invited to stay in their city ministry house. In May 2009 we found cheap tickets and took a whirlwind trip to Christchurch where we scouted out the house, met up with a wide-range of contacts in the city and attended a national YWAM conference at Oxford. We took the plunge and moved to Christchurch in March 2010.