What the Walkers have been up to this spring Visiting the Museum of the Bible in DC with the English Language and Culture students
Debbie is a part time staff with the ELC in the spring and fall quarters when we have students here at YWAM VA. Arranging trips and activities and having intentional conversations with the students is one of her favorite parts of staffing this school. Recently we had a day where two of our teachers were not available so we went on an extra trip to Washington DC to the Museum of the Bible. What a great building that is dedicated to the greatest most widely read and distributed book ever! It is neat to see how the Bible has had an impact on every area of our lives. How has the Bible impacted your life?
Devoted and intentional one on one conversations are one of the many things that schools and locations in YWAM include in their weekly schedules. It is a dedicated time to help a student or fellow staff have accountability and help with all that they are processing. It is often a time to just pray with someone and to help point them to God for what is happening in their lives. Something we all need to do. It is one of our favorite things to do in our daily jobs. Ned has even added a candy dish to his office so that when someone comes to share what is going on, he can also give them chocolate. Often someone will tell me that they got some great advice from Ned and he will simply tell me that he just listened to them. We all need someone to just listen sometimes and through this we discover an answer that was right there. Recently during one of these meetings my friend was telling me how much more she has been able to hear from God and has been dreaming of some new things that she wants to start when she goes back to her home country. It really is a privilege to help point others toward Christ and what He wants to do with each of us. It also helps us to remember to keep asking Him what we are to do on a daily basis. | |  | | Baseball has become part of our daily lives! Jesse had a really great season with the Central Virginia Homeschool Patriots baseball team. We are reminded again how God uses sports to open doors to share His Love with others. At this particular game, I met a lady from Nicaragua who had stopped to watch just because it reminded her of home. We chatted in Spanish about sports and missions and how God had brought us both to Richmond. God opens doors through sports and many other things, we just have to be willing to use the door to lead toward Him. | | | | |
Sickness, Spring and Schools I want to start with an apology for not sending an update sooner.
Honestly, it has been a very hard season for us. We have all been sick off and on. It seems to jump from one of us to the other. Some days just not feeling well and others running a fever and feeling "really" sick. Every time we think we are all well one of us gets sick and we have all struggled to have much energy. Just last night, Jesse had a very sore throat and took cold medicine before bed. We would appreciate prayers for health.
Here is a little recap of the past few months:
January was a busy month with hosting two Member Care seminar students in our home for the month of January. The seminar was hosted here at YWAM VA and had students and staff from over 6 nations. Many of the YWAM VA staff were on outreach or attending the seminar so January we were very short on people running the kitchen and offices and other daily areas of the base. There were lots of extra opportunities to serve for us.
February is Black History month and living in a predominately black neighborhood shows that this is an important month to our neighbors. Many of the youth may never make it to adulthood due to crime and drugs. They never dream of living outside of this poverty stricken area because of finances and skin color. Gun shots and sirens often rob the future generation of hope. But weekly we have the opportunity to give them some hope. This hope looks like coloring and playing and sharing a Bible based "character" story with them at the local community center. We don't often see the fruit of our weekly hour of hope giving but sometimes we do. Like when one of the young ladies, Zykera wrote these words: Because to me we're all equal no matter the color And to God we're all sister and brother We know that we are making a difference. She told us that it is because of us just loving all the kids the same that it has helped her to realize that we are all the same to God.
March was full of warm days and snow battling for the daily weather. And it also brought new schools starting. We currently have 5 students in the Discipleship Training School, 11 in the Discipleship Bible School and 7 in the English Language and Culture School. Schools and more students mean more admin work for Ned and Debbie is helping with cultural activities for the ELC and intercession times for the DTS.
Spring has also brought a lot of baseball to our lives. Jesse is enjoying playing baseball on the junior varsity Central Virginia Homeschool Patriots team. He is also finishing up his junior year of high school and serving at the base when he can.
April showers may bring May flowers but we are most looking forward to Sammi and Hannah visiting in May. | | | |
Let's Follow The Star Together in 2018 Happy New Year 2018 Let's Follow The Star Together During the Christmas Eve service, the Children's Pastor Megan called the children to the stage and asked them what their family put on top of the Christmas tree. There were multiple answers but the common one was a star. Why a star? It was the star that led the Wise Men to Jesus. The star is a reminder of what to follow that will lead us to Jesus. She challenged the children and the rest of us to follow the star to Jesus all year long.
When we follow the star, we find Jesus and when we find Jesus, we fall in love with Him and we want to serve Him and we want to share Him with others.
The message really made me think, what is the star that we are following? Where is our star that will lead us to Jesus? We aren't privileged to have a star shining brightly in the sky for us to follow all the time. We don't have a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night like the Israelites. But what we have is even better! We have the ability to always look for and follow Jesus. We have the Bible that guides us and fellow believers to help challenge us, We even have the hard times and hard people in life that we can use to lead us to Jesus. But sometimes we need to see something to remind us to look for Jesus. At the response time at service, Megan invited us each to take a star and to hang it somewhere that we will see it each day to be reminded to look for Jesus daily.
Together in 2018, let's resolve to follow the star to Jesus every day. To look for Jesus in all things and all the people that we come across. | | | | |
What are the Walkers doing right now?
We are moving!!
The last week of August, our family will be moving long-term to Santiago, Dominican Republic. We will be working with YWAM Santiago and the Martin Family! We are super excited about this transition. But also praying for wisdom as we figure out visa's, residency, what to do with our things, etc...
As always, we are praying that the Lord will use us wherever we are!
Lord, help us not to miss the things you have prepared for us to do!
