Anyways, check it out:

This update is coming a bit later than I intended, but I had no hard drive space to download pictures from my camera, so I had to wait until I could remedy the problem.

YWAM staff from around Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland met in Dublin over the night of Friday 7th of November and the following morning to pray in a new era of our operations in Ireland. In short, on the 8th of November, the works in both the North and the South became united in leadership and vision as YWAM Ireland.

Friday evening we had a time of sharing from Rob Clarke, who has been leading the work in the Republic for about 25 years, reflecting on the ministry of YWAMers and the hand of God during that time. We also had the opportunity to pray in the new leadership, as Rob Clarke passed directorship over any work in the Republic to Jonny Clark (no relation), the director of YWAM in Northern Ireland. The food and craic was great – hospitality provided by the Clarke family – , and having the chance to hang out with other YWAMers we don’t get to see too often was nice as well.

During our time, we had the pleasure of the company and input of Stephe Mayers, the director of YWAM in Western Europe. In the morning, he shared about how to engage in new opportunities (counting the cost, committment, etc.) in relation to being YWAM in Ireland and looking around the island at places for new teams.

We’re excited for the future, and there’s a sense that God has good things in store for our YWAM community – especially good challenges and potential to do new things.

Check out more pictures from the YWAM Ireland event in Dublin in our photo gallery album.

Last week, most of the staff from YWAM N.I./Ireland met up for a time of praying, worshiping and hanging-out. Though we try to get together every month or two for similar reasons, the annual staff conference is when we go away somewhere together for a few days and dedicate the entirety of those days to refocusing ourselves as a national community. It’s usually a great time for reviewing the past year, sharing vision, and looking to the future. And it’s a lot of fun to be together.

This year, we didn’t have any speakers from outside our community come and share, as we usually do. Instead, Jonny Clark our national director shared a bit, as well as Renee and our colleague Erin Seibel. We also spent time praying for our focus nations (Serbia, Lebanon, South Africa, India, Rwanda, Burundi, Israel and Palestine) and welcomed a couple new staff.

One of the biggest themes that seemed to come up in our times of prayer and reflection was this idea of sharpening. God seemed to be saying that he wanted to make us, as a community and individually, sharper. We were challenged to look at some of the disappointments of the last year like sparks of metal being shaved off an axe by a metaphorical grindstone, with the goal of restoring the efficacy of that instrument. Renee also brought a story of farming – of planting and growing crops, then the devastation of violent rainstorms, and the farmer not questioning his calling to be a farmer, but replanting in faith and hope the next season.

I think this past season has had some hefty disappointments for the two of us. I feel like the last half-year has been the best part of my life, seeing as it’s been the only time I’ve been married, and being married has been great; but it’s also been one of the most difficult, especially in ministry. God did a lot in us during the latter parts of this summer, as far as rest and restoration goes, but he wants to do more.

Erin shared a word at our staff conference that she had for our organization that really struck me. She described the coast at low-tide when the water leaves all sorts of interesting tidbits exposed in its absence. In essence, this is a time of low-tide for our community, where we can see our mistakes and our triumphs, areas of failing and areas where we excel. This idea really connected with me because I’d physically experienced it a couple weeks ago, standing on the edge of the Irish sea in a little seaside village on the Ards Peninsula. I wrote in my journal:

Yesterday, I walked down to the beach front during a break in the rain to see the tide have taken the sea back a few hundred meters, leaving an apocalyptic landscape of human history exposed to the birds in its retreat. The previous day’s high tide had left frustrated little piles of seaweed and super-size bottles of alcopops (now vacated by their spirits) pushed up against the crumbling wall that marked a theoretical barrier between the seaside village and nature. Yet now, as I looked out at the sea, she seemed to have given up, sick of pushing back against civilization, and made a temporary escape eastward.
I climbed in her wake, over rocks and partially buried tires, past wilting dunes of sea weed peppered with feathers and deflated grocery bags, to an island crowned in lichen, thick with a beard of barnacles, where I stood and surveyed the evidence of my existence. The tide had revealed a no-mans-land of contrasting and indecisive features: the harsh beauty of beaten rock, the softness of sand, an abandoned and rusty lobster cage, a defeated orange flag, partially buried. And most of all, birds …

Pray for us, that we may love the Lord with all our hearts – He who challenges and comforts.

More photos from the staff conference in our photo galleries…

I met up with Renee after a few days of separation at YWAM Amsterdam on Saturday the 29th of March. She had spent the past week with a group of others from various parts of YWAM Europe praying for YWAM, the leaders, and for the upcoming Western European Leadership Consultation (or WELC – I think this is the fi). That Monday, we traveled with a few friends from YWAM Northern Ireland two hours east by train to a small village called Delden near the Germany-Netherlands border. We were arriving for the WELC, unsure of what to expect (my previous experiences with YWAM gatherings outside of Northern Ireland, although very limited, is that they tend to be very enthusiastic and “Pentecostal-ish”; I’m not opposed to these adjectives, but I prefer them in small, evenly spaced doses).

I was very pleasantly surprised with the ‘consultation.’ Although the schedule was full, it wasn’t overwhelming according to YWAM conference tradition; although over 200 people were there from all over Western Europe, it felt somewhat more intimate (and 200 isn’t necessarily a whole lot either). Through the four days of the WELC, we had some lectures, talks, discussions, worship, interaction, prayer, and working groups (sort of like seminars with small group discussion and think-tanking). In our free-time, I enjoyed catching up with old YWAM acquaintances from other parts and hearing what was going on with them, as well as meeting new folks.

Most constructive, however, were the specific points we tried to cover during the consultation, either in lecture, discussion or our working groups. A lot of ideas were traded, and new thoughts voiced. Here’s an idea of some of what we discussed throughout the week:

• Update on what is happening with YWAM globally, YWAM in Western Europe
• Working together as a multi-generational YWAM (the Abraham, Isaac and Jacob generations), now that YWAM is 40+ years old with three generations of leaders.
• YWAM and the ancient traditions – exploring how YWAM can be a greater part of traditional denominations (especially the Catholic world in Western Europe)
• YWAM & the emerging church.
• Defining the word ‘base’ – What is a base? I highly recommend the wiki over at the YWAM Knowledge Base on the subject.
• Homosexuals in YWAM
• Pioneering new YWAM teams.
• Immigrants and asylum seekers, opportunities for YWAM to work in those communities.
• Do big bigger bases suck too many resources away from smaller bases?
• The church in exile – The role of missions in a post-Christian Europe. (Transcript/summary of Jonny Clark’s talk at the YWAM Knowledge Base)
• Risk taking.
• The 4k project, Omega Zones, and world evangelization (more at ywam4k.org).

And a lot more. -Mikael

Relevant links:

• The YWAM Knowledge Base Wiki has a category with summaries of all of the main talks and devotions given at the WELC ‘08. A lot of the points listed above are further explained at this link. A great resource.
• Sixteen photos are available from our time in the Netherlands and at the WELC in our photo galleries.
• Donovan Palmer’s blog – Donovan is the national director for YWAM England. He had a couple sweet posts on his blog regarding the WELC ‘08, the first one a great post about the WELC in general (here), and secondly a nice video blog interview with Stephe Mayers, YWAM’s regional leader for western Europe (here), which I highly recommend.