Graduation

Joey graduated from first grade, Emily graduated from Kinder 2 and now Bill has graduated from the School of Worship. What milestones in all of our lives! Joe and Emily have "exhibition" for Gymnastic and this time the parents will be involved.
Here's a short clip from Emily's class with Misty helping out. It's okay to laugh, we sure did!
We love to see the kids interact with the other kids, and their Spanish is amazing! Misty and Bill too have made some friends while sitting on the bench with the other parents. This is what doing life is all about. Getting out and trying new things and sparking up conversations and hearing each other stories.

Just yesterday as Misty had finished cleaning the restrooms she was taking out the garbage to the big green container on the side of the road. When she went to throw the garbage bags in the dumpster out popped a head of a homeless man. "Hola" she said and he began to speak back in English. Shocked, Misty listened intently to his story, "I'm from New York" he states, and then proceeds to tell her all about his travels and why he is here and his life story. He really wanted someone to hear him. She asked his name and if he would like a drink and some food. She assumed he was hungry since why else would someone be in the dumpster. He said yes, and away Misty went to get some food. When she arrived at the front door where she told Edgardo to meet her he didn't show. She looked down the block he wasn't there. She looked all over to try to find him but nothing. Odd she thought. Then she sent up a little prayer "please help Edgardo, Lord help him find food, peace, and a place to rest his head."

Do you ever wonder why we have encounter like these? Ever wonder when you are standing in line at a store how that other person in front of you is doing? Or if they may need a prayer, help, or anything? It's interesting to see how God uses all things, all people, for His purposes. Let us encourage you to spark up conversation with someone today, pray for that person in front of you. You may not know their needs but God does. Don't know what to say how about a Hi and a smile! or even a good morning/afternoon. Just try it. Then write us, let us know your experience.

School Of Worship

I have been in the School of Worship for the past 2 months; it has been a great experience and it has kept me on my toes spiritually. This week our emphasis has been on the character of a worship leader, we are writing songs also. I have written a few based on stuff I deal with in my life and things that I have walked through during the time I have been following the Lord. So here are a few of my Psalms that I have written during my times in the morning when I can get away and be quiet and undisturbed.
Hope… My Cry and My Prayer.
Why do I walk around like a Zombie?
Why do I get scared and Shy?
Why do I not speak with passion more,
About things that really matter?

Lord you are my God You
Lord are my hope
You are my only hope
So let me breathe!
Let me breathe in your hope
Let me breathe out words of hope.

This is a thing I wrote about my experiences during the first years of the 2000’s I surrendered to fears and really fell flat on my face spiritually and struggled a lot. I am so grateful that I am FREE though.

O how I have fallen flat on my face
I’ve given up too soon I was scared,
I wasn’t trusting you God
And I fell into a spiral I was trapped in my disobedience
And trapped in my lack of trust
And things that troubled me Started to consume me
And then things got worse!
And still I would not quit I would not surrender,
I would not give up.
Because I was going to please my myself
and I would not let anything or anyone stop me
But you called me
And you were wooing me
And when I was ready to call on you
You rescued me and brought me home.
So I come to you and say you are my strength
I give to you this day Lord I give to you this day.

View this video of another song from the Song Presentation Night on May 14, 2009.

WOW about 2009!

Have you heard?
The Moss's have been serving alongside Youth With a Mission in Ensenada Mexico. It's been a real roller coaster of a ride these past months. 24 Families have forever been impacted with the gift of a Home! The amazing church Sparks Christian Fellowship sent two teams down to serve alongside us. These groups were amazing! We thank Rich Shannon for making these trips happen! Misty wanted to thank everyone for the cute gifts for the kids, and for us as a family we really appreciate it! What a blessing to have new shoes for the kids! It was great to serve along with some new faces, and with some life long friends.

Eph. 18-20 (NIV) And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.

Bill is begining the half way point through the School Of Worship, It has been such a joy to see him lead worship and to champion the youth around him to do like wise. He has been enjoying watching his kids perform in gymanstics and he had the chance to compete in diffrent activites with his daughter Emily at her schools Mini Olypmics.

The kids are growing bigger everyday. Joey age 6 and in first grade is reading in Spanish and in English. He loves gymnastics and playing around with the other kids who live on the campus. He is fluent in Spanish for his age level and Misty has used him numerous times to help translate. Emily is age 4 and is also bilingual. Her best friend here on the campus only speaks spanish, what a great treat to see things sweet little girls communicate and play.

Misty has stepped in to lead the guest services ministry here, this entails using her gift of hospitality throughout the entire campus. If you have a chance to come a visit the Moss's you'll get to see first hand what they actually do at the campus. She has also be journying with her mom through the loss of dad (Bill R. Braun) April 10, 2009. You may have seen her traveling back and forth from Ensenada to Sparks more these past months then ever before. She loves to travel so for her it's been a true blessing in the midst of sadness. She will be travilng again this monday the 18th to bring her mom back to Sparks to live. She is looking forward to seeing her friends for this brief trip so if you see her make sure you run up and give her a hug! She loves it!

Fellowship Forum

every year we have a big house build with a lot of people that come down that have been here before. The event is called the Fellowship Forum, we will build 5 houses on Sunday and Monday; this group is a deluxe team so that means that they are staying at a hotel at night and not here on the base and usually they eat breakfasts and dinners at the hotel but on Monday they will all be here for breakfast. Its going to be a tremendous breakfast! I heve been getting ready for this for several days now, I dropped off a shopping list at Costco on Christmas eve in the afternoon, and yesterday I paid for all the stuff that was picked and today it will be delivered and sorted out for the 5 teams. Now I just hope for nice calm weather, but it has been really windy during the days and sometimes a lot of rain so I and waiting and seeing.

Christmas was fun, the kids got their presents and we had dinner at home and hung out together. We got to see our friend William Keomany who visits here; William brought some gifts for the kids and Joey got and Action Figure, for a day he was calling it an Action Finger. That was a good laugh for a while but I helped gently straighten him out.

Christmas Season is upon us here....

We are in the Christmas season, at YWAM Ensenada, it is about to get really quiet for a couple of weeks, lots of people will go home to visit, some of us will stay here and finish another week of school, and spend a family Christmas together in Mexico. Take a deep breath and get ready to build a bunch of houses during the week between Christmas and New Years.


We had a Staff Conference and land dedication event the first 3 days of the week in Tijuana, the Tijuana Rosarita property is just about ready to occupy and use and we were all there to celebrate and dedicate and pray for what will happen there. So I (Bill) made it to monday and it was awesome worship and the messages by the speakers was good, I didn't have to worry about arranging anything involving the lunches or dinner and I was able to fully engage myself in what was going on. What a change, I really liked it, Misty was in Sparks, Nevada on Tuesday and Wednesday to celebrate her friend Lisa's birthday. Yeah Lisa, looking great at 39!

Last night we had our annual Ensenada Christmas party, we had food, presents and fun. Things were starting to get ugly as a nice snuggly warm bathrobe was repeatedly taken and retaken, and again and again past counting; finally, the presents exchange was finished and the entertainment started and that was the cue to take kids home and get pajamas on and watch them run around with the new Barbie and Nerf Dart gun.

Seeing Old Friends, making relationships

Hey everybody, I was looking at yesterdays post and I forgot to mention something that is actually very important. We had a great time with the church that came down last week before thanksgiving. They were always offering to help out, most of the time I was alright; Thursday afternoon though they were a big help. Friday morning, same story, I came in and could tell that my two assistants were not going to be with me so I asked the couple that was there hanging out in the dining room to pitch in and and they and others helped me get out a meal for 235 hungry people from 2 churches, the base staffers and our Discipleship Training School Students. I have learned that the Lord always sends the right people to me when I am needing to get a meal out and I need to just do the essential things, STAY CALM and FRIENDLY and somehow when its time the bell gets rung and we have our meal.

Also part of what goes on in the kitchen is "Ministry". Thursday afternoon one of the helpers was a 20 something young woman who really loves the Lord and while they were working away Misty and her had the best conversation about what its like to be that age and wishing you were married, and trusting God to lead you to the right husband, and wondering why you are still single. Misty was encourageing her and sharing her wisdom and experience with our friend. I am so proud of Misty, I am so excited when things like that happen in the kitchen.

Wow that was a quick 30 days!

I was in such a great mood from getting my special gift of recognition that I forgot to write on the BLOG. Actually I am great at only a couple of areas of my life at a time. For the past month I have been concentrating on the areas of making food for the base and shopping, going to a spinning class with Misty, and getting ready for Thanksgiving. Actually thats more of the first part of my life, so I can say that I have been spending a lot of time concentrating on the cooking part of my life.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We have been really busy hosting teams this past month. Which is awesome becuase it means that families here in Ensenada are given the gift of hope, by receiving a new home!

Yesterday Bill was in the kitchen and cooked over 110 pounds of turkey and close to 50 pounds of ham, not to mention all the fix'ins, Misty and the kids were on the decorating commitee they covered all the tables with yellow and green table clothes and fresh cut flowers. One person did mention it looked like a John Deer Party, but then the flowers went on, and the candles too and it was a beautiful sight. We were scheduled to make food for 150. People just kept coming, and God kept providing, we had lots of full tummys, and lots of left overs. AWESOME!

This month is special for us as a family, A young man named Richie taught us what it means to live life to the full. Despite his battle with cancer he chose to go out into the world and share the love of Jesus with others. Richie's legacy lives on! It is our hope that everyday we can further along his and God's desire for everyone to know Jesus. We love you all Shannon Family!

"A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of." John 10:10 (The Message)

This is what the Moss family is thankful for!

My big surprise

This morning I went to the morning staff meeting before shopping; I was sitting with Misty and our Finance office manager came up to make a special presentation. She had a big bag from a candle shop and I thought what is this for? Then I thought of THE OFFICE and how Jan has a home business selling candles so I thought Tee Hee "Candles by Jan" Anyhow as the presentation was going on our finance manager Shirley was talking about working behind the scenes and how faithful this person is and I start to think hey who is this for and I started thinking of a Bugs Bunny cartoon I saw long ago where Daffy Duck is thinking he is going to be honored and is getting more and more excited for himself and then the Honoree is actually Bugs Bunny. So I am thinking good thoughts of my Hotel Services Manager Tamara and how deserving she would be and how hard she works and really rooting as much as I can for Tamara, but the gift was for me, I was so surprised and then I am kinda crying laughing at the same time. So I got this cute Chef figure that has a candle holder, so I need to clear out a spot in our little hutch to put this in to keep little fingers off of it, or else I can put it in my desk area too. It was nice to be thought of.

Cue the music from the TV show "COPS"

The excitement for Wednesday was as follows. Misty was at home in the late afternoon sitting at the kitchen table helping Joey with his homework and watching the kids that hangout at our skateramp. A car rolled up and a guy and girl came out and started acting suspiciously arranging things on the picnic table we have out there and Misty was seeing it all, then they noticed Misty and the girl moved back inside the car and continued. Misty called the security guy we have on the base whose name is Eliazer and he got hold of the Youth Ministry Director and they talked and called the Police who then Swooped in with 3 pickup trucks and arrests were made.

So thats good, we really want to have a place for local kids to come and skate but we dont want it to be a place to come and get high or drunk, or to come and sell drugs. But we are also a little bit worried that we could have incurred the wrath of some local drug lord who is gonna send a truckload of Shotgun wielding killers to the ramps and shoot at us through our window or even worse have Anton Chigur come by at night with a captive bolt pistol asking us to hold still.

I express this somewhat humorously but it is serious actually, so could you please pray for us to be safe while we wait for this all to settle out. I have been concerned and have spent time praying about the drug traffickers versus the Police and Soldiers that I see here. There are a lot of Police vehicles always driving around and pulling people over, sometimes I see the Military vehicles with a dozen soldiers all holding Large Caliber Rifles and wearing black facecoverings on their way, or pulling over a car and talking to the driver. Also the highways have military checkpoints where they stop vehicles with Mexican plates to ask what you are doing and where you are going. All of this is part of the Mexican governments war on drugs. We see news stories sometimes especially stories about Tijuana and routine killings and its kinda scary, but then I really feel bad because the drugs are on the way to the United States so our US citizens that like to toke up, and smoke crack and do Meth can get their drugs. SO I pray for safety for the honest police and soldiers, safety for the President of Mexico, and also that back home there could be a spiritual revolution so that lives would be spent serving God and being excited about the Lord and not lives that are so filled with boredom and hopelessness that need to be filled up with drugs.

Stay Cation resting

For the last couple of weeks I have been on vacation, I needed a break and it was good to take a break. On Monday I am going to get back into the kitchen and start thinking about Thanksgiving! We have a group that comes down every year to spend a week building, visiting orphanages and doing ministry there and also particiapate on the base. So I am going to get everything super organized so we can have a big delicious but not too stressful Thanksgiving holiday here in Ensenada.

I actually have spent a lot of Thanksgivings during my life working that day whether it was in the Navy, working in a casino, and during my days of Mercy Ships. Some were pretty fun actually, others were just memorable. My favorite thanksgiving during my Navy days was the one in McMurdo Station Antarctica, we all participated in the kitchen and the meal was great. I was in the Bakery that time and I think I made about 350 pies pumpkin and pecan. I can't think of a "fun" thanksgiving working in a casino, but I do remember once at the "Clarion" working from 11 in the morning till about 2 the next morning, I was in the employee cafeteria and I came in and worked my shift, stayed late for the guy who was on swing shift, he wanted to spend the time with his new girlfriend, and then at 11 pm the graveyard shift cook didn't show up so I stayed till 2 in the morning until the coffee shop sent someone in to relieve me. The thing I remember the most is that around 12:45 in the morning I was so mentally tired and ready to go and Conan O'Brian was on the TV in the Employee dining room and I saw Conan's visit to a modern day indian reservation to see how things are going for the Indians since that first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims. They filmed it at a GIANT Indian Casino and I was about to lose it I was laughing so hard, it was really the mental exhaustion though. My favorite Thanksgiving during Mercy Ships was when we had made an emergency trip to Nicaragua after hurricanes in 1998, we delivered relief supplies and visited a community we had spent 3 months working with that was almost destroyed completly by a 10 foot mudslide. On our way home we did thanksgiving, it wasn't really a celebration, it was more of a time of thanksgiving for how blessed we really were and there was also such a spirit of Unity on the ship during that whole time period. Anyhow, what I am trying to say is that I am really looking forward to this Thanksgiving and I am excited to see how it turns out and I look forward to an awesome time together as a base.

Joseph and Emily have been having a good beginning of the school year, Joey is really settling in at his new school, does homework just about every afternoon right after school and Emily is doing great and gets cute remarks and smiley faces in her school book that the teacher writes in every day No red or blue stickers for Emily.

Misty really enjoyed her visit home and time she spent at the Ladies retreat, it was good for her to see friends, and she really heard from God during the retreat as well.

Clear Vision

These past few weeks we have been searching with God what our individual vision is. God has shown Bill a big picture of his role here in Ensenada. I wanted to share it with you all.

Big Picture of kitchen


Where I want to go with the Kitchen, and my work with YWAM San Diego Baja.

I know I am called to this Ministry area. I have been here for 2 years now and I see more clearly my vision. I want to have a Kitchen that is fun to work in, respected by the community, clean, organized and sanitary. We will have good professional equipment, and the kitchen will be staffed sufficiently with a team. We will serve excellent nutritious food that is prepared in the kitchen.


I (Bill) want the kitchen to be working efficiently, my life balanced and spending more time with the Lord seeking his face, getting exercise, spending time with my family and getting rest on days off. I also want to have the time to build my faith and skills as a missionary with YWAM, and enhance my professional knowledge. I want to grow professionally, be learning and teaching others to cook.

DTS Students and staffers will have the opportunity and structure to learn to cook, and to be loved in the kitchen and have their lives poured into. I want everybody who steps into the kitchen and puts on an apron to be honored and excited that they get to participate in what is going on. The kitchen will be a positive place to be in, not a last chance dead end for dirtbags who need to be reformed.

For YWAM Ensenada Baja, I want this to succeed, and really work in a practical way.

GOOD FOOD, INSPIRED STAFFERS/STUDENTS/KITCHEN TEAM

This is something that we can then teach and multiply here at the other locations, especially Tijuana Del Mar, Tecate and then to international locations within YWAM as a whole.

His days consisted of playing with dirt and a dog

We have people who come to the door of the kitchen asking for leftovers or water. A drunk guy coming from the beach stopped by to ask for a taco. If we have food we give it! We offer a glass of juice, water or a cup of coffee. A woman who is in her 30's dropped by with her three year old son. As we began to listen to her story we found out that her husband and her live nearby in a small trailer with no electricity or running water. They didn’t come here under the greatest of circumstances, We don’t really know the exact story but we do know it involves the husband and people that wear uniforms and badges. The little boy Aidan would be covered head to foot with dirt, he was a true boy, his days consisted of playing in the dirt with his only friend the family dog. We would give the family food, and we would think is there anything else we can do? One of our staff members and our human resources department begin to speak with her. She began to do some simple task around the base to help out. Then as time went by and relationships began we saw how God was working in this family. John was able to get a paying job, Linda helps us on a regular basis in the kitchen and Aidan has started his first year of kindergarten, a real milestone for him is learning to play with other kids and begin the process of getting more socialized. Since he has never been around other kids we have had to help him learn about finding a toilet to pee in when he had the urge, previously he would just whip it out and go wherever he was standing outside. We are all excited to be apart of this families story. It all started with seeing a need and meeting that need and then journeying
alongside.

Speakers, Home work, and...

OH MY! This week has been amazing and it's only Wednesday! I (misty) have been attending a "Go Team Seminar". This seminar is giving us essential tools for building support. It's been exciting and draining at the same time. We get to make vision/mission statements, revamp budgets, research websites, newsletters, draw up communication pieces, etc. all the while listening to some amazing stories, and biblical philosophy on how God has and will provide. It's all right up my alley! I love this kind of stuff!
Then... I hear that negative voice in the back of my head say, You can't do this... You're not good enough... You should pack it in... You are a failure... Has God really chosen you and Bill to do this...

ABSOLUTELY HE HAS!! and I recognized that all those little voices are LIES from the PIT.

Bill and I have a passion to encourage and serve others in anyway the Lord sees fit. If that means fixing sandwiches and cooking scrumptious meals for teams to come down to build a home for a family who has nothing. Than we will do it! We love being apart of what God is doing here in Ensenada. We also would like to journey alongside you and others who have chosen to share the message of God's mercy, love and grace, to others! We are all tools for God! No matter where we live and what we are doing, we are all about building the Kingdom of God in every nation, in every city, in every work place, and HOME.

SO YES I can do this! YES I am Good Enough! YES I should be prepared to move at any notice wherever God is leading our family, and lastly I have not failed, I'm only starting to grasp all that God has planned for us.... Well the last one is a stretch:) Who can even grasp God. But you get what I mean! Be encouraged friends! I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. Phil. 1:6

Amen!! let's get in the GAME:)

AND SO IT BEGINS...

Mission adventures is over and now we welcome the Homes of Hope season. These past couple of weeks we have been cleaning the base and getting the kids off to begin a new year in school. Joey is attending a private school for Grade one and Emily is in her second year of Kindergarten at the same private school as last year. She even has the same teacher! Both of the kids are excited to begin school again. Bill and Misty are excited for the fall to come, to us it means new teams, new students attending DTS, and new staff to pour into. Bill has been praying about starting a class for Mexicans to learn English. This past week we found out that a Juvenile Hall has offered to let our Youth Ministry "Revolution" in and they would like us to teach English twice a week to about 20 or so High schoolers. Praise God! Bill will begin this adventure in October. Misty has been given the task of aiding the Base leader in various duties, one she has come particularly fond of is transportation. She is using her organizational skills to insure that people who visit our facility get picked up from the airport and make it all the way down to our base and then back home again. She's really good at it, and enjoys it. She is also beginning a small group for the staff ladies. This too will begin in October. She's in the midst of searching for material to study. So if you have any suggestions don't hesitate to sign in and give your idea, she is always open for ideas! We are so blessed to be able to do this adventure! We thank God everyday for those of who are supporting us on a daily basis. Please know that we could not do this with out your prayers and finical support! So to you we say THANK YOU! You are making a life long difference for sure!!

The Season is almost over and its time to name the most valuable player

Yes the Mission Adventures season in finishing, we are now into the outreach portion of the 5th cycle. I need to give a big shout out to a very special person who has been a huge help and encouragement to me in the kitchen this Summer... Aubrey Faith. She spent a lot of time helping out and making my life more manageable. I had plenty of time to do all my planning, shopping, spending time with Misty and is just really an amazing person. Jesus is doing a lot of neat stuff in her life and she is getting ready to go to Australia to attend a YWAM school about primary health care. Its going to be a sad day when she leaves but me and Misty wish her the best.

Wednesday Morning

As the week rolls on I am busy in the kitchen, Misty is getting the house ALL HOMEY. I told her that yesterday, when I was a kid our house was alright, when I was on my own I would try to make things look nice but I never succeeded, but Misty always has made our house or apartment lokk so much like a home wherever we are whatever we are doing. I really appreciate that about her. We have been really blessed by the Kalin family who are here for the second year. Tom, Mindy and their daughter Ashley are here for a few weeks and they have helped so much with getting stuff for us, and Tom reinstalling our satellite dish, spoon racks, electrical things, ripping out the old kitchen etc etc. As soon as we get the kitchen all straight I will post pictures of the finished project and the view overlooking the skate ramps and volleyball court on the side of the YWAM base. The ocean too!

I was tired from all the weekend activity, and yesterday I needed the alarm clock to wake up; today I am back to normal and awake at 4 having to try to be quiet as a mouse while I have coffee and read emails and everything else so early. I do have my work desk set up now though, so once I get an actual key to the office I can go up there in the early morning and do stuff and be noisy and out of earshot of the people here that actually sleep normally. I actually like the quiet of the morning to piddle around and wake up gradually so that at 6 when the action starts I am at temperature and ready to go and not standing like a zombie. I also go to bed a bit earlier too though.

Misty's boss Kody has been away for a few days, he was with a group that went to Juarez Mexico to help out the YWAM base there. Flooding had damaged the area where they are and we came down to help in the neighborhood, and try to do repairs to the Wall at the base. It was still raining with more floods happening though so every project they were trying to do was wiped out before they finished. I heard that and I was sad, then I thought "that reminds me of the kitchen" Anyhow all the team arrived back on Monday afternoon, tired and a little bit in need of a good hot shower. That base has a master plan being worked on and I think it involves some sort of flood control or flood diversion. I will ask the person who is working on that project what is going on so I can report what the plan is so readers will have a sense of closure.

Monday!!! Another Cycle starts!!!!

Last weekend was pretty fast, I had no time to even have a computer on much less post on the blog. We have been in the process of changing apartments from across the street to a 2nd floor apartment here on the actual YWAM Base; we are pretty much settled in except for one small detail: our kitchen cupboards need to be purchased and installed. We also need to move our Satellite dish over and get it re installed, along with a ceiling fan we have at the other apartment. The important thing is that the beds are over and the living room is set up and it is a lot roomier than across the street. The living room is wider, we had to make a sacrifice, and have everyone together in the bedroom though to get the roomier living room and awesome view of the ocean. It took a lot of thinking about it till we found a way it would work but Misty and I feel good about it. The way the walls were set up and the giant wardrobe in one corner that was installed there was no way to have 2 rooms out of that space. We are going to set some privacy dividers but for now its a good arrangement, everyone has lots of space and the goofy wall next to the bedroom window makes an awesome walk in closet with PLENTY of space for the stuff we have. A lot of people helped us move during the weekend and without them it would have been impossible.

The kids are having a good time living on the base and they have been spending a lot of time playing with the other base kids in an unhurried fashion and things don't get cut short when it is time for mom or dad to have a time out, all we have to do now is just go home and keep the door open to hear what is going on.

SO that's how things are today,

Praising God

Hey everybody!!!

So right now it is friday morning and I just got back from across the street at the YWAM base where I enjoyed a cup of coffee. It was really quiet there and I sat in the courtyard and just thought about stuff; I thought about our apartment and our moving process, yesterdays trip to the water park in Tijuana, my children, the birds that were hopping around in the courtyard, I also thought about how blessed I am today that I can get up and just relax and think for a few moments before the day really gets going. It was nice.

We have a DTS going on at the San Diego office this summer. I think that is a great place to do a DTS in the summer because the schedule is so crazy here in the summer that they get lost in the shuffle while Mission Adventures is happening. The Students are going to come here for a week though pretty soon to build a house and spend a week of lecture here in Ensenada. I was thinking of the worship times they have so when I came back home I got on YouTube and looked up David Crowder and I found a neat version of his O Praise Him song that has a guy walking around a city listening on his headphones and then Praising God in the Streets here is the link here I hope it works ....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpVsF4W8V2Y




And now to provide more details about other things I mentioned. Our Apartment situation is that we are getting an Apartment at the YWAM base, we ripped out the old cabinets in the kitchen and cleaned that all up with a lot of help from the Kalin Family who are spending a few weeks here working with us. Dad Tom does construction and all kinds of other stuff back home in Washington and Mom Mindy and Daughter Ashley are very handy as well. SO the kitchen is ready to receive the new cabinets and the apartment is all cleaned up and ready to move into, we have already brought things over and its just mostly big stuff. Misty and all the above mentioned painted the living room and dining area with some fresh paint and it will be very livable in just a couple of weeks.

Yesterday we went to the water park in Tijuana as a small group of just a few families and had a good time, I did slides and Misty and Joey did even more than me, I was really impressed with Joey going down the big water slide on a tube. He is the real man in the family. It was a good day, the terror of slinding down a steep tube in the dark as I am gasping for air because of the fright is so mind clearing!

So after this weekend we will get started with cycle 4 of Mission Adventures, this group is just 2 churches but the last group on Cycle 5 are going to be massive, we are going to go out with a bang this year. Today I am going to drop off the shopping list at Costco for Mondays delivery and get my office area upstairs finally cleared out, I have been doing any kind of administrtive task at home in our apartment in the past but those days are soon over because the dining table will be a dining table. My summer resolution is to not have the table all covered up with a laptop and papers and my Macho Kitchen Man Bag etc.

Tuesday July 22, 2008

Well, two years ago today we were in Ensenada visiting the YWAM Base and checking this place out before finalizing plans to come here. It was the end of the 3rd cycle of Mission Adventures and we arrived in the early afternoon and went for a whirlwind tour of Ensenada and visited a building site. Enjoyed a pizza dinner and watched part of the final evenings program. So, here we are and as the second year of actually working here is about to finish I feel we have laid a foundation for ministry. We are getting more and more fluent at Spanish, we are building relationships in the community, we are finding our way around much quicker than ever before and we are seeing more and more opportunities to serve the Lord, encourage other people here on the YWAM base and really feel at home here.

I (Bill) am in the kitchen and as the days and months go by I see that I have opportunities to get to know the other staffers here on the base and when schools are going on I get to meet and work with and spend a lot of time with the students in the afternoons when we do work duties. I used to want to be on DTS staff years ago when I was first in YWAM but that never happened but now I finally see that I get to spend more time with the students than they do with speakers or most of their school leaders. SO many minds to poison SO little time!!! Actually I am not poisoning minds I plan to spend lots of time encouraging them however that happens as we are doing life together those afternoons. Misty is busy keeping up with the tasks that Kody the base leader gives her, but she is always seeming to get into really good conversations with the other girls on the base and I see her pouring herself into these girls and young women and I am so proud of her.
Joey and Emily are as sweet and wonderful as ever and it so fun to listen to them talking to the spanish speaking people on the base or out in town.

So, what we are saying is we really want to stay and keep on doing what we are doing. I will be sharing more about what is going on this summer, we have a lot of stories that we are behind on so watch out more is coming.