Africa Outreach News!

I am excited to share more about our outreach to Africa this May!   Our team from YWAM will be joining two other teams from New Zealand to partner with Tent Peg Missions on a five week outreach to Uganda and South Sudan, leaving on the 19^th of May. 

These are a few of the ministries we will partner with Tent Peg Missions to serve in Uganda and The Republic of South Sudan....

House of Aroha - Uganda

     

House of Aroha is a family home for 23 children located in Jinja.  Honor, relationships, healing, family  and faith are the foundation the home is built on.  Children know who they are, released into their destiny and contribute to something bigger than themselves.   Children live in a family environment with mother and father at the House of Aroha and are cared for as a child of God and a valuable and contributing member of the household.   Each child has a mentor as part of the Step Up program and is on a journey of developing their strengths and character and finding their place of contribution in their community.

Footsteps- Northern Uganda    

Footsteps is a project working with those who have experienced trauma in Northern Uganda as a result of the LRA. We want to see people set free and restored in relationship with God and others and families and communities growing and seeing God's goodness.   Individual mentoring and breakthrough prayer with formerly abducted child soldiers and family members affected by the LRA is facilitated by staff members.  As relationships and trust is built and Jesus is invited into areas of each ones lives to bring healing and freedom, we see people released into God's good future for them and the communities transformed.

Mulungi church in Namulesa                 

                  

 Outreach in Adwari

 

Juba HOPE Center - South Sudan

Here girls still living on the streets come and receive three hot meals a day, learn to make bread, wash their clothes, bathe, study, are enrolled in local schools and are blossoming.   Many have transitioned from there to our Yei Children’s Village and are now thriving in our Yei family.

http://irisminsudan.org/


At the beginning of our outreach, we will Travel to The Republic of South Sudan for six days to work with the Juba Hope Center.
While in Uganda our team will focus on working with the children at the House of Aroha in Jinja and St. Paul's School in Namulesa.  We will also spend a several days working with the Footsteps project in Adwari and hosting a Family Conference at Victory Outreach Church, and visit the Mulungi Church in Namulesa.


The Lord has given me a heart for Africa and the orphaned children there, and I am thrilled for this opportunity to go and serve! 

I would greatly appreciate your prayers as I prepare to go, and while in Africa for safety, health, protection, and strength to do the work the Lord has for me there.  


The cost of this mission trip is approximately $4500.  If anyone would like to partner with me and help send me through a gift of financial support, please mail your donations by April 15th to:


YWAM Tyler Accounting Dept.  P.O. 3000  Garden Valley, TX 75771-3000

Please make checks payable to YWAM (with separate note: for Cindy Gross) A tax-deductible receipt will be mailed to you.

Thank you for your prayers and support as I follow the Lord’s call on my life to serve in missions and take His love to the nations!

Blessings,
Cindy

Back in New Zealand

SO GREAT TO BE BACK!!!




Arrived safely in New Zealand on the 26th of January, and have quickly settled back into my home and Hospitality role here at YWAM, Oxford.  Had a great trip back and enjoyed meeting some new friends on my flights, and was blessed by the opportunity to share with them about my journey to missions and hear their stories on the way!

We have been quite busy here at the YWAM base over the past month preparing for our next Discipleship Training Schools that begin this week.  Students have been arriving, and for the next three months our base will be full and alive with 34 new students who have come to be discipled, grow in their walk with the Lord, and prepare to take His love to the nations.  It's hard to believe that a year ago I was one of those students! 


I've been invited to take part in this year's Father's Love Crossroads DTS by co-leading an outreach team to Africa in mid-May. 


I am so excited about this outreach and the opportunity to work with orphaned children in Africa.  This is something God has put a passion in my heart to do this past year, and an answer to prayer!  Our team will be serving with a ministry called Tent Peg Missions in Uganda and Iris Ministries' Juba Hope Center in The Republic of South Sudan.













Please be praying as we prepare for this outreach, and seek the Lord for provision to go!


Will post another update soon with more details, and send information for anyone who would like to partner with me on this mission trip through your gift of financial support and your prayers.


So blessed to be serving in His name!

Returning to New Zealand next week!

Preparing for my return to New Zealand after enjoying a wonderful Christmas holiday and blessed time at home with family and friends! 

Had a long but good flight home, arriving safely in Texas for the Christmas holidays.  It took almost a week to get over the jet-lag and adjust to the time difference here on the other side of the world!  I left NZ in the summertime and arrived home to winter here in the States, but for the most part the weather has been quite mild and pleasant during my visit.  I am reminded while home this winter of how blessed we are in the United States with so many comforts and amenities....like central heating!!

It was such a blessing to spend time with each of my children and precious grandson, to enjoy the holidays with all my family, and have the opportunity to visit with many dear friends!  I also had a great time visiting and reconnecting with friends at Lifegroup and Bible study, and sharing about my journey and all that God is doing in New Zealand.    

  

Christmas Family Gathering

Precious grandson, Braydon!

God has been providing in amazing ways and blessing me during my time at home!  I was treated to a special time in Galveston Beach with a very dear friend and have received many generous donations, including ALL the funds to purchase my return ticket to New Zealand....what an answer to prayer!! 

I have also received many pledges of monthly support as I return to continue serving in missions, which I am so grateful for.  I am trusting that God will provide for all my needs through this generous support from family and friends!  

I head back to New Zealand on Tuesday January 24th for another year of serving in missions at the YWAM Oxford Base.  I am excited about what God has in store during the next season of this incredible journey with Him, and look forward to the many opportunities to serve at the base and on outreach in the mission field over the coming year!


God is SO good!!!

At Galveston Beach

Coming home this month!

I have been on this amazing journey here in New Zealand for almost nine months now and am finally making my first trip home to Texas this month!  I am so excited about this visit and look forward to sharing the Christmas holidays with family and friends!! 

The past few months have gone by so quickly and have been filled with new opportunities and challenges. DTS was an awesome experience and time of preparation and growth!  It was truly life changing, and has strengthened my desire to continue serving in missions.  After graduation in July, I was invited to join the staff at the Oxford base to serve full-time as the Hospitality Coordinator, and made a commitment to stay on to serve here in New Zealand for another 6 months - 2yrs.  Check out our website @ ywamoxford.org to see my testimonial and base staff profile.

I am so blessed to have this awesome opportunity to use the gifts and talents the Lord has given me to serve Him and bless this base and the students, guests, and missionaries from all over the world that come through! I am enjoying my new role here and being part of an amazing family, serving and supporting each other and those we are training and sending out from this base to the nations with the gospel of Christ.

In September we sent out DTS teams to Jordan, India, Turkey and Malaysia.  I also moved into the staff apartments on base and am living with five young women. They are such a blessing to me and God gives me opportunities to speak into their lives as we share life together here. I'm also leading and discipling a team of five women from our base staff.  We meet at the apartment weekly for morning tea and to share & pray for one another.

Our base hosted the New Zealand YWAM National Family Gathering in early October.  This was a great initiation into my Hospitality role as I had the privilege of coordinating the welcoming of over 40 guests to our base, and planning & preparing all their accommodation for the event! We had a great weekend together worshiping, praying, and sharing vision for the ministry of YWAM New Zealand.

Prayers were answered, and I was granted my Missionary Work visa at the end of October, which allows me to stay and do voluntary work in New Zealand through February 2013!  This visa allows multiple entry into the country, which will allow me to travel on outreach overseas from here.  This is my desire in the coming year as God has been stirring up a passion in my heart to work with the orphans in Africa.  I may have an opportunity to join a team to Uganda in June-July next year, which will be the first of hopefully many more opportunities to go from here to serve abroad in the mission field.  

In November I celebrated my birthday for the first time in another country, and in the springtime. My friends here made it a special day for me!  My American & Canadian friends on base and I also celebrated Thanksgiving together with an awesome feast and shared thanks for God's many blessings!

God has been SO faithful every step of this journey, and I am trusting Him to continue guiding my path, to open doors AND provide the way! 



Isaiah 41:9-10  "I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners I called you.  I said, you are my servant; I have chosen you and have not rejected you.  So do not fear, for I am with you!"

Outreach and Graduation news!

We are back from Outreach and have graduated from our CDTS!  It's hard to believe that it is already over...the past five months have been an amazing journey of growth, inner healing, newly found strength and freedom, and many wonderful adventures and new experiences!  

Our team had a great time of outreach while traveling through New Zealands' North Island.  We had opportunities to serve and minister to people in their communities, homes, churches, at youth groups, children's programs, and even while walking on the beach!  God provided many "divine appointments" along the way where we could bless or minister to someone in need, or in many cases, He used them to minister to us just when we needed it!  There were also struggles and challenges as I lead our team, but God is so faithful and always showed up in amazing ways to encourage and pick me up when I was down, and give wisdom and the strength to press on!


The highlight of outreach for me was the 2 weeks we spent on the Island of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, working with the staff at the YWAM Base on the island, and serving in the community. We stayed in the dorms on the Base and quickly became like family as we lived in community together, sharing meals, enjoying great fellowship, worship and prayer time with the staff and a family of Mission Builders also there from NZ, who were working at the Base.  We got around the island on scooters, which was a first for me and a blast!  I now have my Cook Islands driver's license...so who knows, maybe one day I will return to the islands  :-)

The YWAM staff arranged for our team to work at a local Christian School helping the children with their reading for several days each week, which was my personal favorite...such precious children to love on with the Father's Love!  We worked with patients at a Disability Center, helping them with art, music, physical fitness, speech therapy and literacy.  I was especially blessed by at patient I worked with, called "Papa John" who told me he could see God in me!  We also had the privilege and blessing to go with the YWAM staff to a weekly local Men's Prison Ministry.  It was such a great experience to spend time singing, sharing testimonies, and even joining in on an interactive game with the amazing group of inmates who have given their lives to Christ while in prison!

         

We arrived back after 2 months of being on the road and overseas to winter weather in Oxford and snow on the mountains...very COLD, but beautiful! 

We finished our last week of school and had our Graduation ceremony July 15th.  For graduation, our school staff prepared and served us a lovely dinner and each team shared and presented a slide show of their outreach.  Afterwards we were treated to an evening of Square Dancing with a DJ, which was as Kiwi's say..."heaps of fun"!  It was a great evening and final time together as a school family! 

Over the last few days everyone has packed up and left Oxford to return to their home countries and to the new journeys God has set before them...it was hard for us all to say goodbye to such dear friends that we have journeyed together with as a family these past five months!  I will especially miss my dear friend and roommate Karen from New Zealand, who I do plan to see more of while I am here in NZ, and my friend Grace from Malaysia....who I hope to one day have the opportunity to travel to Malaysia to see again!

Thank you all who have partnered with me through your prayers and financial support!  I will be staying on as staff here with YWAM Oxford for the next 5 weeks, serving in hospitality and spending time waiting on the Lord to reveal His plans for me.  I have been warmly welcomed into the YWAM family here, and would love to stay and serve long-term (1-2yrs) if the Lord opens this door and provides for my financial needs to cover expenses while serving Him here in New Zealand.

I would greatly appreciate your continued prayers over the next few weeks, and would also be so grateful for anyone who would prayerfully consider continuing to partner with me through a One-time gift or your Monthly financial support to help make it possible to continue serving through missions!

So excited to see what God has in store next!!

Blessings to all!

Outreach news!

Our first two weeks of outreach in Christchurch has been amazing!  We had many opportunities to meet and share with people as we spent time in the beachfront community of New Brighton, which was severly affected by the earthquakes here.  God provided many "divine encounters" as we walked along the beach and sang, prayed and wrote scriptures in the sand.  As we walked along the outdoor mall I also had several opportunities to share and pray with some women that I met and was SO blessed by how much they appreciated us being there to bring hope to their community!  I even stepped way "out of the box" by singing in a couple cafe's and a pub with one of my fellow students and then sharing my testimony and chatting with the patrons!  We also went to the porthills above Christchurch one afternoon and all prayed over the city...that was way cool! (see photos)

The days were long and sometimes a bit challenging, but it was so awesome to see how God worked and stretched us in the process!

Today we leave for the North Island for the next 4 weeks, and then my team will be flying overseas to the Cook Islands for the last 2 weeks of outreach to work with the YWAM base there helping them serve the community.  I'm quite excited about this opportunity to serve while enjoying a nice warm tropical climate after all the cold weather here in New Zealand! God is good!!

I am leading an awesome team of 5 including myself.  My teammates are Mark from Holland, Richard and Carol from New Zealand, Grace from Malaysia.  Please keep us all in your prayers as we embark on this faith journey with God!

Blessings,
Cindy

More awesome teaching, growth and adventure!

We've had another great month of AWESOME teaching, growth AND adventure, and even experienced a few aftershocks and an earthquake here in Oxford!  As we live, eat, learn and serve together here in community on the base, we are growing closer as a "family", supporting and encouraging one another as the Lord works in each of our lives.  I am especially enjoying my hospitality assignments for our school, welcoming and taking care of our guest speakers and their accomodations, and blessing my fellow students on their birthdays and anniversaries (two couples in our school have celebrated their 1st wedding anniversary while here). 


God has provided amazing speakers for our school!  We've had speakers from Malaysia and New Zealand speaking on The Father's Love, and YWAM Oxford's former base leaders came from Turkey to share with us one week about missions, and challenged us to be prepared to go and serve the least, the last, and reach the lost with the gospel of Christ.  I really enjoyed meeting them and was inspired to visit their YWAM base in Turkey, and possibly attend a School of Strategic Missions DTS they are hosting there in October.


The highlight of the month was our one week adventure to Kaiteriteri Beach and Nelson on the north eastern coast of the South Island! We loaded up four vans, and took a six hour drive through some of the most beautiful scenery with mountains in every direction, rivers, lakes and waterfalls! We enjoyed a weekend holiday in Kaiteriteri which included a boat ride up the coast that dropped us off at a beach for a 7.5K "tramp" through the mountains along the coast... the trail or "track" as they call it here in New Zealand was a bit challenging at times, but the beautiful views made it well worth it!  God has really been speaking to our school through the beauty of His creation! We also had some awesome teaching and prayer over us during our week in Nelson.  The Holy Spirit moved in a powerful way, and we all came back changed!


I've posted some great photos on facebook of our trip! 


Only two more weeks of classes and outreach preparation, then two months of outreach before our DTS graduation on the 16th of July!  Most of our team, including myself, are feeling called to stay in New Zealand for outreach to minister and bring The Father's love and the hope of Christ to the people of this country, especially those affected by the earthquakes.  Small teams will also be going to Turkey and possibly to China and we will all meet back here in Oxford for our final week of classes and graduation. 


Will post another update with more details before we leave on outreach....

Blessings to all!


This is a photo taken today of our Father's Love Crossroads DTS.