Warm greetings from everybody at YWAM Gateway. So much had happened since our last update. The entire world has changed! In spite of all the challenges of this season, we are grateful to the Lord for sustaining us and walking with us.
Many travel plans have been disrupted, we had to deal with rebookings and cancellations, but our entire team and relatives in our home countries have been in good health through this season.
These are just some of the highlights from the past months.
Flashback to our PCYFM School
Last October we launched the Principles0 for Children, Youth & Family Ministry School (PCYFM). Twelve students from all the continents were part of it (literally!). The school consisted of three months of lecture phase and two months of outreach where the students were able to put into practice everything they learned.
We started the outreach phase at the beginning of January 2020 with a Cycling Aventure Outreach. Then, we travelled to Cambodia (Battambang and Siem Reap) and Thailand, serving in orphanages, villages, teaching English to Buddhist and Muslim children from primary schools, running parenting workshops, children camps and much more.
One of the main projects for our PCYFM students was creating a curriculum where they could teach English through Biblical principles. They were able to use it during the outreach and it was a great experience for them.
The Principal from the last Muslim school we visited in Thailand, organized a special event where she invited government officials and Principals from other institutions to observe our program!
Summing it up: 6 weeks of outreach in Cambodia and Thailand visiting and serving…
- more than 500 children
- 5 different villages, over 20 times
- 4 different schools (Buddhist and Muslim)
- more than 200 parents through 6 different parenting workshops
What’s happening now
Things have definitely changed for our ministry since we came back from Thailand. A number of ministry events have been cancelled. As we prayed, we felt the Lord speaking to us about “growing deeper in our relationship with Him, with each other and reaching out to the community.” We also feel that in this season God is saying: “get ready for what it is to come after the storm passes.”
These are the things we have been working on in response to this:
Strengthen discipleship within our missionary community through our weekly small group times, staff meetings and one on one discipleship.
Planning new projects for the Chai Wan Community. We worked in the writing of three different proposals and also applied for foundation grants. These projects are meant to serve grassroots families from Chai Wan District.
– Firm Foundations: a family education program that seeks to improve the quality of family functioning, strengthen family relationships and prevent family disconnection.
– English Bridge: English teaching program for children through godly values and Christian principles, that will build their character and enhance their learning experience.
– Common Goals: children and teenagers of different social and ethnic backgrounds can unite together as one to develop skills, build character, self-esteem and value, where they can encounter the fatherly love of God through the quality football coaching and community activities.
We are working hard to launch these projects to serve the Chai Wan community in September as we partner with friends who would like to support these programs financially.
Coordinating Zoom meetings with Chai Wan Pastors. A few weeks ago, as we were praying for Chai Wan, we felt the Lord prompting us to connect with the pastors and leaders from the Chai Wan churches. They used to meet every month, but they were not able to do it anymore because of COVID-19. So, one of our local staff initiated these weekly Zoom gatherings and encouraged the pastors to join. The meetings have been very encouraging for them as they share and pray for one another.
Recording Living Room Sessions. We’ve been recording in our “living room” some worship songs that have lifted our spirits during this season and we desire to share them to encourage everybody. We want to make good use of the different communication platforms; especially social media as a mean to share about Jesus while millions of people are being quarantined around the world. We’ve focused on the heart languages from the people in our team and so far we posted songs in Cantonese and Spanish. Check them out here.
Renovating our Ministry Center (done by ourselves!) We want to get ready to welcome and serve the people from Hong Kong and overseas the Lord will bring to our Ministry Centre through our different programs. Our male staff have been working very hard for a month in renovating the conference room, office area, storage room and patio. They sanded and painted walls and floors, removed our 10-year-old desks and will also change our more-than-10-year-old carpet in the main office area and conference room. The ladies and children are also helping in various ways. It’s a team effort!
Celebrating 10 years since we moved to Chai Wan
We have been very blessed by God’s provision through our Ministry Center, since we move here in May 2010. This has been our home base where many people have been transformed, equipped, mobilized; where hundreds of programs and outreaches “have been cooked,” where we have enjoyed the fellowship of our missional community and even homeschooled our children!
We still believe that we are going to see the day in which we will own this place (you can read more about “ROOTED” here).
We would like to invite you to celebrate with us by making an anniversary gift to YWAM Gateway to support our renovation project! Donate Now
We are very grateful for your friendship, prayers care and support through the seasons.
What a privilege to be together in fulfilling the Great Commission!
On behalf of everybody at YWAM Gateway,
Ps. Diego and Andrea Servant
