Autumn/fall mini update

Hello Friends!

Mini update on my life:

1. I have been praying/looking for a car for a few months now and a few weeks ago I got GIVEN one! It’s such an amazing thing to see prayers answered in such a physical way!

It’s a 1982 VW Rabbit(Golf) MK1 Convertible for all you car people, or to not car people its a really cute green tiny car with a beige convertible roof! aka my perfect car.
It needs a bit of work to get it going (and I will prob eventually need some studded tyres for the snow!), and within the last week, God is starting to provide me with money for that too! So awesome!

It looks a bit like this… mine has a few things to work on though!

2. My Vocation!

I am still volunteering full time in the communications department and we are seeing so much more creativity and vision in the last few weeks! Josh and Emily are continuing to make amazing videos (see their latest music video here) and I am currently working on the album cover for the first YWAM Worship album. We are also GROWING! We now have three full-time and as of next week 4 part-time staff and 1 DTS student on work duty! Its so awesome to see that God is expanding us so that we can start to serve and train more people. Our little studio is getting very crowded but its good!

We also have 8 amazing DTS Track students who we will be teaching film, photography, graphics, art and architecture (with 100 Fold Studio) to over the next three months and shoeing them how they can use their creative gifts in missions and to ‘further the kingdom’!

And finally, we are hoping to start a Communications internship program in the next few months so please PRAY that we form a great curriculum/program and that we get the right people applying. We aim to create a program that will give training and professional work experience in Film and Graphic design whilst also discipling interns and allowing God to speak to them on how they can use their creative gifts both in the mission field and the secular industry.

Prayer Point:
• My colleagues Josh and Emily have to return to England next week to get their visas renewed - please pray that they are accepted and can return here soon! Thank you!

Well thanks for reading!
Lots of Love
Sarah.

Summer 2011 Newsletter!

DEAR FRIENDS, FAMILY AND SUPPORTERS, GREETINGS FROM A SUNNY MONTANA! THE SNOW IS GONE AND THE SUMMER HAS FINALLY ARRIVED! HERE IS MY SUMMER UPDATE TO LET YOU KNOW ALL ABOUT WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING AND HOW YOU CAN CONTINUE TO SUPPORT ME. ENJOY!

LIFE IN GENERAL
Life here in Montana is so good right now and it just keeps getting better! I have been here around 4 months now and God has been blessing me so much with great friends and relationships and with a great sense of purpose of the work I am doing here. I have been working in the communications department full time (although the last few weeks I have been doing something different… more about that later!) and the work is great. I have been working a lot on the base web site and creating a new identity for our department so that we can start to recruit more staff. God has given me such a vision for communications in missions and especially on this base and I am excited to see what the next few years hold! 
Montana in the summer is so different here to the rest of the year. Usually because of the snow and cold, you don’t see many people outside but now its hot people are so much more open and social and its been great to start exploring this new place I live in and enjoying the amazing landscape that surrounds us.
I have also been going to one of my church’s house groups and it has been awesome. We all really clicked and I feel like I have made some great friends and we (Emily, my roommate and I) have even been able to inspire people in our group to think about missions – one has even decided to do a DTS! It is often hard to make friends outside of YWAM here so I feel so grateful to have made some so quickly.
God has also been providing for me financially and I now have the required amount of monthly support and one more regular supporter! It has been a great lesson in just going and letting God take care of the rest, because he really does!

Avalanche Lake, Glacier National Park

Camping with friends in Glacier National Park

DTS EQUIP
As Some of you may know, this summer I have been taking a leadership training school here called DTS Equip. This is mainly for DTS (Discipleship Training School) leaders and staff but is also for anyone wanting more training in leadership. As I feel like in the future I will be placed in positions of leadership and as I currently lead the DTS Communications Interest Track, I felt like it would be useful for me to do. And it really has! I am learning so much about myself and how one’s past affects the present and future, how my personality affects my leadership style and how to effectively disciple students. It has been so great to ‘change gears’ for a few weeks and take some time out from work to focus inwardly again and allow God to speak to me and give Him space to teach me new things. I am so excited to apply these things with the track students in this next DTS which starts in September. I can’t believe that a year ago that was me!

THE RIDER:
I also recently had the chance to work on a short film! Josh and Emily Brooks, whom I work with entered a competition with Vimeo and Nokia to create a short film using only the new Nokia N8 phone. Josh decided to mae a short western film called the rider. I got to be on crew and it was so much fun! There were real life cowboys, horses, damsels in distress and guns! It is a beautiful short story of redemption and salvation and it came out so well. All the cast and crew were either from the base or from the local church. It was such a great opportunity to get some experience in a different creative field.
Click here to watch it. You will not believe it was made completely on a phone!
Also you can watch the making of! See if you can spot me!

PRAYER POINTS:
– Please pray for the new students coming into the DTS track, that I will be able to teach and inspire them to use their creative gifts for God.
– More communications staff! We really need more graphic/web designers, film makers and illustrators to join our team and allow us to grow and widen our sphere of projects to outside of this base. Check out ywammontana.org/communications for more info.
– As it is very remote here (think Cornwall but more spread out and with no buses or trains!) I would really like a car to get into town, see friends, and also to start serving with my church in their creative team. They don’t have MOT’s here so it can be hard to know if you are buying a reliable car so I would need about £600-1000 To buy something decent.
– I am really looking for someone to disciple/mentor so please be praying that I find a girl that needs one! I have a mentor myself and would really like the opportunity to pour into someone else’s life.

I now have a Stewardship account set up (www.stewardship.org) which gives me Gift Aid back on any support I receive. If you would like to support me either one off or regularly, doing it through Stewardship would be great. My account number is 20119280. Thanks.

Well there you go, thank you so much for your continued support, it means so much to me to be here, every day I feel so blessed to be called to this life and you help to make it possible! Please let me know how I can be praying for you! Thanks so much, lots of love, Sarah x

Bethany, Me, Jesse & Leah. Some of my closest friends on base right now. They are awesome. We were dressed up for “Posh Week”!

Spring 2011 Newsletter – Life in Montana

Sorry if you have already received this via email but I thought it would be a good idea to put it online…

I HAVE ARRIVED! HELLO FRIENDS, FAMILY AND SUPPORTERS, I HAVE NOW BEEN ON STAFF IN YWAM MONTANA’S COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT FOR THREE WEEKS, SO HERE IS A SHORT UPDATE TO LET YOU KNOW HOW I AM DOING!

GETTING HERE…
The last two months since returning from my DTS have been such a mix of things – It was so good to see family and friends again and to really rest and process the last 5 months but it was also challenging to continue to live totally for Jesus and to really trust him for his provision in the future. With the planning to move very quickly back to Montana, organising visas and gathering support and finances have been a whirl wind. There has been a lot of waiting and times when I doubted the calling God had put on my heart. But I am here now and God has been so faithful in providing for me including finding flights that were cheaper than I’d planned and no long lay overs! Still took me 33 hours to get here! Thank you so much to all who have supported me in getting me here, it has been such a blessing and confirmation to me that I am where I am supposed to be.

SO, I’M HERE… WHAT NOW?
I have now been here about three weeks and life is so good. It has been so great to see friends again and everyday I feel so blessed to live in such a beautiful place. God is continuing to speak to me about my life and I feel like the environment here is so good for me to grow in.
Work wise, I am busy busy busy! I already have several projects on the go including working on the YWAM Montana website, helping with a fund-raising fashion show and branding the summer schools here. I am also the Visual Arts and Communication DTS track leader (a few hours a weeks students get to work on something they are passionate about and see how they can use it in missions) which involves a lot of organising and I get to teach design which I am so excited about.

Here are some facts:
– 36% of DTS students discovered YWAM Montana through the web site.
– 82% of those found the base through Google searches.
– 30 out of 52 DTS students last year used either the web site or email to contact the base.

Visual and digital communication is very quickly becoming the primary way in which modern society sends and receives information and I have a passion to see this used in missions because as communicators of the gospel, we need to be effective in the way we speak to people in a way that they understand. Through my work and the work of the others in the department, our hope is that we will bring in students and staff to the base who are then in turn trained and encouraged and then sent out to spread the gospel ‘on the front line’ as it were. We all have a role in the body, and I feel like right now mine is to support and equip staff here with effective communications for their prospective students, and to those who they are spreading the gospel to.


Here is a poster I designed for a fundraising fashion show we are having on the base in May. I am also involved in the organisation and co-odination of the event.

IN THE PIPELINE…
Every summer on the base, a school called DTS Equip is run and it is a six week leadership training course designed to equip and empower DTS staff and leaders in all areas of missions and it is attended by YWAM staff from all over the world. I feel like this is something that would be so useful for me as I enter into leadership roles and I think this is something that God has put on my heart to do this summer. Please pray as I seek confirmation of this and also for the funds to pay for it.
The dates are June 27th-August 5th and I need approx £4-500.

PARTNER WITH ME
“God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.” Hebrews 6:10

I believe that “where God guides, He provides” and this is what allows me to trust in Him to provide for my needs in the months and years to come. However God loves to partner with us to bless people and in turn this blesses the giver too. I need consistent prayer and financial support here as YWAM is a completely non-profit organisation. Would you prayerfully consider supporting me?
Thank you so much to all who are currently supporting me, this is such a blessing and I pray that the Lord blesses you too.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you want more information on what I do or YWAM Montana.

Lots of Love
Sarah.


Here are a few
recent pictures…





Beautiful Montana


Welcome to Montana Night – I went as a mountain!


My new studio space

Here comes my American Dream…

Dear Friends,
I am here! I have finally returned to the land of mountains, snow, big trucks, Dairy Queen and Walmart and I am loving it. I feel so settled and at home here and it is so great to see my friends here again and it really feels like the start of a new life.

I have started work this week and I am doing alot! I am leading the Visual Arts and Communications track on the DTS which starts on friday. We have 5 students signed up and I am so excited to get to know them and see them grow in their creative skills and discover how missions and the arts don’t have to be separate!

I am also working on the design work for a fashion show fundraiser we have here in May, which is partly raising money for the base and an orphanage in Cambodia as well as being a local outreach as we are inviting local stores to show their work and inviting the community to come see the show. There’s a lot of work to do but it should be a great night.

Below is a picture of my new studio space… I feel so blessed to have been provided with an awesome iMAC to work on - it means I can do more than one thing at a time!

I can’t over how beautiful this place is here, please feel free to visit me anytime!
Thanks to all who supported me in getting here, I pray that God blesses you for your generosity.

Much love, Sarah.

Time to go…I will miss…

I am almost on my way. My visa has been accepted and delivered and my flights are booked and I am flying to Montana on Thursday morning! This past week has been such a whirlwind, and I am so surprised at how quickly everything came through. Thank you Jesus for answered prayers! I also got my plane ticket for much cheaper than I thought and since I booked more unexpected money has come in! Even though I have had struggles in the past few weeks, its things like that that everyday make me realise that I am doing the right thing and there is nothing too big or small for God. I have definitely been learning to trust and have patience in HIM. Awesome.

I am so ready and excited to start my next life and work, but its going its going to be hard to say goodbye to my country and fellow countrymen. Here are some things I will miss the most:

- My lovely Parents
- Not having a weird accent
- Marmite
- A cup of tea as a standard beverage
- Using both a fork AND a knife with a meal
- Cornish Cream Teas
- Cornish Pasties
- Cornish Beaches esp. Gylly beach
- Real pancakes
- Lucy Bird, Pete Kessell, Ben Galatia, Sam Rich, Abi Galatia
   & all my other wonderful friends
- My Number 10 Housemates (Amy, Rah, Livvy, Rob)
- Saying trousers and not pants
- Cadburys chocolate
- Galaxy chocolate
- The NHS
- BBC documentaries
- The Queen on my money
- Being able to earn money
- H&M, Primark, Topshop (although thats prob a good thing!)
- and probably many more things I don’t realise yet!

For the first few months I will be living with another British girl Emily so that will be a nice transition! And I work in a studio with two other Brits… talk about a home away from home!

Prayer Points:
- Safe travel and no major delay
- A good transition into a new lifestyle and work
- That I will be able to build lasting strong relationships with staff and students
   who are constantly coming and going on the base.
- That I will able to integrate with the local church and community and meet people
   outside of YWAM
- That financial support will continue to come in regularly.

Thanks for reading!

Paypal…

I now have paypal set up on my blog (there on the right) so if you would like to support me in my ministry then you can. Please prayerfully consider it. Seriously every penny counts. Thank you.