by Becky Hefty | Aug 5, 2024 | Places and Projects
Frontline YWAM missionaries are MBI’s heroes. Despite the inherent difficulties they sometimes face, they’re unceasing in their devotion to sharing the love of Christ and making a practical difference in the lives of those they serve. We aim to provide the services they need to thrive in their calling.
We recognize another invaluable hero—the Mission Builder volunteer who selflessly spends their time and skills to help meet the practical needs of global YWAM missionaries.
One of MBI’s most ardent volunteer heroes went to be with her Lord and Savior in March of this year. Doris Jane Helton (along with her husband Vic) spent her retirement serving YWAM locations around the world. Doris’s obituary reads:
“Upon retirement, Doris and Vic fulfilled their desire to go on short-term mission trips. After serving a few times with Wycliffe Bible Translators, they discovered an organization called Youth With A Mission (YWAM). They realized that God was calling them to downsize so they could travel for longer periods. They moved to a townhouse and accepted YWAM assignments worldwide, staying up to 6-7 weeks at each location.
“Doris and Vic served with YWAM for 15 years. They enjoyed the experience of living in different cultures and often expressed how blessed they were to be able to serve in this way. They both loved to travel, and their mission work plus personal travels took them to over sixty countries on six continents and to more than twenty YWAM bases.”
Here are just a few precious remembrances offered by some of the YWAM missionaries and locations privileged to have received Doris and Vic’s out-of-the-ordinary volunteer service:
David Adegbami and family, Nigerian YWAMers serving at YWAM Belize:
“It was exactly fifteen years ago when the Lord brought you and Dad to our lives and ministry while we were serving with YWAM Belize. When you returned home, you told us that God said He brought you to Belize for the second time to get to know us. Ever since you and Dad adopted us as your son and daughter and our children as your grandchildren.
“You have also aided our ministry in numerous ways. The first medical team you and Dad brought us in 2013 opened the doors for many medical teams. We are also proud that God has used you and Dad to encourage us to establish a high school.”
Angie Stiner, YWAM missionary:
“Doris, you taught me so much and loved me unconditionally. There are so MANY memories! Budgeting, cooking, recipes, lunches, family vacations, buying a car, buying a condo, praying for me to get married, how to love my husband and respect him, job hunting, dinners, grocery shopping, doing haircuts in the kitchen, living upstairs and so much more. You encouraged me and supported me with YWAM, even while I was in my darkest hour. God used you in every way in my life. I have so many gifts from you to cherish and hold in my heart forever.”
Guy and Marylin, YWAM Saint Lucia:
“May Doris’s exemplary life resonate in our hearts. Her faith anchored her journey, buoying her work as a mission builder at YWAM Saint Lucia and many other locations. Doris nurtured the world around her with unbound generosity and hospitality, a testament to her noble character. As we mourn, let’s find solace in knowing she enriched countless lives, motivating us to live purposefully, echoing her spirit of selfless service.”
Ann-Sophie Kitok-Aboneka, YWAM missionary:
“I met Doris (and Vic) for the first time in YWAM Saint Croix. Doris helped out in the kitchen and made sure we ate healthy. I remember Doris as a very gentle, sweet, loving lady. The second time we met was in Sweden, as Doris and Vic came to serve as mission builders. The third time we met was in Hong Kong, where I served with YWAM. From then on, Doris and Vic became my supporters in the mission field until I started studying at the University in Sweden.
“I have been so blessed and touched by Doris’s life and how willingly she has served in different contexts. How gentle and kind-hearted she always was. I loved her sense of adventure and curiosity. Doris, may your memory live until many more generations.”
And we say, “Well done, Doris and Vic. Well done.”
In honor of Doris’s life and service, her family asked that memorial donations go to missions/YWAM via MBI, Helton’s supporting organization.
In Doris’s memory, we’d like to ask you this: Would you like to be a hero in someone’s story? If you want to be a volunteer hero, please visit our webpage at www.MissionBuilders.org and explore the excellent service opportunities available.
by Becky Hefty | Jun 24, 2024 | Connections Article
MBI’s goal is to help YWAM missionaries succeed and flourish in life and ministry so they can serve on the mission field long-term. One way we do this is by partnering with other trained debriefers to offer debriefing services to missionaries globally. As one individual said, “Sometimes we just need to be heard. There are times in life when being heard leads to being healed.”
Debriefing Director Jeanette Brewster says: “Missionaries carry a variety of responsibilities without much time to process difficult events. This can continue for years at a time, compounding stress, loss, transitions, grief, and injustices. We all know the answer is Jesus, but the way to healing can sometimes be clouded. The debriefing week facilitates a process that guides individuals to lay their burdens at the foot of the cross and find healing. It is amazing what one week of retreat, silence, solitude, and reflection can do for the heavy-laden soul.”
Sophorn and Rothana B. have served many years at YWAM Battambang in Cambodia. They say: “It is good to reflect on what happened in the past and the Scriptures. God was always there to help us. God is faithful. You helped us trust and have peace through sharing what is in our hearts.”
Debriefing training seminars are vital. Training more staff and people on how to care for long-term missionaries helps prevent unnecessary attrition. In collaboration with YWAM Montana-Lakeside’s debriefing team, MBI’s team has conducted multiple on-location training seminars and debriefs since 2016 at U.S. campuses and YWAM locations as far away as Cambodia, Ukraine, and Thailand.
Jaimie B.’s story tells it all: “Isaiah tells us that Jesus can bring beauty from ashes. For my husband and I, debriefing was the vehicle that brought that beauty. In 2020, our lives got turned upside down when our son passed away. As we entered into a long season of grieving, debriefing became a gift to us. We felt deeply loved by our debriefers and by God. Now that we’ve undergone the training, we can offer this gift to others. We’ve seen the healing power of debriefing time and time again.”
by Becky Hefty | May 15, 2024 | Places and Projects
YWAM campuses and missionaries worldwide flourish when they have the practical and professional resources necessary to stay focused on their ministries’ core work. Providing those resources is at the heart of what MBI does—so others may thrive.
Partner Architects is one of the professional resources MBI offers. They provide architectural “design for missionaries, by missionaries,” working with ministries in under-served locations “to create places that support God’s redemptive work in the world.”
Partner Architects’ door is open to professional architects who share their vision. In September 2023, they welcomed Garrett Morrison.
Garrett knew he was different from the time he was in the sixth grade. A math assignment triggered his lifelong desire to become an architect, and he organized his high school studies accordingly. Then, in Garrett’s junior year, the Lord threw him a curve ball, calling him to be a missionary. At the time, Garrett had no idea how architecture and missions fit together, so he laid down his vision for architecture to become a missionary with YWAM.
Garrett served for nearly a decade with YWAM Montana-Lakeside (along with his wife Sarah and their four children). He spent the latter half of those years with the independent architectural ministry 100 Fold Studio. Those years of training set him on a path to becoming a licensed architect, and after a year of university, he joined a firm in Washington state, taking the opportunity to complete licensure through work experience.
“All in all, it took a decade of training and testing, and by God’s grace, I passed my final exam and became a licensed architect in 2023,” Garrett says. “Soon after, the Lord called me to take a new step and work with MBI’s Partner Architects.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to come alongside missionaries as a professional resource in architectural design, to journey in faith together, ‘lifting their arms’ by undertaking the project design process that could otherwise overwhelm the work of the ministry.
“We’ve heard the horror stories of ministries held back by their current facilities due to lack of resources—unsafe, unfit buildings that neither serve the vision nor communicate the gospel to the community in a way that helps them to flourish. As missionaries ourselves, we share and understand the values and challenges of our missionary clients. We have a unique capacity to speak the same language and help them fulfill the mission and vision God has called them to.” (Photo: Garrett Morrison, center)
After joining Partner Architects, Garrett began designing the new YWAM UofN campus in Pailin, Cambodia (one of the many ministry sites that grew out of the YWAM Battambang campus). Garrett says, “UofN Pailin is exciting because it represents the multiplication of the gospel and the mission within the country that moves YWAM Cambodia closer to the fulfillment of their vision of reaching ‘one nation in one generation.'”
Garrett recently returned from Cambodia, where he visited UofN Pailin and Freedom’s Promise, a ministry currently constructing an 18-classroom school building that will open in 2025. Partner provided a campus masterplan and design for the school, which will significantly increase the ministry’s capacity to impact communities with the gospel and eradicate human trafficking in Cambodia.
Garrett and the Partner Architects team spent a week in late April at YWAM Mazatlán in Mexico. The Mazatlán team plans to grow the campus to house and train 3000 missionaries yearly to reach Mexico and other nations with the gospel.
“For two days,” Garrett says, “the Partner Architects team listened to the Mazatlán leaders and staff members describe their vision and values. We helped them define their measures of success, the campus aesthetics they desire, and the program requirements necessary to meet their mission needs. At the end of more than twelve hours of meetings, as we reported back from our notes what we heard, the hospitality coordinator exclaimed, ‘I think you have captured our heart perfectly!’
“We have a current project in the Gambia in West Africa, where we are helping to design a new YWAM campus in the country’s center. We’re also working with a church project in Samoa and a pastor-training and church-planting ministry in the Middle East.”
Garrett concludes, “Partner Architects could use more licensed architects. We’re praying for two more licensed individuals to join our Montana team. There is a lot of work ahead, and it is thrilling to be a part of it and to have the ability to use our gifts and talents to serve missionaries and the gospel!”
For more information, visit www.partnerarchitects.org.
by Becky Hefty | Apr 3, 2024 | Connections Article
MBI exists to help YWAM locations thrive and achieve the best possible kingdom results in their work. In January, MBI’s Leadership13 (L13) members Ron Brewster and Dawn Masucci traveled to Cambodia to continue training and encouraging the YWAM Battambang University of the Nations leadership and staff. Ron’s wife, Jeanette, accompanied them to provide debriefing services. MBI is helping YWAM Battambang realize its vision for “serving the community, educating youth, and developing leaders” in Cambodia.
Cambodia is recovering from the genocidal war waged against its people by the Pol Pot regime in the mid-‘70s, which devastated their elderly and educated population, leaving the vulnerable young to fend for themselves. According to WHO and the UN, Cambodians still face widespread poverty and illiteracy, lack of proper sanitation and access to clean drinking water, HIV/AIDS, malnutrition, and sex trafficking. But the missionaries at YWAM Battambang believe they can “transform the nation in one generation.” They accomplish this through elementary education, teaching English, reaching out to families facing HIV/AIDS, fitness programs, business-as-missions projects, youth development, and more.
As the MBI team made the four-hour journey to Battambang, they listened to worship songs and discovered 
that their driver, a man named Dang, was a believer. Dang told the team that in the ‘90s, a former YWAM outreach center took him in when he was thirteen years old. He became a follower of Jesus, which is remarkable since only 2% of Cambodians are Christians (YWAM Battambang has since started a church to share the gospel; it now has 350 believers, with indigenous staff and preaching). He learned English there, which allowed him to find a job driving and earn a living. Today, Dang is married and has two children, nine and eleven.”
Ron says: “Does it really matter what MBI does to help YWAM locations and missionaries? It matters to people like Dang, our driver! It’s a good reminder that there are Dangs all over the world, and what we do weaves us into beautiful God stories!”
by Becky Hefty | Feb 20, 2024 | Places and Projects
Mission Builders International provides essential training and volunteers to help frontline missionaries thrive and multiply their life-changing work. That’s why we recently featured YWAM Emerge‘s volunteer invitation to their intensive aquaponics training course at their ranch in Colorado. After completing the training, volunteers could travel to a designated global community to reproduce the aquaponics system.
The course immediately intrigued Brad Spencer, MBI’s then-volunteer services coordinator. He shared the information with fellow Canadian Brian Oldridge. They applied and headed to Colorado last October to participate in the training.
Brad says:
“YWAM Emerge has a compelling story that I didn’t fully connect with until we got down there, met the players, and heard about where they are and have been. They have built systems worldwide and have current projects in Africa and the Middle East, working in communities to alleviate hunger and provide family and ministry income. Instruction is an important aspect of each OASYS build, as is surveying the local market to determine the most viable crops to meet local needs.
“Initially, they built very different systems, depending on the location and available materials. Eventually, they were motivated to engineer a repeatable design, reduced to the simplest, most common materials that did not require extensive startup expertise. Hence, OASYS was born. Building according to their OASYS design eliminates startup risk for the most part. They’ve streamlined troubleshooting and system support. The Emerge team and those trained on OASYS know how the system was built, significantly eliminating local design deviations.
“We met people from Africa, India, and other nations during the training course. International visitors were amazed and wanted to know how to get the system into their countries. Emerge tries to connect them with sponsors to help the visitors build in their nations. They just finished a system build in Kenya for a school.
“Some individual Emerge staff have projects underway in countries like Lebanon, South Africa, and Central Asia and are working to market them to other countries. Some locations are in closed countries, and the team uses the OASYS system to be in those countries legitimately. Offering high-value projects like this opens doors. They can share Christ by providing for peoples’ needs and building enduring relationships. Their relevance goes up because the people know that they care.
“Emerge is ten years into this and still strongly desires to make it happen. There is no shortage of vision; they share it with as many as possible. They need trained and skilled individuals willing to help make this happen in communities with needs.
“While Brian and I could not go on to the Kenya build, we did spend time encouraging the YWAM Emerge team in ways they could set up the ranch to accommodate Mission Builder volunteers. There are lots of opportunities to serve this ministry. What they accomplish is making a difference in communities worldwide and has excellent potential for multiplying and touching many more.”
Find out how you can serve YWAM Emerge by visiting www.missionbuilders.org/explore/. Then, fill out our easy online application.
Learn more about YWAM Emerge and aquaponics: www.ywamemerge.org
Connect with MBI so others may thrive: www.missionbuilders.org.
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