Growing a Quality Team

Growing a Quality Team

by | Mar 7, 2025 | Letter from the Director, Thrive

MBI is one of hundreds of global campuses in YWAM’s network. Our sole purpose is to provide practical and training support for other locations so they can thrive and fully realize their mission goals.

MBI’s ability to offer extraordinary services to our missionary counterparts relies on our quality staff. Our team consists of experienced long-term missionaries who know the ropes and understand the challenges of serving on the field.

We want to introduce you to the four incredible YWAM missionaries who recently joined us, allowing us to offer even more help than before.

The construction of Mission Lodge—MBI’s all-in-one center for refreshing, retooling, and resending YWAM leaders and missionaries—is well underway. We recently welcomed Benjamin Arnold and his wife, Liz, to help us realize this crucial part of our ministry vision. Benjamin oversees the current construction phase as MBI’s Mission Lodge project manager. He has a civil engineering and construction background in building large infrastructure projects.

Benjamin is originally from Austin, TX, and Liz is from Campbellford, Ontario, Canada. They have served in YWAM for two years. Before moving to Lakeside, they worked in English camps in Thailand, drilled water wells in Mexico, and preached the gospel in Indonesia and New Zealand. They love outdoor activities, from hunting and fishing to hiking, camping, and riding motorcycles.

Sally Jo (SJ) Vander Yacht is from Lynden, WA, and has served 15 years with YWAM. She also has a Master of Arts in the New Testament from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. She says: “Most of my YWAM experience has been serving in the realm of biblical training, including seven years at YWAM Lakeside-Montana with the SBS (School of Biblical Studies) and an additional five years with their Biblical Seminars program.”

Sally Jo loves teaching, training, learning, problem-solving, and helping people understand the hot topics of our current culture and society. She is pioneering and building the Christ-Centered Sexuality (CCS) ministry under MBI’s umbrella. Sally Jo says, “CCS trains and educates Christians in a non-affirming understanding of God’s design and desire for sex, sexuality, gender, and marriage while also helping people learn how to engage in compassion and pastoral care for those who struggle with sexual brokenness.”

Sally Jo also manages MBI’s Instagram account. When she isn’t busy with her MBI and CCS responsibilities, she enjoys boating, traveling, playing Call of Duty, and keeping up with her rambunctious golden retriever, Murphy.

Nate Ballivian works long-distance as part of MBI’s L13 (Leadership 13) team and as MBI’s Volunteer Coordinator. He took his YWAM DTS (Discipleship Training School) in 2006, adding on subsequent YWAM training and leadership schools, a Bachelor of Biblical Studies with Ecclesia College, and life purpose and calling coaching with Coaching Mission International (CMI). He and his family live in Lindale, TX, where they have served with YWAM Tyler since 2009.

Nate loves being exposed to different cultures and foods and enjoys working in facilitation, team building, life coaching, strategic thinking, and leadership development. He says his favorite challenges include “developing something and then passing it on so it’s not dependent on me and helping people and teams get unstuck by bringing clarity.” He also loves being out in nature, reading biographies and historical nonfiction, keeping up with Michigan in college football, and watching Arsenal in the Premier League.

Nate especially enjoys cooking and “eating yummy food” with his wife of 17 years, Lauren, and doing activities with his three kids: Gabe (13), Ephraim (8), and Beatriz (6).

Amy Stevens is a YWAM lifer with 32 years of service and experience. She recently joined MBI to serve as office manager and in L13 resource development.

Originally from Minnesota, Amy lived at and worked on staff with YWAM Lakeside-Montana for 11 years before moving to Taiwan and serving with Taipei Ministries for 21 years. While in Montana, she served as staff for the SBS (School of Biblical Studies) for two years before launching the Titus Project in 1996 and running it for seven years. Amy was the local Titus Project leader and overseer of what became Titus Project Int’l in Taiwan. Additionally, Amy was part of their ministry leadership team, the leadership council, the budget review team, the fiscal team (as an overseer), and the director’s office.

Amy says she gained working knowledge through seminars, experience, and trial and error. She is skilled at teaching, creating resources, systems/SOPs, and information organization. Her favorite challenges include creating spreadsheets, expenditure reports, and systems, especially those related to numbers and accounting.

Amy also says, “I love difficult passages in the Bible, studying and teaching through them. I love to see those without hope and searching for meaning come to believe in Jesus and go on to being discipled, becoming pastors or DTS leaders, etc. And I love the cross-cultural aspect of missions where people from all nations and vastly different cultures come together with the same purpose: to make God known and follow him.”

Amy is married to Michael Stevens from Australia. They have four gifted, mission-oriented adult children: Elise (24), Kenna (21), Anaya (19), and Nathan (18).

The Lord has blessed MBI with a treasure trove of skilled and talented people to help us continue assisting the YWAM missionaries who are making a difference in the world. Thanks for supporting our team with your prayers and encouragement!

I Did a DTS. Now What?

I Did a DTS. Now What?

by | Aug 25, 2021 | Connections Article

Many students of YWAM’s Discipleship Training School graduate with a desire to serve full-time in the mission, and YWAM campuses worldwide need people just like them to achieve their mission goals and thrive. MBI brings these two dynamic groups together through our After DTS program.

DTS graduates can now explore opportunities and locations through volunteer placement, allowing them to experience a variety of service opportunities, places, cultures, and causes. Graduates may learn new skills, encounter new people groups, fall in love with a ministry vision, find their “tribe” of like-minded missionaries, and more! They volunteer at global locations, build lasting relationships, and find their best fit for long-term service. MBI makes easy what used to be laborious and time-consuming.

Dawn Mekunwattana from Thailand did her DTS in the spring of 2011 at YWAM Lakeside and knew she wanted to join their staff someday. She spent time mission building on campus between the secondary schools she attended after her basic training. She says:

“My mission building experience gave me a snapshot into the behind-the-scenes life of missionary members on campus and helped to solidify my desire to serve full-time in Montana. I loved the Mission Builder community! We had our meetings and times of connection and prayer outside of the regular base meetings, and I loved connecting with all the people who would come through for those short seasons to serve and bless others. Mission building also grew my confidence—I could serve and work in many capacities! It’s been ten years since I did my DTS and six years since I last worked as a mission builder.  Now, I’m finally here as a full-time missionary member!”

DTS graduates like Daniel, Fabio, Presley, and others have utilized the After DTS program to explore the exciting ways and places available to them to serve within YWAM as they’ve fulfilled God’s call on their lives.

Are you a DTS graduate with a passion for moving to the next step of service? Apply at www.missionbuilders.org to volunteer with After DTS and discover your next step!

So Others May Thrive

So Others May Thrive

by | Mar 20, 2019 | Letter from the Director

I have had friends, family, supporters, and fellow YWAM coworkers ask ‘why MBI?’

When I was a young base leader in my early thirties at YWAM Lakeside, MT, I was faced with many challenges. Not enough people to help accomplish the vision. Not enough resources to realize our goals. More leadership development needed in my personal life. There were always projects and needs that required extra help and expertise, and God often provided those things through Mission Builder volunteers.

When YWAM Lakeside was given a motel that was located a mile away, we had to set the three massive, incoming sections of the hotel on foundations. God brought a team of volunteers to help, and now the Bayshore is a gracious home to students and visitors. When we discovered that one of our twenty-seven houses was sinking into the ground, we had to demolish half of it and figure out how to rebuild in such a way that it would not sink again. A visitor “happened” to be walking through, saw our dilemma, and said, “I can help you solve the problem you have with this house sinking.” He volunteered, and 13 years later, the house is still standing.

These stories might not seem like much to some (and we have many stories of God bringing volunteers at just the right time), but to me, as the campus director, those volunteers were like water to a person thirsting in the desert.

It’s now been three months since I became the director of MBI. We have a great team working hard to continue the legacy of volunteer placement that MBI is known for as well as adding new vision. We’re stretching to reach goals connected to our expanded focus of seeing YWAM locations thrive through increased volunteer placement, leadership support,and staff and organizational services.

Beginning with volunteer placement, we have prayerfully and in faith set a goal to grow from recruiting and sending 500 volunteers yearly to 3,000. How? We have to tap into new pools of potential volunteers, so for the next six to nine months, we’ll be focusing on recruiting: 

• Volunteer teams: Families, couples, and singles may serve as a group at a YWAM location, assisting with specific projects. In turn, they’ll be deeply and personally impacted through what we call a “mutually transformative experience.” One expression of the volunteer team concept that we want to multiply to other YWAM locations is a program called Vacation With A Purpose (VWAP), which has helped transform the YWAM Lakeside campus over the years.

• Discipleship Training School students: Many graduates of the DTS program are excited about missions but not sure what God is calling them to next. We now offer those students a platform (called After DTS) through missionbuilders.org where they may volunteer and discover where God may be calling them to serve long-term.  

In our next newsletter, we’ll expand on MBI’s newest areas of focus: leadership support and staff and organizational services. We believe that with MBI’s new three-pronged approach we can more effectively help build the mission.

Why MBI? So others may thrive.

 

 

P.S. Watch for our new newsletter design, coming this summer!