Tag Archives: Australia

News

Australian YWAMers Establish New YWAM Ministry Centre in Canada

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YWAMers from Australia have established a new ministry location in Canada.

Australian Flag on top of YWAM Ministry Centre in CanadaIn the establishment of the new Youth With A Mission ministry centre the Australians used local, natural and easily available resources to build the new ministry building. It was built very quickly, over a matter of days, and blends in with the local landscape.

The ministry objectives and plans for the Australian YWAMers is still being established by the local staff. The YWAMers are saying that they are there for the long haul, but there are concerns though from the locals in Canada. One of them was overheard saying:

I know that they say they are here for the long term, but the way they built it looks to me like their ministry center will be gone by the time spring rolls around!

Young Australian YWAMers in CanadaApparently some of the locals are concerned about the YWAMers choice of building material; snow.

When approached about it the Australian YWAMer was surprised, responding, “What are you talking about? It’s everywhere, and I really can’t see it going away, this centre will be around for decades!”.

Austalian YWAMers wearing flip flops in the snow!There was also concern expressed by the local Canadians about some of the Australian YWAMers choice of footwear…

Again the Australian YWAMers were indignant in their answer stating, “We wear these things year round everywhere in Australia, including weddings! I’m not going to change just because of local tradition, I’m an Australian!”.

While the longevity of the building materials used for the new Youth With A Mission Ministry Centre in Canada is in doubt, the long-term future of the YWAMers in Canada is also still to be determined. In the mean time though they are plugging away at whatever it is God’s told them to do there…

Lounging on the roof top of the new YWAM Australia Ministry Centre in Canada
Lounging on the roof top of the new YWAM Australia Ministry Centre in Canada

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Outreach

2010 Schoolies Outreach in Australia

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In the coming weeks high school students in Australia will be graduating from grade 12 and descending in droves to beaches and resorts to celebrate.

The revelry usually goes for about 18-days starting on November 19. Tens of thousands of graduates participate in the annual celebration for school leavers. Gold Coast has about 60,000 young people participating, and Byron Bay, the second most popular destination, has about 10,000 people attend.

While most people’s experience at Schoolies is positive and fun, there is often also the misuse of drugs, alcohol and excessive partying. Unfortunately girls and guys are often taken advantage of by their peers and sometime by older predators as well during the event.

Youth With A Mission has had a presence at Schoolies for many decades, providing activities, support, safe places and people to patrol the areas where the youth are partying. I did an outreach with YWAM Sunshine Coast back in 1998 where we spent a lot of time talking with the school leavers, helping them where needed, and pointing them in the right direction if they needed further help.

I’ve contacted numerous YWAM Centres in Australia to see what  schoolies outreach opportunities are available and will be updating this article with that information and talking about it on the next YWAM Podcast when I hear back from the different centres.

Update:

YWAM Byron Bay runs a schoolies outreach every year. Both YWAM Brisbane, YWAM Newcastle and YWAM Sunshine Coast do their outreaches by joining with YWAM Byron Bay. Some of the outreach activities that they engage in are:

  • Hotel Chaplains
  • Organised Sports
  • Free BBQ
  • Street Concerts
  • Drama
  • One on One Evangelism

YWAM Reef to Outback, YWAM Newcastle and YWAM Brisbane usually include the schoolies outreach as a part of their Discipleship Training School (YWAM DTS).

YWAM Sunshine Coast has stopped doing their schoolies outreach to Maroochydore and Mooloolaba, where I did my schoolies outreach, since the Maroochy Shire Council stopped supporting and funding the activities in 2007.

Links:

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News

YWAM Working to Provide Clean Water

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I remember first hearing about some of the work YWAM was doing to provide clean water when I was in Kenya in 2001 for the University of the Nations (U of N) Workshop. Howard Malmstadt demonstrated a new water filtration and purification device that he developed with Rolf Englehard. 30 of the units were given away, which was to be the start of a larger distribution of the water filtration and purification devices to provide clean water around the world.

Youth With A Mission has been active around the world over it’s 50-year history in bringing clean potable water to the nations it’s worked in.

Some of the things that Youth With A Mission is currently doing to help provide clean water are:

  • Repairing damaged wells and pumps in Haiti after the earth quake
  • Proving clean water along with education and health care to the Aluwawe People of the Zambezi Delta in Mozambique (here)
  • Building concrete rain water collection tanks in Vanuatu where they have already built nine water tanks in the Northern villages of Efate, where I did my YWAM DTS outreach(here).
  • Building and improving wells in southern Sudan (see video below)
  • Running a Community Water Technology Seminar through the University of the Nations (U of N) in at least two locations in the world (here),
  • Water for Life & Platypus Go-Teams out of YWAM Tasmania to help provide access to safe water through seminars, training and short term missions trips (here).
  • Water for Life ministry in Kona, Hawaii as part of the University of the Nations (U of N) which currently has projects to help people develop safe and sustainable water sources in  Kiribati, Indonesia, Brazil, Kosovo and Rwanda. (here)

YWAM work continues to help provide clean water for the estimated 2 billion people around the world who are lacking adequate water supplies and sanitation.

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News

Stop Paying for Slavery Tour in Australia

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The Not for Sale Campaign is bringing the “Stop Paying for Slavery” tour to Australia this month. Here are the dates and location for the tour:

  • Adelaide June 29 and 30
  • Melbourne from July 1 – 3
  • Townsville July 4 – 6
  • Brisbane July 7 – 9
  • Canberra July 9 – 11
  • Wollongong July 12 – 13
  • Perth July 14 – 16
  • Newcastle July 17
  • Sydney July 18 – 19

The tour  aims to bring together people from education, law enforcement, faith communities, corporations, consumers and justice seeks to help bring an end to modern day slavery.

At many of the locations the people from the Not for Sale Campaign will be partnering with the location Youth With A Mission (YWAM) Centre for the events. I know that in Townsville the event will be held at the YWAM Centre there, and that appears to be the case in many other centres around Australia.

Faces of Slavery from David Hepburn on Vimeo.

You can read more about what the tour is about, and where it will be visiting after Australia, on their web-site at www.notforsalecampaign.org.

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News

Lynn Green to Address YWAM Live On-Line

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On April 28th at 5pm GMT (10am Pacific) Lynn Green will be addressing YWAM globally on an online video stream. Youth With A Mission has been streaming many of their GENESIS (video conferencing) meetings live to include as many people and YWAM locations as possible. So far there have been over 23,000 views of these different live recorded videos.

In addition to Lynn Green speaking on the live online video broadcast Shirley Brownhill will also be speaking. Shirley Brownhill is the director of YWAM Perth and will be sharing stories and video from Mexico City. YWAM Perth is currently engaged in a “Mega Cities” outreach in Mexico City and they have seen many people come to the Lord during their time there.

You can join into the live video address by clicking here at the time of the event.

To find out what time the event is in your time zone click here and then select your location.

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