The devil is afraid of You

The devil is afraid of you. Big or small, young or old, no matter how many mistakes you have made, he is AFRAID. He hates you, he hates how much God loves you, and he’s terrified of what God could do through you. All he wants to do is destroy you, but his only weapon is lies. Don’t listen to him. Don’t believe what he says about you and what he says about God. All he wants to do is destroy you. All God wants to do is love you.

When a lake became a river (the day I met the Ocean)

I am a body of water. I am perfectly still, but I am not meant to be still. There is a Spirit that wants to indwell me. There is a furious love that seeks to overtake me. But I resist it. I resist company. I resist change. I stay where I belong. I am accustomed to isolation. I look out on all the other bodies of water. They are all so beautiful, but so apart. I am a lake. And a lake sits alone, surrounded by strangers; ruff land that pushes against me and tells me where I cannot go. A lake sits alone.

Then one day a storm came and woke me. I didn’t even know I was asleep, but I felt the storm stirring in my center, growing faster and gaining momentum. It brewed from the deepest of places. It was restlessness. The Spirit saw my restlessness and felt compassion. He breathed a mighty wind over me, and my stillness turned to waves. I moved for the very first time. I was alive for the first time. I felt something other than my cold, isolated stillness.

The Spirit came and sat beside me. He told me that I am not a lake (He said He’d know because He made me). The Spirit says I am a river and that He is the Ocean. He was there before I ever began, and all my lonely days I had been slowly making my way towards Him, separate, but connected. I saw the world with new eyes. There were countless rivers leading to the Sea. Some were obstructed. Trees had fallen and soil had stopped the flow. Most were like this, but many rivers met the arms of the ocean, and when they did the crash of waves was unspeakably beautiful. This is what we had all been waiting for. We were finally home. We started so far away not knowing what was at the end. We were afraid of the end. But then we saw Him; the mighty Ocean.

You are not alone. You are a river. Let the Spirit of God lead you into the endless ocean of His love.


“Then Jesus said, ‘Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.’” - Matthew 11:28-29

November 15th, 2012

If we believe God is big enough to save the lost, how can we say that He is too small to use those who are saved to do mighty things?

He does not seek you and save you to boost church attendance. All those who are in Christ are called to be revivalists. If you are saved by His grace you are filled with His Spirit. He is not looking for the perfect Christian. He is looking for a willing spirit. Simple obedience can change the world.

I refuse to wallow in unbelief.
I refuse to be lukewarm.
He has blown me away with His goodness.
He is worthy of my all.

THANK YOU (newsletter, April 2013)

Greetings dear family and friends!

As some of you may recall I wrote a letter back in November talking about my upcoming missions trip to the Philippines and Thailand with Youth With A Mission. Well here we are months later and I’m back in one piece. I’m sorry that I took so long to write a follow-up letter, but as promised, I wanted to write y’all to share about my time abroad. But before I get ahead of myself I should start of by saying a massive THANK YOU. My journey with YWAM was spontaneous and unplanned on my part, but I believe it was God’s plan all along. It took a lot to get me through those six months and I could not have done it without you guys. Thank you so much for your thoughts, your prayers, and your generous giving. It made a difference. I am truly blessed to have you all as friends.

Our trip began with two and a half weeks in the Philippines. We were working just outside of Manila in Taytay, Rizal. After a couple days of working with local churches we headed out to a remote village for a tree planting project to help benefit a small orphanage by the name of Destiny’s Promise. Before leaving the States we had someone donate our team enough money to purchase 1,100 lemon trees. There was hot weather and a steep mountain hike, but in our three days there we were able to plant about 600 trees.

After that we went back to Taytay to spend the remainder of our time working at the orphanage. Our nine days there were one of the top highlights of the trip for me. Growing up as the youngest in my family, I never had much experience or interest with younger kids, but it was impossible to not have a heart for kids after my time there. It was so awesome to spend time with them every day and pour into them. God really gave me a glimpse of what His Father Heart is like. Though many of the children there have faced so much abuse and neglect from their earthly families, it’s such a comfort to know that they have a heavenly Father who cares for them so deeply. Our heavenly Father can provide all we need, heal all our wounds, and He dreams incredible dreams over us. It was hard to say goodbye. A couple of children in particular really gained a place in my heart, but my thoughts and prayers remain with them, and maybe one day I will be able to go back.

On January 3^rd we said all our goodbyes and flew to Chiang Mai, Thailand. Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand and it was there that we spent our first month of Thai ministry. We stayed at Wongen Café and partnered with the owner in her local ministries. Wongen constantly hosts a variety of missionary teams and has long term workers from abroad that help tutor English to local students. The café is located directly across the street from Chiang Mai University, so it has a very strategic position to reach out to students. Aside from the university, the owners other two ministries focus on human trafficking. One sends missionaries into Chiang Mai’s red light district to reach out directly to workers in the sex industry. The other sends groups into rural villages to help build up and support their local communities. Many families send their children to the city to work in the sex industry so that they can send money back home. Often times families send away their children under false pretenses that they will be working in a legitimate industry.

Twice a week our team would go to the red light district to reach out to workers and patrons alike. It was a huge challenge to me personally. The spiritual atmosphere was incredibly heavy and I certainly felt out of place. As a white male, when you enter the bars there’s a clear assumption that you are there for sex. But as we returned and developed relationships week after week it became clear that we were there for other reasons. I know that many seeds were planted through our presence there and the love that we were able to share with the workers. And we were able to see a clear impact before moving on to the next city. One of the bars in the heart of the red light district was a “lady boy” bar. We started to put a lot of emphasis on the workers there in our final few visits. One of the workers there had grown up in a Christian family and actually went through a YWAM program a couple of years ago. One of the guys on our team, Dalton, was able to have an amazing conversation with him on our last visit. He said that the simple act of seeing us there week after week had made him want to change. My friend was able to love on him, encourage him in God’s love and pray with him. By the end of the night he said he didn’t want to work there anymore! Dalton went back to the red light district one last time with a different YWAM team and reported that that worker was no longer there! Praise God!

We also developed several good relationships through our time at Chiang Mai University. There was a group of three friends there that were of particular importance to me. We would go have lunch with them at the university almost every day and hung out with them many other times outside of school. They became very close friends with our group. We were able to share about Jesus a lot with them. The next city we went to was actually the hometown of Moss, one of our friends from this group. He came and visited us while we were there and told us that shortly after we had left he accepted Christ! It is interesting that our trip began with tree planting, because seed planting turned out to be the theme of our ministry. Serving people and sharing about Christ when we had opportunity. But it was so awesome that we got to see the direct impact of our work through two people’s lives in Chiang Mai. 


The final leg of my trip was spent in Mae Sot, Thailand which is a border town with Burma. We were working with a local pastor in a variety of ministries. Several years ago he started a school for Burmese refugees. We visited there several times, working on construction projects and teaching the kids. We also did “open air” ministry in several places around the city, which consisted of sharing skits, music, testimonies and bible stories in public. We took donations during our open air ministry to help raise funds for the school. But my personal highlight of Mae Sot was the two trips that I was able to take to a Burmese clinic. They had a pregnancy ward, a sick ward, a sick children’s ward, and what was called the “Lost and Lonely Room”, which was home to several sick/gravely injured people who lived at the clinic. One of the men there had been severely burned by acid at a work accident and could no longer walk. He was a musician and I was able to play guitar and sing for him which he really seemed to enjoy. And there was an elderly woman with dementia that we spent time with and gave gifts. But most amazing of all was our time praying for people in the sick ward. Growing up in church my whole life, I’ve always been accustomed to people praying for healing. Jesus did heal in the Bible after all. But I never had much faith behind it. I had never seen it for myself. But that changed. There was a language barrier so we weren’t able to ask people how they felt after praying for them, but on one occasion there was physical proof. I was praying for one man, and when I placed my hand on his arm I felt that he was burning up with fever, hotter than I had ever encountered before. After a few minutes of my friend and I praying, we noticed that his fever was completely gone! And who knows what else God was healing in his body. I was so blessed to be able to witness that. God truly can heal and He still does!

Beyond all of our ministry, there was one testimony there is very near to my heart. While I was in the Philippines I received my own healing. I developed type-1 bi-polar disorder when I was 17. Even with medication, every single month I would have manic episodes where I was unable to sleep for days and I would also fall into deep depressions. My depression was at it’s worst point before I came to YWAM. Not only because of my bi-polar disorder but because of years of separation from God and not having a relationship with Him. During lecture phase in LA, for the first time in my life I began to seriously consider the possibility of God healing me. And before leaving for the Philippines I got a strange feeling that it was going to happen on outreach. I was manic the few days leading up to our departure and got a nasty cold as a result. During our first week of outreach many of us had colds and my team prayed for me. During prayer one of the leaders of my team said that he got a vision of chains being broken off of me. He said he didn’t know what that meant but that I might. Immediately I thought I should ask for prayer for my bi-polar disorder, but I didn’t. Nonetheless I prayed on my own a few days later, and for the first time in years, I haven’t had a sleepless night in months. I’m so humbled and overwhelmed at God’s love that He would choose to heal me. Its true what the Bible says, His grace truly is sufficient.

Here we are a few months later. I’m now back living in Santa Rosa, but I hope to go back to LA as soon as possible to take a leadership training course so that I can become a staff member at YWAM LA. I would be blessed if you could join me in prayer for God’s guidance and provision for this season of my life.

If you’d like to see more about my time in YWAM you can read online at trevorywam.blogspot.com. I have posts from throughout my trip and a video of the testimony I was able to give at our graduation ceremony.

Once again, I have to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I can’t tell you how impacting those six months in YWAM were on my life, and you were a part of that through your thoughts, prayers and support. I hope that God richly blesses you for the blessing you have been in my life. I hope you’re all in good health and good spirits and that your families are doing well. Please feel free to contact me if you’d like to hear more about the trip, share your thoughts, or if you have a prayer need that I can join you in.

trevorywam@gmail.com

God bless!

Testimonies

I had the privilege of sharing a little impromptu testimony at the YWAM LA fall 2012 DTS graduation ceremony. Here's what I had to say.





I also have a written testimony on the home page of ywamla.org. Simply follow the link and scroll down.

God is good! Hope everyone is well!


- Trevor

Catch up

Hey everybody,

Just wanted to state my apologies for falling behind on keeping this sucker updated. I'm back in Santa Rosa now but there is still some more to share from my travels. I'm going to be writing up a letter soon to share about my six months in YWAM. If you'd like to receive one you can send me your mailing address at trevorywam@gmail.com

Thank you so much for all you thoughts, prayers and support! Love you guys!


- Trevor

The final chapters of Chiang Mai

Hey everybody!

Sorry it's been so long since I've gotten a post up. The last few weeks have been a whirlwind, but everything is going great. There's a lot to report so I'll start by splitting things up a bit and covering the final few happenings in Chiang Mai.

In our last week before heading to Mae Sot we left Chiang Mai for a few days to go do some construction and agricultural work in a village four hours away. Our time there was so awesome. It was very refreshing to get away from the big city for a while and enjoy the remote tranquility of our new surroundings. There were vibrant green rice fields, beautiful mountains in the distance, and best of all, significantly cleaner air to breath. We were hosted by local families while we were there and they were a total blessing. The 'host mom' at the house I was staying at was so hospitable and cooked us up some bomb grub for breakfast and lunch everyday. Our first day there we worked with cement and laid the floor for someones soon-to-be kitchen. After that we worked packing fertilizer for a massive planting project. What they were planting, I don't know, but I'm sure it will help the village tremendously; agriculture is the backbone of most economies outside of the big cities. Our dirty work was from morning till noon everyday and in the evenings we would hang out and play games with kids from the village. By the time we arrived back in Chiang Mai we only had two days left before Mae Sot.

I found the ministries there to be very challenging, but I learned a lot and was stretched to overcome my passivity and step outside of my comfort zone. On our last trip to the red light district two of our team members had some amazing conversations with the workers there. There was a lady-boy at one of the bars that had done a YWAM DTS several years ago before making the change and going to work in the sex industry. My friend Dalton got to talk to her and speak a lot of love into her life.  She opened up about how her relationship with her family had taken a blow when she became a lady-boy. It was a perfect opportunity for Dalton to share the love of God. Nothing we do can make Him love us less. He says come as you are. By the end of the conversation she was in tears and said that she didn't want to work in the bars anymore! Though it was our last time there, there is a steady flow of YWAM teams that continue the ministry. Our friends from the Newcastle, Australia team stayed in Chiang Mai a week after us and I've heard some amazing testimonies from them of what God's been doing. Beyond the red light ministries we also got to make a lot of new friends from Chiang Mai University. Some really awesome relationships came out of it and there are three people in particular that I'm really gonna miss. It was hard to say goodbye, but I have a feeling this won't be my last time in this beautiful country.

Overall I feel like God really used our time in Chiang Mai to increase our capacity to step out and love people. You can't be passive. You can't be self conscious. You've just gotta love people like Jesus would. We've got one life to live, and we have the one thing that the world needs most - the peace that can only be found in Christ.

"By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" - John 13:35 

Chiang Mai

Time flies! I've been abroad for a little over a month now. We've been in Thailand since January 3rd. We're currently in Chiang Mai, our first of three cities. We're staying at a cafe called Wongen. It's an awesome place associated with YWAM and the owner operates a few different ministries. The umbrella organization is called Lighthouse In Action which includes Love Acts, a sex trade ministry we've been working alongside, X-Life, which focuses on remote Thai villages, and the ministry of the cafe itself, Wongeneration. Wongen is directly across the street from Chiang Mai University, hosts lots of YWAM teams and missionaries and has full time staff members that teach english. All the teams that stay here come alongside the ministries in one way or another. Our team has been focusing on the university and "friendship evangelism". It's been awesome getting to know some students and learning about their culture. We also go out to the red light district a couple nights a week to reach out to prostitutes and clients alike. It can be really hard stepping out and developing relationships sometimes, especially in the spiritual heaviness of the red light district. If we come to mind, pray that God gives us His heart for the people we come into contact with and that we have opportunities to love on people. Here's some links for more info on Lighthouse In Action.

ywamthai.org/lighthouse
facebook.com/LighthouseInActionThailand
facebook.com/WonGenKafe
facebook.com/LoveActsThailand
facebook.com/XLifeThailand

Thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers!

Peace from the East,
Trevor

So Long Philippines

Today marks 18 days in the Philippines, and tomorrow we fly west to Thailand. It's been an amazing time and I don't think I've even begun to digest my experiences here. But I'll try my best to sum things up.

YWAM is a Christian outreach organization, so I'm not out here on vacation. At it's core, this trip is supposed to be about evangelism. Evangelism can be described a number of ways, but in essence it is sharing and promoting your faith. I've been raised Christian my entire life and value my personal relationship with God, but I've never been quite comfortable with "evangelizing" to non-believers. I'm a peaceful person. I don't want to seem like a religious stiff and tell other people what they have to believe. But as I look back at this trip so far, I'm beginning to see that evangelism is not like that at all. The core of the Christian faith is Jesus Christ, and if you look to the life of Christ you see humility, service, sacrifice and love. Hardly the type of things that ignite a heated religious debate. On this trip I haven't shouted on a soap box or preached a fiery sermon, but I have had the opportunity to share the love of God through service. Just as He has loved us, so He calls us to love one another.

"Jesus replied: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." - Matthew 22:37-40

I hope that as this trip continues I have more opportunities to talk to non-Christians about my faith and to share what God has done in my life. But if I don't, it's alright. We can exemplify the love of Jesus without ever saying a word. I am blessed to know my maker, my redeemer, and my best friend. Love as He has loved, that others may know Him too. 

So long to the Philippines and hello to what ventures await us in Thailand!