by Becky Hefty | Feb 9, 2016 | Letter from the Director
It will all work out. It always does. God will not be moved.
I’m especially encouraged for some reason. Could it be our new granddaughter, who brings smiles and laughter in the middle of a busy day? Or could it be the afterglow of prayer and intercession for the nations and the world, filling me with faith that God is moving on every continent to bring about revival? Can you see Him sowing His mercy and grace amid the political theater, Islamic fascism and crackpot dictators threatening the world with destruction?
When the world gives us every reason to wring our hands and pull our hair in anxiety and fear, God gives us hope. “And now this hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5).
What does hope occasionally look like?
Let us introduce you to Gregg Scott, another of our MBI heroes who ‘just shows up’ and gets the job done. Despite personal pain and injury, this New Zealander-turned-American ‘Grizzly Adams’ sort of character has pressed on through many challenges over the years, taking friends like us along for the journey. We’re grateful for the glimpse of heaven he reveals through simple acts of kindness toward us and others, like gathering equipment for the disabled in Tanzania and giving YWAM Lakeside Montana DTS students the opportunity to be part of the blessing (see photo above and read our blog post titled Double Vision).
In this thing called the Church, the Body of Christ, we realize we are all on a journey of discovery together and that we can actually learn from each other. I pray you who are reading this have true friends who exhibit the deep, abiding love Jesus gives us through people like Gregg and his bride, Alison. We all may not be fully-funded, as the world would have us strive to be, but we are all the richer for friends who selflessly offer help by just showing up. It’s what Mission Builders around the world do every day, and it’s a great community to belong to!
Look for your opportunity through our website – or come join us in the next Crossroads DTS.
by Becky Hefty | Jan 25, 2016 | Uncategorized
You may already be connected to Mission Builders International. Perhaps you love the idea of lifting the arms of those in long-term missions. Or maybe you support a friend or family member in such efforts. Or is it that your curiosity has been piqued by missions? Whatever your reason, this letter could confirm what already resonates in your heart, or it could be God’s nudge for you to go for it!
I spent five years longing to know God more in a safe and set-apart season of my life. I remember talking, for the umpteenth time, of my desires to my good friend, Melisa, who’d spent years in YWAM, living in the Middle East. She had something I didn’t—a maturity and well-roundedness—but more than that, a heart able to expand toward people and places in a way mine couldn’t. I told her once more, “I want what you have!” In a moment I’ll never forget, Melisa pounded her fist emphatically on the coffee shop table and said, “Then you just need to GO!”
Go? Me? Oh no, no, no. That’s not possible. I’ve already established myself in a career. I’d have to quit my job! That’s a lot to ask of me financially too. How in the world could I afford to do that? I’m pretty involved in my local church; how can I be released from my commitments? What about insurance? Rent? Leaving family and friends? And the clincher: YWAM is for those “young pups.” I’m too old!
Now, with a humble and knowing smile, I’m writing this on my last full day of outreach in Romania. For the first time in my walk with Christ, I didn’t allow fears and my over-analytical brain to define my desires or my future. Months ago, I took a leap of faith and declared, “I’m going to Montana!” I finally allowed God to be Himself. When I cut through the tethers of human understanding, the poison of people-pleasing, and my anxiety over many things, He showed me places of freedom and provision I’d only dreamed of.
How has a Crossroads Discipleship Training School changed my life? I received precious revelation about God’s character and grace, missions, evangelism and relationships. I surrounded myself with people who love Jesus and who encouraged me in how God has fashioned me. I was sharpened by different life perspectives, cultures, personalities and life situations.
Ups? Most definitely. Downs? You betcha. In fact, if you were to part the grass-is-always-greener curtain on anything in life, in time you would see—the ordinary. Did I just kill the mood? I certainly don’t want to paint a bleak picture. But as I read Romans 12 this past week, I recognized the beauty of the common dirt my Jesus walked on daily as He sojourned on earth, and the apostle Paul’s loving encouragement to do likewise.
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Recognize what He wants from you, and respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, which drags you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you and develops well-formed maturity in you. A DTS enables you to embrace the everyday, ordinary life and to place all that you think, believe and are, at Jesus’ feet as a “living sacrifice.” As you do this, you allow Him to open your heart and eyes to people, places and experiences you never wo
uld have before.
At a Crossroads DTS (for those 30+), you can continue the journey of life-long learning and discipleship. It’s a season of receiving without apology, working out frustrations you’ve had and lies you’ve believed for years, making new and lasting relationships with other believers, gaining a heart for things that never before crossed your mind, wrestling through the hard questions of life and seeing God take the ordinary and make it extraordinary.
What would a Crossroads Discipleship Training School do for you? Only God can answer that. Just go for it! –Anna Patton
MBI’s next CDTS begins April 4, 2016. Visit www.missionbuilders.org for details and fill out the online CDTS application. For a photo tour of Anna’s 2014 outreach to Romania, visit the YWAM Mission Builders International Inc. Facebook page and view the photo album.
by Becky Hefty | Nov 16, 2015 | Letter from the Director
I have a growing expectancy that God is about to bring significant breakthroughs to a world of chaos, hatred and despair. My optimism is fed, in part, by meeting and working with young, Jesus-loving leaders like our new friends at YWAM Bend, Oregon, and others like them in dozens of locations around the world.
I personally may not have what it takes to bring dramatic change to the world and make it more like heaven on earth; but I can, and do, pray that the One who transforms the world continues to raise up his army of workers to fill his fields, white with the harvest of the lost.
That’s why I love what we (the Mission Builders International team) are able to do: recruit, place and encourage volunteers to work alongside Youth With A Mission missionaries around the world. YWAMers are not necessarily God’s answer to all the world’s problems. But, usually, they are willing workers who pray, listen for God’s voice and respond in obedience to do what so many are not doing: loving the unlovely, the forgotten, the broken, the outcast.
Mission Builders International is about connecting you with the harvest through all kinds of opportunities, whether you volunteer your construction skills to build housing for YWAMers in Kona, Hawaii; teach students to know God and make Him known in South Africa (or MBI’s Crossroads DTS here in Montana); cook in a YWAM kitchen in Grimerud, Norway; help raise the funds to feed orphans, or buy books to feed the souls of prisoners throughout the U.S.
The needs are great and the laborers are few, and whether you pray, send, or go this year or next, we invite your partnership with MBI to help us do what we cannot do alone.
by Becky Hefty | Nov 2, 2015 | Volunteer Viewpoint
“Dropping chocolate chips on cookie batter is taking longer than it should because I’m gazing out the window at the mountains. It’s October 31st and winter is closing in here at YWAM Cimarron, Colorado. My husband Dean and I, in our role as Mission Builders, have just spent the last week helping the staff prepare for a remote, high mountain winter. Dean has been hauling wood for the various buildings and doing maintenance, while I
’ve spent all week in the kitchen preparing food for the freezer…and whipping up daily sweet treats for the hard-working folks here.
It’s always a delight to spend time at this well-kept facility. But way more than that, it’s so heartwarming to see the way the staff here is so intentional about making a difference in the world. They’ve all done outreaches to bring hope and help to hurting people in many rough places.
“Being part of the ministry of Mission Builders International is a richly rewarding way of living as we vividly see hope for the future happening before our very eyes.” — Dean and Molly K.
Where would you like to serve? Visit us at www.missionbuilders.org to find your opportunity.
by Becky Hefty | Oct 23, 2015 | Letter from the Director
For most of us, it doesn’t take long to feel overwhelmed when reading, watching or listening to national and international news. How dumb, how ignorant, how stupid, how outrageous, how immoral, how heinous, how tragic can it get?
Which reminds me of King David’s laments:
“When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do” (Psalm 11:3)? “How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me” (Psalm 13:2)?
One alternative is to ignore the news; to just turn it off. Sadly, it doesn’t go away or get better by simply ignoring it.
King David answers with this: “In the LORD I take refuge” (Psalm 11:1).
Since God doesn’t retreat or ignore the plight of the innocent, he sends those who are willing to say: “Here am I, send me.” Mission Builder volunteers like Pat and Thelma Lewis (our lead story) are not Hollywood-style heroes. They rejected resignation and chose to trust God, who rejuvenated their faith to just show up where he led them.
Gratefully, most Mission Builder opportunities are pretty tame—but not boring. Sometimes the opportunity may be more challenging to the faith of friends or family than to those who actually go and get the job done.
Until Jesus returns, the world will continue to be a dangerous place. But we serve a dangerous God who promises us his refuge and rejuvenation—not resignation. It’s my belief that when we respond to God’s call, the enemy is pushed back one project, one person, one sorrow at a time.
If you want to take a step toward rejuvenation, check out MBI’s website for your opportunity: www.missionbuilders.org
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