It is our pleasure and privilege to be writing to you from Battambang, Cambodia. As you know, this is my second trip here in the last 6 weeks. This time Molly, Eden, and a friend of Edens – Katelyn – all joined me. Such a wonderful time. What have we been doing?
I (Jeremy) have been continuing teaching, training, and working with the leadership school “ASEAN Equip”. I was here for the first two weeks and am helping them close with last two weeks. It has been awesome. 26 staff and leaders from various YWAM ministries in Cambodia, and Myanmar. After class hours, I am enjoying meeting with many of the leaders and staff here, some whom Molly and I have known and watched grow, for over a decade now.
Molly, aside from teaching in Equip also, has been spending a lot of time with the long-term workers here: Khmer, and foreigners. Having extended coffee dates, meals, and just plain old sit-downs, encouraging, praying, …listening. They LOVE her.
Eden and Katelyn have been so impressive. They just get up and go, every day, to different ministries, classes in the elementary school here, slums, working in the kitchen, meeting with tweens, and more. In-between ministry gigs they are doing their schoolwork brought from home.
Spend a few minutes looking at some photos, and a few fun videos, below.
Greetings and blessings to you all!
Check out some short videos below and then some pics.
Molly busting out the teaching. She needed two translators! One for writing and one for speaking.The girls helping out at an “adopted” slumHave truck, will travel! The girls on a mission to the slumsJeremy meeting with Myanmar Disc’p School leaders. GREAT people.Latte-loveGraduating class, ASEAN Equip, 2022.Cambodian Buffet, at the tableThe end of a wonderful, and successful tripAt the “weird, concrete deer”, in Battambang. We have had family photos here Since 2008.The team! Last day in the classroomGoodbye Cambodia! (Siem Reap Airport).
Fall is here, and while we are having some glorious late summer September days, they are beginning to give way to cooler temperatures. Up here we have a very short Fall. It won’t be long before we see snow on our mountains.
Summer has been wonderful, and a blur. In Montana the joke is that we have only two seasons: “winter, and visitors”. We had the joy of hosting friends and family from around the world. Over one particular two-week period we had 7 nieces, nephews and friends from Australia, Hawaii, and Canada all together. Such fun.
On the work side, no letting up. In our discipleship programs, we pioneered a second DTS here in Montana, while continuing with our other two programs already in place. Our campus also hosted training and gathering seminars, to which people came from a variety of places and organizations. Some of our favorites were the Engage with Bible Translation, and Ending Bible Poverty Now, seminars. These drew over 100 representatives from various ministries and organizations, including YWAM, Wycliffe, SIL, and others.
The kids are getting older! Eden has entered 9th grade and is driving! Joel started College here in Kalispell, and Samuel is in Kona, Hawaii beginning 10-months of extended missions training. All the kids worked jobs though the whole summer.
This next season will be packed. Aside from Samuel in Kona, and Joel attending college, our big news is that Cambodia is now reopening after Covid in a way that allows internationals to travel there. This means that after 3 years we are going to reopen our Equip, leadership school there. This school has produced so much fruit in the region over the last 12 years. I (Jeremy) have committed to helping them get that up and running again. On Sept 23 I will be traveling there for 2 weeks, then again on Oct 23 for another 2 weeks.
The best part is that Molly and Eden (and a school friend of hers!) will be accompanying me. Molly is die-hard for Cambodia and foreign ministry. She will be teaching in Equip and also in other groups. She has arranged for the girls to plug into a variety of ministries such as: serving in the elementary school, offering baking classes to younger girls, giving devo’s on being a godly teenager, evangelism in villages, serving at a children-at-risk home, serving in the campus kitchen, outdoor work projects, babysitting for missionary moms, and more.
3 months have gone by already since our last broad communication. If your lives are anything like ours, a LOT has happened in the last few months!
Ministry…
With life at home, and locations abroad approaching something akin to normal again, we are busy and moving forward with our ministry plans and calling here at YWAM Montana, Lakeside. Individuals are now able to apply for our training programs and attend from outside of the USA. And more importantly, we can now send our teams more easily outside of the USA. More good news for me (Jeremy), is that I have been able to increase our staff and leadership training team to almost 30 individuals now. This means we can take more students, go to more places, and investigate more ways of training and sending effectively.
DTS Equip, our leadership school, ran in April and May, and approached a near-record number of participants from multiple locations. From Cambodia to Europe, leaders and staff came to connect, deepen their training, and return refreshed and with renewed vision for discipleship, evangelism, and missions. Our Winter DTS returned from outreach, with teams in Panama and Columbia. It was a fantastic school, with many graduates making plans to enter more mission-work.
We are now running 4 DTS programs this year, with a new, second DTS running this summer. Alongside those is our “Summer Programs” school. This is effectively a “mini-DTS” for individuals who cannot commit to 6 months of discipleship training and outreach but want to give their summer to missions. This is also a more unique program because we also accept students from within High school.
Something incredibly special we have only just completed this last week, was a 7-day trip to our largest YWAM campus, Kona Hawaii. This last week I was able to take 20 of our leaders and staff to visit with several of our founding leaders and missionaries. I wanted to put the current and emerging generation of trainers and mission-makers in the same room with as many of the original generation of pioneers as possible, and to ask many questions. It was called the “Mamas and Papas Tour.” Alongside spending hours with Loren Cunningham, the mission’s founder, they were able to hear from other pioneers from that generation. Those who pioneered works in the French-speaking world and North Africa, as well as the leaders of YWAM Ships, who engage with some of the hardest to reach island, river, and coastal communities around the world. There was much more also. The goal was to receive an impartation of vision, pioneering and faith, to hear where they see the future of the mission going in our (younger) hands, to simply sit and “talk-story,” while being exposed to a different campus and YWAM culture (there is always something valuable to be learned from seeing different models). It was an incredibly significant trip for many.
Molly continues to help support and make the campus Directors in MT as successful and effective as possible. Everything from corporate structure to future vision and leadership lands on her plate. Most importantly (IMHO 😊) she is actively sought after by the younger generation for advice, mentoring, and counsel. She is a treasure. Then, if “work” wasn’t busy enough, the family side of things has been keeping us consumed, especially Molly, even more!
Family…
These last few months have seen an incredible amount of “new growth” in our family. Samuel graduated from his own DTS in Mexico and the Middle East. He is now working hard to earn the money and prepare himself for a 9-month discipleship and leadership course in Kona, HI. He leaves us in September. Joel just graduated High School! Amazing. We couldn’t be prouder of the man Joel has become; his love for truth, integrity, and consistent Christianity is a blessing beyond his academic achievement. It was a privilege for me to bring him on our staff trip this last week to Kona. And, can you believe it, Eden is starting to drive now! She finished 8th grade with multiple awards, and then drove Molly home!
Perhaps the icing on the cake for us this season, is being able to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary this month! I definitely “married-up”, and am so grateful for the partner, friend, Christ-example, wife and wonderful mother, the Lord has given me (I’m publishing this before she can change it 😊. Check out the photo below. She still fits into her wedding dress just 😉.
Life is full, and we are blessed beyond what we deserve. While family, work, and the world still offer a lot of daily challenges, we can still say that God is good, and we are blessed to be called stewards of his goodness to others.
May the Lord bless you in all you are doing. And thank you as always, for following along and partnering with us in our mission and sending journey. With much love,
Jeremy, Molly, Sam, Joel and Eden.
See some photos below: Joel’s graduation, Joel and I in Kona, and with Loren Cunningham, founder of YWAM (still going strong!), Molly and I …then and now, and Eden behind the wheel!
You can view this update as a video directly here. For a few more written details, keep reading below. Tia’s story and video link, and some family pics, are at the end. Love to all!
Jeremy and Molly
Hello friends!
Time for an update. It seems that if we don’t do these regularly, so much happens between communications that it becomes a challenge to describe life over here. This is a bit longer than usual because I would like to cover some important updates. Read on for…
Family Update
Work update
Ukraine involvement
“In memory of Tia”. Oct 2002 – Mar 2022
On thehome front, Joel is a Senior (12th grade) and working on his final thesis project. He just turned 18 and is taller than me! He is a great young man, growing and maturing so well. He keen sense of justice, concern for people, and a steady head are becoming obvious trademarks of his character.
Eden is loving 8th grade, and especially Volleyball, both for school and local club. Now 14, and taller than mum, she is growing up so fast! She loves school, and frankly, is quite good at it. She also has wonderful relationships with her teachers, which is not only pleasing, but quite fun.
Samuel just turned 20. We can hardly believe it. He has just returned from his own DTS. He did his in Tijuana Mexico, with his outreach in Egypt and Jordan (as you most likely know). He loved it. He has grown in his love of people, the lost, and the marginalized. He is currently connecting with the YWAM campus here in Montana, as well as working at his own window cleaning business to make money for more studying later this year.
March is already here, which means on the work side of things, last month we graduated our Fall DTS. While they were on outreach the Winter DTS started, and are now about leave for outreach themselves, sending teams to Columbia and Panama. Then in April we are running our leadership school, DTS Equip.
Many have been asking if we (YW) are involved in Ukraine. The answer is yes. Ukraine is one of our campuses focus nations, sending teams there regularly and supporting various missionaries and locations across the country.
In February I made the call to withdraw one of our DTS outreach teams from there early, just before the hostilities started. I have been there a few times myself and have worked with many of the staff who serve there. They are good people. Committed, caring, and responsible. All the YW locations in Ukraine have been impacted intensely. Some are closed, while others have remained with their own staff as well as consolidating staff from other locations and serving the locals.
For security reasons I have removed a lot of information about this topic online. Apologies. Just know that our people are wonderful and working sooooo hard.
I would like to wrap up with a short testimony, and encouragement, in a very sad circumstance. This last week, one of our Fall DTS graduating students Tia Cordell (19), died at home. She was a wonderful young lady, actively involved in her church youth and college group, passionately devoted to her own discipleship, the discipleship of others, and missions. Tia was about “5ft-nothing” tall, yet she was large of heart. To get to her DTS in Montana, this small lady drove 7 days across the country, by herself, sleeping in her truck, to join us last September. She went to Thailand on outreach, where she ministered to kids, women in prostitution, and local villages, and prayed with people to accept Christ. She was scared at times, but loved it, Tia also suffered from Cystic Fibrosis, was diabetic, and had issues with her liver and kidneys due to her history of treatment. But she never gave up or complained. She was selected to share for the Thailand team to the entire campus upon their return (you can see her brief 5-minute report via the link below). She left here the day after and was doing ok, just a little run-down. By the time she returned home, she was very ill. She had picked up influenza and was fighting that with a bad liver and kidneys. Deteriorating quickly, she was moved to Johns Hopkins hospital to await both lung and liver transplants. She never recovered enough to undergo the surgeries.
Tia’s death last Wednesday shocked all her team, classmates, friends, and staff. In communicating with her parents, I was astounded at their grace and poise during this unbearable loss. But knowing their daughter, they knew that everything she was about was centered on knowing Jesus and making Him known, their desire is that through her life, and death, other young people will be so motivated that they would also consider the value of going when they can, and not waiting for a better time.
We never know when we may meet our Lord. My prayer and take away from this have simply been hoping that each day I spend my life on earth, would be a day well spent. She lived her life fully, with no regrets.
Thank you following and partnering with us Together we are making a difference. Not only with us, but with the countless numbers of those we work with, like Tia. We can’t do wat you do in your space, so do it well! We do what others can’t do in our space, and so we try to do the same. It’s a privilege working with you all and knowing so many are praying and joining with us. Love and blessings,
Jeremy and Molly.
Samuel’s DTS graduation in TIjuana. He is in the dark bule shirt center left.
Greetings from a very snowy (and cold) Montana! Merry Christmas and a very happy new year! Among all of the other emails, cards, letters and phone calls you must be receiving right now, please allow us to add ours. We wish all of you – our friends, family and partners in life and ministry- a very happy and grateful Christmas. We are truly blessed, and it’s hard to celebrate Christmas without gratitude! How could we? We have so much to be thankful for, even amid hardships we may face. Allow me to do a quick update and bring you up to speed on life with us.
The kids are beautiful, growing, and doing well. Samuel is currently in the Middle East on his field assignment for his school. From the Pacific Ocean to the Red Sea, he is doing so well, and very much at home traveling (very) cross-culturally. The work is tough there, but he also has a fresh appreciation for the freedom and joy Christianity brings to communities and cultures – something he is not experiencing where he is (no photos available of him at this time). Joel is in his senior year, still trying to decide what to do next. He has several college options, but I think his decision will emerge closer to May! Eden is an energetic 8th grader. Growing so well, and so much fun. Molly and I are really enjoying having a week or two off at the moment; well-needed, and very appreciated.
On the work front, we have several teams out in the nations on their outreach assignments, from Eastern Europe to Asia they are spread out and doing well. in a week a new batch of DTS students arrive and begin their 5-month journey of discipleship growth, discovery, and missions. We are never idle! Recently I have been able to begin travelling again. Teaching in both DTS’s and leadership schools (Equips), it is nice to be able to see and teach in person. I have been to locations in Europe and the US, even having Molly with me for one of them (so much fun!). Add to this the growing online engagements that have not waned but grown over the last year. Two weeks ago, I was teaching classes in Amsterdam, Montana, and Cambodia; sometimes all in the same day! I love it. This next season promises more of the same. Thank you for all of your Christmas love and joy this season. We look forward to seeing on the other side of 2021!
With much love and gratitude, Jeremy, Molly, Sam, Joel and Eden.
For those of you who don’t want to wathc a video, here is the gist of the recent video update, in text form! Blessings
JW
Hello dear friends
Straight away allow me to apologize for the lapse of updates. As many of you can appreciate, the last 6 months have been crazy. However, we also celebrate this fact! That we have been able to run schools, programs, training, and outreaches consistently since September 2020, is a proud achievement. Our schools keep growing, as do our staff and volunteer numbers.
I (Jeremy) have started traveling and teaching again, with three trips this Fall including one to Europe for a new leadership school run by a dear friend and prior staff, I am finding my schedule full. Molly is still doing her usual exemplary job, assisting the Directors of the Campus here, and being a rock-star mother.
The kids are doing so well, and keeping us busy also. Samuel finished a year of college, and is now in his DTS in Tijuana, Mexico. He is loving it and we can tell he is thriving. Joel is in his final year of high school, and a great guy who loves soccer, and a proud senior. Eden is blossoming at school, in volleyball, and with her many friends. She just turned 14 (we can hardly believe it, but couldn’t be more proud).
Summer is over, and Fall is upon us. Here in Montana, we will feel the steady tightening grip of enter soon enough! We have attached a few pics below as a quick visual catch-up.
Thanks for following along with us, and doing this journey together!
We produced this a few months back and it has been rotating on our website. I just saw it again and thought, “well, maybe some others might like a very quick look at how we see 2021?”. I oversee our Discipleship Team, which includes our entire DTS Department, the focus of this video.
GoWests! 