GoWests!

Hi all.

Here’s a 5-min video tour of a bunch of places on our campus as we go about a “regular” day.

Thanks for supporting and following us.  Constantly busy, never stationary for long, always grateful.  Thanks to the team!

JW

Hello everyone.

Check out our latest video update:

• Back from Australia
• Jeremy just in Texas
• DTS update: outreach teams back, Refugees, Ending Bible Poverty, and new schools starting
• Family update
• God is moving on our campus

Thanks everyone!  Love from the mountains

Jeremy and Molly

February, 2019.

In brief: Back from Christmas and New Years in Australia; a very full January quarter on campus, sending and graduating students; developing and moving the campus ministry forward; and, the upcoming Spring quarter looms.

Greetings from snowy Montana.  It’s hard to believe that three months have elapsed since our last update.  Happy thanksgiving!  Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! And, Happy Australia Day for my folk =).   The arrival of 2019 saw a very full finish to 2018, and a wonderful start to our next season of family, and ministry busy-ness.

As many of you know, in early December the Montana Wests headed Down Under for a huge West family reunion.  With my Mum turning 80, her dream gift was a time of was bringing her 5 children and all the families together for one huge gathering around Christmastime and New Year.  We did it: Wests from Wollongong, Sydney and Brisbane, more from Hawaii, and of course Montana, all converged on a massive property for 6 days together.  So much fun.  And yes, we finally got all of the perfect family combination photos for “Nana”.  Well worth it.  Our kids had not been back since my Dad was ill with cancer 10 years ago, so this time was one of reviving old memories, and making new ones.  On a more selfish personal note, Molly and I were just so happy for warm weather during the cold winter over here.   Back to Montana reality, we returned mid-January to cold, but beautiful “Big Sky Country” Montana.  We hit the ground running and haven’t stopped.

On the work front, we have been putting students through our programs, sending them out, receiving them back again, and preparing for the next schools to arrive.  This week we welcomed back 65 in the DTS program from their outreaches in Greece, Thailand, Cambodia, Ukraine, and Taiwan.

I (Jer) continue to teach students, as well as develop staff and train our school leaders.  I’m also still traveling and teaching in other schools around the place (watch for another roving-update very soon!). Molly is living an extremely full life at work as the assistant to the Campus Directors.  From frantically organizing life from her desk, to participating in meetings (from strategic-departmental to Corporate Board) she does an outstanding job of helping so many to do their work well, and making so much of our campus life and ministry successful.  In the next couple of months, more DTS students will arrive, as well as our DTS EQUIP students; leaders and staff from various YWAM ministries around the world. But we can talk more about that later.

The family is well, reentering school well and adjusting to the (very) cold winter this year.  We love to hear from you too, and always welcome visitors here in Montana, ‘The last best place”, as they say up here.  Love, and blessings and thanks to you all,

Jeremy & Molly

Here are a few photos of our time in Australia, including one of the view from our airplane window about to land in Montana: a shock to the system.

Hi everyone.

I just wrote a short blog for the campus here in Montana.  It originated in a request from a younger leader in Taiwan who was an Equip student of mine.  He was asking for some practical advice on reading and retention/application.  Maybe you can relate?

F-Y-Interest…

JW

https://ywammontana.org/making_your_reading_count_when_you_dont_read_enough/

Hello everyone!

Instead of a written greeting, a little video greeting this Christmas, instead.  Enjoy!

On my way back from Cambodia.  …Such a worthwhile and fruitful trip.

It was a joy on two fronts. Firstly the opportunity to teach and encourage the new generation of disciplers.  I taught on effective discipleship skills, strategic discipleship for the long term, and core spiritual identity.

Secondly, encouraging the old friends who have been working for a long time there.  They are taking significant ground, but you don’t always see the victories across the landscape when you are fighting day to day in the trenches.  Even the long-termers – the leaders of the others – need encouragement too (who lifts their arms up?).  It was such a privilege to be able to meet with people, acknowledge their work and lives, and say so many times to so many people, “We are so proud of you.”

The ministry here in Battambang is almost 10 years old. It is hard to comprehend all of the victories achieved, souls saved, difficulties faced, and even the seemingly endless vision that the people here keep producing.  Among many others, we are very privileged and proud “spiritual parents”.

I believe we are beginning to see long-awaited (and hard-fought) fruit emerge: the shift from being a people who see themselves as poor Christians, survivors and recipients only, to people who are now becoming a training and sending nation, walking in their individual and cultural calling.  I saw a body of Christians who are talking steps in their God-given calling as trainers, contributors and senders.  Not just surviving day to day; the sense of a nation crippled under a poverty mentality and the brutality of the past feels like it is slipping.  The believers here are standing up, and going out.

Part of that is the formation of the upcoming ASEAN DTS, combining DTS’s from 8 nations in the region, for the region.  What I witnessed up close was a group of young leaders, dedicated to applying the Word to themselves, because they see their role in changing an entire nation within their generation, as well as influencing the nations around them.  It was absolutely amazing to stand there with them, to help draw out the leadership, vision and discipleship within them.

Coming up in the next blog:

In January I will share possibly the greatest highlight of the trip. Stay tuned, you DO NOT WANT TO MISS IT.  This event impacted me deeply, but the story actually started 20 years ago!  I only saw the results last week.

People often ask us, “what do we do?”  Over the next few months we want to highlight a few people we have helped train and got to know over the years who are making a tangible and eternal difference.  I think that these people have been among the most important “work” we have been involved with.  As Paul says, ^“You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” (2 Cor 3:3)

Justin and Garth.  Dear friends – and their families – who have been part of our lives since the early Kona days.

Yuka and Deem: met them in Cambodia, now heading toward Laos.

Elizabeth, or “Izzy”.  She was a student in our 2008 DTS in Montana.

Mala and Kirsten.

Kellee and Molly.

What a way to end the year – so blessed.  That is a glimpse of Cambodia December 2015, and some of the upcoming stories on our blog for 2016.

Love and blessings this Christmas season.  He is the reason we all do this!

JW