The sun shone as the Leeman Road Community gathered together at Jubilee Terrace to celebrate 60 years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign.

YWAM York, St. Barnabas Church and The Jubilee Pub joined forces with a desire to see the community coming together in this area of York.

At 12pm Jennifer Locke, the YWAM York leader, welcomed the Leeman Road residents and the local vicar Ursula Simpson dedicated the festivities to God followed by a rendition of the national anthem.

Over 250 local people enjoyed the street party with family games, food, music and crafts. A service at St. Barnabas Church the next day brought back memories of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee and her coronation, bringing the generations together in our community for the first time in many years, making the whole event an answer to three months of prayers and planning.

So what’s next for YWAM York and our new urban ministry centre?

Well we have a 9 month Discipleship Training School (DTS) starting in October. We are currently recruiting staff for our new cafe ministry, youth and children’s team and Basic Leadership School starting in September. We have also been nominated for £5000 by Lloyds bank for the development of a “safe haven” for Street Angels York which is coordinated by one of the YWAM York team. Click here to vote for us!

One of the things we did was give out free fruit
salad to people in the city centre explaining that the
different fruits represented fruits of the Spirit
and asking if they needed more love, joy, peace or patience in their life and wanted prayer for those things.
The two weeks of mission culminated in a big event in Rowntree Park where there was nail
art and face painting, bouncy castles, handing out cake and fruit, and the opportunity to hear three well known Christian bands, headlined by hip hop band LZ7 – all for free!
These bands gave great testimonies on stage
and shared their personal belief in God and
the hope that they had because of Him.
The event ended with a call to faith seeing if any of the young people wanted to give their lives to Christ and say a prayer to do so. Many raised their hands and made that choice which was amazing!
One of the aims of Hope Invasion was to bring lasting change in the lives of these young people.  As a step towards this many of the young people were invited to join in a Youth Alpha course.  This is a great way to find out more about God, ask questions, go deeper in the Christian faith, make friends and share
a meal together.

“It’s really exciting. This building has huge potential for how we can serve the community,” said base director Jennifer Locke.

Jennifer Locke

Barnabas means “Son of Encouragement,” Jennifer said, and the team at YWAM York hopes to be an encouragement to their York neighborhood.

“Really, we want to evaluate the needs they have for community, and try to meet them,” she said. “We want to do a café ministry, so we can build relationships with local people. As time goes on, hope to run other sorts of ministries. We have a DTS running here, sp we hope to have them pioneer something during their school that can keep going.”

The building is now operational, but it has been a more than five-year journey to purchase the property. YWAM York was renting a small space from a church back in 2006 when word reached the young team that St. Barnabas was selling their church hall and school.

“We wanted to see what we could do with a building that wasn’t tied to the need for housing. We were drawn to the concept of a community centre,” said Carl Tinnion, who founded YWAM York in 2004 with his wife Mel.

Jennifer recalls visiting the building for the first time.

“We went with our DTS at the time to have a look at it and pray,” Jennifer said. “To be honest, I wasn’t all that fussed at first. It took me a while to get my head around it. I was thinking more about what the typical YWAM base looks like, lots of space, and accommodation.”

It took several years of prayer and steps of faith to see the reality of the community centre come to life.

Carl Tinnion

“It was a long process of prayer,” Carl said. “The thing that was really challenging was we started pursuing this building just as the economic downturn came.”

However, the team was able to see God’s hand at work with through financial blessing and favor with the church.

“At one of the YWAM gatherings, we took an offering, and a lot of money came in just from that. People were incredibly generous,” Jennifer said.

The base was able to raise about £50,000 toward the purchase of the building. The other half came in the form of a loan.

“God is an amazing provider,” she said, “but the key way he does that is open honest relationships with people. It would have been easy to miss opportunities if we hadn’t kept pushing. We kept walking in humility and pushing on doors. It’s amazing to see what God can do through people.”

****

The deal for the building was completed in September, but there was still work to be done before YWAM York could move in.

“During a survey, it was recommended to us that we have a structural engineer to come out,” Jennifer said. “There was a significant lean in one of the walls that needed to be fixed.

“To be honest, I was filled with a feeling of dread. I asked God if we were making the right decision, but I felt like we needed to go ahead with it. We anticipated a little bit of work, but not that much.”

In the end, they found a really good builder who finished before the deadline. It also turned into a ministry opportunity.

“The builder is a very old fashioned kind of gentleman. He had family members who were Christians, but didn’t really believe himself,” Jennifer said. “Once the project was finished, we had a conversation where I really sensed that he was recognizing God at work in this project, that there was more to this place than meets the eye.

The team officially moved in last week. Money still needs to be generated to pay off the loan, and for the continued renovation of the community centre, but YWAM York is moving forward, with many groups nearby already showing interest to make use of the new building.

“It’s a relief to have it finished,” Jennifer said. “We’ve got it, the building is sound, and now we can really move forward. It’s an exciting new season for YWAM York.

Written by: Lauren Nelson
Hope Ink Magazine 

YWAM York is off to a great start to 2012 with the Wales Discipleship Training School due to arrive on Thursday for 2 weeks to do lots of local outreach, teaching on leadership and to paint the cafe in the Barnabas Centre.

The structural repairs and re roofing of the Barnabas Centre was completed just in time for Christmas. We saw Gods faithfulness as we raised a whopping £25,000 to pay off the first 80% of the work. However the final invoice for £9,000 has arrived and we need to see a miracle! The payment is due in just 9 days time and we are trusting God to be able to pay it off debt free. Please would you join with us in prayer and also consider making a donation.

Our bank details are as follows.
Sort: 600620 Acc: 31270239 please put Barnabas Centre in the info box.

If you are a British tax payer can also email info@ywamyork.com for a gift aid form  too!
Thank you and God Bless you this New Year

Discipleship Training School – It was great to have four girls from the USA come on our 10 month training course. They not only received some great teaching and training but made an impact through a variety of outreaches in the city of York, Romania and South Africa for God.

The Barnabas Centre – You will be pleased to hear that on the 7^th September we became the proud owners of the Barnabas Centre. It will be used to meet the practical and spiritual needs of the local area as well as to provide us with much needed office space and a training centre. The structural repairs and re roofing will be completed by Christmas and last month we received a donation that covers 80% of the cost of the building work. It was an amazing answer to prayer and a huge relief! We are now working to raise the further £75,000 to pay off the loan and the renovations and refurbishments. We look forward to opening in February 2012 and I hope you can come and visit.

Romania – This summer I had the privilege of leading a team of 16 young people to Medias, Romania for two weeks. We worked alongside the YWAM team there running a children’s program for the gypsy community, visiting an orphanage, speaking and leading worship at churches and youth groups. We also hosted a cultural evening for the YWAM team and were able to practically help them with gardening and preparing the base for a children’s camp. It was wonderful to see the way the young people on the trip grew in their faith, captured Gods love for the nations and had their world view challenged and changed.

They have been stripping woodchip wall paper, sanding, re wall papering and painting and decorating the downstairs of the centre.

By the end of next week the toilets and kitchen will be looking great and ready to use. The cafe will be half way there! We need to have damp proofing put in before we can finish painting the room but once that is done and the laminate wood flooring put down we will be ready to move back in!In the mean time JM Butler Builders have started work taking off the roof to prepare it for re roofing and shortly will be ready to start on the work needed to make the property structurally sound.

We have been busy applying for grants and putting together a promotional brochure in order to see the £100,000 needed to be raised in the next few months to pay it all off and have the centre furnished and ready to use in the new year.

Sawubona! After seven months of lectures with YWAM York and a short two week outreach in Romania, I made it to South Africa for our 2 month outreach! I am very excited to tell you about the ministries we worked with while in Durban with YWAM. We spent most of our time in Burlington, a small township outside of Durban, teaching women how to use computers and other valuable life skills. We ran a book club for children to help them improve their reading and have fun learning about the Bible. We taught them about Moses and did countless songs and games with them. We also volunteered at a Rehab Center, leading worship there and chatting with the residents. Once a week we helped make dinner at a drop in center for homeless men and led worship there as well.

Going to Burlington was my favorite ministry by far. As we entered into the community there was always a group of at least twenty children chanting “how are you” running up to the road. They called us “Mlungo” which means white person. I had quite a few little girls ask to braid my hair because it is so different to their own. I let one of the girls braid my hair and she absolutey had a ball and did a fabulous job =]

I visited a lady called Thandazile twice every week. She is unable to visit people in the community because she has been bound to a wheelchair for the past 14 years. She lives at the bottom of a hill and it is a very difficult path up to the road. She is just 27 years old. She does not have a husband and her only real company is her one year old son, Kuligane. She is an absolutely remarkable woman of faith. She is so angry at her wheelchair because she doesn’t have the ability to do more things for God. She has completely faith that she will walk again someday. She amazed me every day. I think I would come back to South Africa again just to see her again.

I am now in Cape Town with YWAM for our last 3 weeks of outreach. The past week has been a little different. We have been sitting on on the School of Biblical Studies class because the Vice President of the University of the Nations was speaking on Acts. For the next two weeks we will be helping with a bible study for the homeless people of Muizenberg and working in a Township. It will be ver different though because we have been working wi the Zulu people for the past month and a half and now are working with many different people groups including Xhosa. I am very excited for the next two weeks though!

Scottish dancing, musicians, lots of us love to work with children, we have had workshops over the past few days on face painting, balloon modelling, evangelism, bubble making, arts and crafts, circus and magic skills! All very exciting.

So tomorrow we and the YWAM York DTS trainees fly out to Romania for two weeks to help with childrens programs, work among the gypsy community and with the churches. So watch this space for news on how it all goes!

Catching up with old friends and making new friends. I also really enjoyed running the cafe and getting to meet lots of people. There was one evening where people dressed up in 70’s and 80’s gear and told YWAM stories from back in the day.

How were the talks?

It was interesting to hear Carmelita talk about central Europe and really sad to hear how few Christians and ywamers in central Europe.  We have no YWAMers in Greece currently and it was really great to hear how they had sent an outreach team there and that they had been really well received. It was inspiring to hear the vision to reach 5 cities over two years starting new YWAM teams.

How was the food and accommodation?

We were camping which was fun, the showers were delightful and the food was exquisite!  We’d definitely go again.