As the immediate shock of Jan. 12’s devastating earthquake in Haiti fades, the nation has begun to appraise the future with a fresh eye. Terry Snow, national director for YWAM Haiti, says he and his team are shifting from temporary and instant relief to implementing long-term plans that will help refugees reclaim and rebuild their lives from the ground up.

“The city of St Marc erupted with screams and shouts” 



This is how Terry W Snow, YWAM’s national director for Haiti remembered the minutes after the terrible earthquake that was to change Haiti forever.



When the earthquake struck at 16:53 on January 12th 2010, the whole world watched the horror unfold. The full impact of the 7.0 magnitude quake was in Port Au Prince, the capital city some sixty miles away from the main YWAM centre in St Marc. As reports came in, Terry Snow soon realized that the situation was far worse than anyone imagined and Haiti would have many desperate struggles ahead. The international community responded with aid, the media came to report and the world was, for a time, carrying this country, the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, close to it’s heart.
 


The heaviest monsoon rains in 80 years continue to fall on northwest and central Pakistan. Rivers in the Sindh province are bursting their banks, affecting some 5 million people. More rain is forecast, and the region is still only midway through the monsoon season.

According to the BBC at least 1600 people have been killed in the past week and some two million left homeless. The Pakistan authorities have appealed for help from the international community. The most immediate needs are for shelter, food and medicines.

YWAM workers in Pakistan are in a position to help and are organising a rapid response relief effort to help the poorest, most marginalised groups affected by the flood.

Chaimon’s home is a construction site, the one where his father works. His father came to Ratchaburi in Thailand from Burma, a place Chaimon has never been, so he feels neither fully Thai - something the locals are quick to remind him - nor fully Burmese. Some time ago, Chaimon and some of his friends met a group of YWAMers working in Ratchaburi. This YWAM team were all too aware of the perpetual cycle of poverty experienced by the families living out their lives in and around the construction site that Chaimon calls home. The team began to work among the community, originally part of the Mon people of Burma. They work mostly with the kids and share the message of Jesus, one that is good news to the poor and the oppressed.

On Sunday night, 27th June 2010, thieves entered the Youth With A Mission training centre in Arua, northern Uganda, and stole approximately $27,000 USD and a laptop computer. Early Monday morning, one of their YWAM staff went to the office and discovered the door to the accounting office was open, and the locked cabinet where the money was kept had been broken into.

The police investigation has begun, but so far there are no concrete leads.

“What in the world were they doing with that much cash?” you may be wondering. Good question!

The annual ‘Mind Body Spirit’ Psychic Festival in London, England claims to be at the forefront of innovation in the world of the supernatural, natural healing, and personal growth. Thousands of people who attended this year’s festival were looking for advice, direction in life, healing and new products to make life better – everyone was looking for practical and spiritual solutions.

This year Youth With A Mission had a booth at the festival, staffed by volunteers ready to talk with and pray for festival-goers. The teams were pleasantly surprised by how open people were to talk to them and receive prayers for blessing and healing. Many of the people who received prayer later brought friends back because of the impact of the words of truth and hope spoken to them.

You know that a people group are isolated if they don’t even turn up on a Google search.

YWAM Huambo in Angola have focused their efforts on three locations in their nation where the tribes are so remote, so inaccessible, that the government has not yet made plans to address such basic human rights as literacy and primary education.

The Kamakoyo region of Angola is one of those locations, and is home to several tribes who scrape a living from an inhospitable landscape. A small team began working among different people groups in the area and found that they were responsive to the message of the gospel and have already seen a fellowship of believers start.

Ibne Mariam’, revision of The Gospel of Matthew in Urdu, with study notes, published by The University of the Nation’s Press has been printed in Pakistan, but there aren’t enough to go round. Demand already exceeds supply by multiples of hundreds of thousands. When the New Testament in Hindustani (Urdu) was first printed, the situation was much the same, thousands longed to read it for themselves.

If you are a soccer fan and you are enjoying the FIFA World Cup, you can imagine the sense of excitement in South Africa, the host nation, where streets are filled with fans and their painted faces, blowing their vuvuzelas. The buzz continues despite the home team being knocked out in the first round. And it is here that Youth With A Mission is having our busiest month of the millennium so far.

Kubio (pronounced Ko-boy) is a young African YWAMer who joins others from around the world for an aptly named Kick-Off outreach. These YWAM teams from every corner of the world will soon be on their way to the tip of Africa with the aim of reaching out to international soccer fans who will gather in their thousands to support their teams. The goal is for sports teams, churches, youth groups, and other organizations to unite to bring hope to the people of Africa through all sorts of ministry. The long-term vision is to see partnerships formed with churches across the country through sports.

Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, has a garbage heap where a group of children and young people live; they are labeled “monsters” by the locals. My friends and I from the YWAM centre in Herrnhut, Germany first noticed this group of children and young people squatting in the garbage on our return from outreach.

We returned with our next Discipleship Training School (DTS) a few months later, and found much more than we had expected. The locals informed us this group was a violent gang whose members were addicted to alcohol and drugs. Many warned us not to go to this dangerous place; one person even said, “Those people are monsters, they are covered in tattoos, sleep in the filth, eat garbage, drink poison and do not die!”