After over 3 years of praying, listening, and preparing, our transition to Kona is now complete! We arrived on Saturday the 10th and are getting settled: learning more about our roles, teaching and travel schedules and what it’s like to live on the Big Island. We’ll send more updates soon!
Winding Down in SoCal
This quarter at Fuller and a very “intense” Greek Intensive are just about finished. We are very excited to jump on a plane on Saturday the 3rd of September for Kansas City and YWAM Together – one of the largest gatherings of YWAMers ever! Following YWAM Together, we’ll make our way to Kona and our transition will finally be complete! Much more on that soon…
Lets Get Together
We are very excited to be in Western Washington in a few weeks and have planned two casual gathering times where we can hang out and catch up. We’d very much love to see you and hope you can drop by for a while either Saturday or Sunday, June 18th or 19th.
Saturday June 18th 1-4pm
Todd and Karen Mortensen’s
4609- 240th Street SE
Bothell WA 98021
Todd and Karen Mortensen’s
4609- 240th Street SE
Bothell WA 98021
Sunday June 19th 12-3pm
Tully’s Coffee – Canyon Park
22615 Bothell Everett Hwy
Bothell WA 98021
Blog Details
Our blog site mentality is “keep it clean and simple”. With that in mind, let us highlight a couple of things. In the upper right of your screen are two links: “home” and “details”. The “home” page is where the blog posts are found. We also encourage you to follow us from the link in the right hand column of the home page.
The “details” link contains two pages, one where we outline our travel schedule and another that gives our contact and support information. Of special note is the wording on the contact and support page regarding our missions support mentality – please have a look!
Major Step Forward
As you know we have four primary elements to the transition we are currently in. To remind you quickly, they are: the sale of our home on Whidbey and purchase of home in Kona, doing our best to secure the long term presence of YWAM DP in our presently leased property in Belize, the formation and development of our leadership team and the completion of Chris’s academic endeavors. The first of these elements has taken a very major step forward as we have sold our house on Whidbey Island!
We first put the house on the market in July 2015 and were hopeful it would sell last summer – but it did not. Then as the Fall and Winter have come and gone, we fought discouragement but we finally received an offer a couple of months ago. The inspection, buyers financing, and everything else has come together and we have just signed the papers on the sale. Needless to say, we are very excited about the fact that this major step forward in our transition has taken place and we’ll continue to work on the other elements. Thanks so much for your prayers! Please keep praying as we dive into a home search in Kona (from a distance), work on renewing the lease for the property in Belize, continue to see (and help facilitate) the YWAM DP leadership team mature and deepen in very exciting ways and the completion of Chris’ graduate schooling in September. God is good!
House Offer Received!
We are very excited to announce that after months of prayer, hoping, strategic planning and hard work, we have received and accepted an offer for our house on Whidbey Island. As an important step in our transition to serving with YWAM globally from Kona, we initially listed the house back in July 2015 and unfortunately had to come down further than we wanted to on the price, but as long as everything goes through as it now seems it will, we should be able to close in April. If we are able to close as expected, this brings us one large step further forward in our transition and opens the door to our upcoming move to Kona and our work with YWAM globally. Thanks so much for your prayers! Please do continue to pray for the sale of our house on Whidbey; that we are able to close as expected.
SoCal / Belize
Chris is in Pasadena finishing up extensive Hebrew studies at Fuller Theological Seminary and Lynn is at YWAM DP in Belize touching base with leadership there. We’ll meet up together in Kona on the 11th of March for the President’s Gathering – a group of YWAM leaders from the 40 most active YWAM bases in the world.
In Southern California
We are currently together in Southern Cal where Chris working toward a Masters in Theology / Biblical Languages at Fuller Theological Seminary and Lynn is working toward a certificate in counseling through the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors. The degree Chris is working on has a residency requirement that states he needs to be on campus some of the time.
Our Transition Continues
Not long ago, we announced that we are in the midst of a transition between serving on the campus of YWAM DP in Belize to serving with YWAM globally (including YWAM DP) from Kona, Hawaii. This transition is well underway and going very well. We’re very excited about growing from starting and leading a very successful YWAM base to roles where we’ll have an even greater impact globally as we seek to be a part of ending bible poverty, bringing the gospel to the last, lost and the least and see God glorified throughout the earth.
We have identified four primary areas of transition. Here they are briefly:
Christmas in Belize
We are very excited that all 5 of us were together for Christmas in Belize! Josh has received new orders and is now stationed at Fort Devens near Boston working as an Inspector-Instructor for Marine Reservists. He was able to come to Belize between postings. Cameron came from Kansas City where he’s living, working and studying – doing great! Jessie came from Kona where she just completed a YWAM / U of N School of Worship Program. She is working in Woodinville WA as she prepares for her next U of N school in June. It had been five years since we were all together for Christmas! Needless to say, it was amazing!