One of the roles Andrew and Christina Play at YWAM Montana | Lakeside is leading a course called Summer Programs! It is an 8 week missions training experience for high school and college students. In 2023 we sent out three teams: two into Mexico and one to a remote island in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. While the teams were in Mexico, Andrew, Christina and Jason went to visit the teams. One team had just returned from high in the Mexico mountains to Mazatlan where they would finish out the second half of their ministry work. They were returning from an incredibly hard and rewarding time and were exhausted. The team fought back sickness and disappointment in order to distribute Bibles to remote people groups (and even the cartel at one point!). They led young families to the Lord, encouraged troubled teens and provided outdoor equipment for the local staff to use in the years to come. While they had seen God move in miraculous ways, it was still terribly hard on their minds and bodies. We assisted them in debriefing their work in the mountains and helped refocus their energy towards the weeks to come in Mazatlan where they would be working on an island off the coast of Mexico that had been ravaged by a major storm.

The second team we met with was working in Puerto Vallarta, and was struggling with major spiritual battles in their minds and with the people they were working with. We helped mediate more than one crisis during our time with them, helping to bring clarity to the young students who struggled to keep their focus on God in difficult times. Our efforts were not wasted, and the team finished well. We witnessed God fight so strongly for these young students who were growing so much in their own relationship with God, as well as their knowledge of Him. Often times, when we weather these difficult storms, the reward is so plainly seen on the other side. After we left the team and gave them a final charge as they headed into the final weeks of their outreach, they saw incredible movements of God in the people they reached!

The youngest student on the team, a boy only 16 years old, met a man on the street one evening as they were returning home from ministry. He stopped and felt a pull to talk to the man. As he started a conversation with him, the man was stunned that someone was even talking to him! After speaking for a while, our student asked the man if he knew who God was, the man broke down in tears immediately. He had at one time, but walked away from God after falling into a life of drug addiction and depression. The man told our student that on this night he was determined to overdose and take his own life, and that our student had interrupted him meeting with his dealer! Our student helped lead the man in repentance to God, and connected him with our local workers and a local church that assists with drug rehab to help the man on his journey in recovery!

This trip was not easy in the slightest, from sickness throughout our family, to being stopped by the cartel on the highway between the two teams. We fought to be present every single day, but we saw God bring transformation through the teams in Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta in amazing ways. Through the teams, over 300 Bibles were personally handed out and over 3 dozen people gave their lives to Christ!

Our first time leading a team overseas as a couple and as parents! Jason was actually only 2 and a half months old when we flew to Azua, Dominican Republic (We might have been a bit crazy). We led a team of 17 to the southern town of Azua, where there is a YWAM campus that Montana | Lakeside has been sending teams to for 5 years. After over 30 hours of flights, and a 6 hour bus ride, we arrived late in the night and got settled into our housing. To say Christina and I were tired would be an understatement. Jason fell asleep rather quickly, and we fell into each other, wondering how we would make it through the next month here. It's one thing to be tired as parents of a new born, but to then add on travel and leading a team of 17 added a weight that felt unbearable that evening.

However, where we end, God begins. And God truly was our refuge throughout the entire trip. Whenever we would feel overwhelmed as leaders, parents or missionaries, God was there to pick us up, give us just what we needed in the moment, and the faith to press on to the end. We can honestly say that we have never worked with a greater team of students, and the testimonies that came from these students continues to blow us away even years later. They stepped out of their comfort zone, stepped out in faith and shared their testimonies, the Gospel and the hope of Christ with people all over the city of Azua! We hosted 5 different concerts throughout the city, preforming worship, dances and testimonies with locals in the area. We hosted baseball camps and pickup games with local teens and public schools.

Our long term goal is to see these young students continue to work in ministry wherever they go. Looking back two years later, five of our students have continued on working in ministry in their hometowns and three now work with Youth With A Mission at different campuses! Two of them work with us full time in Montana which is such a blessing as we get to continue discipling these previous students as they are beginning to stretch their legs as full time missionaries.

Update Coming soon!

Update Coming Soon

In 2019 Christina returned to Kabale, Uganda to serve with Victory Africa Ministries for the third time. Partnering with a local pastor, her team of four worked in a school, at an orphanage, and with a boys home. They were also able to provide some business training to women in a nearby community. After serving in Kabale, Christina and her sister were able to travel north throughout Uganda visiting various ministries and missionaries, and meeting children they sponsor in Omoro.