Questions and Answers

1. We will be going to Warm Lake Camp - a ministry of Ywam Idaho.
2. The ministries in this camp are Mission Adventures (an outreach program for kids), A Backpacking DTS, a Pastors Retreat, camp rentals for church camps, Bible School for the Nations  ( a four month chronological study of the Bible) and a coming Winter Sports DTS. (This is one reason they are remodeling the cabins - for winter use)
3. The elevation in Cascade is 5000 feet. The elevation of the camp (27 miles away) is 7000 feet.
4. The population of Cascade is 1028.
5. To buy fresh fruit or veggies (or most anything!), one has to drive 1 1/2 hours to Boise, Idaho.
6. Please be sure to read about our learning at the bottom of the page.
7. One important thing I learned was that if you send out a bulk mailing, it often ends up in people spam box.....

How We Got Here

It's amazing how scary it is to make your own thoughts public and globally public to boot.
When I was ten my neighbor took me to church for the first time . and I met Jesus and that was cool, but I also heard about this missions thing and how believers don't always treat each other with utmost love. This has been reinforced countless times in my life. Coupled that with the sensitive spirit God gave me and you come up with a heart for missions, reaching out of yourself to someone else, but not just the guy who doesn't know Jesus, but the guy that knows him but is stuck in his walk, trapped in some crazy broken loop he cant get out of. That takes a community, young people, with zest, energy, fresh eyes and thoughts. Middle aged people, committed to the journey but not finished ,they have fresh expediences and some first hand knowledge of the battle at hand. and lastly older folks. They may be the most amazing of us all. seasoned veterans, sound wisdom, tried and true advise, long range perspective, and most precious of all, hope! They made it. They figured out how to get to the end of life without giving up or giving in.
I'm in this community, I've lived through two of the three life stages and I'm excited about the future.
Okay, that is the best tool and greatest asset we have, COMMUNITY. It forms us and shapes our thinking , it reflects our person back to us so we can be aware of who we are.

When I met Jani, throughout our courtship, our conversation had a common thread. 'What can I/we do to demonstrate my love for Jesus and my brother; how can I help my brother on the mission field be and do better?' So with countless hours of driving and talking we came up with MASH(Missionary Assistance Service and Help). Our dream vision was to provide a place for a missionary or church worker to rest, heal, hear God about the next step, and learn and experience more about His love for them. we even built this enormous house and facility in our hearts and minds. Practicably however, we opened our home to anyone who needed a place to rest, to freshen up their vision, to recover from life's scrapes and bruises.

When we found Tacoma Foursquare Church, we found a safe place to be us and grow that vision.We learned some stuff about ourselves and about hepling others healing. This part, the "Joining YWAM" part has been stirring, vibrating, tingling in us from the beginning and now it seems God is releasing us to go into another facet of training.

Enough for now I'll have more later.
b



Okay, it's later and I have more;
Watching God work in real time is just amazing!
I think that is the most exciting part of this whole adventure.
When we left Sunday afternoon we left with the level of faith God gave us. We felt we needed to stop and visit with family on our way: We needed to stop at my moms, my youngest brothers, our youngest son Brandon, and his family and our oldest son Nick and his family. When you calculate travel time into the mix we had to leave a week before the school started. That meant our fund raising time was week shorter. On our way, just outside of Sisters, Oregon, we got a call from someone responding to a "Craigslist" add we posted a week ago. She wanted to buy some doors. In the middle of the conversation she suggested she wire the money to an Idaho Wal-Mart ahead of us. PRAISE GOD WHO PROVIDES!

Another story of Gods faithfulness happened the Wednesday before we left, Jani and I were feeling particularly discouraged about the size and scope of the task at hand and out of the blue my buddy called from Alaska to tell me he was planning to undergo two surgeries in the near future. When he heals from said surgery his plan is to buy a business he's involved with and hire me to operate the equipment.
as I hung up the phone I saw God in the middle of the whole conversation. I almost laughed out loud at The God of The Universe caring about how I feel!

More Later
b

The Vision (Our Newletter)

“Where there is no vision, the people perish: “ Proverbs 29:18 

Beryl and Jani Strebe

 We, Beryl and Jani Strebe, are people of vision. When we married, we were delighted to find that we shared an unquenchable vision to serve the Lord in missions by serving the church. We have been able to see this vision at work in our lives – from housing struggling people, being part of mission outreaches, to serving in many areas within the church.

 Yet this did not satisfy the vision God had given us.

This vision has quietly rested in our hearts until this past fall. That was when we felt God release us to finally go to Mission Builders. We have been previously praying for a ministry through YWAM called Mission Builders. It is a wonderful ministry which focuses on equipping the missionary to achieve the calling God has given him. This is done in many ways – building schools, hospitals, ministry centers, etc.... The website is www.missionbuilders.org. Check it out!

Seventeen years ago, we began preparing for this mission – and waited sometimes patiently for God to release us.  In those seventeen years, we achieved the conditions He had set for us.

I Chronicles 13 tells the story of when David decided to move the Ark of the Covenant from Kirjath Jearim to himself. However, he did not transport it in the method God had told him through Moses (Exodus 25:12-16). The Ark had been designed to be transported by poles which were slipped through the attached rings. It was to be carried by four people.  Obedience to this method would assure that the Ark was never touched. David attempted to circumvent these commands and was then angry when the results of his disobedience caused a natural and pre-warned result. His response was to keep the Ark in Kirjath Jearim – resulting in tremendous blessing for the town and tremendous loss of blessing for David.

The answer to receiving the blessing was obedience, not ‘safety’.

On March 25, we left for our training in Montana. We did this despite not having all of the required money. We clearly heard God tell us to “GO”. We left, not without trepidation. God said He would provide – and He did, though not in the way most people expected.

Warm Lake Camp

On the way, we stopped at the YWAM base in Cascade, Idaho. We wanted to see what they were doing and if they needed mission builders to come after the school. We purposely did not tell them any of our skills or potential availability. They told us they needed a couple like us to help them complete a remodel project at their camp (Warm Lake Camp) as they got it only partially completed before being snowed out of the area last fall. We were dumbfounded, but ‘hid it in our hearts’.

We showed up at the school , ready to start, on Monday morning. When the mail arrived, it did not bring any financial miracles, so we left. The international director of Mission Builders met us outside the classroom and told us that, as she prayed, the ministry in Cascade, Idaho came strongly to her mind.Mission Builder's Opportunity in Cascade Page We all prayed, and our application (complete already) was sent to Cascade.  We were given the strongest welcome and deepest gratitude I (Jani) have ever experienced.

Monday night, the Crossroads class prayed us out and tomorrow morning the leadership of Mission Builders and of the school have asked we come so they can pray and send us out.

So we are going to Cascade, Idaho. (Idaho Ywam Webpage)

Tomorrow.  A moving  vessel  can be steered.

What does this mean?

We do not need as much financial support, but we do still need financial support. This is largely due to our plant-based diet.

Completed Cabin

We will be at the camp until at least August 17^th. We cannot even get into the camp yet to see how large the job is as it is still snowed in. We will do necessary repairs at their headquarters in Cascade until the snow allows us to move in….

 'Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart

Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art

Thou my best thought by day or by night 

Waking or sleeping Thy presence my light 

 Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise, 

Thou mine inheritance, now and always: 

Thou and Thou only, first in my heart, 

High King of heaven, my Treasure Thou art.”

 Irish Folk Song - 5th Century

 Beryl and Jani Strebe

 C/O Tacoma Foursquare Church

 PO Box 65909
University Place, WA 98464 

 Contributions can be either mailed to the above address (write Idaho Missions in the subject line) or given online at www.TacomaFoursquare.com. In the giving section, under budget, select other and write Idaho Missions in the notes. 

The email address for any correspondence to us while we are at YWAM or concerning our time in YWAM is berylnjani@gmail.com (prayer needs, encouragement, notification of commitment to pray or give)

Our blog is berylnjani.blogspot.com. We want to keep in touch with you, so be sure to check it often!

THE LEARNING CURVE CONTINUES!                                            
                                                                                                                                                                                           

Jani here:
I want to keep you informed about each step of the journey we are taking.
Designing this blog has been really hard work! I really don't know what I am doing. But I do know that part of our vision is to take you all with us - and I think this is really the best way!
____________
3/20/12

I apologize for the long period of time it has been since I have written. Like the title says, “The Learning Curve Continues”…..

I would love to tell you how wonderful this getting ready time has been, but I must be honest – its been a lot of stress! I have learned many things, the most important of which is that

SUPPORT FOR THE MISSIONARY NEEDS TO START , NOT WHEN THEY ARE PRAYED OUT BUT WHEN THEY FIRST RECEIVE THE CALLING!

I learned that when you send out a mass mailing, most of the communication ends up in a spam folder! (this learning came when I found that most of the people I sent our newsletter to had no idea we were going!) I still am trying to slowly remedy that.

We need prayer. There are still many details to take care of.

We also want you to rejoice with us! We have had answers to prayer already! A friend is going to be staying in our house while we are gone, Beryl’s employers have been very positive about his leaving and coming back….my health has done well (had double Carpel Tunnel surgery and healed already!) and we have much more support than we previously had. (But that is still a prayer need. We are still short our need)

Please use our email berylnjani@gmail.com to give us prayer requests. We really do want to pray for you!

Blog Update - Beryl

Category: Things that need to happen BEFORE you get on the field.

Date 5/8/2012

It occurred to me about a week before I left (read - Holy Spirit spoke to me) I needed to get garbage service and maybe a yard maintenance service. I in my ultra frugal, “do it yourself” way of thinking I immediately dismissed it as over the top extravagance. Why pay $50.00 bucks for a service I can do myself for pennies? Well I’ll tell you why… No matter how clever I may be I can’t haul garbage to the dump from 500 miles away. Or mow the grass, fix the shower or get the mail, garbage service is less than $20.00 a month, quite a bit more than the $35.00 every 6 months I spent going to the dump previously but again the mileage would kill me. And you need the means to haul the stuff. Yard service is similar in that I can “weed-eat” the little patch of grass in three minutes, but not from central Idaho!

In retro; getting garbage and lawn service BEFORE we left and maybe retain a fixit handy man to fix the shower or what-ever. Preemptively spending  before I left would have kept big gobs of stress off of me and keep us from having to come home early to haul garbage. Having someone staying in the house keeps the stress off too… Not having to worry about the plumbing springing a leak or the roof. It means I can stay in the field doing the work God has for me and not having to worry about the house stuff.

In regard to banking, we thought it would be good to set up direct deposit and auto withdrawal to pay some bills. Cool, except for the part where it doesn’t work. We spent four full days (on different dates) of fussing with the bank, about how to get our money from one account to another or from one bank to another. In the end, we decided to buy a box of checks and mail all of the payments early enough to get to everyone on time. Oh I almost forgot (this is a good one) our insurance company took their money out of the wrong account causing a couple fees. When we pointed out the error they said no problem, we’ll write you a check right away. After two weeks our agent sent us the amount out of his own pocket saying “you guys are out there doing God’s work. You don’t need this kind of headache”. He seems to be a pretty nice agent.

I know this doesn’t seem like much but from my perspective (and this shows just how wise and mature I really am), every week I hear some news from home or some email alert from the bank advising me of some catastrophic fail. I just want to come home and burn the house down to spite the neighbors, poison the lawn to spite the landlord, or take a bat to one of my many bankers. As you can tell from my rhetoric, I’m not handling the distraction so well. But frankly this season, this event of my life has been the most fulfilling of my life! More so than anything I’ve experienced to date. Last week I was working through some rather peculiar plumbing problems and Jani caught me off guard with a question and I snapped at her. She reminded me of what I said about the fulfillment thing. I couldn’t come up with an answer. Later however, when I solved the problem, I did have an answer. I told her that I think my fulfillment comes from conquering the problem and its intensity comes from doing something to help promote and further Gods kingdom.

I’ve been working ten to fifteen hours every day in some of the most beautiful country I’ve ever seen. I end my day with a game of cards and a talk with my wife and a sense of satisfaction that I am facilitating and enabling missionaries to do just what God called them to do, the thing they love! While I do what God has called me to, the thing I love!

Another month and most of the urgent projects will be done and I can focus on some of the long range goals of the base with less pressure and more time to recreate, something to look forward to.

Don’t forget to always pray for us at all times in all ways! We need you , our brothers and sisters, lifting us up as we lift up and build up the body.

In His service, more later.

b