Praying for Property

During the month of May, YWAM’s global prayer day, called The Invitation, will focus on YWAM’s campuses and ministry centers. You are invited to pray with YWAM on our prayer day, May 12, as well as throughout the month.
Growing to more than 1,100 locations in over 180 countries since 1960, YWAM properties range from rental spaces of a few meters to ownership of hundreds of acres of land with many buildings. From castles several hundred years old to just-finished construction, God has blessed YWAM abundantly. Some of these buildings give YWAM a ministry footprint right in the middle of impoverished communities. Others provide a quiet retreat setting for mission training programs.

Painting at YWAM Restenas, Sweden

How to Pray for YWAM Properties

YWAM Jinja, Uganda building campaign

• If you are familiar with a YWAM location, find out about its history.
• Look at the map of YWAM locations around the world. Choose five locations for which you have little or no familiarity. Get a sense for their ministries. Pray for them using the points below or as you feel led.
• Consider Hebrews 3:4 (NASB): “For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.”

Clinic at YWAM Jinja, Uganda

• Pray for your location to have the ability to clearly and simply communicate the call of your location.
• Pray for your location’s planning efforts and time spent with God so that the Lord’s purposes will prevail.
• Pray for wisdom for your location’s leadership and administration to help steward property acquisition and development in concert with ministry goals and to help identify and prioritize the issues of maintenance, repair or replacement before they become real problems.
• Pray for affordable, safe housing for YWAMers and their families.
• Pray for your ministry location to be debt free and offer thanksgiving for the ministry locations that are debt free!
• Pray for the Lord to lead the right people to the right occupations, particularly for harder “property” positions to fill such as maintenance leader, construction workers, groundskeepers, administrator, or operations/property manager.
• Pray for those who have responded by working behind the scenes or in service positions, such as: administration, maintenance, grounds, facilities, housekeeping, kitchen, accounting, and hospitality.
• Pray that all YWAMers at your location will have a heart of gratitude for those who have served in the past and for those who are currently serving in positions that have contributed to making your ministry location what it is today.
• Pray for your ministry location to give honor where honor is due by recognizing, appreciating and celebrating the gifts God has brought to us through the people He has sent.

Pray for the needs of YWAM properties around the world:

• YWAM Berlin, Germany where the ministry team is believing for the release workers and finances to rebuild a ministry center and an adjacent hotel to house hundreds of long-term staff and visiting teams from around the world to reach the heart of Germany for Christ.
• YWAM Riga, Latvia and their “Freedom 61” project believing for the finances and Mission Builder volunteers for building a transition center for housing women and girls caught in human trafficking.
• YWAM Battambang, Cambodia continues its campus development constructing a training center serving the four remaining Communist nations in the region. Pray for the continued release of workers and the finances for construction materials to continue.
• YWAM Jinja, Uganda. Praise God with this location as they celebrate receiving 40% (or $100,000) to buy the building they have been renting. They call this the Time2Own campaign. Pray for God to provide remaining funds.

Pray for global concerns regarding YWAM property:

• Obtaining properties in most cities is very difficult due to price, availability, regulations and other factors. Pray for the Lord to provide breakthroughs for YWAM ministries. As an example, that God would stir the hearts of owners to donate their properties, as opposed to keeping the property as an asset. Pray for churches or ministries with available property to be open to offering property to YWAM.
• Pray for the Holy Spirit to bring revelation and a heart of repentance where we have made our own plans without God or “used” people instead of waiting for the best God may have desired for our ministry location.
• Pray for the Lord to release tens of thousands of workers (with gifts of administration, maintenance, facilities management, housekeeping, kitchen service, accounting, and hospitality to name a few) into the fields white with harvest, and that He would direct them toward YWAM ministry locations and our partner ministries worldwide.
• Pray that short-term workers (like Mission Builders) would be positively impacted by serving alongside YWAM ministry locations worldwide so much so that they would return as students and long-term YWAMers. Pray for the ministry of Mission Builders (missionbuilders.org).
• Pray that YWAM locations and YWAMers with gifts of maintenance and construction skills will catch the vision to partner with other YWAM ministries by traveling to other locations needing short-term help. (In the USA, those events when family and friends gather to build a barn in a day or two, are called “barn raisers.”) Pray that YWAMers partner together to be “barn raisers” in their region.

Take Action:

• Learn more about Mission Builders International (MBI). MBI has been connecting Christians to frontline missions since 1978. MBI averages 900 to 1,000 volunteers placed in 85-120 locations each year. Refer someone not currently in YWAM to MBI.
• Talk to a YWAM location leader or other property leader. Identify a “property” project that you could plan, organize and execute with others.

Share how God spoke to you.

• Share on facebook.com/youthwithamission, find the post for May 12, and add a comment about how you prayed.
• Go to twitter.com; search for #praywithywam and tweet about your prayer time/post a picture.

Praying for YWAM Ships

YWAM kids and their prayer map

• Kids at YWAM Medical Ships Australia made cutout pictures of each of the vessels and sailed them around, praying for where they would go and the people they would see!
• YWAM – Georgia (republic of) prayed for a ship for the Black Sea.
• YWAM at Outpost Panama welcomed Making Waves last month: “What an amazing answer to prayer and the joint effort of 5 YWAM bases. We are asking God for workers for the harvest here at Outpost Panama for all departments including Making Waves.”
• A group of YWAM leaders prayed during the recent DNA conference in Missouri, USA. They watched videos about YWAM Ship ministries and then prayed based upon the prayer points in The Invitation for April. They also noted that the Pacific Hope ship was headed to do some fundraising before ending up in Vanuatu (republic of) where there are Bibleless people groups.
• YWAM – Togo, West Africa prayed for a new boat for the Amazon and a boat for West Africa. They also sensed God giving them Haggai 2:8 when praying for funds and Matthew 9:37-38 when praying for crew.
• YWAM – Chicago, Illinois prayed for the fleet (Habakkuk 2:14) and for Papua New Guinea, specifically for unity among leaders.
• YWAM Perth, Australia prayed for the resources and abundance of the Papua New Guinea ship to be multiplied to all the ships and for even MORE ships with different and unique purposes to be birthed.

YWAM Antigua prays for YWAM ships

• Please pray that we get the M/V Amazing Grace into the shipyard this month so we can get her to YWAM – Mazatlan, Mexico and begin ministering to the isolated.
• Next Wave needs short and long term volunteers to help in the boat and with the refugees. Please also pray for Finances.
• Pacific Link held their first ophthalmology clinic in the Karkar Island region in March. Pray for solid relationships with these people over time.
• Pray for new training vessel for YWAM Ships Kona.
• YWAM – Åland Islands (autonomous region of Finland, between Finland and Sweden, Baltic Sea) asked for prayer for their vision to start a ship ministry. They note that the Åland islands have a population of only 29 000 and still during the interwar period it had the world´s largest sailing ship fleet. The YWAMers say, “We do believe that this is a part of Ålands’ calling; travel to the unreached people groups by the ships and preach the gospel! So please pray, as we are right now taking our first steps to pioneer YWAM there.”
• One YWAMer noted on Facebook: “The need is obviously greater than I could imagine, and it is comforting to know that our God is much greater still! Thank you for ALL involved in this amazing ministry – for your precious time, love, obedience and willingness to GO!”

Upcoming topics for The Invitation

• June 2016 – Area Topic – 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World
• July 14 – Refugees.

The second Thursday is just a suggestion. Feel free to pray close to that date at a time that works well for your location’s schedule.
Don’t Miss The Invitation:

• Sign up for prayer updates. Go to ywam.org, find the “Stay Connected” box on the home page, put in your email address and click “Sign Up.”
• Download prayer updates in a specific language. Go to ywam.org/theinvitation. (Currently available in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Indonesian, or request other languages.)
• If you sense God giving you a word or a direction for YWAM’s prayer, please contact us.