Ready, Set, Go!

Hello dear family & friends!
As i'm sure all of you have heard already Jude Gabriel is finally here in the flesh and I'm (sarah) thanking God for that because he was a big baby!
He was born at 12:49am on August 4th weighing with a grand total of 9lbs 9oz & measuring at 22in!
The labor from sitting on my couch having contractions to Jude being delivered was only 4 hours total, it was amazingly fast (praise God!). He's a very healthy, beautiful, sweet boy. William adjusted so well to him, he's not even jealous of him at all..i think maybe he's too young to be jealous of his little bro as he calls him..no toys to share or girls to fight over yet ;)

On a different note...As many of you may know I (ryan) have a heart for Thailand and a passion to see modern day slavery(human trafficking) be abolished. Thousands of women and girls get bought and sold everyday in Thailand due to poverty, poor family structure, low societal values of sex, and many other unfortunate circumstances. Prostitution is illegal in Thailand but rarely prosecuted as it brings much revenue into the country but the costs are high. This type of work ruins many lives the souls of the "slavers", souls of the girls and women, and the patrons. You can see how all this wreckage can ruin a society. Is all that revenue worth it? Is there a going rate for compensating trauma? I think not.


Does this happen in the US? Of course it does, but in the US we prosecute and are currently improving laws against human trafficking. Thailand is doing none of this so when a neighbor is in need we help them. Yes Thailand is our neighbor we are apart of an international community called humanity. This is something God has put on my heart. I have decided to do a school here at YWAM Nashville called School of Strategic Missions (SOSM) starting Sept 18th till Dec 21st to get training to go out in hope of fighting against this injustice in Thailand.

During the first 13 weeks of the school I will be challenged by experienced missionaries in the following topics:
Language Learning
Cross Cultural Communication
Culture Shock
Team Dynamics
Discovering Keys to Culture
Community Development
Injustice

I will also learn more about the logistics of going overseas in the key areas:
Health Insurance
Raising Finances/Developing a budget
Taxes while overseas
Secure Communication
Power of Attorney

After the "lecture phase" of the school we will go on outreach as a family overseas to Bangkok,Thailand for around 6 months. We're both super excited for this time in our lives but nervous because this will be the first time we've been to another country as a family!

The tuition for the school is $3,200 and we will also need $3000 for our outreach to Thailand. If you would like to partner with us financially you can make checks to YWAM and for IRS reasons please use our memo #130 instead of our names on  the check. There are other ways to give please see our website site ywamnashville.org or call our accounting office at 615-696-3096 all donations are tax deductible. And for those of you supporting us already your support is of course still needed & greatly appreciated as we are still YWAM Nashville staff. Prayer is needed and we would like people to also commit to praying for us in this season please let us know if you are interested or have any questions at all. We love you all!

To you and yours!

A new short season has arrived! YWAM Nashville is undergoing renovations and focusing on preparing for the fall DTS. For the next 7 weeks we will be doing various building projects to improve our campus. These projects include tiling, dry walling, painting, etc. We will not be running any schools this summer until fall so the administration has rearranged the staff working schedule so that everyone can be involved in this time of preparation. Three days a week are purposed for our normal schedule of operations and two days out of the week are now purposed for campus renovation which is done by all staff. Through the entirety of the schedule since we have a staff deficit everyone is pitching in and filling gaps. It has been really good in this way because everyone gets to rub shoulders with other staff they don't work regularly with and has improved our community even in the short time this schedule has been in place. We are also doing procurement and fundraising for all the improvement projects which we hope will stick with YWAM Nashville even after this season is over.  I (Ryan) have now transitioned into accounting as my new work duty! I have really found a niche there as I am a very detail oriented person when it comes to numbers but haven't fully exercised that talent until now and I really enjoy it. I am in charge of staff support, bank deposits, account reconciliation, paying the bills, and other accounting practices.

Our family is doing very well! YWAM had us move to a bit bigger YWAM apt that is closer to the base. We were blessed with our smaller apt but would have been very crammed with Jude & his baby items :)
So we love the new place & being closer to the base means that we can just walk instead of drive over there to save gas money! I (Sarah) am 39 weeks and 1 whole day pregnant! Me and Ryan are both so ready for Jude Gabriel to be in our arms! I am already 4 cm dilated and just waiting for my water to break or to start consistent contractions. William still doesn't understand that he's going to be a big brother since he's so little but a few of our friends recently had babies and he loves them! Today a baby was crying so he started making silly faces and dancing and the baby would stop!
Just be praying for our family that the transition from three to four would be smooth and sweet. Also that the labor goes as well as it can!
Once Jude is born we will write another blog and post pictures for sure!

Thanks for reading our update!!

-Ryan & Sarah.

p.s. a special thanks to Kim & Kayla D'Escoto for taking beautiful pictures of our family (the one on top is one that they captured.) !
If you would like to check them out they are located in Aurora,IL and you can go to their facebook page Kimberlee Kay Photography or their website kimberleekayphotography.com

UPDATE!

The last few months have gone really well! My (Ryan) social injustice class was very beneficial for the students! Through the curriculum I was able to give them God's heart for injustice. We had some good discussions regarding the oppression on women in society and how that causes injustice towards women. They also did a research project to get them familiar with injustice topics and presented them to the class through power point and video. I had great speakers come in to discuss injustice including Troy Sherman, Heather Margebanks, and Collette Bercue. Troy is the son of a long time speaker in YWAM Dean Sherman and has been apart of many projects to fight against injustice. Heather Margebanks is a YWAM speaker that has done extensive sociological research on global injustice and speaks at injustice related conferences all around the world. Collette Bercue is the CEO of Free for Life Ministries and the leader of an anti-human trafficking coalition with the governmental Rescue and Restore initiative. Free for Life works with anti-human trafficking shelters all around the world raising funds for the their operations.

Recently Ryan helped lead a short term outreach in Nashville & Sarah helped lead worship for a college group from Clemson University located in South Carolina. They had a 6 day trip with us and Ryan was responsible for the last 3 days. We had devotional time and worship each morning before we went out to a local church to get some painting done for their new building. The church owns an industrial building that they have church in and rent out the other parts of it to the community. One of these renters is a thrift store that operates to support missions in Africa. We helped sort donated clothes for their part of the building. Later that night during a bonfire we had a worship "jam session" that the college group actually helped lead as well. The next day we went out to Nashville to teach them about human trafficking & to show them the different parts in Nashville like Dickerson Pike that we know has prostitution & such going on. We went to our church's ministry center where we watched a Rescue and Restore video about human trafficking in the US and discussed it. We did a prayer walk and Ryan showed them specific places that have been on the news. He also introduced them to backpage.com which is a website where "slaves" are bought and sold . I called & posed as a buyer to show them the reality of it. That night we had worship and debriefing to talk about their time here and process the ministry that they did that week. The next day we said our good byes and closed up the trip! It was awesome.

Sarah is now finishing up her last month as Kitchen Coordinator. It has definitely been a good learning experience! She has figured out how to budget & organize meals for the whole base which is about 50 people give or take. With budgeting well she has been able to bring more organic items to our meals at YWAM Nashville! God is really making me step up as a leader in being kitchen coordinator and helping a lot with worship not just with YWAM but our church in Nashville too.

William is growing of course & saying a lot of words. He really loves people & is not very shy to anyone. I think it helps being at YWAM Nashville where there is different kinds of people here all of the time but also a core group for him to really know. He has a best friend & girlfriend named Isabella who is only 5 mos older than him...we've decided that they will get married ;)  It has been so awesome to have a lot of other babies here at the base for him to play with, there are at least 5 his age.

If you haven't heard yet..We are having another little stinky boy! We're very excited of course!!
His name is Jude Gabriel & he is kicking/ practicing karate as I type all of this out. I am currently 24 weeks and 2 days along & my due date is July 31st. He will be delivered here in good ol' tennessee!
There are also 4 other women that are pregnant here at the base so Jude will have friends too :)

We are getting real ansy to visit another country or two! Just praying about when, where and with who!!
We might be going to Thailand for a week long anti-human trafficking conference in January but that is still up in the air! Also friends of ours are moving to Berlin, Germany soon and after Jude is born we would love to help them settle in. But for now we will stay here in our own country till God says to go.

If you would like to donate heres how:
Sending cash or a check-
P.O. Box 78219
Nashville,TN 37207
Please make the check out to YWAM Nashville & in the memo write the number 130.

If you would like to donate online, here's the link!
https://www.ywam.org/donations/donate
operating location name is YWAM Nashville
operating location address is 5801 Keysburg Rd Adams, TN 37010

If you would like to become a monthly supporter please contact us:
RyanandSarahOwen@gmail.com
or Facebook Message us!

the owen clan.

Intercession and New Anti-Human Trafficking Bills!

This was my power point presentation for a worship and intercession time that I (Ryan)led and sarah sang at. God moved  and people's hearts were opened to God's justice. At the coalition I attend, a woman who works with the legislature came and the coalition members were able to have input and discussion over the bills!  I also had a chance to have some say over those trafficking bills. Please pray for these topics & bills that I have posted below!

Times they are a changin'!

Sarah is now a coordinator over the kitchen for YWAM-Nashville. The way meals work around here is that Departments (i.e. maintenance, recruiting, accounting etc...) pick what they would like to cook & make it for lunch, and families do the same for dinner. It's been going very well & the meals have been very good! We made panini's & everybody loved them so much they didn't even mind that there wasn't meat in it! ;) Meals are a very big deal here at the base because it is the time that everyone comes together.
Sarah puts everything together logistically so that it all runs smoothly in the kitchen!
She is also helping with a pre-school this quarter that has just gotten started for the staff children. The pre-school went on a short field trip around the small town of adams, Tn to learn about their community.

Ryan is now in charge of the Justice Class for the Discipleship Training School that is currently running. During the Justice Class there will be discussion, documentaries, research projects & speakers on injustice issues of the following: human trafficking, corrective rape & genocide. The class lasts for 8 weeks & we are 2 weeks into it. The students have learned so much already & have really been digging into how they can actually do something to fight against injustice. You can tell that they truly have a heart to do justice along with God which is awesome because not everyone understands the justice that needs to be done.

William is healthy & happy! He is trying to speak english instead of baby which is great of course!
His favorite words are bye bye, nanner (banana) , mama & dada! There are a lot more words that he is saying but we don't want to take over the whole page with baby words. There are a lot of babies his age at the base so he is already learning that he needs to share & how to make friends at a young age! This will be great when his baby brother or sister comes along.
Sarah is already in her 2^nd trimester at 14 weeks. We can not wait to find out at around 20 weeks if we are having a boy or girl!

Since we are having another baby we are in need of more monthly support!
Monthly support is the only way that we get a paycheck & a way for you to not only support us but help change the lives of the people we touch & the land where are feet walk.
If you are interested in joining us on this amazing adventure in this way, please contact us in the following ways:
RyanandSarahOwen@gmail.com
(630) 675-8461
Message either of us on Facebook!


Prayer Points:
* Sarah is still having morning sickness..make that morning, afternoon & evening sickness!
* YWAM-Nashville have teams that are in Europe & Brazil till March.
* The current Discipleship Training School is starting to raise money & get ready to go to Haiti & the Dominican Republic.
* Monthly Support

      Willow jammin' with some DTS students    

                                                  Baby number 2, Audrey or Jude!

 

         Sarah with a student from the School of Worship named Katie. They became very close friends!