New Beginnings

Hello friends & family! We have some bitter sweet news! We feel like God is calling us out of YWAM and into Nashville. We decided this just a few weeks ago, we were waiting to tell anyone so we could talk and pray with the leader of our YWAM base first. We told them and then Ryan went into a job interview for welding and machining the next day.. we were thinking that job hunting would take at least a month if not longer, but the day after the interview he got a great job!! So we wanted to tell everyone in advance but since Ryan got the job so fast we are telling you now!

Even though we absolutely love YWAM and are totally behind what they do, we feel like God is moving us out of YWAM and into the city of Nashville. (We are currently located 45 mins away from Nashville). Sarah will be pursuing music..she feels like God wants to use her voice to make relationships with different musicians in Nashville. God has broken her heart for the celebrities and musicians as weird as that may sound! Ryan will have a job with welding and machining, then eventually he will take classes to become a cop. By becoming a cop he will work onto getting into vice to be able to work against human trafficking.
 Some have asked us if  this means we are done with missions, the answer to that question is no! we will never be done with missions, Nashville is our mission for this year! We are just doing missions in a different way now. We still love Thailand and YWAM, but right now this is what we feel is the next step!

We are very excited and we thank you for all of the support financially and spiritually. You all are blessings to our lives! Please keep supporting us through prayer! Sarah is always updating every one on our lives by posting pictures and things on facebook so if you're not her friend you should be! ;)
We would also like to encourage you to pray about sending your financial monthly support that you'd normally be sending us, to the base YWAM Nashville!
Sending a check you would still write it out to YWAMNASHVILLE, but in the memo write general donation.

Please contact us through e-mail (ryanandsarahowen@gmail.com) , facebook, or give us a call if you would like to ask questions!

We love each of you!

We are sharing a slideshow video with you all.  Because this a public blog I cannot post it here for the safety of our refugee friends in the video. I will be sending a link that is private for those of you on our email list. If you didn't get a link you can request one here ryanandsarahowen@gmail.com. We will also be posting on our facebook profiles that are private so no one can see it unless you are friends with us.

New Things!

Putting pictures on here have been much more difficult than I expected! We have many Facebook for those who use it. For those of you who don't have it thank you for your patience and we will definitely have them available when we return from Thailand.

There have been some very exciting things happening recently! Our teams relationship building with the girls in the red light bars has been going really well. We have been able to pay "bar fees" for many of the girls we have been talking to, taking them out to spend more time with them. Some of the girls we have even been able to build a good enough relationship to meet up with them outside the bars which is a big step. A couple of the girls we have been talking to have decided to quit the red light bars they are working in to move on to better things!WOOHOO!God is good!

In other news, we have had the opportunity to love on some Pakistani and Vietnamese refugees. They all have either asylum seeker or refugee status because of persecution in their countries because they are Christians. We have been able to offer them fellowship, teaching/discussion, and entertainment for their kids. In Pakistan a majority of the Muslims are extremist and have been known to even kill liberal Muslims for standing up for human rights. One of the families in the household we have been visiting had been threatened to have their children abducted and raped.

We have also been doing outreach in a slum to kids and adults. The usual day looks like first playing with the kids in Buddhist temple/public center and then we teach bible and English. The  ministry has been run by a pastor an  his family so we have been able to bless them with extra man power!

prayer points:
team unity
team health (recently a team member got an intestinal infection)
God would go ahead of us blaze a path


If you are interested in partnering with us financially on our upcoming outreach to Thailand or would like to join our monthly support team let us know!

If you would like to send a check please send it to P.O. Box 78219 Nashville,TN 37207. Make it out to YWAM NASHVILLE and write #130 in the memo!

You can also donate electonically here: http://ywamnashville.org/donations. Make sure to select staff support in the "select an option" field and specify us in the additional information box!

Thailand!

I'm writing this from a internet cafe in Thailand! First, the students finished strong in lecture phase. We had some really good times in our one on ones, walking with them in different area of there lives where God was growing them has been an awesome journey. My guys and the school in general have grown so much in those 12 weeks.

To prepare the students for outreach we scheduled 2 hours of outreach preparation time per week. During these times we had them conduct a research project which covered the seven spheres of society: economy, religion, government, media, education, family, and health. We also included basic language learning, cross-cultural communication, and basic intro to Theravada Buddhism(The buddhism of southeast asia) and Thai culture.

As some of you know we will be working with Jim Larson at The Well in which we will be working with at risk children, red light district outreach, and ministry to his current Well students. Recently we went into a couple red light districts for a prayer walk and to meet some of the girls who worked there to make relationships with them. It was really intense to see the girls pain in their eyes and to see them being used. We left feeling pretty hopeless but then the next day we had a socializing time to get acquainted with the students at The Well. There is hope and redemption for the girls in the bars and we want to show them that by coming along side The Well and making relationships with the girls.

Pictures coming soon!


If you are interested in partnering with us financially on our upcoming outreach to Thailand or would like to join our monthly support team let us know!

If you would like to send a check please send it to P.O. Box 78219 Nashville,TN 37207. Make it out to YWAM NASHVILLE and write #130 in the memo!

You can also donate electonically here: http://ywamnashville.org/donations. Make sure to select staff support in the "select an option" field and specify us in the additional information box!