Category Archives: God’s character

Nelson’s journal 2/17/22

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Nelson and Ann Sophie first met while staffing a crowd of people in a Youth With A Mission ministry called Kokua Crew. This group, sometimes as many as 100, was made up of young people from all over the world. They came to Hawaii to serve as workers on the main YWAM campus in Kona.

Nelson and Ann Sophie were in charge of this group, giving them work assignments such as kitchen crew, daycare helpers, post office workers, coffee shop baristas, grounds keepers, library assistants, school aids, and anything else where help was needed.

In exchange for 40 work hours each week, these volunteers were able to live in beautiful Hawaii without cost, receiving three square meals each day, dorm-like housing, and free time on the weekends when they could do anything they wanted.

In today’s journal entry, Nelson is working out multiple problems connected to staying indefinitely in Hawaii, having been there for many years (especially Nelson), now that a baby was coming. How would this work?

The two of them were on call 24/7, overseeing the activities and whereabouts of all these young people while challenging them spiritually. Some of them preferred to break rules and do their own thing, requiring above-and-beyond attention from Nelson and Ann Sophie.

Every day the challenges were daunting and often exhausting, but the main campus counted on Nelson and his staff to see to it that each Kokua Crew member showed up daily to do the work they’d promised to do.

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February 17, 2022

I’m writing a bit this morning to process and pray about Kokua Crew and the future of it. What should we do about it?

There are lots of options, but it seems the writing is on the wall when YWAM is starting to charge them to participate… and quite a bit, according to some of the feedback we’re getting from those attending/starting in March.

Lord, what would you have the campus do? Stop Kokua Crew? Should we just make it no different from staff? It’s been super popular and getting more so all the time… then covid hit and we went back down. Now the numbers are back up and we have this immigration thing. Is it something to fight through or something to listen to? Are you saying something else?

Is Kokua Crew condoning the entitlement mentality that is so prevalent at this campus? What would YWAM Kona be like if we didn’t have Kokua Crew? Maybe that would be a way forward, like birthing pains into something harder but healthier.

I’m thankful for early mornings, Lord. For my girl sleeping in the next room, for our healthy baby boy growing inside her and how faithful you are to show your love for us in tangible ways that matter to us. Thank you for blowing away false ideas about you. Thank you for the work I have with Tim the electrician, the education it is, and the paycheck at the end of the time.

Thank you for the financial provision and the dream to build our own house all legal and up to spec. I never thought I would be able to do anything like that, just rehab an old one.

I pray for your leading today, for the appointment with Dr. Sira (OB doctor), and for the ability to stand up for what we believe is right with regard to the Kokua Crew and the medical care for our baby. I pray for peace, but where there is none, not to have that influence or divert us from the right thing. Amen.

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“I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you.” (Isaiah 48:17)

Nelson’s journal 2/9/22

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While tackling each day, all of them overloaded, Nelson has one thing in the front of in his mind: finding more room for God in his life. As he takes Step One toward becoming an electrician, he is “mostly confident” he’s doing the right thing. But there are other questions swirling around in his head, too, like what name to give their baby boy when he arrives.

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February 9, 2022

Jesus turned water into wine in John 2. It’s what I’ve been reading in my morning quiet times. I extended it, and Annso and I added a Sunday night prayer time to our week in an effort to make space for God to speak and to move. Making space for God, less for everything else.

Tomorrow I start work for Tim in an effort to become an electrician or at least just to follow the leading of God. It’s not even important, so far as I can tell, to know the outcome of the move, just to do the next right thing. I am mostly confident that starting work for him to learn the basics of wiring a house is “the next right thing.”

I’m a little scared to put myself under a “boss” with a start and finish time. I feel a little like the children of Israel asking for a king. “We want what the other nations have!” And they got what they wanted. Well, I’ll try it out anyway and trust you, Lord, with the balance. All we have is today.

Lord, I am so grateful for new things and that your leadings never really take the same shape. We are excited for our little baby, and I’m excited to be stretched in some ways. There is probably nothing worse for us humans than stagnation. I pray we would never get entitled or stagnant in our faith.

Thank you for leading us on. We don’t know the destination, but we know you are Who we want. I pray for wisdom like the older set prayed for us last night at the Tuesday meeting. I pray for wisdom and for tender hearts.

Thank you for our little boy who is coming into the world. I pray for a good name for him that we both like. I was wanting Willard Nelson Nyman out of respect for Papa, but Annso isn’t sure. Anyway, last night we came across Noah Nelson Nyman, which has a nice ring to it. I can get down with that.

I pray for a good name for him, Lord, but more, I pray for a ‘good name’ as your word tells it, meaning the reputation he’ll have. I’m thankful for the improved reputation I have after all those years of craziness. You changed everything, and I’m thankful for it.

I would like to pray about what to do with the extenders here with us in ywam. What can we do to value them, but not have anyone come to a place of entitlement? Should we cap the ‘time-in-a-row’ a person can live at Hale Ola? Should we move people to different rooms? Different buildings?

I pray also for young moms Annso can be friends with, once little Nel comes into the world. I pray that she would meet and like some women who are not in ywam or trying to advance their own kingdoms. I pray she could link up with girls who love you, Lord, so they can sharpen each other.

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“I will counsel you with my eye upon you.” (Psalm 32:8)

Nelson’s journal 2/7/2

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God is teaching Nelson flexibility in regard to making plans for the future. In this journal entry he’s bringing the past into the present, acknowledging that the Lord has led him through past years and would most likely lead him into the future. In a sense he’s reassuring himself that whatever he decides about the electrician’s job proposal (which he refers to as being “boxed in”), God will let him know what the best decision will be.

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February 7, 2022

I’m thinking about a new MacBook. Annso has been saying to do it for some time now. I’ve had this one for 10 years. It’s been that long since I was in the Titus project out in Montana, 2012.

I keep coming back to Hawaii and here we are now, all this time later. Ecclesiastes says, “When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider this: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, no one can discover anything about their future.” (Ecclesiastes 7:14)

We are in less control than we think. We move here and there, but really, God moves us or allows us to be moved around to suit the way he ordained for us. We can’t know the future, which is better for us anyway.

Lord, since you know already where we’ll go and what we’ll end up doing, I pray for the ability to wait on you instead of getting ahead or lagging behind. We want your best, Lord. As much fear as I can have about getting stuck or boxed in by new rules, I know you know…. and I’m grateful for that. 

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“In the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.” (Psalm 5:3)