Wow. God has been taking me on a wild ride over the last few years, and He has been turning up the heat in the last several months. For most of my life I’ve desired to serve in ministry in a consistent capacity, but I never really saw how that could happen. Life always seemed to be pulling me in too many directions. Over the last few years, God started growing in my heart the desire to do foreign missions, but once again I didn’t see how that could be practical and there didn’t seem to be any open doors. Nonetheless, the desire continued to grow and I spent many months searching to find the right opportunity. In God’s sovereignty I came across Youth With A Mission. I felt God calling me to close the chapter I was in, and lay aside my constant desire to know the future  and have each detail planned out for my life. So I worked hard, saved, and in January 2019 I left my job as a dental hygienist and packed my bags for New Zealand. I planned to be away with YWAM for the next 5 months and after that I had no idea what God wanted me to do. I was completely at peace that he would show me the next step when the time was right. I found that God was leading me away from what was practical or realistic and into what seemed radical and impractical. 

Now if you’ve known me for a while, then reading the above paragraph would surprise you. The Amy of childhood, teen years, and young adulthood not only didn’t have any ambitions to travel, but wouldn’t even consider the idea of living out of state away from her family. SO to say God has been working on my heart is putting it mildly. I’ve come to a place where I have fully surrendered my life into God’s hands (this is a daily choice I have to make that doesn’t come easily) and if that means traveling across the world for a few years or lifetime I will joyfully do it. My heart longs to see the love of my Lord spread to the nations. During my time away with YWAM God spoke into my life in ways I never dreamed of. I felt God firmly impressed on my heart that he wants me to pursue a life in vocational ministry (at least for the next few years) particularly through the ministry at YWAM Marine Reach. The staff at Marine Reach will help guide me in the role of being a disciple and servant as well as learning to step out and humbly lead in the areas God’s gifted me in. 

I was in New Zealand for 3 months for the lecture phase of YWAM’s discipleship training school after which I spent 2 months in a 3rd world country applying the things I had learned. The school is focused on building a deeper personal relationship with God. Over the course of 12 weeks we learned about a new topic each week. For example we had one week on The Father Heart of God, Your Identity In Christ, The Holy Spirit, Evangelism, Hearing God’s Voice and so forth. Each week we had a new guest speaker who taught us with passion and dedication. 

Every student is assigned a mentor that meets with them weekly to see how they’re doing and push them to dig deeper to be all that they can be in Christ; leaving nothing behind. My mentor was an epic woman of God who actively demonstrated what it means to lay down your life for Christ and love your neighbor as yourself. My mentor challenged me and asked more of me than I had been willing to ask of myself. She also sought to bring out the gold in me, she continually reminded me of what God’s word says about me and she never ceased to point me back to the endless love of Christ. 

As I walked through each week, God would reveal new areas of my life that I had not fully surrendered to him. God revealed the parts of my heart that held onto old hurts, unforgiveness, misplaced identity, insecurities, pride, and fear. Each week I would be asking myself how I was going to change, what “I was” going to do to “fix” all my problems. Week in and week out our teachers and leaders would remind us that everything they knew or had grown in came from a place of intimacy with God the father. I wanted a shortcut. I wanted a checklist of how to be the perfect christian. Even though my head knew that isn’t how God operates I still felt my heart seeking that. 

Slowly, the wisdom of those who have gone before me started to sink in. I stopped striving to “fix” myself and spent more and more time with Jesus. I would go on walks, lay on the grass and listen to worship music. I would journal, pray and wake up extra early to read my bible. Little by little I started seeing the walls around my heart crumble, the scars in my heart started healing and my hunger and passion for my Lord was growing. The more time I spent with Jesus the more I knew him and the more I wanted to be like him. I found myself being willing to go outside my comfort zone and love myself and those around me in a deeper way. I realized that the actions I was taking to deepen my relationship with Christ were not coming from a place of me wanting to look like a super christian and impress those around me with my efforts, but from a heart that truly just wanted to spend time with my Lord to get to know Him more. 

There is so much more that I want to share! My heart is bursting with stories from both my time in NZ as well as my time in Vanuatu (YouTube: Mission Work In Vanuatu), the 3rd world country I had the privilege of sharing God’s love with. Please feel free to message, text, email, or setup a time to meet up with me. If you would like to hear more about what God has been doing in my life or if you have any interest in pursuing a time set apart with God to do a DTS yourself. 

Okay. So now I have to do the hard part of writing this letter. I need to ask for help. God is calling me to lay down my trust in myself to provide for my needs and trust him to provide for me. Would you pray about partnering with me to live out God’s mission for my life? Starting in September, I will be heading back to New Zealand. I’m so excited that I will be spending 3 months doing a second level Bible school with YWAM! I will get to dive deeper into the context and history of the bible through lectures and small group studying. In addition, I will be serving full-time in the ministry at YWAM Marine Reach New Zealand in January 2020 (Website: Marine Reach). In order to do this I need partners to help support me as this is a completely volunteer position. I have the opportunity to devote the next 2 years of my life to helping others come to the same life saving knowledge of Christ’s love and sacrifice for them, but it comes at a cost. I have to lay down my hope in earthly things and pray that my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ will rally around me to make this precious dream come true. 

So let’s talk numbers… Overall, I need to raise around $12,000 to cover my expenses for room/board, transportation, health insurance, visa’s, toiletries and basically everything that a person needs to have to live for 1 year (half of my 2 year commitment). For one person $12,000 is quite a lot of money, but if you break that down, I need about $1,000 a month. If 20 people partnered with me at $50 a month for the next year 12 months that would completely cover my expenses. I would ask that you pray about a number. I would be so blessed by anything that God puts on your heart; so whether that is a one time gift of $7.00 or monthly commitment of $3.50 it doesn’t matter. The breakdown above is just to give you an idea that this is possible. ANY and all gifts (PRAYER or financial) whether one time or monthly would be an incredible blessing to me! Thank you so much for your time in reading this and considering joining me in what God is doing in the hearts of his people.

For those looking to join me in monthly partnership please email amyhulehan@gmail.com to let me know the amount you plan to give and when you plan to begin your donation.