Beginnings

Chelsea Chaisson
Jan 14, 2018
7 min read

Galatians 5: 25 “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” I am sitting in a hallway listening to my roommate from South Korea play Beethoven on piano in our communal prayer room. Right above me I notice pictures from YWAM outreaches to various isolated people groups. The pictures showcase joy, children, mothers, babies, balloons, a ship, and water. Today is Jan 10th Wednesday, I haven’t even been here a full week. I arrived last Friday, yet, it feels like I have lived here almost my entire life. No place feels too big, too small, or not mine. Strange to say, but I truly feel the invitation of the Holy Spirit to live, move, and walk among these campuses as though I belong here. Some logistics on life here: I am living in Kona Hawaii. YWAM here has two different campuses. Their larger campus is called UofN (University of the Nations), it’s huge, has an Ohana Court where we worship, listen, and pray corporately outside with the beautiful and strong ocean breeze as our aircon. There the flags are raised from every 50 something nations represented in our quarter. Missionary kids roam around while they aren’t at school, young people gather together to pray, encourage, talk, jam, play chess, you name it. On this base there is a 24/7 Day and Night Prayer room with actual aircon as it is indoors. The UofN houses hundreds, with a Crossfit gym, Pig Farm, Free Boutique (free stuff like books, bikes, bags that missionaries leave behind for one another to have), and so much more. I am still discovering the place. Although we spend some time at the UofN, my base gets the “best of both worlds”. We live on another, much smaller, base across the street from the ocean. We get the best view of the sunset, and our classroom’s windows give us nice lighting for lectures/class/intercessory prayer. Our base has a pool directly in the center, which I enjoy lap swimming/ cooling off in. Our base is called YWAM Ships base, it houses around 100 or less of us. We have around 50 students in our DTS (Discipleship Training School), with many staff members. The vibe is very Holy Spirit FREE. The staff don’t wear shirts to differentiate themselves from us, we are all infiltrated together. We eat together, have class together, debrief together, ride to the Upper Campus (UofN) or walk (25mins) together… All staff members have done a DTS before and are full of wisdom, stories, and passion for God. They are mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers. All students in DTS currently do not know FOR SURE where God will send them on outreach, but the excitement already is in the air. Each day we discover knew things about one another, we find out we share similarities in callings, giftings, workout routines, you name it. We are in our beginnings, and everyone is gelling pretty well. We have Canadians, Koreans, Europeans, Americans, Husbands, Wives, Spanish speaking, French speaking, dentists, nurses, students, and some of us keep re-meeting each other, as the names are hard to catch all at once. I’ve come to already love many as I have prayed for them, with them, have been prayed for by them…mainly, I have asked Jesus that I might see them the way He does…from their heart (not as man sees from the outer-see Samuel Bible reference). To live in a community where the hunger is deep and to have Father God align all of our stories to intersect for such a time as this, helps me to open my arms wide and want to embrace new friendships, sisterhoods, mentorships, and mother-daughter relationships. I am in a new family. I see those I’ve said goodbye to in many of their faces, mannerisms, hair styles…it feels as though God has given me truly into a family I am already somehow, by the Spirit, familiar with. The word family has the short phrase “ILY” in it-I Love You. Back in Louisiana, I noticed this just before saying my farewells after Christmas. In our communal prayer room back at the YWAM Ships Base, there is a painting that states “OHANA means family, family means no one left behind or forgotten”. In our community I truly believe that in our lecture phase (AKA “To know God” time), we are all inreaching before outreaching and are not leaving one another behind nor or we forgetting our new neighbors. Things here are done together, not alone. I am taking time with the Lord each morning and maybe have spent a few hours here and there between days in some quiet spaces, but for the most part, I have opened my arms to being embraced and to embracing, and that is perhaps why I feel I have lived here for so long already. If you can’t tell by reading this thus far, I am enjoying my time here. Not simply because all of the people are radical in their own way (I believe God is hiding behind some if not most of the words they speak therefore they are all the more interesting to hang with), but I believe the Lord sent me here and because He sent me here, He invited me to be with HIM, where He is/was. I hear this from the Holy Spirit often. “Sleep when Jesus is asleep, wake up when Jesus is awake, dream when He dreams, eat when He eats, walk when and where He walks, and more.” I know God was with me in Louisiana as I was youth pastoring for four years, because I was where He was for my life and that season. I also know that He is with me here and now in Kona, Hawaii, because He beckoned me to come and follow Him here. At the end of September 2017 I had a radical and I MEAN RADICAL encounter with the Lord and the Holy Spirit. Basically, I felt all I had been working towards, all of my plans, dreams, goals, possessions, were meaningless in comparison to hearing God’s voice and letting Him have ALL and I mean ALL of the CONTROL. It was a relinquishing of control, a crushing of the fear of man, a time of prophetic words that I am still perplexed by…it was a moment that I believe I am on a journey of a lifetime to discover the beautiful God who met me in such a tangible and unforgettable way. Do you know what He did? For 8 years I studied the French language and in my own effort and hard work, I was going to be a French Missionary one day for the Lord. This is what God did in end of 2017, God said to me, “start aiming your arrow higher Chelsea, you will be surprised, you will hit ‘unintentionally’ the francophone as has been in your heart and much more. The specific is the PACIFIC. It’s an Ocean much larger than the Atlantic and there are islands with unreached and reached people groups that you are to go into. Preach the Gospel, baptizing people in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…I will be with you, do not fear.” I loved the French people. I still do. Ever since I relinquished my desire and dream to evangelize that people group, I have met many many many French speaking people since and have been able to communicate more effectively and confidently in French with them than ever before in my life. There is a freedom I now believe I am walking in that I have not before. Now, with the French, over the years, I came to learn the dialect and French slang from Nova Scotia, Quebec, France, and Louisiana. I knew these people, had contacts, missionary and school chaperoning invitations, by man and my own way-an open door. However, in 2013 when I wanted to first join YWAM and head to Switzerland for a French DTS, that door was practically NOT EVEN EXISTENT, let alone I couldn’t have tried to pry that door open. When the specifics about the Pacific were clearest from the Lord, the door swung wide open and I have been able to ride such a beautiful wave ever since. I used to think God made me Native American, tan, athletic, French speaking, to minister to French, Native American, tan, and athletic people. HAHAH Now as I have walked and lived among YWAMers (as we are called) and have sat in classes, lectures, times of worship, and in a celebration of the nations represented here, I am in awe at how many beautiful people groups, don’t look like me, aren’t the same ethnicity as me, nor speak the same languages as myself, and yet I believe the Lord is inviting me into their clan, their worlds, their families, not in my own effort, not in my genes, but because of a simple invitation from the Lord. I thought it was easier to be a missionary if you looked like and lived among the people you were ministering too. Now I know, people are very responsive to humble, unqualified, culturally peculiar, language barrier, radical missionaries than they are to someone who isn’t themselves and are trying to be exactly like the ones they want to lead. My “call” to the Pacific was a loud one. Something that resonates in my Spirit even now is that God just wants me. Chelsea Chaisson to come as she is. To stop for the one and love the one in front of me-I just need to be a willing and available vessel, God will do the rest and get the ultimate glory. So much more to write on. For now a nice cliff hanger until next time…2 words: The Marshallese.........

Letters from staff and students DTS Quarter 1 YWAM Ships

First assignment book report due Jan 22

Loren C. YWAM Founder casting vision re: business and gov,t.

Follow us from these links and upper campus University of the Nations posts live videos when we gather corporately Monday AMs and Thursday PMS (Prayer room 24/7 at UofN may have videos too) just Google us!