bonjour family

Matthias:

As I was contemplating and praying about what I would do after my SOTB in 2001, I knew that God was calling me to YWAM Madison for various reasons. What was I going to do here? All i knew was that I was to serve the ministry and the vision of this base.

For the first two years I worked with the sotb. Once that commitment was over I knew that more of my giftings had to be used. Since that time I have been primarily working with our communications/pr department. My role has been creative - designing websites, flyers, advertisements, powerpoints, and other things - all with the final purpose of most effectively communicating YWAM Madison’s vision and goals.

Today my role has expanded to overseeing technology at our base - i am responsible for ensuring everything works - being a member of our leadership council, and heading up our ICS (integration, communication, strategy) team - trying to practically work out the vision that God has downloaded to our base.

Tracie:

Motherhood! That’s what I am doing right now. Oliver has been the main focus of my life but all of that is about to change. We are having a baby girl at the end of September, so two lovely children are going to be a huge part of my world.

I moved to Madison after living in the UK, Colorado, Hawaii and even Washington state. Madison is the place that I decided to settle…go figure! Now six years later I am married with children and still working with YWAM. I am helping a few amazing women pioneer our mercy ministry work here as we focus on women and children in crisis, HIV/AIDS, and homeless ministry in town.

Matt and I recently started to head up the youth group at our church as well and it’s been so good to connect locally. Now that owning a home, which we are working on religiously (huge remodeling project), and having children has caused us to carefully consider ministry in YWAM we have decided that we want to focus our vision locally where we live. This has been a huge adjustment for someone that was as “one the go” as myself.

Alongside of the work I am doing I am also learning to slow down and invest into what is around me. My family is a huge part of that. I am learning how to really engage with being a mom and a wife as well as using who I am to do what I do best. I’m being vague here but that’s ok. We’re still working life out. I will quote Ferris Bueller simply because he just doesn’t get quoted enough.

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t slow down and look around you could miss it”.