[Disclaimer: this post has nothing to do with basketball]

Wasn’t it just yesterday we took our Christmas decorations down? Ah no, that was 2 months ago! Oops! As the saying goes, “Time flies when you’re having fun!” The Randerson Ohana has proven that saying to be true thus far in 2016. The time is literally flying by, so it’s time for an update!

We are excited to announce that our family will be in Washington this summer! We’ll be in Whatcom County from June 5th to July 1st. Our first trip back in 3 years!! It’s going to be great to catch up with friends and family. Of course, there’s no way we can spend individual time with everyone, so we plan on having an open house style event. Details will come later, so you can save the date in your calendars.

An update on Paul’s role: at the end of last year, Paul stopped doing the accounting for two local ministries, and began serving in a new ministry called Chosen & Dearly Loved. “Chosen” focuses on orphans with special needs. Paul is really enjoying working there, and his accounting gift has been really appreciated,  as this ministry continues to grow. For more info on Chosen, check out their website at www.chosenanddearlyloved.org.

Paul has also been involved again with the Justice Ships DTS which has been running since the beginning of January at Port YWAM, our “twin” base just down the road from the University of the Nations. The school was again led by Sean. We’ve known Sean and his family since 2002. Paul really enjoys working alongside him, and working directly with a school. It’s quite a bit of extra work though, so doing it once a year is enough! The school has an amazing group of students and staff. Outreach teams will be leaving soon for Panama, Haiti, Germany, Togo, Papua New Guinea, California and South-East Asia. A few of the teams are staying longer than the required 8 weeks of outreach. The Cambodia team is doing a 9-month outreach!

The student call center continues to operate from the DTS office. This is the second quarter it has run, and it really is such a valuable thing to be calling all applicants promptly after they start their applications. This quarter, the call center was managed by another staff, who did an excellent job! Paul was able to teach the call center crew on personal fundraising, taxes and finances. Please pray for someone to lead the call center for the April quarter!

This month has been particularly mad! Two sets of visitors at the same time, combined with Paul’s crazy time for teaching. Paul’s brother Dave, his wife Tiffany, and their 2 kids were here. At the same time, friends of ours from Lynden were here too, so we did our best to get quality time in with both visitors. Paul also had to juggle his regular training sessions: training the April school leaders on finances, and training the January outreach teams on outreach finances. He was also invited to speak in a debrief, preparing the students for life after DTS.

YWAM Kona continues to focus on Bible Distribution as one of it’s core initiatives. Our teams are currently distributing bibles in Nepal, in some of the most difficult areas in the world to reach. Outreach teams are being trained for this purpose: both in how to do this, as well as receiving physical training to do this at altitude….remember, Himalayas! It’s not just giving people bibles. It’s interacting with them and praying for them at the same time. Teams have found people eager for God’s word, and there have been many testimonies of God working through this work.

Click this link to watch a great testimony about Bible Distribution [Facebook video].

For more of what YWAM Kona is doing, “like” them on facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/ywamkona. Here’s another example. One of our DTS’s ran a local outreach at Josiah’s high school last week. So amazing!

Thanks for reading our update! We hope you are doing well. We’d love to hear from you too. Let us know if you have any specific prayer requests that we can be praying for.

God Bless you.