Our Mission in Australia

9 minute read

Hey, everyone! It’s been a long time since an update. We hope you are all well. In this update you’ll read:

• Western Australia + Australian Lockdowns
• Worship Ministry and Songwriting
• Speaking on the Discipleship Training School
• Speaking on Youth Camp
• Life with “Our Babies”

Western Australia + Australian Lockdowns

We’ve been blessed here in Australia to have very few COVID-19 cases in comparison to the rest of the world. We’ve had a total of 4 lockdowns in Western Australia (our state) since the pandemic began.

This is obviously quite mild in comparison to many situations globally. What is quite strong though are the Australian and West Australian borders. The borders to Australia are shut, and if one leaves, there isn’t a chance that they’ll get back in very soon. The borders are completely shut to those residing in the USA. Western Australia has some of the strongest borders in the world, and there have been many situations where WA residents will have long delays in their return home.

All this to say, we are prayerful for the borders to open sooner than later. We’ve heard rumors of 2022, which we must say, is an incredibly difficult thought. Abi’s parents still haven’t met Lily, and we would love to visit you all in the USA. It simply isn’t an option for us right now, as we would have no guarantee to be able to return all together to Australia. We do miss you all, and appreciate your prayers!

Since we haven’t been able to go to the nations, our ministry focus as Youth With A Mission, Perth has been in Perth, Western Australia, and Australia. We’ve sent teams to all of those places, but the Gaytons personally have been doing ministry in Perth. Such as…

Worship Ministry and Songwriting

We’ve been keeping up with our songwriting, and we’re slowly building a collection to record and release. We’re really liking some of the songs that are coming out of it. We’re looking forward to showing them to you all! We

Much of life right now looks like songwriting, serving the staff and students on base by helping cook and clean (all ministries are doing this weekly right now), and leading worship. Joel also organises our worship team, facilitates our meetings, and repairs and purchases equipment for the worship ministry. We recently had a focused time of prayer to trust for more finances to replace a lot of equipment (much of our equipment is quite old and consistently breaking or giving us issues), and God provided finances for some new stuff! This is very exciting for us! This new equipment will serve the base for many years to come and we won’t have as many technical issues as we’ve been having. Abi is also rocking the mommy life throughout the week (so grateful for fun playgrounds!), but the babies do tag along with us at the base as well.

Teaching on Discipleship Training School

I (Abi) taught on one of our Discipleship Training Schools (DTS) this past May. I spoke for five days on worship and prayer. This was the second DTS that’s been run since April of 2020 (usually YWAM Perth runs multiple DTSs every three months), so it was exciting to be teaching again! It was nice to mix up the normal routine, and also to recall all the things I’ve learned about worship and prayer over the years and pass on that knowledge. I really enjoy teaching!

Speaking on Youth Camp

At the start of this month, we as a family traveled 1.5 hours south of Perth to serve at a youth camp. It was a 4-day long camp, where the youth played lots of games but also listened to teaching from me (Abi). I was asked to speak about being “unswerving” in our relationship with God. I’d never taught on anything like that before, but as I sat to prepare, God helped me remember all kinds of stories of His faithfulness, and how He taught me how to be faithful as well. I shared lots of stories how God has shown me His personal love for me, as well as how He’s spoken to me in the normal day-to-day life.

One youth didn’t know Jesus, and didn’t feel like they could relate to the teaching. They were growing up in a difficult situation, and didn’t think God could really love them, or that they could really trust God to be good. On the last day of the camp, one of the staff shared something with them that only God could have known, and this camper that had previously been making fun of other campers with their arms crossed, had tears in their eyes and started to believe that God really could love them. Wow wow wow! I believe that little seed is going to grow! There were also many other campers who were encouraged and made new commitments in their walks with the Lord.

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Life with “Our Babies”

“Our babies.” That’s what we call them! Levi consistently gathers his soft toys, which he calls, “my babies” sets them up for picnics in the living room or breakfast around the table, and puts them to bed. “Shhh, be quiet… my babies are sleeping!” he tells us!

It’s very busy with our babies, because they are gifted with adventure and energy! For a long time the first thing Levi said to us in the morning was, “Mom/Dad will you chase me?” Levi will be 3 in September, and Lily is nearly 8 months. She’s crawling around everywhere and now pulling herself up on everything!

There isn’t a lot more to say except for they’re amazing, they bring us a lot of joy, and here’s a ton of photos!

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Prayer Points

• Comfort as we continue to deal with hard borders and missing family and friends
• Wisdom and strength as we raise our children and grow together as parents and a couple
• Our children to continue to grow strong in every way
• Wisdom, creativity, and inspiration as we write songs
• Youth campers and DTS-ers to keep growing in their relationship with God

Thanks for taking time to read, and we especially thank you for your prayers and support!

With love,

Abi, Joel, Levi, and Lily