Recently...

I have so much to update… I think I’ll just give little paragraph snapshots of what’s going on in our world. It might seem a bit disjointed, but I want to share everything. And then I’ll start blogging more so I don’t have a month worth of updating to do next time!

Our Compassion DTS students arrived just over a week ago, from all over the globe, to spend six months dedicated to learning more about Jesus and sharing his love with the hurting and broken all over the world. There are 63 students total, ranging from 18-26 years old, and they are already making themselves right at home here at the U of N.

These Compassion DTS students are very busy. Their week includes, in no particular order: quiet times, worship, intercession, inductive bible study teaching, daily lectures, small groups, one on ones, community outreach, ohana contributions (these are their daily work duties), outreach preparation, journals, full campus worship services, and they sleep and eat in there somewhere too. The first few weeks of DTS are really tough as they adjust to living in community, possibly deal with homesickness, and are immediately thrown into a busy schedule where God starts working on their hearts right away. Please keep our students in your prayers as this DTS continues, that God would do amazing things in each of their lives during this time.

Johnny and I are involved on campus and in the DTS on different levels. Johnny is a part of everything that our students are doing, he has also been learning to run the sound system for our full campus gatherings (1,000 plus people!) and he will be running the sound by himself every Thursday this quarter, as well as helping out where needed during our YWAM 50th Anniversary Celebration in November. Needless to say, he is busy from sun up to sun down with his responsibilities on campus.

I am in a slightly different place now, having a toddler, and Ezra and I are finally settling into a rhythm. Our school leaders are wonderful and they have made it abundantly clear that they want me to have the freedom to be a mommy first, and that Ezra is my first priority. Therefore, Ezra and I spend a lot of our time on campus, but I have the freedom to come and go as his schedule for napping, meals, etc, necessitates. We make sure to be at any school function where Ezra will not be a distraction, for instance, I am co-leading a small group with another staff mom. We have six girls from four nations in our small group, and I will personally be one on one discipling three of them. It is a really great opportunity for me to get to know some of our students more intimately and I am so looking forward to those relationships! But we tend to spend time with the other mommies and toddlers on campus (usually at the playground) when our students are in lecture or any other class setting where Ezra might become a distraction. It has worked out really well, but I have to admit it is a strange feeling for me. I am very used to running schools and being a part of every event and every decision in regards to a DTS. I feel a little out of the loop sometimes and I miss getting as much quality time with my students, but I am so thankful for the flexibility I have here because I know that Ezra is supposed to be my first focus. Please pray that God would allow me to build great relationships with some of the other moms here on campus, as that is a very strong desire in my heart!

Johnny and I have been asked to lead an outreach team together to London and South Africa. We spent a great deal of time praying and discussing our decision and we have decided that Johnny will lead the team for the entire outreach, however Ezra and myself will only accompany the team to London for the first half. We wanted to wait until Ezra was a bit older to take him to South Africa. We are really excited for the opportunity to lead this team, and although it’s bittersweet for me to not be able to go on the entire outreach, I could not be more excited or proud of my husband for leading this team! He will do a fantastic job! Please pray that our team will be handpicked from the Lord and that our outreach contacts would lead to a fully booked outreach and that all of our finances would come in for the trip.

We had the opportunity to volunteer at the Ironman World Championship yesterday. Ezra and I started our day outside of our apartment, watching the bikers ride past our house. Then we went swimming at a place called, Children’s Beach and from where we were wading in the water we could see the athletes running their marathon. Then for the evening we went down to the finish line for our security shift, and our staff and students stood as a human wall almost at the finish line and got to keep pedestrians off the road, but also got to cheer and scream and encourage these world class athletes. It was so moving to watch their faces on the big screen as they crossed the finish line and realized what they had just done. Their dedication and ambition and courage is overwhelming. I am so glad we got to be a part of that experience!

We’ve only been here for just over a month, but Johnny and I feel so overwhelmingly blessed. We were scared and nervous to give up our entire life and come to a brand new place, but we knew it was right. In our heads. Now, after being here, our hearts know it too. We still get homesick, and everyday I miss someone that I love who is not here, but God has given us such a peace and assurance that this is where he wants us.

We have been warmly and lovingly received with open arms into this ohana (family) and we are so grateful to be a part of this dts and this campus. Our school leaders are phenomenal people and we are trying to learn as much from them as possible during this time.Our staff and our students love us and love our son and make sure that we know it everyday. We get to serve our students and then together we get to go overseas and serve people with the love of Jesus.

Sometimes I wake up and wonder what I did to deserve such an amazing job.

I am so thankful that I get to be a missionary.

I am so thankful that I get to raise my son in this beautiful cultural melting pot.

I am so thankful to be married to a man who loves Jesus so much.

I am so thankful for the freedom to worship my Jesus and share his love with others.

I am so thankful for this life I have been blessed with.

I am so thankful for this face.

I am so thankful.

Aloha from Kona!

Aloha to our dearest supporters and friends!

After several whirlwind weeks of preparations, planning and packing, we have arrived safe and sound in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. We have been here for two weeks now, getting settled in, having new staff orientation, and meeting a lot of fantastic people. It has been an overwhelming time, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. We have been so busy with preparations that I think the emotions of what we have just done, and what we are about to undertake , are just now setting in.

We love it here. The campus is very large, this fall there will be 1000+ people on campus, 300 DTS students (in 6 separate DTSes) alone! We are also preparing for the 50^th Anniversary of YWAM Celebration in November and over 4,000 people are expected to be on campus for the week!

Our little Compassion DTS family has 13 staff, plus 60 students and growing! We are right on track with preparations for the school to begin and are counting down the days until they arrive on September 30. We have already spent many hours together getting to know each other, praying with each other, and praying for our students and this upcoming school. We believe that God is going to do amazing things in our students lives as they give up 6 months for intense discipleship training and international ministry during outreach. We will send regular updates and prayer requests throughout the school and be sure to keep an eye on our blog as we will update that most frequently (www.koslowskisinkona.blogspot.com) .

If you have a second please pray for us as we continue to settle in, that we would feel at home, that we would develop deep relationships with other families on campus, and that God would equip us to disciple these students that he is entrusting to us for the next six months. Also please pray that Ezra will continue to adjust to his new life and that he will be health and happy and make lots of friends to play with! He started walking this week so we’re already chasing him around everywhere!

That’s our update for now, we will post pictures soon! The rest of this letter is financial information for those current supporters or people who are interested in joining our financial support team. If you are not a financial supporter, don’t feel any pressure to read the rest, but if you’re interested in our needs, then please feel free to read on!

We wanted to be sure to get information to our American supporters on how to switch your financial support to the Kona Campus. Below is information from donor processing here on campus, it outlines the different options for giving.

Things for donors to know:

• Make the check out to UNKF

• Do not put the our names on the check, but attach a sticky note that says “Kelsey Koslowski, missions account #5582.

• Mail the check to:

UNKF
75-5851 Kuakini Hwy #256
Kailua Kona, HI 96740

Every single month donor processing will send out tax receipts to all donors who gave that month. Once a donor is in donor processing records, using their receipt, they can:

• Mail the receipt and another check to donor processing, or

• Check the box to indicate that they would like to make a monthly gift debited to their checking account. They will attach a voided check to set this up. This is the best and simplest way to give if you are a monthly donor!!! Or,

• Check the box to indicate that they would like to make a monthly gift to my missions account on their credit card (this costs me an extra 3%)

*If you know right now that you want to set up automatic, monthly withdrawl from your checking account, or credit card, please let me know and I will email you the form that needs to be filled out. Otherwise, feel free to send your first check via snail mail and when you receive your receipt there will be an option to set up automatic withdraw.

• Lastly, if you are interested in setting up automatic payments through your personal online bill pay, please let me know, this is definitely available to you, but I have futher information I will need to give you. I will also set up a pay pal account soon so let me know if you prefer to use pay pal!

The donor processing office is available to all donors who have questions about the process, how to set it up, how to make changes to their support payments, etc. Please feel free to contact donor services. You can call 808.326.4428, you will reach Julie Lucas, or you can email her at donorprocessing@uofnkona.edu.

PLEASE DO NOT SEND ANY PERSONAL MAIL TO THE ABOVE ADDRESS! Mail sent to UNKF will go immediately to the donor process office. If you ever wish to send us mail, letters, cards, cookies, or otherwise, please send those things to:

Johnny and Kelsey Koslowski
75-5851 Kuakini Hwy #34
Kailua Kona, HI 96740

As we try to get all of our finances in order at a new location, there are a couple of things we wanted to note:

- If you are a current supporter, please send me an email just to let us know if you will be continuing your support, and feel free to begin sending checks, or set up direct deposit payments at your earliest convenience.

- If you are not a current supporter and would like to join our monthly support team, we welcome you with open arms! Our monthly expenses have increased by over $1,500 monthly between rent and health insurance alone, so we are looking to increase our monthly income! Just follow the above instructions for giving or feel free to contact us with any questions.

- We are always looking for one time donations to cover unexpected expenses, but especially now as moving across the country, and the pacific ocean, was a large expense. We are looking for around $2,000 in one time gifts to cover the expenses we have incurred in the past couple of months. We have an incredible team of supporters and you make it possible for us to be in ministry, we appreciate every single one of you!

- As always, any donations you make to us through the U of N are tax deductible and you will receive your receipts every month from now on! Please do not send us any checks made out to us personally unless you don’t care to receive a tax receipt.

- Please send us your email addresses. Many of you already have, but send them again just to be sure we have all of them! We want to finish compiling an email list so we can do monthly email updates. I know we’ve been promising this for a while, but we never seem to get the list completed. So send those emails to us (kelseykoslowski@gmail.com) and we will start those updates coming!

If you have any questions please feel fee to call (631.521.0364 or 631.942.2811), or email us (kelseykoslowski@gmail.com). We love to hear from you guys and always welcome your prayer requests and updates on your lives, we love to know how you’re doing! As mentioned earlier, please continue to check our blog, www.koslowskisinkona.blogspot.com, and if we’re not already friends with you on facebook, please friend us, we keep those pages updated daily with little happenings and fun pictures of what’s going on in our world!

Thanks for taking the time to read this! I know it was a lot of information. From now on our updates will be much more interesting and we will be sure to include pictures of the school and our students, etc. We are so blessed by each of you and could not be in ministry if it were not for you! God bless you and your families, we love you!

Blessings,

Jonathan, Kelsey and Ezra Koslowski

Tired...and Thankful.

I’ve been a “single mom” all week long. Johnny and David left last Sunday to drive our car to Los Angeles, and although I had an incredible time hanging out with people I love, I have to admit that I’m exhausted. Taking care of a toddler on your own is no small order. Therefore, I am excited to see my husband tomorrow for many reasons, but primarily I am excited to hand him his son and go take a nap. J (Just kidding babe!)

In other news…I’m sitting on mom’s couch in Indiana, I should be sleeping, but I’m not. Instead I just made macaroni and cheese. Yes… the processed, neon orange kind. I now feel sick to my stomach, I have to wake up in five hours, but alas I feel a blog coming on.

I fly to California tomorrow, with Ezra, to meet up with Johnny. We fly to Hawaii Tuesday, and get started settling in. Before I start posting pictures of Hawaii, and our new home and writing about all the stuff we’re doing, I wanted to give thanks to my Jesus for his faithfulness to us. The past several months have been a journey of faith and not once did we not feel God’s hand in it.

Thank you Jesus for calling us to Kona so clearly that we could not deny your voice.

Thank you for confirming that call to us through not one person, not two people, but through dozens and dozens of encounters, conversations, scriptures, and more.

Thank you for loving us and being gentle with us through this process, for allowing us and the Burd’s to see your plan unfolding for All Access and what we all needed in this time. Your gentleness is humbling and overwhelming.

Thank you for walking us through such an intense past two years, and allowing so much healing to come for me since our difficult pregnancy.

Thank you for my husband and my son who are the joy of my life. I don’t deserve them. I don’t know why I am so blessed. But I am so thankful to call them mine.

Thank you for providing for us financially in so many ways and for surprising us when we least expect it.

Thank you for giving us so many people to miss, because it means you gave us the gift of so many people to love!

Thank you for the support and love of our family and friends, we are abundantly blessed to have such a strong network of people who believe in us and pray for us and make it possible for us to be in ministry.

Thank you for our safety and our health.

Thank you for all of the little things you have done to make this season one of excitement and anticipation instead of fear and stress.

Thank you for loving us and for having a beautiful plan for our life. We desire only to follow your will and bring glory to your name.

So often we become overwhelmed with the stresses of life and the busyness of our days, we forget to be thankful for the small things. I don’t want to forget to notice these things, because it is so clear every single day, in our day to day life, that God adores us and is faithful to us. You don’t have to be moving 5.000 miles away from home for him to shower you with blessings, he adores you and delights in you and wants to give you more than you ever dreamed or imagined. But for him to be able to do that we must surrender our control.

This is a daily process for me, I am not even good at it yet, but the more and more that I try, the more I see how amazing our God is and it gives me courage to let go of my control just a little bit more. And that gives me more time and energy to put into being thankful.

Thank you Jesus. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

ready or not...

I’ve been struggling with what to write for a few days now.

I think it’s because this entire process is so surreal to me. Anyone who has picked up their entire life and moved to a new place, one they’ve never even visited, can probably understand.

This month has been a whirlwind and then yesterday we packed up our house, moved everything out, and our whole world changed.

But my poor brain is having a hard time computing everything.

I’m sitting on the Burd’s couch right now, hanging out with my friends, and I’m convinced (and Lola seems to be too…) that in a little bit I will get in my car and drive back to my pretty little house and go to sleep in our big king size bed.

But that is not going to happen.

Instead, we’re moving to Hawaii. Johnny leaves on Sunday to drive our car to California (we’re shipping it to Hawaii instead of having to find a car there) and I leave Tuesday to start my journey to meet him in LA before we fly to Kona.

This is our new reality.

Several times throughout the day I find myself trying to imagine what my life will look like a month from now, or two months from now. But I have no idea. And I’ve decided that’s just fine. Because my Jesus has asked me to surrender the life that I know and love for him, once again, and follow him on a new journey. And that means trusting that he has the very best for our family in mind, and I don’t need to know exactly what it’s going to be like. That’s the control freak in me. It’s okay for me to take it one day at a time, and allow God to surprise us with the beauty of a new journey.

I’m going to cry when I leave New York because I will miss so much that I can’t even begin to put it all into words.

And I think I might cry when we step off the plane in Hawaii because God asked us to do something, we listened, and has been so faithful to us every single step of the way.

If you know me at all, you know I’m a worrier and I struggle with taking risks because fear paralyzes me if I’m not careful. This move is one of the greatest risks Jesus has asked me to take in a very long time, and I am up for the challenge because of his strength, not my own.

I can’t wait to find out what our life in Hawaii will be like. I can’t wait to pour myself into a new ministry and serve in whatever way I am needed. I can’t wait to build relationships with the other staff and our students and I cannot wait to see what God is going to do in and through this school.

Thank you Jesus for letting me be a part of your eternal plan, I am humbled and overwhelmed by your trust in me and I will continue to share your love and fight to bring people back to your heart. I know I don’t deserve this incredible life you have blessed me with but I will continue cherish every second.

What a beautiful God we serve.

there's no place like home...

First things first...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY SWEET EZRA BRAYDEN!!!! I love you baby boy!

Next, as you all know, God has been challenging us with this radical shift in our lives. And we are excited and overwhelmed and ready. But one thing that I have been struggling with is desperately wanting a place to call home that could be a special place of love, and safety, and comfort for our little family. We knew that we needed to live on the YWAM Campus in Kona for at least the first several months and we were okay with this, but that longing never left my heart.

Yesterday, on a whim, I logged on to a website that tells all of the Kona campus news, has classifieds, and off campus housing ads. The top ad was for a one bedroom condo, owned by one of the staff families who has outgrown the space, and immediately I was in love. This tiny space has been well cared for and renovated, and comes FULLY furnished, down to the dishes and silverware in the kitchen! It is also within our price range and available at the end of this month, which is when we will arrive in Kona. I called the landlord at 1am last night, which is only 7pm in Kona, and spoke with him. Through a series of emails today it turns out that...

WE HAVE A NEW HOME!!!!!!

We are so blessed and so excited! The condo is located across the street from the campus and is a 10 minute walk from town. We have such an excitement because this provides a retreat for us in the midst of ministry, we know how important family time is when you are in ministry and living on a YWAM campus with some 700 people around all the time can become overwhelming. We are so thankful for this opportunity and truly feel like God is creating a sense of home in our hearts towards Hawaii, before we even step foot on the big island!

God has been so faithful in this process, there is not one second that we have questioned that this is his plan for our lives. How exciting to know that God is taking us on this journey! How lucky we are to serve him with our lives!

Now we are just hurrying to get all of our final details in place so we can get to Kona and prepare for our students, we will have between 55-70 students in our Compassion DTS alone, and with all of the DTS's combined there will be some 300 students! I cannot wait!

My heart is so full and so excited.

Seriously. How cool is God?

-K

who needs stuff anyways?

For the last couple of weeks we have been slowly selling most of our worldly possessions.

A kayak here, a couch there, a mini fridge and on and on.

This weekend we are having a garage sale and anything that doesn't sell is going to Goodwill. I have been trying not to get sad watching our things go, but I have to admit, it's not that easy. Not because I love things, I really, really don't. However, I have spent the last couple of years creating a home for Johnny, Ezra and myself, and it's a little sad and a little scary to let this home go, and not know what our new one will be like. It's scary to think about ALL the changes that are coming and the reality that almost everything we know is about to change.

As we get closer to moving, to starting a new chapter in our life, I get more and more excited, but there's a part of my heart that is breaking too.

I guess that's what living your life for Jesus is all about. Being willing to drop your nets and follow him. And, no matter how much you think you're leaving behind, if you follow Him, you're always headed somewhere far more incredible than a path you forged of your own accord. Sometimes I just need to be reminded of that.

Nets don't matter in heaven.

Neither do tv's or mattresses.

I just want to follow my Jesus.

-K

new beginnings...

28 days from now our world will change dramatically.

Most of you visiting this blog have read our newsletter, but for those of you who haven't I will post the text of the newsletter below, in green. If you've already received our newsletter, go ahead and scroll to the bottom of this post...

Hello to our beloved family and friends!

The last year and a half has been filled with seasons of intense change from pregnancy to parenthood, from being a part or Youth With A Mission Metro New York to an independent non-profit, All Access Productions. And now even more changes are upon us as a family and within our ministry.

We returned to New York in February and have been working hard on the administrative tasks required to get our new organization up and running so that we could begin active ministry once again. We are now in a place where we only have a couple of major projects left in the administrative process. But on top of the administrative tasks we have been doing, we have been on a journey, under the direction of our accountability leader, to find our long term vision and calling. He wanted us to explore these questions because they affect the future of All Access and the future of our families.

We could write pages about what God has spoken to us during these times but one of the major things we felt was that in this current season our focus needed to be on people over product. We believe that in ministry if you take care of your staff and place their needs first, the result will be stronger people and a stronger ministry.

Taking this to conversation we realized that our current situation was not placing people over product. We were pushing very hard to reach deadlines that other people had placed on us, instead of staying true to our original plan which was to take the necessary time to build our company, whether that was a year or longer. We began to see that as two families with children and no other staff , we could not properly take care of our families and take care of All Access, especially with Rebecca’s health still struggling. We sought wise counsel and each person we spoke with confirmed that the right thing to do was to allow All Access to move at a pace that was realistic with the understanding that during that season our families had different needs.

Dan and Rebecca will be staying on Long Island and they will be continuing to work on administrative work for All Access as Rebecca’s health allows, with no timelines or deadlines to stress her out or make her more sick.

Rebecca will still be near all of her specialists and will be able to continue her many therapies so that she can gain total health as quickly as possible. We could not be more excited for them as they move to a new home and are able to focus their energies primarily on their boys and Rebecca’s health, without the stress of completing All Access work too quickly. We know this is going to be a season of healing and growth for all of them!

What does that mean for us? We're glad you asked!

We have both been feeling God shift our focus and our passions for the past few months, and did not realize the journey God was about to take us on. We have both been feeling a desire to learn what it means to love people the way Jesus loves them and to serve them the way he wants us to. Johnny has also been feeling that he wants to gain more experience and education in biblical counseling so that he can utilize one of his major gifts even more effectively. And we both have had an increasing desire to be a part of a vibrant ministry community again, doing active ministry on a daily basis.

God has lead us very specifically and clearly to join the staff of the University of the Nations in Kona, Hawaii for at least one year. The University of the Nations is the largest YWAM ministry in the world and it has opportunities for us to serve in ministry as well as the potential for further educational courses that Johnny can take in biblical counseling. There are approximately 700 staff and students on campus year round and dozens of families with young children which we are very excited about!

We will be joining the DTS department as staff for the Compassion Focused DTS which begins in late September. We will have between 50-60 students and we have the opportunity to go on outreach with our students to Cambodia, Rwanda or other outreach locations. Our exact roles in the school will be determined during staff training in early September, but we have told the directors that we desire to serve in whatever capacity they need us. The directors, Pieter and Dawn Heres have been wonderfully encouraging to us and told us during our first skype meeting that they had not only been praying for more staff, they had been praying for a married couple to join their staff, and that we were an answer to their prayers.

We know that this is something God wants us to be a part of and we are so excited to pour into our students lives and to reach out to the hurting and the lost and show them the love of Jesus!

Excerpt from the Compassion DTS website:

“Compassion DTS aims to address issues of poverty and injustice in a world gone wrong. We believe God has called us to champion the cause of those in need. We desire strongly to be a voice of the voiceless. If you have a courageous heart, and a burning desire to see God's love spread abroad.... come join us!

This YWAM-DTS is a journey to discover God's heart for you and the world around you. It will give you deeper understanding of the ways of God and amazing opportunities to show His love and compassion. It is purposed to move you to acts of kindness and love to children at risk, the poor and the oppressed.”

We are still involved in the process of All Access, and have no doubt that in God’s timing All Access will return to the schools, but for this season we will take more of a supporting role in that process. Kelsey will be involved in the final administrative projects and will be communicating with Rebecca via the internet and phone meetings to complete those tasks. We both remain as All Access board members and as a family we will remain in prayer as to what our future involvement will be with All Access. But for this season, both ourselves and the Burd’s have total peace that this move is from the Lord and we could not be more excited.

All of this has happened very quickly and we have been praying that if this is the Lord that things would fall into place, and so far every single detail has done exactly that. There are still many things to figure out, but we are trusting the Lord and he has been so faithful.

We could go on and on about all of the little details that are working out beautifully, but the most important part to us is the intense peace and excitement that we have for this new season. We cannot wait to see the lives he will use us to impact. We want you to be a part of each step of this process so we have started a blog that we will update regularly to share our experiences with you. Everything from the journey to get to Kona, to the students that we will work with to the experiences we will have on outreach. Please visit our blog regularly at, www.koslowskisinkona.blogspot.com.

We ask for your continued prayer and financial support as we transition into this exciting new season. For those of you who support us financially, or are interested in joining our financial support team, the following information is very important:

CANADIAN SUPPORTERS: If you are a current Canadian supporter, nothing will change on your end. YWAM BC will just be sending our support to us in our new location. If you are newly interested in joining our Canadian support team, please email us and we will send you the necessary information to begin sending support.

AMERICAN SUPPORTERS: If you are a current American supporter or wish to join our American support team, as of September our money will be processed by the University of the Nations. The process is different than that of YWAM NY, but we will not have all of our new financial information for a couple of weeks. Therefore, please visit our blog in August as we will post all necessary information there. If you are a current financial supporter, we will also get in touch with you directly to make sure you have received the information.

Thank you so much for your years of faithful prayer and financial support. We know that this is the next step that God has for us in ministry, we could not do it without you,we appreciate you so much.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at, jonathankoslowski@hotmail.com, or kelseykoslowski@gmail.com or call us at 631.942.2811.

Please pray for us as we prepare for this move that the Lord would provide for us, but that he would continue to give us his peace and that he would draw us nearer to his heart every day as we prepare to pour into students lives once again. Also pray that stress would stay at a minimum and that especially Kelsey, would not allow fear or anxiety to enter her mind. Also pray for Ezra for traveling mercies and health and for a smooth transition into a brand new phase of life.

We love each and every one of you and recognize that our ministry is only possible because of you. We hope that you are as excited about this new opportunity as we are!

Love and Blessings,
Jonathan, Kelsey and Ezra

So this is the new adventure that we are embarking on. Please check back here regularly for updates, pictures, prayer requests, and more!

We love you!

Johnny, Kelsey and Ezra