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
