Compassion DTS and beyond...

A couple of weeks ago a woman who was 38.5 weeks pregnant ran, and completed, the Chicago marathon. She then promptly went into labor and had her baby that night. I am currently 38.5 weeks pregnant and I can't imagine how she did it, and how tired she must still be. I will not attempt anything nearly as outrageous as running a marathon so late in my pregnancy (or probably ever for that matter...) but I figured if she could run a marathon, I could update our ministry blog before this little guy makes his appearance! :)

This fall has already been a whirlwind for our family. Johnny was asked to not just staff the Compassion DTS, but was asked to be the co-leader for the school. We talked and prayed and decided that he should take that new role of leadership, so he is now helping to lead 20 staff and 80 students. He is doing an amazing job leading with his servants heart and his love for people and has earned the respect of everyone who works with him. I am incredibly proud of him and I am so thankful for this leadership opportunity for him and also that he gets to work alongside such fantastic leaders/mentors who have already taught him so much!

Lecture phase is currently underway and the students are experiencing life changing lectures from incredible speakers addressing various topics. Just last week the students found out which of the ten outreach destinations they will be traveling to! It's an exciting time to be a part of the University of the Nations here in Kona and we are thankful for the opportunity to play a small role in it.

We will be in Kona until February, at which point we are praying for the finances to send Johnny on some pastoral visits to a few of the outreach teams. It would be an incredible experience for him and the teams really benefit from having one of their leaders spend some time with them while they are on outreach. Having a leader visit is a time of refreshment and encouragement for the staff who are on outreach, and also for the students. Our prayer is that Johnny, who is so gifted in counseling and encouragement, would be able to go and bring energy and passion and excitement to the teams when they may be feeling the exhaustion that can come along with outreach. Please join us in praying for this to be possible!

Johnny should be done visiting teams by mid to late February at which point we will be making another HUGE change. As I mentioned in my previous blog, we knew that God was calling us back to ministry with the Performing Arts Discipleship Training School, but we didn't know exactly what that meant. In the past couple of months it has become quite clear that we are to join the staff of YWAM Orlando, Florida, and help them pioneer a PADTS, along with training them how to do outreach into the public schools, like we were doing in New York. We have been in communication with the leadership there for a number of years because they had an interest in us training them to run the PADTS, and it became quite clear while talking with them this summer, that this was exactly what God has for us next.

So in March, we will be moving to Orlando, and joining their staff team, taking a 12 week School of Ministry Development (which is required for all of their staff) and then jumping into preparations and planning to launch a new Performing Arts Discipleship Training School! We are so excited to be working with artists again and there are not enough words to describe how thrilled we are to be preparing to go back into the public schools, with No More Victims!

God has taken us on an incredible journey the last year and Kona has been the absolute right place for us. It has NOT been easy at times but it has been an incredible time of watching Johnny's confidence in leadership grow and a time for me to really focus on my family. As we look to a new season in Orlando, we again face many challenges and changes but we take with us so many lessons learned and such an excitement to now have the opportunity to lead together in ministry as a couple! God has been faithful to our family in incredible ways and we do not question his call, we say YES we will go where he sends us and we cannot wait to see how he uses us!

As we get closer to our move to Orlando, we will keep you updated on details, however right now we are choosing to focus on the season we are currently in. Giving our attention to the Compassion DTS and to Ezra and the new baby that will be joining our family any day now. We ask for your prayers as we fulfill our commitment here in Hawaii and then prepare for another new and exciting season. We are so thankful for this life we have been called to, and for how God continues to provide for us in every way. This includes being eternally grateful for each of you who takes the time to pray for us and encourage us and support us, our ministry would be impossible without you. Thank you for loving our family and for believing in the call that God has put on our lives!

We truly love all of you!
Kelsey, Johnny, Ezra and Baby K

p.s. I have felt very compelled to use my love for writing on a more regular basis, and have been keeping a writing blog. It is a combination of posts about our everyday life, or something God has put on my heart, or sometimes a short story. If you are interested, I would love for you to follow that blog as well as this one, you can find me at... www.thegingerminstrel.wordpress.com . Happy reading!

ministry. babies. and more ministry.

I love working in ministry. Even more specifically, I love working in the area of discipleship.

I love being a part of someone's journey to gain intimacy with God and out of that intimacy, to watch them change the world around them. God has put an even deeper love for discipleship into both of our hearts over this past year in Kona. We knew that we loved the Discipleship Training School model and what it does to radically change peoples lives. But in the last year we began to feel specifically that discipleship was a long term call on our lives. We have had the wonderful opportunity to staff both a Compassion focused DTS last fall and a Performing Arts DTS this past Spring.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, Johnny has taken more of a front seat in regards to daily ministry with the students, while we, along with our leaders, felt that I was to take on a smaller ministry role so that Ezra, and also Baby K on the way, could be my main focus. And over the past season, for both of us, God has confirmed to us in so many ways that our calling as a couple is to disciple young people and help equip and prepare them for ministry. Whether it be in a traditional mission field overseas, or in the high schools of America, or helping our own children grow up with a heart and passion for the Lord and a desire to serve Him. We feel that one of the main purposes of our time so far in Kona was to recognize this passion for discipleship and to allow God to unfold how this was going to play out into our long term ministry. We have, of course, staffed and lead DTSes for many years, but it wasn't until recently that we realized that this is something we are certain we want to invest in long term. There are many opportunities within YWAM outside of DTS, so we have always been open to any direction in which God would move us, but he has made it clear that until further notice, DTS will be our focus.

We also had the wonderful opportunity to return to the world of discipling performing artists this past spring. Our PADTS team is currently on outreach in South Korea. We again did not get to go on this outreach because of my pregnancy, but we are itching to get back on outreaches as soon as possible! A growing family makes going on outreaches more challenging but we LOVE the opportunity and we love that our kids will grow up with these experiences! We are realizing more and more how special the hearts of performing artists are and how unique they are. Also, how powerful they are in this world where the arts play such a huge role. We have found ourselves missing being in the middle schools and high schools with our team of artists and with our message of putting and end to school violence and bullying but also the message of worth and value that so many kids around the world need to hear. We feel God leading us back to PADTS leadership sometime soon, although the details of how that will happen are not clear yet, but we are waiting and listening and trying to take advantage of the incredible leaders and staff and students that we have worked with and will work with through the end of this year.

So what does that mean for the upcoming seasons in our lives? thanks for asking!

We are committed to staffing the Compassion DTS again this fall. Well, let me clarify, Johnny will be staffing the school and I will be having a baby and focusing mainly on that for the fall quarter. We absolutely love and respect the leaders of the Compassion DTS in Kona, it is an honor to work from them and learn from them and we are beyond excited to be involved in the school again this fall!

After the New Year, when the teams from Compassion leave for outreach, we will once again not be traveling with them because we will have a newborn. Our hope is that this is the last time we will have to watch a school leave for outreach and not be going with them! But we take very seriously the role that we play in their discipleship and growth and preparation for outreach during lecture phase and we are so thankful to be a part of that season with them!

This fall we will be making some decisions regarding the exact next steps we will be taking, and we ask for you to join with us in prayer! As I mentioned, we know that God is moving us towards working long term with Performing Arts Discipleship Training Schools again. We feel that it is time for us to start leading schools together as a couple, something we have never had the opportunity to do before! There are a few different ways that we can move forward in regards to PADTSes, however we do not know for sure yet how God is leading us. We have some time to decide how and when this will happen, but we figure it is never too early to ask for prayer! So we ask for you to pray with us for clarity and understanding about this next step in our life. We are open and willing to take any path the Lord asks us to, we just want to hear him clearly!

It's an exciting and sometimes scary journey, doing life as a missionary family. We have days when we are not sure where our finances are going to come from, or days where being so far away from our friends and family is almost too much to handle. But more often we are overwhelmed by the richness of our lives, by the way that God has provided for us time and time again, and by the blessing that our friends and family have been to us. We could not continue on in our ministry without your faithful prayers, and encouraging words and your financial support. Please know that we are eternally grateful and consider each of you to be an integral part of our ministry!

We are currently in Canada visiting family and attending Johnny's oldest brother's wedding reception. He recently married his fiancee, she is Japanese and they were married in Tokyo but we are here to celebrate with Canadian friends and family. And then we will head back to Kona at the end of August to prepare for Compassion DTS and Baby K #2! Please pray for safe travels and that we would find a good apartment to rent. We need to find one BEFORE we return, so it could be tricky! I will keep our blog updated as we move into Compassion DTS and also as we make decisions about our future! Thank you for loving our family and for taking an interest in our lives! We love you!

All our love,

Johnny, Kelsey, Ezra and Baby K #2

six months... and everything has changed.

For someone who loves to write so much, you'd think I would be better at remembering to update our blog. My apologies. But here I am, ready to give you the last six months in a nutshell, because as the title says, everything truly has changed.

We spent September through January working with the Compassion DTS. This was an incredible experience. We had an incredible staff team that we were privileged to work with and we had incredible students who were on fire for the Lord and ready to take his love to the nations.

December into January we spent leading an outreach team, along with our co-leader, Josh, to London England. (Check out my writing blog for some of my personal insights into this sad and lovely city as well as a detailed account of our Christmas outreach www.thegingerminstrel.wordpress.com) This was a very different type of outreach than our teams that went directly to an African nation or South American nation where the gospel is much more warmly received. London is a very closed and difficult city to reach with the gospel, but our team was courageous and bold and we prayed over that city and were determined to make a difference. The main ministry we worked with was called Earl's Court Community Project. This is a ministry for homeless and needy in London that not only provides for their felt needs but also provides counseling services. The long term staff at this YWAM ministry have spent YEARS developing friendships with some of these people. Over the Christmas holiday they do a week long outreach that offers a Christmas party of sorts each day with a meal and entertainment and a real family feel, in hopes that these people will feel the love of Jesus and the joy of the season. We had a wonderful time encouraging and supporting Earl's Court's long term staff as well as building relationships with the guests who came each day. We saw a few people even commit their lives to the Lord for the first time which was an amazing answer to prayer in this city!

After our time in London ended, Ezra and I headed back to New York to spend some time with friends while Johnny continued on with the team to South Africa. We felt that Ezra was not quite old enough to take into the type of outreach that the team would be doing in South Africa. They would be working in the slums and orphanages, etc, and we felt that the best thing was for Johnny to continue on without us.

However, as many of you know, all of our plans changed three days after I arrived in New York and Johnny arrived in South Africa. I still haven't found the words to write or blog about this properly, but my best friend, Heather, was killed in a car accident on January 12. As my world spiraled out of control after receiving the news, I tried in vain for hours to get in touch with our team in South Africa. Finally, several hours later, I got in touch with Johnny and had to share the horrifying news with him. Our school leaders, who were currently in Kona, immediately agreed that Johnny needed to come home as soon as possible and within 12 hours they had him on a flight to New York.

January and February are still mostly a blur of shock and denial and also feeling an overwhelming outpouring of love from our family and friends during that time. I will sit down and write further about how losing Heather has changed me forever, but I'm still not completely ready to do that. So I will just say that in the time since Heather's accident I have realized again and again how fragile life is, what a gift that it is, and what a shame it would be to waste even once second on this earth. Heather definitely didn't waste a second of her time. And I am still learning every single day from her example. I was so lucky to have her in my life and to know her so intimately and now my desire is to honor her life with the way that I love my Jesus and the people around me.

We are forever grateful that Johnny was able to make it home for Heather's funeral services. Yes, services. She was loved by a lot of people in a lot of places. Her funeral was in Illinois where she grew up and we also had a memorial service for her in Smithtown, NY, her home for the past seven years. We are so thankful to the people who helped us financially cover the cost of Johnny's extra travel as well as mine and Ezra's. As well as those of you who covered us in prayers and reached out to us through emails and phone calls and driving long distances to be a part of the celebrations of Heather's life. You were such a blessing to us in a time when we didn't even know what we needed or how to ask for it. We could not ask for more amazing people in our lives!

We returned to Kona the first week of March, still reeling from everything that had happened, but confident that it was time to return. We arrived here in time for our Compassion DTS students to be returning from outreach and we spent their debriefing week with them hearing stories of outreach and catching up.

Just days before we returned to Kona we also discovered that we were once again expecting a child! This was exciting and overwhelming news and when we arrived back in Kona we weren't exactly sure what the next season would hold for us. However, God moved quickly and clearly and within days of arriving back we had been informed that the Performing Arts DTS here in Kona needed staff. We of course love PADTS's and we arranged to meet with the director and find out what her needs were. There was an instant connection between our family and Maria Jackson and within a half hour she was telling us to pray about our decision but she wanted us to be on her staff as soon as possible! We were also confident that this was the right thing, and the rest is history.

Our PADTS students arrived April 7. Johnny is very involved in the school, overseeing pastoral care/ counseling aspects of the school, which are his strongest areas of leadership! I am taking more of a back seat with this school, but am staying busy spending my time taking care of Ezra as well as the baby in my belly! We both feel strongly that this season continues to be one in which Johnny is being challenged to step up in leadership and that God has asked me to make my children my priority. I miss being with the students every day and leading them, but I am so thankful for the opportunity to be involved when I can be but to have the freedom to focus on my family!

We know that we will continue to work with discipleship training schools here through the end of the year, continuing with the PADTS and then working again with the Compassion DTS in the fall. After the fall quarter, and the baby comes, we are not positive what God is calling us to. We have many offers of long term ministry opportunities available to us here in Kona, but we also want to keep open hearts and minds to what God would have for us as the end of this year. We know we will continue on in ministry, we are just praying about God's perfect location and timing.

So that's the last six months. In a nut shell. We are so thankful for all of the amazing people in our lives and we appreciate your prayers more than we can say. We would ask for prayer as we seek the Lord about his long term plan for our family in minsitry. We also ask you to please join with us in prayer that this pregnancy would continue to be a stronger and healthier pregnancy than our last and that I would be completely free from anxiety and panic attacks! We are asking God for this pregnancy to bring nothing but joy, and for the baby to be strong and healthy. Your prayers carried me through my last pregnancy and we need a strong team around us again! Please also continue to pray for our hearts as we struggle to grieve and process the loss of Heather. It's a daily struggle and we miss her more than we have words to say. We know that she is dancing with Jesus, and we find peace in that. But it doesn't mean we don't miss her.

Love and blessings to all of you! My Ezra is up from his nap so I think that means blogging time is over!

Kelsey

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