catch up with me
what's wrapping up and what I'm so excited about
Hey friends,
This is going to be a really casual and hopefully brief newsletter entry just to tell you what’s coming to end and what’s just beginning that I am so excited about!
The most obvious (if you follow me on socials: facebook.com/alyssaroman and instagram.com/vital_faith (←sneak peek at some of the new-ness)) is that I graduated from Discipleship Training School!
It’s hard for me to wrap my head around what God did. Remember my second ever newsletter post? It’s linked below. It chronicles the time I met a man on the beach in Hawai’i, how we got to talking about our faith, and how two months later he invited me to his home in Alaska.
In that entry, I wrote…
“I hope you will stay tuned to hear about my adventures in Alaska and wherever God leads me thereafter!”
How little did I know at the time of writing that God would lead me on the most extraordinary journey of getting to know Him and getting to share His love with others right after my visit to Alaska! Because while we didn’t end up sailing at all, I did get introduced to YWAM and discovered (after much misdirection) where God was really calling me. He was leading me to YWAM and to do Discipleship Training School! You can read about that discovery below…
So yeah, it’s surreal the way God had it all unfold and it’s really cool that it’s all documented here.
I made it through 3 months of lecture-phase and 2 months of outreach. It was not easy but it was more than worth it!
DTS shaped me into a new person, really, because who I am in Christ is so much different than who I was before. Jesus met me and saved back in the Spring in 2023, but He baptized me with His Holy Spirit during my DTS!
During the last 5 months, DTS was all I could focus on. There was very little wiggle room for anything else.
Which is why I had to pause my work with Village Reach; and because my life was being so thoroughly flipped upside down, I wanted to stay completely open to wherever the Lord was calling me next. I hoped He would let me return to work for Village Reach but I just didn’t know. So I made an agreement with the founders that if I felt the Lord was calling me elsewhere I would let them know right away.
I wanted to honor my commitment to fully surrender my life to the Lord. So I did just that and I waited on Him and His guidance for what I would do next.
A very special woman, who is known to receive quite a lot of prophecy from the Lord, told me that God would be very clear with me and when He would reveal my next step I would just know. Which matched very well with how God does speak to me.
So on the last day of our outreach ministry, when the guy (Mahdi) who introduced me to YWAM in the first place, texted me and said, “You should come staff Kokua Crew at YWAM Kona” I just knew! Of course I prayed and talked to God about if I really should but He was already making it abundantly clear because He’s already given me such a huge heart for Hawai’i and after my DTS now I have such a huge heart for YWAM.
In September, my mission was know God better and He led me to YWAM whose mission statement is literally “Know God and Make Him Known” and I signed up right away.
Now in February, my mission is be discipled and disciple others and that’s what I’m being given the opportunity to do staffing Kokua Crew in Kona!
So it’s literally perfect and even more so because when I had my interview (I didn’t know it was an interview at the time) with Mahdi about joining Kokua Crew staff, he assured me, as leader of the program, that he could be accommodating of my work with Village Reach.
That’s great news because reactivating with Village Reach is something I’m extremely excited about! The Lord put Village Reach on my path shortly after I surrendered my life to the Lord the first time. It’s so funny how my idea was to pursue a career in copywriting and the Lord put Village Reach’s “We’re Hiring” ad in front of me on Instagram. It stopped my scroll and I applied on the spot!
It felt like the Lord said no, you will not be writing ad copy to sell kitty litter and cosmetics but you will be writing about what I’m doing, stretching your creative muscles, and growing alongside an international Christian non-profit and the amazing team that founded it because this is ministry and missions too and ministry and missions is where I’m calling you.
Yes Lord, amen! Thank you for being so clear with your servant. Thank you for giving me all these beautiful opportunities to know you, serve you, and glorify you.
It’s exciting because Village Reach is such a perfect fit with YWAM. YWAM often reaches people with the gospel on our sending missions (outreach) and Village Reach further empowers people who have been reached to continue or spearhead projects that the Lord puts on their hearts. So even though not all Village Reach missions were started by YWAMers (some were!) and there’s not a direct link there, the essence is that YWAM is a missions movement focused on reaching the unreached or planting seeds and Village Reach serves to continue the mission and really help people grow and develop the dreams the Lord has already planted in them!
It is an absolute honor to serve both! To have gone on outreach with YWAM and now to be on my way to disciple others and multiply the people going out to plant those seeds in the nations and also to serve with Village Reach and water the dreams of God’s children in villages around world. It’s breathtaking.
This is not turning out to be brief or casual, but that’s okay.
I’ll quickly just mention that if I have time, I’ll also be maintaining my own ministry on Instagram focused on healthy living for Christian women. This came about because it’s a way to share my testimony especially in regards to sex, intimacy, and relationships. I’ll be sharing using the close friends feature on that topic specifically and how God transformed my perspective of what is healthy in that department.
I also want to give 100% of myself to the Lord and I know He wants the best for me, so both of those things can be achieved only when I’m healthy and full of vitality (hence the new IG name, vital_faith).
I’ve also noticed, especially in YWAM, there is a season when everyone seems to get sick. It’s winter time / the return-from-outreach season when teams are returning to base from all over the world and bringing back all kinds of germs with them. I was hit with three sicknesses at once! I’m still recovering and it’s been weeks. So with the intention of wanting to give 100% to the Lord and to help others do the same, I’m going to continue sharing about different aspects of healthy living (movement, nourishment, community, intimacy, and faith) on my Instagram.
The last thing I’m really excited about is seeing my mom! I go to visit her and my stepdad in Colorado in about one week. I’ll get to visit with them for two weeks before I fly to Kona. I’ve missed her so much and I can’t wait to go love on her.
The last last thing is that waiting for me at my mom’s house is a new Bible… a new Bible with thick note-taking margins that’s lightweight and soft cover. Along with it, a whole bag full of pens, highlighters, sticky notes, Bible book tabs, and more! I started reading in Luke at the end of lecture-phase. Now I’ve finished reading the New Testament and I’ve read up until Psalms in the Old Testament. I cannot wait to continue my Bible reading plan with a brand new Bible I’m going to love and cherish for a long time. The little thrift store one served me well but it was literally falling to pieces.
By the way, I’m currently at another YWAM base - YWAM Zapopan - in the Guadalajara metro area. It’s really sweet. I’m so grateful to be here.
That’s all. Much love and God bless you all!
Love,
Alyssa