Joshua 1:9 New International Version (NIV)
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
Hi
Our prayer is that you receive so many blessings as you read this email and that this new year you will encounter His promises and so much of His love.
This past Christmas was a very special time. I always get excited at Christmas because it is our reminder of how much Jesus has done for us. This is everyday, but there is something special about having a day or season to celebrate Him. My grandma in Ecuador used to say to me so excited “it is Jesus’ birthday” and although we never know exactly when was the day he was born, still the fact of celebrating His birthday makes me so excited. In Ecuador birthdays are very special and you got to celebrate it in full, so this Christmas definitely was that.
My mum and my sister “Karina” got the visa to come to the UK, for all the ones that have applied for visas, you know how stressful, hard and long this process could be, but we really believed that this time we all as family needed to push through, so we did, my mum had already a family visa to come and Karina was granted her visa to come and visit, we all were just waiting for them to see if the visa was granted for us to start planning our time together. Once we got the happy results, then Josue and Taryn got their tickets to come from USA and Cindy managed to organise with Gareth for the time to come down to Cornwall.
It has been 5 years since the last time that we all were together, so it was a very special time. We celebrate the goodness of God and remember all the miracles that God has done in our lives as family. How we have gone through very challenging seasons and seeing how we all are being so blessed.
We also felt to celebrate by honouring my mum for being such a warrior and teaching us to always fight for each other as siblings and how to help each other no matter the circumstances. She has definitely shown us that life is tough, but with God and unity there is nothing that can come against us and we realised how much we are a miracle, so we had an amazing time all of us of putting her in the centre, praying for her and giving thanks for such an amazing mum that we had and that God gave us.
We also celebrated Karina’s 40th birthday and went to Devon (just around the corner for us) and be able to spend time with our UK family, which we do every year and loved to come together to to celebrate the beauty of family.
Reflecting on the past few years.
This month we have been remembering how many things have happened in our lives.
In January we completed three years since we moved to Cornwall (19 Jan 2017), 14 years ago we got married and prayed about what our next step would be after being married (21 Jan 2006).
We served YWAM Harpenden for 10 years and as a foreigner missionary I must say it took me a while to get used to a new country, weather, food, friends, family, job, so it was such a time of transition, getting trained and equipped. Harpenden obviously is and always will be a special place for us, where we learned to live as a couple, as a family and as missionaries.
Why is this so important to us, because sometimes we want God to work in our lives in 3 minutes, hours or even days and realise that it has taken us 14 years to get to the place where we are now, where during this time, we have learned so much of His character and how to surrender everything to Him for His calling. To think that God gave the vision 13 years ago to Daniel to have a base in Cornwall and now we are living it and seeing a little bit more each year and how God is shaping it. It is quite amazing.
In 2015, this dream and calling started to become more real. We remember putting all the options on the table between Ecuador and Cornwall and had so much clarity of how much he really wanted us in the UK still and Cornwall was the next step.
We started with 4 adults and 4 kids and now we are a team of 10 adults and 4 kids.
Ministry
Team
Two of our brazilian team members (Jessica and Gaby) have gone to Brazil to renew their visas to come back for the long term.
Another two of our british members (Zac and Kirsty) have gone to Switzerland to get trained in a DTS gathering and come back with more knowledge ready to lead the DTS.
Our Brazilian family left in December to Brazil to get their visas renewed and come back.
Teams Supporting Us
A Documentary Filmmaking School (DFS) from Harpenden has come for two weeks to do their field assignment here and it has been an amazing time. They are doing such a good job and have chosen two stories from one of the ministries that we have been connected to.
A Discipleship Training School from the USA joined us for 40 days to help in different areas with churches and also with different stewardship areas that we need here.
Highlights from last year
We had our first carol service in the training centre for all local people to come and join us.
We are partnering with a friend of ours with an art workshop running on Fridays.
I started teaching zumba once a week in the training centre
Daniel went to teach and help to support the school of Digital Communication in Germany.
I went to teach about Authority in Christ in Manchester to Skaters DTS, YWAM St. Albans and the Bilingual DTS in Harpenden and we as family are going to Barcelona to teach in their DTS in February about Identity and Freedom in Christ.
Coming up….
Three Years
YWAM Immerse is three years 19th of January of being established, so we celebrated alongside different pastors and leaders from different organisations and churches that we have been working with.
Youth Group
We will continue running the youth group that has been opened this last September in partnership with 4 churches from Camborne, met with the pastors and it has been very encouraging to hear with their positive feedback.
Community Meetings
We had been having community nights between our team which we have converted into Discipleship nights to open to the wider community in Cornwall.
DTS
We have postponed our DTS to begin in April. It will be divided into two tracks; one will focus on surf/skater ministry and the other one, that will focus on youth in Camborne. Each track will support the youth group that we already run and the other one the surf/skate ministries.
Seminars
We are also hoping to run seminars. One of them that is in my heart is the Hospitality Seminar, as Cornwall is strong and hospitality we would love to bring that one here and run it as part of our University credits.
Teaching
Wendy has been invited to teach in Barcelona in a football DTS about Identity and Freedom in Christ.
Family
Our girls are growing so much. This year Ella has gone to secondary school and she is loving it. She decided to enter a competition for young chefs, where she came 3rd place in the first round and passed to the second round.
Ella decided last year she wanted to be baptised and so Daniel was able to be part of baptising her in December.
Saria has been adjusting to Ella not being in the same school as her, but she has also been having a lot of congratulations for her creative writing. The teacher thinks that she might skip a level and put them in advance as she is very good at that.
So we are feeling very proud for both of them, as our first year here in Cornwall was not easy for both of them and they kept asking us to go back to Harpenden. To see now, although they still miss Harpenden, they are very happy to live in Cornwall, that for us, means a lot.
With ministry life feeling like it changes every few months we feel we’re in a constant change of adjusting what ministry and family life looks like. Daniel and I try to escape and have our date nights from time to time, recognising that we need to do this more often.
This year we are praying to see if we can go to Ecuador as it has been two years. We would love to keep having our girls connecting to their other culture that they are part of, as it is very important for us that they keep learning the language and embrace the other side of their culture.
Blessings and Challenges
There have been a lot of challenges and blessings together. The challenges have made us come in unity as a team and pray together to push until we see breakthrough and this has made us stronger in faith and to learn how our trust should be fully in God. The blessings have made us realise how much faith has taken place for us to be able to open doors where sometimes we have not seen a way to go through.
We have seen this year money multiplying in our hands literally, which has been so amazing and has made our faith stronger about God being our provider. Ask us about this story. It is quite amazing.
Our car broke at the end of last year and we were lent another car that belonged to one of our team members who needed to go to Brazil. It was such an answer to prayer at a crucial time. We are trusting for a long term breakthrough for our vehicle.
One of our team members has been declaring her identity in Christ and healing over her and got healed from being gluten free.
Two of our team members received £2500 each to be able to cover their UK visa application processes and be able to come back for long term to work with us.
Wendy was praying for a sign from God and a covenant between her and God and somebody felt the Lord leading her to give Wendy a ring from God to remind her who she is in God.
We have been praying for a space where we can go and have our training centre and office and one of the churches has let us use their facilities. We will be signing a legal agreement in these next weeks and we are so grateful and excited about this.
Prayer & Celebration
Thank you to the ones that have sent us messages telling us how much they are praying for us. This means so much to us and it makes us feel very encouraged to know that we are not alone and we have people behind us.
We are very grateful for the ones that have decided to support us financially as well, as this helps us to keep going with the ministry and to be able to disciple many people during our time with our team and also when we go to teach at other bases.
Your prayers during this next year will be very important to us as we start the year planning for our second DTS running in April 2020
Prayer Point
Please help us to pray for provision in cars as ministry as we are coming to the point that we need to start looking for a mini-van to carry 9 -12 people and a car to be able to mobilize individuals too.
Prayer Point
Please cover us in prayers during this time that we are pushing through the ministry to start taking the vision and focus, that we will have wisdom and how to do the shift and be able to reach the goals that we have for this next year.
Prayer Point
Please cover us in prayers for our family dynamic and wisdom in how to do ministry and family and that we can spend time as a couple as well.
Prayer Point
Please pray during the time when I will be going to teach. May the trainees encounter Jesus so much.
Share about our DTS
If you know of anyone who would be interested in the school or if you are able to share to your church community we have the website updated with all the information about the Discipleship Training School at www.ywamimmersecornwall.com
SHOULDER TO SHOULDER
Partnering with us
As full time missionaries with YWAM we rely on the prayers, support and financial giving of those who stand shoulder to shoulder with us in our ministry.
If you feel like you would like to give in any way big or small you can do so using the following methods. We would also appreciate any prayers, if you have any words of encouragement or things you’ve felt from God in prayer we would love to receive those.
How to partner with us
UK Gift Aid Giving
With give.net you can gift aid your donation. If you are a UK tax payer by using gift aid for every £1 you give the government will give 25% making that £1 to be £1.25
USA Tax Deductible
Cheques made payable to YWAM can be sent to
YWAM, PO Box 3000, Garden Valley, TX 75771-3000
Please attach a note stating the donation is for Daniel and Wendy Snell
(cheques must not be marked with our names)
PayPal
If you are unable to give through give.net or through the USA Tax Deductible you can also make donations through PayPal.
Thank you so much for spending time reading this newsletter and for all your support through whatsapp messages, facebook messenger, facetime, instagram and emails etc. When you send us messages it really means a lot to us. As means that somebody is listening and praying for us. 😉
Thank you for all your prayers and support.
Daniel, Wendy, Ella & Saria
Find out more about our ministry at www.ywamimmersecornwall.com
