Director
Youth With A Mission Niagara

I grew up in a Christian home in the Niagara countryside with 2 brothers and loving, supportive, hard-working parents. My parents and extended family live as examples to me of Christian life; holding high value for their faith, reaching the lost, and Christian missions.

In high-school I was greatly inspired by the faith of my friends and decided to really make my faith my own. I got baptized in Jan 2015 and began taking more seriously my relationship with God. Along with other personal passions including design, construction, and art, I discovered that Christian Missions was on my heart, and was also a shared passion of my girlfriend Melinda’s. We determined to have our growing relationship centred on God’s will for us.

After many short-term missions experiences, I joined YWAM in 2016 for the Discipleship Training School (DTS) at YWAM Adelaide, Australia. This 24 week experience of knowing God deeper than ever and making Him known in the nations opened my eyes to hearing His voice and helped me begin to discover my calling to Christian missions long-term.

Director
Youth With A Mission Niagara

I spent the first decade of my life as a missionary kid with my family in the West Indies. While we were in Grenada, a category five hurricane struck leaving utter devastation in its path. We were fortunate to have not been harmed in any way. Seeing the faces of other children now orphaned by the storm and the look of fear and hopelessness in the eyes of so many struck me hard. I realized for myself the need for Jesus in these places where people have nothing else. 

Ever since that moment, I knew for certain that God was calling me to go; to share his good news with the least and the lost. At the beginning of high school, I made a commitment to God that I would dedicate my first year after high school solely to serving him. During that year I completed a Discipleship Training School (DTS) with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and went on outreach to Taiwan and Indonesia. During those months I encountered God’s love for me and the world in deeper ways than I ever could have imagined. I realized that God wasn’t just asking me to dedicate a year of my life to serving him, but my whole entire life! 

Youth With A Mission, or YWAM, is a global movement of Christians from every age, culture, and Christian tradition all driven by a passion to know God and make Him known. YWAM was started in 1960 by Loren Cunningham with a vision to see waves of young people reaching every continent with the Gospel.

Now 60+ years on, YWAM has over 18,000 missionaries at 1,300 mission centres reaching every country on earth. We’re all connected like a family, rather than a centralized agency, and are collectively accountable to circles of elders, and shared purpose, beliefs, and values. All of our ministry activity falls under 3 main callings; Training, Mercy, and Evangelism. Through these, we desire to see God’s transformation in every area of society.

YWAM’s University of the Nations, or the UofN, operates YWAM’s training courses and degrees world-wide. The UofN was founded in 1976 in Kona, Hawaii with a vision to adequately train Christians in ministering the love of Jesus according to His call to make disciples of all nations, in all areas of society. 

Today, The UofN runs over 400 unique courses at more than 600 YWAM mission centres across the globe. Founded upon biblical principles and aligned with YWAM’s purpose, beliefs, and values, the UofN fulfils its commitment to Christ and His Great Commission by equipping men and women with spiritual, cultural, intellectual, and professional training to see them empowered for their calling. Every student in YWAM’s UofN begins with the Discipleship Training School (DTS) which is an adventure that just scratches the surface of our global mission to know God and make Him known.

YWAM Niagara began in December of 2019 with a vision to see every person encounter Christ by empowering young people to live their calling. This vision remains the cornerstone of all our ministry activity in Niagara and the nations. 

Our YWAM Niagara mission centre is part of YWAM’s global family of ministries, sharing YWAM’s purpose, beliefs, and values, and is located in Niagara Falls Canada. This area, on both sides of the adjacent Canada/USA border, is a destination famous around the world drawing every kind of visitor from absolutely every nation. Niagara is host to a large and diverse population with a deep-rooted history of Christianity that carries on today. However, the majority of Niagara residents and the nations who visit have yet to encounter Christ, the greatest wonder our world has ever known, and God has called us to change that.