Blog
Posted By: JustinStout / 13th April 2012
“And now for something completely different.” Those words were often said by John Cleese on Monthy Python and the Flying Circus, and something usually did happen that was different than what was already happening. It could have involved men having slap fights with fish, exploding desks, or just something odd. Although I am too young to remember all the tidbits of the show, as it was already in re-runs while I was in high school, I always remember those words.
Back at the end of December while I was anticipating a change in my life and would no longer be leading Maintenance, which ended up being longer than expected, I started to see where I could fit on campus. I had decided to meet with department heads about where I could serve on base and truly have something I felt I belonged to. I didn’t make it too far though because at my first meeting they asked that I pray about a new opportunity. This new opportunity called Frontiers is to work directly with our missionaries who are currently overseas and with those who desire to go overseas. They asked Wendy and I to develop and run this new program. We prayed about it and accepted the position.
Now that I am out of maintenance full time, we have time to seek God and plan what Frontiers will look like. We have begun to plan for the future and also learn who our current missionaries overseas are. I have begun to research training that will better equip us to help with current and prospective missionaries. As we begin to communicate with those on the field and plan ahead, we are getting excited for the opportunity and challenges. It is truly turning into something different
Posted By: JustinStout / 22nd March 2012
While it’s been awhile since I took time to write a blog, it was with good reason. I have been in transition for a few months now, but after what seems a long wait, change is coming. I once worked with a man who used to say “change is good”. While I disagree that all change is good, it does allow us a chance to grow, or experience new things.
My time here at YWAM Salem has been full of surprises. I originally led maintenance while the director was participating in a school. Then it turned into a bit longer as the maintenance director left to pursue other opportunities outside of YWAM. In less than two weeks I will be stepping out of maintenance to focus on other ministries on base. I will make another post at a later date to detail those opportunities. Although I will no longer be leading or serving in maintenance day to day, I do plan on helping out on a need to basis. I don’t want to lose sight of the importance of serving others.
As I look back on my time in maintenance there aren’t really any clear thoughts about it. I ended up working on more special projects than I ever imagined doing. When it came to projects, I always felt there was someone better qualified to do the work, but by the end I grew more confident in making the day to day decisions. In a weird way God began to help me see beyond the circumstances and care for people again and that became my main factor in making decisions. It may not always have been the best or most skilled choice, but trying my hardest to make people feel cared for was important.
Looking forward, I’m encouraged about the direction maintenance is heading. Not one but two people will be leading maintenance. Together, I believe they have the skill and care necessary to help create lasting change on our base. Another positive thing is that maintenance will be having quite a few staff this quarter to do the daily load. While I never felt the department was mine in order to make lasting changes to it’s operation, I believe it is now headed in the right direction.
Although difficult and trying, I believe this time has helped me appreciate maintenance and also helped to develop some meaningful relationships that otherwise I wouldn’t have had the chance to.
Posted By: JustinStout / 28th December 2011
When I was younger, and I’d expect some of you were the same, that any time you’d dig a hole that was deeper than a few inches someone would say “are you going to dig to China?” I’m continuing in this post my thoughts on the pipe project that I helped lead at YWAM Salem. It seemed that the closer we got to finishing the project, the further away it became. After laying 450 feet of PVC that attached into our pump house we started leg two. We had discovered that at our pump house the galvanized pipe ran to our car wash station and then attached to pvc that feeds our neighbors across the way. Oh and did I mention that this new trench had to be completely hand dug, over 100 feet long and two feet deep.
With the exception of a few volunteers based on schedule the bulk of our work was done with the same three to four guys. Some days it was just two of us digging a hole for eight hours in no-so-great weather. During this time I began to develop a closer relationship with these men. We would talk about topics ranging from God, movies,politics,sports,relationships etc. As the project leader these conversations helped me keep focused and not get too frustrated. It is also where God began to answer my question “am I a missionary?”
When we came to YWAM we raised financial support and told our supporters of our plan for missions, we layed it out in three steps. I expected to be on step three sixth months into our adventure here and knowing where we were going overseas long term. Our first step getting to Salem and getting adjusted here I felt would go quickly. Then pressure sets in, am I doing what I said, will people still support me, God what are you doing? As I have said many times God has been working in me, giving me confidence in leadership and working with people again.
Since I don’t have clear defined roles at YWAM in leadership and with my past I think God can’t use me. I can’t do discipleship if it’s not in a program or has a title right? He has shown me that yes I am a missionary, and am being prepared for wherever He might take us. The things I have been doing here I would also be doing overseas: service projects and loving on people though the people groups will change.
This nearly two month project was one of the most frustrating, draining projects I have been on in my six months here. I went through it without the Maintenance director, who I would have just leaned on and served, but I was forced to trust God and trust others. The truth is discipleship happens in a ditch as much as a classroom, and deep down I knew that but had forgotten that through life’s trials and circumstances. Also you can always do something for others that makes a difference. Most of this project affected our staff housing and buildings associated with a school, so even though we don’t see it, providing water for them can make a difference in their lives and have a spill over affect in the lives of students.
I was not perfect in this and at times had to apologize, but I know that God has used it and I have learned a lot. Someone asked me the other day “you sound like you know a lot, you knew stuff before you took over right?” No not really, but I know more now.
Posted By: JustinStout / 9th December 2011
This will be a continuation of “dig here” so if you haven’t read it here is a link: http://www.thestoutfamily.org/blog/dig-here.
After taking the proper steps of calling the locating service for gas, cable, electric, phone we began to look at the plans some more. They were still pretty much a head scratcher. When the locator for gas came out he was nice enough to use his locator and follow the line we had and mark it for us. We decided to follow the orange line he had made for us where our line was. We had some pictures of this line suggesting it was abandoned but we still had quite a few why questions. First we dug a few feet from the leak and found two T joints, one runing east and west and one north and south. Second we skipped to where the locator lost the trail of the pipe and digging it we found that it was capped and ran to nowhere, and fouund no curves or attachments.
So we were back to square one, what is the source of this line? Is it attached to the main feed coming from our multi purpose building? Is there pvc somewhere, does it feed to any other houses? By mid afternoon with few answers and educated opinions, I began to get a little frustrated. So it was time for me to take a walk before I said, or did something I’d regret. Constantly doubting my ability to make a solid decision with the little experience I had, I began to talk with God and bumped into our base director.
My predicament was between what I felt and what I was hearing, our plans suggested one thing but were spotty at best. I didn’t feel I could just cut a piece off and put a more permanent patch on this piece without solid answers. So I had to make a decision that would possibly have our team do extra digging for no reason, and trying to balance the opinons of doing otherwise. The base director heard me out, said it sounded like i had a decent plan and said he trusted my judgment. With a tad more confidence, and less irritation I talked to the guys about digging another exploritory hole. I didn’t feel right making a decision that could cost 20 people water until we figured it out. So we began to dig, again.
Our digging was in lose gravel and in some hard dirt as well, so it took awhile to find what we were looking for. We finally found that our line did connect to Pvc and first thought it just fed one house. After days of digging the old pipe to 2 feet depth we found the it not only angled but at one pointed dipped down and another line ran in a 45ish angle towards another link to pvc.
The thing I learned this day was to have that confidence in decision making, even in difficult circumstances. It’s not so much about being right or wrong as it is making a decision and standing by the results of that decision. I also found that I had a team willing to support me as I “figured it out”. Going the extra mile sometimes isn’t easy, and sometimes you feel as if you come up empty, I don’t know how many holes we dug after this that had zero results. On the other hand I can’t imagine how I would have felt had we made a rash decision that would have left about twenty people without water for some time.
God was teaching me in this process of leading, serving, and little did I know this was just the beginning…(more to come)
Posted By: JustinStout / 4th December 2011
For about the last month or so I have been on one of the bigger projects since my time began at YWAM Salem. In the summer I wrote about our cafe project, which at the time was very stressful and insightful but now pales in comparison to this. As I recently wrote I have been leading maintenance while Jordan had been doing a Leadership school. Wendy and I’s heart and passion is to someday go over seas full time, and work with the unreached. Right now I know that we are here to serve and learn what the Lord has for us. When you are not working directly with schools or programs you often wonder “am I a missionary?” I will be doing a series of posts about this project and the things I have learned, and how they have helped answer that question.
Similar to being overseas there are things on our base that just would confuse and frustrate professionals, however, they were done by people doing the best they could with what they had. By Oregon standards it has been a relatively dry fall so far, which has been a blessing for us. In mid October someone on our leadership team noticed that we had standing water by a concrete slab near our multi purpose building. Standing water when it has not been raining is never a good thing, it means that you have a plumbing issue somewhere.
So we did two things, one: looked at what plans we had to see if we could get an idea of what was beneath the ground, two: began to dig into standing water. I had recieved specific instructions from our base director about if we found galvanized pipe to replace it. Patching this type of pipe usually just creates problems elsewhere in the line. Although once popular for its long life span, galvanized pipe underground can corrode with time and in most places PVC is preferred, epecially underground.
So after much digging we found our leak and galvanized pipe. We were able to determine once cut that the pipe led to none of the houses so we put a temporary patch on it. We had yet to determine the source, where was the water coming from, where were all the places it was going to? Since it was now late evening these questions would have to wait until tomorrow.
