by Chandler Suggs

One of the young men who have grown up here at Eastwood has recently stepped out in faith to answer the call of God to be “on mission” in his life. You’ve seen Chandler Suggs grow and mature right in front of us as he has helped lead us in worship over the last several years. This is Chandler’s testimony of how the Lord has called him to serve in missions:

“At a Faith Week Unplugged event about 7-8 years ago (I was 13, maybe 14 at the time), we had a speaker come and talk about Missions, and what it was like for him to be a Missionary. While he was speaking, I could feel a big calling on my heart to go into Missions. I sat on that calling for about six years without doing anything with it.

Finally, I was introduced to the organization called Youth with a Mission, or YWAM, which is a missionary organization for training up young people to be missionaries. They have a program called Mission Adventures that equips youth groups to be involved in building the Kingdom of God wherever they are, and the Eastwood youth went to one of these camps. After spending some time with the people at the YWAM base, I felt that similar feeling I had at Faith Week Unplugged, and I knew that this was God fulfilling His calling from years back.

Obeying the call, I applied to join their school that was starting in 2018 and was accepted. We went to Mexico for our Outreach, and I very quickly fell in love with the people and culture. The longer I was in Mexico, the more I realized the entire time I was “doing nothing” with God’s calling, God was actually preparing me for missions. He quickly called, and confirmed that I was supposed to stay with YWAM and continue being a missionary, but also train up other missionaries to go out into the world. Long ago, God asked who He could send to His children, and I am answering His calling, and helping others to do so as well. Here we are, Lord, send us.”

Please continue to pray for Chandler daily as he leads at YWAM Ozark.