Who am I and how did I get here?
My name is Joanna Mutch. I am 30-something English girl a long way from home. I love autumn leaves and
snow, yet have lived in the heat for the past 5 years. I love to travel, but I hate to pack. I love Jesus, but hate religion. I love tea, but hate coffee. I've done the world's highest bungee jump. I live in Hawaii but I don't surf. I love taking photos but hate being in front of the camera. I love opening my home to create community. On a Saturday morning you can find me rummaging around at yard-sales. I have red hair and usually popsicles in my freezer. I love to cook and the smell of rain - be it on grass or asphalt. I can see the ocean from my house. And I love being alive for 'such a time as this'.
Jesus radically changed my life .... I said I belived in jesus when I was 13, but realised he actually wanted control of my life when I was 20 ... he set my feet on a new course with a passion in my heart for people to receive freedom in the truth of who He is and a love for the nation of India.
I moved to India in 2005 to join an amazing missions movement called Youth With A Mission. I had a plan and a vision for community transformation and development.
I trained in primary health care and was working in an inner-city slum community development project. I was running well-woman clinics, under 5's child nutrition check-ups and working in a maternity hospital, helping with pre-natal checkups, labour, delivery and post-natal care.
Then God began to reveal the true extent of His vision for me in India - the need to multiply the workers who have a heart for transformation ... I got excited, but decided I needed more training and had some revelation to share ... so I moved to Kona, Hawaii, for what was supposed to be 9 months of staffing, learning and more development training ... God had another timing plan, so I put down some deep roots on a volcano in the middle of the pacific and I dream of India.
I am YWAM ... I am part of a generation that wants their lives to count for something. I dont have all the answers but I know the one who does ... I don't know everystep, but I am following the one who knows the way.
I am part of an incredible community of people who love jesus and think he is the answer to a broken and hurting world ... he is the only answer to modern-day slavery, to poverty, to corruption, to the inner deep ache our generation tries to fill with all the wrong things ... I am part of a wave that is pursuing undistracted intimacy with Jesus, our Saviour, so that we are transformed to go into the world to make a difference ... I help train 100s of young people every year to pursue God, their identity in him, his purposes for their lives and how to take the most amazing truth to every nation and every people group... so that ALL can hear of the love of Jesus.
My role in the Kona campus community has been broad and diverse. I am part of the training team, which usually means I have my hand in many different things. The job right now means I do what ever needs to be done! I help oversee the schools we run, train staff for lecture phase and outreach phase and keep many of the administrative cogs turning. I've become a bit of a trouble shooter, and if people have a question and they dont know who to ask, I normally get the email. I support the school leaders in running their schools. I love to disciple people.
My latest big role is to lead a Discipleship Training School. You can read more about it here, but DTS is a 6-month course YWAM runs to take people deeper in their relationship with Jesus. I have led outreach teams from Kona to South Africa, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicuragua, Haitiand Turkey.
2012
- Lead the Engage DTS in Kona from January - March.
- April - June will be mostly on the road visiting Engage DTS outreach teams. These will probably be in Asia.
- Continue to work with the training and leadership development team here in Kona. The campus will be starting a new staff leadership training track for all new staff in January - we still talking about what that looks like, but wil probably be involved in leading.
- I want to continue train and inspire young people into the nations - lets get out and have an adventure with life.
- Keep on the table a desire to excite a new wave of radicals into India and the Indian-sub continent - God is on the move in the region.
- Have a deeper revelation of how much jesus loves me and what I MUST do with that
- Help strengthen the Kona community I am part of - whether by opening my home up, baking someone a cake, leading an outreach team, or helping a school leader find a working projector.
Dreams
I dream of returning to India, taking people with me, to call out people into God's purposed for them. I dream of mobilising a generation of people to transform their culture, community and nations with the power of God, through prayer, proclamation of the gospel and loving people as Jesus loved us.
Some links to what I am part of
YWAM.org - The international missions tribe I am part of. We are all over the world, in small clusters and large communities. We speak 100's of languages, express ourselves in diverse cultures, but all desire to Know God and Make Him Know.
uofnkona.edu - My local base and Hawaiian community.
citylifechurch.net - My wonderful sending church in England. They believed in me, sent me out, encourage me and share a heart for pioneering and discovering more of God.