Dear Young Adult Burning Ones...

Dear Young Adult Burning Ones Family,

Greetings! We pray this letter finds you well and blessed! You are receiving this letter because, as many of you know, we have talked about an announcement on “change” and believe in many ways it has already taken care of itself. This past Thursday it was our desire to gather as many of you as we could into our home to share with you all face to face about what we feel is happening now and the direction that we are taking the young adult group. But as it turns out, we are writing a letter instead! It is our hope that if you have any questions, comments or concerns that you contact us through facebook, email, text, calling or talking. We want to make ourselves as accessible to all of you as possible!

Some of you have already approached us with questions asking when we were meeting. Mariya and I want to let you know that it was never our intention to mislead anyone or hide anything; we just wanted to wait for the right time and the right words to be able to express our heart. We have been and continue to be in prayer to the Lord about reshaping our lives in a way that would please Him and reflect the direction that He has for us. After much prayer, counsel from our pastors and discussion with close spiritual friends we have felt that God has impressed upon our hearts to lay down the Young Adult ministry. Leadership asked anyone over small groups to take the month of January to pray, fast and seek the Lord on whether He wanted any of us to pick up our small group again. To ease anyone’s heart or imagination, this decision is not being made because of any moral failure. It is simply an act of obedience and faith. Sometimes the Lord asks us to do things that we don’t understand. But in the end, we can look back and see purpose all over it! After wrestling with it for a season, we finally gave in after talking to our pastors and have since then felt such a mighty peace wash over us and a new sense of renewal for the season ahead.

This to us is a very good and exciting thing! Change is a chance to move, discover or rediscover! Most of this letter though, is to tell you how much this group has meant to us, how it has impacted our lives and where we believe God is taking the Manalli family to encourage you, to communicate with you and hopefully, put wind in your sails to see what new things God has in store for you!

YOUNG LEADERS OF YOUNG ADULTS

When we were asked back in 2009 to take over the Young Adult ministry, our initial reaction was to say no, because neither one of us had ever thought of becoming small group leaders. But we said that we’d pray before answering and felt a nudge in our hearts to say yes. We both had no experience in leading a group, and, in the beginning, only gathered about 8 people at a time. Sometimes it would just be us and one other person. What really started to shift things was the time we took to pray an hour before each service. Jason, Mariya and one of our base team member at the time, Gretchen Pribbenow, could feel the presence of God and His intense desire for this group. I would say in those beginning days, is where He deposited a deep heart inside us for young people. In the following months we went from a small handful of people to about 20-30 people. Worship became insanely deep, ministry time and the prophetic moved heavily, miracles happened, spiritual hunger compelled us deeper, Jason shared on intimacy, revival and identity and we saw life after life transformed! We just sat back and thought, “God, we don’t know what we’re doing, but You obviously do!”  This group not only grew the people that attended, but it grew us as well. It grew our faith level, our expectancy, our intimacy and our relationships with others. We saw an acceleration happening in Young Adults and were so excited to be a part of what our Daddy was doing. 

Even up to this point, this has probably been the most impactful area of our life. We have had the privilege of being in a lot of life changing churches and moments and experiences, but being with all of you has meant the most to us by far. There was grace when we had no idea what we were doing, there was a faith charged atmosphere every Thursday and there were relationships established!

A FOCUS ON THE FAMILY

Around the time that Abraham was born, everything seemed to come at us so fast. All good things, but all of them at one time became a little overwhelming. We were still adjusting to our new business, became new homeowners, in charge of two departments at church, part of the leadership team and now new parents. We continued to trust the Lord to carry us through and to see us through all the details, but it was soon becoming clear that we needed to look hard at where we were giving all our time and attention. Mariya’s parents move to Kodiak, Ak forced us to delve deeper in the heart of God, as we knew that alone would bring a world of new things to adjust to. This is where we began to seriously look at our lives and ask the Lord to help us prioritize.

To this day we continue to do so and are on a road to learning how to be successful at marriage and family in all ways possible!

THE CALL TO WORSHIP

First thing you should know about us, and probably do, but our hearts have always bent towards worship and prayer. To be a part of a worship movement/culture is a huge yearning of our heart. Alaska has been an open door to that cry inside us and we love leading the worship ministry at KCC. Along with leading at KCC, we’ve received invitation to minister to various places across the state. We’ve also forged amazing and unforgettable connections with amazing leaders like Sean Feucht, the Pinkstons and Jake Hamilton. International House of Prayer has contacted us with wanting to see if there is a way to come to Alaska. A house of prayer has erected here on the Peninsula. We say all this not to boast and bring attention to ourselves, but to say that we believe God wants to move over the state of Alaska now! He is turning the desire of literally nations towards this glorious state with a heart to partner with what He wants to do here! The first response is to tap into the heart of worship in the people here! There is a resounding YES in us to be a part of that in any way possible. This is where we feel the Lord is calling us to pour our singular attention to for now. One of the most amazing things to me is that almost all the members of the worship team are young adults or young people. And the ones who respond to worship nights are young people! We are all doing this together, whether you’ve seen this or not! This is where we are going. We want to invest our lives into being extravagant worshipers. Whatever that looks like. 

We also want to pour a lot of our excellence into our business and 150% of our time and attention to our family. If you think of us, please pray that God would continue to pour on grace to head into this dream!

YOU ARE

You are called to adventure in life with God! Let the Lord search your heart, get rid of anything that is contrary to what He has designed for your life and start running into the journey that God has laid out for you! Embrace change; turn your gaze even harder into the fiery love of Jesus and live to glorify the name of the Lord all the days of your life! Let’s do this together! There is an invitation into the new. If you’ve been asking Him for courage and confirmation… well… here’s your sign. J

We love you all and we carry you in our hearts forever!

Love always,

Jason and Mariya Manalli

jmmanalli@gmail.com 

how are you doing?

"how are you doing?"

this question used to make me so anxious last year. it would bring up so many emotions that i would try to stuff down and then answer with a tight smile, "good." 

i would be praying and hoping that you'd believe me so that i could be left alone. just being honest. 

if you're 2011 was anything like mine, then it was probably one of the hardest years of your life. it was a big year of change for me, from becoming a new parent, to moving into a new home and adjusting financially, to seeing good friends go, changes in church, changes in family and it goes on and on.

i felt like my love was tested over and over again. some nights i would grip my chest, curl up in bed and say over and over in my head, "God, you are good. i know you are good. your word says you are good. i believe you... you are good in everything. even if things are not going good, you are still good and you know best." i clung to verses like Ephesians 3 about being rooted and grounded in love. to know the love that surpasses our understanding. Or Jeremiah 17:7-8, "blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is in the Lord. for he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spread its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and it will not be anxious in the year of drought, for will cease from yielding fruit", or verses on hope and faith. his everlasting love.

it was a year of repeating the words of God back to him in prayer and saying, "i can't feel you. but i know that you are true!"

pain is pain. and there is no way to invalidate anothers pain. but i was starting to realize that i can either become bitter or i can offer a weak "yes" to God in the midst of my pain. did i fight bitterness and offense? sure! but i wanted to come out of the wilderness leaning on my beloved. i wanted to sing of His love amidst the heartache (see the book of Hosea).

i believe shelley hundley has so much language for a journey through pain and understanding how the Lord's hand is in the midst of it. she says, "without pain, we would remain fascinated by one vanity after another. pain reveals to us the inadequacy of what we are beholding and unlocks our ache for a greater beauty to fulfill our need." -(a cry for justice by shelley hundley)

C.S Lewis also writes, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains; it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world."

so last year, i started to embark on a journey of delving deeper into the heart of God. i hid away for a time, not able to bring myself at times to see others. i had to keep my days simple and i surrounded myself with safe people who could speak into me. it was an amazing year of healing where i faced myself, my inadequacy and the saving power of an almighty God!

jason and i sought a lot of our spiritual parents and trusted voices. we received a lot of inner healing, which is something that i'm still working through with the holy spirit. we kept at it. day by day, step by step. it was hours of prayer, pouring ourselves over scripture, encouraging one another, repenting and rebuking fears...

we began to reprioritize our lives. we laid everything down and asked God to start us from scratch. He told us what to pick up again and what to not pick up and how to be a family. we are still learning so much and will continue to learn. God did an upheaval in our family, our marriage, ministry, business, finances, time, intimacy, EVERYTHING. and though it was hard at times, we kept coming back to the Lord with our little "yes".

then one day, i cannot even tell you when or how, but one day i just looked at jason and said, "whoa. i have my joy back." i hadn't realized that this whole time, there was this heaviness, like a black layer that pressed down upon my heart... and i suddenly realized that it had lifted. that it was gone. and it had been gone for awhile, but i just now noticed it. i felt like the eyes of my heart cleared. and i was able to see again. i looked back and i DID see and hear where God was shouting.

the other verse that i kept close to me was isaiah 42:12-13, "let them give glory to the Lord, and declare his praise in the coastlands. the Lord shall go forth like a mighty man; He shall stir up His zeal like a man of war. He shall cry out, yes, shout aloud; He shall prevail against His enemies!"

now. i know for all you end time theologians, that this might be out of text for me to take it for myself instead of end times, bla bla bla. but there were times when i'd get a clear picture of jesus in my times of worship spinning and spinning, going faster and faster, laughing and conquering. i can't explain it, but that's what i saw. his laughter was far from the concerns i would feel.

so now. when someone says, "how are you doing?" i offer the testimony of my jesus and the working power of the cross. i may have gone into that season feeling that my life was great and nothing could go wrong. Bob Kauflin says in his book, Worship Matters that, "I'd felt hopeless, but not hopeless enough. i knew Jesus died on the cross to save sinners from God's wrath, enduring in our place the punishment we deserved. i understood that i couldn't save myself. i just didn't think of myself as a very great sinner. which meant i didn't need a very great savior." apart from the Lord, we are NOTHING. apart from Him, there is no good. i may have gone into that season a "great mariya" who lived a life that was happy and unto God, but i came out of it completely broken and leaning on Him, knowing that everything stems from beholding the beauty of who He is, not just as a "good God" but as a passionate God who deserves all worship and all glory and wants fiery hearts from his children.

this is long. and a lot of people probably won't read this whole thing. i mostly did it to have an account of some of the things i came out on the other side with. there's so much more. so much more. but this'll do for now.

and yes, as you may have noticed, i didn't write any specifics on the things that i had to walk through. it doesn't matter as much as the lesson...

but if you are facing pain or have gone through painful times, know that there is a God who will fight for you. his love is fierce. his dream for your life is fierce. all he needs is for you to turn to him and say yes. it may take time, but his word never returns back void. he keeps all his promises!!