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