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