YWAM Tyler honors President Paris with new building dedication

Published 8:54 pm Saturday, November 15, 2014

Youth With A Mission hosted a dedication of the new Paris Fellowship Center in honor of YWAM Tyler’s President, Dr. Leland Paris, and his wife Frances Paris on Friday. The fellowship center at the main YWAM Campus, Twin Oaks Ranch in Garden Valley, was built debt free over a three-year period.

“We’ve been planning and talking about this building for a number of years, since the late ’90s, and we didn’t feel we were to go in debt,” Dr. Paris said. “We were talking and praying and finally about three and a half years ago in one of our board meetings, one of our board members stood up and struck a match saying ‘Let’s get going.’

“We had gotten this all paid for and it’s been a three-and-a-half-year process just building. It’s been slow, but a lot of volunteers and a lot of contractors helped us, so this all came about and everything we have now is all paid for.”

The $3 million fellowship center features a 27,000 square-foot kitchen and dining center, which can serve up to 800 for meals and hold up to 1,200 when used as a meeting area, doubling the space of the previous facility.

“Seeing it all completed and the fact that we don’t have a mortgage. … You know it’s freed us up to keep putting our resources into the work we’re doing instead of into buildings,” Mark Brock, YWAM Tyler’s CFO, said.

The building was funded by local donors and friends of the organization as well as by people across the United States, Brock said.

Many of the donors were present for the celebration of the building, including Mercy Ships founder Don Stephens.

“It is my personal opinion that the people who made the decision to honor the Paris’s with this building, that it was a wonderful thing to do,” Stephens said. “And the fact that they are building it debt free, I think it’s like a salmon going counter current in our society and I applaud how successful they’ve been.”

YWAM Tyler serves as a launching point for students and missionaries to more than 200 locations worldwide. Students stay in the facility and train for three months before being sent to other YWAM facilities within the United States or the many locations worldwide to begin evangelical work.

“I personally think Twin Oaks and everything that happens here under their leadership is one of East Texas’ best-kept secrets, because what happens here really has an impact around the world,” Stephens said. “Their teams and activities, they’re involved in disaster relief, they’re feeding the orphans, they are working in tsunamis. It’s just amazing what happens here and not many people know about it.”

Many of those present for the dedication were students and missionaries directly impacted by the work of YWAM Tyler or the Paris families’ mission work. Also present were local, national and international board members.

“(YWAM) runs a Bible school and a hotel and a restaurant all in one,” Peter Warren, the director of the YWAM center in Denver, Colorado, said. “You’ve got students coming in from all over the world that you have to house and you have to feed them.”

More than 600 students participated in the training programs throughout the year and YWAM anticipates more for the coming year. In addition to mission work, students and staff are also involved in local ministries and outreaches.

“I think one of the visions we have is, historically, there have been three major waves of mission movement in modern nations,” Dr. Paris said. “It started in 1792 with William Carey when he left the shores of England and went to India. There was a major wave of missions that were sent out, including Hudson Taylor in China and so forth and David Livingston and different ones.

“Then there was a student movement that took place a number of decades ago, early 1900s. So we feel we’re approaching the fourth wave, so we’re trying to focus on getting the young people with their energy to focus on world evangelization. There’s a good movement and a lot of growth coming in our movement. We’re concerned with fulfilling the great commission so that every nation, every people, every tribe, every tongue can hear the gospel.”

Also present at the dedication were Judge Cynthia S. Kent, the emcee; as well as U.S. Congressman Louie Gohmert, who gave the dedicatory message.