Hey everyone! I am Connor Holloway, a second-year staff member here at YWAM North Idaho. Today I will be sharing with you who I am and why I live the way I do. Let's start with where I come from. I was born and raised in Twin Falls, Idaho which is a medium-sized town on the bottom of Idaho. I grew up as a Christian and attended a Christian school from 3rd grade until senior year. When I was little I had a deep love for the Lord and wanted to live my life for him. As I grew older that became harder for me. My faith started to feel as though the more I got close to God the less cool I would become to my friends. The more I volunteered at church the less I could hang out with my friends. This was the regular struggle for me up until high school. When I got to high school, even though I attended a Christian school, I gave up the faith entirely and chose to live in the world and chose a lifestyle of smoking, drinking, toxic relationships, and had terrible respect for all the elders in my life.
My senior year of high school was a turning point in my life. In the world's eyes I had everything. I was the captain of the football team. I had a girlfriend. I was homecoming king and student body president. On the outside I was thriving, but on the inside I was lonely and always disappointed in myself. I kept hearing that still small voice telling me to come back to God, but I continued to reject it and continued in my sin.
My whole world came to a stop on a Friday night when I was playing football and broke my ankle in three locations which required surgery and at least 9 months of recovery. This stopped my dreams of joining the marine corps like my father and brother had before me and all my scholarships for football were redacted as well. In just one night all my plans fell to pieces and I didn’t know where to turn. A few weeks went by and I was sitting on my couch all propped up with my boot and crutches. One of my old friends came to see me and he had just got back from this school called YWAM and he told me all about it and how it changed his life and now he knows what to live for. That night I cried and searched for the Lord and begged for forgiveness as I was so lost and needed His love and direction. That next day I sent my application in to YWAM and gave my life back to God and told Him that He is now my only plan, not my backup.
So that brings us to my story of YWAM. I have been involved with YWAM since the summer of 2018. I did my DTS in Lakeside, Montana and my outreach in Thailand. I absolutely fell in love with the Thai people and culture and I knew I wanted to go back. I realized on my outreach that every person that has not heard the gospel needs to have a chance to choose God and I would want nothing other than that being what I dedicate my life to. After My DTS I went back home for a short period. I looked up YWAM Idaho on Instagram and then I found this base. I was slightly interested but when I called Brandon and he told me about their dedication to Thailand and I was sold! I raised some financial support and left for Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. My vision and passion of reaching the unreached and giving that choice to people who haven't had a chance to choose Jesus has only been doubled and encouraged by YWAM North Idaho’s vision and staff. I have loved staffing DTS schools and sharing my passions with students and seeing God fill their hearts with that same passion. My last school that I staffed I found the love of my life and am getting married to her June 6th, 2021. We have fallen in love with our mutual desire for obedience to God and our dedication to reaching the unreached. We both plan on staffing 2 or more schools at YWAM North Idaho and then doing an SBS and moving to Thailand to serve as long term missionaries. We plan on being there for 5 to 10 years just depending on what God says.
My responsibilities here are not limited to staffing the DTS. I am also the head of evangelism on base and the head of base maintenance. I am always busy doing or planning something, but I wouldn’t change my job for anything. Being able to work as a member of God's army trying to expand His kingdom is what I want to be doing. I am currently growing in leadership, discipleship, and my walk with the Lord and many other things that are helping me prepare to become a long term missionary. When I look back at how I've gotten here and all the ways God has blessed and helped me, I know that it is nothing less than a miracle. To close this out, I would just like to say my purpose in regard to the Bible. Matthew 28:18-20 “Go and make disciples of all people.” I hope my story can inspire you to do the same.
My fiancé and I are currently in need of more financial partners, so if you would like to learn more about partnering with us in that way, we would love to meet with you. Feel free to call me at my number below. Thank you for taking the time to read about me!!
Sincerely,
Connor Holloway
+1 (208) 420-0289