There is so much I could say about this very special place. This is the place God chose and made clear to us would be our home base, a home that we can go out from and come back to, for however long He wants that season to be. We didn’t really understand completely at first, but all the time He is helping us to understand how important it was for us to make our home here in this particular place – not to settle, but to live on mission.

The YWAM Tyler base makes its home, not actually in Tyler, TX (which is a small city of 100,000), but just NW of Tyler in the Lindale/Garden Valley area, about an hour and a half east of Dallas. Lindale is a little town of 5000, and Garden Valley is the beautiful rural area next to it. At the end of SOSM, we were literally 4 days from graduation and didn’t know where we would live. We had no income from the I.T. Ranger anymore, and no regular supporters either. So I told God that by now we were not only asking for a place to live, but a place we could move into in less than a week, with no money. The same day, Steve saw an ad on the bulletin board at the YWAM office and we went to see a little old house in Garden Valley. This was the first house we even went to see, and in a nutshell, the owners (who were missionaries with MercyShips for many years and had been in the same position a few times themselves) allowed us to move in after graduation for low rent with nothing paid in advance. (I am very thankful to be able to say that God allowed us to quickly bring the rent up to date, as we especially wanted to honor them for their trust in us!) Although it’s a very old house, this house has so many things that I had randomly talked to God about over the months before we moved there – just driving along, saying things like, God could we live in Garden Valley? (Yes) Could we live close to base? (3.5 miles!) We don’t want to be out somewhere by ourselves. (Amazing neighborhood community!) I’d love if our house had lots of trees in the yard. (Many beautiful Catalpa, Live Oak, Crepe Myrtle, and Jujube trees!). Plus, the perfect little side yard that is fenced in and visible from the kitchen and living room so that Archer can be outside a lot…God thought of everything.