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<\/a><\/p>\nDarius grew up in a very small town in Alaska with his parents who were themselves missionaries. If you listened to the podcast a few months ago you got a good picture of the culture that Darius grew up in when I interviewed his parents. Let\u2019s put it this way, the village Darius grew up in was cold, dark, and quite small. In fact, coming back to Salida for visits was like visiting the big city, and this was back before Salida was the booming metropolis it is today. He went along as many missionary kids do struggling to find his own purpose in life, and even spent a few years in flat-out rebellion of God. However, in his early twenties God got ahold of his heart and didn\u2019t let go.<\/p>\n
He was a young man unsure of what he wanted in life, but he knew he was looking for warmer weather and to expand upon his new faith. He decided to attend Youth With A Mission\u2019s Discipleship Training School in Denver, Colorado, soaking up the sun and riding the frozen waves on his snowboard. Life was good, he\u2019d come a long way, and wasn\u2019t in a hurry to get anywhere else fast. However, during his discipleship program, God started to really guide his heart toward long-term missions. He was starting to frequently take teams to Mexico and do short term mission trips, when he met the woman of his dreams.<\/p>\n
Suendy was raised in the church, having come to Christ at a young age. Her heart had been on the mission field for many years and it seemed like just a matter of time before God called her away from her home. She studied the Bible, learned another language and was simply waiting for that call. A long-time believer, Suendy understood patience with God\u2019s timing, however she never did see God\u2019s call in the way she expected. Eventually, He made it clear to her that she was ultimately being called to serve God in her own country and culture. Even though her heart was for missions, Suendy was being told that she wouldn\u2019t be leaving. She stayed in Mexico though and continued to serve Christ locally and got involved with YWAM serving as a translator for teams that would come to assist with short term trips. Wouldn\u2019t you know it one of the leaders on one of those teams was in fact Darius.<\/p>\n
Today the two of them along with their daughter, Grace, oversee the entire YWAM Cancun operation. This is a set of programs that has 23 staff members working over a large variety of projects. They run their own DTS program at this point in order to bring in other members who have a desire to be fostered in their relationship with Christ and pushed to learn to serve more and be able to put Christ at the forefront of all their future endeavors. They run two local programs for kids called Kingdom School and Kingdom Academy. During Kingdom School, they work with 120 kids and 30 moms from the local community discipling and working with outreach. Kingdom Academy is a program that they have begun where 19 kids go to full time Christian School which offers all the same accreditation that kids from the United States would graduate with. They teach a lot of English in this program in order to help kids get a job after they graduate because Cancun is so steeped in tourism.<\/p>\n Due to the abject poverty that many know as reality living in the communities of Cuna Maya, one of the largest needs is simply a safe and secure place to live. Many homes in Cuna Maya are built because people gave all they had to move to Cancun in hope of finding work, but when they arrived work was hard to find. These people have built many of their homes out of anything that they could find. Sticks and discarded items in this place can become a home. Often, the people dwelling there don\u2019t even have a real floor or a ceiling. So YWAM Cancun now runs a program called a Dry Roof and a Solid Floor. The point of this program is to help people build secure homes, safe from the elements. Most of these homes are vast upgrades from current living situations and yet they are simple cinder block homes about 14 feet by 14 feet housing whole family units. This program also asks the people receiving the homes to take ownership in the process and assist in building their own homes.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n