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Our Story

From the very beginning, YLI has been grounded in love and God's faithfulness

Our History

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We joined God's ministry in Ghana in 2001, when Jim Moye felt called to invest in the next generation of young leaders to lead the spread of the gospel. Jim heard from God that what these leaders needed above everything else was love. Jim and his wife, Fran, founded YLI to love young leaders and teach them how to love others well.

God continued bring together other leaders with the same passion for discipleship. While Jim was planning about next steps, he reconnected with Ash. The night before they met, Ash had a dream about coaching people in Africa. When Jim and Ash sat down for breakfast, Jim shared with Ash the word picture of a "coach" for his approach to discipleship, and asked Ash to join him in building up the ministry.

YLI belonged to God, and Jim's job was to be God's catalyst to get it started. After Jim's passing, Ash, the first generation of YLI Coaches, and other key board members have been able to continue to work of discipleship in West Africa. Since then, the coaches have taken ownership of the YLI model, and lead trainings all across Ghana. The ministry is also expanding to Nigeria.

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A key shift in our ministry began when Ash and Mike Moye went to Ghana in 2009, Ash discovered that it was challenging to talk about God's love as they saw the extreme poverty in the village of Kpenchila. Ash felt that the call of discipleship demanded more than just words, but action. Kpenchila became the site of the first YLI water project! Since then, YLI have supported clean water installations in over 50 communities!

Clean water opens the door for us to share the love of God with others. As we are discipling young men and women, their intimacy with God causes them to see the needs in communities, be bold in proclaiming their faith, and be active in building relationships. The community response to receiving clean water is trust in the proclamation of God's love and a willingness to listen. As we practice love evangelism, the community members become not just a recipient of mission, but become a transmission of mission. Our hope for each of these communities is that they become a beacon of God's love to the surrounding areas.

YLI through the years

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Our Future

As we continue to move forward in God's faithfulness, our God sized dream and prayer is that we would expand training and coaching efforts with communities of young leader-disciples who are reaching the lost throughout West Africa. We have seen that the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few, so our prayer is that the Lord of the Harvest would raise up additional leaders to join us as we empower young leaders to reach their world through discipleship!

YLI Stories continued

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