Who We Are
God Translated
Our logo draws together our values with common elements of life from our ministry epicenter in northern Ghana, West Africa. The human person of Jesus was God translated into our world in order to communicate the good news of his kingdom – that God loves his creation with such incomprehensible depth that he actually became like us, literally stepping into our sin and brokenness to suffer and die so that the penalty of sin and evil would be erased, and the power of sin and evil defeated through his resurrection.
Intimacy with God
The Gye Nyame cooking fire
Inside the fire ring next to the clay pots is the Ghanaian Adinkra symbol, Gye Nyame. It means “unless God makes the way”.
Having Gye Nyame as our cooking fire means that in all things we draw strength from a vital, intimate relationship with God through regular prayer, and trust him through our obedience to lead our lives (John 10:27).
Incarnational (Love) Evangelism
The two mud houses
In John 1:14 we read that The Word (Jesus) became flesh and made his dwelling among us. If Jesus had come to rural West Africa instead of John’s world in Palestine he would have built a mud house alongside others in the community. This incarnated life (literally in – flesh – ment) instructs us as Jesus’ disciples to also draw near to people so they can experience God’s love incarnated through our lives.
Spiritual Reproduction
The older and the younger
Depicted are two people, one older and one younger pounding fufu, Ghana’s most beloved dish, together. The proper preparation of fufu involves two people pounding it together which creates a winsome and welcoming rhythmic beat. At YLI we work together, intentionally teaching and modeling the Jesus way of life to younger people, even in the ordinary times of our every day lives. We want the rhythm of our lives to also create a winsome and welcoming beat.
Our Commission
After Jesus resurrection, he commissioned the remaining eleven men he discipled to continue to seek his kingdom, making disciples of the surrounding nations, teaching and baptizing them, and through this they together would become his body… continuing God translated until his return! As we obey Jesus’s command to make disciples he grows them and empowers them to make disciples as well. In this way, the Church of Jesus Christ has multiplied throughout much of our world since Jesus’s short earthly life.