A Look Back on a Life Changing Year!

At the end of each week of lecture in our YWAM schools, we have an activity called "Reflections & Evaluations". It's a chance to look back over the past week of teaching and reflect on what the teacher spoke about and evaluate what God spoke that past week. As one staff puts it, “it's a chance to soak up all those last bits of a really good meal, so nothing is left over." It's a good idea, so we thought I'd reflect and evaluate over 2011, as it has been a life changing year.

January 2011 - March 2011: Joy- I was a world away for my Discipleship Training School [DTS] outreach to Southern Africa! We spent 8 weeks in South Africa & Botswana, and it was an amazing experience. God used to me to bring someone to salvation and to heal another! I created deep & lasting relationships with some incredible people. I was processing voice of the Lord to no longer move to Cambodia long-term, but instead pursue staff at YWAM Orlando. And I had a crush on this boy that I just couldn't get over…

Creagon - Naomi said “I had so much self hatred but I became so free!” One of my favorite parts of my job is to ask discipleship students what God has done in the past week and produce a video for those who are praying for them. Their response reminds me why I believe this generation will change the nations. (Oh... and I read a blog by a girl visiting Africa with great interest!)

March 2011: Joy- I graduated from my DTS, and went home for 2 weeks. My family went on a great vacation to New York City and we had such a blast. I also began my second training school with YWAM Orlando, called the School of Ministry Development [SOMD], which would lead to my becoming staff. And I had my first date with Creagon.

Creagon- “Mom, I've invited a girl to join us.....but we are just friends.” This is how I told my parents that Joy would be joining us for a worship concert while they were in Florida. I had no clue that the next time they met her I would be proposing!

April 2011 - May 2011: I loved loved loved my SOMD lecture phase, and really refined my vision for staff at YWAM Orlando. I grew so close to my 2 other schoolmates, and created even deeper relationships with staff at the base. And my dates with Creagon became more and more frequent, until at the May, he asked me to be his OFFICIAL girlfriend. Oh, happy day!

Creagon- When I returned to Joy from teaching in Colorado (see video) I knew that I never wanted to be apart again. Her dad just grinned at me when asked his blessing to date his 28 year old daughter.

June 2011: Joy- My SOMD prayed and we decided to postpone our Nepal outreach, as God was evidently closing the doors on this opportunity. And Creagon was in a life-threatening car accident that forever changed our relationship. I was by his side essentially 24-7. His world became my world, and it was then I saw how much I truly loved him. We left for an extended vacation at his parents place in Michigan, where rest and healing was crucial. I loved our time in Michigan, getting to know his family better and falling more in love with Creagon.

Creagon- I was in a hospital bed and I didn’t know why. The past 2 ½ hours of my memory was black. My world was spinning and I told the ER Doctor “I WANT JOY!” It took a while for him to realize that “Joy” wasn’t just an emotion but the name of the person that meant the most to me.

July 2011: Joy- He proposed. My entire world changed in a moment when the man I had fallen madly in love with asked me to be his wife. And we set our wedding date for just 4 short months away.

Creagon - She had dedicated every waking moment to my healing and recovery. This kind of love just can’t be faked. Once the concussion had passed I asked God if I could marry her and popped the question.

August 2011 - September 2011: I was back home in Tampa, with Creagon too, building the sponsorship team I needed to be back on staff at YWAM Orlando. It was a great time for my friends and family to get to know Creagon, as my future husband, and for us to share our vision and passion for ministry. And Creagon continues to heal from car accident injuries.

Creagon- My old car was a pancake and we needed a vehicle to give tours to YWAM alumni, parents and potential sponsors. God provided generously an SUV that is perfect for our needs.

October 2011: Joy- Back at YWAM Orlando, and it's so great to be back for my first quarter on staff! I'm living in the 31-foot camper that Creagon and I purchased for our first "home" and its wonderful. I'm working as school staff with the Justice DTS, focused on human trafficking prevention. Loving the students, and their passion for worship and thirst for God. This quarter was an incredibly learning experience for me. Was also planning our wedding, which at time was more stressful than enjoyable.

November 2011: Joy - But on November 26, 2011…I married him. And it was perfect.

Creagon- I remember resting my head on hers during our first dance with all our friends and family watching. I was amazed that I got to marry my best friend and we could serve God in missions together...for ever!

December 2011: Joy- We split our honeymooned in two parts and finished up two weeks of work. I write this blog from honeymoon part two in Mexico, with so much anticipation for 2012. What will my first full year of Mrs. Muldoon bring? What does God have in store for our marriage, our ministry, and our future. 2011 was full of twists and turns, so many unexpected moments. It was a GREAT year. And I have high hopes for 2012 as well.

Creagon- We celebrated Christmas a few days early with some of the Mexico’s children who needed it the most. One of my sponsors gave some extra money so we could bless each of the families with the gift they wanted most.... a chicken!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
--Joy & Creagon

The passion of worship

I want more of You God!

When worship takes over and it can't be stopped.

Posted via email from creagon's posterous

Worship at YWAM SE Conf

This generation will change this world! It is my honor to inspire,
teach, guide and disciple as many as possible!

Posted via email from creagon's posterous

New Students Arrive at YWAM Orlando

Larry shook my hand this morning and told me the story of how he packed up his family, bought an RV trailer and drove the length of our country to Orlando. Why would he leave his home town to put his whole life and career on pause? God said so!

Today over forty students have arrived at YWAM Orlando. Some have brought their young families like Larry, others have just graduated high school. All have come to central Florida for twelve weeks of intense training and decipleship before they depart for Thailand, India or the Haitian/Dominican boarder.

I look forward to meeting and getting to know each of the students before I teach in their schools. Many meals will become times of deep sharing, prayer and encouragement as they wrestle with the call of missions on their life. I look forward to being known as "Joy's Fiance" as her primary focus includes mentoring a small group of female students.

It is because of the prayers and financial generosity of my committed sponsors that I am able to train the next generations of world changing missionaries. Thank You!

New house...? Almost!

My beautiful Joy and I intend to be living in this exact RV once we are wed. Living on the YWAM Orlando campus will allow us to continue training the next generation of world changers. Would you like to help us purchase it? Click to donate.

Video: The four i's to full financial sponsorship

Every quarter at YWAM Orlando I get to ask students; Are you focused on studies or servanthood, ministry or money, business or the best for others? Do you find yourself rejecting the 9-5 rat race & American dream as a nightmare? Can really God provide all you need to fulfill His calling on your life into missions? Who is holding your money ransom - and why?

In this 51 min teaching I share how to Inspire, Inform, invite and Involve your team and how God wants to provide enough resources through His people for you to change the world. See www.iSupportYWAM.com for more info and tools.

A Wreck of a Week

I had a crazy yet Joy-ful week. For the story to make sense I will have to give you some history:

Creagon: Last fall I was trying to remember the names of the 50+ students that showed up for the Discipleship Training School at YWAM Orlando. One day at dinner I saw a smile that was very inviting so I sat next to her. I quickly realized she was something special. After introductions she said "So, you are Creagon! You have got to tell me more about this mobilization & communications thing you do for YWAM." Now this is not a typical pickup line, even in YWAM, but it worked for me! Interested, I found out that she has a degree in communications and has worked as a graphic artist for multiple ministries. Perfect right- cute girl, common interests, same place for the next three months - how simple could this get? But there was a problem .... YWAM Orlando asks all new students to hold off on starting new "romantic" relationships for six months. This avoids many headaches as many of our students are teens. Joy (I remember her name by now) was not a teen but willing to follow the rules during her initial training. On my part, lets just say that I followed the rules completely... but found lots of "work related excuses" to be near her. After spending twelve weeks in Orlando, Joy spent the first two months of 2011 in South Africa with her YWAM -DTS outreach. I was very curious to hear what her plans were when she got back.

"So I'll see you in a few weeks!" those were the words that put a smile on my face. Joy would be retuning for a program that when completed could lead to a long term staff position with YWAM Orlando. It also meant that there were no rules preventing our relationship from progressing. On her way back to Orlando I asked her if she would want to go to a church service with me....and meet my parents who were about to leave town. Looking back I will call that the first of our sixteen non-official dates. It was two months later when I officially asked her to be my girlfriend. Since then we don’t keep count of the dates, we just try to spend as much time together as possible. Last week this was easy as I was teaching about finding a financial sponsorship team in a course for future full time ministers - she was one of the students. (Insert your own teachers pet joke or song here).

Once the teaching was over, I took her out for a lazy Saturday at a book store and shopping. We finished the evening with sunset near a local lake. I dropped her off at her house and then started driving home. This is the last thing I remember before waking up in a hospital over two hours later.

Joy: 12:02am, Sunday, June 12, I received the scariest call of my life. My boyfriend, Creagon, had been involved in a serious car accident and was being rushed to the hospital. My heart stopped.

Creagon and I have only been officially dating for 2 weeks at the time of the crash, but I’ve been his for much longer than that. I met Creagon nearly 9 months ago, at the very beginning of my first training school with YWAM Orlando. He was on staff, and I was one of the many new students that invades the campus every 3 months. While sharing about my life, my passions, and plans for my future with my small group leader, she suggested that I talk to Creagon, as many of our interests were quite similar. Then one night at dinner, I find him conveniently beside me. I began talking to him about what he did at YWAM Orlando, involving marketing, communication, recruiting and fundraising. I’m caught up in his passion for mobilizing the next generation into missions and can’t stop staring at his gorgeous blue eyes. I knew I was in trouble. See, YWAM Orlando has a policy for all new students to not start any new romantic relationships while in their first school. And, I already had my life all planned out. It didn’t include staying in Orlando and finding a boyfriend. After sharing with Creagon my plans for the future, he says to me “OK, I know I have a deep voice and all, but I’m not God, so check with Him first, but you should really consider doing a secondary school and coming on staff here.” I laughed it off. Little did I know then those were in fact God’s plans for me.

I found myself wanting to be around Creagon more and more during this first school, but knowing that nothing could or should happen. Heck, I didn’t even know if he was interested in me! Most days, I thought I was crazy because I’d read into the way he looked at me, how often he touched my arm, and the time he spent with me. It wasn’t until after I got back from my 2 month outreach to South Africa, and was about to begin my second school at YWAM Orlando when I discovered that, in fact, I was not crazy. Creagon calls me and invites me to hang out with him and his parents, and immediately i knew this was different. From that point on, we began hanging out intentionally and consistently, until just a few short weeks ago, he asked me to be his girlfriend. My heart soared.

I was trying to wrap my brain around the details of the crash that Creagon’s parents were giving me on the phone while frantically trying to find my keys, shoes, and directions to the hospital. All I knew was that he had been hit, found unconscious in his car, and was now being rushed to the hospital downtown in seemingly stable condition. My roommate drove me [quickly] to be my his side, and on the way I passed his car...and I lost it. The damage was so severe I found myself wondering how he could ever walk away from it. We get to the ER and another phone call from his parents confirm that he is awake, alert and stable and I begin to breathe sighs of relief. It was still almost an hour before I could see him. I finally get to see him and I was relieved to see his handsome face looking up at me. He was pretty out of it, blanking on details, and repeating himself and I suspected he had a concussion.

From more phone calls with his parents and Creagon’s fragmented memory, we began to piece together what happened that night. Creagon dropped me off at 11:15pm and began his drive home. Not even 10 minutes later, he was stopped at a red-light behind two other cars when another vehicle ran right into the back of him, and left the scene. The driver of the first vehicle saw what had happened, and immediately called 911. He went to Creagon’s car and found him unconscious. Unsuccessful in opening the driver’s side door, he went around to the passenger side to help Creagon out of the car, who had now woken up. Creagon was able to remember and recite his parent’s Michigan phone number, which the “guardian angel” was able to contact. Creagon’s parents began calling people at YWAM Orlando once they learned how serious the accident was. I was woken up from my sleep with this terrifying news. Creagon was taken away in an ambulance, still in and out of consciousness, then transferred to a helicopter and rushed downtown.
After talking to doctors and nurses, we discovered that he did have a severe concussion as well as seatbelt bruising. As scary as that sounded, what “could have been” was much scarier. He was released at 6:00am, and I was able to finally take him home. The next few days were a blur. I became something of a nurse/girlfriend. In between making sure he slept, he ate, took medicine when he hurt, went to the doctor’s appointments, I was helping him filter emails, find his car and get his belongings out of it, answer work texts & calls, and track down his missing driver’s license. Hence the blur.


The fog has finally lifted, and his recovery is becoming more and more manageable. His symptoms, while still present, are not as severe and we’re just preparing for however long this process will take. I’m just so grateful that he’s still with me. My heart rests.

Creagon: Thanks for all your prayers and encouraging comments!