Meet Lee

Here’s a short interview with Lee, our centre manager at YWAM Seamill. Maybe grab a coffee and have a read!

Hi Lee, could you start with reminding us of what Seamill does?
Seamill is a huge 110 year old building on Scotland’s west coast. We have a permanent staff of usually between 20 to 30 people. We are a YWAM centre and most of our work is to run courses for people to further their walk with God. We run two DTSes every year, we also run one bible school per year , we have a course for people who work in some of the tougher nations on the planet and every year we run a retreat – again for frontier missions workers. We also have teams on base reaching out evangelistically into the local community.

And how does your role fit into making all that happen?
My role as part of the leadership team of the community is to basically make sure the building is operating as it should, that we have heat and electric, and comply with what the Government asks us to do to keep the building safe. To make sure we comply with fire regulations. I believe what I do is make sure that we as a community can hold a space open for people to come here and to meet with God.

Tell us about what a regular day looks like!
It’s kind of tricky to describe for me – each day is different. We have a list of the things that each year we have to make sure we do to make sure we comply with what our insurance company, the government and its agencies demand that we have for the building to be safe. I may be looking at getting the asbestos in our building inspected to make sure it is safe (it is), getting someone to inspect our lightening rods, booking trades people to come work on our heating, our gas, our electrics, our building. Looking at our budgets making sure we are spending within what we estimated. I’m also involved with leading our community meetings on base and involved with staff training on our DTSes. So as I said very very diverse.

When and where did your missions journey start?
I had been in a bad relationship which had just ended and I needed something new. I had friends that had done some stuff with YWAM so I went on a short term outreach to St Petersburg, Russia. I did a week’s training at Holmsted first as part of the trip and was given an application form for a DTS. I knew then that I would quit my job the following year and so I came on the DTS in 1995. Those first years God went after me. I had not been in good shape before, but God started working in my life and refining my character.

I staffed a couple of DTSes and met my wife. We got married in ‘98 and led a DTS together in ‘99. We went to Ukraine on outreach and saw God do some amazing things. People got healed, heroin addicts got free from addiction, and lots of people met with Jesus. It was Book of Acts type stuff.

In 2002 we left England to do the Leadership Development School at Seamill and Mariette Louw asked us to stay and lead DTSes with her at Seamill. So we did. I became the DTS team leader and kept working with DTS. Then in 2011 God said to stop being involved with DTS. I love DTS so that was a big deal for me. Two years ago I was asked to be part of the base leadership team, and that brings us to now.

For people that might be interested in doing what you do, what opportunities are there to get involved? (and how can they find out more?)
There are many opportunities here. We are looking for a Centre Manager to do basically a lot of the things that I described above. We are looking for practical people who love God, love the challenge of helping with preserving a beautiful 100 year old building, and love seeing God’s Kingdom advanced, who have a heart for people and seeing them blessed. We are looking for folks who love to serve. You can find out more on our www.ywamseamill.org