Oosterhouse

Adventures
Youth With A Mission - Chico, California
And [she] laid Him in a manger, because there was no
room for them in the inn. Luke 2:7 Do your holidays ever feel
so busy with shopping, baking and parties that theres no
room for Jesus? He is the hope of the nations, the rest for the
weary and the light in the darkness. Hes the one gift we
cant live without and hes the answer the world is looking
for. Invite him into your busyness so you can spread his joy
to everyone you meet this season. Merry Christmas!

2015 has been an exciting year in agriculture!

In February and March we had the opportunity to attend a 4
week seminar about organic agriculture called OATS (Organic Agrinutritional Trainers School). It was a dream come true and really
changed the direction of our ministry here. We were blown away
with how much we learned even though Robin grew up on a farm
and we have both gardened for years. What impacted us the most
was how we need to challenge the worldview of those were teaching before we can teach them new agriculture methods.

Our classroom with some of our teachers.

Tomatoes grown from seed.

Part of our OATS school was starting a large garden on

base near our aquaponics system. The ground there was very hard,
full of weeds and baked in the sun every summer. I was skeptical!
Our teachers taught us how to use a weed eater to scalp the ground
by beating the weeds right down to the bare soil. Then we made
planting beds, on top of the dirt, from our huge leaf pile on base. We
put down cardboard covered with wood chips to form the paths. No
digging, no tilling, so easy. I was skeptical! We planted seeds right
in the leaf pile mulch with some handfuls of compost that we started
collecting the year before. Some tiny lettuce seeds fell a few inches
down in the leaf mulch. I was very skeptical! Our leader kept
stressing that we are planting like God plants. Some seeds fall, some
leaves fall on top, some rain falls. God really knows what hes doing
because
this garden
did
AMAZING for
its first
year!

Winter 2015

We planted most of the garden in March and did the heatloving veggies just over a month later. We harvested so many veggies all spring, summer and fall which provided some free food for
many of our staff. We enjoyed things like sugar peas, beans, carrots,
artichokes, zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, corn, a variety of melons, sunflower seeds, peppers, lettuce and spinach. Some of these
things were added to the salad bar for our community lunches and
others were just left for staff to take home. Some even went to areas
that we do ministry in like the House of Hope and the families in
Hamilton City. As we keep learning more about growing food organically we can teach our fellow staff, our students before they go
on outreach , the friends weve made in our areas of local ministry
and we can take teams on international outreaches to teach the nations.

Our Aquaponics system is running full time now using

solar power. Were still working out the kinks and continue to make
improvements. With winters short, rainy days we realize that we
need more solar panels to run our pumps more efficiently and keep
our fish happy. We currently have blue gill and large mouth bass in
the system and are growing a variety of lettuces, spinach, herbs,
peas, beets, radishes, and onions. The fresh, tender lettuce is beautiful and delicious! Weve been invited to India to build an aquaponics system and garden for an orphanage. Initially we planned to go
in January but the trip has been postponed due to a visa issue. Were
so excited to put our feet on the ground and our
knowledge to use in the nations. When were not Lots of lettuce
harvesting, weeding, watering or feeding we run
the grounds department for the base. This means
a lot of grass mowing, tree trimming, log splitting
and flower bed tending. We are also pruning and
fertilizing the fruit trees on base and seeing beautiful and exciting results.
First fish

Solar panels and battery bank

Local Ministry

Look who came to visit!

We are part of a group of staff that does ministry in a town

near Chico called Hamilton City. It has a population of about 2,000
and is around 95% Hispanic. We support the guys that lead a small group for
some middle and high school boys.
Robin just loves these boys and shows it
by making them cookies and giving
them mama hugs. Some live with
their grandmas because their mom has
moved away and their dad is in prison.

In November we hosted a YWAM

gathering for all the bases in central and
northern California. We have these every
fall, its a time to worship together, seek the
Lord together, and just fellowship with our
YWAM family. This year we were blessed
to have the founder of YWAM, Loren Cunningham, come to speak at one of our sessions. Hes over 80 but still travels all over
the world and does book signings. Listening to his stories and his passion for the nations made me want to
become a missionary all over again! :)

In May our staff put on a Life Festival in the

beautiful park in the center of town. Locals
could sit in their lawn chairs and listen to testimonies and a variety of musical performances. There was dancing, soccer, face painting, fellowship and best of all, free food!
Were trying to get everything in order to
replace this unbelievably bad roof for a
sweet lady named Gloria. She has two brothers and a niece living with her and
they all have some sort of health problem
or mental disability. Weve had shingles
donated but still need approximately
$2,500 for supplies and dumpster rental.
Please let us know if youd like to contribute to this project.
In June almost all of our staff participated in a week of Kings Kids
training. The parents learned many
techniques for doing ministry as a
whole family and the kids had their
own fun times of learning and growing. Our teens were really challenged to grow in leadership. We
had many worship times together
and had a variety of group games to compete in. On the last day we
led a kids event at a park in Sacramento and spent some time in
prayer in the beautiful capital building.
This was a very exciting summer for Caleb. He was part of our 180
Youth Summer program
for the first time. He
had some great
YWAM-style teaching
and outreach opportunities. He also did a lot of
housekeeping and
dishes during the summer camps. He loved it
and wants to do it again
next summer.

Stay in Touch
Dan and Robin Oosterhouse
15850 Richardson Springs Rd
Chico, Ca 95973
(530)342-3713 H

Dan is one of the few guys

on base that gets to play
with the tractor. Here he is
working with a couple of
other guys to remove a large
tree branch that fell on an
empty staff house. Its common for our valley oak trees
to drop large branches when
the temps skyrocket. Looks
like hes having all the fun!
In May, Robin and the boys visited Michigan for Robins parents
60th wedding anniversary. It was only a 5 day trip since it was during the school year but it was another opportunity to see our beloved
parents and grandparents and to
see Oma (Dans grandma) one
last time. We knew her time
was short so we gave her lots of
hugs and said see ya later.
She joined Opa in heaven in
July.

2015 has been our best year

yet in missions. God has used
our past experiences and passions for building (Dan) and
plants (Robin) and combined them in a ministry that we LOVE!
God is moving us towards short term aquaponics trips to India,
Uganda and China. While this sometimes feels overwhelming
and scary, it forces us to seek Gods heart and guidance for timing and problem solving. Hes a good father that we can trust!
Thank you so much to everyone that prays for us and financially
supports our ministry. Have a blessed New Year!

Robin - oostfam@gmail.com
Dan - drcj13@gmail.com
On facebook, find our
Oosterhouse Adventures page.
oosterhouseadventures.blogspot.com

Join our Ministry

We are currently not fully funded so if God is nudging you
to partner with us please send a check to us or to YWAM
Chico at the address to the left. Please attach a note specifying that its for us. You can also go to ywamchico.com
and choose the Donate-support a missionary button.