Share Your Stories, Advance FTD Science with the FTD Disorders Registry

The FTD Disorders Registry, the first-ever online registry designed to bring together persons diagnosed with frontotemporal degeneration, their caregivers and family members, has officially launched. Accessible at ftdregistry.org, the Registry gives people affected by FTD the opportunity to teach researchers about the various FTD disorders by securely sharing their stories, thereby informing their work toward developing treatments and, ultimately, a cure. In return, Registry participants will receive recruitment notifications for upcoming clinical studies as well as research news updates. AFTD and the Bluefield Project to Cure Frontotemporal Dementia co-founded the registry with generous support from the Rainwater Charitable Foundation’s Tau Consortium program. For more information, visit ftdregistry.org.

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Science News » Delayed Walking May Signal Spontaneous Gene Anomalies in Autism

Researchers have discovered a pattern of genetic glitches and behavioral features, such as delayed walking, in some cases of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) that could ultimately lead to identification of subgroups and improved treatment.

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Generic (Scientific) » Transformative Opportunities for Solving the Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health

Transformative Opportunities for Solving the Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health 2017

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Science News » A Third of Suspect Mutations in ASD Just “Noise”

Researchers have narrowed suspected genetic causes of autism and related developmental disabilities by ruling out what they call the “noise of benign variation.”

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AFTD to Congress: Reject Genetic-Information Bill

In a March 17 letter (pdf) to four key members of Congress, AFTD Executive Director Susan L-J Dickinson spoke out against a bill that would require employees to divulge genetic information before joining employee wellness programs. The Preserving Employee Wellness Programs Act (H.R. 1313), if passed, would “impose harsh new penalties on employees who refuse to make this private [genetic] information public to their employer.” As Dickinson points out in her letter, genetic mutations are the likely cause of an estimated 15 to 40 percent of FTD cases. “While it aims to expand workplace wellness programs to improve public health outcomes,” Dickinson writes, “this legislation would significantly undercut patient privacy protection for employees at high risk for workplace and societal discrimination given the nature and severity of their illnesses or risk of illness.” Read the whole letter here.

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Blog Post » An Experimental Therapeutic Approach to Psychosocial Interventions

Dr. Gordon talks about NIMH’s commitment to support the development and testing of psychosocial interventions in the greater context of the experimental therapeutics approach to treatment research.

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Science News » Avenevoli Named NIMH Deputy Director

Dr. Shelli Avenevoli has been named deputy director of NIMH.

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Training Youth in Papua New Guinea

Perched on the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea lies Alotau, capital of Milne Bay Province and home to 15,000 people. Though there are no main roads that lead to Alotau, the coastal town is the gateway to some of the most remote island communities in the world. Alotau is also now home to one of YWAM’s newest campuses, YWAM Alotau.

YWAM Alotau begins to train students

The campus is being established in partnership with Kwato Church of Papua New Guinea, a ministry with a history in training and empowering young people throughout Milne Bay Province for over a century.

“We believe as a church that the training programs that YWAM provides will benefit and empower our young people to reach their full potential as the individuals God intended them to be,” said Bishop Dago Walino.

The pioneering team for the YWAM Alotau Campus have now moved into Kwato Church’s two-story property, known as the Youth Empowerment Centre. The facility was built two years ago and offers a classroom, dining room, kitchen, eight bedrooms, balcony, and land surrounding the property.

YWAM Medical Ships Managing Director, Ken Mulligan, said that the new campus is an exciting step forward.

YWAMers work hard to get the kitchen ready

“We see such hunger in the young people here to learn and do great things with their lives. This campus is all about helping each individual discover their unique gifts and talents, and equipping them with what they need to then use those talents in practical ways. We have a very holistic training approach. It is about developing skills alongside character, which go hand-in-hand when it comes to the development of the individual,” said Ken.

Two-week introductory seminars will run over the next number of months covering a range of topics including micro-enterprise, basic health care, and community technology, delivered in partnership with YWAM’s University of the Nations campus in Kona, Hawaii.

YWAM University of the Nations Kona Executive Director Paul Childers said that the pilot seminars will gauge the appropriate style for training delivery as they progress toward delivering nationally accredited training in the future.

Students graduate from a two-week technology seminar

“Our desire is for the training to be culturally relevant and engaging to help young people not only attain skills, but to also gain a true understanding of their value and their part to play in building their nation. These first few months are really about hearing from the students and the local community as we get to know each other, and together explore the best strategy for long-term results,” said Paul.

There has already been a fantastic response from local young people. Soon after the campus opened, all of the seminars were booked up for the first two months.

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WAG Magazine Highlights Need for More Widespread FTD Awareness

The story of Andy Nissen, a Texas veteran who was diagnosed with FTD at age 37 and died last year, emphasizes the need for more widespread awareness of the disease, argues a newly published article in WAG Magazine. In the article, Andy’s wife, Shana, recalls how difficult it was to secure an accurate diagnosis; some doctors even told Andy that he was fine. “FTD is commonly misidentified as Alzheimer’s, depression or even a midlife crisis,” AFTD Executive Director Susan L-J Dickinson is quoted as saying. “You can’t cope with a disease if you don’t know you have it.” Read the full article on the WAG Magazine website.

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FTD Calendar Benefiting AFTD

Sharon and Rod Hall of Georgia are creating an FTD focused calendar for 2018 titled: Celebrating Life with Family, Friends and Fun. The calendar will feature pictures of people diagnosed with FTD alongside their family and friends. All proceeds from the calendar sales will be donated to AFTD. Sharon is now accepting orders via this order form and calendars are expected to ship October 2017. Please send order form and payment to Sharon, not AFTD.

Note: This is not an AFTD calendar but an Independent Grassroots Fundraiser benefiting AFTD. AFTD sincerely appreciates Sharon and Rod’s support.

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Pray for Supernatural Increase

Many of you joined us last month for The Invitation when we prayed for supernatural growth for ourselves and for our local communities. In a video, YWAM leader Lynn Green talked about prophetic messages YWAM has received about ten-fold growth and he explained how praying for growth fits with themes in the Bible.

We asked you to provide growth plans that God has given your community so we could include those in The Invitation for this month as we pray for growth from a global perspective. We heard from many of you and we reached out to several of the ministries associated with YWAM to ask about their growth goals. These specific growth plans and prayers have been included in The Invitation for March (our prayer day is on March 9).

As we prepare to pray for global goals, please watch this short video from YWAM’s founder Loren Cunningham about praying for global growth. This video was prepared specifically for The Invitation this month:

Next month is our final month for praying about growth and we will focus on prayer about persecution that often accompanies growth. If you have a specific prayer or story about persecution associated with growth, please share that with us by emailing us.

Also, from now on we are offering a new way to enter into The Invitation. You can now listen to The Invitation as a podcast. To sign up or listen to past episodes, go to: http://ift.tt/2mXjIgI.

Prepare to Pray

YWAM Estonia drew this picture as they prayed

Spend time as an individual or community preparing to pray for the global growth requests that have been outlined below. “Looking back and seeing the progress and looking ahead I know there is much more to come. What’s going to happen in the future is more exciting than what’s happened in the past,” said Kevin Sutter, leader of YWAM Frontier Mission.

Corporately: Watch the video from Loren Cunningham about praying for supernatural growth.

Individually: Ask God to speak to you as you review the story of Noah (Genesis 6 – 9). Think about the faith that Noah had to be so obedient as to build an ark so far inland. Think about your own faith. Is God showing you an area where you can be more obedient to build what He wants you to build? (Inspired by YWAM Perth.)

As you pray:

• Pray as Jesus prayed: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Luke 10:2).
• Pray for all YWAMers to be aware of global goals that God has given YWAM and that each will understand their part.
• Pray for building of character. Pray for leaders of YWAM teams and ministries to effectively disciple staff and students to have a “Jesus” character so that non-believers see Jesus in them and come to faith. (From YWAM Perth.)
• Pray for YWAM staff and students to have faith to live the growth. Pray that we will repent of any unbelief related to provision and growth. Pray that we will trust God with all our heart. (From YWAM Sertão, Brazil.)

Pray for Global Growth

Map of YWAM’s ships

Pray for the following growth goals and prayer requests from various YWAM ministries:

• End Bible Poverty Now: Pray that all the remaining 1,776 Bible-less languages would have at least a verbal recording of the New Testament by Christmas 2020 as a gift to Jesus (endbiblepovertynow.com).
• Frontier Mission: For several years, God has been speaking to our YWAM Frontier Missions leadership team to believe Him for supernatural increase in the harvest. With a focus upon making new disciples and starting Disciple-Making Movements, they have set a goal: “10X and Beyond!” Ten times the number of new believers and ten times the number of new movements among the unreached. Over the past few years, they have already seen a three-fold increase in disciple-making movements. Pray for God to lead them to the fulfillment of their goal to see a 10-times increase by 2020.
• Mercy Ministry: Pray for YWAM and its partners to have 18,000 mercy ministry staff in 200 countries by 2020 ministering to 50 million of the poorest and most vulnerable people.
• City Ministries: Pray for urban ministry teams in every one of the 40,000 cities worldwide where YWAM does not yet have a long-term presence.
• YWAM Ships: Pray for a fleet of 40 ships serving isolated islands and rivers throughout the world. The current fleet stands at 25 vessels. Pray also for trust to develop between YWAM ships and the governments of nations so that YWAM can engage the spheres of the nation where doors are open.
• Horn of Africa: Last month a group of YWAM pioneers met in Somaliland, a country that does not yet have long term YWAM presence, and they prayed for growth in their region. Pray for their goals for the next two years: four teams on the ground in Somaliland, a beachhead into Yemen, and six-fold growth in workers in another Horn of Africa country.
• YWAM DNA Infusion Asia reports that God has given the body of Christ in Cambodia a vision to see a church planted in every village by 2021. Please pray for this.
• Mission Builders currently equips between 500 and 1,000 volunteers to serve as many as 100 YWAM ministry centers each year. Pray for their long-term faith goal to raise up 15,000 volunteers each year to serve every YWAM ministry that has a need. They also want to thank everyone who prayed for them last year. They were able to pay off their mortgage by December 31, 2016.
• YWAM Associates USA: Pray for God to use the transition and changes in leadership to reveal His growth plans for YWAM Associates.
• University of Nations: Pray for effectiveness in serving where the need is greatest, supporting students in completing tracks and degrees and developing courses and tracks that empower people to engage with God’s purposes.
• Homes of Hope is currently building 390 homes for the poor each year in nine different locations. Pray for their growth goal to build 600 homes for the poor each year.

“For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power” (1 Corinthians 4:20).

Take Action

Dedication of the new YWAM Battambang, Cambodia campus

Here are some ideas for how take action yourself or how to learn more about the expansion of God’s purposes for the world.

• If you missed this video from last month, watch Lynn Green speaking about prayer for growth.
• Establish an area at your location where global and local growth goals can be visibly displayed as a reminder to pray and to focus.
• Read “Kingdom Reflections” by Kevin Sutter of Frontier Mission.
• Read Tom Bloomer’s warning about unbelief that can cause years of lost growth.
• Read Increase! article from YWAM South Asia. Also, read article regarding why we value reporting and tracking of our activities related to increase.

How We Prayed

In February of 2017 The Invitation focused on seeking God for supernatural growth. Here are a few of the reports we received:

• YWAM Perth, Australia was praying for their YWAM locations in East Asia when they sensed that God was telling them to communicate their specific prayers for YWAM globally. (See prayers above related to obedience and character.)
• YWAM Sertão, Brazil shared prayers noted above and reported that God gave them the word “people” regarding local growth
• YWAM Tallinn, Estonia prayed and listened and sent a photo of their time with the Lord.
• YWAM Colombia: A woman from YWAM Colombia shared several topics for future prayer. Topics included family, marriage and others.
• A Chilean asked for prayers for his country where there were outbreaks of fire, specifically that the fires would cease and that Chileans would turn to God in genuine and humble ways.
• A Syrian refugee requested prayer for his family seeking resettlement in Argentina.

Praying for unity at YWAM Blantyre, Malawi

In January of 2017 we prayed about Christian unity:

• YWAM Blantyre, Malawi reported that God brought representatives from over 10 countries covering five of the six continents to their location in early January. Staff and students from YWAM Kona, YWAM Hernhutt and YWAM Blantyre prayed for unity in YWAM and within the church. After praying for each continent they went out in mixed teams to pray in the community. They also prayed that YWAM would be an effective vehicle in drawing the body of Christ together. They cited Psalm 133:1: “How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.”
• At the YWAM DNA Infusion Asia Conference in Battambang, Cambodia almost 500 people prayed for unity within the body of Christ. They also thanked the architects of the new campus for their story of dependence on God for every detail of their work.

Don’t Miss The Invitation

Future topics for The Invitation:

• April 13, 2017: Growth–Persecution
• May 11, 2017: Spiritual Formation
• June 8, 2017: Back to Jerusalem

Here’s how to participate:

• Sign up for prayer updates. On ywam.org, find the “Stay Connected” box on the home page, put in your email address and click “Sign Up.”
• You can now listen to The Invitation as a podcast. To sign up or listen to past episodes, go to: http://ift.tt/2mXjIgI.
• Join the conversation about how God is leading in these prayer times. Comment on the post on the second Thursday on YWAM’s Facebook page.
• Follow YWAM on Twitter; search for #praywithywam and tweet about your prayer time or post a picture.
• Download prayer updates in a specific language. Go to http://ift.tt/1UO8eZP. (Currently available in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Indonesian, Korean or request other languages.)
• If you sense God giving you a word or a direction for YWAM’s prayer, please contact us.

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