My name is Maria Choi, and I am on an adventure with God to see His Kingdom come!
I currently serve full time with YWAM Cultivate, a pioneering campus of Youth With A Mission in the Tuscany region of Italy. As a campus, we offer Discipleship Training Schools (DTS), which are comprised of three months of lectures here with our community and then three months of outreach in another nation. In the past two years, we have sent teams to Cambodia, the Middle East, South Africa, Nigeria, Mexico, and the United States. We offer secondary bible courses, a chance for students to be trained in how to study and teach the Word of God. We also partner with our evangelical Italian church to serve and take part in local ministries. Our heart is to help people to know God and to make God known, equipping students to be launched into a lifestyle of discipleship and missions wherever God calls them next. Being a campus in Italy, our heart is especially to see Italians sent to the nations, and we’re on the journey to becoming a bilingual campus.
How did I get here?
I grew up in North Carolina in a faith-filled family and a mission-minded home church, but I didn’t think I would ever join missions full-time. However, when I graduated university in May 2021, I was in a broken, hopeless place. I knew I needed to make time for God to rebuild me and the foundations of my faith. So, in fall of 2022, I joined a DTS with YWAM in Italy. During 3 months of teachings in Italy and 3 months of outreach in Cambodia, I tasted and saw the goodness of God in a new way. I experienced healing, restoration, and renewed hope, and left with the desire to return and help others experience the same! So, in fall of 2023, I moved to Italy, to be here until God calls me to the next place.
I’m continually learning that I am but a “jar of clay,” and yet in grace and mercy, God has invited me to partner with Him to bring His children around the world back into wholeness, truth, and love. What an exciting, baffling, beautiful adventure.
If you’d like to be part of what God is doing in Tuscany and around the world, I’d be honored if you would prayerfully consider partnering with me financially!