¡Hola! My name is Cassandra Cavin. I am from Minneapolis, Minnesota and I have been serving with Youth With A Mission (YWAM), primarily in Mazatlán, México, since June 2005. After completing two three-month internships in Monterrey and a six-month Discipleship Training School (DTS) in Mazatlán, I returned to YWAM Mazatlán in May 2007 as a long-term missionary. My heart and passion is really to work with Mexican youth, teaching them about God's love, sharing my passion for missions and evangelism, and helping them to get involved in mission work in other nations. I love working alongside the local churches, reaching out into the community to reveal how God is always longing to do amazing things with ordinary people. I have had many different responsibilities with YWAM, including the discipling of DTS students, planning and leading outreaches in México and in other parts of the world, running the kitchen, and working with short-term mission trip teams.
In YWAM Mazatlán, we have several different ministries: Homes of Hope, where we build homes in poor neighborhoods; Remnant Skate, where we set up a mobile skate park for the local skaters; The Zone, where we go into the red-light district and work with prostitutes, transvestites, and drug addicts; and Kid’s Saturdays, where we go into a poor community and put on a VBS (Vacation Bible School) every Saturday morning. In addition to these regular outreach ministries, we are "transforming Mazatlán one party at a time" - organizing evangelistic teams from around the world, México and the local churches, to share the gospel message with the masses of people who flood Mazatlán for Carnaval and Semana Santa each year.
YWAM Mazatlán offers several different schools: a Discipleship Training School (DTS), where students come from all over the world to learn more about God and missions and put those things into practice; a Basic Leadership School (BLS), where students take classes on leadership and work on the base applying their leadership skills; a WISE School (Worship, Intercession, Spiritual Warfare, and Evangelism); and Verano de Fuego (Summer of Fire), where teenagers can come for a month in the summer and learn more about God and missions and also do a two-week missions trip to another part of Mexico. I have graduated from our DTS and BLS and have worked as a leader for two DTS's and two Verano de Fuego's.
I see myself working in missions in Mexico long-term. I absolutely love the culture, the language, the people, the land, and almost everything about what I do. I hope to continue to build strong relationships with different churches, pastors, youth, and YWAM bases throughout Mexico. I feel like God has given me a ministry of unifying the Mexican believers of all ages, denominations, backgrounds, upbringings, and locations. I don’t always know exactly what that looks like, but I am excited for the path that God is leading me down in all of this!
