Pete and Fran Sifuentes started the first SOW here at YWAM Montana-Lakeside. Along with SOW, we had our very first SBS. Ted Darnell was the first SBS director for YWAM Montana-Lakeside; he had originally come to speak in the DTS and was then invited to bring SBS to the base and become the SBS director. Ted had no staff at that point, but God was already working on that! God spoke to Ron and Judy Smith to come be a part of the SBS, and after amazing confirmation they came to Montana and have been here ever since! For them, it was the greatest move they ever made! SBS and SOW prospered because of the heart of the leadership; they made a space for these schools, recognizing the importance of running programs like this and how it would impact the base as well as the future students who would take part in it. And ever since then, the base has never been the same!
Author: Creative Media
New Field Was Landscaped – June 1987
Jim Polk had this idea of doing a summer football camp, but the field was not ideal – it was a rolling area filled with rocks. We decided to have an all base work day where EVERYONE was involved and came to work on it, which was around 30 staff and 30 kids. We had no heavy equipment to work with – just picks, shovels, rakes, and wheelbarrows. It took the entire day – we were able to smooth it down, get it weeded, and then seeded. About a month later, we had our first football camp!
First snack bar – 1986-87
The snack bar started back in 1986, in the bowling alley in dorm 3, where the nursery is now (yes, we used to have a bowling alley!). We first started by serving drinks and snacks for the DTS, then in 1987 a couple by the name of Dave and Jean Cowan came back to the base to start a book store snack bar; they had the vision for it and really wanted to run it. The snack bar was moved to where the dance studio is now and was there until Dave and Jean left YWAM Montana.
Fran Sifuentes had a vision of the snack bar becoming more of a place where fellowship could take place and where we could have room to open it for Friday night community nights. So Fran took it over and moved it to where the Library is now. It was much larger, and we had tables and chairs for people to visit during the day and on Friday nights for the community.
A few years later it was moved to where it is now, only without the room for the student center. We had booths for people to sit and we sold books, snacks, and music of some of the YWAM Montana staff. It was a great place to get to visit with staff and get to know each other.
Fran ran the snack bar for 4 more years and then turned it over to Jeanette Brewster, who carried it on from there. Since then there have been improvements to the snack bar with the expansion of the student center; it has become a great meeting place, where both students and staff come to study and hang out!
First Base Director & First DTS (September 1985)
In 1984, David Graham went to a conference in Bolivia as a guest of Loren Cunningham’s, and little did David know that Loren would introduce him as the next base director of YWAM Montana-Lakeside. This came as a complete surprise to David, but in the end it turned out to be prophetic! David became the first base director of YWAM Montana-Lakeside, and then in the fall of 1984, David, Bob Fitz, and (Mr.) Gustafson traveled throughout Asia to do some recruiting for their first DTS, which then started in September of 1985. We had 47 students and 33 kids!
Auction for the base – June 1985
Up to this point, we had been talking to churches and many people were praying, but there was still no money coming in except for the oil well money. But we continued on in faith! The auction took place in the cafeteria; at least 20 people were there to watch, most of them being YWAMers. Several of them were there just to intercede and we had to keep trusting that God would give us that property. Several parties were involved in the bidding war, and the starting bid of $50,000 was quickly raised to over $400,000 in a matter of minutes. This was disheartening because we already knew we had no money and the price kept increasing! But again, we trusted that God would provide. Every other bidder dropped out until it was us and one other bidder; the bidding stopped at $425,000 and it went to us! This was incredible news, but now we had to continue trusting God that He would provide all of the money. We were only given 30 days to come up with the balance, but in an amazing turn of events, that timeline was extended to a year which gave us enough time to acquire the funds that were needed!