Who AM I?
Hi my name is Tanner Tuman if you didn't already know who I was. I am 22 years old, born and raised in California. I gave my life to Christ at the age of 4 in the car waiting outside of the church chapel for my sister to get out of youth group. I grew up in the church given my dad was the Youth Pastor and then transitioned into Children's Pastor for the majority of my life. My Mom also was heavily involved at the Church. She was always there even before being on staff!
I am the youngest of 3, my brother's name is Payton and as mentioned above, my Sister is Brooklyn. Being the youngest I always annoyed my siblings, but it was because I looked up to them and love them both dearly.
My family are a big reason as to why I believe, but they are not the only reason for my Faith.
My Testimony is not this crazy life changing one, but it defines who I am and what I mean to God. It is jammed packed with lots of spiritual warfare, miracles, friends, family, mistakes and more. To put it short, growing up I always had night terrors and sleep paralysis. I was attacked by demons in my sleep and this continued for a while, no matter where I was, who I was with, it would continue terrorizing me every night. That was until I remembered that God was with me and all I had to do was ask for help. This is when I prayed one night to have no dreams. I was too scared to dream, so I asked for none at all. That was the first night I had no demons after me. The power of Jesus saved me that night. It was not the night I asked the Lord to come into my life, but I recall it as one of the first nights He saved me after coming into my life. I prayed that prayer every night for years and anytime I didn't I was attacked. This went on for a long period of my life until I recovered from the trauma and started receiving small revelations within my sleep. At some point in time my no dreams became dreams from the Lord. For example, I dreamed of my friend joining the military, branch and all, years before he himself even considered it. This was a stepping point in my walk. Skipping ahead in time I was in high school taking college courses in person. One day on a walk back to my school, I saw a person trying to convey people about something. In my head I said Lord please keep me away from this person; I have a bad feeling and want nothing to do with them. As I got close, my legs froze up leaving me unable to move. This "person" was now talking to me about the "mother of god" and of course I instantly fought back, even being afraid. I stood my ground and held trust in the Lord. He spoke through me in that moment. I then gained my movement back, and as I took my first step forward, I looked away for a second, literally 1 second. Then I look back and this person was gone. Given we were in a very open area, there was no possibility for them to disappear in that second. I believe this was an encounter with a physical demon and I am still unable to fully describe the feelings, emotions and situation fully.
I could go on and on for a long time with many of the experiences I have had with demons, the Lord and Life. These are just a few of those. If you ever want to hear more about my testimony, just come and ask!
Why YWAM?
The reason I am choosing YWAM is not only because I have heard many great things about them from family and friends but also because of a personal experience.
Ever since I was a kid, Japan was always on my mind. I could not tell you why. It was around high school when I took those childhood thoughts and started pursing them. I dove into the Japanese culture and started looking at the language.
I started learning Japanese and at some point joined a language exchange app. This is where I met a good friend who really introduced me to what YWAM really is.
This friend is a guy named Addison. He is from the East Coast, and we met in a random voice room for English to Japanese exchange. It was a random day, and I was talking with some people while he was just in the chat. He heard me mention something about God or something and decided to join the chat. We talked a little and found out we had many things in common. We both loved God and Japan at the top of those interests. We would chat every once in a while and then came a time where I gathered enough funds to travel to Japan. I told Addison as we both had never been. This is where he hit me with the "NO WAY! I am going at the same time!!" He just happened to be flying out the week before me for a YWAM DTS in the next city over from where I was staying.
I asked if we could meet up, and he got the okay from the YWAM staff. We met for the first time in person in another country across the world. I got to spend a day with him and some of the YWAM staff skateboarding, eating and having fellowship together. This is where I learned what YWAM really is in the flesh, getting to see what they do in person and be there with them evangelizing. I knew that is where God wanting me right then and there.
For a long time I thought that this meant I would be ministering in Japan just as Addison was; however, after many years and lots and lots of prayers, God took me down a different path and that is here to Oxford, New Zealand!!
This little story is also a part of my testimony as it has brought me to where I am now. That was not the full story but just a small glimpse of how I found out YWAM is for me.