Hello, and thanks for checking out my profile. I am Tanner Crenshaw, a young missionary in training.

I grew up in the church with a loving family, but never had a personal relationship with God. I moved to a new town during middle school and grew further away from God. At the start of 10th grade, God encountered me differently. I found a church that helped me grow in my faith and understanding of God and the Bible, and I have been growing ever since. I completed high school and received my associate's degree in Manufacturing and Technology. Afterward, I knew I needed to pursue God more and travel the world. I wasn't truly listening to what the Bible said; I was just living for myself and going to church on Sundays and saying that was good enough, so I signed up for a Discipleship Training School through YWAM Kona. During my DTS, I fell in love with missions and sharing God's love and good news.  I plan to be a long-term missionary and continue God's work worldwide.

God has called me to minister to the lost and brokenhearted: those who don't know love and don't believe it exists; those who are bound by depression, self-hatred, anger, and suicidal thoughts and actions. God has this call for me because it is all I have gone through, and God showed me the light through it. So I know how hard all these things can be and how they can affect people in awful ways.

This is a huge issue in Japan. It is such a big problem that they have a mountain called suicide mountain because of how many people go there to end their lives. Japan has also coined a term for a mental illness called hikikomori. It is a total withdrawal from society, seeking extreme degrees of social isolation and confinement. Some people will isolate themselves for years from society. Typically, the result of people falling into hikikomori is suicide or attempted suicide.

My next steps are taking a deep dive into the Bible through another YWAM program, where I will be reading the whole Bible and studying it, taking a new approach to learning certain books, chapters, and historical evidence. After that, my path is not set in place; I have a few options between taking a leadership program or taking the needed steps to move to a different country and live there long-term, doing God's work. 

Tanner