Will & Millie Toms - Directors of YWAM Tribal Winds 

• Will was born in Jamaica, Long Island, NY in 1950.


• Will came out to the west coast and joined US Navy Seal, UDT (Underwater Demolition Team) in 1970.


• Millie was born in Seoul, Korea in 1957 and met Will while volunterering at Sea & Summit Expeditions ministry in CA. in 1976.


• Will and Millie married in 1980 and now have three adult children who were born 1981,'83 and '85.


• 1980-1990- They directed Sea & Summit ministry and Winter House (formally a halfway and discipleship House in Santa Barbara, CA)


• 1990 - They brought both ministries under YWAM ministry


• 1996 - They had a strong call (visions and dreams) from the Lord to come out to the Hopi Indian reservation to simply live with the people. They established YWAM base in Kykotsmovi village.


• 2006 - Leaving some staff to continue the work in Hopiland, Will and Millie moved out to Flagstaff, Arizona to establish a Training base to do DTS and other schoolls to reach the Native Americans.

How we got here, and why we've stayed. 
 
From the director's wife: Millie

This is how the Lord brought us out to the Hopi Indian reservation in Arizona from Santa Barbara, California. In the spring of 1994, my husband Will Toms called me at my work. I was surprised to hear from him, as he had gone to do the yearly wilderness staff training up in the snowy Sierra Nevada mountains, within our Sea & Summit Expeditions ministry. Will and I married in l980 and brought the ministry of Sea & Summit under the umbrella of YWAM in l990. That day Will called in a hoarse voice saying that he needed to come home and tell the kids and me something NEW that God was doing. I was curious as to what he had gotten himself into for he is a man who will step out and do whatever he felt the Lord told him to do.

When I came home and saw what he looked like, I was very suspicious. Will told me and our three children how God had awaken him in the middle of the night and challenged him to not "fear men" but to "fear God" and took him through what he could only describe as a right of passage or an initiation into things of God unique to Native Americans. I was glad that he made himself accountable by waking up the other staff to keep an eye on him and to pray for him.

This was up in the high desert of the Sierras and there were many sharp desert plants all around. Will said that the Lord, who identified Himself as YAH, had him run several times "in the Spirit". I knew that Will can run fast because in the Navy Seal team, his teammates told me once that Will always ran in first during their training runs. I asked the Lord in my heart whether He was a sadistic God who would hurt his children, because Will's legs were all cut up and even had a big gouge in one shin. I was surprised to get such a quick response from the Lord with the reply saying, "Look at Jacob, I made a mark on him; he limped for the rest of his life."

 
 
When Will had told us that YAH that night was appearing like his Indian Chief Father, I thought he had gone nuts. So I did not hesitate to again ask God in my heart, "I just wanted a godly man, did I marry a crazy man?" And again, I was given a very swift reply which was "No, he is not crazy. Trust him." Will talked about a number of experiences such as where he danced, circling in the spirit to the right, and then circling to the left saying the words like "a warrior is brave and strong" and "a squaw is gentle and kind".

He was told to proclaim YAH in four directions. And he found himself chanting HAYAH, HAYAH, HAYAH Will said at that point in the beginning, he had to stop everything and test the spirit saying, "I've had my drug days, I don't want to go there again." But, he soon knew this was the same Spirit he had loved and served ever since he came to know Jesus in his heart. And he said that the Lord spoke in his heart saying that HAYAH meant "to truth" and that My Name is YAWEH. I asked the Lord for the second time, "Did I marry a crazy man?", and the answer was still, "No, he is Not."

Will went on to tell us that night that all he wanted to do was to simply obey the Lord with everything he had. So he ran, danced and proclaimed His Name, YAH, until he nearly lost his voice. I asked again, "Father, are you sure I did not marry a crazy man?" This third time, God ran out of patience with me, and I felt a quiet but a very strong rebuke as though someone had hit my stomach, and I heard Him in my heart.

The words were, "Millie, don't be like Michal ! Let him dance!" Michal was Saul's daughter and King David's wife. She was ashamed of David when he danced with all his might, almost naked, through the streets when the ark of the Covenant was coming back into Israel. (2 Samuel 6:14) God did not want me to be embarrassed at what was happening. After all, He is a wild God! Look at John the Baptist and Elijah. He was doing a paradigm shift in our world, as He pleased, and either we were going to follow Him or quench His Spirit.

After that day, Will and some others around us began to have series of dreams about the First Nations' people for two years. These were dreams which a white man could not make up on his own. In one dream, an Indian man in the Amazon walking towards a hut with a cross on it, fixed his eyes ahead and said, "I need my black spine cleaned." Each time after a dream, we would ask, "Lord, do you want us to go to the Amazon, the Philippines etc.?" But there was no clear response. We even found out about the Ainu, the indigenous people of Japan because of the last dream Will had.

 
 
I am of a Korean decent and having been born not far from Japan, had no idea that there are "Indians " who have Bear clans just like the Hopis and many other Native American nations, in Hokkaido, Japan.

It was at the end of the first year of dreams and visions that Will heard the Lord speak to him one night. "It is the Hopis; there are other tribes and watch out for religious spirits." I personally did not know who the Hopis were so it was amazing to find that they were Native Americans located in this inhospitable desert land of Northern Arizona. We also found out that the Hopi people were not moved into this area as most other Indian nations were moved onto hostile lands by the white US government, but that they have chosen this land for themselves almost a thousand years ago, and that they have the oldest continually dwelt settlements in all of North America.

They also have most of their calendar year cycle of dances, ceremonies and initiations which have continued to this very day. All the children are required to be initiated in the kivas (underground secret chambers with a ladder coming up). The men and women belong to different societies. And I did not know that many of the cliff dwelling ruins in the Southwest were built by the "Anasazis," (a Navajo word meaning, "the ancient ones") which are the ancestors of the Hopis. Many houses are on top of the three main mesas, like the Tibetan houses, and they are made of stones quarried from the desert sandstone.

The hardest part of coming into Hopiland is that one must have housing. Unless one is a doctor or a nurse or a teacher, it is almost impossible to find a place to live. But soon after the last dream, in 1996, a house which was built for the first ordained Hopi pastor, Daniel Schirmer, and his wife opened up to us after being boarded up for almost 15 years.

The daughters were given a specific instruction not to rent the house out to anyone but for the purpose of God's work. Many had asked for the house, but it was not opened until we came. So, not ever having seen the house with my own eyes (Will had), we packed a big truck and moved out in August of l996 with our three children (ages 11, 13, 15 at that time).

I believe that the Lord had to take such radical and slow steps to carefully prepare us, perhaps, because we are hard of hearing, and also because He wanted us to know, without a speck of doubt that this was where He was calling our family. We did not know that the average stay for all the outside workers coming into Hopiland was 1-2 years. And we did not know that all of the eight churches in Hopiland hardly saw a baptism, if one at all, in their church for the past thirty years. You see there is tremendous pressure to conform to Hopi ways of life, which encompass all aspects of life, and there are much persecutions for those who chooses to follow Christ, as in the Muslim world.

 
 
The Lord spoke to our hearts that, "It's the Hopis and there are other tribes," so we believe that He means to extend the boundaries to not just here in Arizona, but to many other nations around the Pacific Rim as He had shown us in dreams. We believe that the work in Hopi will in some way be a strategic aspect to this work. The Lord gave us the privilege of taking an initial team of four Hopi Christians to Australia in 2001 to speak into the hearts of the Aborigines, and we believe in faith that God has many more plans into the other regions of the world!

There are many more things to say, and it has certainly not been easy. The spiritual life in this land can be as barren as my garden which I tried to cultivate but keeps dying with the harsh climate of winds and not enough water. And there have been many desperate moments of seeing so many deaths and hopelessness. Sometimes, discouragements hovered over us like a thick cloud of dust so that I can hardly get out of bed.

And yet the Lord has given us confidence that Hopi is the nation which will be a KEY to many other nations. We cannot look at the circumstances around us, but the promise of what God has given us which is being sure of what we hoped for, and certain of what we do not yet see. The Lord God Himself, has started this work and He asked us simply to obey. So He will finish it according His perfect plan and timing. May His name be lifted up forever and ever in every nation, for He is indeed worthy! We have seen God move in so many ways and we have learned to see small beginnings as huge break-throughs here.

***Note: The spiritual atmosphere has changed since we have first come to Hopiland in 1996. The Hopi men are now beginning to come into the Church. And, whereas there were no baptisms for over thirty years when we got there, we have seen baptisms and weddings and many people turning to Christ. It is not unusual now for Hopis to talk about God and read the Bible. There are increasingly new believers who are wanting to redeem their culture in order to glorify God with their musical instruments, songs and dance. God is giving dreams and visions to Hopi men and women.

Even a medicine man in one village is telling Hopi Christians not to leave this new path which they have found, for it is good and more powerful than what the others have. We're just beginning to see, in 2006, followers of Jesus calling forth 'Fasting & Prayer" together for their people so that God can heal their land. However, there is a spiritual and social battle raging from every side and there is much more work and prayers which need still to be done. It is beautiful to see God's light coming through and we believe we are about to see a powerful move of God in Hopiland.

***After living in Hopiland for 10 years, Will and Millie Toms have moved off the reservation 80 miles away to start a Tribal Winds training center near Flagstaff. There are several YWAM staff still residing and working in Hopi and both location are components of YWAM Tribal Winds