About

We are Chris and Lynn Toney and are madly in love with Jesus and with each other.

We first accepted God’s invitation to join Him in his mission to the last, lost and least over 27 years ago when we joined Mercy Ships, which was at that time part of YWAM.  As a family of five (kids were 4, 2 and 1 at the time), we did our DTS in 1997 then served aboard the Caribbean Mercy, Island Mercy, Anastasis and finally the Mercy Ships International Operations Center.

We founded YWAM Destination Paradise in July of 2003 and ran DTS schools throughout the Caribbean aboard first one, then two sailing catamarans before being called by God to not sail on beyond Belize where we found ourselves in 2008 and eventually move ashore to accommodate a vision which was larger then a couple of 46 foot sailing catamarans could handle.  The first resort we leased also became too small so we moved down the beach to the leased resort YWAM DP is now operating a University of the Nations campus from with DTS schools every quarter and a number of UofN second level schools as well.

In 2013, we began to sense that God was leading us into a time of transition.  As we pressed in to the Lord, we began to understand that He was calling us to relocate our personal residence to Kona Hawaii and serve according to our passions and gifts in teaching (both of us), counseling (Lynn) and matters Biblical (Chris) both on the Kona campus and around the world.  We are very excited to be part of God’s mission and remain willing and eager to see how God will continue leading us over the next 20+ years!