Update From Atlanta and Mission Training

One month left until our time in Atlanta is finished. We have been studying hard and preparing as a team for Bangkok later this year. Even with the experience I have gained in South Asia, I have picked up even more tools and knowledge for application in Thailand.

In addition to class time and reading 2 books per week, I have had a lot of fun going into the local refugee community outside of Atlanta in Clarkston, GA. This is the most diverse international place I have seen or even heard of in all of America. There are refugees from many places that are placed right here. People from Sudan, Ethiopia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Myanmar and many others are relocated right here through World Relief- a refugee relief organization that helps people acclimate into the U.S. These refugees are different from immigrants- immigrants have come to this country of their own free will. Refugees have been removed from their country because of their ethnicity, their religious beliefs or simply because they occupy land that the government wants to use. They spend time in refugee camps, sometimes 15-20 YEARS before going to a country that will accept them. We have met some young people 18-25 that were born in the refugee camps and have no concept of their own home country. Many of the children were born in the camps. Can you imagine? Not being able to call anyplace home, and then being placed in America where you do not know the language, you have no money and are totally dependent upon others to survive. The Bhutanese are ethnically Nepali people who migrated generations ago into Bhutan, but since they are not really Bhutanese, the government sent them out of the country. They tried to settle in India, but were sent away. They tried to settle in their native country of Nepal, but were not recognized as Nepali, so were put into refugee camps that are not too far removed from prison accommodations. This is a holding place where they live and apply to live in other countries, but are forced to remain (they cannot go outside the walls of the camp) and survive in these refugee camps until they are accepted by another country. Most likely, that country is a European country or the USA- either way, they move into a culture completely opposite of their own.

Through World Relief, my family and I have adopted a Bhutanese family, and spend one day per week in their home being friends to them by just hanging out with them. Others on our team have also adopted refugee families, and have been spending time with them, even picking them up to go to the hospital for doctor visits. One visit we were able to meet the entire family that has been slowly relocated here from Nepal, and were served dinner. When we left, one of the men of the family said- "you are part of our family." Sadly, we will leave them soon, but hopefully the impact of our love and friendship toward them will be felt for some time. Another sad fact about many other refugee families is that they never have any significant relationships with any American families. We are privileged to have the opportunity to spend time with these families and show the love of Christ, even being able to share our faith with them.

In one of the apartment complexes, the majority of people that live there are refugee families from many different countries. I met a missionary that is living and working among them, and have been spending a lot time with him visiting families that he has developed relationships. We have had many opportunities to share the Gospel, and have found several houses of peace within the complex. We were talking with a Nepali man who spoke very good English (he learned while in the refugee camp for 20 years). The conversation never lagged, he initiated dialog during our conversation, which eventually turned to spiritual topics. He is Hindu, but does not believe many of the Hindu traditional beliefs, like reincarnation- he believes we live once and then die, but from there go to the good place or bad place. We asked him who decides where we go, and how. He said the more good we do, we go to the good place (heaven) but if we do bad, then we go to hell (This is a very common belief among people from South Asia). We then shared the Gospel, to which he is open to hearing more because he said that it was good teaching. Another day, we sat outside and shared the Gospel with a group of Nepali women and an older Nepali man who helped us explain it, since he was a Christian. We were sitting with another family we had built a relationship with, and asking questions about Hindu beliefs. The wife then handed us a Jehovah Witness tract they had received, written in the Nepali language. Fortunately, they did not understand what it was, but unfortunately, understood it as Christian. The opportunity presented itself for us to share the REAL Gospel, and with a Nepali Bible, we explained salvation through Christ in the Book of Romans, with the Romans Road passages (verses 3:10-12, 3:23, 5:8, 6:23, 10:9-10, and 10:13). We stopped at each passage and explained, and had them read and re-read them and tell us what they thought. They have not accepted yet, but they have a better understanding of Jesus, that will hopefully lead to their becoming a follower of Christ.

It has been a great time here in Atlanta, not only gaining a lot of knowledge, but to be able to apply many of the principles right away and plug into the local community. Keep praying for these refugee families that we have all encountered- that the Holy Spirit will work in their lives & the knowledge that they have been given to change their lives. And pray about befriending a refugee family in your city. There are many. Make a difference in their lives.

Why is Good Friday Good?

It was Good Friday 2008. Our Hindu neighbor, who we were visiting, asked me the question. We had shared that we follow Christ, and she had a knowledge of Catholicism from the Catholic school she attended as a young girl.

"This is the day of Jesus' resurrection, that is why it is Good Friday, right?", she asked.

I said, "Good Friday is when Jesus was crucified and died on the cross."

"How is that good?" she asked.

I really didn't expect that question, from anybody let alone a Hindu woman in South Asia. What came next was from the Holy Spirit, not me.

"This is the day that Jesus died to take the punishment for the sins of the people of the whole world. What is more good than that?"

She smiled and seemed to agree, though we don't know if she has accepted Jesus as her only Lord. We gave her a Bible in her language, which she put in her puja room, along with her other gods. They jokingly would say that they follow Jesus and many other gods, though I was never able to confront that statement- that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to God but through Jesus. (John 14:6) Not Krishna, not Ganesh, not Shiva, not Hanuman- no one comes to God but through Jesus.

An amazing display of how much love God has for us- Jesus, God's one and only Son enduring torture and agonizing death to take our punishment on the cross. Taking punishment for my sins, your sins, sins of all Americans, Africans, Mexicans, Europeans, Russians, Indians, Japanese, Chinese- the sins of the whole WORLD. How do we know this? What kind of proof do we have? Anyone can take punishment for someone else. People sacrifice animals for sins all the time. Even human sacrifices have been and are made to please gods and atone for sins. But, the way we know that Jesus' sacrifice was THE sacrifice for the whole world, once and for all- God raised Jesus three days later. There has never been another sacrifice that has been brought back from the dead. Only Jesus- and there is testimony to the fact that he has risen, there is a book written about it (the Bible) where witnesses talked with him, ate with him and even touched him after he was killed and rose again. Jesus, the one and only atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. With that sacrifice, we can escape the coming judgement of God, because of the love of God.

"Just as man is destined to die once, and after that face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take the sins of many people." Hebrews 9:27-28.

"This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ," Romans 2:16

"He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification."

Romans 4:25

"But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

The sins of the whole world were paid for through the suffering and death of Jesus, on what we call Good Friday. On the cross- the wonderful cross.

Not Exactly Our Plan, But A Good One!

So, God called us to go to South Asia, to make His name known among a population of over a billion people- of which less than 1% claim to know the name of Christ, and an even smaller percentage of those claim to be evangelical Christian.

So, unless we went, those people will not be reached with the Gospel, right? The task and the burden is upon myself and my family- it is OUR responsibility to stay in this place, where God called us, until the task is finished, right?

How selfish and arrogant to think of ourselves as THAT important in the task God is doing in South Asia. It does not disqualify us and excuse us from going, however, but if we think we are leading God into those places, we are sadly mistaken, and we can easily be a failure.

We traveled to South Asia, pretty much knowing nothing other than God wanting us in a specific place for His glory. After learning a tremendous amount from our team members and the national brothers there, we felt like this was the place for us- until God called us away in the distant future of His perfect timing. The problem with that thinking is, God's timing is not perfect when we try to control it and put limits on it.

We loved our place of service even before we got there, and grew to love it even more as we stayed, but God had other plans. Our home church was putting a team together to go to Thailand with the task of multiplying disciples, leaders and churches. They asked us if we would consider joining the team and brining our 2 years of experience in church planting to it. WHAT? What about where we are? The ministry is going well. We are seeing a lot of fruit. Many volunteer teams have come through here and brought the vision back home to the U.S. AND, why would we give up being completely taken care of financially through the IMB to go an raise our own financial support to go somewhere else? It did not make any sense to me, and we struggled with the decision of what to do.

So, we prayed about it. We found that we were not sent to South Asia with the IMB just to reach the lost and equip church planters how to focus their ministry and reach the lost themselves. Those are important, but just as important was the valuable time we spent growing in the Lord, and learning how to live overseas, and what further purpose and plan He had for us in His master plan of reaching the unreached. God was equipping us for another purpose and another place of service for Him through our time in South Asia, and the more we prayed, the more we felt that it was time to step out of our new comfort zone we had made and get uncomfortable again in order to glorify God.

So, we said yes and left South Asia. We are now with a team of 11 adults and 5 children (2 of them ours) that are preparing to go to Bangkok, Thailand this year. We are growing as a team by attending a 5 month missionary training school in Atlanta, GA- Global Frontier Missions. By this summer, mostly all of the team will have moved to Bangkok. Since we have had a later start in raising our ministry partners, we will be joining the team later this year. We are excited to be heading out on our 2nd missionary journey as a family, knowing that what God wants is better than what we want. Jesus prayed, in Matthew 26:39 "Father, not my will, but yours be done." Father, no matter where your will takes us, not our will but yours be done.

I'll share more about our times here in Atlanta in future, and SOONER posts.

New Updates- Yes, from America!

What a journey it has been. We have come home, just a quick 2 year stay in South Asia with the IMB, and it has come to an end already. We enjoyed our time, saw much fruit, even saw successful church planting through what God had equipped us to equip others with. It did not come from us, but God channeled it through us to those who could be most effective. We feel extremely blessed to have been in the place God put us that people would reach out to Him.

There was sadness in finishing and saying goodbye, committing the church planters to the grace of God's word and the work that He called them to. There was sadness in leaving a place that became our home so easily. There was sadness in saying goodbye to so many close friends- neighbors, church planters, business owners- all of them cried when saying goodbye, which made it harder. We were covered by God's grace in coming home, no travel problems- only a long journey. We came home and were greeted by friends we had left behind 2 years ago, and rejoiced as they were able to help us with all 12 of our suitcases!

No rest, however as we returned in time for the Christmas season, and after about a week of jet-lag, trying to find things we needed for daily survival, and driving on the wrong side of the road and nearly giving my in-laws a heart attack, we shopped for gifts for each other and for the kids- the first real mall shopping we had done, talk about reverse culture shock! My son accepted Christ in July, and we shared our joy with our home church as I baptized him- what an incredible joy!

After Christmas, we packed and headed down to our next journey- a Missionary Training School in the Atlanta, Georgia area. We are currently living in a local community with a team from our home church preparing to go and live in Thailand. Our vision and purpose is to multiply disciples, leaders and churches to spread God's glory in that place. During our time in Atlanta, we are preparing ourselves by team building, training, community ministry and fund raising (we are no longer with the IMB but are being sent our through our home church).

The plan, is to be in the Atlanta area for 5 months of training through Global Frontier Missions, and then, if our funding commitments come in we will be able to join the team which will move to Thailand in July of this year. If funding is not complete by July, we will stay back and raise support for however long it takes and join the team later. We are way excited to be part of what God is doing and what He will do through our team.

Thanks for checking in- more blog posts will come, so stay tuned!

Church Planter Updates

Seriously, two months since my last post. We have seen some great things happening with our church planters here, so I thought I really needed to post the updates. *I'll use initials to indicate them.

PW* is leader of one large city church. There is 12 people from his church that have a hospital and prison prayer ministry. On one visit, the group met a man at a hospital who inquired of them. He was interested when they said they follow Jesus, and he invited the group with PW* to his village to share good news. 60 people showed up to hear the good news, and all were very happy hearing it. 17 people took baptism from the group, including the man that brought them to the village. PW* began sharing the things he is learning in our group and he went out and shared Jesus in 8 different places- each one is now getting discipleship and meeting for church.

RK* went to a new village and has been sharing with the people. Now, between 40-50 people are meeting for prayer and listening to bible teaching. He has been getting calls from surrounding areas for him to come and teach and pray in their village. In his home church, he has been teaching the things we are learning in our group. For years, the local church has had outside pastors come in and give baptism to new believers. Last month, because of RK's teaching, the pastor of the church gave baptism to 7 people. Now for the first time, they have taken authority to do things on their own.

CS* visited 7 new places searching for men of peace. He has found 3 places open to hearing the Gospel. A husband and wife took baptism and have been taught how to share their story to others in their village. 12 other people have accepted Christ and are ready for baptism. In his main church, there are 6 people who are coming regularly but are also doing Hindu rituals due to pressure from their families and neighbors. Pray for wisdom to handle this situation.

BG* has been doing ministry for years. He has started 6 churches locally in the last 5 months and is still going. He is also helping a friend of his with church planting. He shared the Gospel with one of his friends and his wife, and they accepted Christ. They are now meeting in their house for church. They haven't been taught about baptism yet, but BG said that is next. One of his churches came to him and asked if they should be giving money to the Lord. He said yes, but that they should appoint a treasurer from among them and then decide what to do with the money as a church.

SK* met one man of peace, he accepted Christ and took baptism. SK is meeting in his house and is discipling him regularly.

DS* is pastor of a church here in the city, as well as one of the leaders of the mission organization we're partnering with. He has had trouble with the believers showing much interest in coming regularly to church. DS has been helping with translation during our training meetings, and knows our training very well. He has started to implement things that we are teaching to make the churches healthy. He gave authority to one member to be treasurer of the offering, and when the church decided what to do with the money, they would have the treasurer do what the church decided. He encouraged the church to appoint a deacon to help organize worship. Another was appointed to organize fellowship. Now the believers are excited to be part of the fellowship, and have taken ownership of the church. They no longer depend on DS to do everything, but he has given authority to the church to function on its own if needed. Before, when he left town, the church would not meet. Now, when he is absent, the church meets on its own. This is what we want to see happen. Churches that are self sufficient and not dependent upon one person or organization to keep it going. The church is also ministering to their local community. A lady was badly injured by electric shock, and could not function for many days. The church reached out to help her during this time until she could get well. The local non-believers noticed the church reaching out in love to help this lady, and they are curious as to why they are taking such good care of her. They have been given a great opportunity to be the Light of Jesus to their community, and the members of the church are excited to do something together to help their local community.

Things have also been happening with some CPs from our last group. 3 of them are training other groups of CPs in different districts in addition to leading churches and other church planters of their own. There is much talk around the state that this method is the most practical and effective method to reach and multiply God's kingdom here. Please continue to pray for the faithful men and women who are impacting this place for Jesus.