Psalm 9:1 "I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart; I will tell of all Your wonders."
Thanks to your prayers and financial participation we reached the June goal of 50%. And now we are at 52%.
Due to meeting this goal, I was able to register for the July training with my mission board!!!
Arrived yesterday at ABWE headquarters to start this training. What an awesome surprise it was to walk in and see several familiar faces from last year's training!!!
Here is a little video clip: https://vimeo.com/abwe
In addition to meeting the financial goal, God also answered prayer about housing and transportation. Late last month, when reaching the goal suddenly jumped into a reality, it also suddenly became necessary to find housing for the training week.
At first I thought, "No problem, I have a number of friends in the area." But in contacting them I didn't think about all the others who were already registered for the course. All the housing was booked up. But of course God already had something lined up, and a family I met once 6 years ago offered to house me. And they live only 12 minutes from the campus!
Then came transportation. My car is getting old and the A/C no longer works. Last week, seeing that the weekend temperatures were predicted to be nearly 100, I began to dread the 5 hour drive down. But on Saturday, someone hearing about my lack of a/c offered to loan me their car for the week. Their car had a/c and a full tank of gas!!!
The drive down yesterday went very smoothly, I was NOT a melted mess at the end as I would have been, and the family I'm staying with is delightful.
So what is this training? It is called "Essential Mission Components." There are 46 of us new missionaries from around the world preparing to head out in all 4 directions around the globe. I can't share many pictures because some of the other people are going to places I can't mention.
Today I was assigned to a table and found out everyone else at the table are also missionaries to Spanish-speaking countries. We are having a ball comparing notes and swapping stories!
"Essential Mission Components" What does that entail?
First it starts with ABWE's Vision Statement: "Our vision is to fulfill the Great Commission by multiplying leaders, churches, and missions movements among every people."
In order to meet that goal we are learning about:
1. Cultural Intelligence - how to learn and adapt to the culture you are in and figuring out what are effective ways to connect to people, share the gospel, and start churches in that cultural context.
2. Developing Leaders - Working as a team of missionaries and how to disciple new believers and mentor them to become future leaders. Basically to come with the mentality of working ourselves out of a job :-)
3. Holistic Ministry - (will share more after I learn this one ;-)
4. Networking & Partnering - (will share more after I learn this one ;-)
And of course we will also be learning the whole process of planting churches that not only grow but that in turn start other churches and in turn send out missionaries themselves.
Here is another little video clip: https://vimeo.com/231599603
Feel free to share this with family and friends and acquaintances.
If you, your small group, or church would like to have me come share about missions, I’d love the opportunity.