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Sharing Love In A Primitive Place
This trip to Indonesia marked over 4 years that we have been going there, since our first time there working with the Tsunami relief. What a joy we have with our friends from the G.B.I. church in Medan. This has truly been a God formed relationship. The church is incredible as over 32,000 people join together across Medan in over 53 separate services every Sunday! Jack and Steve usually speak in 8 of their services and this trip was no exception.
From their on to Papua (formerly known as Irian Jaya). To say that Papua is primitive would be an incredible understatement. We were in the cities of Jayapura and Wamena. Jayapura is the capital of Papua built around a mountain. While some modern conveniences are there it is still some years behind. Working with Pastor David Halim of the ROCK Church, another great relationship has been formed. We were repeatedly asked to come back at another time.
Wamena is as remote and primitive as can be. During the day we spoke to around 55 – 60 Leaders and had open services at night. They were hungry and eager to learn. Pastors came from all around cities and villages to spend the time in these meetings. After the meetings we would go out to even more remote villages and areas that were probably as primitive as anything we have seen. Let me put it this way, not everyone realizes clothes are to be worn in public!
We stand in awe of God’s connections and opportunities and never take them for granted. We look forward to returning to Papua and Medan soon. As soon as we arrived home, in less 48 hours Jack was back on an airplane bound to speak in Brazil. Can’t wait to report about that trip in our next update. Together we are sharing love across the globe!
Fruitful February
One of the joys we have
as we travel is the relationships that we have developed with leaders and Churches across the globe. February started off in Tepic, Mexico with our dear friends Mike and Becky Kuelker. Mike and Becky have been serving in Mexico for the past 12 years. In addition to them is our friendship with Pastor Danny and his wife Rachel, who Pastor a great church in Tepic. They hosted our Pastors conference this year in their church and we fell just 2 short of our attendance record! We also spoke in some churches of the Pastors who attend the conference.
One cool thing that is going on is that the youth of the church have a time slot on the churches’ television program. They are taking Steve Smith’s book, “How to Make a Mark That Cannot Be Erased”, and studying that one chapter at a time over the air. That will leave a mark!
From there we were in San Jose, Costa Rica with our dear friends Dan and Cindy Salas. Dan and Cindy have served in the nation of Costa Rica for the past 15 years. They have been faithful there touching lives in so many ways. Our Pastors meeting there was a huge success with 162 leaders in attendance. We taught them on, “How to Be a Generational Leader.” This never gets old.
Up next we are traveling to Medan, Indonesia and Jayapura, Irian Jaya. While we have been in Medan many times this will be our first visit to the nation of Irian Jaya. Can’t wait to let you know how that goes.
Thanks for your partnership and prayers. Together we are touching the world in a special way.
India
India is just one of many countries around the world being impacted by Global Messenger Service.
In 2008, we established a network of house churches in 50 previously unreached villages in Chittoor District in Andhra Pradesh.
Our strategy is simple. We set up a base of operations and begin gathering information, studying maps and blanketing the area with prayer.
We raise up a church planting team of like minded leaders who share a similar passion for souls and desire to reach village India with the gospel
We provide leadership training for our team and house church materials in their own language.
Then we send them out, two by two into every village to preach the Kingdom of God and heal the sick. (Luke 9:1, 2; 10:1)
In each village we look for a “son of peace” (Luke 10:5, 6) and begin conducting house church meetings in that house.
Those who are saved join the house church and begin the discipleship process using new believer’s materials that we provide.
Our goal for 2009 is to expand our network of house churches in Chittoor District to 200 unreached villages by the end of the year. In order to do this we need your prayers.
Please pray for:
Protection as we travel, especially into remote villages
God’s favor and anointing to be on us every where we go
Unity among our church planting team
Unbelievers to be open to us and the gospel
A New Chapter
As hard as it may seem – it is once again time to turn the page on GMS and begin a new chapter called 2009. It doesn’t seem possible that 2008 has come and gone but it has. Many things come and go throughout the course of a year, but one thing remains the same; our passion to reach the lost and raise up leaders across the globe!
We believe 2008 was a very fruitful year. It was busy but being busy is not our goal. We don’t just want motion without measurable results. From Mexico to Brazil, from Europe to Indonesia, and from Nicaragua to Vietnam; there are footprints that have been left on the hearts of men.
One of the things we do at GMS is support other missionaries and ministries that we believe in. That has always been one of our values. Literally the sun never sets on the places around the world that we invest money in to preach the Gospel.
Thank you for helping us do what we do. As is the case for almost every ministry, mission and personal family, 2008 has been a trying year economically. But by the grace of God we not only survived, but we moved forward!
2009 holds great anticipation as we look down the road. As we always do we are praying about new places to go and mapping out plans for the places we continue to go back to. We can’t wait to see how it all unfolds and as we have done in the past we will share the victories with you in word, pictures and face to face meetings.
Vietnam Update
It has been about three weeks – since we sent e-mails letting everyone know that Jack, Sherry and Steve had been prohibited from entering Vietnam! They said we were a security risk, so I guess the devil was being threatened by what we are doing. Here is what is going on now.
1. We are writing the US Consulate in Vietnam asking them to help us get back into the country and also writing our congressmen asking them to help us. Unlike India, we think we will be able to get back into Vietnam, hopefully soon.
2. The good news is that the leaders we work with are still going strong and us not going into Vietnam will not hinder what they are doing.
3. The weekly ministry to children in HO Chi Minh City, (Saigon) is ongoing and is producing great results. One of the cool things is that there are a team of young people who actually go out and invite kids to come and then do the outreach each week. They are being trained with the material Willie George taught in the International School of Ministry (ISOM) video bible school and the Faith Roots curriculum that we translated and printed a few years ago and they are going out and do what they have learned! These young people are attending a four year bible school that is run by one of our close friends Pastor Mai and are from cities and villages all over Vietnam. When they finish their training and go home, they will be trained and experienced to minister to children! We believe this will multiply ministry to children all over Vietnam!
4. We are looking into using technology to record teachings and send them into Vietnam. Even though we can't be there personally, our voice can be heard!
5. Finally, we are putting together a plan to use some of our friends in Malaysia to go into Vietnam and carry equipment into the country since we can't go in. We have provided the equipment and curriculum to start more than 50 ISOM Bible Schools that are all over Vietnam. We have over 5000 house church leaders attending these schools which means we are mentoring over 5000 leaders right now!
We love Vietnam and have no intention of stopping our ministry there. We will keep you updated on how things progress.
Impact In Nicaragua
We have the opportunity to go many places around the globe. While this was a short distance to travel, it did not come up short in fruitfulness! We conducted two Pastors and Leaders seminars. One of them was in Estelli and the other in Niquienohomo. Estelli was a town we have been to before a couple of years ago. The leaders there were very open and very encouraged that we would come to them. It is very rare they get foreigners to speak to them.
Niquienohomo has the dubious title of being called “The Pastors Graveyard.” Most Pastors only stay there around 8 months before they are run off by those living around them that don’t want a church there. What a joy to speak words of life and make an impact that we believe will explode that average off the charts!
In addition we spoke in two separate churches and had a wonderful time. One service in Granada, we took a horse and carriage to the service. Now that was a lot of horse power (2)! We believe an impact was made in an extremely poor nation.
Across the Pond to Asia
We are taking our second trip of the year to Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia this year. We stand in awe of the tremendous favor we have in each of these nations. Vietnam holds a very dear place in all of our hearts. The Christians suffer severe persecution unlike anything we know here in America. We will once again be giving tools away to spread the Gospel around their land in ways that is easy to hide from the police.
Please pray for each of these nations we enter. While the other two are much safer, Indonesia is the largest population of Muslims in one nation in the world. Malaysia as well is a Muslim nation and it is a four year prison term to convert a Muslim. We can’t wait to report back to you on this trip.
NEWS
2008 has been great! So far this year we have had the privilege to touch the nations of Brazil, India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Singapore, Mexico, Malaysia, Austria and Indonesia. We have started 10 more International Schools of Ministry in Vietnam! That brings us to a total of 51 organizations that have been given either a laptop or video IPOD just in the past 18 months! Way cool. Many of these are being used in two or more cities each week. We have over 2000 leaders being trained through this facet of ministry whether we ever step another foot in that country!
Nicaragua on the radar screen! Next up is Nicaragua. We will be conducting seminars for Leaders and Pastors. On our first trip there a year or so ago, we had several hundred attend and we are jazzed up about how many we think we can have this trip. Since we are expanding to more cities and churches our expectations are high. Please pray for this trip that begins October 1, that our impact will be eternal and for God’s protection over our team as we travel. Can’t wait to report back to you about this trip.
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