Crashes

Doef!

“Not again!” came the sigh from Kenneth and Monica.

In the past 45 days, our family was involved in three car accidents. Twice we were rear-ended at red lights (blame cell phones for driver’s lack of attention).

Crutches

And on Wednesday, Stefan was involved in a crash that left his tibia bone fractured. He needed surgery and some screws to correct it and will be on crutches for the next three months.

We would appreciate your prayers for our protection and for the Lord’s provision for all the medical bills. Despite the drama, we can see the Lord’s hand over us and friends and co-workers have helped us in many practical ways.

Digital Ministry in Africa

“In my country the day is coming when it will not be safe to meet in churches for fear of attack by people from other religions. So we are preparing the believers to meet digitally instead of in churches,” said Moses, one of our missionaries from a prominent African country. He was one of 40 missionaries from 17 countries who attended a workshop I (Marie) helped lead in Nairobi, Kenya at the beginning of November.

Despite the challenges of internet connectivity in Africa, we are already seeing thousands of African visitors to our websites and social media channels. We know this growth is because of the growing number of smartphones now available. So we were training our missionaries how to use these channels for the spread of the gospel, using locally produced content. Pray for our missionaries as they implement this training.

Personally it was a big treat for me to be back in Africa – to hear the call of the “Piet-my-vrou” and to watch monkeys in our hotel garden.

Thank God for all He is doing around the world and for your part in it. I am grateful for the opportunity to help train my African brothers and sisters in the use of digital tools for ministry.

Kenneth and Monica with a mysterious friend.

Last month, Marie prepared a report for our board of directors who met in Korea. The President’s report was particularly exciting. It tells the story of remarkable progress in fruitfulness God had given our ministry.

We thought we would highlight a few of the statistics so you could praise the Lord with us, because He is at work around the world!

STUDENTS:
In two years, our overall ministry to students experienced a:
• 43% increase in campus presence (from 5,007 to 7,149 campuses).
• 32% increase in Multiplying Disciples.
In North Africa and the Middle East, the team saw expansion from a presence on 104 campuses to 342 campuses (240% growth). This is remarkable considering the opposition from the majority religion.

LEADERS:
In two years, our ministry to leaders or influences in major cities grew from working in 50 cities to 265 cities.

JESUS FILM:
2017 Statistics (This includes roughly 1,500 Jesus Film partners):
• People exposed to the gospel through the film – 375,000,000.
• Indicated decisions for Christ – 42,000,000.
• Churches planted – 432,000.

DIGITAL MINISTRY:
There are four million unique visitors per month on our web properties, plus another 4.1 million engaged in 100 social media channels per month. Removing overlap, that is altogether about 6 million visitors per month in 2018.
A specific example is that of Everystudent.com, one of our evangelistic websites, is now seeing 1,300 people indicate receiving Jesus Christ every day.
• Total Number of Visitors in 2017 – 23.2 million.
• Total Number of Visitors from Jan – June 2018 – 15 million.

Prayer Requests:
1. Praise the Lord with us and thank you for your part in taking the Gospel to everyone around the world!
2. Our new school year starts on Monday, 13 August. Pray for Kenneth as he starts Grade 10, and Monica Grade 8. It will be her last year in Middle school.
3. Pray for stamina, wisdom, insight and passion as we continue to utilize the many opportunities for the expansion of God’s Kingdom.

Marie (above) acted in a skit to teach digital principles. The actors were from 5 different countries and it was fun to practise the skit virtually in preparation for the conference.

Thank you so much for praying for our Global Leadership conference. All 350 global leaders arrived safely in Orlando.  We had a wonderful time sharing stories of what God is doing around the world. We were also encouraged to keep spreading the gospel until every last person on earth had an opportunity to hear about Jesus.

Your prayers sustained us through a very busy ten days. Thank you!

Stefan and fellow church planters strategizing together.

Prayer Requests:
1. Praise for a successful conference for all our leaders and for God sustaining my team as we hosted it.
2. Pray for good implementation of all the plans made during the conference.
3. We are taking two theological courses during this month. Pray that we will learn a lot and grow in our love for our Lord.
4. Our Swiss ministry has been developing a ministry strategy called MyFriends. Stefan will be joining them next week as a part of an international learning community, to understand the strategy and look for other ministry applications. Pray for safe travels and good learning.

Finally, we wanted to let you know about an excellent resource called Art of Parenting that has recently been produced by our FamilyLife ministry. If you are a parent of young children or teens, or know parents who are raising families, you will definitely want to look into this and/or pass this along. Art of Parenting is a free digital experience, designed to help individual parents, stepparents or couples instill faith in their children. You’ll enjoy an in-depth library of rich and inspiring videos from all kinds of parents. These are real people sharing helpful insights from God’s Word and their purpose-filled, but not perfect, lives. The free online course can be accessed at your individual pace, or with other parents to work through the small-group series. Learn more at FamilyLife.com/Parenting.

Thank you for participating in our work through your gifts and prayers.

“Norah is from a closed country in the Arabian Gulf. With problems at home, she had a deep need for love. She found no love in the dominant religion.

After attempting suicide, Norah searched online, trying to discover who God is and if Christianity could bring her love. She found one of our evangelistic websites on Google and chatted with Miriam, one of our missionaries. Norah asked if God loved her and would accept her with all of her problems. They began to discuss Norah’s questions every day on WhatsApp. After three months, Norah made a clear profession of faith. She told Miriam, “I love Jesus so much!”

Miriam encouraged Norah to watch the JESUS film. Afterward, Norah said, “I want to read the Bible.” Miriam encouraged Norah to read the Bible on a website. A few weeks later, she wanted a Bible she could hold. Miriam told her this would be too dangerous. They put Norah’s hope for a Bible in God’s hands.

Miriam also encouraged Norah to share her faith with others. Norah talked with her brother about Jesus. After two months, he too, had accepted Christ. Soon she had told eight people about Jesus.

Norah started a discipleship group. She invited eight people and started two discipleship groups. Two of the eight new believers have started telling others about Jesus.

Recently, Norah emailed Miriam that God had answered her prayer. An unmarked box had arrived in the mail, containing Christian books and a Bible!

Norah continues to disciple others. She is now also extending her outreach further by doing graphic design for the discipleship website.”

In North Africa and the Middle East, missionaries like Miriam have trained more than 800 Arab believers to share their faith with seekers online.

On Saturday, 6 May, Marie travels to the Middle East. Her team will conduct a five-day workshop with missionaries in countries closed to the gospel. Helping them to create and distribute content for digital platforms so that users can find Jesus. Digital content, for the most part, can be freely accessed, so we have an unprecedented opportunity to spread the gospel across borders that are closed for missionaries.

Please pray for:
1. Safe travels and protection for all our missionaries traveling to our meeting.
2. Our missionaries to receive the skills, inspiration and innovation needed to make digital pathways for people to find Jesus and grow in Him.
3. Praise the Lord for Stefan’s productive meetings in Poland with European church planters.
4. Praise the Lord that Kenneth now has his learner driver permit (hence the smiling photo). Of course that also implies a prayer request for his parents as they teach him how to drive.

As the Persian-speaking churches have closed in Iran, many home churches have started without a pastor. Christian leaders are providing training outside the country for the house church leaders of Iran. A leader in this church network brings small groups to train and sends them back to continue their work in the house churches.

He shared about Maryam (not her real name), a new member of a group with which he’d been working. Maryam shared her testimony while showing her wound-covered arms. Maryam explained she had approached one of her classmates, asking about her loving behavior. Maryam noticed she was different. Her friend answered that she is a believer in Jesus and shared Christ with Maryam. As Maryam read the New Testament her classmate had given her, her eyes were opened. She invited Jesus into her heart.

Maryam began attending house church meetings with her friend, and her mother found out about her faith. Her mother told Maryam’s father, a practicing Muslim with a high government position. After discovering that Maryam was serious in her faith, her father threatened her in hopes of causing her to stop following Jesus. As Maryam resisted, he began beating her to death. She cried, “Jesus, save me.” Suddenly her father stopped the beating and started crying, asking for her forgiveness. Her father said, “As I was beating you, I saw Jesus covering you; the belt was hitting Jesus. I realized I was beating Jesus, and I stopped. Like you, I believe Jesus now.”

We literally hear dozens of stories like this from our Campus Crusade missionaries and from our partners. And not just from the Middle East, from every corner of the planet. God is at work, and we are blessed to join Him! Thank you for your part in enabling us to be part of the Church planting efforts around the world.

Your prayers would be appreciated for the following:

1. Stefan is traveling from 16- 28 January to first meet with some of our church planters in Western Europe (Dresden) and then he joins the Eastern Europe team for their staff conference. Both these teams face their own unique challenges, so pray for wisdom as Stefan encourages and helps them think through their challenges.

2. Kenneth turned 15 on January 6th. Turning 15 means he can now earn his learner’s driver’s license. Pray for his test preparation. (And for his parents …)