Snipers with night vision goggles were standing on strategic corners. An armoured vehicle was parked at the entrance. Our luggage was scanned before checking-in to the hotel. Yes, this was our welcome at the hotel. I was alarmed and wondered what it meant for our safety in this Middle Eastern country. Then we heard we were staying in the same hotel as the military delegation from many nations attending the annual Arms Show. And boy, did we see decorated soldiers! High profile people that came to select the latest weapons and equipment for their military toolkits. It was very impressive.

While the Arms Show was happening, forty of our digital missionaries met together. These missionaries all have one thing in common – they create digital content for countries where they could get into trouble for sharing the gospel. Together we learned from one another and also worked together to ensure an integrated digital experience for the users of the websites and apps managed by our missionaries.

At the end of the week, a colleagues commented “The soldiers came here to improve their military toolkits, but we came to improve our spiritual toolkits.”

Many stories were shared of what God is doing for His Kingdom through the internet – for example, in a big closed country, an evangelistic website had over 600 000 visitors per month since December. Every month, over 10 000 people clicked the “I just asked Jesus into my life” button. The site is so popular that it made the front page of a local newspaper – where the religious leaders warned people not to go to the site. Of course, that had the opposite effect!

• Please pray for the safety of our missionaries in these countries. Many risk their lives every day to speak boldly of Jesus.
• Pray also for the digital properties in these countries – for protection and for great fruitfulness to come from people visiting the sites.
• Pray for Stefan’s visit to India the next 10 days. Pray that he will be an encouragement to our church planters there and would know how best to support them in their efforts. They will also celebrate 50 years of our ministry in India. A big milestone!

Marie’s team with some of the care packages we packed – ready to be distributed. 

“Even though Hurricane Maria cost the life of my wife of 43 years, I have no regrets that we chose to stay to help our community.”  These were the words of a pastor we worked with in Puerto Rico. He and his wife could have been airlifted from Puerto Rico the day before the storm hit the island. They decided to stay and be the hands and feet of Jesus in their community.

Stories like this and seeing how the church stepped into the mess to serve their communities has been my highlight of our visit. We worked in conjunction with GAiN (Campus Crusade’s humanitarian arm). This was GAiN’s first trip of five humanitarian groups being sent to Puerto Rico. We partnered with Campus Crusade Puerto Rico and churches to come alongside schools and individuals who need help to recover from the devastating Hurricane Maria that hit in late September 2017.

The impact of the hurricane was everywhere, but what was most striking was the people’s resilience. Despite the hardship, people are not defeated. Especially Christians are making a huge impact by their service and help to their communities. One of the churches is a hub for receiving donated food and supplies, and we sorted through the mountains of tinned food and toiletries to create care packages for families. I became an expert in checking expiry dates on the tins!

Packing care packages.

My team’s principle work was at a school of 235 students that lost use of three classrooms due to the metal roof being blown off. We worked for two days to put tarps on the remaining plywood roof and drying out the classrooms and, of course, building rapport with students and staff.

Getting ready to tarp the school roof.

Thank you for your prayers for our safety and for us to make a difference. We were thrilled to receive a compliment from one of the hurricane relief coordinators. He told us that at times when they receive volunteer groups it is like herding cats, but our team was like having pit bulls – they couldn’t keep up with our hard work.

Prayer requests:

1. Praise the Lord for the work the church is doing in Puerto Rico and pray that they will not grow weary as the relief phase now moves into the re-building phase.
2. We met many people who experienced major trauma during the hurricane. Pray for continued healing and comfort.
3. Praise the Lord for the successful meeting held for our Global Church Movement leaders in Manila. There were 229 leaders from 89 countries. Stefan had a wonderful time connecting with the church planters from all around the world.
4. Kenneth and Monica will start their end of the year exams soon. Pray for diligent preparations.