Category: Ministry

Crashes and Crutches – How Quickly Life Can Be Changed

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.

Twenty Years Later …

2011 Visit to Namibia

This week we received a letter from our dear friends Helmuth and Niina Garoeb from Namibia who reminded us of a wonderful experience we had twenty years ago and the subsequent fruit. Helmuth was a student involved in our ministry at the University of Durban Westville until 1997, where he studied geology.

In 1998, with Helmuth as our in-country organiser, we led a team with participants from Finland, South Africa and Swaziland  for three weeks in Windhoek to launch Campus Crusade for Christ Namibia at the University of Namibia. Niina was a Finnish exchange student at the time and volunteered with us.

Looking back, we hardly knew what we were doing, however, it was a great opportunity to see God at work. Now twenty years later, Helmuth has been a part of it all from volunteer to board member to joining as missionary (13 years ago) with Niina also in the mix for most of this time.

Helmuth and Niina look back at some of the things God has done the past twenty years:
“We want to thank God for His continuous faithfulness. We do not even know all the stories of what God has done and continues to do in people’s lives but here are some things that we can praise God for:

  • All the main campuses in Windhoek (plus Ondangwa, Rundu and Katima Mulilo) have (had) student movements of evangelism and discipleship.
  • Jesus Film teams travelled all over Namibia, visiting villages and local churches. Now local pastors become Jesus Film partners to do the work in their local communities.
  • The Jesus Film has been recorded (lip sync) into Kwanyama, Otjiherero and Khoekhoegowab.
  • The “Knowing God Personally” track has been translated into Kwanyama, Afrikaans and Otjiherero.
  • The “Walking with Jesus” follow-up DVD-series has been recorded in Kwanyama.
  • We currently have six full time staff, two interns, two salaried staff and dozens of volunteers.
  • The national office was built with local resources and all current staff are locally hired.
  • We work in collaboration with several local churches and some other Christian organisations.
  • And the work continues… there are many who still are to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ!”

Wow! THANK YOU for partnering with us in this part of God’s work and mission in Namibia. Little could we have known that a student project in September 1998 would spark such a movement of God.

Continue to pray for Helmuth, Niina and our other missionaries working in Namibia. Also pray for the teams that have recently left to start ministries in countries we can not even mention. Pray that the fruit we have seen in Namibia will also be true for these countries!

Starting a New School Year in August is Still Weird …

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.

Skit and Strategy

 

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.

Would God Accept Me?

“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.

To Puerto Rico and the Philippines

Stefan had a wonderful visit with our Eastern European staff members last month. He loved hearing stories of what God is doing and how churches are planted in places like Moldova and Georgia. He was thrilled to pray, plan and partner with them to trust God for even greater multiplication and church growth.
Philippines:
Stefan’s team travels to Manila on Wednesday (21 February) for a meeting with church planting missionaries from all around the world. This meeting serves as a time of training, refocusing strategy, sharing best practices and encouragement. Your prayers for safety, unity and great learning would be appreciated.
Puerto Rico:
Marie’s team travels to Puerto Rico on 20 February to assist with Hurricane Maria relief efforts, coordinated by GAiN (the humanitarian arm of our ministry). It is five months since the hurricane hit that country, but a lot of work remain. Pray that their service will be an encouragement to the churches they partner with and that it will open doors for the church to minister to the lost in their community.
Pray for Kenneth and Monica’s protection and for a great time with our friends that are taking care of them until Marie’s return Thursday night.
Thank you for your prayers and encouragement!
P.S. Together with our Global Alliance partners, 1.3 million churches has been planted since 2011. Praise the Lord!

Despite Facing Persecution

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 …)

From Irma to Israel

Jordan River

We will remember the month of September as a month of a deep “lowlight” and a wonderful highlight!

Lowlight:

Florida is still recovering from the impact of Hurricane Irma. Our children lost six days of school, and so many tests and events were rescheduled. The evidence of Irma’s destruction is everywhere, and it will be months before all the debris is cleared and repairs done.

Florida is also the home of many Puerto Ricans, and we have felt their pain as Hurricane Maria ripped through their island. Many of our friends are trying to bring their families from the island to Florida.

Despite some chaos, everyone continues with life as normally as possible. God has made mankind very resilient!

Highlight:

Stefan and I just returned from Israel, where we attended a Senior Leaders’ Development Study tour. We joined forty colleagues, representing 21 countries. The focus of the tour was to study the process Jesus used in building His “disciple-making movement” that resulted in us, over 2,000 years later, also following Him.One of many study stops

It was a privilege to experience and see the context in which Jesus connected with people, won them over to His kingdom and built them up in their faith, while training and preparing them to be sent out as His disciple-makers.

Magdala Synagogue:

A personal highlight was to stand in the first century A.D. synagogue in Magdala (earlier manuscripts mention Magadon). Magdala is located four miles north of Tiberias, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee.

Mary Magdalene is believed to be from Magdala. She is mentioned 12 times in the four gospels, more than most disciples. I am named after her–my full name is Maria Magdalena.

No one really knew the location of Mary’s authentic hometown until 2009, when it was discovered less than one foot under the topsoil. The excavation of the first century A.D. synagogue is significant, as it is one of only seven from that period. From the gospel of Matthew, we know that Jesus went through all Galilee and taught in the synagogues. It can be assumed that Jesus also preached in this beautiful synagogue.

Prayer requests:

  1. Thank the Lord for His protection during Hurricane Irma and pray for the ongoing restoration that needs to take place.
  2. Thank the Lord for the opportunity to visit Israel and experience the land of the Bible. We learnt so much. Pray that we will be good stewards of our new knowledge and experiences.
  3. Thank the Lord for Stefan’s sister Lauren, who came to help with our children while we were away.
  4. Pray for the Global Alliance for Church Multiplication meetings that take place this week in Minneapolis. This alliance includes our organization and 62 partner groups that are all striving to see 5 million churches planted by 2020. Learn more at www.gacx.io

Irma and Infographics

Garden Furniture and Pot Plants Squeezed into the Garage Because of Hurricane Irma.

This week could not have turned out more topsy turvy than what it did.

Hurricane Irma is heading our way and she has caused major panic for those awaiting her arrival and  left terrible destruction in her wake. We have prepared ourselves as best we know how for her arrival.

Her arrival also impacted my (Marie) departure time for Denver where I will attend a content strategy* training next week. I will now enjoy an extra day in Denver while praying for the safety of my family and fellow Floridians. Please join me in prayer! Stefan and the children will be staying home.

Despite the upheaval, I’m super excited about this week of training. In the past 18 months, I have had more and more opportunities to be involved with thinking through content for different platforms (web, social media etc.)  of Campus Crusade (or Cru as it is called here in America).

Being “findable” with our content online when people are searching for spiritual things has been an important part of what our ministry does. But we also want the people we meet online to move forward in their relationship with Christ, and this is always more difficult.

The past 3 months, our ministry made some intentional efforts to learn to connect with two of our online audience segments so we can help them move forward. We called these two groups, “Millennial Christians in a New City” and “Young Christians on Social Media”.

We listened to about 100 people in each of these categories and summarized what they said about themselves and what we learned in these two infographics.

Young Christians on Social Media infographic Young Christians on Social Media (infographic)

 Millennial Christians in a New City (infographic)

With what we learned we can create themes and content for future online outreaches and update existing ministry efforts. The ability to better know our audience means presenting the gospel and opportunities for spiritual growth more effectively.

I have so much to learn and I’m excited to be part of this journey. Please pray for me to soak up all the information next week and for a special bonding time with two co-workers that are joining me on the course.

Thank you for being part of our ministry through your prayers and financial support. Our work together results in people finding hope and growth through Jesus!

* Content Strategy as defined by Kristina Halvorson, the author of Content Strategy for the Web is  Planning for the creation, delivery, and governance of useful, usable content.

The Start of a New Year

Our visit to beautiful South Africa is over and we are back in Orlando. We are grateful for the Lord’s hand of protection over our trip (the many kilometers driven and especially the very turbulent flight from Johannesburg to Frankfurt) and over our home in our absence.

You can enjoy a few photo highlights from our visit here.

On our return, we heard a report from Dr. Steve Douglass (the president of Campus Crusade for Christ) and thought we would encourage you with a few of facts he mentioned:

  • In the last 7 years, over 2 million churches have been planted by partnership (Global Alliance for Church Multiplication and other partners) with whom we are working.
  • Of the 7,000 languages on earth, over 3,000 have enough of the Bible translated for evangelism and discipleship to occur. Over 2,200 additional languages have Bible translation projects started.
  • A recent professional survey done to measure the results of the use of the JESUS film in one year, indicated that in 2015, the JESUS film was used by God to generate 186 million exposures to the gospel, 37 million indicated decisions for Christ and 370,000 groups planted.
  • Last year, our campus ministries launched 1,000 new campus works around the world.
  • In the digital realm, EveryStudent.com in English (one of our evangelistic websites) sees well over 40% of the people who indicate decisions for Christ go into a digital follow-up process.

He concluded with this: “God is moving today. He has given us the opportunity to be in the thick of what He is doing. But our abundant opportunities to see great fruit could wane. So it seems to be compelling to follow the exhortation of Jesus in John 9:4: Work while it is yet day.”

Thank you for your support that enables us to “work while it is yet day”.

Our new academic year started today. Please pray for:

  1. Kenneth (Grade 9) and Monica (Grade 7). Kenneth started high school, so we would appreciate prayers for the parents as well as they adjust to the American high school scene.
  2. Wisdom and stamina as we catch up on our jobs after our long absence.
  3. Stefan’s travels from 19-28 August to Western Europe (Zurich) and Eastern Europe (Macedonia), where he will be meeting with our church planting leaders for those areas.