Stefan and Marie Dell

From Drunkard to Church Planter

Nelaam*, was lying in hospital in an Asian country, nearly paralyzed from alcohol poisoning. Out of desperation, he had cut himself repeatedly. One of our church-planting pastors visited him. The pastor explained the gospel. Nelaam believed and became a follower of Christ.

Nelaam is now married to a wonderful Christian wife (who came from the dominant religion). This couple shows people the “JESUS” film and use a strategy called “Prayer, Care, Share”. They have lead 20 of the 100 families in their village to the Lord!

In this Asian country, in a grand vision, staff members are working to train 4,200 new lay leaders like Nelaam in their nation. These trained workers will plant churches using the “JESUS” film, implement the “Prayer, Care, Share” and other strategies. The results to date are extraordinary. Of 700,000 villages, 300,000 now have a church! Staff members hope to see a church planted in each of the remaining 400,000 villages, many in the most challenging areas.

As Stefan work with the church planting leader of this vast country, we want to do everything we can to help him and the other Spirit-filled workers fulfill the great vision, particularly in the difficult areas. Above all, they need prayer.

We want to ask for your intercession for the church planting teams. Please pray for their protection, that God will restrain radicals, open hearts and whole villages to receive the gospel. Pray also for us, as we encourage and assist with operational support, that the Lord will make us sensitive to His guidance. Would you also pray for the protection of our family? Recently we have experienced many kinds of difficulties that could make us feel discouraged and we recognize the influence of the evil one in it.

Thank you so much for enabling us to serve our church planting missionaries around the world.

*Name Changed

Pain Is Never Wasted

When our winking son, Peter, died in 2010, several people mentioned 2 Corinthians 1:4 “so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive” as encouragement that the Lord will one day use our story.

In December, I (Marie) was helping the Social Media team prepare content for the first few months of 2017. For February, the focus would be how God minister in our brokenness. As we brainstormed, I mentioned our own brokenness after Peter’s death and offered our story.

This past week, a video of my story was published and within days, over 13 000 people watched it and it was shared by nearly 100 people.

I thank the Lord for this opportunity and I’m also humbled by the truth that our pain is never wasted.

Thank you for your prayers the past seven years as we walked the road of grief.

A Church Planter’s Advice

Last week I (Stefan) returned from a meeting in Ethiopia with all our African leaders involved with church planting. It was wonderful to be in Africa and to connect with so many of our old friends, it felt like a reunion.

In a recent interview with Marie’s team, one of those friends, Dismas Shekalaghe (second from right in photo) from Tanzania, gave the following advice regarding church planting:

Understand that a church is not a building.

A church is the people who believe in Christ. In many churches, our focus has been to make people comfortable. When people get comfortable, they are just enjoying religion, instead of enjoying Christ and sharing Him. They do nothing in terms of obeying the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.

Buildings should never be the focus if you want to plant churches that are multiplying. Focus on people, because Jesus focused on people. Jesus never focused on material things. Imitate Him.

2. When people commit their lives to Christ, make sure they are fast in sharing their faith.

Think of the woman at the well. When she met Jesus and experienced Jesus, how long did she take to share with her village about Jesus? She told them right away, a simple message!

When the pastor alone shares his faith, very few people will be reached. If everyone is sharing their faith, many people can be reached. This means the church can multiply very fast.

Since we started working with Global Church Movements two years ago, we have been able to plant more than 250 churches. We are partnering with more than 200 churches and trusting the Lord for 67,500 new churches in Tanzania by 2020.

Wow! We celebrate what God is doing in Tanzania and pray for them as they work towards the 67,500 new churches! Thank you for enabling me to be part of the team that helps church planters like Dismas to reach their countries.

Please also pray for me as I travel to Spain this weekend where I will attend a meeting of church planting organisations working in Europe.

A New Opportunity

News from Stefan:

At the start of our missionary careers, our team studied Henry Blackaby’s book “Experiencing God”. A concept that stuck with us is “Look where God is working and join Him.” Through the years we have tried to do that.

In the last few years, God has been uniting Christian organizations and churches. They are locking arms for the sake of His Kingdom, in unprecedented ways. We are seeing incredible efforts to spread the gospel and plant churches all around the world. It truly is a beautiful movement of God.

The past few months, I started to sense that my time as global technology leader was coming to an end as a result of changing organisational direction with regards to technology. As I started looking for God’s activity, we were drawn to what God is doing in and through church planting movements. Our September letter spoke about this a little. Campus Crusade for Christ’s church planting focus is called Global Church Movements. They have their hands full with all that God is doing.

To my delight, I was asked to join the Global Church Movement (GCM) team to oversee the operational activities of the team, as well as the operations for the Global Alliance for Church Multiplication (GACX). This alliance has over 50 partners who all work toward seeing 5 million churches planted by 2020. I will also be the global liaison with 3 of our regional leaders.

We are very excited about this new opportunity as it allows me to not only use my technical and operational skills, but also my leadership development and networking skills. I’m again reporting to Dr. Bekele Shanko. I served under him in the Southern and Eastern Africa area from 2004-2010. Bekele, a fellow-African, is the vice president for our Global Church Movement and a man of great faith and vision.

By the end of 2016 we were aware of 986,236 new churches planted by GACX, mostly in areas where few or no churches existed. I can’t wait to see what the future hold!

God is clearly at work in the church planting world and we are privileged to have the opportunity to join Him. We look forward to your prayers and ongoing support in this new adventure.

Your Missionary

Stefan

P.S. Marie will continue in her role as the Communication’s leader for the president with a special focus on our organization’s Global Communications.

Highlights and Lowlights of 2016

Our hope for a white Christmas did not become a reality, but we had the privilege to escape the bustle and flatness of Florida for the beautiful mountains of Tennessee. The quality family time around a fireplace in the cold was good for our souls.

It also gave us time to reflect on 2016 and God’s hand over us.

Highlights of 2016:

Two grannies, a grandpa, an aunt and 2 cousins came to visit us this year.
Marie celebrated her Mom’s 70th birthday with all her siblings in South Africa.
We received our Green cards, it makes working here as foreigners much easier.
The children settled well into their new school and the Cambridge program.
Continued open doors to share the gospel in many places around the world and for the new ways the gospel is penetrating closed countries. For example, our ministry’s digital tools had 32.2 million unique users in 2016.
Our faithful ministry partners that sacrificially enable us to remain in full-time ministry.

Lowlights of 2016:

Hurricane Matthew – thankfully we were spared the brunt of it, but it was a scary experience.
Kenneth’s broken leg in July. Grateful that it healed well.
Two neighbours that we built the strongest relationships with, moved this year. A frustrating reality of today’s society.
Journeying with several ministry partners and co-workers that have walked hard roads during 2016.

We are entering 2017 with great anticipation! There are some exciting changes awaiting us. Stay tuned!

Our prayer for you for 2017 is from Psalm 20:4

“May He grant you your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans!”

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today we celebrate Thanksgiving here in America. And we have much to be thankful for!

Firstly, we are thankful for our wonderful partners that enable us to serve the Lord full time. Thank you for your prayers, sacrificial giving and encouragement.

We are also grateful for an invitation by the family of Kenneth’s new friend, Lloyd, to spend the day with them. Thanksgiving is the most popular time of the year for families to be together, so it is a real treat to be invited as non-family. Since Lloyd and his family moved to Florida recently from Pennsylvania, their family is far and they adopted us as their family for today.

As part of the Thanksgiving tradition, we ate turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, pumpkin and sweet potato dishes, and we drank Apple cider. We also watched parts of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade on TV. This parade started 90 years ago in New York. You can watch parts of today’s parade here. We also watched some American football.

As proof, the photo above was taken just after the turkey came out the oven.

Thank the Lord with us for this special opportunity we had today and pray that we will continue to form deep friendships with Eric, Kathy, Lloyd and Isabel.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Strange Season

Fall (as autumn is called here) is strange. This is our fourth Fall here and we are still amazed, amused and even shocked at the strangeness of this time.

We understand from non-Floridians that Fall is anti-climatic in Florida since we hardly see any leaves change colour (imagine a Palm tree with red and orange leaves…). But that certainly does not stop anyone from celebrating the slightly cooler season with gusto!

We attended our fourth Fall Festival and it was again a wonderful time of connecting with friends. Fall festivals are usually sponsored by churches or in our case, our head office hosts one. It usually includes a Hay Ride (tractor ride on hay bales), a pumpkin patch with hundreds of pumpkins to choose from, drinking apple cider, eating toffee apples and a corn maze (even if it’s fake, made by a jumping castle type set-up). All-in-all a great experience!

Then it is Halloween.

Again, it’s a big community gathering. Neighbors we haven’t seen since last Halloween will be in the streets, chatting and visiting as if we do this every day.

For weeks homes have been decorated – some with pumpkins, scarecrows and autumn colours. Others with evil ghosts, skeletons and witches. Some homes with both.

One thing is clear to us: this time of year is a special time to connect with our community. Please pray for significant interactions with people, for connections we will be able to maintain through the year, not just in the Fall.

You can see some more photos of our Fall experience here.

We Survived Our 1st Hurricane!

Thank you for your prayers!

We are grateful to the Lord for His protection over us and our property. We are still under a curfew till Saturday morning at 7 am but at least the tumble dryer has stopped. The incredibly strong winds have slowed down and even our cat bravely poked his nose out for a toilet stop.

Several co-workers lots electricity for a few hours, but we had power throughout the storms. We felt at peace and the Lord’s protection throughout the storm.

Here are the Kenneth and Monica with some of our plants, rescued from outside before the hurricane came.

Continue to pray for others that are still in the path of the hurricane.

Hurrican Matthew

√ All bathtubs and containers filled with water

√ Kitchen stocked

√ Flashlights and extra batteries ready

√ School and offices close till Monday

We are preparing for our first hurricane, and it is a big one, projected to be a Category 4.

We would appreciate your prayers for Florida. We know that God has us, our neighbors and friends in His hands.

Also pray for the countries that have already taken the brunt of Hurricane Matthew – Haiti, Cuba, Caribbean Islands and Bahamas.

We hope to give an update on Saturday if conditions allow.

5 Million Churches

In the last two week:

Kenneth’s leg was declared healed
We survived the effects of a grade 1 hurricane
The children successfully completed their first month at their new school

All things we are very grateful for.

We also attended a meeting of church planting organizations.

Did you know?

There are 7 billion people in the world.
There are only 2 billion people who identify as Christians.
There are 5 billion left to reach.
There are currently 5 million churches in the world.

The Global Alliance for Church Multiplication (or GACX), is trusting the Lord to help start at least 5 million new multiplying biblical churches and faith communities, covering every neighborhood, village, high-rise and digital community in the entire world. We believe God is calling the body of Christ to do this by 2020.

As we receive reports from all over the world of the impact of these partnerships in planting more churches, won’t you praise the Lord with us and continue to pray for continued wisdom, unity and impact.

You can learn more about GACX here.

Dr. Bekele Shanko, VP for Global Church Movements shares about Campus Crusade's role in GACX — Dr. Bekele Shanko, VP for Global Church Movements shares about Campus Crusade’s role in GACX

These are exciting days as we see the Lord work in special ways to unite Christians to work together for the fulfillment of the Great Commission. Thank you for joining us in this great task.