Pictures From Bolivia

It’s a pleasure to share these photographs from Bolivia with you. It’s even more of a pleasure to have a photographer as keen-eyed and respectful as Danny serving on our team!

Here’s the most recent gallery.
Here’s their family blog.

Final Financials for A World of Hope

This is truly staggering: A World of Hope has broken the $50,000 barrier! The final tally is $50,265! This money is earmarked for various country-specific projects in several different fields.

Well for example, it means that we have enough money for our team in Bolivia to drill roughly 100 wells in communities all around the country. Imagine the implications! Now countless people will have access to cleaner, safer water, and they won’t have to travel miles to find it! While physical needs are being provided, there is a great potential to build relationships, and introduce people to the One who can satisfy their spiritual thirst as well!

In Ukraine it means that we now have enough money to enable Life Discipleship Ministries (LDM) to continue on strongly. LDM is partnering with Dnepro Bible Institute, and offers counselling and counsellor training. Ukrainian believers have problems like all of us. They are benefiting from the life of faith and grace that is being taught in our EFC churches and supported by a counselling ministry like LDM. In the words of one of our missionaries there, LDM is a ministry complementing our churches in helping them to “learn to live and walk in victory.”

But what it really means is that you — our EFCCM donors — are faithful, engaged and excited about missions! This is testimony to individuals who are responding to God, and who want to partner with Him to change the world. I am personally very encouraged and inspired by that — it will be a pleasure to report on what God has in store for 2008 with the resources you’ve entrusted to us!

BuzZ Online Episode 9!

Click here to listen to Episode 9 of the BuzZ Online!

All the way from Bolivia, Merle joined me for a quick interview at Home Office. We talked about El Candelero (the Candlestick), a coffee house that is unique in its area as an alcohol-free establishment. There is a difference between coffee shop and coffee house — to be quite honest a coffee house sounds a lot more fun!

The coffee house ministry recently gave birth to a church. And plans are in place to spin off another coffee house in a different area of Tarija. Cool things are happening!

Christmas Contrasts: Celebrations in Japan

Christmas has so many unique meanings and interpretations around the world. As we reflect back on the end of 2007, I thought it’d be interesting and challenging to share some of them with you. Let’s start with Japan. The following is paraphrased from Ann, who has seen all of this firsthand for several years now.

Japan’s focus on Christmas is almost entirely commercial. Ironically, while seasonal carols that spell out the true meaning of Christmas are played regularly in stores, they are in English and so are incomprehensible to most shoppers.

Santa-san (Mr. Santa) is a popular figure of the holidays. The well-known military persona associated with an international fast-food chicken chain (just trying to avoid brand names here) is often represented with a full-size statue at the front door. During Christmas, he gets into the festivities with a full Santa makeover. That makes sense as chicken is a typical holiday food. Another festive food is what they call short cake: “a two-layer sponge cake, decorated with whipped cream and fresh strawberries”. (That actually sounds good to me — right now!)

As you may imagine, Christmas lights are also a big deal. Several of the large parks hold lighting presentations, and some towns even host lighting competitions. Twinkling lights and neon shapes of Santa, reindeer, snowflakes and even Snoopy(!) are used to adorn buildings and homes.

As it is a culturally recognised holiday, there is much opportunity for the church to put Christ back into Christmas. The film Nativity (in this case dubbed into Japanese) played in theatres all through December, and cooperative evangelistic efforts backed it up with tracts and booklets explaining its meaning and importance. There were also outreach to children, and church-hosted Christmas Sunday celebrations. In such a secular, materialistic culture, Christmas might be the best chance for the church to reach out with the truth.

“Our prayer for Japan is that each year, more and more people will find the delights of the Christmas season centered around belief in the birth of their Saviour, Jesus Christ.” Indeed!

Shards of Hope

The picture we have of Africa is typically pretty bleak. It’s most often hard for me to even face the situations that our media presents to us, because they are mostly pretty accurate in this particular case. But sometimes little snippets of humanity sneak out between the cracks.

There’s a website that I want to share: check out Afrigadget. It’s one that speaks to me because it’s about indigenous and organic innovation. Perhaps this seems trivial when set against war, poverty, famine and disease. But I take a different view.

These people are inventing their way to a better life. What resonates with me is that the people on this site have their humanity restored to them. Their individual stories are important and valuable. Their contributions to their world are inspiring, not just to their communities, but to a host of others, even thousands of miles away! (They have so much to teach us about efficiency and simplicity!)

Every time I feel like there’s no reason to hope, God provides me with a little nudge to show me I’m wrong. And often it comes from pretty unexpected places.

MEMO Cuba’s Annoucments — Part 3

When a person’s body is unable to rid itself of its own waste for whatever reason, it is sometimes necessary to carry out an operation called an ostomy to enable this process artificially. This requires supplies for containing and disposing of the waste. As technology changes really fast in North America, especially in the medical world, new standards or systems are established regularly, and the render all the older, incompatible supplies redundant. But these are still useful elsewhere!

Send Ostomy Supplies (SOS) is an initiative that bands together EFCC volunteers in churches across Canada to collect redundant ostomy supplies. These are sent to Thunder Bay for sorting and packing before being shipped to their destination.

Without these supplies, ostomates become social outcasts as they deal with various makeshift ways of dealing with bodily wastes. With the assistance of MEMO over $150,000 worth of supplies have been delivered to ostomate sufferers in Cuba, improving their quality of life. This is an ongoing project. If you know of a source, or have extra unused, sanitary ostomy supplies you no longer need, why not get in touch?

The Next Edition of the Pulse

The deadline is looming for the next edition of our national EFCC publication, the Pulse. (Oh yeah, the Pulse has its own blog now. That’s certainly something to keep an eye on.)

I’m not giving any spoilers here, just a quick teaser. The EFCCM’s contribution will be supplied by one of our missionaries in Ukraine. He has initiated a new ministry to model and teach financial stewardship to Ukrainian believers. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to follow that up with a more in depth piece here on the blog, perhaps even our first remote audio conversation (podcast).

In a country changing as rapidly as Ukraine, there is much that the North America Church can offer people looking to make decisions that are both sensible and God-centered.

New Year’s Update for A World of Hope

Final numbers are still being tallied, but it’s clear at this point that this year’s donations will total significantly more than $40,000!! UPDATE: According to our most recent calculations, $48,265.00 has been donated to date!!

A deep thank you goes to all of our committed donors. This is going to enable so much ministry this year — I’m really excited to be a part of it.

By way of example, one of the projects that has been provided for is the laminator for Panama Christian Academy (PCA). I thought this was a worthy project because it will extend the useful life of materials from normal student wear and tear. It’s actually far more significant than that!

Panama is so humid that mold and mildew run rampant. A stationary stack of papers is liable to get moldy in a very short time. Even posters hanging on the wall are susceptible to rot! Lamination eliminates the wasted energy and resources incurred by printing these pieces over and over again. And it removes a potential cause of health problems too! When John and Naomi return to Panama next month, they will be able to take a brand new laminator with them, and PCA is sure to put it to really good use.

Missions Fest 2008

Now that we’re in January, Vancouver Missions Fest is right around the corner. There are two EFCCM-hosted sessions planned for this year. One is concentrating on the need and scope of Muslim outreach in our world. The other will be talk about the strengths and challenges of the global house church movement. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to record these sessions and pass them along to you — though if you’re in BC’s Lower Mainland, you’re encouraged to check them out in person. EDIT: I should probably add the date: January 25-27.

For those that can’t make it in person, maybe in the near future the presenters will appear on this blog in at least audio form — I’ll try to make that happen!

But wait — there’s more! This year we are working on a whole new idea. We want to reward our local churches for their attendance and participation in Missions Fest. Swing by our booth (U1), and enter your church to win one of six fabulous prizes. Here’s your chance to win a great new video or book resource for the library. Or you could win one of two grand prizes of $500 for your church’s missions budget!

We’re pretty stoked about it, and we hope you are too!