21 Apr 2011 Volunteer Opportunities with Global Ministries

This video features a number of volunteer opportunities for Honduras, Nicaragua and Poland in 2011. The Honduras medical trip is filled, but opportunities for Nicaragua and Poland remain. This video, which runs 4:46, was part of the quarterly Mission Moments DVD sent to all UB churches earlier in the year. Each Mission Moments DVD includes four short videos for use in UB churches. All of the Missions Moments videos can be viewed on the Global Ministries site.

21 Apr Death of Bill Fetrow

Bill Fetrow, a former United Brethren endorsed missionary, passed away during the night of April 20 at a hospice home in Huntington, Ind. He had been diagnosed in early March with bladder cancer. Bill and his wife, Ann, served in Papua New Guinea with Wycliffe Bible Translators. They have been living in Huntington, Ind., and attending College Park UB church.

15 Apr Play Baseball in Nicaragua Next January

Global Ministries is planning a baseball-themed mission trip to Nicaragua in January 2012. We want to use baseball to build relationships and share Christ.

We’re putting together a team of high-level players who will compete against teams in Nicaragua’s National League during January, their “spring training” time. We’ll practice with various clubs, conduct baseball clinics in some smaller villages, and play games in stadiums. During the games, we’ll invite everyone to an event where players can share their testimonies.

We need players (minimum of 6) and coaches to make this experience happen.

When: January 2012. The trip will last 11-13 days. Final dates will be determined in early August 2011.

Who: Collegiate level baseball players, current or former.

Cost: Airfare + $700. This includes lodging in Granada at a beautiful vacation home, transportation in Nicaragua, food, home/away uniforms, other equipment, and something fun (basically everything!). Homeruns sold separately.

Next Steps: Please email Jeff Dice to indicate you are interested and to get any questions answered. Deadline is August 1, 2011.

13 Apr Report from Honduras Conference

Juanita Chavez (right), superintendent of Honduras Conference, sent this report on the work in Honduras.

As we enter the fourth month of 2011, we are busy with a number of ministry opportunties within and outside of La Ceiba, and also with administrative changes.

We have a new computer program for students a the Bethel school, which we are very excited about. We have also initiated a cooperative project which will benefit the entire Honduran Conference. We opened Bethel Bookstore to the public, offering Bibles and Christian literature, and study manuals for our own UB people, to churches of different denominations, and of course the general public.

We’ve visited many churches, sharing seminars in various districts to the pastors and church leadership. On April 1-2, we had another workshop with our brother Abdiel here in La Ceiba (Focusing Your Ministry Around the Word). In all, we served 60 pastors.

On April 3 we were in Puerto Cortes. The church had asked to separate from the denomination, but now asked us to receive them again. There was a very special atmosphere and the Lord was a great help and blessing. God is so good.

During the months of January, February and March, we had work groups from the United States in Lucinda, Olanchito, and at the Retreat Center just outside of La Ceiba.

We are setting aside days of prayer for our country.

08 Apr Poland: Work Resumes on a New Church

Arek and Donna Delik (right), UB missionaries in Poland working with Operation Mobilization, sent their April newsletter, which gives an update on their building project. Last fall, their church bought a building which they plan to use not only for church services and other meetings, but as a rehabilitation center for helping people with addictions (especially alcohol) and as a teen center. They worked into February, finishing most of the interior demolotion, and then took a break as freezing weather his Poland. Now, with spring’s arrival, they resumed work. Donna writes:

Arek and our brothers started working in the site again on March 14. We had planned to finish the rest of the demolition work in two weeks, which included tearing down the old roof. However, the work was put on hold after 3 days as the weather turned bad and we didn’t have enough volunteers.

We did wonder whether we could complete the task. Since there was no one we could turn to except God, we committed our situation into his hands.
Miracles happened in the second week. God not only granted us the needed weather, but a friend of a friend, who had a family-run construction company, came with 4 other family members, including a 60-year-old grandmother, and they tore down the roof for us. We were stunned as they ripped off the whole roof in 2 days and only took the wood back home as their payment.

Another friend of a friend came with his big trucks and removed tons of rubble from our building site for one-fifth of the normal cost. We had to load the big truck by ourselves. Our men were completely exhausted after several loads and couldn’t do it anymore. A digging truck, which was passing by, came to their rescue. Arek stopped the truck and asked the driver to give us a hand, and he happily did it without taking any money.

It is beyond our comprehension, for so much has been done in such a short time. We didn’t understand why those strangers, non-believers, showed such favor to us.

Step by step we are moving forward, and God has amazed us and blessed us through all kinds of support which has poured in from different directions. We know that we still have a long way to go, but so far we are very encouraged

As the demolition comes to an end, we look forward to the next phase: building a new roof. The old one, we decided, was beyond repairing. This will require three different firms to do the job. We also hope to do the roof insulation and basic utilities during this phase.

We hope to finish all of this by the end of June if funding is available, which is around $55,000 US. God has been supplying all of our need so far, and we continue to trust him for meeting our needs.

07 Apr Global Ministries Team Meeting in Canada

Members of the Global Ministries Leadership Team headed for Ontario the morning of Thursday, April 7. They meet twice a year, usually in Huntington, Ind. But this time, they decided to meet at the Parkwood Gardens UB church in Guelph, Ontario.  Two members of the Global Ministries team are from Ontario, including Brian Magnus, pastor of the Parkwood Gardens church.

Global Ministries is not strictly a ministry of the US National Conference, but is a joint partnership with the Canadian national conference. The Ontario churches are given representation on the board in proportion to the missions giving by the Ontario churches. That is necessary in order to satisfy the charitable giving requirements of Revenue Canada (their IRS). Revenue Canada wants to make sure that if Canadians give money to entities outside of the country (and want it to be tax deductible), that they have some say in how that money is used.

The Global Ministries team will meet Friday and Saturday. The entire Global Ministries staff will be there–Jeff Bleijerveld, Donna Hollopeter, and Peggy Sell, who began about a month ago as the new administrative assistant.

01 Apr Update on Global Ministries Summer Trips

Global Ministries is sponsoring three summer trips. We’ve already publicized them. One is completely filled up, but spots remain open for the other two.

Spain (July 12-19, 2011)

We need four persons for this trip. Participants will work with UB missionaries Ron and Brenda Anderson in a Family English Camp on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The cost is $500 plus airfare.

Poland (June 24 – July 5, 2011)
We have 9 people for this trip, but could use up to 7 more. This trip is open to high-school aged students through adults. Participants will work with Polish teens in a camp atmosphere to improve their conversational English skills. There will also be time for informal teaching of basic sports skills. The trip is being led by Roger andf Sharon McDonald of Auburn, Ind. Cost: $700 plus the cost of airfare.

Honduras (June 17-25, 2011)

This summer’s medical trip is all filled up (once again).

If you’re interested in participating on any of these trips, please contact Donna Hollopeter in Global Ministries.

31 Mar Engaging Students in Macau

Jenaya with some students

Jeff Bleijerveld, Director of Global Ministries

One of our team’s strategies in Macau is to engage students through conversational English. Three of our staff work directly in the local school system as English teachers and look for ways to engage students both in the classroom and outside. In addition to her class time, Jenaya invites students to her home to make cookies and socialize. Bridger plays soccer and hangs out at “noodle” houses. David and Melissa Kline have a revolving door at their home as students come and go throughout the day and evening.

The constant challenge is in engaging students for Christ. There’s an acute sense of apathy among young people in Macau who have little direction for the future in a city-state dominated by the world largest gambling industry. Just days after leaving Macau last month, I was informed by David Kline that one of his students was found floating near the ferry boat pier in what appears to have been a suicide.

Pray for the work in Macau and neighboring regions and for spiritual breakthroughs in the lives of students and adults.

21 Mar Update from the Reeck Family

Amanda Reeck with her certificate of acceptance.

Roger and Marilyn Reeck, UB endorsed missionaries serving with Wycliffe in Honduras, sent this update on March 17:

Exciting news: Yesterday, in a formal ceremony our third daughter, Amanda, was handed the announcement that she has been accepted to the internal medicine residency program at Southwestern University Hospital in Dallas (that was her first choice.) Her sisters Teresa and Elisa were able to be with her. She graduates from med school on May 24. We praise the Lord for making all of this a reality!

We have now survived (and thoroughly enjoyed) three of the many workshops that we will be involved in this year and we are very happy with the outcome of each.

In February, Marilyn taught a “Learning that Lasts” (how to teach adults so that they retain the information) workshop. Twelve Garifuna pastors and leaders attended. It was quite exhausting for her, but she was thrilled with how well the group understood the methods, which were successfully displayed during their practice teaching.

Next, Marilyn set out for Guatemala along with three Garifuna leaders to attend a Scripture Meets Culture workshop. The men learned how to identify their cultural rituals, search for what the Word says about these practices, and then make a decision as to accept, reject, or change them. The three men readily embraced the teaching and came up with a very detailed plan of how to share this with all of the Garifuna Christians.

Immediately after arriving back, a One Story workshop was held here in Honduras. Thirteen stories form the book of Acts were learned and discussed, and church planting principles were drawn from each of these.

Now, Roger is on his way to Suriname to hold two One Story workshops. The first one will be held in a Lokono language village and the second in the capital city, Paramaribo, with 5 different language groups. Doing this all by himself will be a rather awesome task. He has spent the last several weeks relearning the Sranan Tongo language which he will use to teach the classes. He still experiences much pain in both legs and especially while travelling.

Marilyn stays back here in Honduras finishing off many different projects and preparing materials for several teaching opportunities. It is so wonderful to have our daughter Chrysti and her family just an hour away.

We will celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary in June!

20 Mar God at Work in the Mexican State of Queretaro

Bishop Denis Casco (right) of the Mexico National Conference sent this report on Saturday, March 19.

This is a report from Mexico, where God is powerfully acting through a campaign of evangelization that Bishop Denis Casco launched with the help of pastors, leaders, and members of the United Brethren in Christ churches Mexico.

Today, March 19, more than 400 United Brethren members from ten churches met in one of its church buildings in the state of Queretaro to celebrate The Regional Conference of the Cluster 3, located two hours from Mexico City.

Highlights of this conference:

• Over 400 people attended the event.
• Bishop Denis Casco anointed the leaders with oil in an inspirational ceremony in which there was prophecy, anointing of the Holly Spirit, and Word of exhortation.
• All who met in this conference committed themselves to take the spiritual leadership of cities, villages, indigenous groups, youth, the family, and the children to reach them for Jesus Christ.
• After a beautiful worship service in which people were moved by the power of the Holly Spirit, we ate a delicious meal together food, sharing with the families and other friends that were invited to the celebration.
• Finally, we are so thankful to God because the building of the UBC Evangelical Center Church of Begoña was finished and their doors are open to receive to all people who are needy and heartbroken.