17 Mar Student Ministry in Macau

Jeff Bleijerveld with the Macau team. L-r: Jenaya Bonner, Mia Kline, Jeff, Brandt Kline, David Kline, Melissa Kline, and Bridger Fetters.

Jenaya Bonner meeting with some students in Macau.

Jeff Bleijerveld, Director of Global Ministries

Throughout the world youth show signs of apathy, but perhaps not more so than they do in Macau. Surrounded by Mainland China, with a rather confused national identity and a future of simply serving as Asia’s gambling capital, jobs and money come easily to the youth of Macau, but the future seems rather bleak.

Our team of Jenaya Bonner, Bridger Fetters, and David and Melissa Kline work in local schools as English language teachers and conversationalists. This lends legitimacy to their presence in Macau, but also provides opportunity for them to get close to students, hear their pain, and share the gospel with them in meaningful ways.

Working alongside the Living Water and Living Stone United Brethren churches, they network with church members so other Macanese believers can be brought into the circle of friends they form. This ensures that the gospel message is not simply dismissed as a Western cultural phenomenon, but is relevant for Asian culture as well.

Just after I left Macau on March 7, I received a disturbing message from David Kline. The body of one of his students was found floating near the ferry piers. While nothing was said to indicate it had been suicide, and would not in this culture, neither was there indication that a criminal investigation had been launched.

Both David and Bridger teach at the same school and ask for prayer as numerous significant conversations are taking place with students trying to deal with the tragic loss of a classmate. Pray that out of this tremendous loss, many will find hope in Christ.

15 Mar Japan: Global Ministries Partnering with Samaritan’s Purse

Jeff Bleijerveld, Director of Global Ministries

Global Ministries is partnering with Samaritan’s Purse in the aftermath of Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami.

United Brethren people are compassionate and generous. So when disaster strikes a country, they want to help. People often contact Global Ministries to ask if we are doing anything to help in a specific situation.

Our practice is to partner with organizations which specialize in disaster relief. When the earthquake hit Haiti in January 2011, we partnered with Samaritan’s Purse and CH Global and channeled relief contributions to them. Within weeks of the earthquake, UBs had sent nearly $70,000 for disaster relief.

Likewise, the tsunami in Japan requires the expertise of a major relief ministry. Global Ministries is again working with Samaritan’s Purse.

Donors can direct funds to the organization themselves. Or, we will gladly forward your gift—100% of it—to Samaritan’s Purse. Some prefer the latter to avoid being placed on a mailing list.

What is Samaritan’s Purse doing?

At the request of Japanese Christians, Samaritan’s Purse has deployed a team to provide emergency relief aid to people affected by the earthquake and massive tsunami that hit the northeastern coast on March 11. Giant waves engulfed coastal towns and swept away houses, cars, boats, and trains.

The twin disasters devastated hundreds of towns and villages in northeast Japan. Hundreds of thousands of survivors have been left without adequate food, water, shelter, or heat as overnight temperatures dip near freezing. There is no electricity in many regions; the nights are cold; and the suffering is great. Evacuations over nuclear power concerns have
 only compounded the problems.

Samaritan’s Purse is planning to distribute food, water, medicine, blankets, hygiene supplies, and other essential items to people who have lost virtually everything. Their Japanese church partners have secured five trucks and begun purchasing supplies, and have secured permission to enter the disaster zone. Local believers are being mobilized as volunteers.

Samaritan’s Purse President Franklin Graham has, in the past, conducted evangelistic Festivals in the Japanese cities of Osaka and Okinawa, and they have hundreds of church partners in the country.

If you want to channel relief money through Global Ministries, you can send a check to:

Global Ministries
302 Lake Street
Huntington, IN 46750

Include a memo note on the check designating the gift for “Japan relief.” Your entire donation will go toward relief efforts.

13 Mar Now THAT’S a Pulpit!

Jeff Bleijerveld (left) preaching at a UB church in Thailand. Beside him, translating from English to Mandarin, is Mark Choi, the Hong Kong missions director. On the left is a Thai worker translating from Mandarin to Thai. (click photo to enlarge)

One of the pulpits (click to enlarge)

A view from behind one of the pulpits. (click photo to enlarge)

Jeff preaching in a Thai church. Most of the people sit in plastic chairs, while the children sit up front on the floor. (click photo to enlarge)

Jeff Bleijerveld, Director of Global Ministries

Our two churches in Thailand feature the largest and most impressive pulpits in the denomination.

Rev. H. M. Lee, who heads up our work in northern Thailand, made pulpits from the trunks of two large teak trees. The stumps sit upside-down.

I’ve wondered how Rev. Lee brought the stumps to the churches. Teak is a very heavy wood.

I had the chance to preach from these pulpits. The large size came in handy, since we needed several translators. I spoke in English, another person translated from English to Mandarin, and then another person translated from Mandarin to Thai.

09 Mar Introducing Peggy Sell

Peggy Sell (left) and Darlene Burkett.

We want to welcome Peggy Sell to the Global Ministries staff. She’s actually been here a couple weeks now, most of that time being trained by Darlene Burkett, her predecessor as administrative assistant. But now she’s on her own.

Peggy is originally from Huntington and has lived here (or in nearby Fort Wayne) all her life. She has participated in a UB work trip to Jamaica, and for many years served as president of the Women’s Missionary Association at Good Shepherd UB church in Huntington. For a while she owned Harris Guest House, a bed & breakfast and reception center.

Peggy and her husband, Mark, a chiropractor, live in Huntington, Ind., and attend College Park UB church. They have six children, and over the weekend welcomed their sixth grandchild.

Meanwhile, Phil and Darlene Burkett are getting settled into their new home in Cass City, Mich. Phil is now senior pastor of the Missionary Church congregation in Cass City. They loaded up the moving van last Thursday (March 3) and headed to Michigan the next day. We wish them well in this new venture.

08 Mar Update on Building Project in Poland

Arek and Donna Delik (right), UB missionaries in Poland working with Operation Mobilization, sent 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.

We originally reported on the new building on December 3. Here, Donna gives an update.

Since the beginning of January, Arek and our guys have worked very hard on our new building. We had finished most of the demolition work and decided to take a break as freezing weather hit Poland again.

God has amazed us and blessed us many times since this project launched. We have received a donation just in time to cover the expense for those five weeks of work. Our church members have worked very hard at the building site, and we have received great support from friends, who lent us tools for the work. One person cleared up the rubble with his truck for the cost of petrol only. All these helped to cut down the cost enormously. We know that we still have a long way to go, but so far we are very encouraged.

The next phase is waiting for the roof. After considering different options, we finally decided to build a new roof, since the old one is beyond repairing. We have met with the engineer as well as some other people who have given us very valuable opinions. We are aiming to return to working on the building during the second half of March to finish everything before building the new roof. We are hoping to do this by the end of April if funding is available.

We have received a lot of encouraging email from friends since sending out our building project news, and we feel really blessed as so many brothers and sisters are standing with us in prayer for this project. Without such prayer support, we will be unable to take up this enormous task. So we will appreciate your unceasing prayer to lift us up during this whole process.

02 Mar Global Ministries Director in China

Global Ministries Director Jeff Bleijerveld is currently in Macau meeting with our staff there. He traveled there on February 28, and will return on Monday, March 7.

02 Mar Cancer Strikes Former Missionary Bill Fetrow

You may remember the names of Bill and Ann Fetrow, who were once United Brethren partial-support missionaries serving in Papua New Guinea with Wycliffe Bible Translators. They currently live in Huntington, Ind., and attend College Park UB church.

Bill has been diagnosed with stage four bladder cancer. It has spread to other organs, and Bill will not pursue treatment. Bill will begin working with hospice very soon.

28 Feb Two Organizations Come Alongside Centennial School

Rotary International, in partnership with Engineers without Borders, has signed a five-year agreement with Centennial Secondary School in Matttru Jong, Sierra Leone. They will rehabilitate damaged buildings, and provide electricity and water supply. The school was ravaged by rebel forces during the civil war of the 1990s.

According to the online Awoko Newspaper, a team of experts from Engineers without Borders recently visited the school to assess the existing facilities. Diana Dunn, the team spokesperson, said they intend to install a solar lighting system and repair roofing (the school foundations, she said, appear sound). She also noted that the one shallow well on the campus usually dries up during the dry season.

20 Feb Jane Baker’s Return to Sierra Leone

The medical team and national workers. Jane Baker is in the middle (red top), with Ron right behind her.

Ron Baker performing surgery at Mattru Hospital.

Jane Baker sharing Scripture with a Sierra Leonean.

Jeff Bleijerveld, Director of Global Ministries

Dr. Ron Baker led a team to Mattru Hospital in Sierra Leone, January 18-28, 2011. While Ron has made several trips back to Sierra Leone over the years, this was the first time his wife, Jane, has returned since they left the field in the 1980s. Accompanying them were Luke and Shannon Brown and Roger and Denise Cable. Ron and Shannon were the only medical personnel on this team.

I wanted to share a bit of what I heard from Jane Baker. Jane is legally blind, and so returning to Sierra Leone was a particular challenge for her. She and Ron had talked about it a number of times, but she was both nervous and concerned that she would be a burden. Then one Sunday morning the message was from Isaiah 6, and when the pastor read, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” Jane knew in her heart that the Lord was speaking to her. So she responded, “Here am I, send me.”

While some of the team did medical work at the hospital and others helped with maintenance, Jane was led from house to house to encourage, admonish, and share God’s Word with everyone she met. She was able to catch up with old friends, meet some who had come to faith in Christ since they left Sierra Leone, and share the Gospel with those still on a journey of faith.

I’m reminded again of the old adage, “God doesn’t care as much about our abilities as he doees about our availability.”