03 May Global Ministries Unveils Strategic Plans

Jeff Bleijerveld, Director of Global Ministries

In early April, the Global Ministries Leadership Team met in Guelph, Ontario, to continue work on a number of strategic measures. These measures include:

• Conduct a series of one-day regional training events in 2012, to provide a broad overview of what God is doing around the globe and how we can be involved.. These will be done in partnership with the US Center for World Mission.
• Train and coach church planters in other countries to operate small business endeavors, which will provide funding for ministry and opportunity to penetrate Gospel-resistant areas. The first training event will take place in Sierra Leone in January 2012.
• Continue collaborating with sister national conferences eager to send their own missionaries and participate in the broader world of United Brethren missions. Already, Honduras has participated in a short-term endeavor in Haiti, and Jamaica has received several offerings to benefit Haiti and the Philippines.
• Develop a global prayer network to strengthen God’s hand to act among United Brethren ministries around the world through focused prayer. We’ll let you know more about this as plans develop.
• Hire an additional associate director at the Global Ministries office. This person will focus primarily on all matters related to missionary personnel (recruitment, training, support, etc.), plus small business development and other areas.

29 Apr UBs Give Over $11,000 for Tsunami Relief in Japan

To date, Global Ministries has received over $11,000 from UB churches and individual donors to support tsunami relief efforts in Japan. As we promised, this money has been forwarded to Samaritan’s Purse, an organization with which we partner for disaster relief.

The evangelical Christian community in Japan represents less than 1 percent of the population, but undaunted, they are eager to help their countrymen. Samaritan’s Purse is working with churches in Japan providing tangible help with blankets, kitchen kits, and hygiene kits.

In addition to buying supplies locally, Samaritan’s Purse airlifted 93 tons of emergency aid to Japan on a 747 jumbo jet just a week after the tsunami. Their team continues to work with local church partners to distribute essential items to tens of thousands of people in the hardest hit communities.

Transportation remains a big challenge on the road to recovery. Nearly every car in the affected area was destroyed, and the country is facing a fuel shortage. In response to this need, Samaritan’s Purse has purchased hundreds of bicycles that they are giving to churches and evacuation centers, so people can borrow them when needed.

To help displaced families return to their homes, Samaritan’s Purse is providing pastors with small, inexpensive pickup trucks, each one loaded with a generator, power washer, and clean-up tools. Their team is training Japanese Christians in how to do “mud-outs,” and are setting up tents to serve as bunkhouses for volunteers coming from churches elsewhere in Japan.

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.

11 Apr Jamaica Conference Celebrates 60 Years

Bishop Phil Whipple (left) and Bishop Winston Smith

Bishop Brian Magnus of Canada spoke during the Friday night banquet during Jamaica Conference.

The banquet hall.

Jamaican choir. (click to enlarge)

Phil Whipple, Bishop

I had the privilege of attending Jamaican Conference this year as they celebrated their 60th anniversary. The sessions and services were held the Battersea UB church in Mandeville.

The event kicked off on Wednesday, March 9, with “Jamaica Night, which included music, dance, and skits–some religious in nature, some related to Jamaican cultural.

The conference business began Thursday morning and continued into the afternoon on Friday. I spoke during their Thursday night service.

Friday night featured a big banquet, with probably 250 people attending. It was very elaborate, and many of the women wore formal gowns. They gave plaques to longstanding members of their churches, persons who had been members of their church for a least several decades. The wives of district superintendents (they have three districts) gave out the awards, and a photographer recorded everything. I would guess they honored at least 50-60 people. If the person couldn’t attend, someone received the award for him. Brian Magnus, bishop of the UB Church in Canada, spoke that night.

Nothing was planned on Saturday, conference-wise. Instead, they scheduled a bus to take us to Malvern to see the building project at the camp. Then we had lunch at a restaurant on the beach.

They expected 1200 people for the closing service on Sunday, and they were packed out. The tabernacle area was full, and there were lots of people roaming outside the doors. That service service was held at Missionary Church campground in Mandeville.

Rev. Jasper Green spoke in the morning, and after lunch we had an afternoon youth service. Then in the evening, Bishop Winston Smith spoke. After his message, they read off the stationing committee report, telling where pastors would be assigned during the coming year. I was told it was a year with more transitions than normal.

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.