29 Dec The Camp Malvern Main Building is Coming Down

The main building at Camp Malvern will be replaced by a new building.

A side view of the building.

Here’s an update on the Malvern Camp project. As you can see, the Jamaican people are hard at work tearing down the old building. Beginning on January 22, construction teams from North America will travel to Jamaica to work alongside Jamaica Conference to rebuild the main building.

Owen Gordon, a Jamaican pastor and president of Jamaica Bible College, writes, “Over 100 years of history is slowly coming down.
Mixed emotions were evident as persons reflect on the blessings received coming to camp. The expectation is high for the upcoming project.”

28 Dec Christmas for the Reecks

Back, L-r: Roger, Marilyn, Christy, Rigo. Front, L-r: Teresa, Amanda, Elisa. Plus the three Andino children. (Click to enlarge)

Roger and Marilyn Reeck, Global Ministries Endorsed Staff, Honduras

Our Christmas was very quiet. Roger and I are now in Honduras, and our girls did not come this year. They were all together in San Antonio, Texas. Even so we did get to be part of their Christmas. It was fun to watch the grandkids open their presents– watching on the webcam and through Skype.

We remained in the US long enough to spend Thanksgiving with our 4 daughters, son-in-law, and grandkids in Texas. The picture above was taken then.

21 Dec If It was Always Winter, but Never Christmas

Donna Delik
Global Ministries Endorsed Staff, Kutno, Poland

This year we are experiencing very severe winter, which caused chaos everywhere all over Europe. This winter came suddenly and caught many off guard. Many are dreaming of a wonderful Christmas holiday, yet they may be stuck on the road or in the airport.

This winter reminds me C. S. Lewis’s book “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.” The snow-blanketed land of Narnia is ruled by a wicked witch whose magic spell keeps the entire land so that “It is always winter, but never Christmas.”

What would our lives be like if it was always winter but never Christmas? There would be nothing to look forward to because days get shorter and thermometers fall. There would be no winter family gathering, no holiday traditions, no Christmas gifts….

On a more serious note: Christmas represents the birth of Jesus Christ. His coming changed history. Bethlehem only happened so Calvary could happen. He was only a baby so He could be a man and die. He only lived in order to die and save. If there had never been a Christmas, the world would be far different than it is today – in ways we cannot imagine.

16 Dec Open Doors in Turkey

Talking with a Turkish mayor about opportunities for ministry.

Jeff Bleijerveld, Director of Global Ministries

Previously, I talked about the idea of starting United Brethren ministry in a Muslim country, and why Turkey would be a good place to start.

Targeting a specific country is one aspect. Another is asking, “Who do we begin with? Who has some effective approaches and models?”

For me and for some members of the Global Ministries Leadership Team, we’re not interested in merely going to another American agency that is doing Muslim ministry. We’d prefer to learn directly from nationals in a Middle Eastern country, gaining their insights into what’s going on.

For that, we had a connection through Emmanuel UB church of Fort Wayne, Ind.

For several years, Emmanuel has been supporting one of its former members, Ladoyt “Rody” Rodeheaver, president and CEO of IN Network. IN Network connects churches and individuals in the United States with Christians in areas of the world where there is great need and the gospel is not widely known. That connection brought us in contact with Benan.

In early October, I traveled to Turkey with Kurt Uhen, a member of Emmanuel and a member of the Global Ministries Leadership Team. Benan took us around the country.

Benan is Turkish. I don’t know how many languages he speaks, but Kurt and I observed him functioning well in 9 different languages. He’s responsible for translating the Kurdish New Testament. He worked with the Bible society in Turkey to do the French, German, English, Arabic, Syriac (a dead language), Greek, Hebrew, and Kurdish translations. His ministry spans Turkey and the region, and he works to encourage, train and motivate pastors, church planters, and leaders.

Kurt and I found that there are a lot of opportunities for getting involved. I’ll talk about them in my next post.

16 Dec Photos from Sierra Leone Conference

Jeff Bleijerveld, Director of Global Ministries, returned Tuesday (Dec. 14) from Sierra Leone, where he attended the annual conference. A major decision was the selection of John Pessima as the new bishop of Sierra Leone Conference. He replaces Billy Simbo, who has been serving there for three years.

Jeff posted a bunch of photos from the conference on his Facebook page.

15 Dec Open Doors, Open Churches in Turkey

This church building in Eastern Turkey is being offering to the evangelical community for free, with the condition that they restore Christian worship in this city of some 200,000 people.

Jeff Bleijerveld, Director of Global Ministries

Turkey used to be the cradle of Christianity. You would never know it now. Pressure from Muslims, from both the state and grassroots levels, forced Christians to flee. Many went to Europe. Numerous churches became mosques.

However, during my trip to Turkey in early October, we visited two churches that have stood empty for around 250 years, and are under the control of the Syriac Orthodox Church foundation. The Orthodox church is looking for someone to come restore worship in these communities of 100,000-plus people. Maybe Turks are motivated a bit by wanting to join the European Union and show they are a pluralistic society. But the open doors are there.

One vacant church we visited could probably seat 300 people. It looks very much like an old European church, with high ceilings and columns. If you did some dusting, and brought in a generator to power lights and sound equipment, you could begin worshiping next week.

They told us, “If you’ll initiate worship in this building, it’s yours. We’ll hand the deed over to you.” An evangelical pastor traveling with us said, “I need to go home and talk with my wife about this opportunity.” We were told there was a large Protestant population that would immediately want to be part of any restart of that church.

In another community, we came across a church—not quite as ornate—with an American missionary couple working there. They have a number of believers who have relocated from other cities and churches to work alongside them, and have taken jobs in that community. The same deal: If we started worship in that building, we could have it.

At the same time, the Turks kept telling us, “This is still Turkey. Don’t write reports saying Turkey is turning to Christ.”

If you’re in a deep cavern and someone lights a match, that spark can seem real bright. But Turkey remains predominantly Muslim, with plenty of opposition to the Gospel.

14 Dec Turkey: A Good Place to Start

Jeff Bleijerveld, Director of Global Ministries

In early October, I traveled to  Turkey with Kurt Uhen, a member of the Global Ministries Leadership Team who is from Emmanuel UB in Fort Wayne, Ind. We were looking at opportunities for United Brethren ministry.

We have been talking for several years about ministering in the Muslim world.

• The United Brethren denomination has ministries in Latin America, which is traditionally Catholic or post-Catholic.
• We have ministry in Thailand, which is primarily Buddhist, as well as in other Asian countries with a large Buddhist constituency.
• We have churches in India, which is predominantly Hindu.

But we’ve not had any kind of work in a Muslim country. We’re not trying to add ministry in the Muslim world just to say we have a full set. But an increasing number of people in UB churches have a heart for the Muslim world and want to be involved in reaching Muslims. Are we going to get involved, or just send people to other organizations which work in Muslim countries?

As a newbie to Muslim ministry, where should we start? We wouldn’t want to head into Saudi Arabia, a strict Islamic state with sharia law. But Turkey offers some good possibilities. Though Turkey is predominantly Muslim, it is a secular state, westernized in many ways, wants to become a member of the European Union, and provides certain freedoms of religion. It might be a good place to get our feet wet.

13 Dec Notes from Cape Town: Nurturing Future Missions Leaders

L-r: Jeff Bleijerveld, Doug Birdsall, and Brian Birdsall

Jeff Bleijerveld, Director of Global Ministries

Doug Birdsall spearheaded Cape Town 2010 as executive director of the Lausanne Committee. Doug grew up in the United Brethren church, the son of Dr. S. Roger and Mary Lou Birdsall, a long-time minister in the denomination. His brother Brian, a Global Ministries endorsed staff who heads up the Campus Crusade work in Ukraine, also came as a delegate.

Doug did phenomenal job. He was on the go morning, noon, and night. As I left at the end of the day’s events to head back to the hotel to chill out, he was making the rounds of various receptions throughout the evening.

I think Doug and some of the people who worked with him really had a vision for making the congress more than just missions thinkers getting together and hammering out these issues. Their vision was to open this up to the entire church.

One of their goals was to nurture future missions leaders. With that in mind, they focused on inviting people 50 years or younger. I’m 49, so I barely squeezed in. They really weighted their decisions toward getting younger people who might emerge in the future as missions leaders.

Many people were invited to apply for an invitation to the conference, but then they went through a selection process. Each country had its own selection team to determine who would represent that country. About 4000 persons from America applied, and only 400 were invited; I was privileged to make the cut. In Canada, 6000 people applied for only 60 spots. So the selection teams had a difficult job.

11 Dec Our Mexico Churches: Living in Fear of Violence

Bishop Denis Casco (front) prays over a victim of violence in Mexico.

Denis Casco, Bishop, Mexico Conference

Violence, crime, poverty, and immorality, are striking the cities of Mexico without compassion. The dangers we confront go beyond what you see in Chicago gangster movies and those of robbery, death, and corruption in the old American West.

Missionaries and pastors today in Mexico live with pain, frustration, and great insecurity, and they must pay protection money to drug cartels and kidnappers.

Our leaders at churches in Ciudad Juarez (across the border from El Paso, Texas) and Michoacán (the central-west region) are in great danger of death, kidnapping, and extreme poverty.

Recently, I was in Ciudad Juarez to see our churches. During that Saturday night, 24 people were assassinated about 400 meters from the United Brethren church where Rev. Carlos Chaves is the senior pastor.

In that shooting one of our members was assassinated. The next week, the niece of Pastor Chaves was abused sexually and killed.

The main entrances to our churches are being watched. Church members are only letting members and well-known people into the church, because they fear that somebody could be assassinated inside.

Ciudad Juarez is the most dangerous city in the world, a city without law. We have an number of United Brethren churches here. Some are closing because our people are terrified.

The people only go out for an emergency. The children do not attend school regularly. It is like a ghost city. The US Department of State warns American citizens not to visit Ciudad Juarez, unless they have something very important to do there.

In the last three years, more than 27,000 people in Mexico have died. Some deaths were related to organized crime, and others were innocent victims in the wrong place at the wrong time. These are the challenges we face as we work for the Kingdom of God in Mexico.

It is estimated that 50,000 children in Mexico have lost their parents during the past three yeas, having been assassinating by organized crime. The number of orphaned children will increase, as will the amount of youth deliquency, robbery, and drug addiction.

Please pray for us.

10 Dec Poland: A Story of First Fruits

Baptism candidates in Kutno, Poland.

Michal and his family.

Donna and Arek Delik
Global Ministries endorsed staff in Kutno, Poland

We were surprised to see Michal in our first Sunday service after our 6-month furlough in Hong Kong. We were even more surprised when he told us that he was now a believer.

Michal was my student for 3 years and attended our English camp with his brother for the last 5 years. He was a quiet guy and didn’t seem to be interested in the gospel.

The baptism of Michal

During the 2009 English camp he became acquainted with the couple who led the American team. The wife encouraged him to join the exchange program of the high school where she worked. She even offered a place for him to stay while he was in America.

Michal said, “This year in America was the turning point for me, because I encountered God there.”

Since June, Michal has been coming regularly, and joined our youth group and teenager English Bible study. We have seen a strong desire of God in him and are encouraged by the transformation in his life.

November 27 was Arek’s 45th birthday. What a special way to celebrate it with the baptism of Michal. We were very glad to see Michal’s family there, even his father, who claimed to be an atheist. Michal’s greatest wish is that his whole family will get to know this Jesus who has changed his life.

When we started our English teaching ministry in 2000, our main target was teenagers. Though this ministry opened many new doors, at certain stages we did question its value, as we hadn’t seen much long-lasting fruit.

Michal is the first fruit from the English camp ministry. We pray that this first fruit is just a taste of lies ahead.