10 Dec Sierra Leone Conference Underway

Sierra Leone conference is going well. We convened yesterday and began greetings from representatives from the Wesleyan, Assemblies of God, Baptist, United Methodist, and other denominations and organizations, including the Evangelical Association of Sierra Leone.

The theme this year is “Sowing Seeds for a Bountiful Harvest,” using Matthew 13:23. Visitors from afar include Rev. Joe Abu, pastor of Mt. Zion United African Church in Philadelphia, Rev. Peter Mansaray of the UB church in Berlin, and Rev. Dr. John Jusu of the African International University in Nairobi.

This is a historic conference in which the Sierra Leone conference is becoming fully nationalized after 155 years as a missions conference. Rev John Pessima was elected yesterday as the new bishop and will assume his duties in January.

Conference continues until December 12, when we will hold an all-conference worship service at the Moriba Town Bo United Brethren Church, which is pastored by Rev. Emmanuel Farma.

Presently, the conference has 73 churches and 15 preaching points. It also has 54 schools with a total enrollment of just over 10,000 students and 376 teachers. There is one theological college and one hospital.

Rev. Pessima currently serves the Kissy United Brethren Church in Freetown, where an induction service will be held in early January. The bishop, his wife Nancy, and four children will be moving to Bo where the denominational offices are located.

09 Dec Blue Dots, and the Missing Chinese

The opening of the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization

I was among the 4000 people who attended Cape Town 2010, the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, held in October in South Africa. It opened on Sunday, October 17, and closed a week later. This was my first trip to South Africa.

I’ve attended many missions gatherings. But I’ve never attended a missions conference where, as you walk through the convention center, the vast majority of people are not North American. Usually it’s predominantly a bunch of North Americans getting together to talk about missions, with a few internationals who are part of the discussions. But this time, 90 percent were from beyond North America. That was fascinating.

We all wore name tags, with our name and country. But a lot of people had a blue dot on their nametag, with only their first name and no country. The blue dot meant, “Don’t take a photo of this person.” These persons came from security-sensitive countries, and didn’t want their photo splashed on websites, because it could be harmful to them. There were a lot of blue dots.

We couldn’t avoid noticing the absence of 200 house church Chinese pastors. The Lausanne Congress had invited 200 Chinese people, but the Chinese government didn’t let them go. In fact, the government confiscated their passports and even put some under house arrest so that they couldn’t leave for the conference.

The Lausanne organizers explained some of this the first night of the conference, and we had a chance to pray for the “empty chairs.” All of the delegates were divided into groups of six persons; we had an empty chair at our table, which meant it was intended for someone from a house church in China.

That was disappointing. They could have benefits from the encouragement and insight of others from around the world.

In the end, the Lausanne Congress offered an apology to the Chinese government for not consulting with them first before offering the invitation to their people. The Chinese government basically said, “If you wanted to invite 200 of our people, you should have checked with our government first.” They said that’s the reason they weren’t allowed to go.

08 Dec The Plight of Iraqi Christians

Iraqi Christian refugees holding a service in Turkey.

Jeff Bleijerveld, Director of Global Ministries

While visiting recently in Turkey, we had the opportunity to meet, on two occasions, with Iraqi Christians who are now refugees. These Iraqis have fled their homeland since the fall of Saddam Hussein, an event which many believed would bring hope to Iraq. But wars bring unintended consequences. The resulting lack of control unleashed religious violence against the Christian community, including the recent bombing of St. George’s Cathedral in the heart of Baghdad.

Strangely enough, the Assyrian Orthodox, who make up the largest number of Christians in Iraq, were provided a certain degree of freedom and protection under Saddam. In fact, Saddam’s foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, is a Chaldean Christian. Under Saddam, Christians had rights. Saddam saw them as having a historic right to be present in the country.

But no more. Now that the dictator is no longer defending them, it has become very dangerous to be a Christian in Iraq. Today these Christians are fleeing their homeland in search of asylum in neighboring Syria, Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. However, asylum is temporary, and many are working to gain refugee status in Europe and North America.

04 Dec New Global Ministries Staff: Stephanie Hamil

Jeff Bleijerveld, Director of Global Ministries

We’re glad to welcome Stephanie Hamil to the Global Ministries family. Stephanie, a member of Emmanuel Community Church (Fort Wayne, Ind.), will serve in South Africa with a college campus ministry.

Stephanie has a very winning, confident personality. She feels very comfortable communicating. Her whole college experience involved engaging people for Christ, and she is very passionate about doing it in the future.

Stephanie Hamil graduated in 2010 from the University of Southern Indiana with a degree in Spanish Education. Upon becoming a Christian during her freshman year in college, she received personal discipleship through Campus Outreach. Through her discipleship and World Vision seminars, Stephanie began to learn and understand the importance of missions to unreached people groups.

Stephanie is preparing to spend five years with an organization called Campus Outreach. She will work at the University of Pretoria in Pretoria, South Africa. Her prayer is that God would use her to evangelize, equip, and establish students on the university campus, with the goal of successfully sending them out into their spheres of influence.

Interestingly, in Pretoria she will live just a few blocks away from Joe and Natalie Reed, fellow Global Ministries staff who serve with Nieu Communities. The Reeds are currently in the States on furlough living in the Meyers Mission House in Huntington. They and Stephanie were able to get acquainted.

Stephanie hopes to leave in December 2010, and is currently raising her support.

03 Dec Building Project in Kutno, Poland

Church people outside their newly-acquired building in Kutno, Poland.

The new building in Kutno, Poland.

Donna and Arek Delik (below, right) are endorsed staff with Global Ministries. Members of our Hong Kong Conference, the Deliks have been serving in Poland since 1999, starting a church and doing other ministry. They recently purchased a building which will become their worship center and be used as a rehabilitation center in their ministry to alcoholics, and as a teen center. Global Ministries has spotlighted the building as a project churches and individuals may want to contribute toward. Here is an update on the building from Donna Delik.

Donna Delik, Poland

We feel overwhelmed by the swift development of the building project! The whole bidding process was a nerve-wracking experience. We were in a tug of war with a businessman who was very determined, and so were we. In the end we won the auction with 430,000 zloty ($150,000 US), 20% higher than the basic price, but we believed that it was still a very reasonable price for this property.

When we went to see the building once again, we were convicted that it was the right property for our ministries, and we were overjoyed for this great gift from God.

We were supposed to pay the rest of the money, 400,000 zloty ($53,000 US), by December 3. That was absolutely impossible for us. So the next day we went to the owner and explained that we actually didn’t have all the money in hand and needed more time. PRAISE THE LORD–without a second thought he agreed to extend the deadline of payment to December 27, which gives us more time to find the money we need! Once again God assured us that He was on our side.

Within a very short time, we have already gathered about one-third of the money. For the rest we must look for loans from individuals and churches. We are very thankful that our home church in Hong Kong agreed to grant us a big loan, and we are very close to the target now.

There is some bad news about the building: the roof is leaking and there is water in the basement. Our architect and engineer friends have recommended that these  urgent things need to be fixed for the winter; then we can work out a detailed plan for the whole renovation project when spring comes.

Please pray with us that the rest of the money will come before the deadline or even earlier, so that we could work on the roof before it causes more damage.

Thank you very much for those who have already responded to this financial need. Every penny counts, and your donation for this project is a great encouragement and blessing for our church.