18 Jun UB Team Arrives in Poland

Donna Delik, UB missionary in Kutno, Poland, with Operation Mobilization, sent this note, upon the arrival of 18 UBs in Poland:

It’s time for our annual English workshop again! The UB team from America arrived safely and sound this morning. We are very thankful that all their luggage arrived, it is the very first time without missing luggage! One more team member will arrive tomorrow, so please pray for safe travelling.

This weekend the team will work together to do the final preparation and then we will launch our English workshop on Monday, June 22.

We will appreciate your prayer for us as a team in the coming 2 weeks:

• Please pray for unity and work with one spirit with the team.
• Pray for our health: physical, mental and spiritual.
• Pray for those 63 teenagers who will participate in the camp, that God will use the team to speak to them.
• Pray for each team member, especially those who are in mission the very first time. We are so encouraged to see 13 teenagers in the team, and we pray that God will work in their lives through these 2 weeks.

17 Jun Two Mission Teams Heading Overseas

Two denominational mission teams are beginning their trips.

• A group of 18 people left for Poland on Wednesday, June 17. They will conduct an English camp for young people in the city of Kutno. Arek and Donna Delik, UB missionaries serving with Operation Mobilization, minister in Kutno. The trip will conclude with two days of sight-seeing in Krakow before they return to the States on July 1.
• A medical team is leaving Thursday, June 18, on a ten-day trip to Honduras. They will conduct five medical clinics before returning on June 27.

17 Jun Dave Datema Assumes Leadership of Frontier Mission Fellowship

On May 6, we noted that Dave Datema had been named to succeed Dr. Ralph Winter as General Director of Frontier Mission Fellowship, the umbrella organization for the US Center for World Mission and the William Carey International University. Dave officially assumed that role on May 5.

Dr. Winter passed away on Wednesday, May 20. In their newsletter, Dave and Cathie wrote:

Dave had spent Tuesday evening and all day Wednesday on a retreat with the Frontier Mission Fellowship executive team. After fasting for three days, going through 16 hours of meetings on the retreat, and then coming back to find that Dr. Winter had passed away 30 minutes after we returned, Dave was physically and emotionally spent. Yet God’s goodness and grace were very evident in the meetings and in the circumstances surrounding Dr. Winter’s death.

For all of us on staff, we have lost our leader, the one whose vision drew us here, for many of us a journey of thousands of miles away from home and family. These are somber but hope-filled days. Dr. Winter leaves a rich legacy behind.

Dave has discovered the “tyranny of the inbox” as he begins his new role. Within the next couple weeks, he will move his office to a different building on campus. Between now and our Staff Conference in July, Dave plans to meet face to face with the bulk of our members, part of which will involve a trip to one of our regional offices in Philadelphia. Much time will also be spent coming to grips with the policies and practices of the FMF’s multiple projects. Pray for Dave! Also, remember Cathie and our children as Dave will be out of town for 12 days in June.

Dave Datema is an ordained United Brethren minister, and a member of the Global Ministries Leadership Team. As a UB missionary kid, he spent a good chunk of his childhood in both Sierra Leone and Jamaica. He attended the recent US National Conference in Huron, Ohio.

15 Jun Death of Troy Hendricks’s Father

Troy Hendricks and family, missionaries in Spain with SEND International, are heading back to Michigan after the unexpected death, by heart attack, of Troy’s dad.