A GREAT SUMMER OPPORTUNITY for BLESSING and CHALLENGE!
Be encouraged as you hear ministry updates from our missionaries and returning mission teams.
When: Each Sunday—July and August at 10:30 am
Where: Arlington Heights Campus—Chapel
Who: Missionaries—Bjorn and Trisha Olsen, Bob & Vicki McCollum, Kim Berliner, High School Mission Team, and more . . .
View the full schedule for more information.
A Promise—You WILL be blessed.
Each month “the best” from our many missionary letters are condensed into very interesting reading and prayer requests for us. These may be obtained monthly at our Missions Display Board and/or received via email. Would you like to receive this newsletter in your inbox monthly? Subscribe to our e-Newsletter.
Check out our May Update to learn more about what is going on in the lives of a few of our missionaries.
April Update
March Update
February Update
Read a brief report from Rich Stienstra's trip to visit Bani and Tammy Doci in Tirana, Albania. Rich is a member of The Orchard Missions Ministry Team.
If you missed Pastor Dave and Debbie Wardle's report in June, they will be giving a presentation again on their recent mission trip to South and Southeast Asia. They will be sharing stories of what God is doing in this part of the world. All are welcome.
Read updates from the Wardles below.
Since blogs are designed to have the most recent entry at the top, if you would like to read about the trip in chronoligical order, begin at the bottom and work your way up. You have to click on the earlier dates at the bottom to pull up the earliest entries. We hope these blog entries will be of encouragement to you.
Dave and Debbie
The next 2 days I led an all-day training again for the Family Reading Club for 2 separate groups. I see the timing of this trip as very crucial in the implementation of this curriculum. I’ll briefly explain the background. Many of you know about the libraries that are being opened in Indonesia by the organization we support. There are city libraries, branch libraries, and village libraries called Reading Posts. These village libraries are actually opened and serviced by church planters as an opportunity to serve the Indonesian people in an area of critical need, and as a result they are welcomed into M communities that they would otherwise not be able to enter.
Over a year ago they had asked me to write a curriculum they could use to bring families to the Reading Post, teaching the parents the importance of and helpful strategies for reading to their children. This is also a natural way to build relationships with the families. I led the first training just 1 year ago, which turned out to be a crucial step in helping me know how to revise it to make it more useful in their context. We have Skyped and emailed many times over the past year.
One of the days of training was for 21 church planter’s wives and a few men who are leaders. Some of the church planter’s wives have been hesitant to step out and do ministry themselves (connected to their view of women). I was able to identify with them as a pastor’s wife – but share that is not my identity. We read some Scripture about how we are all created special and with purpose by God. We are first of all His beloved child, and want to use every opportunity to be salt and light in this world, helping others to know Him. I felt a kinship with them!
The other day was for the national leaders wives and other strategic people who will now be what they called the “Think Tank” of the program. They went through the whole curriculum with me/and the training, making the crafts, and discussing details. They are going to meet in 2 weeks again to discuss how to best encourage/implement the Family Reading Club across the ministry. They are truly taking ownership of this program.
The grand finale was yesterday, when we were able to return to the Reading Post I have seen before, but Dave was able to see for the first time. The new young national director of programs for the libraries has already begun using the newer FRC program in this village. We crammed into the small library in a home and watched her lead. There were 8 moms and their children (14 children). Actually there were many more at the door and a few more in the room but they weren’t ‘official’J – everyone on the floor, of course! She was using the book “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” with the strategies in the curriculum. The children then chose books for their moms to read to them, practicing what they had seen. They started the craft – (which was something I had used in my classroom) and at the end passed out the bookmark (made from the suggestion in the curriculum). Such a gift from the Lord to be able to see this, and for Dave to be able to be there as well.
Dave has been able to see other projects and aspects of the ministry here with Mike D. and some others. Each time we’re with Mike and Maria we appreciate them more and more.
Today, Friday, we are heading home. Our plane left at 8 am Jakarta time, and 27 hours later we will land in Chicago at 11pm tonight. What can we say about this trip? It has been such an honor and privilege to represent the church in seeing first hand the strategic and sacrificial ministry of so many of God’s choice servants that we – you support. In the days ahead, we hope to solidify our thoughts and be able to communicate what we have seen and heard.
Thank you for your interest and prayer. We have no doubt that God has planned each day, each contact, each conversation and watched over each hour of travel. We have felt loved and appreciated at each place and our prayer is that the people we have spent time with feel the same.
It will be good to be home.
Day with Betawi Team
In our time of the people sharing about their call into ministry, one story that stood out was “Charlie’s” (his name for now) His call came because of a tragic event in his family. He is from the far east side of Indonesia and in 1977 there was a religious war between those who had accepted the Gospel and those who had not. His father was one of the first who had accpeted the Gospel and his was killed in “a way that was not humane. They tied his hands and then his feet and then they cut his throat.” There was a long pause here as he hung his head in deep saddness. It was because of this that he decided to give his life in bringing the Gospel to people who had never heard. This call continued through his schooling years. When asked about why he was not bitter, he said that the Bible says to forgive. Later on the men who killed his father confessed to it . He is quite excited that this past year his older brother and his wife have become believers.
The schedule has changed a bit. Tomorrow and Wednesday Debbie teaches all day (that is the same), Mike and I will go to a meeting in Jakarta where Mike will be presenting the ministry to a very significant group of mission minded leaders who want to potentially be involved. This is a meeting that Mike has desired to be invited to for a long time. Wednesday Mike and I go to see a farm project and then Thursday we go to see a reading post.
Thanks for your interest and prayers.