Ministry

It’s been awhile since I’ve written about any ministry-related stuff! Here’s an update:

Deron
Deron is doing research for several presentations he has to give in the next few months, and is also working on a Member Care services video that will be shown to new missionaries during orientation.

He's also been planning a marathon road trip we’ll be taking through Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, and Benin. We leave tomorrow, so please be praying for health, energy, safety and good visits with fellow missionaries!

Along with Member Care responsibilities, Deron has also been helping me put together video clips of missionaries sharing stories of God at work among their people groups.

Mary Beth
A couple of months ago Emily, Jesse and I officially became a team -– they used to have different supervisors and worked exclusively as journalists, but now I am their supervisor and we’re working together to create web, print, and video products as well as stories.

We recently had a visit from fellow media missionary Sue S., who shared lots of writing and photography tips with us. She also taught us about convergent media -- blending together audio, video, photos, graphics and text into a seamless presentation.

We are using the concepts in a huge project that is consuming most of our time these days: developing training materials for West Africa’s Engaging Churches. These churches have committed to take the gospel to small, remote people groups that have no missionary presence among them. The materials will (hopefully!) make their task more manageable: church planting strategies, culture and religion studies, “living in Africa” skills and more. Pray for wisdom and creativity as we pull together these resources.

God at Work
Deron has been cultivating friendships with our office security guards and the guys who hang out with them. None of them are Christians, but Deron recently had some in-depth spiritual conversations with "S" about the differences between Islam and Christianity. "S" seems genuinely interested in learning how to spend eternity in paradise –- please pray for a continued openness and more opportunities to share.

This is us with Zachary, a jewelry-maker and vendor at one of the artisan markets. We gave him a French Bible because he said he wanted to learn more, but so far he hasn’t read much. Pray that he’ll have a desire to know the truth, and that we’ll be wise and bold in knowing how to answer any questions he may have.