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Praises
- Orange County, California – The Gathering NAB Youth Event – An amazing week of service, challenge, and worship! Over 200 NAB students and leaders attended, from Ohio to Alberta! Mission/service projects were spread all over Orange County and beyond, challenges came from five different speakers, and a local worship band provided great leadership as everyone lifted up their hearts in prayer and praise. Personally, I had multiple opportunities to reconnect with students and leaders, and in many cases, reconnecting with many friends from the past as this was actually my sixth time at The Gathering! My main challenge to the group was the consideration of serving internationally in mission on one of two upcoming Gateway FUSE Teams in Cameroon and the Philippines (see nabonmission.org/fuse for more info or pass along this opportunity to a young person you know), and to ask youth leaders to consider serving/leading a Gateway Team among one of our many overseas opportunities or asking their church leadership to consider getting their church involved in a long-term sister-church partnership.
- PRAISES from my Central Europe Field Director role in Hungary/Serbia:
- NAB volunteer in mission Joely Chambers – Joely interned for the month of July with the MEK Hungary staff, learning more about their work as she served behind the scenes and out front serving two of their village summer camps (Zsambok and Hatvan).
- West Meadows Baptist Church (Edmonton, Alberta) sent a Hungary Gateway Team to serve in a third camp MEK held in the village of Apc. I traveled to this Edmonton church and facilitated a team training retreat for this Gateway Team.
Prayer
- NAB International Missions Global Summit – Rostrevor, Northern Ireland – Please pray for our group of around 30 NAB missionaries, staff, and global mission partners as the Mission Advisory Team puts on this triennial event.
- International Wholistic Mission Conference (IWMC) – Durres, Albania – Please pray as the CHE Euronet group that MEK Hungary is a part of hosts this annual conference, which is taking place outside of the USA for the first time. Participants are expected to come to Albania from around the world to attend.
- Also, please pray especially for the Central Europe / Balkan regional vision trips.
- Sister-church partnership orientation – Missio Church in Bismarck, North Dakota – Pray for this church as they seek to intentionally move into partnership and as I work with them in doing so.
- Alberta trip – Please pray, as I’ll be involved in a number of speaking/training opportunities including:
- Speaking at both the GEM (Edmonton) and CAM (East Olds) Mission Conferences.
- Facilitating three Gateway trainings – Short-Term Mission Leader Workshop at Steele Heights Baptist (Edmonton), and Sister-Church Partnership Orientations at Temple Baptist (Medicine Hat) and Greenfield Baptist (Edmonton).
- For all Gateway’s ongoing sister-church partnership in various stages of development, and engagement in Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Mexico, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, Hungary, Romania, and Cameroon.
- For more North American churches to engage in sister-church partnerships.
Mission service project during The Gathering – cleaning a smoke-damaged home in Altadena, California.
IWMC?
Among this month’s prayer requests is a conference in Durres, Albania, the International Wholistic Mission Conference (IWMC). And although it has always included internationals in attendance, the IWMC is taking place this fall for the first time outside of the USA, making it possible (this is the hope) for many to come that haven’t been able to attend in the past.
So, what is the IWMC? This conference gathers together national leaders and missionaries who are committed to a holistic Gospel approach to mission called Community Health Evangelism (CHE). CHE is an especially relevant ministry approach (mirroring the NAB’s values of missional / Kingdom theology and mission) that targets multiple needs of marginalized peoples around the world, specifically the Roma (Gypsies) in Central European and Balkan countries. Retired NAB missionaries Ron and Jean Seck introduced this ministry approach in Hungary about thirteen years ago, and after establishing MEK Hungary to apply these CHE principles, they discovered a number of other partners doing CHE work throughout the region. This led to the establishment of a cohort of practitioners who call themselves the CHE Euronet – the hosts of this year’s IWMC.
Ron and Jean Seck, and Juli Olah in Durres, Albania (Iconium of the book of Acts).
Vision Trips
All of this background leads to my own involvement in this conference as the NAB Central Europe field director, overseeing our three global mission partners (Laci, Eszter, and Marijana), as well as the request that came to NAB Gateway earlier this year to assist with seven post-IWMC vision trips for participants coming to the Albania conference itself.
As I mentioned above, Gateway has been working and is set to help facilitate seven vision trips in the region – Albania (2), Kosovo, North Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Hungary – for those IWMC attendees interested. All these vision trip participants will be given the firsthand opportunity to understand Gateway’s sister-church partnership model through their participation in the vision trips themselves and the training that goes with them.
In our sister-church partnership paradigm, vision trips are ‘Step Two’ in our four-step process for bringing communities of Jesus followers into partnership together – (Step One is ‘Orientation,’ Step Three is ‘Mutual Design,’ and Step Four is ‘Mission as Partners’).
It is (and will be) very exciting to expose many people from different backgrounds, countries, and cultures through this opportunity! Please pray for the MULTITUDE of logistics involved with such an endeavor (visas, registration, travel, and many other logistics)! Also, please pray for results from all seven of these vision trips and how those results pan out in the future. I will myself be personally involved with the Hungary vision trip, along with my colleagues Laci and Eszter. Thanks for your prayers for all of this!
For the Kingdom