Global Outreach Page 2 - Notes From His Fields...

We hope to populate this space with pictures and words that will introduce you to some of our friends who are reaching, and our new friends being reached, for God through dec. Our goal is to educate and inspire you to seek His message to you on how you can play a role in these efforts, in His name.

Resources: International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church November 11th 2007 www.persecutedchurch.org

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The Missions Passionate Church ACMC Regional Conference in Easton, MA (Advancing Churches in Missions Commitment) November 17th 2007.
Click Here for Brochure. Please contact globaloutreach@durhame.org if you would like to attend.

Experiencing God while serving on a Short Term Missions Project happens long before one leaves the USA. A team member may be hesitant to accept the call to go because of their concern of how they will be able to come up with the funds or how they will get the time out of work. Then suddenly, after many weeks of worry, the way is clear, extra money arrives and the time off is granted.

The following is a recent example from one team member of how they experienced God while working to obtain medication for the upcoming Mali project scheduled for January of 2008. Following many attempts at contacting various pharmaceutical companies, the team member writes:

“I was getting very frustrated today with the answers I was getting from the many phone calls I was making – nothing available or referrals to yet another phone number – and then I did my Experiencing God study and the whole focus was ‘God the provider!’ I felt a little chagrin, a little repentance and gave it to Him; so I guess if God thinks we need the stuff, He will provide the means.”

From dec missionary, Maghan Grahn, serving with InterVarsity in Durham, New Hampshire

A Morning in Central Asia

A Journal Excerpt from a dec Missionary

Today I woke up, got my oldest son and husband out the door, and cooked some dried beans I had soaked overnight to make a dish called barbunya. The beans are somewhat like a cross between pinto and kidney beans. You cook them with onions, tomatoes, carrots, olive oil, and then serve it cold as a "salad". After I got the beans cooking, I got my youngest son up, made him some breakfast, got dressed in my workout clothes, and got him ready for school. At 8:30, we headed out the door.

I walk my youngest to school 3 days a week. It is nearly a mile from here, and he gets tired. I have been giving him a piggy back part of the way (something that I don't see the locals doing) so we have been negotiating this.

We get to school, where I typically read him a few books in English and play for a while. I am able to speak a bit with his teacher now, and she gets a kick out of my attempts at speaking the language. I leave him there and head out to go for my walk.

What I smell as I walk through the city: Fish. Cigarette smoke. Cologne, both men's and women's. The sea. Roasting meat for kebap. Roasting chestnuts. Sewage. Car exhaust. Barbecue. Produce.

What I see as I walk through the city: Colorful baskets of fruits and vegetables. People of all heights, ranges of fitness, ranges of fatness, red hair, blonde hair, black hair. Tight t-shirts, miniskirts, jeans, burkas, head scarves, and raincoats in 80-degree weather. T shirts with English on them: "I believe in magic." "Abercrombie and Fitch." "Nike." Old men and women daringly dashing across 4 lanes of traffic on the minibus road, navigating around moving vehicles. Young adults (lots of them) looking bored. (Fifty percent of Turkey's population is under the age of 18. Joblessness is an epidemic. Many young men and women who want to work can't, because there just aren't jobs.) Brick and stone sidewalks, many of them uneven so that just walking down the street requires some skill. Occasionally there is a tree growing in the middle of the road, cordoned off by concrete walls. Fruit trees, with fruit growing all the time. Today I see a woman picking some type of berry off of a tree and collecting them in a bag, right in the middle of a sidewalk. I see people washing the stone walkways in front of apartment buildings and stores, nearly every morning. Street dogs, street cats, everywhere. Outside our apartment window I see layer after layer after layer of concrete high-rise, in different colors: Pale green, light pink, beige, mustard yellow, gray, brown. Thousands of windows. Tiled rooftops.

What I hear in the city: The call of vendors (beshlirabeshlirabeshlirabeshlira). The call to prayer, 5 times a day, in Arabic, not the local language. Traffic. Screeching tires. The sounds of kids playing in the parking lots behind our building. A child calling his mother (Aaahhhnnnneeeey!) Men walk down streets with big flat carts, pushing them, calling for people to bring out unwanted furniture and appliances. They yell something which I can't make out in a rhythmic, regular fashion.

Wednesday as I walk home from my son’s school after dropping him off, I see a store selling big throw pillows. I have looked at these many times, and we would really like to get some, so today I decide to screw up my courage and face the challenge. "Merhaba. Buyuk yastik istiyorum. Ne kadar?" I buy 2 huge pillows, and carry them home, each in a bag, feeling quite silly.

From dec missionary, Erik Travis, serving with Campus Crusade in Kazakhstan

KZ . . . The Way To Be!

Four men from the University of New Hampshire spent the past year in the central Asian country of Kazakhstan to work with the university students in the capital city of Astana. I, Erik Travis, team member one, was supported by DEC for this project and have the pleasure of writing to you just a small summary of what we were up to last year and how God has and is continuing to do awesome things.

The other three guys of the team are: Eric Abbey, our team leader and Campus Crusade for Christ staff member at UNH; Paul Johnson, senior at UNH; and Brendan Jorgenson, who will be returning to Kazakhstan next year. We left the USA for the capital city of Astana, which is about 500 miles southwest of the beginning of Siberia. Our mission was to become involved at local universities, teach English to students there, and develop relationships with the students, sharing Christ with them throughout the whole process.

During our time in Kazakhstan there were 2 students who came to Christ and became involved in the student movement and countless others who now know about Christ and what He did for us. We spent time in one-on-one conversation, large group socials, and weekly gatherings living out our faith in Christ and asking for God to move in the lives of the students around us. Sometimes we felt overwhelmed and discouraged that people were not responding as we might have hoped, sometimes the language barrier was too much, and sometimes we just missed home and could not take another day of crowded bus rides. But just being in a place that made us trust the Lord each minute of each day grew our faith in immeasurable ways.

After this year I feel I could go on and on about God’s provision and how this year has made me trust Him more. It has made me realize I need not worry about what I eat, where I sleep, or what I wear. Once we arrived I was continually reminded that God had control of everything. It started with something as simple as getting food and having a place to stay in the first week, to dealing with the flood in our bathroom, the robbery of our flat, and my broken nose. The list goes on to spiritual battles, team conflict, and a sense of homesickness, but through it all God never changed and was the one constant that I and the rest of the team could count on.

It is rather difficult to try and summarize this entire experience into one short update. We do have a website with many more stories and even photos to help illustrate. Teamkstan.ministryhome.org (Password: crazy4kz) Also, as I wrote earlier, Brendan will be returning next year to a city about 3 hours south and there will be more news and updates about how God is working. Thanks for reading and I hope you have an opportunity to see one of us at church on Sunday or visit the website. This year has given me a small taste of what is beyond our borders of seacoast New Hampshire. I hope you can also have a small glance of how God is everywhere and doing big things in many other places as well.