In This Issue

Sudan: Resurrected Hope

God's handiwork is evident given the strength and faith of the Evangelical Free Church of Sudan (EFCS) leadership. The church in Sudan is growing and active, living a ministry of faith while sharing their heart for God. This faith, while working in partnership with the EFCA, empowers the work of our EFCS brothers, sisters and their families. In his final email correspondence during his trip to Sudan, Dave Turner shares evidence of this:

These past two days in Labone have been very emotional. This is the first place where I have truly felt the impact of the war in Sudan and the poverty on the people. We just spent some time this morning with a small village of people who had returned to Sudan after living in a Uganda refugee camp.

The Sudanese refugees have a longing in their heart to get back home to Sudan. But the Sudanese Christians know that even Sudan is not their true home. For even more than that, they have a longing for heaven. As one pastor told me today, heaven is a place of peace - where there will be no more pain, no more fear, no more tears - all things he understands so well.

I long to see the Sudanese find their true home. They know suffering here on earth more than most of us in America will ever understand. The EFCS pastors are hoping to meet people's physical needs and help them get to their earthly home in Sudan, but also through sharing the love of Christ, and telling them of how He died on the cross for them, they hope to meet the refugees' spiritual needs - helping them get to their heavenly home.

In the words of a very wise Sudanese pastor named Jackson, who has been living the life of a refugee for more than a decade:

"People sometimes ask me, why does God make some rich and some poor? And I always tell them, 'It's because it makes the Church stronger and more united.' God doesn't want all Christians to be self-dependent, and self-sufficient. He wants some to need help, and he wants others to meet that need. Life has been hard for us in Sudan, but that doesn't mean that I feel we ought to possess all the wealth Americans do. By us having less, and being in constant dependence on those who have more in order for us to survive, it forms a sort of selfless glue that binds us together and makes us stronger."

Millions of Sudanese are living without a home - either earthly or heavenly. At the beginning of April, your church should have received a DVD presentation of the story of EFCS refugees, their journey back to Sudan, and how your church can help launch an unprecedented opportunity by collecting a special Easter offering for the EFCS Repatriation effort. Be the selfless glue as we bond together with our EFC family in Sudan. Go to http://www.efca.org/sudan for more information on how your church can be involved.

 

2006 EFCA Leadership Conference

Another summit has been added!

Please join the EFCA International Mission for breakfast on Thursday, June 29, 2006 from 7:00am - 8:15am. The cost is $16.00 per ticket. For more details on the logistics of the Leadership Conference and to sign up, please go to the Leadership Conference Website.

The EFCA International Mission will be hosting five summits (the Latin America Summit has just been added to the schedule) that will take place in Denver at the Colorado Convention Center on Tuesday, June 27, 2006 in conjunction with the EFCA Leadership Conference.

  • IM and the Local Church (for Mission Pastors) Summit - facilitated by Gary H. and the IM Executive Director. 9 a.m. - noon.
  • Africa Summit - facilitated by Kevin K. noon - 5 p.m.
  • India Summit - facilitated by Sam and Sharon M. noon - 5 p.m.
  • Indonesia Summit - facilitated by Bala B. noon - 5 p.m.
  • Latin America Summit - facilitated by Tim M. noon - 5 p.m.
All the participants of these summits will join together at noon for a joint lunch together before breaking up to meet in their individual summits.

If you are interested in attending one of the summits without attending the Leadership Conference, please e-mail im@efca.org with the name of the summit in the subject line.

 

Urgent Prayer Request

Africa Update:

I received an e-mail from Thelma Landrud this morning asking us to pray fervently for the situation in Central African Republic. The violence there continues as bandits are increasing their activities and are operating closer to where our people are located. Several Africans have been seriously injured by the bandits and some killed. At this point all of our personnel are safe, but are asking for prayer for wisdom regarding travel plans, etc. Please join me in concerted prayer these days for safety for our people in CAR and that the violence will cease in this devastated and war-torn country.

Sincerely,

Kevin K.
International Leader, Africa

 

Opportunity at T.E.D.S for Nationals

Grant funding has become available for full scholarships for the Ph.D. program in Intercultural Studies (ICS) at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. In order to qualify the applicant must:

  1. be a national from Africa, Asia, or Latin America
  2. already occupy a teaching position in mission, evangelism, or possibly theology
  3. agree to return to his or her country of origin to continue teaching
  4. meet all other admission requirements for the Ph.D. ICS program
The scholarship will provide full tuition for the entire program, but does not include living costs and is available only for the ICS program.

We encourage our IM personnel to recommend this great opportunity to qualified persons affiliated with our national partner churches or educational institutions. Interested persons should contact Dr. Robert Priest, Ph.D. program director, rpriest@tiu.edu.

 

Kids Around the World Desire to Partner With Your Team

Kids Around the World is a great ministry in Rockford Illinois that builds playgrounds globally in partnership with international and local ministries. They also train children's workers in how to use Jesus Film flannel graphs in order to help with evangelism among the illiterate. This ministry has worked with the EFCA in the past, but knows the potential for greater partnership is exponential. I would encourage you to check out their website and consider whether what they do would add value in your ministry context. Below is an email from Denny Johnson regarding the ministry:

We have partnered with EFCA Compassion Ministries in the Tsunami region recently. The Baptist General Conference worked with us in Danang and soon in Hanoi. Rotary Clubs also help us fund the building of playgrounds. The USA State Dept has had us do Sarajevo for them. Other countries we are actively involved in include: Cuba, Ghana, Venezuela, Honduras, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine. We will be doing Beslan, Russia in a month or so. Sri Lanka is also on the agenda, as is the Amazon River with PAZ. Pioneers, Child Evangelism and Campus Crusade all partner with us. We have only done one refugee camp so far (in Thailand), but would like to do more. The UNHCR has asked that we do many for them. We have also partnered with the Salvation Army and World Vision in playground builds.

In addition to playgrounds, we have now trained 5,000 children's workers using the Jesus Film flannel graphs, which we developed with CCCi. We are also training and equipping puppet teams because 2/3 of the world cannot read. This is where we focus our Kids Around the World ministry. Training in Sierra Leone and Niger will happen this summer. Hundreds of children's workers have been trained by us in Pakistan and more training will be continued there this year. We have used short term teams from churches and colleges (Bethel College in Mexico) to assist us and them, with their need for meaningful volunteering in mission work. Training in Ecuador, Mexico and Ghana happens weekly, by our national trainers.

To learn more about partnering with Kids Around the World, please click here to go to their website.

 

Kudos to our Brazil Team

From the EFCA International Mission Executive Director:

The highlight of March for me was a trip to Brazil. I was very impressed with the vision of the Brazilian EFC for planting churches. In addition, as I interacted for three days with pastors on issues of church leadership, it became clear to me that this is a special bunch of people who have great vision. One of the pastors, for instance, lives in a city that has 27 satellite cities that surround it. His vision? Plant 27 churches, one in each of those surrounding cities! Wow, it is not often that I meet people who think with that kind of vision.

Our personnel in Brazil have been living out the hedgehog of developing, empowering, and releasing for some time. It is paying off. They have a formal, but non-institutional, training system that takes those who participate through a well planned curriculum. The interaction between students during the days I was invited to train was impressive. There was a great deal of learning between pastors as well. Some of these men are lay bi-vocational and some are full time pastors. Kudos to the Brazil team for their commitment to develop, empower and release.

 

Reclaiming New Orleans for Jesus

From EFCA International Mission Executive Director:

I could not be more proud of EFCA Compassion Ministries, of Trinity Church in Covington Louisiana, of Urban Impact Ministries in New Orleans, and of hundreds of EFCA churches across the US. These Free Church ministries have teamed up to bring hope and healing to the New Orleans area following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina last year.

Consider this: Since September 12, 2005, there have been 2,508 volunteers that have come through Trinity Church in Covington. They have given 105,795 man hours of free labor throughout the New Orleans area helping homeowners rebuild their lives.

They have removed trees from yards, cars and roofs, have cleaned up homes full of mud and mold, have rebuilt roofs, and are currently rebuilding whole homes after stripping everything down to the studs. Every week there are multiple teams at Trinity Church and Urban Impact from EFCA's all over the country.

All of this is done free of charge (labor) in the name of Jesus; hundreds of people have come to Jesus. In just two weeks, four volunteers from Montana led fourteen people to Christ. All over this area the story of Trinity and Urban Impact is being talked about because people cannot believe that volunteers would do what they are doing only in Jesus name.

I met an older African American gentleman whose home was being rebuilt by volunteers from Minnesota and Michigan (East Chain EFC and Midland EFC). The volunteers had a sign up in the yard with John 3:16 on it. He asked one of the ladies what that was. They told him about the love of Jesus and that he should read the book of John. He did and he proudly told us that he now knew what John 3:16 meant and that he is reading his Bible. Soon he will be able to move out of his government provided trailer and back into his own house. This story is being repeated in dozens of places in the area.

EFCA Compassion Ministries is prepared for a two year stay (at least) in New Orleans because of the massive job that needs to be done. Everywhere we visited, homeowners came up to hug us and thank us for caring enough about them to help them rebuild their homes. From the inner city near the infamous New Orleans dome where Castle Rock Church is located, to the suburbs, there are people who are finding new hope in Jesus... an incredible, powerful, supernatural testimony to the love of Jesus that is infecting this whole area.

Again, out of tragedy God is building His church. Remember: no event, good or bad, ever occurs in our world which does not first pass through the hands of our Father and which He does not use to build His church. He is doing it in New Orleans through EFCA Compassion ministries, Trinity Church, and Urban Impact Ministries. They are at the forefront of a God-sized revolution.