Going Global - November 1, 2009

Our church is having what we call Going Global this Sunday.

I’m sure many of you have heard about it – but do you really know what it means? What about when we talk about going to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and to the Ends of the Earth – do you know where that comes from? What about why we are making such a strong push for missions – what’s the big deal?

God has called every one of us to missions. Now, don’t get all up in arms thinking to yourself that he most certainly has NOT called me to Africa or Timbuktu. God has called us all to missions. Like we’ve been teaching the kids in Music and Missions on Wednesday nights – the mission field is all around us. Our kids are missionaries every time they go to school and are surrounded by their friends. They share God’s love every time they share paper or pencils or crayons. Or stand up for the kid being picked on by the school bully. You are on a mission field every day you go to work or go to lunch with your co-workers. All you have to do is look around.

Matthew 28:18-20 (English Standard Version)
18And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

God has called us to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father , the Son, and the Holy Spirit. . . that is why we are making is such a big deal at Grand Parkway – God has called us to Go.

Now what about that Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and ends of the earth reference – what’s that about?

Acts 1:8 says “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." To us at Grand Parkway we’ve broken that down.

When we say Jerusalem we mean missions and missionaries that are close to home like My Brother’s Keeper, or Kids Hope USA and the Prison Ministry. We also serve at a Nursing Home and by something we call Worship Abroad where we send out our people on a Sunday morning to work and serve our community. The most recent example of this was when a team went to Oyster Creek Elementary to work on their landscaping. Some of our local missionaries are Norm and Fran West who have huge hearts for the Turkish people. They used to serve in Turkey and have settled here in Houston only to find one of the largest communities of Turkish peoples in the US.

Every time we talk about Jerusalem we are talking about mission opportunities in our backyard – things that anyone can be a part of. It doesn’t take giving up your job to move across the globe – just giving up a weekend, or an afternoon, or even ten minutes. Anyone can do that and we are all called to it.

When we use the term Judea and Samaria it just means that we are talking about missions and missionaries a little farther from home. Those include our Border Mission, Pastor Freddy, and our work down in Galveston this past summer. As far as commitment from you it might mean a few more days off work than just a Friday. It might mean having to get a passport if you’re going into Mexico to work with Pastor Freddy. It might even mean that you get hot and sweaty and dirty. But you know what else means . . . it means that you get to help build houses for an old woman whose walls are falling down around her. It means playing with kids who can’t help but smile and that smile lights up their face and your day. It means going to Galveston with your kids and building houses that were destroyed in a hurricane over a year ago that have yet to be repaired on the inside. What a great time to talk to your kids about how those houses can be like people. The outsides look so put together but on the inside decrepit and moldy . . . broken and yet not beyond repair. Just think about the conversations that could take place if parents would go on missions with their kids and began working for the Kingdom alongside them, the passion that would then begin to grow in them!

To the ends of the Earth means just that. It’s all our missions and missionaries that cover different continents.

Some Missionaries we support are the Epleys in South Asia, the “G” family in Central Asia, and the Peklenks who served in Russia but are back in the states for a while, as well as the Carty’s who were members of our church but were called to go work at Answering the Call.

Answering the Call is a ministry that has created a safe place for pastors from all over the world to; be served, ministered to, and to be refreshed. For some this may be the last time this side of Heaven to experience any of that. It’s also a place to learn all they can so that they can take it back to their own people.

We have also partnered with an orphanage in Lopuhinka Russia. I had the pleasure of working with the older kids this past summer and they actually asked us why we were there. Why when it was so expensive, and so far away did we come? Why we didn’t use our vacation time to be with our families? Why them? What an AMAZING time to tell them about God’s love and that he called us thousands of miles away to see them!!

So this is why we “Pray, Send and Go”. This is why we are having a Sunday devoted to Going Global. Because God called us and there are people waiting for you. An old woman waiting for you to wheel her from her room to sing the same hymn for the millionth time but still brings tears to her eyes. A child bouncing up and down in his chair unable to contain his excitement for his one hour a week with you. A pastor waiting to have his feet washed, and to be prayed over for most likely the last time before he sees Jesus. A child waiting to hear that you flew half way across the world just for her. That is why we hear the call to Go and say “Send Me!”

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." Acts 1:8

Will you Go?

Going Global - November 1st

My Brother's Keeper

My Brother’s Keeper is an outreach center in the Alief community which provides assistance that stabilizes and strengthens individuals and families in crisis. It does this by providing food and clothing, financial assistance, and counseling. During the past year, we assisted with their Thanksgiving and Easter outreaches. Renae Nelson, a member of our church, directs this mission and we are honored to come alongside her.

At the Thanksgiving outreach, our people brought bundles of food to the church. All of that bounty made it possible for My Brother’s Keeper to give out 505 meals to families, feeding a total of 2,320 people. This was only MBK’s second year to provide Thanksgiving meals. For the Easter outreach, we provided dozens of Resurrection Eggs, which are a unique tool to share the story of the resurrection.

Be watching for details on upcoming church wide outreaches at My Brother's Keeper.

On Wednesday nights we have Music and Missions - a time when our kids learn the songs we sing on Sundays so they can join in and sing praises to the King right along with everyone else. But not only do they learn the songs - they learn what the words they are singing mean. We go through the songs line by line making sure that they understand and many times their understanding of the words or their explanations have bring tears to the eyes of those lucky enough to be helping out with these amazing children.

In addition to learning the songs we also teach them about missions. What it means to be on mission. Who God has called. Answering the questions - do I have to be a certain age, do I have to go away from home.

Each week we either learn about a missionary, or mission opportunity in our area. For the last two weeks we have been telling them about My Brother’s Keeper and the great things they do for our community, especially for Thanksgiving. We called upon their artistic abilities to decorate the bags that will be filled with all kinds of Thanksgiving yumminess to be handed out this year. Here are just a few pictures of our kids hard at work!!

The Peklenk Family

Carl and Debbie Peklenk have a heart for Russia. Over the past several years, their ministry has been to establish churches in Russia through teaching and fellowship, by training a new generation of church planters in the former Soviet Union. Carl has worked in a church that was
planted, discipling others to do the same. Debbie’s full time job includes managing their children's
schooling and personal needs. They have two precious children, Stevie and Julianne, who were adopted from Russia. They are presently back in the United States where Carl is working to recruit more future church planters.

BACK AND ADJUSTING

We have been back in the States since November 2008 and are still adjusting. It has not been easy to catch up with all the ways our home country has changed. The last we lived here without planning to soon return was 1992. Please do pray for us as we transition back – to this fast-paced life, finding bargain shopping, just getting day to day tasks done...

NEW MINISTRY INITIATIVE
We have officially been on Medical Leave since returning from Russia in November. I (Carl) am now moving into Recruitment for TEAM. There is a somewhat new approach to recruitment which lays stress on coaching and personal development. I am coming up to speed on what this
means and understanding where the younger generations are "at". My efforts are focused at
Columbia International University and surrounding regional churches.

ASK THE FATHER:

•Pray that God will connect us with those He’s calling to serve cross-culturally.
•Pray especially for a woman named Elizabeth, as she is seriously considering serving God in Russia.
•Pray for continued adjustment to life here in the U.S.
•Please join us in prayer for God’s complete provision of all our monthly financial support.

THANK THE FATHER:

•We are grateful for a recent weekend of encouragement and rest. God is so good.

We're Back

Thank you to all who prayed for us. We definitely needed it, and it was felt and experienced in all sorts of ways. I think the best thing to do is to just highlight a few things that happened on the trip:
- Chad, Dennis, Ed, and Kelly hosted the first ever VBS for kids only at the church in Nuevo Progresso (NP)
- We saw at least one person get saved Sunday night
- Carbonera, the town on the coast, was witness to some of the most generous men I have ever encountered (some of our men felt led to pay for an entire new lot of land for some locals there)
- We prayed for Quincy to be invisible at the border since he didn't have a passport, and after one harassing stop, they never bothered him again
- The local men worked long hours alongside us to get the work done (before we got there, they would not work on the church so that they could spend their days finding paying jobs)
- We handed out 30 Bibles to the locals that didn't have them
- We installed ridge vents for the church, insulation in the sanctuary and fellowship hall, installed 7 total attic fans to push the air out of the building, and an entire ceiling for the fellowship hall, painted the kitchen, sunday school rooms, fellowship hall, and bathrooms (with the help of our local friends), and supplied money for them to shore up the half of the building that was soon to fall down.

All in all, it was an amazing trip with a group of men who were willing to do whatever it took to show a great work ethic, amazing hearts for the Lord, and wonderful testimonies of an active God in all of our lives. A building was transformed, but nothing compares to what happened in all of the hearts of the people in NP, Elsa, and, possibly most of all, ours.

As Ed would say, the level of "jocularity was off da hook!" amongst us men who went. Perhaps one of the best quotes I heard from the entire group was when Ed was leaving to go home on Monday night when we got back: "Men, thank you for some of the most hearty laughter I've had in over 40 years." We laughed a lot, but were serious when we needed to be. I saw compassion and empathy from men, who were raised to think that crying was for sissies. God's Spirit was with us, going before us, and providing all that we could ever ask or imagine.

Dennis was sensitive to the Spirit when he prayed.
Quincy was an encourager beyond words.
Kelly was a hard-worker, whose laughter was contagious.
Chad was as courageous as I've ever seen anyone.
Jerit was willing to help, even sacrificing an extra day away from home.
Gary was the source of many jokes, and provided contruction knowledge, expertise, and motivation.
Ed was the memory maker, who made us all better men by sharing his life with us.

A trip that will never be forgotten, and without a doubt, will motivate many more to not just pray, not just send others, but to GO!

lance

Sunday's Summary from Quincy Hodge

The following blog is a summary of the events from Sunday:

God has truly accomplished more than we could ask or think! Sunday was a day for worship, fellowship and sharing. After a quick trip to the border to return our travel permits to Carboneras, we attended services at Pastor Freddy's church in Elsa. Quincy, Ed, Chad, Gary and Dennis shared a brief testimony and Lance shared some words of encouragement to all. What a great time of worship with Anthony, Pastor Freddy's grandson, leading the singing. Man has he got some "pipes"! After the service Frank took us to see the property where they are building a new sanctuary in Elsa. We took time to pray over the site where the foundation has been laid. Then we left for Progreso to attend the evening service at Ebenezer. More fellowship, worship and testimony. We gave flowers to the 4 ladies who fed us amazing meals while we were working on the church. Jerit entertained the kids with a backflip out of the swing set. We handed out 30 Biblios, many many bags of rice and beans and then during the service we heard back from 5 people of Ebenezer Church their appreciation for us being there to help them. Lance shared the message and we witnessed one lady accepting Christ and asking for healing and a one gentleman accepting Christ! Praise God! It was a full evening as we even engaged a man who had who wandered into the event. He stayed for the service and shared in the meal we all enyoyed afterwards. We shared the gospel and prayed over him as a group before he left. We said our final goodbyes and headed back to Camp Oasis. It's been great to see what God has done and to be a part of it! What's even more amazing is what He has done in each of us. And to top it off we have had a blast doing it!