Peru Short Term Missions Trip Dec 31-Jan 9

Today is the day the ChildReach Ministries Medical team from Malone University leaves for Lima, PERU.  I am so proud of the ladies from our church who are going: Holly, Jacoby, & Sarah.

If you are unfamiliar with ChildReach you can check out name, one of the founder's, to read his reflections of this new ministry of "giving people a global vision of God and His Kingdom."  God has helped ChildReach impact 27 families in five years.  That's good!

I praise God for His work in the greater reaches of God's Church.  Way to go Childreach!

New Prayer Guide coming soon from GBIM

I received in the mail today my copy of the 2010 Global Ministries Prayer Guide. I could smell the hot-off-the-presses aroma as I thumbed through all of the pages.  I want to say thanks to Jim Folsom for sending me an advanced picture of the cover pre-printing.  On the printed cover are three key verbs: discover, intercede, and rejoice.

GBIM Executive Director, Dave Guiles, showed me an advanced copy earlier this month. He gave me the following insights about what is new:

• The Guide will seek to celebrate what God is doing in the world
• The Guide is also intended to educate everyone what God is doing through Grace Brethren International Miissions
• The Guide will help you understand the global influence of all God's workers who are laboring in the Lord's harvest around the world

I am already enjoying a few interesting facts on the inside cover:

• I praise God for this global movement our fellowship of churches is enjoying--GBIM is "impacting dozens of people groups scattered among 33 countries on 5 continents.
• I marvel at how the Lord is helping to mobilize nationals to serve together with missionaries to start new churches and ministries within their own countries and to start praying for how to initiate new fields of harvest in neighboring countries.
• I am grateful for all who compiled the information so that I can pray better for God's work to impact the nations in 2010.  I will be able to intercede more efficiently with the expansion of national missions prayer requests in places like the Central African Republic.

I recommend that you get your free copy sent to you right away. 

Prayer for Andrew Simms on his way to Burkina Faso

On Sunday, December 27 the Truthseekers ABF commissioned Andrew Simms with prayer for his short term missions experience starting on January 1 and tentatively concluding on February 12.  Follow him on his blog. Please keep Andrew in your prayers.

• Pray for safety
• Ask the Lord for stamina and great flight connections and he travels
  
• Request that God would be true to His Word, "I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you (Psalm 32:8)."  

Check out the beginning moments of a fifteen minute prayer of commissioning for Andrew below.

Middle School Open Cafe Offers Food & Fun

Pastor Josh Atkins, his wife Amber, and a team of several parents hosted over 30 middle school students today.  I briefly chatted with a few of the guys.  They love the nachos with cheese dip, soft drinks, popcorn, cookies, and brownies.  Moreover, they love hanging out in the Student Ministries Center to play hoops, participate or cheer on others who are playing video games, or to challenge Pastor Josh in any activity.  What a great job!  May more students come to know Christ through efforts like this.

Linda Kline reports from Cambodia

Linda sent an email stating the following:

A note to let you know that all is going well and I am fine.  It has been a tremendous experience being here and following Jill around.  She has been building relationships with so many people.  Last night we had over 80 people from her English class here for a Christmas party.  WOW what an evening.  We visited Grace Place orphanage yesterday and took then a few small gifts.  They were thrilled.  One day we went to sign the agreement for the well to be drilled from money of Wooster GBC Sunday school classes and Kid's Praise.  They had been praying for a well for a long time and the physical conditions their were not very good.  It was exciting to see and experience.  Today we are going to two more churches for Christmas celebrations then tomorrow wel will visit Angkor Wat which is considered the 8 wonder of the world.  Thanks for praying they are evident.  See you next week.

Linda

Please keep praying for Linda who returns on Dec 30-31.  

Christmas Eve Services Boom

Wooster Grace welcomed 2145 people to our four Christmas Eve Services.  Each was packed.  The six o'clock hour numbered over 1000. 

I loved the different musical formats.  The Traditional services (6pm & 8pm) lead the audience in several Christmas carols. My favorite was 'O Holy Night."  The Contemporary services (6pm & 11pm) directed attendees to sing variations on a few carols. 

Nevertheless, the message remained the same in each service.  How does Jesus intersect with your life?  Using intersections as the analogy, you were challenged to consider how your life intersects with Jesus at Christmas time. 

I personally loved how the worship team responded to comments from last year.  They worked extra hard to create two types of servcies.  One point of feedback came from those who would have liked a candlelight service option for the traditional at 11pm.  Otherwise, I discovered many who loved how things worked out.

Christmas Concerts Packed

We praise God for this year's attendance at our Christmas concerts = 1650! Wow!  What a great job by a huge team of people in our church who gave up hours of time to create a wonderful challenge to make the First Christmas the prominent part of a Christmas celebration.  Way to go Randy Moomaw, Teri Myers, & Brad Frederici and their teams! I am looking forward to tonight's Christmas Eve services.

Short Term Team to Peru

On December 31, three ladies are leaving for Peru, SOUTH AMERICA for a medical missions trip with Malone University.  All three are from Wooster Grace.  Jacoby Gessel, Holly Moomaw, & Sarah Roseler will be ministering from Dec 31 to Jan 9 to set up medical clinics, conduct a mini-VBS program, and help with first aid at several orphanages.

Prayer Requests:

• Ask God to give them safety and health as a team
• Ask God to work through the language barriers to facilitate friendships for sharing Christ
• Ask God to empower each to return home challenged to greater devotion to God and to faithful service to Him
  

You can read my first post about the trip "Pray for sarah."

Video from Internationals Christmas Dinner 2009

Please check out how many people were there at 6pm.  We had more come after this video was taken.  Our total number is 86 internationals from 12 different countries.

Pictures from Internationals Christmas Party 2009

What a wonderful time with our International friends! Read the exciting report.

Internationals Christmas Dinner

Tonight we had 81 people attend our Internationals Christmas Dinner.  We asked internationals to bring a main dish to share and to invite friends to join us.

Fantastic meal was enjoyed.  I tasted two Asian dishes with two different kinds of noodles.  One dish as cold but delicious.  The other dish was spicy hot. Loved it!

Eleven countries were represented.  Two internationals have just come into the USA in the past four days.  One from Brazil and the other from Sri Lanka.

An interesting question posed last night: "How many languages do you speak?"  I can only speak two, Navajo and English.  But the majority of our internationals can speak at least three languages. Amazing!

The evening included prayer, feasting, fellowship, Gospel presentation, prizes, and lots of food.  We even had a year in review of all our events.  Our team did a fantastic job getting things together.  Our Internationals Coordinator, Celeste Hodgdon, orchestrated a sensational event. Way to go Celeste!

See pictures here.

Impact Cambodia & Portugal for Christmas

From GBIM website, please pray for Kane's and Hawkins as they reach out during this Christmas season.  Check out two other places where GBIM missionaries are using this holiday to share about Jesus (link).

Greetings from our Kids at Grace Place Cambodia

Thanks to John & Bobbie Campbell.  You can watch our kids from Grace Place Cambodia sing two songs:

• O Holy Night (Khmer)
  
• Silent Night (English)
  

My favorite part is after the songs when they shout out, "Merry Christmas!"  I love the choreography too. 

Merry Christmas to you litlle ones!  We love you!

Commissioned to go

Linda Kline was commissioned at New Community tonight.  She was already commissioned by her Children's Church on Sunday, December 13.  Keep Linda in your prayers. She travels over 30-hours to get to Phnom Penh, CAMBODIA. 

Pictures from give-a-christmas 2009

Christmas Concerts for the Community

First Christmas, portrayed vingettes from a variety of stories.  Whether a mom hiding in a bathroom from family and new additions to the family Christmas or a mourning spouse dealing with the loss of a loved one for the first time at Christmas, the segments would appeal to many in our community.

One other story so poignant is the first Christmas while a family deals with a divorce.  The storyteller shared how Christmas was not about a small tree or no tree.  It was about being together as a family and working through the challenges of a split home.  Our program tried to speak into the lives of those who are facing a Christmas in a first-time kind of way.

Interspersed throughout were timely songs emphasizing the message of the birth of Christ.  You can glorify God even when your Christmas is not what you expected it to be.  When everything changes for the worse, what next?  Trust Jesus. 

I wonder if you invited someone to the Christmas program.  Please let me know. I'd love to hear your story and pray for your friend who came. 

Give-A-Christmas 2009

This morning Wooster Grace mobilized 151 people to reach out to 59 families: delivering 29 decorated Christmas trees, 238 gifts, and dozens of Christmas cookies to families in our community who would have nothing for Christmas this year.

Times are hard.  It's difficult for a lot of people.  But praise God we were able to help families in our network of relationships here in Wayne County.

My family delivered gifts to two families. Both families were so appreciative.  They listened to our presentation of the Christmas story from Luke 1 and heard the Gospel message as well.  We asked for prayer requests and they gave the following:

• Pray for good health
• Pray for a job for anyone in the family
• Pray for disability insurance paperwork to be approved
• Thank God for your church for helping us out
  

Making plans for trip to Cambodia: August 2010

photo by mackaysavage
I met with David James today to discuss the plans for a missions trip to Cambodia.  The tentative dates are August 13-29, 2010.

David James is on a special assignment with GBIM for Cambodia.  Roger Snyder and David James are part of the Community Transformation Ministries.  Together with Dr Paul Wan and his wife Rebekah these four are the crux for the USA team.  Their Cambodian partner is Wooster Grace's Kevin Kane. 

Last year's Cambodia Camp served in the following areas: food preparation, sports, teaching English, connecting with Khmer campers.  This year's camp will include teaching a section on first aid as well as teaching from the Cambodian Ministry Partners.

As David shared from his previous trips to Cambodia (his first trip was October 2005), the Cambodian people are gracious, warm, loving, outgoing people.  This team is planned as a joint venture between Wooser Grace and Ashland Grace Brethren Church.  More detailed information will be provided as things solidify. 

I was clueless to the many ways God works--11 numbers

Here are some numbers from my semi-annual report to our board.  I was clueless how much God has done through our church. 

• 57--Wooster Grace partner  with 57 missionary partners
• 21--Of those missionary partners 21 are missions or community organizations
• 36--we partner with 36 missionary partners (single adults, married couples, or families)
• 15--Wooster Grace has partnerships in 15 countries (including the USA)
• 26--missionary partners are here in the USA
• 118--is the number of people sent out from our chruch on short-term missions trips
• 12--international locatoins received our peoples' ministries
• 7--national locations received our peoples' ministries
• 132--people attended our internationals thanksgiving dinner
• 19--countries were represented at the dinner
• 4--we devoured four whole turkeys
  

Here's a flyer to help you invite others

Thanks to Janet Beaver, our ministry specialist--publications, provided this for me. I am posting it here so you can invite others to any one or all of our events this holiday season. 

You can email me at dbutler@woostergrace.org so i can send you the pdf file for printing on your own.