My Introduction to Compassion International

When I met my wife she introduced me to a ministry called Compassion International. I had never heard of them before and knew nothing about it, except that when Charity talked about Compassion her eyes lit up and her smiled widened. Charity began to tell me that as a seventeen year old she began sponsoring a child in another country. I was shocked; what seventeen year old gives their own money to help another kid in a another country. I didn’t have any context for this in my mind.

The more we spent time together the more our relationship began to heads to marriage. One day Charity said something like, “The only way I’ll marry you is if you sponsor a child with Compassion too.” I was taken back but later that week I realized how important this was to her but more importantly to God. I began searching the Scripture to see God’s heart for the children who were oppressed, marginalized, and forgotten. It was at that point I became a sponsor with Compassion.

Fast forward a few years and I found myself in Africa working on churches that would soon be centers for Compassion to meet. One day we had the opportunity to visit a Compassion Center that met at a local church.

While visiting this center, one of the directors told us about the impact of Compassion. Students, families, or individuals will sponsor a child for $38 a month. That provides the child with access to: clean water, education, Bible lessons, and nutritious meals that the family can’t provide. They have a day that they call Compassion day when all the kids come to the church. On this particular day a young boy didn’t show. The Compassion staff walked to his home and found him lying in a ditch. They brought him to the church and gave him medicine that cost about $2 and his life was saved. I asked what would have happen if he wasn’t a part of Compassion and they told me he would have died.

That day I made a promise that I will help in any way I can. I don’t think that kids should die because they can’t afford $2 in medicine.

If you're curious about how you can help, check out Compassion International.

Rwanda Teaching

I still can't believe I went to Rwanda...

Earlier this month a few of guys from the States were invited to Huye, Rwanda to teach in the Second Annual East Africa Apologetics Conference.  It was a huge honor to speak to the 125+ university students who gathered from 6 different countries to attend this conference.  While in Huye I also taught a college rally and two local churches.

Conference Teaching

(Mark Mitchell teaching)

For the conference my topic was: Is Jesus The Only Way to Heaven?  This is a great question people have been asking for thousands of years... its also one of the toughest questions to ask.  If you simply answer "Yes" it can make a Christian sound pompous, when in actually its a statement of humility.  I could go on about the answer to the question but I want to share what I learned while teaching.

I learned when teaching in a foreign country bring half the material you plan to cover.  For example: I was allotted approximately an hour and a half for the conference.  I brought about 10 pages to cover which would normally take me 45 minutes.  This allowed for 45 minutes for translation for those who didn't speak English.  

Probably the biggest lesson I learned was; I should have introduced myself more.  I prefer to talk about myself less but I think my talk would have been more effective if I shared about my life for 5-10 minutes at the front end of my talk.  Basically I wish I would have shared my testimony so it would have given me more creditability.

Preaching in the Local Church

On Sunday morning I was invited to preach in two local churches; an Assembly of God church at 8am and an Anglican church at 10:30am.  You probably couldn't have someone preach in two church bodies that are much different on a given Sunday.  It was a huge blessing to share God's word in Huye with these bodies of believers.

The Anglican church sticks out most to me.  It was a small thatch church located deep in the bush.  The church was constructed out of trees, to support it, had a tin roof and the walls were thatch.  I was so impressed at how many people they packed into the room.  The kids had a small mat they sat on near the front.  The youth sat just behind them and everyone else sat on wood benches.  There was no sound system, no lighting board and no electric guitar.  That morning we worshipped God as the body of Christ and I shared a word of encouragement from 1 John.

I can't believe I went to Rwanda and I feel so blessed to have been able to teach in the conference and the local church. 

Rwanda Overview

I still can't believe I went to Rwanda!

January 7, 2014 I hopped a plane, actually 3 planes, and headed to Rwanda with my pastor.   We went at the invitation of a man in our church; Chris Foreman.  Chris has been involved in Rwanda for the last decade.  During this time he's formed relationships, trained university students, almost completed a wonderful building and much more.  Chris invited us to teach at the Second Annual East Africa Apologetics Conference.

Mark and I landed in Kigali late Wednesday night, we both wanted to get to a hotel as soon as possible and crash out.  Instead we got in a car, drove around town, ate dinner and took a three hour trek to Huye, Rwanda.  Going to bed at 2:30am isn't my regular routine but for this trip it was just how the plan worked out; we were on Africa time.

Waking up in Huye was a sight for sore eyes; I wasn't prepared for the beauty this city had to offer.  I expected the town to be more of a desert environment but I was wrong.  The land was very fertile and gorgeous.  The people we met were amazing; so loving and caring.  I was constantly impressed at how engaged the people were, maybe because everyone didn't have an iPhone to look at or constantly felt the need to update Instagram.

While in Rwanda we taught, preached, made friends, visited a genocide memorial, worshipped, laughed, ate, shopped and much more.  In the next couple days look for new posts about: teaching in the conference, the friends we made and Rwandan worship.  I just don't have room to cover the whole trip in one post.

I still can't believe I went to Rwanda but I'm so glad I did.

Rwanda Prayer List

I'm leaving for Rwanda on January 7 and as I prepare I wanted to ask anyone who takes the time to read this short blog post to pray for me and Mark (my pastor).

In Rwanda we will be teaching at an international Apologetics conference, visiting a genocide memorial, teaching in the local church, connecting with local pastors and much more (I hope eating amazing food makes the list).  We're traveling with Come and See Africa and excited for this opportunity.

Here are the top 5 ways you can pray for us while we're gone:

1. Pray for God to use our teaching time to honor Him
2. Pray for safe travels (planes, cars and anything else we may ride in)
3. Pray for relationships to form that are mutually encouraging 
4. Pray for God to open doors that may be closed
5. Pray for our families while we're away

If you want to add something to the list it would be our health to remain strong!

Thanks for praying; I'm excited to share what God does. 

Rwanda Bound

Gosh, I'm not sure where to start this post...

Life is a journey... I want to go where God leads me!

In a few short months I will be traveling to a small Africa country that was torn by civil war and genocide.  Most people would think I'm crazy for going there and some are right; I am a little crazy so I want to invite you to journey with me as I go Rwanda Bound!

I guess the best place to start is to give you the info I know as of now.  You should never journey alone, so I'm not going on this journey alone. I'll be traveling with my pastor (Mark Mitchell) and we'll meet up with Chris Foreman, founder of Come and See Africa, once we're on the ground.

We're slotted to help teach a conference on Apologetics (how to defend your faith) in a local college in Butare (south of the capital city).  We're expecting about 125 students from four countries to be at this conference.  After the conference is over we will preach in two local churches.  From what I understand; I'll preach in one church while Mark preaches in the other and then we swap for the second service.

What I've learned with trips like this is: be flexible.  I still need to get my shots and malaria pills but wanted to invite you into the journey with me!

Burkina Faso Flooding 2009

Please pray for the country of Burkina Faso and the recent flooding that took place last week

Africa Update #4

Straight from my pastor:

Just a quick update from our team--
First, our team is GREAT. They are hard workers and Jesus lovers. We are almost done with construction on a new church building/Youth Center on the edge of Ouaga. The weather has been the dream of most people— high 80’s during the day—we’re going to come home with great tans!
Yesterday, Chase, Evan Faircloth and I traveled several hours to the home village of Victor (in our church). Victor was Chase’s roommate for quite a while before getting married recently. Victor had us take a bunch of stuff for his family for Christmas. It was amazing to travel to this REALLY African village (and we have been to several villages in our trips here). Wait til you see the pictures. I wish you could have sat with us in the bush taxi and been there when it broke down out in the middle of nowhere! Thanks for your prayers.

We shared Christ with 55 kids two days ago at our work site.
We are leading the Youth Group here in the capitol city for all the English-speaking kids (30-40).
We are thankful for your love, prayers and support. Nobody has been sick at all— well, Connie got car sick this morning! Everyone is in great spirits.

Africa Update #3

Just a quick update this time.
I actually talked with my Pastor today and they are having a great time! We talked using Skype, a free internet program, that has video and voice capability. It is crazy to me that I can talk to someone who is half way across the world now and see them! The team is doing great and they are working on a youth center there in Burkina in the captial city.
Tomorrow some of the team is heading to a guy in our church's village to give some items to his family (God is amazing).
Please pray for Pete Brockop, one of the missionaries there, he got malaria today and is not doing good. Thanks for praying for our team!

Africa Update #2

Another update from our Africa team... (I wish we were there)

Our Africa Team had an incredible experience today at the Dorcas House and all of South Hills Church got thanks and God was praised.

Our team presented gifts of quilts and other cool things to about 15 young ladies.

When I say "Dorcas House" don't think regular house, think African village with women who are being encouraged, loved and discipled in Jesus.

When we visited them today and gave them gifts from our church (THANK YOU QUILTING MINISTRY!!), here is what our missions staff said, "This may be the biggest gift these girls have ever received. You have absolutely no idea what you have just done for them. They will never forget this for the rest of their life."

I'm trying to post a video to YouTube but am having some trouble. I'll send the link later.

Check it out!

More later...

Africa Update #1

Not sure if many of you know that I am helping with missions at our church now. I have a huge heart to see people know Jesus and missions are a secret passion of mine. For the last 5 months I have been working on sending a team to Africa and here is the first update I received from the team:

Friday morning, 7:05 (8 hours ahead of you)

It wasn’t really all that long ago that missionaries had to travel here by boat (2-3 months)....Becky Nehlsen’s parents did that. Now we can get here in just over a day from the west coast! And communicate instantly.

Our team is doing GREAT. We spent our first day getting oriented and getting our bodies somewhat used to the time adjustment— not bad so far. We checked out the city and saw where the work here is progressing and what we can do while here. Our flights over (30 hours of straight travel) went great. My dream of leaving the airport and getting out into a French town came true. We ran up to Senlis and had lunch and looked around the old part of that town — a cathedral dating probably to the 13th century.

Our team will be working this week on a new Youth Center out at the edge of the capital city where the villages are being gobbled up by the growing city.

It is encouraging to see how God is working in this country but the challenges here are great. Islam is being funded by national governments in the middle east. Christianity is funded by individuals from the west.

50% of this country is Muslim. 10% Christian. 30% hang on to traditional tribal beliefs. The battle is on to win the hearts of those 30%. I feel like a spiritual soldier out here.

Pray for our ability to work hard and glorify God and enjoy Him in this place.

We may head out to Victor’s (South Hills) family and give them their gifts from Victor and meet all of them.

We’ll keep in touch.

Using what God has given us…

I was looking through my files and found this, thought it was cool.

After traveling for over 30 hours we finally landed. We had been planning this trip for the last three months and we are finally here. My wife looked over at me and with a huge smile said: “I can’t believe we are in Africa, I have always wanted to come here”. I looked over at her at just smiled back, I thought to myself "I never thought God would take me here". We were in Burkina Faso, the third poorest country in the world. One in three kids die before the ago of 10 and the life expectancy is 42 years old. The average worker makes $2 a day, if they have a job and 87% of the population is unemployed. These are just some of the stats that I learned in the car ride from the airport.
We arrived at the guest house, what would be our base of operation for the next two weeks. I didn’t sleep the first night, I guess it didn’t matter we got in at 3am. I was just so shocked that God had brought me here. I kept wondering, why me God? What do you want with this pale white kid that was raised the mountains? Why did you bring me to Africa? The answers to these questions would come, it just took some time and listening to God.
The first day we went and did a tour of the churches we would be roofing and the pastors we would be partnering with. The team of twelve ranged from a High School senior to a 65 year old VP of some big company, we were a different team. As we drove around I just kept looking at all the people. I was amazed, I don’t think I had ever seen so many people out in the streets just hanging out with each other. I didn’t really know what to make of it and had to remind myself of the unemployment.
After working on some roofs and totally blowing the minds of the missionaries in Burkina, I guess we worked to fast we took some time to paint a church that has a center for Compassion International at it. We started sanding and next thing I knew there was 20 kids in the room with us, they just wanted to help. I started working with some of them and had them help me. I looked over and my wife was just sitting with them, she was taking time to spend with them. She got it, I had missed it. I was focused on the job and not the people. It is usually the other way around. I’m the pastor that spends too much time with students and forgets to work.
I could share hundreds of stories with you and ones where I remembered to spend time with the kids and knew that the work would get done when it got done. When I got home I felt God tugging on my heart. I felt Him reminding me about my times in Africa, and that is what He wants of me, to spend time with people. I can preach the best sermon in the world, and people will forget it. I can make the best winter camp ever and students will remember the snowboarding only. I can do this and I can do that, but students will never forget the time that I spend with them. Students will never forget the time that you spend with them. One of the team members with us was my middle school pastor; I have never forgotten what he did for me and how he allowed God to use him to impact my life. Tonight at our middle school program his son will be there and I will spend time with him and invest in him and the other boys in my small group. Who will you remember to connect with this week? Get out of the office, take some students to Starbucks and just chill with them.