Amazing Grace- Amazing Day!

We had an amazing day the other week. We had the joy of baptising three Thai ladies on a beach in Sydney Harbour.  

·      D became a Christian through contact with our group over some months, first from our ThaiOz English classes and then attending our church- the City Thai Christian Fellowship (CTCF)

·        M came to Christ through her sister who is one of the core members of our church. She is here on a student visa to learn English, and would like to stay in Australia.

·        K went through a terrible period of separation from her husband and young son. Her Aussie mother-in-law had shared about Jesus with her over a few years, but she had not made a response. When she was at her lowest she cried out to God as she was sitting on a bench in Darling Harbour. At that moment two young ladies from St Andrew's Cathedral at Sydney Town Hall sat down next to her and started talking to her about Jesus. She responded immediately. It is wonderful to see how God works differently in each person's life. But his purpose for us is the same- that we would have a personal relationship with himself through Jesus. 

Care to Witness for Jesus?

Member care is very important in mission because is an example to others of how we serve one another as we declare the love of Jesus to the people of East Asia.

Our Homeside Ministry Teams (HMT) play a very important role in member care that we provide. They are a team of people chosen by the Cross-cultural worker to provide pastoral care and support. Many of the HMT members come from the cross-cultural worker's sending churches, and play a vital role in ensuring their emotional health and well-being.

We have dedicated one of our staff especially to the role of equipping and encouraging the Homeside Ministry Teams of our 130 or so cross-cultural workers. When we served in Thailand we did not have a HMT for the first 10 years, but it would have been wonderful to have had one to see us through the most difficult first few years of initial adjustment. We have certainly appreciated having a HMT for personal support and encouragement during times of stress and transition in leadership.

Adjusting to a new culture and language is really difficult. This year some of our new workers have been going through some tough times making new friends and learning to fit into their new context. This process is normal. What has changed in recent years is the close communication that is possible as our new cross-cultural workers go through their day-to-day adjustment to a new culture.

These days the sending churches are much more aware of what is going on in the life of the workers they support by interacting with them through Facebook, Skype, HMTs and phone calls. This has the benefit of a greater awareness of the pain of cross-cultural adjustment.

As a home side office, we now deal with more queries and assure the sending church that this pain is normal and that there are also good structures in place on the field to help new workers through the early difficult years of adjustment. While we would like to avoid the pain altogether, it is not always possible. We are so thankful that we have a structure in place for our cross cultural workers to receive the encouragement and support that they need.

Ride for Refugees 18th Aug

Would you like to support Christians working to help refugees coming to Australia? I'm riding 25km in the annual event "Ride for Refugees" run by International Teams in Western Sydney on Saturday 18th August. If you would like to sponsor me or any other riders in the event, please go to:

http://rideforrefugees.com.au/myride/813/

Why it is important for overseas Missionaries to go home.

(Adapted from an article by Hans Walter-Ritter of OMF International - Home Assignments: Aren’t they just a ‘waste’ of valuable ministry time?)

Often when preparing for ministry overseas we may balk at the idea of spending an entire year back in our sending countries after 4 years on the field.

Some concerns or questions which may come to mind are:

“I’m meant to be serving on the field, not wasting my time back home where I’m not really needed”.

“How can I leave my valuable ministry and relationships on the field behind for a whole year? Who will replace me?”

“Can’t I just have a short HA of a few months to quickly report back, then get back to the field where the real work is?”

Actually, Home Assignment is ministry!

What is Home Assignment actually for?

Some of the main reasons that overseas Christian workers should take time at home are:

• Reporting to churches concerning the ministry/work
• Participation in the mobilization work of the OMF Homeside
• Rest and renewal
• Reunion with family, friends, and supporting churches
• Re-equipping for a more effective ministry

Why is Home Assignment important?

· Our mission agency, OMF International works on a sending model (Acts 13:1-3). Churches send us to Asia, and OMF facilitates the sending. We still remain members of our sending churches

· Being sent also means we need to report back and to reunite with our supporting churches (Acts 14:26-28). As we ask the sending churches to do their part, we need to be aware that we need to meet our obligations toward them as well.

· The experiences that the LORD allows us to have overseas are also meant to build up the body of Christ at home (Eph 4:11-13). We are a part of the sending church and therefore have a spiritual obligation towards them.

The gifts given to us by the Spirit to work cross culturally are actually not given to us personally but to the church. They are given 'for the common good" of the church (1. Cor 12:7ff). We are therefore not only to be served by our churches, but also to serve them.

We are part of God's church. We not only serve the church on the field, but work towards the preparation and purification of the bride of Jesus worldwide. This also implies our involvement in our home churches. We cannot leave our sending churches behind.

What are some of the possible implications of not having a good Home Assignment?

· Personal relationships become impersonal over the years if they are not refreshed by a face to face meeting. There are things that we just cannot communicate via prayer letters nor via personal e-mails. Missionaries slowly lose their home base: fewer people know them on a personal basis.

· Children and missionaries lose their home identity . The churches become alien to and vice versa. Prayer and other support very often fall away gradually as a result.

· Retirement becomes a feared phase of life, as there is no connection to the home.

· Mobilization loses its passion as it is left to the home side, therefore only very general information is communicated and the first hand touch of missionaries is missing. OMF slowly loses its position as "the experts concerning Asia". Without the field expertise the image of an organisation working on the cutting edge in ministry is weakened.

· The home churches are impoverished, as they are not receiving what the full involvement of the missionaries could give them.

· Recruitment of new team members is lacking, meaning that often there are more shortages on the fields as a result of people not utilizing their HA to challenge others to become involved in practical ways by going.

The Stress of Working in a CAN

CAN = Creative Access Nation      CAM= Creative Access Ministry

The Last few weeks I spent 10 days travelling around a CAN in East Asia. It was a great time of seeing first-hand what our workers there are doing and how they are going about their work. There were some things that really made an impression on me and raised the respect that I have for these workers enormously.

Our ministry in Thailand had three main areas of stress that we had to deal with day-to-day. One was language and culture, which was foreign to anything that we had grown up with. Even after 14 years of working there and being fluent in the new language we would still feel the strain of operating in a culture that would still feel "foreign" to us. Even though we might understand the culture, and a different way of doing things, there would still be things that we would find uncomfortable or alien to us.

 The second area of stress was the ministry aspect as we worked together with people in a team. Often there would be intense times of stress as we dealt with issues such as team conflict, immorality and supporting people in crisis. These things seemed to occur much more frequently in a situation where the church is young and immature than in our home country.

The third main area of stress came about from bringing up a family in a foreign country. Bringin up a family is stressful under any circumstances, but even more so when the family is isolated from the extended family and familiar supports.

As we travelled around East Asia and met with people, it became apparent to me that the Christian workers that we came into contact with have another 2 areas of stress piled on top of all the other ones that I have already mentioned. One is that in order to work in a CAN it is necessary to have a visa, and for many this requires them to open and run a business. Not just any old business but a real business that makes real money satisfies the government that you are legitimately bringing a financial benefit to the country. If this business is going to bring a profit it requires a substantial investment of time and effort, which can sometimes distract the worker from their reason for working there and being a testimony to Jesus.

On top of all that are the security concerns that all our workers have to put up with. Most of the ones that we visited work with ethnic minority groups in areas that are monitored strictly by the government. As a result their movements and communication are watched very closely. If they break the guidelines that the government issues then they will be asked to leave the country. This means that our people have to be very careful about their movements and what they say to their supporters and friends.

The result of my trip was that I have an increased sense of respect for our workers in Creative Access Ministries, and a better understanding of the pressures that they deal with. Please pray for our workers that you know in Creative Asscess ministries that our Father will sustain and strengthen them to be testimonies to Jesus.

Click Here for Photos From the Trip

Committed to Jesus

Ann was the first Thai to accept Jesus when we started English classes for Thai people over 4 years ago. She was baptised just before she returned to Thailand for a time. A couple of months ago she came back to Sydney and is going as strong as ever. I heard yesterday that she would catch a bus 60km to church every Sunday from her home village in rural Thailand. That's commitment!  

City Thai Christian Fellowship (Sydney)
The City Thai Christian Fellowship on Monday evenings is attracting more people. It has been great to be joined by a number of Aussie people who have a heart for mission in general and Thai people in particular. These last few weeks we have been encouraging our new Thai believers to be spending time alone with God through prayer and reading His Word.  

Trip to Western China with National Council
Our National Council acts as our Board of Directors. Next week 13-23rd May I will be travelling with three of them to Western China where we will have the opportunity to see the work of our company there. We will be there for 10 days and I am looking forward to spending some quality time with Jim, Stewart and Ken as we travel together.

For more OMF news, please see my OMF Australia Executive Director's newsletter at: http://tinyurl.com/12MayOzlink
We especially would like to invite you to our National Conference this year at Lane Cove from August 31-September 2. You will find the flyer at: http://tinyurl.com/12NatConf 
If you are interested in helping with childcare for the conference there is information about that at: http://tinyurl.com/12NatConfChild

Family News
Debbie and I are adjusting to having three teens in the house. Julie is only 12, but now that she is in year 7 she has grown up all of a sudden. Friends are suddenly more important and there is more driving to do getting the kids to parties, movies and friends houses. Alex is enjoying Rugby Union this year- he is usually in a good mood after a game or a practice session!  Ben is working hard at Year 12, and thinking of working next year before launching into Uni.

Please pray:
• Thanking God for Ann’s faith and the encouragement it is to see her again.
• For our new Thai believers, that they will desire to spend time alone with God each day.
• For the China trip 13-23rd May as we interact with people working alongside many different ethnic groups and faiths.
• For Debbie and the family as they cope with everyday life while Johan is jaunting around Asia.

The Value of People

Last week we went on an outing with a group on Thai people. We spent the whole day together and travelled on trains and ferries to a beach where we had lunch. On the way home I was talking to a couple of young men from Thailand and Burma who are currently studying in Australia. One of them will return to Thailand after he completes his studies and the other one comes from Burma and wants to stay in Australia. His father was a property developer in Burma and now wants to leave. He made an interesting comment which caught my attention. He was comparing life in Burma (and Thailand, where he studied for a few years) with life in Australia.

I was thinking that the main difference that made Australia attractive to him would be the high standard of living that we enjoy as one of the richest countries in the world. But he didn't. The main thing that made Australia attractive to him was the value that we place on human life. He said that when someone dies in Burma it's no big deal, even if the person was murdered. It happens all the time and people just accept that justice will not be done. But he said that when someone dies in Australia it is news, and alot of effort is made to catch the killer, or to correct the cause of the accident. I was very interested to hear that from a bright young man who is not a Christian, but yet he appreciates the value that we put on a human life. This value is something that comes from our Christian heritage. We believe that we are valuable because God created us in his image. Even more than that he gave his own son over to death to set us free. Since God sees people as valuable, our society also should reflect that if we believe and trust in him.