Where to begin?

 

I think the first place to start is to thank Jesus! On Thursday, Angela's mom had a successful surgery, removing hopefully all the dead cancer cells from her body. What a huge blessing. Thank you to those that prayed for her, we truly believe she is doing so well because of your prayers!

 

On another note, Ben has successfully completed his first week of staff for the Teacher Training Time in Montana. It also has been quite successful. The students just completed their first practice teachings this afternoon and are headed into their first weekend for a nice break. The theme for this session, Jesus is the center and is pointing us, telling us to go and make disciples.

 

What a privilege it is to serve Jesus. He has totally changed our lives and we just want others to know the same love and freedom that we know in Jesus.

It was such a pleasure to go and teach in the Philippines two weeks back! I had two full mornings to teach through Joshua. It was probably more a treasure for me as I watched Joshua conquer the land that God had given the Israelites. In a similar way, we are praying about our future and asking God what land he is sending us to. Then during one of their worship services I was able to share more about our hopes and had them pray for us.

 

We are SO blessed by everyone praying for us. Thank you for your prayers!

 

Anyway, I concluded the week by giving them some ideas about how to teach well. Then on Sunday, they took a bus, a boat and some walking to get to a little church where they blessed them with some testimonies, worship and a message. It is really rewarding to be able to give some training and see people use it right away and bless the church!

 

Thank you so much for this opportunity. We are just one part of a whole team who makes this possible!

February 1st was the third year that I celebrated my Freedom Festival! It was a low key celebration, but it was very fitting that the very next day we were teaching Galatians which is all about freedom. Freedom from works, freedom to live by the power of Grace- all because of Jesus.

Things are really going well here. We are enjoying the food. The weather has been very nice. And most of all the Indonesian students are so wonderful! They are learning to hear God speak to them through the bible. We have a sharing time every Wednesday to hear what they are learning and it is amazing to hear what God has been showing them. One of our students Paulus shared how he was shown in the bible how God loves everyone and His grace is for everyone, not just certain tribes. This is a very meaningful realization in this land where there are many tribes and a lot of prejudice.

The four teachers we are discipling are growing as well. This is not an easy time for them as they have lots of studying to do to prepare for teaching books of the bible. Each of them feels overwhelmed, yet strengthened by God. Ben and I find our biggest tasks are 1) Helping them to see the essentials of what to teach 2)How to organize it 3)and Especially to pray with them and encourage them!

Our other teams that are all over the place are doing well! The China teams will be going out soon (they wait for the end of Chinese New Year). The Sudan team has made it into Sudan (from Uganda) and has begun teaching in an Anglican Seminary. The Aremenia team is teaching at the YWAM base (doing a similar thing to what we are doing but it will only be for three weeks). We haven't heard any news from our India, Afghanistan, or Cambodia teams but we will let you know when we do!

Thanks for your prayers. This blog is a little longer than usual since we can only blog every Saturday, but we hope it helps you stay connected with us way out here in Indonesia!

Right now I am in a mall with AC! YEA! It is so hot here. I was trying to prepare myself mentally for the heat, but no matter what I do it is always such a shock coming to such hot countries and having no AC. I guess that just goes to show how spoiled I am :)

 

We made it here to Jakarta and tomorrow we leave for Pontianak. We have an amazing team of teachers that we are travelling with. When we arrived in Jakarta we stood in the immigration line up for over 30 minutes only to find out we had to go back to another counter to buy our tickets first. A little frustrated at wasting all that time after travelling al day but no problem- until we saw the line up at the other counter. Again we waited for 45 minutes. BUT our team never complained at all. I think I will start calling our team the 'dream team!' Ben and I are excited to continue helping our team grow as teachers and learn from them as well! Their names are Jay (25 years old from Canada) Sun A (40 years old from Korea) and David and Sharon (31 and 28 married couple from New Jersey).  

 

One we get to Pontianak tomorrow we will meet our students and introduce you to them over this website! Get excited with us- you will make an impact in Borneo through your prayers and support!

Figure out the fees...make cookies for the staff party...check-in schedules...fill in forms for the UofN... Who knew that leading a training course would be so much work! Week 1 is over and it was a hit! We had 6 different people this week teaching our 24 students about all different topics related to teaching. It is always exciting to watch our students teach for the first time on the Friday of Week 1. They all did amazing! We were very impressed with the amount of preparation they put in.

 

Only 2 more weeks and they will be in countries such as Sudan, Afghanistan, Armenia, Cambodia (and others) teaching to LIVE audiences. We do our very best to train them so that they can give the very best to their audiences. For some of the people that they will be teaching, it may be the only time they have a bible teacher come and help them understand how to study the bible. Therefore, it is very important to give our students the tools and training they need so that they can do their best possible.

 

Check out the pictures of week 1! We had a 'fun night' tonight with the students and put stockings on their head (in case you were wondering what is going on in those pictures!)

 

 

Right now I am sitting on the lanai overlooking the ocean thinking about just how amazing God has been to me. After being out of a 1st world country for a year (Taiwan is pretty good but you still can't flush the toilet paper) Hawaii is such a blessing, plus being able to see my best friend and spend time with her...wow! Not only that, but our time here is for more than just ourselves. We will be able to pour our lives into 40 students who are just beginning the 9 month journey of studying the bible. We will be teaching them through Ephesians and it is going to be awesome! We are also going to be doing an extra night to teach people how to involve others in their mission through communicating and fundraising etc. Plus we were asked to help promote Titus Project in the other SBS as well. Never a lack of things to do :) Thank you to those who are praying for the students. Teaching the bible is much bigger than just giving the students head knowledge to memorize, we need their hearts to be open so it goes deeper. For those in Winnipeg, we look forward to seeing you soon!!!

We have had an amazing week with lots of teaching! We've been at the YWAM base here in Erdenet, Mongolia. Robbie taught the first two days in the bible class (SBS) on the book of Titus, and then Ariel followed with teaching Ephesians for the rest of the week. Nate (with a little help from Ben, myself and Robbie) taught the week in the Discipleship class (DTS) on Hearing God's Voice. Plus Ben preached in church on sunday, and I preached in the YWAM base meeting. Tonight our team splits up and teaches in three different small groups from a local church here. Whew! It's been busy, but awesome! We've been listening to people's life stories and enjoying the great hospitality that YWAM has shown us here. Yesterday I was even blessed to get a facial for only $5.00 (I got my haircut last week for $2.50). We are trying to get some things here which are much cheaper than getting them in Taiwan. Any ideas how to ship back a space heater for winter? :) It's been awhile since we've gotten any comments- is anyone out there???

 

Sand whipping around our bodies we realized we were experiencing a sandstorm.

We've been in the middle of the Gobi desert for the past week. There is a little tiny town here because of a nearby coal mine. Most everyone in the town works at the mine. There is a small church here planted by a Korean woman. She came here as a missionary and has now planted 5 churches all over Mongolia. The Mongolian pastor of this church became a Christian only 3 years ago and she is faithfully trying to disciple the beleivers here. She has a prayer meeting at 5:30am every morning, and services wednesday, friday and then 3 on sunday (one for adults, kids and youth). our team has spoken at all these services and prayer times, plus we have run 4 evenings of seminars teaching through the big picture of the bible and how to study the bible. We also have run kids times three days of the week. It's been busy, but really good.

The kids are so cute and have absolutely loved Cassie! one girl even gave her a pair of little moccasins. The culture here reminds me a lot of native culture in Canada. People in the countryside live in buildings called Gers (rhymes with hair) which are similar to Teepees and they are nomadic peoples following their herds.
However, the Russians occupied here this country for about 70 years so the food is very similar to what my heritage of Ukranians eat. Every meal consists of onions, cabbage, potatoes and meat- just in different combinations.

 

Obviously, you can tell from the pictures that we don't have internet access in these villages so our next web entry will be in at least 1 weeks time. We are doing great, thanks so much for your prayers!! Our team is very unified, enjoying teaching and making a difference!

There is so much I could write about from our time in Kota Kinabalu Malaysia but I'll just tell one story for now.

 

This week we have been teaching the book of Ephesians. Since it is a book about the unity of the church we had a building theme going from the first day. We had them build their own building from spaghetti and marshmallows, we also talked about the KL towers etc.

 

This morning we finished the week with application and we talked about the church as a building. During a time of sharing one girl told us that last night she had a dream that she was given bamboo and told to build a building. After she finished I came up to her and told her that her building was long, but not wide and deep enough so if the wind came it would blow down. Then she woke up. She prayed and asked God what the draem meant and she felt like he said that she had not been building her life with the materials that he wanted her to and that there was something hindering her.

 

This morning I handed out the application worksheet and the first question at the top of the page was 'What is hindering you and the church from becoming the strong building that God desires?" She nearly fell out of her seat! God is still alive and at work in people's hearts!

 

We're off to Mongolia tomorrow morning!

We've got our laptop back...

 

So new photos from the training time earlier in July! Please enjoy.

 

I guess I should give a little overview. The pictures highlight 3 things from training time. The teachings we give, how to prepare a lecture, how to present it, learning styles, Bible overview, teamwork. Second, we give time for preparation and practice so that teams leave ready to go! Finally, training time is filled with evaluation - because practice does not make perfect, practice only makes permanent (you might hear that a lot). Anyway, these three things fill three weeks of training so that two months of outreach are filled with effective teaching that builds up the church in places that desperately need it!

 

Thanks for being a part of this with us! Together...

Nearly 3 weeks ago a team of 17 people were greeted at the airport by myself and a few friends. For us it was the beginning of training them 'how to teach'. For them it was the beginning of outreach, two to three months of living away from family, friends and most modern conveniences. Their stay here has been a nice transition from the U.S. to the developing world. Easy access to the internet and communication home, a number of 'normal' meals and maybe the most important, toilet paper.

 

But the real beginning of outreach will only start this weekend as they take off for a number of places. After only two more days of teaching pracitice and some cleaning and packing, they will be off. If you can, take a moment to pray that God would really help them as they transition to a new world, get settled, meet contacts and beginning to teach and preach the truth that will bring change to peoples lives and the world they live in.

We have 17 amazing students who are excited to learn to teach and to go and train people how to study the bible!

 

We have had a lot of fun getting to know them! I can tell we will be sending some awesome teams to Mongolia, Ch**a and Kyrgestan in 2 weeks from now.

 

So why was this week so good? Many reasons!

-Cassie slept through the night the past few nights in a row! Wow, I had forgotten how good a full night sleep is!

-Her first full night sleep was the night before I taught in the morning.

-I had a great time teaching 'How to present a lecture'

-Her second full night was the night before Ben taught in the morning.

-I learned a lot from Ben's teaching on 'How to preach a sermon' 

-Cassie gave us her first real smile

-We got some amazing news- we are going to be coming home for 10 days this October...

 

Yes you read right, we are going to be home in Winnipeg for 10 days this October 10-20. We were blessed with flights from Ben's family so that we can introduce Cassie to our friends and family before she is a year and a half old :)

 

So for those in Winnipeg, we are excited to see you in just 3 months!

It's definitely been a super great week!

 

ps. Sorry no new pictures lately, we can't really upload any until we get our laptop back (AGAIN!) from Canada once HP fixes it (hopefully they actually do this time!)

 

Hello All!!!

 

We've been gone for SO long and we are happy to be back in contact! We missed our friends and family a lot, and we really look forward to getting in touch with people again. We have about 30 minutes at an internet cafe today and then we won't have internet again until next week, so personal emails won't be coming for a while.

 

We are doing well! Angela looks great and she's got a big belly! We are so excited for Beaner! Which brings me to our thanks! Many of you have spent personal time praying for us, for our safety and health and work. We have spent nearly 2 months in one tough environment but we are in good health and happy with the work we accomplished! Thank you for your prayers!

 

We probably won't be able to get pictures up today but we might be able to next saturday!

 

Much love and thanks!

Ben, Ang & Beaner

We're heading off in a couple hours for a week of teaching in a church in the Philippines. Yes, it does mean we will miss the Grey Cup, but alas such is life. Actually, we are super stoked to be going because that is what we've come here for!! We will be teaching their Bible students and some pastors Inductive Bible Study through Paul's letter to the Ephesians. Most of the Bible students are new Christians and that is exciting because Ephesians really deals with the blessings of being a Christian and how to live for God. If you are ever looking for some good reading, go through Ephesians and trace all the things that comes with the inheritance of being 'in Christ.' What is really interesting is that Paul could see that their lives were getting to be very messy and full of the different cults of the day, but while he did address that at the end, he focuses more on their own personal understanding of who they are at the core. He recognized the root of the problem and dealt with that, not just the symptom.

 

Ok - we love you all very much! See you (on here, that is) in a week and a half.