What Does It Mean to Be a Missionary?

Much has been written about missionaries and their roles in the modern church. As I was doing my reading assignments for a class I am taking, I ran across a passage that seemed to be a concise definition, explanation, and validation for what missions represent. I think it is worth sharing. It is from an article called, "The Difference Bonding Makes," by Elizabeth S and E. Thomas Brewster.

"A missionary is one who goes into the world to give people an opportunity to belong to God's family. The missionary goes because he or she is a belonger in the most meaningful of relationships. His or her life should proclaim: 'I belong to Jesus who has given me a new kind of life. By my becoming a belonger here with you, God is inviting you through me to belong to Him.'

The missionary's task thus parallels the model established by Jesus who left heaven, where He belonged, and became a belonger with humankind in order to draw people into a belonging relationship with God."

There Are Many Ways to Gloryfy God

Everyday we can see God at work, if we stop, look, and listen. Today, I felt like I belonged to a mega church. Well I guess I do, only the mega is the size of it's heart.

I was blessed enough to work on a member's home to paint it. A team of about 14 "painters" showed up and a couple of angels bringing food and drink. In 7 hours we scraped and painted the entire house.

Meanwhile, at Wesley the UMW bazaar was going on. This is the big event that entails hours and hours of preparation. In the end, money {over $8,000) was made selling homemade baked items, handmade crafts and other gently used treasures all to fund the many ministries and missions that the UMW fund throughout the year.

As if that was not enough, across town there were other members standing in front of Food Lion collecting donations of canned goods for Mother Hubbard's Cupboard, from 9-5pm. And, of course, we must not forget the Pumpkin Patch workers. To work the Patch is to watch and participate in ministry and evangelizing. God has to be smiling on His Church especially today!

Joshua Project "Gadget" Highlights Unreached People Group

In Genesis 12, God makes a covenant with Abram. God claims that if Abram will be obedient to Him, He will bless Abram, will make his name great, and "...all peoples on earth will be blessed through you" (12:3). This verse is not only the beginning of God's covenant with Abram, it is the original covenant which eventually extended down through Jesus to us, and through us, as Abraham's "spiritual seeds."

In Revelation 7:9 a we find a "great multitude that no one could count from every nation, tribe, people and language standing in front of the Lamb." It's pretty obvious that this multitude is made up of more than just the Children of Israel. Through the New Testament, we are aware of the work of Paul in bringing the Gospel to the Gentiles but, if we look at these verses in Genesis and Revelation together, we can't help but think that God's purpose from the beginning was not just to make Israel a "chosen people' but also to draw all people (all of His creation) unto Himself. "FROM EVERY NATION, TRIBE, PEOPLE AND LANGUAGE" means exactly that. God wants to give ALL PEOPLE the opportunity to hear the "good news." So, can we deduce from the use of the word "every," that Jesus will not be returning until that little requirement is fulfilled?

Abraham's "spiritual seeds" and disciples of Jesus Christ, it becomes our responsibility and purpose to be used of God in the fulfillment of his ultimate purpose...to reach ALL people. Oh yeah, that's where the Great Commission comes in. Even we reach out to people's poverty and social needs. the core of missions is to reach people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So, how are we doing?

A new item has been added to the right column of the Wesley Mission Blog. The "gadget," from an organization called the Joshua Project, will change each day to highlight a particular unreached people group in the world who have neither heard, or have marginally heard, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. From their mission statement:

"Joshua Project is a research initiative seeking to highlight the ethnic people groups of the world with the least followers of Christ. Accurate, regularly updated ethnic people group information is critical for understanding and completing the Great Commission. Jesus said in Matthew 24:14 "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come." Jesus directly links His return to the fulfillment of the Great Commission. While no one knows the date or time of His return, we do know that this gospel of the kingdom must be preached to all the nations first. Revelation 5:9 and 7:9-10 show that there will be some from every tribe, tongue, nation and people before the Throne.

Joshua Project seeks to answer the questions that result from the Great Commission's call to make disciples among every nation or people group:

• Who are the ethnic people groups of the world?
• Which people groups still need an initial church-planting movement in their midst?
• What ministry resources are available to help outreach among the least-reached?

Joshua Project gathers, integrates and shares people group information to encourage pioneer church-planting movements among every ethnic group and to facilitate effective coordination of mission agency efforts. Joshua Project compiles the work of numerous missions researchers to develop a list of all ethnic peoples that is as complete as possible. Many errors, duplicates, and overlaps exist and the data is continually being updated.

From this overall ethnic people group list, a subset of unreached / least-reached peoples has been identified based on the criteria of less than 2% Evangelical and less than 5% Christian Adherent. This subset helps focus attention on the unfinished task of the Great Commission. We desire that this list be used by mission agencies, denominiations, churches and missionaries to accelerate the Gospel's advance into each of the least-reached people groups."

What can you do?

1. Come to our blog each day. Become familiar with the highlighted people group and find out something about them.

2.. Become aware that they are REAL people and REAL Children of God (just like us).

3. Commit to praying daily for them and the missionaries that are, or will be, bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them.

4. Visit the Joshua Project website www.joshuaproject.net become aware of the nature and magnitude of the Great Commission. It will change your perspective.

What We Did With God's Help

HEY!

Just got to some internet. We are back in Nairobi for the next four days, staying at Martos house, writing reports, and hopefully doing some fun things. The food here is great but it is extremely greasy and Ive had some stomach issues for the past three days so my energy is drained. This trip has been really exhausting and challenging, but incredible at the same time. My body and mind are spent though, so while it has been great, I can't wait to get home. Here's a quick synopsis of our time away from Nairobi:

We left Nairobi on Tuesday for Bungoma town where we stayed in a guest house. Bungoma is about 30 min from Namawanga where we spent all our time. The first two days, we held classes on the technologies (solar lighting, biogas, and biochar) and business training. I taught both biogas with Will and biochar by myself. The class consisted of about 30 Kenyans ranging from probably 15 or 16 to 60 or 70. Every session started with prayer, a song or two, and sometimes a scripture reading (the singing was the best - usually an older lady started it and sang purposefully flat. There was a lot of repetition, clapping and call andresponse - think African American spirituals and remove the American).

We spent thurs. and fri. building the biogas digester at Julius's farm. We tried to use all local parts so we were shopping just about every morning and night for pieces that we forgot about or couldn't find the day before. All kinds of things went wrong, but we finally got it most of the way put together before we had to leave for the first time. Between preparing for teaching and redesigning the digester, we worked from about 7 am to 1 or 2 for 3 nights in a row. We worked Saturday morning in the community as well and then left for Kisumu (about 3 hours away on Lake Victoria).

Will and John left Sunday morning and we finally had a rest day. We went to a 3.5 hr church service in the morning and, by the time we had lunch, it was already 4 or 5 pm. We went back to the guest house and did some preparing for monday and crashed. Monday, we went to Charley's (a PA person who hung out with us the whole trip, he does most of the work in the villages, and he's the man) hometown, It was a small village about 45 min. from Kisumu where we held a meeting for the youth. About 30 showed up and we talked about solar as technology and business applications. They were super excited about it. We fixed the lighting system in Charley's mom's house and then went back to Bungoma.

We spent Tuesday putting the digester in the ground and repairing lighting systems. We also installed one new system. I think we were in the community from 9-7, and we were tryingto do 2 more new installs. We traveled all day Wednesday (7-8 hr drive) back to Nairobi. We saw some rad animals (zebras, gazelle, baboons, and wart hogs) along the road and some flamingos from far away (we could see giant pink splotches on this lake).

Other things- I tried running while I was here and went twice (no knee problems, the altitude is 5000 ft. so I was pumped about getting in better shape) but our long work days and stomach problems recently have kept me out of my running shoes.- Kenyans are incredibly hospitable (even more so than any other ethnic group Ive come in contact with)- I'm now a trained mosquito killer- EVERYBODY rides bikes out in the villages. I saw bikes carrying everything from couches to piles of wood. They are all singlespeeds.- The Kenyan countryside is beautiful. it's rolling hills with farmland and beautiful skies. Around Nairobi there is a pretty thick haze though.- The night sky is unbelievable. The first night in Bungoma there was a power outage (they have these scheduled a couple times a week in Nairobi and other places its random) so there was absolutely NO light pollution. Amazing!

Thanks, also, for all your prayers. God is the only reason we got done what we did.

More prayer requests:-safety traveling-health-that the biogas digester works-justice for the people of Namawanga.

Ben

Biogas Digester in Kenya

This e-mail was received by Sally Foster from one of Ben's team members in Kenya.

Dear Friends and Family,

Thank you all for your prayers. All is going well in Kenya! Andrew, Curt, and I are currently in Kisumo. This morning we saw Will and Jon off from Kisumo Airport back to Nairobi where Will will fly out this evening.

This is a picture of our work with the biogas digester in Namawanga (digester is center).

Justin Henriques

August 10--Hello From Kenya

Hey!

We are here and safe. We stayed in Nairobi last night with Marto, the director of Possibilities Africa (PA), the NGO we work through here. Nairobi is very similar to both Managua and Sao Paulo except everything is in English. It is really strange to be this far from the US and understand the language and the signs around you.

The team is great and I'm extremely excited about getting into the villages tomorrow. We are meeting more PA staff today and finalizing our plans. Tomorrow we have an 8 hour drive to western Kenya. The internet is spotty and slow so I dont know when Ill be able to email again, but I will as soon as I can. Love you!

Things to pray for:
-Safety traveling
-clear communication of biogas technology (I'm co-teaching a class on the technology)
-health (malaria, stomachs, etc)

Ben

August 8, 2009

Dear Friends and Family,

I'm writing you a quick note from Dulles Airport. Our team of six has successfully made it through check-in/customs and will be London/ Heathrow-bound in 1.5 hours. We'll do our best to keep you updated as we begin project work.

Please pray for:

1) Logistics - General logistics of the trip (transportation, housing arrangements, etc.), as well as project logistics (building a biogas digester, training/installation of solar systems, and microfinance).

2) Safety - Car rides, theft, etc. Pray for protection for the group.

3) The Communities - Pray for the two communities we will be serving: Namawanga (Western Kenya) and Mbeere (Central Kenya).

Pray that God would make their hearts ready for interaction with our team and for the aid our projects will provide.