Jason Diaz (in the middle with a green shirt on) and Adena Mikkelsen are leading the STINT team in beautiful Costa Rica. They are only in week 5 of their STINT year. And despite the fact its only 75 miles at the most to a beach either to the west or east of them, they haven’t been just taking it easy for several months. The school year is just beginning at the University of Costa Rica.

Adena shared, “A spring break team from the University of Idaho arrived the first week of campus to help us get the school year launched. Partnering with them, we saw one guy come to Christ and we have 36 other students to follow up. We are blessed to be working with national staff who are giving us wisdom and insight into culture and ministry here.”

The team has in 5 weeks has faced a few trials like a mugging. Adena writes, “It is with faltering steps that we are running this race. After bursting out of the starting blocks, our pace was halted by campus being closed down for the entire week before Easter. Emotional and physical difficulties, crisis back home, and a threat to our safety early on in the year have kept our team from hitting a stride with ministry. All we can say is that we are here. We are showing up and trusting in God to direct us in ways that we can’t yet predict.”

The Corinthian body were messed up church folk. They had this major immorality issue, lawsuits among believers, a huge lack of love in how they related to one another and no small quarrels among the churches that met in the households of Chloe, Gaius, Stephanus and Cripus Crèmes. Some were saying, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Peter”; while others took the high road and said, “I follow Christ.” (Sort of like the American believers: “I’m of Calvin”, “I’m of Louis Giglio”, “I follow Matt Mikalatos“, “I like Hurley“, “I raise kids God’s way” etc.) .

Paul tells them, “Dudes, (he likes Hurley too), you are acting like little babies so I am having to be your nursemaid. Grow up! You are as carnal as bricks with all this jealously and bickering about which camp you are in. Who cares?!? Apollos and I are merely servants. It’s about God not about us.”

Before Paul dives into the immorality issue in chapter 5, puffed-up knowledge in chapter 8 and showing them a more excellent way in chapter 13; in chapter 4 he says, “Men ought to regard us as servants of Christ entrusted with the secret things of God.” He says that it is required of a servant to be found faithful and all that will happen in the end when God judges the thoughts and motives of the hearts. It will all be figured out then.

He tells them not to take pride in him or Apollos or anyone over against another. And Paul goes to write about himself in a not so lofty way: “For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men. We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world.”

What does this have to do with us as leaders? Paul doesn’t write this to shame those Carnal Corinthians but to warn them and to let them know that the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. For us this is a reminder and a warning as well.

~ It’s not about us.
~ We are merely His servants entrusted with the secret things of God.
~ It’s about showing up and trusting Him to direct us in ways we can’t predict.
~ Whatever happens to us – campus being closed down for a whole week, emotional and physical difficulties, crisis’s back home, threats to safety, or whatever – is to the benefit of the glory of God, his gospel and those who hear.

~ It’s not about us… It’s about Him.

Link to a recent sermon given by Matt on John 11.

Ann Hrivnak is on staff STINT leading the team in London for 2nd year. The team is a mixture of two 2nd year STINTers (Jill and Shelley), a Brit and two Koreans who finished their STINT in February. But before we get too deep into the goings-on in London, she should start with the biggest news in Ann’s life this year…

“I was at the STINT mid-year conference in Nerja. Before I left, Adrian gave me a DVD that he had made which had him talking on it and had music and photos of us over the past year. I also received two letters from him during the week via my roomies, Jill and Shelley. (Jill and Shelly are on their 2nd year of STINT with Ann in London.) On Saturday night at midnight I went for a walk with Jill and Shelley to this cliff that overlooked the Mediterranean. Jill handed me her iPod and on it was a song that Adrian had written for me. It was really dark out so as I was listening to the song I could see tons of stars and I was able to look down over the cliffs in to the water. After the song finished, I heard his voice from behind me and I turned around to see him! Then he said lots of nice things to me… though I can’t remember any of them because I was totally in shock still that he was even there in Spain! Then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him! I think I might have said ‘Are you kidding?!’ at first, but then said ‘YES!’”

Ann and her team work primarily at the London School of Economics. Right now Ann is actually in the US for a little bit (wedding planning?) while Adrian, Jill and Shelley are with 5 students in Rotterdam Holland on a weeklong missions trip to reach students there. Their desire is that while they are in Holland that they will get to see 10 people trust Christ into their lives and become lifelong multiplying disciples. One of the students from LSE on this Missions Trip is Lola. Jill has been discipling Lola since last year and this year Lola started discipling a first year student called Precious and another gal named Jerusha.

The apostle Paul was like Ann, Jill and the team in London. Luke writes at the start of Acts 20 about several men who traveled with Paul. If you follow the story this is near the end of Paul’s 3rd Missionary Journey. He just spent a 3-year STINT in Ephesus establishing the church there that would take the gospel to all of Asia and launch other churches/movements in cities where Paul will not personally visit like Colossae and Laodicea.

Paul at this point knew it was time to move on in order to let the Ephesian elders lead and decided to go back and revisit some movements he had launched on his 2nd journey. So he goes to Macedonia and encourages the folks in Philippi, Thessalonica and Berea. He swings south through Athens and then Corinth where he 3 months in Corinth and writes the Book of Romans. Afterwards, he swings back through Macedonia and send these seven men who were traveling with him ahead of him to Troas.

Luke tells us of these 7 men (I will throw in an 8th). Look where they are from…
Cities on 1st Missionary Journey: Lystra – Timothy. Derbe – Gaius.

Cities of 2nd Missionary Journey: Thessalonica – Aristarchus and Secundus. Berea – Sopater son of Pyrrhus. Corinth – Erastus (not mentioned here but is mentioned in chapter before where Paul sends him and Timothy ahead of him from Ephesus. We know from Romans that he is from Corinth and he is probably not mentioned at this point in the narrative because he stayed in Corinth to continue his daytime job as Corinth’s director of public works.)

Cities of 3rd Missionary Journey: Ephesus – Tychicus and Trophimus. (If they are not personally from city of Ephesus but other locales in Asia, they may have heard the message while he preached at Hall of Tyrannus and been discipled in Ephesus.)

What do we conclude from this? While Paul was on STINT planting movements in all these areas, he was entrusting what he planted to leaders in these cities to carry on the work. Sometimes these leaders would go out on their own like how the church in Colossae was established by Epaphras. And yet we see here that Paul also was strategically taking young men with him. He was getting them outside their comfort-zone and involved in the mission. He was training these guys in the context of ministry. ‘Build’ happened in the midst of ‘Send’. ‘Win’ happened while he was ‘Building’ and ‘Sending’ others. He wasn’t looking to do ministry alone. He was always killing two birds with one stone.

I don’t know the end of the story for all these guys. Timothy we know. Erastus, as mentioned before, stayed in Corinth. Aristarchus would later be imprisoned with Paul. Maybe this Gaius is the same one John addresses his third epistle to. I am not totally sure. But the gospel was furthered because Paul took it upon himself to send (or technically ‘bring and send’.)

May The Lord raise up for all oi you a Timothy, Gaius, Aristarchus, Secundus, Sopater son of Pyrrhus, Erastus, Tychicus and/or Trophimus.

Ramsey Pershing (on the far left), Amanda Armstrong (in the brown shirt) and their team are seen here enacting a scene from a Thai passion play based around the verse: ‘he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel’. The wardrobe department’s budget was a little limited so that had to use same costumes from the Christmas pageant. Their next production is “Amanda and the King”.

Ramsey says, “Leading a STINT team this year has helped me to grow more this year than any other. We entered onto Mae Fah Luang University (in Chiang Rai, Thailand) at the start of the second semester and were able to build a base of 64 students that we regularly see and meet with! The decision was just made to continue with another STINT team next year and it will be really excited to see how this base becomes a movement of students.”

Amanda adds, “This year has been a huge blessing, one after another. Compared to last year, it seems like a night and day difference. We are so thankful that our team has been so easy to lead, (I am sure threats of bringing back out the snake help) and that we have had fruit on campus this year even though the soil is hard. Oddly enough, it has been mostly international students from a larger East Asian country that have been the most receptive to the gospel; however, we have also seen a genuine change in Thai students praying to receive Christ. Another difference from last year is that the university we work at teaches all its classes in English so everyone on campus wants to be friends with the farang (foreigner). We have been doing more relational evangelism this year and lack of language barrier allows us to form deeper relationships with the students and this in turn opens them up to the gospel.”

In the passion play of the Four Gospels, one of my favorite characters is Mary of Bethany. (Not to be confused with Mary mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, Mary the wife of Clopas or Mary mother of John Mark.) In the credits Mary B. would be listed just above ‘woman in the crowd scene’. In three scenes, she only has one sentence of dialogue. And yet Jesus twice defends her from rebuke, honors her choices, weeps when she weeps and sets her up as one whose story should be told around the world. So let’s tell the story…

A few days before the Passover in Bethany, a little village a short distance from Jerusalem, at the home of Simon the Leper a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Mary B.’s recently-back-from-the-dead brother is there (hopefully he no longer ‘stinketh’) and Martha, her sister, is exercising her Spiritual gift of hospitality. In the middle of this feast, Mary comes to the Savior carrying an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume. She breaks the alabaster pint-sized jar of perfume made of pure nard and its intense, warm fragrance fills the room. Jesus is at the table and Mary B. anoints our Savior’s head with the perfume. It runs down his reclining body. She pours the rest on his feet and gently, lovingly wipes them with her hair.

The Accountant of the Apostles, Judas I., scoffs at this act of love calling it a waste. “This could have gone into the benevolent fund”, he says. He didn’t care about the poor. He was a thief always skimming some of the top and would look to make a few silver coins with a kiss of treachery. “At the very least, she could have gotten the knock-off brand of semi-pure nard in at the Wailing Wal-mart”. Others, indignant as well, join the chorus of criticism.

“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

Mary B. is a woman of extravagant faith. She understood what no one else did. She was listening when others were working. She knew the story that would be played out. This was for His burial.

Mary B. is a woman of extravagant love. It is an act of intimacy and love of one who knows that she, like us, is the bride of Christ.

Mary B. is a woman of extravagant surrender. In every scene in which she appears Mary B. is falling at the feet of Jesus. She knows her Savior is worth even a whole year’s wages. She is shameless in her worship.

May we carry on the memory of Mary B. May we break ‘the alabaster jar of perfume’ and pour out all we have on the body of Christ. May we worship at his feet fully believing, fully loving, and fully surrendered. May we like Mary B. be leaders who move the heart of God.

Daryl Swartzentruber and Lauren Lutz lead the STINT Team in Ekaterinburg Russia. (My spell-check says it should be Yekaterinburg but I think Daryl and Lauren should know since this is their 2nd year.) This picture, however, is not taken into the Urals but was taken at Mount Sinai where they vacationed this winter. Daryl was quick to point out that their faces are glowing like that of Moses.

Daryl writes, “We just returned from our spring leadership retreat. Every year we gather believers from Ekaterinburg and from neighboring cities where we have ministries for a weekend of Bible teaching, seminars, and fellowship. This year we had about 40 students, and it was very encouraging to be around them and see their heart to grow in Christ and to reach the students of their cities. The theme was our personal relationship with God, and the speakers (mostly our Russian staff) did a great job of providing the students with solid food from the Word.”

“Such times are really good for Lauren and me,” Daryl goes on to say, “Because honestly, there are still a lot of things that are hard about life and ministry in Russia. We still have to deal with below freezing temperatures and the layer of snow and ice that has been on the ground for more than 4 months. We haven’t had a lot of success finding English-speaking students at the universities we are working at, and as a result it has been difficult for us to build deep relationships and share our faith on a consistent basis. We are very busy, but don’t always feel like we are busy in the right ways.”

Daryl concludes, “But whenever I step back and look at things as a whole, from God’s perspective, I realize there is so much to be praise him for. We are on the verge of a genuine student movement here in Ekat, as we saw this past weekend at the retreat. Our team has grown closer together this semester, and all three first-year STINTers will be returning as a part of next year’s team. Several of our students will be taking place in a summer project for Russian students. And perhaps most importantly, each of us have grown and are continuing to grow in our walks with the Lord. Those are the things that give us hope and help us to press on.”

Perspective from a mountain top is like that… things look different in the light of seeing the entire landscape.

Mountains play a significant role in scripture. Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac on a mountain. Moses was called on a mountain. He received the Law on a mountain. He died on a mountain looking at the Promised Land that he could not enter.

The Psalmist says that God dwells forever on a mountain. Isaiah tells us that in the last days the nations will stream to the Mountain of God to learn of His ways.

Jesus was tempted on a mountain, prayed all night on a mountain, gave a sermon on a mount and was transfigured on a mountain. We have victory because of what happened to Jesus on a mount (and of the empty tomb that followed).

No longer do we come to a mountain that cannot be touched and is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to a voice speaking works that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken. But we have come to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, and the city of the living God. We have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. We have come to God, the judge of all people, to the spirits of righteous ones made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Heb 12:18-24)

We live and lead in light of a different perspective. We may not see the entire landscape but we know the final outcome. We are under His grace and mercy. We lead others to receive the new covenant of His blood that was shed on a mount.

Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart….Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. – 2 Cor 4:1, 16-18

Since Selection Sunday is within a week, we will highlight a pair of leaders who are alumni of two-time defending champs UF. Rick Kingsley and Katherine Clements are leading in Salerno Italy, situated on the Costiera Amalfitana. Despite a perfect setting, Rick brings a little reality as he acknowledges, “For me, personally, I’ve had to deal with a lot of disappointment. Before I arrived in Salerno, I heard a lot about the fruitfulness of the ministry here. My expectations were high for the year. While students are very open to conversing about the gospel, they have a tough time grasping the concept of ‘unmerited favor’. Plus, most see the sins of religious authorities and then reject any sort of organized religion (or relationship…). From a stats standpoint, this year has been a failure. We ‘know’ the Lord has been using us for his good purpose because of His promises, but it has been easy to ‘feel’ useless. It has been difficult to motivate the team when Katherine and I just as discouraged.”

But Rick goes on to write, “Despite my doom and gloom summation, we have reasons to celebrate. One highlight was the Agape Europe student conference, which we took four students (2 guys, 2 girls). Held 2/15-17 in Bristol, England, the conference was a follow-up to CM07. Its purpose was to cast vision for what God could do in Western Europe while providing ideas and opportunities for evangelism. The girls, Anto and Silvia, got really excited about ways to reach their countrymen; a huge deal as most Italian believers don’t really share their faith… ever.”

“I’d say that we’ve been laboring in the dark this year, for two reasons”, Rick concludes. “First, Italy is so spiritually dark that dawn must surely be around the corner (we hope). But, second, I say ‘laboring in the dark’ because I have no idea what God is doing here. It’s okay, it’s not our right to know His ways or means. He told us to come here and share the gospel and that’s what we’ve done. We’ll leave the changing lives part to him.”

Yesterday, I was reading the story in the gospels where the four guys lowered their paralyzed friend through the roof. (It’s found in 3 places – Matt 9:1-8; Mark 2:1-12; and Luke 5:17-25. Matthew doesn’t include the roof part of the story.) As I read this, I tried to put myself into the situation as the person organizing this event.

The parking lot is full of donkeys. The place is packed. SRO. Even the doorway is blocked. Fire codes, shmire codes. And sitting front and center are really important religious dudes from every town in Galilee, Judea and even as far as Jerusalem. We’ve got a perfect speaker. Who needs PowerPoint and video clips? He tells awesome stories and the power of Lord is present to heal.

But then in the middle of this great talk, shmack starts to fall from the ceiling onto Jesus’ head. Some yahoos are rippin’ up the roof, digging out a 2’ x 6’ hole. What the spank are they doing to my roof and this perfect outreach?!? If they wanted balcony seating they should have come early or had a pharisee front-row pass. Look at them with their goofy grins. If I could get through this crowd, I’d go toss them off the roof. They disappear for a second and now they are slowly lowering this guy right slap-dap in the middle.

S and D are in East Asia leading a very young team of four on a very young campus ministry, only in its third year of existence, with young leaders leading young believers. D writes, “It has been frustrating to see many of our key students who we hoped would be leaders this year fall away and become distracted by worldly things in the first semester, but we are praying that we will not lose sight of God’s Spirit as the driving force in our lives as a team and in the lives of the students who are truly committed to following Jesus in community.”

One particular student, Jolly, though has been a huge encouragement to D and the team. Jolly was a very inconsistent believer until about December 1st. (Perhaps because of his moniker he realized the Christmas season was a good time to shine.) He decided to end a bad relationship with his girlfriend and attended a city-wide conference for student leaders. Seeing the vision of these older and more mature students inspired him to want to go sharing every week with D and convince others to join them. During the week of Christmas he was baptized. D writes, “He was more excited than any believer I had ever seen after (baptism). It had really meant something deep to him. He came to a Christmas day lunch party for all the believers in our ministry wearing a shirt that said in big letters ‘I BELONG TO JESUS!!’ Normally we would’ve pulled him aside and reminded him of the dangers that go along with wearing that in a closed country, but there was no way we could coax him for such joy in a public announcement of his faith! He went sharing consistently since then, seeing 6 new brothers indicate a decision to follow Jesus and followed up with 4 of them the next several weeks. Not only this, but after talking to him today he told me that he had gone home and decided to share at the university in his home town, where he and another brother were promptly taken and arrested, having to call his dad to bail him out of jail. The only thing he said about this was ‘My heart was happy to go and share with the boys.’ “

D and S and their team just returned from six weeks out of country and are in the midst of following up contacts from a period when they did five evangelistic parties per week for six weeks and shared the gospel with over 200 students. D asks us to pray with them for wide spread growth and maturity. They desire to see deep discipleship happen and more students like Jolly who are committed to seeing the vision of the Lord’s movement on our campus become a reality.

This past week all of us in WSN Leadership were together in South Carolina. One morning Tim Dougherty gave the devotion. Those of you who were at the training in Korea last summer might remember Tim as one of the ones who packed all the snacks for us in his bag. He is a servant of the Most High God.

Tim shared with us on Friday morning from Isaiah 40 about the Goodness and Greatness of God. This chapter is about our Creator God – who is all-knowing, all powerful, of whom nothing can compare – that tends us like a shepherd gently carrying us close to His heart. Our Mighty God wants to comfort us letting us know that our sin has been paid for. We know this… but we struggle to believe this.

Isaiah ends chapter 40 with… “Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God’? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

May, this week, we know that our way is not hidden from Him. Our cause is not disregarded. May we hope in Him today and He will renew our strength…. Then we all will be Jolly, too…. hopefully without the jailed part.

S and T are leading a STINT Team (and raising five girls) in East Asia. Like many of you they just came back from midyear/vacation time. After their midyear, there was a ‘big people’s conference’ for all those serving in their country from numerous countries and including the national staff. (I will leave off numbers for security sake but it was a lot people from a lot of countries and a lot of nat’l staff.)

Speaking of the nat’l staff, S writes, “(they) are heroes to Tom and me. They have chosen to make a stand for Christ in a way that seems unthinkable to us. They have devoted their lives to sharing the gospel with the people of their own country. Though they are among the most educated in their country, they have forgone lucrative jobs in order to make a difference for Christ. Most have been Christians for less than 5 years. Due to the government regulations the risks to them are very real. It was a privilege and so humbling to worship alongside these faithful ones. I think the heart of the Father was filled with delight.”

“The country director shared the vision and direction of the ministry,” S goes on to say. “It is clear that the vision goes well beyond national borders. It was so challenging to hear them asking God to give them these dark unreached places of the world. It reminded us that God is serious about fulfilling the Great Commission and He is gathering people from every tongue, tribe and nation for Himself. That is what Heaven will be.”

On the last day of the conference, T and S got another reminder about the closeness of Heaven. They received an early morning call that their family friends Drew and Nita Meadow’s 2 year old son, Brock, had gone to be with the Lord. He had died very unexpectedly during his afternoon nap. S writes, “We talked with Drew and Nita, their hope is the certainty of God’s goodness and the reality of heaven. We share that hope and it gives reason for tomorrow.”

The apostle Paul penned these words from a smelly Roman prison to the church in Philippi, “Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. To live is Christ and to die is gain.” For the Apostle Paul things did not turn out as he had expected. Years earlier, he had penned another letter to the church in Rome that he was coming to visit them, raise support and head on to Spain to launch movements. Not long after he penned this, the Holy Spirit warned him that he had been assigned. He would not be STINTing in Spain but he would go to Rome, albeit in chains.

I imagine that many men and women labored before in the country where S & T and never dreamed of what S & T saw this past month. Maybe along the way they were disappointed that their plans got changed. Maybe many days they thought it wasn’t worth it. Maybe they were not chained but they felt like they might as well have been. Maybe they thought they were failures and not good enough. Maybe they thought what it was all a big mistake that God choose them and sent them.

To Live is Christ, not ‘to live is Andy’ or ‘to live is ____ ‘ (put your name here). It’s not about me or my plans. It’s not about you or your plans. It’s about Him. Our hope is not in what we do, its in what He did. It’s not in who I am (or think I am) its in who He is.

In a couple of chapters later in this letter to the Philippians, Paul would say that those things he did trying to gain status in God’s eyes and churchfolk was really loss / rubbish / pile of dung when compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ.

It’s Christ. He is the One we serve. He is the one we live for. The gain is knowing Him and being with Him; its experiencing His righteousness that comes only from Him. He will come for us when our STINT on this planet earth is o’er. He will transform our measly bodies to be like His glorious one. To Live is Christ.. to die is gain.

I am convinced that no other STINT Leader has a situation like Emily Bastine (in the front left pictured with four of her teammates, Kim Bubalo and myself.) Emily is part of the leadership team for México City Focus (Enfoque México). Their vision is to see God transform this city of 25 million people. Emily’s role is to lead the team in the side of this effort that involves launching of spiritual movements on over 400 universities. Not only is she leading a team with such a huge scope but a team of men and women mixed with STINTers and 3 STOP-Outers who just recently showed up.

The Enfoque México team has seen God launch 35 movements in the past two years and are trusting Him for 100 by the end of this school year. (They are hoping for a big push from the Spring Break trips.) Their crazy radical strategy is to simply show up on a campus believing God to lead them to the student or faculty member He has prepared to be a movement launcher. Once Emily and her teammates surface leaders, they then help train and coach them in how to live out the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. Sometimes these divine appointments happen within the first hour on a campus and sometimes it takes longer. Case in point, Emily faithfully went back to one particular campus 8 or 9 times before some girl called out of the blue called and gave them a name of a believer.

On Monday, Emily shared with me about another of these divine appointments. “About a month ago I jumped into a taxi to head to a university. That taxi was chafa and so I got out and into another one. I saw that the cabbie of this 2nd taxi had a bible on his floorboard so I began a conversation with him. He told me that he was a Christian and I told him what I do here in Mexico. He promptly told me that he knew a student named Raul who was a strong Christian. He called Raul right then in the cab and put him on the speakerphone. So a couple of weeks later, Kevin (another teammate) and I met up with this cabbie’s friend. Turns out Raul has contacts to other university students and service agencies that would love to partner with us. He is always calling or texting and saying something like, ‘I have this friend who led some classmates to Christ and wants to know if you can help them know what to do next.’”

Emily went on to say. “Raul and I are going to meet with one of his friends, Erika, who is a new Christian that is interested in starting a movement on her campus! And this next week, he is going to help connect us to more students on other campuses to launch movements. I’m continually surprised by the Lord and how He shows up in the most random spots. For me it is about believing that He is the one that is directing the ministry here in Mexico City and I just want to be where He is already at work.”

Hanging out with Emily and her team this week and looking more closely again at Hebrews 11 and parallel passages, I am reminded again that faith is seeing the unseen. If it can be seen with our eyes, is it faith? If it’s possible apart from God, is it truly faith? And yet faith isn’t about God doing things – even impossible, faith-stretching things – according to my agenda nor according to my timetable.

“And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again.

Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”

In the chapter that follows, the author encourages us to ‘run with perseverance the race marked out for us’. Somewhere in the midst of the paradox of His sovereign will and our willingness to live by faith is that marked-out path. The problem is we don’t know whether our marked-out path is like the first paragraph where ‘they gained what was promised’ and ‘received back the dead’. Or whether our path is like those ‘whom the world was not worthy of’ and died ‘without receiving what was promised’.

Perhaps this Spring your team will faithfully go back 8 or 9 times to campus and He will lead you to that one student prepared to be the igniter of revolutionary fire. Or perhaps He just wants to be pleased as you go believing Him for the impossible and yet never seeing what is promised in your time. It doesn’t change the fact that He can, that He will and that He rewards us when we diligently seek Him walking by faith and not by sight… and that He wants us to trust Him with the impossible.

Brendan Jorgensen and Sara Thelen are leading together in Karaganda. Last year, Sara led the Serbian team and Brendan was in Astana, Kazakhstan. This is not only their first time in Karaganda but the whole team’s.

Sara, who as our Valentine celebrates a birthday tomorrow, says, “Since we have been here, we have really been amazed at what God is doing. There are thirty believing students involved in the ministry, so one of our major focuses has been discipling these students and training them in sharing their faith and discipling others. We have three ministry teams that the students are involved with: prayer, outreach, and community. In December, we focused on training the students in sharing their faith. Many of the training times were led by some of the older students and student interns. After that we had two weeks of outreach on campus. This was an amazing time because there were several new believers out sharing their faith”, Sara explains. “And from that time we saw four people pray to receive Christ. At the end of the month we got together as a ministry and celebrated everything that we saw God do.”

Sara goes on to add, “Our team has learned a lot about discipleship this year. We have been focusing on the example of discipleship that Christ set. We try to include the students in every part of our lives. We invite them to the English classes we teach, to campus with us when we are sharing our faith, to spend the night at our apartments, and to run everyday errands (grocery shopping, exchanging money, etc.) with us. This way the students aren’t just seeing us for an hour a week, but they are becoming a part of our lives. It’s been encouraging to see how God has used this to deepen our relationships with one another, and grow us in unique ways (we find that we are learning just as much from the students, as they are from us).”

Ironically this past week, I ran into an old teammate of mine – John – when I was on STINT in Almaty, Kazakhstan back in the day. John and I spent some sweet time getting caught up on each other’s lives and reminiscing about our year together. (John was in Almaty a second year so often he was like ‘now were you there when we rode down the mountain with our headlights off and night vision goggles on? ‘ and stuff like that.)

John and I also talked a lot about ministry philosophy and the things we learned in Almaty. Given that the movement is still going and national leaders were raised up, it’s safe to say we did a few things right (as well as a lot of things wrong). Reading Sara’s update its eerily similar in terms of what we did: building community, training in the basics, letting young believers own the mission very early, etc. I could throw in a few other things that we did or that you are doing right now but why bother…. all good tactics, yes… but…

Even with all the ‘right’ things, lest we fool ourselves, it really comes down to one thing … or rather One Person. (One in a Trinty sense.) Studying Hebrews, this passage jumped out at me the other day: “For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.” Paul writes something similar in 1 Cor. 3 using a planting analogy… “Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.”

Sara also wrote, “We have found that it has been easy for us to find our identity in the ministry, in how well things go or don’t go, and how many students we are sharing within a week. The crazier things got in our schedule, the easier it was to confuse our priorities. We have come back this semester with this in mind, and we are making a commitment to encourage each other to focus on Christ and to find our worth in Him (the other things will fall into place).”

May we all trust in Him… keep our eyes on Him… cling to Him… even as we do His work. May what the Psalmist says be true for us: “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.”