I realize that these post are not very exciting yet. The key word here is "yet." In less than two weeks, actually in 12 days, we will be landing in Lilongwe, Malawi.
Our time of training at Field Personnel Orientation (FPO) was one awesome experience. I wished we had time to sit down and go over our note with you but that would take about eight weeks. Thanks to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, we feel better prepared now, for this journey, than we did two months ago.
We face many unknowns but know that the Holy Spirit will be guiding us all the way. He has been working among the Tumbuka people long before we even knew who the Tumbuka were. He will be working among them long after we are gone. The ideal situation is that we will help them start a healthy church planting movement, give them guidance and train the local leaders that God calls out and we will leave. It is not the missionaries from the U.S that will bring Christ to the Tumbuka people but the Tumbuka people themselves.
The first and most important ingredient in a healthy church planting movement is where you come in. That is prayer. The power of God can be called down from Heaven by prayer. Elijah knew that when he challenged the prophets of Baal. They prepared the alter, placed the sacrifice on it, and earnestly prayed all day with no results. Then Elijah prepared the alter, and placed a cut up bull on the wood to be sacrificed. To further demonstrate the awesome power of God he soaked everything with water. He even dug a trench and filled it. He then stepped up to the alter and prayed to God. God sent His fire from Heaven and consumed the offering, wood, stone alter, and the dust. The fire even lapped the water from the trench. When the people of Israel witnessed this, they fell on their face and proclaimed, "Yahweh is God." (1 Kings 18:20-40)
Don't worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. Philippians 4:6
Please come again. As the snail said to his friend, as they climbed on the back of the turtle, "Hang on Ralph, here we go." The excite is just beginning.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
FPO Update
As most of you know, we are at Field Personnel Orientation (FPO) just outside of Richmond, VA. We have been here for about a month and have another 3 ½ weeks to go. I say this to explain why I have not updated the blog is some time. This is a very busy but rewarding time of transition for us. Soon we will be in Malawi and after a month in Zambia, the blog updates should come in a timelier manner. I must make a disclaimer at this point. From my understanding we will have an Internet connection that approaches dial-up. From which direction I do not know. Hopefully, it will be from the faster side. If at all possible, we will be including photographs with my attempt at the written word.
This last week, one of our studies was on the persecuted church. This was such an awesome view of Christians that live in an oppressive society/country. The persecuted church is experiencing tremendous growth in many areas. This study has changed the way I pray for the persecuted. In the past, I have prayed that the persecution would be lifted from them, but this would probably affect their explosive growth. Instead, we should be praying for grace as they are persecuted. In the west, we Christians often pray that God will take away our burdens. The Christians in the persecuted church pray that God will give them strength to bare these burdens. According to scripture, persecution is the normal and freedom from persecution is the exception.
We also had an introduction to telling Bible stories. This will especially be helpful to us, as we will be serving in a country where most of the population is illiterate. Please don’t mistake illiterate with ignorant. We will be learning much from these people who simply don’t read. They are great storytellers and we will be training them to share the Gospel through Bible stories. In turn, they will teach others who will teach others. Southern Baptist Missionaries refer to this as T4T, Training for Trainers. We realize the task of reaching the entire world for Christ is a monumental task even for 5000+ missionaries. We did an exercise in class where two people from one table would train another table. Two people from the second table would train another table. This went on until the entire class was taught. Some teaching couples would have two or three generations of teachers. Others had as many as five generations. We were told that if we could have continued this for 35 generations the whole world would have been taught this little story. From this, you can see the value of training trainers.
If you would like to receive our news/prayer request letter, just drop us a line, I mean email and we will add you to the list. We try to send one out at least once a week at this point. You can reach us at: mailto:alrudd47@gmail.com
We would love to hear from you.
I love You, Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my mountain where I seek refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. Psalm 18:1-2
This last week, one of our studies was on the persecuted church. This was such an awesome view of Christians that live in an oppressive society/country. The persecuted church is experiencing tremendous growth in many areas. This study has changed the way I pray for the persecuted. In the past, I have prayed that the persecution would be lifted from them, but this would probably affect their explosive growth. Instead, we should be praying for grace as they are persecuted. In the west, we Christians often pray that God will take away our burdens. The Christians in the persecuted church pray that God will give them strength to bare these burdens. According to scripture, persecution is the normal and freedom from persecution is the exception.
We also had an introduction to telling Bible stories. This will especially be helpful to us, as we will be serving in a country where most of the population is illiterate. Please don’t mistake illiterate with ignorant. We will be learning much from these people who simply don’t read. They are great storytellers and we will be training them to share the Gospel through Bible stories. In turn, they will teach others who will teach others. Southern Baptist Missionaries refer to this as T4T, Training for Trainers. We realize the task of reaching the entire world for Christ is a monumental task even for 5000+ missionaries. We did an exercise in class where two people from one table would train another table. Two people from the second table would train another table. This went on until the entire class was taught. Some teaching couples would have two or three generations of teachers. Others had as many as five generations. We were told that if we could have continued this for 35 generations the whole world would have been taught this little story. From this, you can see the value of training trainers.
If you would like to receive our news/prayer request letter, just drop us a line, I mean email and we will add you to the list. We try to send one out at least once a week at this point. You can reach us at: mailto:alrudd47@gmail.com
We would love to hear from you.
I love You, Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my mountain where I seek refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. Psalm 18:1-2
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