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transformation

I Met Messiah

By Blog, Envision, Media

Our big news of the month is the release of our founder’s testimony, filmed by One For Israel and Chosen People Ministries.  This is one of 50 life stories of Jewish people coming to know Jesus that are being watched and shared by millions of people around the world.

Spread the Word - Share the Video

  • This video is being released TODAY and we need your help.  We need you to watch it, and to go on social media and share it.  The best way to do this is to go to facebook.com/oneforisrael, find his video near the top and click on the Share button.  Just write a quick note to accompany it that explains why you’re sharing it.  If you have trouble finding it (for instance, you’re reading this a while after it was written) you can always visit I Met Messiah.
  • Please do this right now and help accelerate the story so that it catches fire!  This has already happened with one story with over 5 million views.  It’s not about fame – we simply want to get the Gospel to as many people as possible!  Video testimonies of Jewish believers are very powerful to both Jew and Gentile.
  • You will see how effective these tools are, as we help the worldwide Jewish community see how Jewish the Gospel truly is.  Jesus is Jewish, his original disciples were Jewish, the Scriptures are Jewish….  The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob wants to use all of us to reach all the world!
  • Without the Gospel, there is no hope.  We are grateful for your agreement and faithful prayer and financial partnership.  Together, we are joining Jesus in seeking and saving the lost!

Through New Eyes

By Blog, Envision, Involve

LaurenThis guest post is from Lauren Anderson, a young mother of two who participated in the August 2014 Haiti Mission Team with our humanitarian outreach, the Chanje Movement.  We are thrilled to be able to share her observations and experience:

There is so much I’ve learned this last year with my involvement in Chanje. One of the greatest lessons I learned is that sometimes when God calls you, it starts as a whisper. The whisper calling me to go to Haiti was gentle at first, so much so that I even ignored it. But overtime it began to grow to a point where it was so loud and so clear that if I were to have said no it would have felt like direct disobedience to God’s plan for me. When I finally agreed, I didn’t even know where Haiti was on a map! I thought it was in Africa!

Before long I found myself with 28 other people who answered “Yes!” to the call and we were on our way together to a small island that’s a two hour plane ride away from Miami airport. After just the first day in Haiti, a different level of understanding swept over me like a heaviness. To be honest, I was rather surprised by it’s weight. I thought over the past several years that I knew all about what was to come. I had seen the pictures that our missionaries shared in church, I had watched the footage on the news, I had listened to the stories, I had even been moved to tears… But nothing can prepare you for what it is to physically step in and experience this other world that exists outside of your daily reality. For me, it was all about the connection. It was about making a connection to the people. A connection to their suffering. A connection to their struggles. A connection to their pain. A connection to their endurance. And most importantly – a connection to their hope.

In seven days, there were times that I felt overwhelmed. There were moments where the ability to keep a brave face breaks down and the tears stream out of even the biggest, burliest, toughest males of the group. There were times I would turn to the veterans for assurance that we were making a difference, and with a brutal explanation of what [Haiti had been like] before, I would be calmed by their confidence in God’s work being done. Nonetheless, my heart was broken in places that had never been touched. A sense of panic started to form within me throughout the trip… “There’s so much to be done!” “We’ll never be able to help everyone!” “We can’t go home yet – we need to do more!” Every thought of concern felt like a needle in my heart stitching me to this country, it’s people, the children, their suffering. My panic grew to a search for answers to questions I couldn’t quell.

Thankfully, a very patient leader who was experienced in these thoughts and fears simplified a connection to the bigger picture. Dave Brodsky made it so beautifully clear to me and to all of us: we are not here to simply help provide food, water, clothes and shelter… for if that were all we brought with us – how hopeless would we feel once we left? It is not our main goal to build up lives here on earth; it is our great mission to build up lives in eternity. If we were simply focused on making everyone’s lives on earth more comfortable, we would certainly lose hope. But our hope is in the Lord and His promises. In 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 it says, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (NKJV) 

Keeping the focus on this main mission purpose gave me instant relief and a great peace came over me.  Yes, we are going to do our best to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, love the suffering – but it is all in the name of Jesus Christ, being the hands and feet of the Savior of the world, showing the love of our Heavenly Father through acts of service. These beautiful people of Haiti will better understand God’s love by the love He is showing though His missionaries that answer that call and step into their world to make connections that last for eternity.

We can listen and find so many different opportunities to be a faithful servant whether it’s a loud call or a gentle whisper. For some of us it may be a path of action, for some of us it may be by means of financial ability, for some of us it may be by using the gifts God blessed us with to bring glory to His kingdom. Perhaps it can be all of the above and even more… Giving our contributions to those who need it the most. Today I am changed by the connection I have to the people I got to know in Haiti. Today when I pray, I don’t just pray for faces without names – I pray for my friends, I pray for my brothers and sisters in Christ, I pray for them like I pray for my family. I can’t wait to return to Haiti, but I also find great peace in knowing that even if I don’t get the chance to see each and every Haitian friend once more, we are forever connected in the love of Christ. I will surely see them again in eternity where we will be servants together forever side by side.

To learn more about the Chanje Movement, the humanitarian outreach of The Global Mission, and how you can be involved, please visit www.chanje.org.

 

Wake Up Call

By Blog, Headfirst, Personal

Alarm clock take offIf you learned you only had weeks to live, would you change the way you’ve been living?

Dramatic life changes prompt questions like this, and most people would answer in the affirmative: “Yes, I’ve got a lot to change.”  Change is painful and difficult, so we are reluctant to depart from our ways.  More than reluctant, we’re resistant.  Usually we aren’t willing to make any significant change apart from something which shakes our foundation.  Without the wake-up call, we flounder forward, unwilling to disturb the comfortable, the traditional, the repeatable.

Metamorphosis is rare without acute causation.  If the transformation isn’t hardwired into the DNA, driving the caterpillar into the chrysalis to exit as a butterfly, then what spurs such focused energy to stop the routine and become something different, something more?  Rarely is it something less than death or than a life-threatening event.  Doesn’t the clichéd conversation always revolve around a deathbed?  “I’d do it differently if I could do it all over again.”

So if you found out that your time had run out, or someone you deeply loved was being taken from you, what regrets would you have?  Is it a “bucket list” because you haven’t seen the Louvre, gone swimming with dolphins, or climbed Everest?  We’re fairly certain that those things are mostly okay, but amassing a larger pile of assets is not.  As Jesus taught, “”For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:26.)  Then again, the next metaphor is the epitaph.  What will it read?  What do you want to be remembered for?  Something temporal or something eternal?  Something transient or lasting?  Is there anything so weighty, so glorious, that you would give your life and your soul to live with everlasting meaning?

The phone rings.  Your doctor asks you to come in to discuss the results from the lab tests.

Would anything change?  Name it, list it, write it down, shout it out.  Can you interrupt your life’s course without the wake-up call?  What will it take?

Start today all over.  And perhaps read 1 Corinthians 15.  It’s worth it.

Build Your Kingdom Here

By Envision, Involve, Media

Our November 2013 mission team of 16 men preached the Gospel in the prisons and in the public squares, reaching hundreds with the Gospel for the first time. Many adults and children children received Christ during our ministry outreach. In addition, hundreds of meals were provided to the hungry, needy and homeless, and the hope of salvation in Christ was presented to many more. This was the second team to visit the new Chanje Lakay shelter for children. Child Sponsorship is now a powerful tool of generational transformation, as we begin support for our third shelter of children.  Micro-Credit programs were advanced for community development.  Thank you for your support!

Enjoy and share!

httpvh://vimeo.com/80757787

Music written and performed by Rend Collective Experiment and available on iTunes, Amazon and wherever music is sold.
Video recorded and produced by Jacob Hart on behalf of The Global Mission
The Chanje Movement (chanje.org) is the humanitarian outreach of The Global Mission, a 501c3 nonprofit.
No photography or videography was allowed in the Haitian prisons.

What Love Can Do

By Blog, Envision, Media

Having recently met worship leader Aaron Blanton at Crossline Church, and having heard him perform the song he wrote What Love Can Do as an acoustic piece, it was a joy to discover that our Creative Director, Jacob Hart, asked him for and received permission to use his song in the soundtrack to our most recent mission team’s video.  Aaron was a founding member of the band Sonicflood, and you might recognize this song from the call-to-action movie Not Today, in which recording artist Kari Jobe sings the arrangement that he and James Tealy put together.  The lead-in song is Audio Adrenaline‘s Kings & Queens.

The team we sent this month was part of The Chanje Movement, the humanitarian outreach of The Global Mission.

Enjoy and share!

httpvh://www.vimeo.com/73106653

Video recorded and produced by Jacob Hart on behalf of The Global Mission

At a Loss

By Envision, Involve

This is really complicated.  How can I explain what’s going through my mind when my heart is beating so hard that I can’t hear myself think?

What kind of anguish is going on in a person’s life that they can entrust their young child to you and walk away?  I can’t fathom the despair, the discouragement, the denial or the complete sense of defeat that a parent would have to experience.

And despite my inability to comprehend, it happened today.  It happened.  Did that really just happen?

fatherlessYes, and more than once.

First there was the pastor’s widow.  She lives in a community of immense poverty with her five children in a house built from cinder block that remains unfinished because her husband died.  She brought us two of her sons that she cannot feed or care for.

The next girl was five years old.  Her mother didn’t come.  The little one came with the widow because her mother just had a baby boy and couldn’t physically make the trip.  But the father of the son is not the father of the daughter – that man previously deserted the family.  The new father doesn’t want her.

Then we met a five and seven-year-old sister and brother.  Her mom had come earlier but had some emergency and left abruptly.  Without the kids.  She told someone at the shelter we should do whatever we can with the children.  The dad had already abandoned the family.

Psalm 68 says that God is a father to the fatherless.  These children are His now, and we are His stewards.  I’m trying to prepare myself for something that can’t be prepared for, because we are going to be introduced to three more children in the morning.

When we acknowledged that we were willing to rescue children as part of bringing hope and transformation to a nation, we knew we would be over our heads.  Today, it is not my head dipping beneath the water that makes me gasp for breath – it’s my heart bursting with a mixture of joy and sorrow.  I cannot imagine doing this alone.

Thanks to God, and all our amazing donors, staff, volunteers and prayer partners who are joining together to make this happen.  Otherwise, there would be no help, no hope, no joy.  No transformation, just sorrow.  But there is joy.  Thank you from the fullness of my heart.

Bringing Chanje

By Envision, Headfirst, Involve, Media

Chanje is the Haitian Creole word for change – for transformation.  We’ve seen the Lord move so dramatically in Haiti this past year, that we’ve begun calling what we do there a “Chanje Movement.”  Being a part of the transformation means being available to the Lord to change myself, my community and my world, however He directs.  This month, we had an amazing team of people participating in that movement.  Some of those highlights are in the video below, and as things progress we will continue to post the stories, photos and videos of transformation in Haiti.

Chanje Movement team in Haiti, August 2012

Recipe for Life

By Envision

Basic Ingredients:

Five bags of rice, five boxes of chickens, one large sack of beans, salt, limes, 2 large sacks of charcoal, hot sauces, spices, garlic, potatoes, carrots, peppers, sugar, tomatoes, coconuts, matches, sugar, five hundred “to-go-box” plates, spoons and juice punch for all…

Add:

Some pastors and youth leaders, Haitians and Americans cooking together, 330 Haitian children and youth, one Total Vacation Bible Sensation curriculum on the Romans Road translated into Creole by Crux33.

Mix in:

The Word of God, specifically Romans 3:23, 6:23, 5:8 and 10:9-10.
Personal story of life change from Emili.
Gospel presentation and invitation from Dave.

Bake over the course of the day, adding praise and worship.

Yield: 1 bucket tears, 3 gallons sweat, 2 wheelbarrows of laughter, 500 hungry Haitians fed, more than 40 first time decisions to follow Christ, brothers and sisters in Jesus locking arms in partnership, and one team of disciples transformed for life.

Here we are

By Envision

I often hear people praying that God will go with us, and while I understand their intentions, the truth is that God has been going before us and has never left us. The reality of that is never more real to us as His followers though as when we are most aware of our need. Leaving home and culture for a new world on a mission trip is a strong impetus for asking God to be “with us.” It’s more a reminder to ourselves as we recognize our inability to be the “everything” we are so used to being. (We’ll discuss idolatry another day.)

Our team of eighteen left from California and Arizona two days ago, and after a day and a night of travel we touched down yesterday and were greeted outside the terminal by many of our friends. We took a pair of Haitian “tap taps”, loaded to the tops with our bags from the airport to our hotel – the base camp for the week. After a nice brunch prepared by our hosts, we left for the afternoon in the community.

A visit to the water project to understand how providing clean water to thousands daily can help bring the Gospel and transformation led to a visit with friends who were leading a children’s bible study, which led to games and a great time playing with the kids, while others took a look at some of the construction projects for the week. After a visit to the church to invite more children to participate in this week’s Romans Road vacation bible school, we headed back to base for showers, dinner and a full night’s rest.

This morning we are fueled up from a great breakfast of home squeezed cherry juice, fresh Haitian coffee, toast, eggs, croissant and more. Now we are getting our gear together for a day with the children of an orphanage, some work projects there, another group of children who are being rescued off the streets of Port au Prince, and opportunities to teach them about the Lord.

Thank you for your prayers on this journey. We are all more aware than ever of God’s presence with us here.

Rise Up

By Envision

It is our continued prayer for the people of Haiti to rise up and follow Christ.  They need Him to restore them spiritually, and we strive alongside Haitian believers to help them take healthy steps forward amidst the continuing struggle of life.  More significant than any humanitarian aid, social development or physical need, they (like us) need Jesus.  We pray, and we act, to see God lift people up from spiritual death and from the turmoil all around them.

This three minute clip is from one mission to come alongside the local church in Haiti, and to give thanks for God’s light shining in the darkness.  For those who enjoy “extras” on DVDs, I’ve added a few end notes below the video to give more of the back story behind the presentation.

 
The media soundtrack “Never Be The Same” from the album Innocence and Instinct is performed by Red and is available on iTunes, Amazon, and through www.redmusiconline.com.

The Clean Water / Living Water project refers to the Gospel proclamation that comes through partnership with Water Missions International. The water station pictured was a complete purification system that needed additional work on the housing to allow thousands of people per day to receive clean water in Croix des Bouquets. To allow for maximum distribution and eliminate mud and contaminants from the surroundings, a ditch was improved and a bridge built across it, along with stairs, concrete and gravel to provide greater access, particularly during the rainy seasons in Haiti. WMI forecasts 70% growth in the first year that churches provide clean water to their communities in conjunction with evangelism and discipleship. Clean water enables physical health, living water provides spiritual life! Read “Water” for more…

Additional images capture an outreach in which we provided food to the hungry who live on the streets and tents in Delmas, Port au Prince. This is part of an ongoing outreach of evangelism and care in the name of Jesus through the efforts of Grangou. Alongside these partners, we share pieces of our testimonies and our lives…