Thursday, October 30, 2008

Jamaica Project Report


The verdict in in and it's "Guilty". 48 adults from Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and even London, England just concluded a final day of work here with Mission Discovery in Montego Bay, Jamaica and they are "Guilty" of having done an incredible work in the name of Jesus!

Teams worked at Jamaica Christian School for the Deaf, Blossom Garden Children's Home and Victory Christian Fellowship School this week. They mixed concrete, held babies, gave out hundreds of shoes to children, installed windows and doors and left the project sites today saying what countless others have said, "We received so much more than we gave!"

This Saturday, November 1, marks Mission Discovery's 17th birthday and there couldn't have been a better party that seeing the scripture in action this week. Thanks to all of you who poured out your lives to the poor this week!

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Flowers in Bomb Craters


During World War II the bombing of London left devastation. Lives were lost, buildings destroyed and bomb craters littered the landscape. After the passage of some time it was noticed that in the bottom of some bomb craters was a flower growing not seen in this region of England in quite some time. It seems that some of the bombs contained phosphorus, which trigger the growth of what had become a forgotten flower.

Hard times have fallen on our country economically. Ann asked if I would turn the television off this morning before coming into work, that the news was “just too bad” to listen to. I agreed, and turned the television off.

This morning I met for coffee with 10 businessmen and women, some of whom were non profit directors based in our town. We all shared the same concerns. I shared the news that this past week cuts impacted every staff. Two of our staff are or have departed; others must raise additional support to maintain their current salaries. These changes are all because of a 21% drop in the number of those going on trips with Mission Discovery.

As we sat together as a staff there was grieving and sadness. Rob, one of our departing employees gave me his book “Raving Fans” in jest remarked that this was no indication that he was not still a Raving Fan of Mission Discovery! These are and have been incredible ministry partners going to the worst places in the world to serve the poor and depart Mission Discovery with dignity and hope.

I know for us here at Mission Discovery we are looking for and have found “flowers in bomb craters.” The scripture says it this way, “I’m confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.” While the world’s confidence in the U.S. economy falters, we find our confidence in a foundation of Jesus, who has a purpose in our lives and uses every event that passes through our lives to make that purpose possible.

Thank you for remembering Mission Discovery’s work in the poorest part of the world through giving. Thank you for remembering our staff in prayer.

Monday, October 13, 2008

I'm a Space Traveler


My grandson is inquisitive. He's 6 years old, his grasp of the English language is funny. I was in Guatemala last spring on a Mission Discovery mission trip with a group of adults. I stay in touch with home now through Skype. It's free to call home from an internet cafe anywhere in the world. I Skyped home one Friday night and Bailey, my grandson was in the background. We did the regular greetings and Bailey walked over and said, "granddaddy, where are you?" "Bailey, I'm in Guatemala." He replied with a question, "Is that in this 'wworld.'" (his pronunciation). After I hung up the phone I walked home in the dark, in a city of few lights lending the sky radiant with stars and I thought of Bailey's question. It meant that he believed that I was capable of traveling to other worlds. Worlds where comic and cartoon super heroes live. Some day Bailey will bring into focus the reality of "granddaddy" and "inner galactic travel". God may believe about me much like Bailey. He says that there is another world, a world hard for me to see, but a world called eternity. He even says my home is not here, that I'm gathering "treasures" in my new home, another world where nations and tribes of all languages gather. At one of the gates of Rome a sculptor was carving an object. It was an odd shape and a passerby asked what in the world it was? "It's for the arch above the gate. I'm carving it down here so it will fit up there." Thank you Jesus for carving me in You so I will fit in a better world to come. (Eph 2:10)

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Internet Only-Mission Trips Jamaica and Hurrican Ike Relief


Last year one of our Board members asked me "What would Jesus do?" in dealing with an issue that need a decision. My response was, "I don't know, He's to unpredictable!" I don know that we have many resources to know what Jesus would do, I had just been struck recently in my reading how unpredictable, radical etc. He was and how much more that made Him interesting to me.

So, needless to say, Mission Discovery is that as well. Each year we produce a catelogue of trips, but because our world is so unpredictable, we have started publishing internet only projects.

Here are two. Galveston, Texas was devistated by Hurricane Ike and is receiving very little help, according to our sources on the ground in Houston, from volunteer group. Mission Discovery has responded with a series of mission trips starting October 19.

In Montego Bay, Jamaica, Mission Discovery is responding the needs of the Jamaica Christian School for the Deaf. They are in need of a vocational educationl building for the 40 students there. The directors are passionate, have long term concern and desperately want to prepare Jamaica's deaf population with the tools to make it in the vocational world.

As the world changes, so do we at Mission Discovery. Have a great evening.

India – More than 70,000 Christians displaced in Orissa

UPDATE: The Voice of the Martyrs contacts working to assist believers affected by attacks in Orissa state report that more than 70,000 Christians have been displaced and forced to live in refugee camps.

"At the Peyton Sahi relief camp which houses 35 families and 130 distraught tribals, Chabila Naik, a man who ran an orphanage for 50 children in Sarangada spent three days in the forest after their houses and churches were razed [with fire]. He has not been reunited with the children," VOM sources said.

Stories coming from persecuted believers in Orissa are heartbreaking. Christians spent days hiding in the forest following the attacks that erupted on August 24, after the murder of a prominent Hindu leader by Maoist extremists. “One family which did not want to be named said they had to leave their elderly mother in the jungles while the others walked through rain and darkness for 60 hours to get out of Kandhmal,” VOM sources added.

"We had no choice; I could either save my wife and two kids, or stay with her and ask for death for all of us. But, I am sure God has saved her, though I have no idea where she is," the man told VOM sources with tears in his eyes.

VOM is assisting displaced believers in Orissa and other areas in India where persecution has spread. Pray for believers who face these intense hardships and have in some cases lost contact with family members. Ask God to protect them and provide for their needs. Pray their testimonies will draw nonbelievers into fellowship with Him.

Christians in Mosul are fleeing their homes

By Leila Fadel, McClatchy Newspapers Sat Oct 11, 6:43 PM ET

BAGHDAD — Christians in Mosul are fleeing their homes after a spate of killings this week that left 12 Christians dead in one of the largest Christian communities in Iraq.

The killings follow large protests by the community last month against the passage of the provincial elections law. An article that would give representation to Christians and other minorities was removed from the law before its passage.

Now the last safe haven for Christians is gone, said Canon Andrew White the vicar of St. George's church in Baghdad.

After a spree of killings and forced evictions of Iraqi Christians in Baghdad last year, many fled to Mosul. But even there they could not escape the danger. In February of this year the Archbishop Paulos Faraj Raho of Mosul was kidnapped and killed.

"Christians are being killed in the only place they felt safe, in Ninevah," White said, referring to the province of which Mosul is the capital. "This is where they fled to and now there's no safe place for them."

Over a thousand Christian families have fled Mosul for outlying villages and villages in the Kurdistan region in search of safety, a spokesman for the Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs said. Posters are being put up with guidelines on how to leave.

"The Christian families left in Mosul are very few indeed," said Mariwan Nakshabandee, spokesman for the Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs , which oversees Christian communities in Mosul.

Iraqi Assyrian and Chaldean Catholics trace their roots to ancient Mesopotamia and Christian communities were prominent in many major Iraqi cities, including Mosul in the north and Basra in the south and Baghdad . The capital had enclaves in the central neighborhood of Karada, the eastern neighborhood of New Baghdad and nearby al-Ghadir as well as Dora in the capital's south.

Christians once were estimated to be about 3 percent of the Iraqi population or about 800,000 people.

But as Iraq grew bloody and violent the Christian community dwindled. Now some estimate that more than half of Iraq's Christians have fled. White believes that the Christian community is about a quarter of the estimated 800,000.

"It isn't easy for these people to leave," he said. "They have no representation... we need the Christian world to do something about it."

On Saturday, three more Christian men were found dead in Mosul . Among the 12 killed just this week were doctors, engineers, pharmacists and at least one disabled man. Three empty homes of Christian families in eastern Mosul who had fled were reduced to rubble as a warning, police in Mosul said.

Some of the assassins told those they killed "you want an autonomous region," said Auxiliary Bishop of the Chaldean Patriarch in Baghdad Shlemon Wirduni, who was getting updates every few hours from churches in Mosul . The assassins were referring, he said, to aspirations of some Assyrian and Chaldean Christians to create an autonomous Christian region in the northern plains of Ninevah Province.

Wirduni lamented that despite outcries to the international press, United Nations officials and Iraqi government officials nothing was being done.

In Ninevah province, governor Duraid Kashmoula said the increase in attacks on Christians was due to the failure of a recent security operation in Mosul . He blamed Al Qaida in Iraq , an extremist Sunni group, for the recent string of killings.

Mosul remains a volatile province despite a recent security operation and both Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police officials said they'd seen and uptick in Al Qaida in Iraq activity in the area.

(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE.)

"Killing the peaceful Christians is a crime and it doesn't pass without punishment," he said. According to Kashmoula, the killings were because of "the failure of the security plan and the fleeing of the elements of Al Qaida from Anbar to Mosul unchecked."

The Hammurabi Association for Human Rights released a statement demanding international attention to the assassinations of Christians likening it to "genocide."

"We call on the authorities, central and local and international to stop this Christian bloodshed and to contain the violations and violence and terrorism that Christians in Mosul are facing," the statement said.

"We also are victims of the civil war between Iraqis and the objective of the threats of Al Qaida is to displace Christians because they are a minority in Iraq ," said Salwan Khoshaba from Al Tahira Church in Mosul.

Special Correspondent Yasseen Taha contributed from Suleimaniyah.