September 2017 – Ministry Update

Belorussia – September 16-20

Our EuroAsia strategic team met together in Minsk to work on editing Level three (multiplying Discover Bible Study groups) as well as preparing Level Four (multiplying churches) discipleship manuals.

God has raised enough leaders in our region that passed the bar of 5 generations. They are looking now for guidance of what to do next. We felt the urgency to prepare the resources and the trainings for them in order to keep the momentum of the movement.

We have translated the first two manuals into English and they are already used by the team in Africa and in Southern Asia.

We also realized how important is monitoring what is happening of the field in order to discover what is effective and what needs to be changed. We are making just first steps towards that. Our russian team monitored their results and here what they found out.

In the last four years:

• The discipleship multiplication movement in Russia involved more then 6,000 people
• 103 new planted churches
• 733 discover Bible study groups with non believers
• 89 groups out of them, have 3-4 generations of disciples
• 121 sport clubs with 1474 members altogether
• We are present in 72 locations

Trk*y – September 1-4 and 25-28

In the beginning of September, in partnership with Africa team, We conducted a Sport Discipleship Training in Izm*r.

In the end of September (25-28 September) we gathered the key disciple makers from the country (31 leaders) for Level Two training, which is focused on initiating Bible Study groups with non believers. Our partner Arlie Francis trained our team on “Oral Gospel Sharing” that is so needed in that context.

In order to pass the Level Two training the trainees had to show the completion of at least 75% of their homework assignments. We had to postpone once in the past, the Level Two training, because of their uncompleted home work . This time, to our pleasant surprise, all the invitees had 100% of their homework done. In fact all of them went “extra miles” in their assignments.

We are meeting more and more people in Trky, trained by diverse church planting organizations, who are having the passion for discipleship multiplication. Our hope and efforts are for these people to step up in taking the ownership and get united into a indigenous self sustained movement that will transform the country.

Please pray that by the end of 2018, God will allow us to see such a movement.

Ministry partner Arlie Francis and part of our ministry team

Caucasus (*ngushetia)

The people of Yangushetia are among the most unreached nations in the World, having a very fundamentalistic view of islm and being very violent towards other religions. The radical mslms living in the area are usually very suspicion to any foregner as they view them as threats to their faith. The only way to reach out to them is gaining their trust and respect.

Our efforts in the past proved that in Caucasus, short term missions are considerably less effective, then long term mission. A few month ago, the family of our brother Murat (the name is changed) which Ion have trained in Omsk (Siberia), had committed and began the preparation to move to live in Yangushetia. In the end of September. Murat with one more family, moved to that area and began their search for the person of peace. He initiated already, many new relationship through sports. The second family soon returned back home, but Murat and his family remained convinced that God called them to live in that region for an undetermined period of time.

He is having regular Bible study meeting with several mslm families.

Please pray for his safety and for discipleship multiplication in that region.

France

Chris Hughes, continues to work as a chaplain for the soccer team in his town that consist only of mslms. He began to study the Bible with some of them, on the regular basis.
In October, Chris with other three ministry partners conducted a discipleship multiplication training in Marseille (second largest city of France). As a result of that training 10 new discovery bible groups (DBS) have started. Some of those groups are formed from mslm other from gypsy refugees.

Gagauzia

In the end of October, Jabal (the name is changed) traveled from Istanbul to Gagauzia to conduct a discipleship multiplication training. Gagauzia is a Turkish speaking autonomy of Republic of Moldova. He trained the sport ministry team from that region. The local authorities of Gagauzia, gave to the local pastor George Dontsu an abandoned GYM asking him to do something for the community and especially for the youth. Pastor George found a group of committed people who initiated a sport ministry. They fixed that GYM and hand made some working out machines that attracted the local youth. Now they have initiated several discover bible study groups having 70 people altogether. Lately 12 out of them already committed their lives to Christ. Watch the video

Cuba

Here is the testimony I received from our partners from Las Tunas, Cuba

Edilberto Rodríguez was born in Palmarito, Las Tunas, in 1961. His life was a disaster. Abandoned by his family, addicted to drugs because of the crime he was sentenced to 7 years of prison. He was contemplating suicide when he heard one of his fellow prisoners, announcing : “I exchange a Bible for six cans of sugar,” Deep within him, he felt an impulse to exchange the only food he had in prison for that Bible. Beginning to read it, soon he got so captivated, so that reading the Bible became his favorite time of the day.  Little by little the truth began to affect his life in a miraculous way. The first miracle was when he discovered that the craving after drugs disappeared. As he continued reading the Bible he stopped completely using them.  During that time he met Teófilo, one of our chaplains who began to disciple him. Edilberto is still in prison but now, because of his good behavior, he received a special permission to be baptized. Now Edilberto has 10 disciples in prison, with whom he shares the word of God on a regular basis and shows everyone the transformation power of the Gospel,  through his example.