Saturday, September 23, 2006

What Do We Do With Wild Headlines?

Venezuela's Chavez calls President Bush "the devil" International Herald Tribune - France... for more than a month. "Venezuela once again proposes today that we reform the United Nations," he said. He drew tentative giggles ...

Strike against Morales highlights Bolivia's deep divisions International Herald Tribune - France LA PAZ, Bolivia Opponents of President Evo Morales stayed home from work and blocked key thoroughfares in four Bolivian cities Friday to protest his party's ...

Venezuela in Negotiations with Russia for More Military Hardware Venezuelanalysis.com - Caracas , Venezuela , September 20, 2006 —Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez confirmed yesterday that the Venezuelan government was currently negotiating the ...

Iran, Venezuela start drilling joint oil well Tehran Times - Iran TEHRAN – Iranian and Venezuelan oil companies jointly started drilling of the first oil well in a field in Venezuela slated to be developed by the two ...

Cuba and Venezuela: Building an 'axis of hope’ Green Left Weekly - Chippendale, NSW, Australia... Cuba has now been joined by new left-wing governments winning respect for combatting First World domination of Latin America: Venezuela’s, headed by ...

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“What in the world is going on down there?” Do you have these same thoughts as I do as you read these wild headlines?

My heart aches as I read these news alerts. I’ve walked the streets of all these places (other than Iran). I have looked into the eyes of the common folks. They are concerned with making ends meet. Keeping their family together. Wondering what to do with that wayward child or spouse or parent. Dealing with the pain in their lives. They are looking for hope.

I don’t know what the answers are to the political turmoil depicted in these headlines. But I do know who The Answer is for those folks I’ve met in the streets, talked to in their homes, stood beside on the bus or train. His name is Jesus. And He has a Body, a family, an army He wants to reach out through to the hurting, the hungry, the hiding and the hounded.

This week (Sep 27-30) we go to equip His ambassadors at a “Train the Trainer” Leadership Conference in Lima, Peru. We’ve invited people from all over Peru who are interested in becoming e3 trainers. Also coming are our e3 national leaders from Bolivia (Enzo Saavedra), Ecuador (Diego Trujillo), Panama (Moises and Talsy Vega) and Venezuela (Omar Piňa).
We pray that God will use this conference to train these trainers how to—

• Equip churches to
• Evangelize their neighborhoods and
• Establish new churches

What do we do with wild headlines? We can't just turn the page. It's time to pray.

Please pray for God to use this conference to accomplish His will, and to make His name more famous in all of Latin America. Pray that the Prince of Peace will reign in more neighborhoods as a result of this conference.

Declaration of Dependence / Update

Thanks for praying for our Cabinet Planning Retreat. God definitely showed up. We could sense His power as He gave us great unity. As we hoped, He did not give us new directions to pursue. Instead, He showed us many things we needed to improve, and even some things we need to drop in order to do other things better. We continually rejoiced at the blessings He has given us during 2006. Even during the meetings we received word about a major grant to fund several country strategies. We sense that He has even bigger things in store for 2007.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Declaration of Dependence

I love this quote from The Bondage Breaker by Neil Anderson:

“What is prayer? It is communication with God by which we express our dependence on Him. God knows what we need in our battle with the powers of darkness, and He is more ready to meet our needs than we are to ask. But until we express our dependence on Him in prayer, God will not act. In prayer we say, ‘You are the Lord, not I. You know what’s best; I don’t. I’m not telling You what to do; I’m asking. I declare my dependence on You.’ Our prayers open the way for God to act on our behalf.”
Once again we are declaring our dependence on our Almighty God. Mon-Wed this week (9/18-20) our e3 Partners Cabinet has a planning retreat to pray and plan for 2007. The folks involved are Curtis Hail, Dan Hitzhusen, Sam Ingrassia, Nawaz Lalani, Casey See, Nathan Sheets, Jeff Sheets and me. Please pray that we will hear clearly from God, especially how He wants us to join Him in His work around the world.

Please take a moment right now to pray Colossians 1:9 for us—

For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.

Thanks.

Mike Jorgensen

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Ethiopia LDC Blessings

Dear Pr-Air Force—

Thanks so much for praying for our Ethiopia trip. Sorry I wasn’t able to send updates as I generally do. One day I went in to the internet café and it kept disconnecting me. I went in a second day and they said their network was down. When I asked where another café was, they said “no, the network is down in this whole region.” My third try a couple days later? The electricity was off in the whole region! Ah, what we take for granted here in the US!

Internet problems aside, God showed up in a mighty way! And I’d much, much rather have His connection than an internet connection! Here are some glimpses of His glory—

370 people attended our leadership conference! Most were from our primary partner there—the Kale Heywet (Word of Life) denomination. Please pray for God to effectively use them to train the 6500+ churches of Kale Heywet how to use the EvangeCube and how to plant churches using our First Steps curriculum. Picture above is everyone saying "thanks for these First Steps manuals."

Also attending were leaders from 18 other denominations and ministries. All are interested in using our tools and training to plant new churches. Ask the Head of the Church, the Lord Jesus, to give us strong partnerships with all who are focused on planting new churches. Here’s what one of those denominational leaders said: “Most of the teaching that comes in from the outside is not relevant for us. But this training is helpful for us here.”

During the week we met with the Kale Heywet top leaders. They confirmed their desire for e3 to continue to help training their 6500+ churches in evangelism and church planting. We joyfully signed a new partnership agreement at the end of our week together. Picture above is us praying over the new agreement.

Mike Congrove led a team of 12 on a church planting campaign at the same time as we were doing the leadership conference. In spite of the heavy resistance in that area, over 490 people prayed to receive Christ as Savior! And 10 new churches were planted. Click here to read the amazing stories from that campaign he’s posting on his blog. Pray for 30, 60 and 100 fold multiplying Christians to grow as the Ethiopian believers follow-up the new believers.

Rick Eisemann led a campaign to the northern part of Ethiopia the week before our leadership conference. The north has been closed to the Gospel for centuries . . . yes, centuries. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church persecutes evangelicals harshly. Three legends indicate the depths of this religious stronghold. First, they believe that the Queen of Sheba mentioned in the Old Testament had a son by Solomon after she visited Jerusalem. They believe their leaders are descendants of that “royal son.” Second, since their church was founded by the Ethiopian eunuch mentioned in Acts 8, everyone else is a heretic. Third, they say they have the actual Old Testament Ark of the Covenant in the basement of a church.

But this changed when Rick’s team arrived. They did an eye glass clinic. The provincial officials were so happy about this that they sent government vehicles to pick them up at the airport and transport them all week. They wanted to have a dinner for the team, but it conflicted with their flight schedule back to Addis Ababa. So the president of the region called the Chairman of the Board and he had Ethiopian Air send another plane for them! At that dinner Rick was able to share the gospel with those officials as he presented each with an EvangeCube. The local officials called the national TV station—so they were on the Ethiopian equivalent of CNN several times!

Bottom line: the door is wide open for more evangelism and church planting there. The local officials, who are closely tied with the Orthodox church, pleaded with them to return with more teams, and gave the OK for evangelism. God holds the hearts of kings in His hands. Pray for these doors to stay open, and for protection from the father of lies.

Thanks so much for praying, Pr-Air Force. God answered in powerful ways.