Africa Testimony

I recently received an email from one of our National leaders in Africa testifying to what God is doing there through the work of our ECC church planting teams. I hope you find the following testimony encouraging.

*** All names and have been changed for security reasons.

July 2007

George, one of our church planter trainers, tells us how in preparation for the ministry in an area nearby, he prayed to find people of peace in that area. A month before he launched his ministry, an Imam named Joe, from a village in that area was suddenly struck ill while in the act of leading prayers in the Mosque. Joe was a young, strong, passionate follower of Mohammad. But that day He, without symptom or prior warning, collapsed unconscious on the floor of the mosque. He was taken from doctor to doctor, and from witch-doctor to witch-doctor for treatment, but instead grew progressively ill. Desperately ill and unable to sleep in peace he grew increasingly distraught by this strange undiagnosed illness. One day he heard a sermon over the radio where he was told that Jesus can heal the sick, and that if the listeners would turn in faith to Jesus the Son of God, they would find His healing touch. That evening he cried out to Jesus and asked him for healing. He was instantly healed. He was incredulous. Exhausted he realized he needed sleep. So he asked Jesus to let him sleep. Immediately he fell into a deep and peaceful sleep -- the first in a number of weeks.

Joe awoke with an intense desire to know more about the miraculous, prayer answering Jesus. He heard of a group of Christians that had begun meeting and studying in the area. This was George and his student church-planter-pastors. Joe approached them and told them what had happened to him and asked them if they could show him how he could become a follower of Jesus. George had been praying for a Person of Peace. God the Father, who is always at work had been preparing His laborer for the ministry in that village. Today Joe, the former Imam, is now enrolled as a student pastor in our church planting program, much to the consternation of the local Muslim community. These are early days in Joe’s walk with Jesus, and together we look forward expectantly to see what God will do through his ministry. Pray with us.

Excitement in Greenwood!

Yesterday, as I was wrapping up a day of "work" at the office a small bit of drama unfolded outside my office window. One of my co-workers alerted me to what was going on as a car had just driven into our parking lot on fire. Fortunately for you, I carry my camera everywhere so I can now share the excitement with you.







































Ok, so you might have guessed that I really don't have much to write about if I'm writing about car fires in the parking lot. There isn't much going on in Indiana as I have discovered, however, next month I am scheduled to hit the road again so maybe, just maybe, I'll have something to write about. Until then, this will have to do.

Home Sweet Home

Almost two weeks have now passed since I began my big journey to Indiana and arrived here to settle down for the upcoming year. I don’t know how all to explain what I’ve experienced and seen in the past few days so I think I’ll just give it a State by State rundown of the highlights. Please don’t blame me for making you read this.

Oregon
The time I had in Oregon for summer was awesome. God blessed me with an unexpected 4^th of July on a sail boat in the Columbia river with friends and later that day I got to spend an evening with my brother and my nieces and nephew. I also got to spend several days with my longtime friend Aaron and his roommate from Alaska as we explored several of Oregon’s scenic areas including the beaches, lakes, and rivers.

On July 12^th my roommate, who was moving back to Colorado, and I headed out on our journey Eastward. As we traveled I decided to take pictures along the way to document the journey. You can see the best of those in my photo gallery on Flickr. My friend Aaron also gave me a traveling partner in the form of an inflatable donkey. I named him Balaam but unlike the biblical donkey that Balaam rode, he didn’t prove to be much of a talker on the trip. Of course that might be a good thing since Balaam’s donkey was used by God to oppose the trip that Balaam was making. I’m assuming therefore that God was endorsing this trip I was on. My logic might be flawed, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Idaho
What can I say about Idaho? Balaam proved to be my entertainment on those long boring stretches between Twin Falls and the Utah border as car after car would pass me by and take a double look at my long eared passenger.

Utah
Utah brought more people staring at Balaam as we made our way down I-84 to the I-80 interchange East of Ogden. Once we started heading into the mountains, the scenery was rather pretty with some interesting rock formations and enough winding curvy roads to keep my driving interesting.

Wyoming
I almost missed getting a picture of the welcome to Wyoming sign. But if you ask me that wouldn’t have been so bad because the “Wyoming: Beef Country” sign was better anyway that was only a few miles down the road. Wyoming actually had several interesting signs. The giant 20 foot tall ice cream cones might have been my favorite. I can imagine little kids nagging their parents for what must seem like eternity, begging for an ice cream cone because they just passed a huge billboard for one. The problem is…those ice cream cones are only 150 miles away and the signs keep popping up the entire distance across the state of Wyoming.

Colorado
Here again I was blessed with some more summer fun. After dropping off my roommate in Fort Collins, I traveled the short distance down to Denver to spend a day with my cousin there. We decided a fly fishing trip was in order in the Rocky mountains. A friend of his loaded our fishing gear up in his jeep and drove us into the mountains for a fun afternoon of fishing at a high mountain lake. Aside from the lightning and hail storm that we got stuck in, it was a lot of fun. The fishing was slow, although two guys we were with caught 7 nice trout between the two of them.

Kansas
Kansas gets a bad rap for being so flat and boring. The truth be told, much of Colorado is just as flat if not more so, than Kansas. Of course, I don’t know which is worse…advertising ice cream cones for eternity or advertising the world’s largest Prairie Dog and a 5 legged live Cow. You make the call.

Missouri
It’s too bad I drove through most of this state in the dark. Because of this small fact I don’t have any pictures and I can’t make fun of it. Who knows what kind of signs I was missing. The world’s largest Hamster maybe? Or the 101 legged centipede? I guess I’ll just have to wait until I drive through again someday to find out.

Illinois
Did you ever play with Lincoln Logs as a kid? Or do you remember being told that Abraham Lincoln grew up in a log cabin? Well they must have been lying to us because I didn’t see any trees big enough in Illinois to make a log house out of. What I did see was miles and miles of corn. In fact, one city I saw was completely obscured by the corn fields. Only the 60 foot high signs gave any hint that life existed beyond those corn fields.

Indiana
The line between Illinois and Indiana is obscure. I mean, one corn field begins and another one ends but who knows exactly where that is. Maybe that’s why Indiana decided to place their “Welcome to Indiana” sign upwards of 2 miles inside the state line instead of the customary hundreds of feet like most states. Maybe they just wanted to make good and sure these corn fields were really theirs and not their neighbor’s to the west.

All in all, my trip out from Oregon was very good and uneventful. Balaam never spoke up and I didn’t experience any car problems. That is until I had finished unpacking my car but that’s another story all together. Now I’m slowly getting settled into my new little apartment and I’ve been feverishly painting the walls and cleaning it up a bit to make it ‘mine.’ It’s a good start to a hopefully great year ahead.

In Case You Haven't Heard

It seems like I’ve been telling people for months now that I would be moving to Indiana this summer, but every so often I run into somebody that hasn’t heard yet. So in case you haven’t heard, this post is for you!

In the next week or so I’ll be leaving for Indiana to start my new position with OMS. I decided earlier this spring that once my time was finished with Dave Graffenberger, I would begin working at the OMS headquarters as a part time assistant to Dean Davis. Dean is the International Director of Every Community for Christ, which is the same department that I was working in while I was acting as Dave’s assistant. Other than my location, not a lot will be changing for me. I’ll get to travel around the world with Dean just like I did with Dave and there will be some other projects that I’ll participate in once I get to Indiana. The biggest of these projects will be the production of a video for ECC that we are hoping to have finished up by May of 2008.

As for my trip to Indiana, many people have asked how I’m getting there. I’ve learned a lot of cool car packing tricks from my time overseas so I've decided to give it a try myself. Next week I'll load my car up as much as possible then drive it 2000+ miles to Indiana. Those things which don’t fit into or on top of my car will just be left behind for now. If you get a glimpse of an overloaded VW Jetta running on the interstates, say a little prayer for me and my safe journey!

A few people have asked if they’ll ever see me in Oregon again. The answer to that is Yes! In October I am planning a trip out for the OMS missions in the Northwest conference. This will be held in Clackamas, Oregon on the weekend of October 5-6, 2007. This event is open to anyone to attend, so be sure to check out the link above for more information concerning it and save the dates on your calendar. In the near future a mailing should be going out giving more details as well. Regarding any other visits I may make to Oregon, I don’t have definite plans for anything just yet. I will say, however, that I have lots of frequent flyer miles to use up and the Oregon Ducks have 7 home football games this year so it might be hard for me to stay away come Saturdays this fall.

My Last Act of Assistance

Last week makred my final week working with Dave Graffenberger. On Tuesday I traveled down to Albany to spend the night at his house and perform my final duties for him. On the schedule was a 2 hour crash course photography lesson for his grandson Levi and a long overdue fly fishing lesson for Dave. Dave had actually asked for his fly fishing lesson last summer, but neither of us found the time to get it done. We didn’t want that to happen again this year so we marked it on our calendar and carried it out as if it were our final trip.

Dave and I got some fishing in on Tuesday night and then again early Wednesday morning. The reality was I didn’t prove to be a very good teacher. Most of the time was spent reacquainting myself with my fly poles and trying to remember just what I was suppose to be doing. This was my first chance to fly fish in over 5 years. In the end, Dave didn’t catch anything and I caught just 2 fish. Even though the fishing was slow it was an awesome way to spend our final time together and enjoy God’s beauty. At one point while we were fishing, a deer walked out on the river bank behind us and stood there watching us for quite some time. No doubt this will be one of my lasting memories of Oregon and Dave Graffenberger as I now look at packing up my stuff and moving to Indiana.

Be Encouraged

“We are not alone!” Those words echoed in my mind as I sat and listened to the testimony that one of our ECC pastors recently gave in a pastoral prayer meeting with his fellow pastors in Central Asia. Paul (name changed for security reasons) had just returned to his home country after having been in Korea for the ECC conference. Because his country was the next one that Dave and I were visiting after Korea, we got to spend some additional time with him.As Paul shared about his experiences at the Korean conference and the seminars he attended, he paused for a moment to share about his biggest experience. He explained how over 90,000 Christian believers had gathered in the Olympic Stadium in Seoul to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the church in Korea. (See my previous post about Korea) That’s when he made the statement I will never forget. Paul said; “I was in a Stadium with over 90,000 Christians, and it was so exciting to know that we are not alone! We have Christian brothers and sisters around the world!”

When I first heard Paul say this I thought to myself, ‘Well of course were not alone! That’s obvious!’ But then I began to realize that perhaps my perspective on worldwide Christianity is vastly different from most people. Only a few years ago I was completely naïve to the size of the Christian church around the world even though I had all the advantages of coming from the western world with its vast wealth of media and information. Why should I be critical of Paul for having this new revelation since he comes from a rural village in Central Asia where running water and electricity are luxuries?

Maybe you are like Paul and have never realized that we are not alone. Or maybe you know, but haven’t given it much thought. Let me encourage you the same way that Paul encouraged his fellow pastors to take comfort from the fact that you are not alone in your faith! Let me also encourage you to continually lift up your brothers and sisters in Christ around the world through prayer. Many of them need the encouragement of knowing that they too are not alone, and through the power of the Holy Spirit and prayer, they too can know this.

New Pictures

I have uploaded the most recent photos from Korea into my photo gallery. Tomorrow I leave Korea for a Central Asian country where I will be for the next week and a half. My internet connections will be limited so I'll write about that at a later date. Thanks for taking the time to drop by here and see what I'm up too!

-Lon

Lessons from Seoul

Making an encore appearance…my guardian angles

Have you ever had a time when you feel a bit lonely even though you are in the middle of lots of people? Say 20+ million? That happened to me the other day…in the middle of Seoul where so many people reside that it’s virtually impossible to find a place of solitude even if you really wanted.

It started with one incorrect assumption on my part…that I knew exactly where I was going to be dropped off by the local bus. It wasn’t a totally stupid thing to think, I had taken this bus last year, or so I thought, and had remembered exactly where I needed to get off in order to find the local train station. Only this time, when those bus doors opened and I landed on the sidewalk nothing at all looked even remotely familiar. I quickly realized one of three things had probably just gone wrong for me.

1) The bus route had changed from last year

2) They’ve really been constructing the buildings quickly around here and that’s why the skyline is different

3) I had mistakenly gotten on the wrong bus.

Whatever the reason, I soon had that sinking feeling of “where am I” and “will God give me the gift of speaking in Korean tongues right now?”

The gift of tongues didn’t come to me, but I think God gave me another visit from my guardian angles who travel with me wherever I go. (See my blog about Africa and the car with flat tires) After I wandered around a bit I eventually came across a nice group of Koreans who could see my confusion of how all these buildings had appeared so quickly since last year. They were willing to help walk me to the train station after I repeatedly pointed to my subway map and tried desperately to pronounce the name of the station I was looking for. One of them even spoke English and helped me buy my train ticket and made sure I got on the correct train.

The whole experience was a great reminder to me of just how much I’m not alone even when I think I am. It was a great reminder to me of the Lord’s promise that “He will never leave us or forsake us.” Deut. 31:6

The Frustration of Simplicity

The other day I had a classic missionary moment (two moments if you include the bus story above). I found it kind of funny so maybe you will too. Back in July of 2006 I spent three weeks in a Cross Cultural training seminar at OMS’s headquarters. I remember sitting in those classes having already traveled around the world two or three times thinking “why do I need to be here?” One day during the training, we were talking about the frustrations of being on the mission field and not being able to accomplish a seemingly simple task. An example was given by the teacher of how he once spent a long time trying to cross a busy street in India but couldn’t figure out how to cross the street. I remember thinking to myself…that would never happen to me! Oh those arrogant words you wish you’d never thought or said!

How could something as simple as crossing the street cause any kind of problem? I can hear you asking the question right now. Before you begin to doubt that you too would ever have this problem (the mistake I had made one year ago) let me explain what happened.

As it was, my friend and I were in a large park wanting to be on the other side of a 6 lane road that separated us from the hiking trail we desired to take. Normally, a pedestrian bridge which was over our heads would have taken us to the other side easily but on this day it was closed due to repairs that were being made. That wasn’t a big deal for we could see that all along the street there were cross walks allowing people to cross the busy street in safety. The real problem however, was that the park we were in happened to be fenced off from the street and the sidewalks that we could so easily see. That’s where the frustration sets in. To be able to see clearly where you want to be and know that, except for one small obstacle, you would be there. We walked down several well worn paths only to discover that they also ended up at the fence. Obviously we weren’t the only ones who had been fooled by the easiness of crossing a street.

Needless to say, we eventually found our way out to the sidewalk and street where we could cross. The experience reminded me though, that even a seemingly simple task like crossing the street can provide challenges for those who are proud enough to think they can’t!

100 years and counting

A Cause for Celebration!

This past Sunday was a very special day…one of the more memorable experiences I’ve had in the past two years. In 1907, the founders of OMS international came to Korea from Japan and began what is now known as the Korean Evangelical Holiness Church (KEHC). As part of my special role in traveling and doing photography for OMS, I was privileged to be a part of their 100^th anniversary celebration which took place in the Seoul Olympic Stadium that was constructed for the 1988 summer Olympics.

The story of the KEHC’s history is compelling and hope inspiring. During it’s relatively short 100 years of history it has seen hard times and good times alike. When the empire of Japan invaded Korea in the early 1900’s, many Korean believers were imprisoned, martyred and scattered. Later, when Korea fell into civil war, the church in the North was separated from the South. To this day, it is not known what happened to those KEHC church members in North Korea. Yet with all the hardship that the Korean church has endured, it stands strong today. With almost 2600 churches and a membership of over 700,000 people, the KEHC is one of the greatest success stories that OMS has. As a nation, South Korea is second only to the United States in the total number of missionaries it sends around the world. The KEHC plays a part in this strong missionary sending tradition. Today, OMS partners with KEHC missionaries in several countries around the world. As for the celebration that I got to attend, I don’t really know where to begin. As a group of foreign guests we were escorted into the stadium to sit on the ground level directly in front of the stage. As we entered the stadium, the stands were already mostly full. An estimated 90,000+ people were there to join the party. Throughout the course of the night there were bands, dramatic performances, preaching, congratulatory speeches, and even a fireworks show. It was a lot of fun and I feel so blessed to have been allowed to be a part of it.

ECC’s worldwide Gathering

Due to the 100^th celebration in Korea, ECC decided to hold a worldwide gathering of it’s coordinators in Seoul for the week following the celebration. Due to political situations and problems with visa’s, not every coordinator was able to attend, but even so there are over 60 of us gathered in Korea for the remainder of this week. It has been so much fun to witness a combination of cultures as men and women from 6 continents meet to discuss church planting multiplication and methods of evangelism. As these leaders come together, they are encouraged by the stories from their fellow workers around the world and I think we are all gaining a better appreciation for how much we all have in common. Here is a partial sampling of the countries that are represented in our meetings (South Africa, Cameroon, New Zealand, Mexico, Colombia, Spain, Ukraine, Estonia, Brazil, India, Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and many more!)

For more pictures from the stadium celebration or our ECC conference, please check out my photo gallery.

Russia Trip Update

Dave and I began this latest trip last Sunday leaving in the afternoon from Portland. A young man (Marty) from Oregon left with us on his way to work at the OMS camp in Spain for the next 5 months. Since this was Marty’s first trip outside of the United States, Dave wanted to escort him personally to the camp in Spain. The short detour to Spain wasn’t far out of the way for us and it provided a good opportunity for Dave and I to visit some of the friends we had made at the camp one year ago when we stayed for two weeks to work there.

After dropping Marty off, Dave and I made our way to Moscow where we’ve been since Wednesday. The purpose of our trip to Moscow is really three-fold. First, Dave is on the board of directors for the OMS seminary in Moscow. As I sit here writing this blog, Dave is involved with his board meetings. Secondly, we are here for the seminary graduation ceremony tomorrow (Saturday). I’m unsure of the number of students graduating this year, but last year it was around 13 students if I remember correctly. The third reason we are in Russia is to visit some churches. On Sunday I am heading three hours North of Moscow to visit an ECC related church. After that I’ll be returning to Moscow on Monday.

The rest of my time in Russia next week will mainly be passing away some extra time before heading to Korea on Thursday. Dave is going to make a brief trip to India for three days while I stay behind in Russia on my own. The reason I’m not going is to save some money on the airfare. Dave is going for meetings only, so I would have just been stuck there in a Hotel for those days. The same is true for me here in Russia except that I am a bit more free to travel around on my own and at least the temperature here is well below 100 degrees which can’t be said for India.

I have uploaded some of the most recent photos of our trip so far onto my photo gallery. As the trip progresses I’ll try to keep posting some new pictures as often as I can.

Africa by the Numbers

2 – Flat tires in Burundi

2,000,000 – potholes hit before those tires went flat

11 – people who decided to accept Christ during our visits in Burundi

93 – orphans who welcomed us in Kenya

1 – African Quaker who I met in Kenya

3 – numbers of times he told me that he hadn’t seen me "quake" yet

9 – Pastors that we visited during their training course in Burundi

5 – churches visited in Burundi

3 – hours spent touring the apartheid museum in South Africa

4 – Countries visited (outside of an airport)

16 – African countries that ECC expects to work in for 2007

100,000 – minimum number of times that I was called a “Mazungu”

1 – day spent in Rwanda

2 – days spent in Burundi

100+ – Mosquitoes swarming in my room in Burundi

5 – Mosquito bites from those Mosquitoes

0 – Mosquito bites that anyone else in our group received

5 – days spent in Kenya

6 – days spent in South Africa

3 – average daily banana consumption

6 – the most number of bicyclists I’ve seen holding on to any one truck for a free ride

9 – airports traveled through from start to finish

2 – small sticks of sugar cane eaten

116 – days until I return to Africa

On the Wings of an Angel

Last September, Dave and I along with a small team came to Burundi to visit churches. On that trip we hired a mini-bus to drive our team around and we noted then how rough the road conditions were for a 2 wheel drive vehicle to navigate. Although we didn’t have any problems, it wasn’t for the lack of opportunities. So you can imagine our surprise last week when our ECC coordinator John showed up to take us church visiting in his small Toyota Corolla.

As John got out of his car, Dave immediately questioned him about where we would be traveling and the suitability of his car to make the journey. John assured us that all the churches we would visit were easily reached with his car and that we had nothing to fear. Wanting to trust in John, Dave accepted his explanation and we were soon heading down the roads on our way out of town.

We should have known better not to so easily accept John’s explanation about the adequacy of his car. As we were making our way out of town, we came to a section of road that was being repaired. Normally (if there is such a thing in Africa) we would have waited patiently for a lane of traffic to open and made our way through the construction area. Instead, John was emboldened by the sight of an ambitious mini-bus driver to take a short cut across an adjacent soccer field.

John followed the mini-bus across the soccer field and we had almost scored a clear goal, when out from behind a nearby building stepped a police officer who quickly flagged us down to question our drive through the field. I’m not sure what John said to the police but he let us proceed after a few minutes of scolding. As we were making our way off the field though, the “little car that could” got high centered on a dirt embankment that surrounded the field so we all had to pile out of the car and push it to get it unstuck.

After the soccer field incident we quickly made our way back to the pavement and we all hoped that our excitement for the day had just finished. We were wrong though, as we’d soon find out it was only beginning.

The first church we visited was only slightly off the beaten path. A short drive down a dirt road between grass huts and across a grassy pasture brought us quickly to our destination. The second church was a bit more of a challenge as we dodged pot hole after pothole on a seemingly endless stretch of dirt “road.” It was the third church visit, though, which really put the poor little car through it’s paces and caused us to wonder if John had really believed what he told us earlier in the day about the easiness of our journey.

After winding back and forth and up and down the “roads” between a series of grass huts in a village we made our way down a walking path which led into the hills. The kids that came running out of the grass huts to see us seemed doubly excited for not only were they witnessing the rare occurrence of white people driving by, but I imagine they were witnessing the rare occurrence of anything driving by. I could see very little evidence that any vehicles (4 wheel drive or otherwise) had ever driven down these paths.

We continued on our way and John’s little car did a surprisingly good job. We crossed creek beds, straddled large ruts formed by rain storms, blazed through knee deep grass, and made our way up and down steep slopes. After nearly an hour of driving we finally arrived at the little church.

The people were quite happy to welcome us, and our time there was precious. As is the case in so many of our church visits, the mere sight of white people will cause villagers to show up at the church just to see what’s going on whether or not they are believers. Because of this, John presented the gospel in the native language and 10 people decided to accept Christ. It was a great experience to witness. (I’ll write more about this in the future)

Our trip home was much like the trip out. John’s mighty little Corolla got us back to town safely after a few more hours of driving.

The next morning John was scheduled to pick us up and take us to the airport. When he arrived we learned that we had been riding on the wings of angels the previous day. John told us how the previous night after he had dropped us off at our hotel one of his tires suddenly went flat. He replaced it with the spare and made his way home. The next morning when he woke up, another tire was flat. John had to borrow a spare tire from his neighbor’s car in order to pick us up that morning. At that point, there wasn’t a single member of our group who could deny that it had only been the grace of God which had allowed us to make it safely home the day before. The tires that had gone flat should have lost their pressure long before we made it home.

My Rickshaw Video

I've had this video ready to go for a long time, but didn't have an adequate internet connection to upload it until my return to Oregon a few days ago. I hope you enjoy it. It's very typical of transportation in India.

Spring Cleaning

If you look around a little bit, you'll notice I've made some small changes to my blog and added a few new links for everyone to look at.

First of all, I've created an online Calendar so now you can view my traveling schedule and see where I'll be next November if you'd like. If you want to check that out just follow the link under "Lon's Links" titled My Travel Calendar. Please note that my schedule changes frequently so anything more than a month away is simply my best guess at this point.

I've also added a few more missionary blogs from some of my co-workers at OMS. If you've never checked any of their blogs out you should! There is a big, big world out there and OMS is blessed to have some awesome missionaries serving in it.

On a slightly different note, if you ever have any questions or would like me to address a certain topic please feel free to write me and let me know. My creativity needs some help from time to time and I'd also like to make this blog relevant to those who read it and not just myself. Thanks so much!

Snow Day Deja Vu

I figured that one good snow storm this winter would be the best I could hope for. Back in January I thought heaven had come and gone when we saw a few inches in Oregon. Maybe you've seen the Frosty the snowman video in my last post?

Well, little did I know that I would be treated to 2 more of these snow storms! The latest couple have come in Indiana where I've been staying for a week now and where I'll be until the beginning of March. (I'll say more about that shortly.) While I haven't been able to find anyone willing to let me borrow their car for another snowman test drive, I have been able to enjoy the snow none-the-less.

Finding anything other than flat land in Indiana can be a challenge. (Don't let my friends from Indiana know I said that.) However, there is a small eh....um..."hill" behind one of the guest houses at the OMS campus that provided some fun a few nights back. A small group of us went out around 10pm to take a few sledding runs in the dark. It was great fun despite how cold it was. In case anyone thinks that all I've been up to recently, though, is playing in the snow and traveling, let me explain why I'm in Indiana to begin with.

Every year around this time, the ECC administration team gets together to approve the operating budgets for the upcoming fiscal year(Apr. 1 - Mar. 31). We also meet to compile the year end report and statistics for the ministry in the previous calendar year. It's a lot of clerical work, but it's all part of what has to be done behind the scenes to make the ministry work. The past few days I've been assigned to compile statistical data and compare it to to last year to see which countries are reaping the biggest harvest. I'm not at liberty to publish any results yet but I can say that this has been a very exciting year for our ministry in Africa. Worldwide, however, almost every field OMS is working in has had improved results. Praise God!

The two pictures above are a)my sledding cohorts b)the apartment complex that I'm living in this month. I'm posting more pictures of the snow and ice and sledding in my photo gallery so check it out.

Snow Day in the Northwest

Yesterday we had the "Great Winter Blast" of 2007 here in the Portland, Oregon area. I measured about 4 inches of snow at my house which isn't a lot by most of the Nation's standards, but for Oregon it is enough to shut everything down. Because of this, my roommates and I didn't have to work so we spent the day playing in our winter wonder land.

I wandered around town for a bit and took some photos and then my roommate and I visited a local sledding hill to watch people crash and wipe out. The hill is pretty fun, but in the middle of it there is a rock wall and about a 2 foot drop off. Some people manage to land this "jump" easily while others don't. It's the ones who don't which make watching so much fun! Check it out by clicking here!

Once we finished our time at the sledding hill, we returned home for lunch. Shortly after lunch we had a small snowball war with our neighborhood kids. It started out with just myself, 2 roommates, and another friend. Then a bunch of neighborhood kids got involved (about 8 of them) and for the next hour or so it wasn't really safe to be outside unless you were prepared to be attacked.

Finally, we finished with a vehicular assault on Frosty the snowman. Click here to watch the video.