Hello Everyone,
I am writing this on Sunday August 23rd. I have had a great week in NZ and am in the process of enjoying a nice day. I spent the morning in church and then went to the local farmers market and got a very good breakfast. Just talked with my dad for a little while and got an update on life in Minnesota. The weather is overcast giving me a great excuse to enjoy a day to myself. I hope you enjoy the cool things that God has done in our ministry this past week.
Monday we spent the day learning about missions from a team of three missionaries from an Organization called W_E_C. I learned a lot about culture and how it applies to God's plan for creation. Culture and worldview need to be understood in our different pursuits of bringing the Gospel to the world.
Three principle things were focused on in Monday's lecture
A reflection on God's promises and nature
building our understanding of what it means to know God
A commitment to intentionally overflow God's blessing, and influence other peoples.
Intention to overflow one foot in front of other
From evangelism to world evangelism
effective communication depends on shared meaning. That is: agreement over interpretation.
We also received a workbook called my neighbors are weird and I have learned some practical tips to overcoming cultural differences and being sensitive to differences.
I found Monday's teaching really interesting and I immediately compared it to the different people I have meant over here in NZ. My friends from New Zealand do not like to stand out and lead a group and I realize that is because of their different beliefs and enculturation. I also noticed differences in my friends from Switzerland, Indonesia, India, Holland and Japan. My friend from India has different ways of respecting our leadership than my friends from the U.S., Canada, and New Zealand. He has a really hard time speaking up in lecture because his culture deems that as disrespectful to the leader.
Tuesday we learned more about culture and missions more from a Biblical standpoint.
Biblical Principles
1 John 4:8
Romans 5:8
John 3:16
Genesis 12:1-3
Psalm 72:19
Habakkuk 2:14
Matthew 6:10
We prayed for single mothers and spent our afternoon completing our journals and book reports from the week before in Queenstown. I read my book “Heavenly Man” it is about a Chinese man who spent his life trying to give secular China the truths that he had found in the love of Christ.
Wednesday I woke up thinking that we would be skiing in fresh powder because it had been snowing a lot on the mountains. I found out that the mountain roads were inaccessible and that we were to have a day to ourselves. I enjoyed my day. I spent it in prayer and rest. I needed to recuperate after the week we spent in Queenstown.
Thursday morning I was up and at 'em early enjoying devotions and time with God. I focused on His promises in Scripture and prepared myself for our day of learning and prayer. We prayed for our team that is heading to Africa and then we learned about culture and spent time learning about the respective places that our teams are heading too.
I started to study the T_urkish language and spent time studying different beliefs that most T_urkish people hold. My team watched a video about missionaries who had worked in T_urkey previously. Eric, the man from W_E_C, had lived in T_urkey for 7 ½ years. He told us many things about being respectful and polite in T_urkish Culture.
Friday I woke up early and got ready to go to Christchurch for the evening. We had a time of worship in the morning and I was reminded of God's love for me as a Father. I had a picture of my dad picking me up when I was young and making “everything better” and I realized that God does that for me and loves me as a dad would love his son. It is ironic that we had the option of going to a seminar and learning about God's love for us as a Father that night. I went to the seminar for a couple of hours after enjoying some time in Christchurch.
In Christchurch my friend and I meant up with a friend of ours, who we had taken out to eat the week before and had invited to a few of our events over the past months. He had heard the Gospel message from us and was excited to spend time with us. We had told him that if he wanted to go snowboarding with us he could. So after we were done hanging out with him in Christchurch we had him over at our base for the night and then gave him a ride to the mountain the next day. I spent quite a bit of time with him. We talked about many things and both shared our respective beliefs. I hope that he comes to faith and ask that you pray for him. He went with a team of ours to Methven were we fed him. I hope he had a great rest of the night.
I am very blessed by your gifts for my outreach team and I know that we will continue to thrive under your prayer. I am glad to hear that most of you are doing well and hope for the best for all of you.
In Christ's Love,
Travis
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