Updates On This Sunday's Second Offering
"... for in you the fatherless find compassion" Hosea14:3
Dear friends,
It’s been six weeks of the Russian war against Ukraine. The latest videos and testimonies of the brutality of Putin’s liberators are horrific. How can humans do this to other humans? Bodies scattered on the roads shot in their heads, mass graves, raped women and girls, were all discovered in towns after the Russian military left the Kiev region. It is impossible to imagine what so many families are living through. Mariupol, Irpen, Chernihiv, Sumy and many other cities are still without electricity, water or heat. Some families were rescued, thank God, but many are still there. Families in the occupied towns, or close to the war zones are begging to get out.
Our drivers made few trips to the Luhansk region this week. The reports that have come out say that the Russian army is regrouping and will hit the regions in eastern Ukraine hard. With the brutal behavior of Putin’s army in Bucha, Irpen and Mariupol, many people in Luhansk, Donezk, Zaporizhya, Kharkiv and other Eastern regions are in a panic and are trying to get out. Please pray for the people and our drivers.
Few other teams drove to Trostyanets, in the Sumy region, a city that was liberated from the Russian “liberators” a few days ago. We brought them food, medicine, diapers, and baby food. The people in Trostyanets were very grateful that they were not forgotten. They welcomed the Ukrainian army with hugs and tears.
There are so many people that need help that there is no time to rest. The occupied cities need survival food and supplies. Our teams are working day and night, driving to occupied cities to bring food, water, first aid supplies, thermoses, camping stoves, and wood burning cookers just to help those people survive. Our drivers made many trips to Chernihiv, where the Russian army tried to encircle the city like Mariupol, to bring them supplies and to get as many people out as we can.
By God’s grace, the volunteers in Ukraine are doing an amazing job, many times risking their own lives, but always willing to go and help. Besides our drivers, many are cooking meals, sewing uniforms, knitting hats, digging fox holes, and fixing cars. Our part is to pray and make sure they have the means to do just that. We received a request from the hospital in Dripro. They are asking for help with surgical instruments. We also received requests from churches housing refugees, asking for more cots or beds.
Thank you all for supporting Little Lambs Ministry. Because of your support, we were able to purchase 4 vans (2 in Ukraine, and 2 in Germany). We have shipped 36 tons of food, medicine, diapers, camping cots, sleeping bags, baby food and hygiene supplies from Germany. We were able to help hospitals, orphanages, churches and other volunteer groups who drive all over Ukraine to deliver food and bring people to safety. Housing and lodging is still a big problem, so we are adding 3 more cabins to our camp. We are hoping to ship more beds or camping cots from Germany.
Thank you all for your generous support and your prayers! As Ukrainians face such violence and unimaginable losses, we need to continue to do all we can to help these families. Please pray how you can help! Thank you for your love and support.
Follow us on Facebook for more frequent updates and prayer.
Renate Kurz, President of Little Lambs Ministry
The people in Ukraine need our help today!
"Join The Journey" Letter Launch
- This Morning's Message
What shall we do with these three verses?
HUYSER PRAYER LETTER
Spring 2022
Identifying, encouraging, connecting, and equipping local Christian leaders for the transformation of lives, communities, and culture.
The Laborers are Plentiful
Breathing. Inhaling and exhaling. Both are necessary for life.
What is inhaled must be exhaled. Exhaling in turn prompts inhaling.
Lately I have been wondering whether joining God in His mission is like breathing. We often think of mission as “sending,” or, we might say “exhaling.” And there is good reason for that. After all, in the Great Commission Jesus tells his disciples to go into all the world (Matthew 28:19). In John 20:21 Jesus says, “As the Father sent me I am sending you.”
But if “exhaling” must be paired with “inhaling.’ I have been wondering lately if “sending” needs to be complemented by “receiving” or, we might say, “inhaling.”
Let me give an example. I have known congregations that were very involved in declaring and demonstrating the Gospel in their communities, and even sent missionaries that literally went to the ends of the earth. People received the life of Christ through the witness of believers. And that was a good thing. It was a very good thing.
But rarely did new believers join the church that was doing the “sending.” The church was good at “sending” but not so much at “receiving.” It “exhaled” but did not “inhale.” Something is missing from the fullness of life in Christ when our faith communities do not both exhale and inhale.
Grace-filled communities of belonging
Paul was the greatest apostle (“sent one”) of all time. Yet in his letters to the churches he seems to focus more on “receiving” than “sending.” About half of each of his letters are devoted to the church gathered being a grace-filled community of belonging where “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)
In other words, at the forefront of Paul’s mind as he thought of the missionary calling of the church was not just sending but also receiving. Paul envisioned local communities of faith that would receive, welcome and embrace the diversity of people that the Lord was calling to himself as he and others were “sent.”
The missional challenge of “sending” and “receiving” is the same. Both require that we cross barriers to form Gospel-shaped friendships with people different from us – people that may not be of our tribe, culture, perspective, or even taste.
Yet this is the heart of mission because that is exactly what the Father did when he sent his only Son to become “flesh” and dwell among us (John 1:14). When we are “sent” to people different than us and “receive” them in our faith communities, we are joining the mission the Father has already initiated to redeem his beloved, but broken, creation.
Receiving Gospel Workers
This past month I had a wonderful opportunity to join a prayer meeting of CRC Hispanic church planters in Houston. There are already five Hispanic church plants in Texas. At the prayer meeting we were introduced to three other couples that are preparing to plant churches.
The Resonate local mission leader in Texas, Pastor Andy Systma, has done an excellent job of “receiving” these new Gospel workers and building bridges between them and existing CRC churches in the city and in the region. Two of the church planters will be planting Spanish-speaking congregations out of existing English-speaking churches. Careful work has been done to build friendships between the congregations and the church planters they will be hosting.
In Matthew 9: 37 Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” The harvest is also plentiful today. But I am increasingly convinced that the Gospel workers are not few, they are also plentiful. Jesus’ prayer is being answered!
The challenge is that many of the Gospel workers that God is putting at our doorsteps are different from us and bring the riches of their own culture and experience. How might the Spirit be inviting us to welcome and embrace them with Gospel-shaped, barrier-crossing friendship?
P.S. One powerful way to grow in your capacity to ‘receive” others who different culturally and ethnically is by participating in a Healing Hearts, Transforming Nations immersive event. This is where you can learn more: Healing Hearts Transforming Nations Event
A Personal Note
Jeannie and I are so grateful for your faithful prayer and support over the years since we first joined Christian Reformed World Missions (now Resonate Global Mission) in 1995. You were our partners in the Gospel as we moved to Costa Rica, then Nicaragua, and finally to Dallas, Texas, where we now live.
You accompanied us as we founded the Nehemiah Center in Nicaragua and Jeannie worked at Nicaragua Christian Academy and God’s Treasures. You followed my (Joel’s) journey into leading transformation networks worldwide and most recently into being one of the global area leaders for Resonate as well as leading our guiding team for diaspora and ethnic ministry.
Now there is another change. The executive director of Resonate, Dr. Zachary King, has been nominated as general secretary of the Christian Reformed Church, subject to confirmation by Synod in June. I have been asked as of April 1 to assume many of his duties as he prepares for the transition. Subject to his confirmation, I will serve as the Interim Director of Resonate until a new director is confirmed by Resonate, hopefully at the Synod of 2023.
I covet your prayers for myself and for Jeannie, who will bear the burden of my business and the delay in my retirement. We would ask two other things of you during the transition of the next three months.
The first is that you continue your support of us through this June as we have budgeted based on Jeannie and I meeting our support goals for this fiscal year (July 1, 2021 - June 30, 2022).
The second is that you continue to support the work of Resonate even after June 30. I hope in the near future to be offering opportunities for you to continue support of projects in which we have been intimately involved (and you through us!) or to other Resonate missionaries.
Joel