Why are all of these people smiling so big? 

Last week 3 of our teammates (see Mark, Kay and Karin below) traveled to Ghana and Kenya to “train the trainers” in the launch of a mobile phone based Bible leadership project.

The smiling gentlemen you see here are holding their training certificates after mastering the skills needed to install specific Bible software on mobile phones and administrate Bible leadership courses for hundreds of eager students in their own countries.

Yesterday we showed you a video presenting a quick overview of the project – called “Pastors Training in Leadership (PTL)”

Purpose of PTL:

Pastors Training in Leadership (PTL) is a three level series of courses on a mobile phone designed to equip pastors for church planting. Created by the Nairobi International School of Theology in Nairobi, Kenya, these courses provide theological training for pastors and lay church leaders.  Church growth in this area of Africa is happening at an exponential rate – and there is a drastic short supply of trained pastors.  Many congregations share a lay pastor – a “normal” church member who serves 2 or 3 churches while maintaining a full time job in his community.

PTL exists to provide the theological training pastors need to plant churches across the African Sahara Belt (Senegal to Somalia). Each of the PTL Coordinators are responsible to recruit pastors in their country and then encourage, mobilize, and energize them to go north to the Sahara Belt and plant churches, where the Lord is adding many to His church.

Prayer Requests:

• Ask God to protect each of these leaders whom our teammates served last week, who will in turn train many others to conduct the Bible training courses in their own countries.
• Pray that the Nairobi International School of Theology - creators of the course contents and curriculum – would quickly be able to translate their curriculum into French and other languages.  Many countries in Africa are waiting for this training, but need to have it in their own language.
• Ask the Lord to provide a mobile phone for each lay pastor who wants to take the course.  Smart phones are readily available in most cities, but must be purchased and cared for.

Praise for all the Lord Did Last Week:

• 28 trained church leaders were trained and certified for the roles of Technical Coordinator and PTL Coordinator representing 10 countries – from Ethiopia to Ghana to Swaziland to Zimbabwe.  Praise the Lord!
• Faith goal: 2,400 lay pastors equipped to plant churches in the Sahara Belt starting this year!

Have you ever shopped at The Golden Rule store? Listened to something from the Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Firm? Talked on a product from the Finnish Rubber Works or used equipment from the Computer Tabulation Recording Company? If those company names don’t resonate with you, perhaps you know them by their current names: JCPenney, Sony, Nokia, and IBM.

Sometimes, names that made sense when a company was young hinder their operations as they grow.

Words Matter

Campus Crusade for Christ celebrated 60 years of ministry a few months ago. However, for the last several years we’ve wrested with the reality that our name is perceived differently now than it was in 1951.  For many Americans, the term “crusade” is filled with negative connotations.  Also, our ministry has expanded far beyond the college campus, so the term “campus” is inadequate or confusing in recruiting efforts for our Military Ministry, just as one example.  Our ministry leadership has listened carefully to a LOT of feedback from our staff members, students who might join us as missionaries one day, financial partners and even many Christians and non-Christians not connected with our ministry.  Overwhelmingly, the responses have shown that we would be much more effective with a new name.

Our Board of Directors came to the difficult conclusion that changing the ministry’s name was essential.  This process took over 3 years.  And it was covered in a lot of prayer.

However, just to clarify, the new name is only for our USA organization.  Ministries in other countries will continue to use their own name.  Native leaders in each country always have and always will choose the name for their ministry.  Some countries will keep “Campus Crusade for Christ” while others, such as “LIFE Ministries” in Kenya and “Power to Change” in Canada remain the same.

Field Tested

Starting about 15 years ago, several of our local college ministries started to abbreviate their local name as “Cru”, and found that this name was received very positively. After evaluating more than 1,600 possible names, our Board of Directors – while praying earnestly – made the decision to change our U.S. ministry name to Cru starting early in 2012.

Some news reports have suggested our name change is because the ministry is ashamed of the word “Christ.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

The only reason Campus Crusade for Christ is changing the name of our U.S. ministry is so that we can be more effective in sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.  His name is the One we want to see embraced!!

Stay Tuned

Lord willing, we’ll post another update tomorrow with a “Q&A Dialogue with David & Shannon” concerning the name change.  Don’t miss it on HandsHeadlines.com

What happens when 170 creative volunteers and staff from 32 countries gather in one place for three days to answer the following question? ….

How do we leverage the huge opportunities of the internet to deliver the timeless, unchanging message of Christ in fresh, changing ways?

Earlier this month, my team from Orlando helped host this major conference in Bangkok, Thailand.  Even amidst terrible flooding in the country, our gathering was a major success – thanks to God.

“Bangkok or Bust: Campus Crusade Talks Tech Amidst Historic Thailand Floods“ was the article the Christian Post e-zine wrote detailing.  You can check out the article here.

Ideas that Ship:

One of the unique of our conference was spending two hours each morning in small innovative workgroups. Each workgroup made a plan to solve a problem or develop an innovative approach to moving people from making a decision, to being a disciple of Jesus. At the end of the conference, each group presented their proposed solution as a video.  The best solutions will receive seed funding to develop a prototype.

Imagine the power of 170 people returning home to 32 countries with new strategies, new passions, new relationships with like-minded digital ministry entrepreneurs! This is our dream becoming reality.

So, like FedEx, our goal for each workgroup was NOT simply to talk about ideas, but to DELIVER an idea that could work.  You can see each of the videos of proposed solutions here on YouTube.

Would you also like to know more about the diverse projects in internet ministry happening in Campus Crusade for Christ? Visit the MinistryNet Conference Virtual Ministry Fair.

Help2 video on Vimeo shows flood relief work.

Have you heard about the flooding in Thailand?

Since early October …

• Over 400 people killed
• 760,000 homes damaged
• Over 2.3 million people affected
• $5.1 billion in damages nationwide

This is the worst flooding Thailand has seen in 60 years!

Check out the video above to see how Campus Crusade staff in Thailand are responding to provide help in the name of Christ.  This is an opportunity for people to come to know Him.

Visit this web site to learn how you can help.

“Flight Cancelled.”  When you are a long ways from home and getting ready to board an international flight, these are not the words you want to hear.

Yesterday I departed Orlando en route to an exciting conference in Thailand which my team is helping sponsor.  About 200 Internet strategy leaders from CCC all around the world will attend.  … And I certainly am hoping to be one of them. 

The plan was to catch a connecting flight in Detroit which would fly me over the Pacific.  But Delta ran into some unforeseen mechanical problems with the 747 well before boarding was to begin in Detroit.  Several mechanics were dispatched as you see in the photo here.

So Delta issued meal vouchers and hotel vouchers to all the grounded passengers.  Delta sent me to a nice hotel and got me booked on another flight on Sunday (hopefully this one WILL get off the ground.)

Of course, another variable to all this is the fact that all of our luggage was loaded (and is still there!) on the waiting to be repaired aircraft:

Orlando is 80 degrees and Bangkok is 90 degrees.  I am wearing short sleeves and Detroit is 48 with low tonight of about 34.  Fortunately I did pack some extra underwear, one thin long sleeve shirt, and a toothbrush in my carry on.

SO, I purchased a few items in the airport for my hotel stay:

Please pray for:

1)  Flight to depart Detroit on time.

2)  Connection in Tokyo to go smoothly.  (I don’t take these things for granted now!)

3)  Pray for the 200 attendees – our missionary staff and volunteers – also flying in to Thailand from about 26 different countries.  Pray that they make it safely and that the Lord provides for their every need.

3)  If it goes well with my travels this time, I should make it to the hotel in Bangkok about 6 hours before my first seminar is set to begin.  Fortunately I am not scheduled to facilitate the first seminar, but will be facilitating two short seminars later in the day.  I really need time to prepare AND would nice to be refreshed before going into the seminar.  Pray for rest and focus from the Lord as I arrive.

Thanks!  I’ll try to post more updates to Facebook and Twitter after I arrive.

What a week in Bangalore, India! We arrived late Tuesday night (or early Wednesday morning) and will be returning home Monday.

Thanks for praying for the training.  It went very well.  We actually covered more ground than I thought we’d be able to.

How can I describe the people, the sights, the total experience here?  This video might help a bit.  I captured this on my phone while we were driving down the street – weaving around several cows just out for a stroll.

In the video, you don’t get the full range of sounds and smells that come with this city.  Here are a few word pictures which add to the story:

~ Horns honking all the time

~ Traffic is insane (the video clip doesn’t do it justice)

~ Street vendors, garbage and dogs all compete for street space

~ Warm, friendly and often quiet people

~ People are gracious in manners and service:  I haven’t been called “sir” so often ever in my life.

~ They are incredibly fast learners

~ Seems to be much chaos here, yet much productivity emerges

~ Extreme poverty contrasted by booming economy

~ Bangalore is one of the fastest growing cities in the world

~ Over Half a Billion cell phones in this country!

~ Islam rising very rapidly here

~ Jesus is also moving mightily: New churches are planted almost daily

~ Opportunities for global influence from this country are beyond plentiful

~ Truly, the Good Shepherd is calling his sheep here; and many new flocks are multiplying

Our time with the Campus Crusade staff was humbling and encouraging.  There were 12 staff who attended our training.  They came from places all around India and also Nepal and Bangladesh.  Several traveled for a day or more by train.

Impeccably Hospitable: All of them were incredibly gracious, and went much out of their way to make us feel welcome here.  I was expecting to be intimidated by them but they acted as if they were intimidated by us.  Yet we all connected well and the Spirit ministered to another as we helped each other learn, serving one another and enjoying different perspectives on reaching our world for Christ.

Training Huddle: My teammate Mike assists some of our trainees

To see my entire set of photos and videos from the Bangalore experience, visit the album here.

After returning home from our U.S. staff training conference and being at home for a couple of weeks, I’m on the road (and the air) again for a week or so.   This time it’s a trip to Bangalore, India with 3 of my teammates to conduct a training for several of our tech leader staff in India.

Shannon cranked up homeschool with the kids last week and they are ramping up to a fall full of activities.  She’d appreciate your prayers this week as well.  Mommy + schoolteacher + cook + activity chauffeur + everything else = overtime work, even when I am at home!

This is my first time to India.  Bangalore is a major city in the south part of India where our country office and training center is located.  If you’ve ever had to call customer service to get assistance with your malfunctioning computer, TV or DVD player, chances are the person who answered the call was located in Bangalore.  It is one of the world’s major technology centers and also where a lot of North American firms place their call centers. 

I’m a little nervous about conducting a technical training for Indians.  They’re very smart!  India has more honors students than America has students (total).  And they all grow up speaking English and other languages, using computers and have a breadth of international experience.  As usual, I’m sure I’ll learn more from them than they’ll learn from us.

Prayer Requests …

~  Safe travel August 15-16 and returning Aug 21-22

~  Lift up Shannon and the kids holding down the fort.  Pray for peace, strength and the Lord’s presence.

~  Pray that I’ll be able to connect with Shannon and the kids via Skype or video call at least once while I’m there.

~  Pray for the training meetings:  11:30pm – 8am eastern time on both Aug 17 & 18.

~  Pray that all our training materials arrive safely in India.

Recently I finished a time of sabbatical.  It was about giving my soul a quiet place.  Being still. Reading the Word. Listening.

Every four years, missionaries with Campus Crusade are allowed 30 days to step away for spiritual renewal.  Although I knew I had this rare privilege, this is the first time in 18 years with CCCI that I’ve taken advantage of it.  I followed the advice of Ken Cochrum and others who gave excellent tips for planning a successful sabbatical.

Two Things I learned:

These hardly seem radical.  Basically, it was just really good to be reminded of some key things.

#1  Rest is a very good thing

God invented rest.  Not because He needs it, but because He knows we do.  I had to convince myself that it’s ok to radically step away from the hectic pace of life.  Yes, it required planning.  In my case I had to postpone a few projects I was working on and hand off others work to coworkers.  The Lord provided space and time to read His Word and rest.  Those were the two things I did at length.  But were there distractions?  Well, the reality is that you can be distracted in an empty room in the middle of a desert.  So, I had to turn off my email, social networks, cell phone, etc.  (Ah, now you know why I haven’t been in touch for so long!)  It took about 3 days before I felt free to fully disengage from my world of real-time communications.  Yes, it felt like I was going through withdrawal of some sorts without a digital life, but after a short time… I didn’t miss it at all! I felt more focused – like my brain was actually functioning better.  Also I felt more in tune with my family and immensely enjoyed spending time with them.  So, in short, I was reminded that SLOW DOWN is a Biblical command to be heeded at regular intervals.  It did me much good in terms of physical, mental and spiritual rest and renewal.

#2 God’s Word speaks

Yes, His Word is living and active and is always busy accomplishing His work.  The treasure of His Word is ready to dwell in me richly every moment of every day.  Yet my tendency sometimes is to try to force His Word to speak – to emphasize it on His behalf – especially when I am facing a decision point or pressing needs in my life.  And, true, at some busy points in my life a particular Bible verse has grabbed my attention with vigor, leading me to a certain path or plan.  He does bring emphasis at busy or critical times.  But when my soul is quiet, and I spend time with Him at leisure, His Word seems to float up and around every thought.  The things He seems to say are much more relational and always draw attention to Him.  During my time of rest, He seemed to say through His Word: “See, I am rich in time.  I have time for you and I love you.  My agenda is Me.  Believe in Me and simply walk with Me no matter where I lead or what the circumstances are.  Only I can truly satisfy.  Only I can do true work.  Only I can love you perfectly.  Rest in Me.”

Trusting God

Shannon and I started reading this book by Jerry Bridges.  We also purchased the Discussion Guide that comes with it and made time to talk through some of the questions there.  We’ll hope to continue to talk through it.  Several of the chapters deal with God’s control over events or circumstances in our lives and dive in to many Scriptures on why it can be difficult to trust God, even when it’s somewhat easy to obey God.  Excellent book!

So, all in all I highly recommend a sabbatical rest.  Whether it be for 30 days or whatever length of time.  May He meet with you richly there!

Totally an answer to prayer through an amazing “pull” from God.  Last month, Global Media Outreach (one of our evangelistic web ministries – we have posted about them previously here), set a crazy goal of trying to get 1 Million visitors to engage on their sites within a single 24 hour period.

The Lord did it!

Here’s a quote from Global Media Outreach’s blog:

In all yesterday there were:

1,094,614 Visitors to our gospel sites

111,859 Indicated Decisions

13,514 Emails to our Online Missionaries

Less than 6 years ago, Global Media Outreach would have been pleased to see approximately 2 Million visitors during an entire year!  So, no doubt, the Lord has really opened up the floodgates on the Internet and is drawing incredible numbers of people seeking God.   And it’s really encouraging that over 12,000 of the 101,000 people who indicated decisions for Jesus on March 24 engaged further in email follow up – requesting discipleship and prayer follow up by email.

GMO Staff member getting fueled up before the 24hr marathon online outreach:

Ramping things up in the control room before 12am when the outreach started:

It’s always a rush trying to get ready for an out of town trip.  So I’m grateful to be able to post this shortly before I fly out.

My team from the Global Technology Office here in Orlando is hosting a meeting in northern Thailand this weekend through next Wednesday.  This will be a gathering for 27 Campus Crusade missionaries serving in about a dozen different countries.  We host this meeting twice each year.  For the last two times, we’ve met in Thailand.

Rather than tell you about the meeting I’ll just list some prayer points so you can lift these up:

Pray for …