Missionary Scribbler

Samaritan’s Purse Chile Relief

Gearing up for Haiti

One of my responsibilities at Shepherd’s Staff Mission Facilitators is maintaining the website. Today I added a new missionary to the site that I love very much: my son. This Sunday I take Aaron to the airport. He’s being sent out by Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale to serve as a ministry leader in Jacmel, Haiti. He’ll be the point person for Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale’s projects in the country.

Here’s a report from CCFL’s Pastor Chet Lowe. This will give you an idea of the kind of things Aaron will be involved with:

—-FROM CHET – START————————–

We have been on the ground for one week. Since that time, our team has:

1. Built four homes from the ground up

2. Conducted week long vacation bible schools at two locations

3. Worked in a clinic for severely injured children (malnourishment and untreated injuries)

4. Planned flights for next week into inaccessible areas to conduct feasibility assessments  for future projects

5. Became the administrators at a clinic seeing 500-700 patients daily.

6. Organized and restocked medical supplies for a large warehouse serving as clearinghouse for incoming medical supplies

7. Renovated a birthing clinic

8. New construction on a security wall in the mountains for a local school

9. Developed the site plan for our acquired property including staking out all potential temporary structure sites

10. Met with officials from UN (united nations) and NGO’s (non-governmental organizations)on the ground to coordinate our efforts

11. Developed a child welfare plan of action with local Christian orphanages

12. Met with leading pastors in area to coordinate Christian effort

13. Moved and restocked the medical depot of relief supplies for all medical NGO’s on the ground in Jacmel

14. Asked for approval to conduct chaplain service for Canadian Army members in Jacmel

15. Secured housing for incoming teams- built bunk beds, established internet in house, etc

16. Planning meetings with Samaritan’s Purse representatives next week to deepen partnerships

17. Planning meetings with Churches Helping Churches representative to deepen our partnership with James MacDonald’s church.

Need lots of prayer! He is glorious!

—-FROM CHET – END————————–

Aaron’s missionary account number with Shepherd’s Staff is 4350. To give to his account online, click here. Fill in name and account number in the fields provided.

To set up monthly support, please download the EFT form and mail it to Shepherd’s Staff.

Connect with Aaron on Facebook.

Aaron’s Shepherd’s Staff missionary page

Church Planting Lesson 14

Pastor Jeff continues to examine the biblical model of church planting in the book of Acts.

Download

Church Planting Lesson Thirteen

I made the whole kit and kaboodle available below if you don’t have the previous lesson files. Simply right click and select “save link as”. That’s if you have a PC. If you have a Mac, I don’t know what you have to do… Command something or other.

But I do know if you have an iPhone and you click download, your phone’s browser will open up a Quicktime page and you can listen there. That’s pretty sweet.

download thirteen

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download one

"Legal right", but no heart to exercise it….

Pastor Jeff Jackson shares the following on his blog about a couple with big love and insurmountable circumstances.

In the recent update that I sent out to my mailing list I talked about a couple from Croatia who came to this country with nothing and have been very successful in real estate–specifically in purchasing rundown apartments and fixing them up. They now own two low-income apartment complexes in tough neighborhoods here in Phoenix and the vast majority of occupants in their complexes are refugees. This couple genuinely loves refugees and they have bent over backwards to help them in numerous ways.

When the economy was good, the average time for a non-English speaking refugee to find entry-level, minimum wage work was about 3 months. Since the economy has slowed down, it is now taking 8-9 months for them to find work. The challenge: the resettlement agencies and available funding from other sources is sufficient to cover their rent for a maximum of 5 months.

Because of this couple’s love, care, and concern for the plight of refugees, they have been VERY patient with refugees who are unable to pay their rent. They have been carrying the load themselves for some refugees who are 4 to 5 months behind on rent. They don’t have the heart to evict them, even though they have the legal right to do so. They know that the refugees would literally have no place to go if they were forced to move out of their apartments. With all the refugees have already suffered in their own countries and in the countries where they lived in refugee camps, this couple just can’t bring themselves to play a role in adding the experience of homelessness in America to the baggage these special people already carry.

Well, this last Saturday, while I was visiting one of their complexes, I had a meeting with the wife. In tears, she told me that the other complex, the one they owned first, is now in foreclosure proceedings. Her and her husband have used up their resources, and they were unable to pay the full mortgage payment on the complex for the past two months. Her heart was broken. But it wasn’t over the loss of income she would experience or the damage that would be done to their credit. Her heart broke because if it’s foreclosed on, a new property manager will be brought in by the bank or a new owner will come in, and it’s very likely that many refugees will be evicted when they are unable to pay their rent within the legal time frame.

She said there is a group of people thinking about investing, but it doesn’t look good. The deadline is March 8. The clock is ticking. Would you mind praying?

Jeff Jackson

Jeff’s blog

iPhone Friendly

Our cell phone plan expired so my wife and I got each other newly remanufactured  iPhones for Christmas. I did not like the way the Shep Staff website looked on the phone’s browser; the phone changed the look of our menus by making them wrap into two rows. So I made some modifications to our site to appear more iPhone friendly.

You can listen to our podcast two ways on your iPhone:
1. click on the podcast icon and it opens in Quicktime and allows you to listen (photo left).
2. click on the iTunes icon on our page or blog, you can also listen. The icon opens up in your iTunes app (see right). Both open up very nicely on the iPhone. I was pleasantly surprised. Give it a try. Our current podcast series is a college level church planting course taught by our founder Pastor Jeff Jackson at Calvary Chapel Bible College.

The Shepherd’s Staff webpage does not have an app yet (maybe some day), but you can save the page to your iPhone’s home screen with a nifty little icon featuring the Shepherd’s Staff logo (see left). In your iPhone’s browser, click the “+” button then select “add to home screen.”

There you go.

Mondok Newsletter February 2010

More Missionaries, More Missionaries

I’m amazed at the growth Shepherd’s Staff Mission Facilitators is experiencing. When I came on board in the Fall of 2007, we served between forty to fifty missionaries. When I moved back to Florida at the end of 2008, we had around seventy.

Shepherd’s Staff, at that time, created the position of Regional Mission Pastor (RMP). Pastor Pat Kenney and I divided the US at the Rocky Mountains. He oversees missionaries to the west and I to the west.

In 2009, seven missionaries have joined us from South Florida not counting the three currently in the application process. 20 total from my region since the RMP position was created. Nationwide, we’re up to 110 total missionaries.

Churches Served

Here’s a list of churches served in my territory:

Low Country Community Church, South Carolina
Shades Mountain Baptist Church, Alabama
Calvary Chapel Kalamazoo Valley, Michigan
Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Calvary Chapel St. Petersburg, Florida
Brentwood Baptist, Tennessee
Walnut Grove Chapel, Indiana
Community Church, Wisconsin
Calvary Chapel Boynton Beach, Florida
Calvary Chapel Chester Springs, Pennsylvania
Oak Mountain Presbyterian, Alabama

Whether or not the new missionary is in my territory I get to interact with each one during intake process. If they are in my area, I wear a human resources hat and conduct interviews and track down references. Intake includes some counseling, advising, and training. Because I also oversee the website, I build an online profile for the incoming missionaries on both our website and Facebook page.

It’s a privilege to serve so many missionaries and do whatever we can to get their stories out there on the Internet. We also make it easy for churches and friends to partner financially. It’s an incredible blessing to have such technology at our fingertips to help us interact with those obedient to the call of missions on their lives.

Partnering

There is a stark contrast between raising support as a US based missionary in an administrative support role versus the overseas ministry pioneering role. I think you’d agree that one is much more appealing in an Indiana Jones kind of way. But I hope I can get you to agree with me, also, that both roles are necessary. When my family and I launched into our South Sudan Missions Endeavor several years ago, we raised $10,000 in one weekend at our church. Sudan was something folks could get on board with. Contrast that to pitching for support to folks about my human resources-training-pastoral-website management-consultation-administration role. It’s not nearly as adventurous and we’ve felt it as we’ve worked to keep our support at a level we can live on in our South Florida economy. Last month our support plunged two thousand dollars. Thankfully, I’ve been able to pick up some work with a tree service a couple of days a week to supplement. (Believe it or not, I used to work as a tree faller when I lived in Northern California when I was a younger man cutting down giant Redwoods and Douglas fir.) It’s a good “tent-making” job, but it takes me out of the office a couple of days a week.

Thanks to all of you who continue to support and have contributed in the past. We thank God for you and covet your prayers. I’m thankful also for Shepherd’s Staff for contributing to our income from day one. As our responsibilities have increased, so has the support from them.

Please pray about partnering with Shepherd’s Staff and my family as we continue to provide valuable support to missionaries and their churches.  

There are three ways to give:

3. Give online:

Type “Mondok 0513” in box.

Tech

Our cell phone plan expired so my wife and I got each other a new iPhone for Christmas. I did not like the way our website looked on the phone’s browser; it changed the look of our menus by making them wrap into two rows. So I made some modifications to our site to appear more iPhone friendly.

You can listen to our podcast two ways on your iPhone:
1. click on the podcast icon and it opens a nice page that allows you to listen on your phone’s iPod application.
2. click on the iTunes icon on our page or blog, you can also listen. Both open up very nicely on the iPhone. I was pleasantly surprised. Give it a try. Our current podcast series is a college level church planting course taught by our founder Pastor Jeff Jackson at Calvary Chapel Bible College.

Here’s another interesting stat for those of you who like numbers. Our website was getting about 300 hits a month when I began working here in 2007. Now it gets about 9000 a month with inbound links from our podcast, missionary blogs, web searches, Facebook page, and Twitter account.

Allie Update

Christine Scheller, writer for Christianity Today, wrote an incredible article about our family. Check it out online here.

Church Planting Lesson Twelve

Pastor Jeff continues working through the book of Acts in this lesson. This is part two of the lesson begun in Church Planting Lesson Eleven. Tune in.

Bible Stick

“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:17)

A donation of $20 can purchase a NT Audio Bible Stick. The audio bibles enable us to immediately get the word of God, in their native tongue, to those who struggle or are unable to read.

AUDIO BIBLE DONATIONS can be sent to:

Calvary Chapel Madison County
200 Teresa Drive, Madison, AL 35757.
Indicate on the check: Audio Bibles.

George and Luan Fellman

Source

Missions trip to Antarctica ‘totally fruitless’

At first I’m like “WHAT?” And then I saw it was Lark News…

ALBANY, New York — Taking literally the Bible’s injunction to spread the gospel to the uttermost parts of the world, a group of adults from Albany, New York, went on a short-terms missions trip to Antarctica but were disappointed by what they didn’t find: people.
   "It was a total waste," said John Alder, who held garage sales and sold his RV so he and his wife could go. "We got off the boat and all we could see was a white, icy wasteland. Even the scientific outpost was unmanned."
   The team of 14 huddled for eight days and waited for the boat to return, reading aloud from the Bible and occasionally sending search parties to look for possible converts. They survived on penguin meat and stayed warm by crawling inside the still-warm corpse of a large seal.
   The group made it home chilled but safe, and had to give the church their disappointing report.
   "Next time we’ll at least construct a building in case poor children move to that continent some day and need shelter," said the team’s leader. "Of course, that means we’d have to find wood."

http://larknews.com/april_2003/secondary.php?header=header&page=missions_antarctica