"Rough, but Good!"

I spent only four days in Sudan, but those four days will forever impact my life.  Conditions in Sudan are unlike any that I have seen before, due to the previous war and extreme poverty.  We traveled down war-torn, dirt roads that were jagged, and some made for a very rough ride.  During one journey, we were forced to carefully drive on a carved path because of the danger of land-mines.  These hazards, along with no electricity, no running water, malaria, malnutrition, and even death due to lack of healthcare are common perils that the Southern Sudanese people face daily. 

Over the four days that I was there, though, I wrapped myself in the lives of the Sudanese people and witnessed that in spite of the conditions there, our brothers and sisters had a true joy.  Alongside them in my time there, I experienced this joy, laughter, true worship, reverent prayer, brokenness for the lost, heartache for the oppressed, and thankfulness.  You see, the Southern Sudanese people are rejoicing in the midst of suffering, because they are experiencing God through church planting and ministry.  All the harsh conditions do not prohibit the Grace of God from being poured out on them.  Yes, God is moving in Sudan!  Please pray that He continues to breathe life and pour out His grace upon the Sudanese people! 

"Hi... I'm Brad!"

My name is Brad McElya.  I've done medical missions in a variety of capacities and now live in India with my wife, who works for a Christian Non-Governmental Organization (NGO).  I was approached by my friends at Entermission to survey the work going on in Sudan through the ONE Prayer movement.  So, on March 15, 2009, I traveled to Uganda and then on to Southern Sudan for ONE Prayer.  I praise and thank God for the amazing opportunity I had to travel there and gain a larger vision of the Universal Church!  Our brothers and sisters in Sudan welcomed and embraced me with the love of Jesus Christ, blessing me abundantly.  

ONE Prayer: Brad McElya... "Contract Shooter"!

I want to introduce you to my friend Brad McElya!  He's a great guy, and husband to another great friend (Jill Ulrich/McElya)!  They both live in India, and work with bonded slave laborers and the Indian legal system.  They're amazing people, and it's a privilege to know and love them.

But the reason i want to introduce you to Brad is that he recently spent about 10 days in Sudan to gather necessary recon and reporting on the ONE Prayer work going on in that country.  His job was largely to photograph, record, report on that work, as well as train someone else to do the same for both this current cycle of ONE Prayer, as well as ONE Prayer '09/'10.  I think that Brad had a great experience in Sudan, and, as a result, what follows are 3 quick posts that i thought you would find interesting.  

ONE Prayer: Phase 1 Report...

Hey, for those of you who are interested, we have officially published our first "Phase Report" for ONE Prayer.  Each of these reports outlines a lot of the technical specifics of how each of our field partners is approaching the mission objective of planting 500 churches in 4 countries (India, Sudan, China and Cambodia) in 18 months, and if you would like to take a look, you can go straight to the PDF version of the report on the ONE Prayer site by clicking here.

ONE Prayer Update: India

This is brother Vasanth Solomon. He is from a Christian family, and his father is a Pastor. After his father’s death, he assumed that he would simply acquire his father’s property and continue his mission, though he wasn’t exactly sure how to go about accomplishing that goal. Using basic evangelism tactics, Vasanth worked hard to build a network of over 150 new believers over a period of 5 years, but still believed that he needed additional training in order to further his effectiveness in the field.

Then he attended the Kingdom of God training (KGT) offered by Life Mission International through the ONE Prayer network. There, he learned about the importance of vision, goal setting and doing relational evangelism. He started praying for God to show him a place where he could plant a church and engage the community. Shortly thereafter, the Lord guided him to Puzhiyankannu village, where no one knows Christ. It is “completely unreached”. Here, all the people are high caste Hindus, and the village also supports two full time temple prostitutes.

When Vasanth started sharing Jesus in this village, the head of the village gathered all the people together and told them not to allow any other God to enter the village. In addition, when Vasanth shared a Gospel booklet with a member of the village, a young man pulled the booklet from his hand and tossed it into the fire. That night, however, the young man became so frightened and he quite literally went insane. This sent a wave of fear through the minds of the people in the village and gave them a high sense that they should not do any additional harm to Vasanth. In addition, Vasanth began praying for God to heal the young man.

After two months, people are showing great interest in learning about this new God. Thus far, 12 people have accepted Christ and are attending a small group Bible study. Vasanth is supervising 3 similar groups in this area, and also conducts a Children’s program in two places (currently, there are more than 60 children attending). Please pray that Vasanth will continue to make appropriate inroads for the Gospel and the Kingdom in this unreached village!

ONE Prayer Update: Sudan

The following came in from our field partners currently functioning in Sudan through the ONE Prayer network.  Enjoy! -sj

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Kajo Keji is exploding! Two hundred and seventy thousand people have already arrived from refugee camps in the north and west, and another one hundred thousand are expected this year. Most live in tents, but the government and aid agencies have begun to help with building mud huts.

According to Enoka and Michael, there is great hunger… not for food… but for community. “The opportunity to do church planting is incredible.” Enoka and Michael head up the ministry in this area and have organized the training for the church planters.

Several pilot projects have already been completed and seven schools were set up for the children of displaced families. Now 150 church planters are starting their training. They are being trained in “batches” of 20-30 and a main focus is the emerging neighborhoods of Kajo Keji (seen from the air). Some of the refugees moving into this area come from Christian villages where their families were attacked and churches burned to the ground. They are eager to help the teams of church planters to reach the larger population which has had no access to the gospel.

ONE Prayer Update: China

Crew!

The following is our most recent update from the ministry extending through our ONE Prayer partnerships in China.  Enjoy! -sj

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God’s Amazing Choice

Arthur Tian was born completely healthy, but with a hump on his back. For many years of his life Arthur felt completely useless in society. He had no purpose in life at all. Arthur was growing up secluded and reserved because of his physical appearance. Quite often people made fun of him and laughed at him. When Arthur turned 20, his parents died and he moved to live with his older brother. Later on Arthur’s older sister accepted Christ and begun to share Jesus Christ with him also.

Arthur went to church with her and discovered that people in church were different than people in this world. People in the world quite often laughed at him, but in church they showed him love and cared for him. It was here at church where Arthur for the first time in his life truly felt the love of God.

After accepting Christ as his Savior Arthur felt a deep desire to tell others around him about this newly discovered love of God. When Arthur’s parents died, they left him a small amount of money, which they were saving for their whole lives. His parents were afraid that Arthur won’t be able to provide for himself after they pass away and this money would help him a little, at least for a while. After Arthur became a Christian he spent all the money his parents left him to live on. He spent it on mission work. But God has not forgotten Arthur. God continues to bless his life.

This year God has blessed Arthur with a loving spouse, who is helping him now in his ministry of preaching the Gospel. Almost immediately after their marriage the young couple moved to a different town in China with the goal of planting a church there. In the last two months Arthur started a Bible study group and five people already have accepted Christ. PTL!

Please pray for Arthur and his ministry!

“…God chose the weak things of the world …” 1 Cor.1,27

ONE Prayer Update: Cambodia

Crew!  See the following update from our ministry partners in Cambodia for the ONE Prayer network.  Enjoy!  -sj

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Fear to Fruitfulness... the story of Pastor Saran

My life before I followed Jesus
I was born in 1965. My early years were shaped during a time of turmoil in SE Asia, including a horrible civil war in Cambodia. I had no respect for public authorities nor did I follow the laws of so

ciety. My life was lonely, full of fear, and panic. There was even one time during the civil war when I was almost killed. I wanted to kill those who were my enemy. I saw no place for forgiveness toward other people, and my life was totally without purpose. I even hated foreign religious beliefs, and I did not want them to be practiced in Cambodia. I followed the traditions of my parents and had been brought up as a Buddhist.

When I heard about JesusDuring those difficult days of my early life, I often questioned within myself whether there even was a “god”, or a place better than the earth. I wanted to know if there really was a heaven or a hell beyond this life. In 1991 a friend, who was not a follower of Jesus, told me about he had heard about someone called, Jesus Christ. I was interested in knowing more about Jesus and how His followers lived. So I looked for their meetings and attended for about three weeks. I did not understand at all what they were talking about, however, I was interested in the nice sound of the songs they sang praising to God. On the forth week of being with these followers of Jesus, I was touched in my heart when I heard them say that “Jesus can save humans from their sins”. This reminded me of a time when I was about seven years old, when I was able to read a little, I read part of a book that was saying that it was this same Jesus who created water, land, fire and wind.

I continued to meet with these people who followed Jesus, but I kept on wondering if Jesus was really a true God, and if God really existed. I also wondered what would happen to me if I became a follower of Christ. I wanted to know if others would hate me or love me. Then one day, I decided to ask a simple prayer of this God by asking Him to help me quit smoking, if he was a true God. On that very day in 1992, I felt that I did not want to smoke a cigarette at all! I was so happy because I had tried to quit smoking by myself many times, but always failed. I decided then and there to trust in Jesus as the true God. 

I made a commitment that I believed in Jesus always no matter whether others might hate me or love me. I started to tell my wife about the importance of following Jesus. I told my cousins and friends about Jesus as I wanted them to follow Jesus too.

The Call of God to Serve
I began to feel that God was calling me to serve him by telling even more people about Him. But I did not feel that I could do anything like that. I enjoyed attending the bible studies and fellowshipping with other believers, but I felt that to become a leader might be a very difficult thing for me to do. I spent all my money to buy a motorbike so I could attend bible study and worship more often. But, three months latter, someone stole it from me! I literally cried because of feeling so sad about the loss, and I wanted to know why there was such a bad thing happening to me. I even felt so ashamed about the bad thing that had happened to me, I no longer had the courage to share with my wife and others about Jesus.

Because of the shame, and sorrow of having the bike stolen, I knelt down and started to pray with tears, that if He gave me another motorbike, I would serve Him. About a week latter, I further prayed that I will serve Him forever, if He provided another motorbike for me. I started to believe that if God wanted me to serve Him, He would fulfill all my needs. Two months latter the wife of the thief who stole my motorbike came and confessed her husband’s crime. She also brought an older motorbike to us to replace the stolen one, so we did not make a complaint to the police. I accepted the old motorbike with joy and forgiveness. I then decided to start sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with other people, and gather with believers at a friend’s house near my house.

I did not want to be the leader of the group, and I just helped to bring the new believers together to study the bible and with all my heart, I helped those who came to me for help. We met together for about six weeks, but there was still not really a leader among the ten believers. So I began leading the worship and visited the homes of the believers. I was hungry for the Word of God and I was curious to know the meaning and the good things the Word of God has for believers. I read and finished the New Testament about two times. But there were still many things I did not understand and wondered if I was really called to lead among the believers. I then met a Cambodian Christian from the US and he helped me discover many truths in God’s Word and I started to read the New Testament again with great joy and understanding. I joined with other believers to plant new churches in seven places by 1996 and as of 2008 we have grown to see churches planted in over 90 places as disciples continue to make disciples.

NOTE: Pastor Saran is a trainer and supervisor in his province for the One Prayer church planting initiative in Cambodia. There are still hundreds of unreached villages in his province without even a single believer. Pray that the Lord will bless them with an additional 25 – 30 new churches as they reach into these needy villages and that a church planting movement can begin that will spread to surrounding villages and provinces.

ONE Prayer Update: India

Crew!

Wanted to inlcude the next ONE Prayer update from Raj and our teams in India.  Enjoy! -sj

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Can a Woman Plant a Church in India?  Duh!....

India is one of the oldest civilized countries in the world, and has a rich cultural and linguistic heritage. In fact, some of the languages in India (including Tamil) are estimated to be more than 3,000 years old. However, despite its depth of tradition and culture, India continues to face the difficulty of regularly practiced traditional atrocities. One of these practices is called “Sati”. Satī is a funeral practice among some Hindu communities (now very rare and outlawed in modern India), in which a recently-widowed woman would be expected to throw herself alive onto her husband’s funeral pyre, thus dying with him in order to demonstrate that life would be unacceptable without his continued presence. This practice was condemned by William Carry and then by Indian reformers, but while it is openly denounced by Indian officials, it is still practiced in many remote villages throughout the country.

In addition, in recent centuries, and due in large part to the Dowry System (a price paid by a young woman’s family as a gift to her new husband), many families have undervalued their female children. This has paved way the regular practice of female infanticide because parents know at birth that they will be unable to care for the little girl, but will also be unable to raise a dowry to marry her when she is older. Because of this, when a female child is born, the mother or the relatives will simply kill the child. This practice continues today, and is an issue that many ONE Prayer church planters are being mobilized to engage as they plant churches in areas where infanticide rates are high.

Finally, the Indian people are divided by Caste System, which has existed in India for thousands of years. The Caste System creates a social heirarchy where certain individuals are granted greater worth than others, and thus entitled to varying levels of privilege, wealth, and even access to the gods within the Hindu pantheon. Within this Caste System, women are still regarded as “lower than men” and cannot sit or walk equally with them. They are the “oppressed among the oppressed”.

However, things started changing when the missionaries started coming to India. They taught people, protected them with laws, and helped them to succeed in life. Today in India, the Church is beginning to understand the importance of women getting involved in building the family, society, the Nation and even the Church in the light of fresh understanding from the Scripture. Many parts of our country allow women to do “evangelism” but not planting or pastoring. But in Tamilnadu, whereONE Prayer church planters are being trained, the Churches are more open and thus allow their daughters and sisters to get engaged in the ministry of the Church.

One such jewel is Pretha! She once wanted to end her life because of a tragedy that occurred in her life, but came to know the Lord through the ministry of a local Indian Church. Today, along with her, her parents have accepted Christ and are assisting her in the ministry. Her uncle, who is also a Pastor, now helps them in the planting process.

Due to recent violence and government reactions, as well as increasing legal stresses and persecution, the doors for Crusades, street preaching and tract distribution in many parts of our country are simply closed. But Pretha is following the “One to One” method of basic discipleship and small group Bible study that is seen in the Book of Acts. She hopes to baptize around 40 people in the beginning of next year. God is using her mightily among the poor people in the slum area where she works. She has a big heart for them, and ONE Prayer resources are ensuring that Pretha is well equipped for her task!

ONE Prayer Update: Cambodia

Crew!  Bob Craft (our ministry contact for Cambodia) sent this in.  Enjoy! -sj

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Cambodia was country divided by a civil war, a holocaust and then invaded by enemies from a neighboring country. There are far too many stories of war, of refugees and the sheer struggle to survive. But by the grace of God, some have managed to emerge from the pain with amazing testimonies to the love of God.

In 1983, Lim left Phnom Penh city to live in the Rithy Sen, and join the resistance army to fight against the army of the State of Cambodia government. He was commander of 30 soldiers in the resistance movement. He was a cruel person and dictator. He fought in many battles, there was even one time when he was surrounded by the State of Cambodia army, and was almost killed. He lay unconscious for about three days and three nights. And apart from battles with human enemies, he almost died from malaria.  He finally fled across the Thai border to a refugee camp. 

In 1985, he left the army, and lived in City Two, Rithy Sen refugee camp. He became a teacher at a small school in the refugee camp. He had four friends who were teachers, and one of them, Mr. Sothy, was a Christian. Mr. Sothy shared the good news of Jesus Christ with Lim saying that Jesus was the Savior and those who believed in Him would be saved from sins and have eternal life.  He shared about Christ three times, so Lim got very angry with him, and had some students tie Mr. Sothy up to a cross and tickle him, humiliating him by saying “if your God is true and living, let Him help you”. Mr. Sothy was very upset at this treatment, so finally Lim’s students let Mr. Sothy go. Lim had grown up like 90% of his Cambodian peers, he practiced Buddhism and Brahmanism in the tradition of his ancestors. He had no use for Christians and their foreign religion. 

In 1986, he moved to another refugee camp, and got into trouble when he broke the rules of the camp. The Thai soldiers who guarded this new camp always arrested those who broke the law in the K.I.D. camp, and moved them back to the camps nearer the border. Lim often hid himself from the Thai guards in a deep pit from which he could look to the outside only through a small hole. One Saturday in February of 1986, there was a big raid by Thai solders to arrest law breakers in the camps, so Lim and his friends got so frightened that they hid themselves in the pit for the whole night.  Early in the morning on Sunday, Lim heard a voice outside the pit through the small hole saying, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and loaded down with burdens, and I will give you rest. Place my yoke on you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” It was the words of God speaking to him to seek God! He left the pit for another friend’s house and took a bath. There he met an English teacher named Chann who was going to church. Chann asked Lim to go to church with him (as he had asked once before) so Lim decided to go with him as he was curious to know about this God who could help humans and “give them rest”. At the church, he sat at the back corner of the meeting so that he could observe, but he criticized and cursed them in his heart. Despite the struggle going on in his heart and mind, he decided to read some small Christian booklets, and then finished reading the New Testament three times in one week! 

Each time he read the New Testament, it spoke deeper and deeper to his heart and life. Lim had come to put his trust in Jesus Christ and opened his life to the Holy Spirit of God. Lim became full of joy, and no longer feared being arrested by the soldiers. He studied the Word of God with the pastor and a group Christians. Lim immediately went out to share the Good News with other people. Many people listened to the words of God as Lim taught them as much as he knew.  Sometimes he felt like he had taught them correctly and sometimes he did not, so when he went back home, he studied even harder. He started going to share the Good News in the hospital and prison. In the villages, they had twenty five bible study groups and there were hundreds of people accepting Jesus Christ. Although Lim never studied at the Bible school, and never had a diploma, God has chosen him to serve Him in church planting ministry.  Lim has dedicated himself to establishing groups of believers in unreached areas of Batambang province. Lim is a leader and trainer in the One Prayer church planting initiative.

ONE Prayer Update: India

Crew!  Here's another ONE Prayer update.  This one is from India and from the mouth (erm...keyboard) of our brother Raj  about one of the ONE Prayer church planters in Tamilnadu! -sj

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Brother Jeyapaul was born deaf to a poor Hindu family. As a result, he was not allowed to study beyond 4th grade. In order to survive, he found all sorts of odd-jobs serving in restaurants, agriculture and road work, all of which were paid on daily wage basis. Many times, he did not get any job.

Because of his low status and physical disability, no girl was willing to marry him. As a result, he married an orphan girl from the nearby state of Kerala. She was a professional witch, and each week, as many as 70 people would come to her to ask her to solve their various problems through her ability to manipulate evil spirits. Later, when Jeyapaul and his wife had a daughter, they found that she was born mute. Until at the age of six, she could not speak even a single word. At that time, Jeyapaul himself became sick and bed ridden. His wife tried to heal him using all her spiritist means, but every thing was in vain. It was also during this time that a group of Christians came to that village to do open air evangelism. When Jeyapaul and his family heard that Jesus can heal any sickness, they invited the Christians to pray for him. He was miraculously healed! Then after joining the local church, they began to pray for his daughter. Immediately she started speaking as well! After that, his wife decided to follow this powerful God, and as a family they started sharing their testimony, which brought many people to Christ.

When God called Jeyapaul to do His ministry, he sold all his tools at half rate in order to acquire a little initial capital for books and supplies. He approached different organization to get an opportunity to learn to pastor and plant churches, but all of them rejected him because he was not educated either in secular college or in seminary. He asked his wife to help him. He said he wanted to study the Bible and pray for3 years, so that he will know the word of God to teach others. His wife decided to help him, and by hiring herself out as a day laborer, was able to acquire about 75 cent per day for the work she did (all the while honoring God by giving a tithe of about 7 cents). One day, when he was praying, his daughter asked for a few cents to buy some toffee. Since he did not have the money, he was feeling so bad and asked God if he would help him to provide something kind and compassionate for his daughter. After he finished praying, his daughter came to him holding some sweets in her little hands. When he asked where she had acquired the candy, the little girl pointed to a raven perching on a branch nearby. The raven left, and then came back with more candy for the little girl. This continued for three days, during which time, Jeyapaul came across the passage in 1Kings 17 where Elijah was fed by ravens in the wilderness. He was so shocked that he began to call people to him, instructing them about this God who can feed his children, even from the mouths of the birds of the air. As a result, more than 27 people came to Christ during this period.

Later, the Lord directed Jeyapaul to go to a small village called Kodimangalam. This village has 4,000 houses. There are 28 temples and 32 priests serving in those temples. There are 4 Hindu spiritists (witch-doctors) functioning in this village. There are also 17 prostitutes living in the area. When he came to do ministry in this village, no one would provide him with a house. As a result, the first day, he had to sleep on the road with his wife’s old saree wrapped around him. The next day, he found a house for $3 rent per month. When he started sharing Christ, the head of the village man, Palanisamy, chased him out of the village. He was there out in the village for 12 days, without any food. Then one man from that village who opposes Palanisamy gave his cow shed. Jeyapaul started staying there and doing ministry, and while he continues to meet significant opposition, threats and persecution, God is doing great things in the village as he seeks to plant a church there, and also in a village nearby

When Jeyapaul heard that we are training Church planters, he rushed to us and begged to be allowed to participate in the training program. Through the ONE Prayer movement, we are so happy to say that Jeyapaul is being trained to do ministry more effectively, and that he is proceeding through the training curriculum with great enthusiasm. He told us recently, that “I am so thrilled [to be receiving this training] and now have confidence and tools that will help me to plant a Church with 1000 people in it some day!” 

ONE Prayer Update: China

See below for most recent post from China for the ONE Prayer network! -sj

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In July of 2004, the daughter of Victor Zhang became 

seriously ill. The doctors in the city where he lived told him that his daughter had only a few weeks left to live, and could offer no hope for her condition to improve.

Looking for ways to rescue his daughter, Victor decided to take her to Harbin, a larger city nearby, in the hope that the more sophisticated and famous hospitals and doctors would be able to help. These hopes were unrealized, however, when the doctors’ answers were the same in each instance: “sorry, but we cannot help.”

Eventually, a smaller hospital in the region agreed to try to

 help and treat his daughter’s illness, but the prognosis remained bleak in regard to their confidence that they would be able to do more than just try to keep her comfortable.

At that point, Victor and his family turned to Jesus for help, and began praying for his daughter as a result of his newfound faith. Quickly, his daughter began to show signs of improvement, and a month later she was even able to get up from her bed. As a result, many patients, relatives and even the doctors themselves began inquiring about the nature of the dramatic recovery, and that is when Victor started to preach Jesus Christ boldly to those in the hospital.

Even though the 

treatment for Victor’s daughter has continued for two more years at the hospital, groups of believers have steadily begun to meet under Victor’s leadership and pastoral care. In fact, Victor and his family eventually decided to stay in Harbin in order to be able to continue the church planting ministry God so specifically and directly laid upon their hearts.

Now, through the training and help provided through the ONE Prayer Network, Victor is planting churches in the neighborhood where his daughter’s hospital continues to operate, offering worship services at the hospital and helping those in residence there to find salvation for both body and soul through Jesus Christ.

“Oh, what a wonderful God we have! How great are his riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his methods! For who can know what the Lord is thinking? Who knows enough to be his counselor?” 
Rom. 11:33-34; (NLT)

“This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it” John 11:4; (NIV)

ONE Prayer Update: Sudan

Crew!  Here's the latest update from Sudan for the ONE Prayer Network.  Enjoy! -sj

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Twenty church planters and a lot

 of other people attended the training in eastern Sudan in September.  It is becoming harder and harder to limit the training only to the church planters enrolled in the year long program.  The objective is to take a cohort of new church planters through training that focuses on the skills needed for each stage of church planting, but as time goes on, more people hear about the sessions and just show up. 

Like Jesus model with his disciples, the twenty church planters have been sent out two by two after each training session.  At this session, all ten reported that they have started a ministry center.  The three largest have between 25 and 30 adults at regular worship services, all from mixed Muslim and animist backgrounds.

Each team of workers is related to a “mother” church which takes responsibility for the emerging new congregation.  The leaders of these churches met with the trainers and shared how they are encouraged to be “totally active” in the new churches.  (It is wonderful to see these leaders so energized by the success of their missionary teams.  Many “mother” churches have been in survival mode, convinced that they cannot reach Moslems.  Now with training and experience, the new groups are already talking about how to reach other villages and will bring plans and prayers to the December training session.)

ONE Prayer Update: India...

In July, Raj and i went to a 1,300 year old temple fortification near the seashore of a town called Mammalapuram (it's a large, tourist attraction), where, at sunrise, we shot the following update of the progress of the ONE Prayer movement in India. Walking through the stone ruins of this beautiful, massive, hand-built structure helped me to see anew the beauty of what God is doing in and through all of us to knit people together to Himself! Enjoy!

ONE Prayer Update: China

Please see below from our field ministry partners in China regarding progress on the ONE Prayer initiative in that country! -sj

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On August 8th 2008 one of our teachers was conducting a baptismal service in one of the lakes near Yian town in the Heilongjiang province. The water in this lake was quite muddy and the lake shore was covered with seaweed. One of the ladies had brought her little boy with her who was playing near the water. Several times during the service she had told him to stay away from the water. But towards the end of the baptismal process the boy still ran into the water and disappeared. Fortunately his mother realized it and jumped to his rescue, but when she entered the water she realized that it was deep and also went under.

The teacher who was still baptizing people interrupted his service and ran to the rescue of mother and her child, but when he jumped in the water where the mother went under he also disappeared in the water. At that point the whole group got together, formed a line holding each other by their hands and lowered one brother into the water who started to search for the three people in the water now. He was able to get a hold of the teacher who held on to the mother with her son. All three were saved in the end. This was truly God’s grace in action. Praise the Lord!!!

ONE Prayer Update: India...

See below for a field update from India and the progress of ministry there with the ONE Prayer movement. -sj

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Here is brother POOVARASU, which means King of Flower, who was sick from birth. He had multiple problem, heart problem, puss coming out from ear, and "un-healable" wounds. His poor parents could not care for him during his childhood due to the poverty they experienced, and could not afford to take him to the nearby town hospital. Once, while he was studying 3rd standard in a free government school, they took him to a hospital and the doctors said he needed to undergo different operations which exceeded the potential savings of his small family. Since they did not have the resources, and since bad smell used to come from his body, his parents eventually just left him outside the house, not knowing what else to do with him. People used to pass by him so often that his plight became "routine", and he was eventually completely forgotten. While he was in 9th grade, he became so sick and his pain became so unbearable that everyone expected him to die.

Since Jesus loves him, however, he had a different plan for him. On an eventful day a Christian woman passed by the village, saw the misery of this man, and it broke her heart. She immediately knelt down and touched him with compassion and prayed for him. God also touched him, healed him, and he became a new man! All the wounds and pain slowly disappeared from him. People who saw him earlier were amazed by what had happened. God filled him with a love and joy that he never experienced.
He then received a Bible from the lady who prayed for him, and started reading the Word of God. As he was reading the life of Jesus, he was moved by the love of Christ even to the persecutors and the thieves on the cross. He wanted show the same love to his parents, even though they abandoned him. He started learning from this lady about Christ. Then he started sharing about Christ to his parents and relatives. When his parents saw what had happened, they believed in Jesus as well. Few of the relatives and village people have accepted Christ. Now, if anyone is sick in the village or close by, they call Poovarasu to come and pray for them.

Now he is the most wanted man in this area for people who long for peace, healing, and meaning in life. God is using him mightily to touch many people in this community. Now he has joined our ONE Prayer KGT ("Kingdom of God") Training to plant churches in the villages around him. He has completed the first module, and is using a simple Bible study booklet that we have provided to share Christ along with his living testimony. He is so happy that he found a right training to shape his life and ministry. He is thankful to the ONE Prayer Movement for the opportunity!

ONE Prayer Update: Cambodia...

Received the following from our ministry partner in Cambodia regarding the process of how the efforts are going at moving us toward our goal of planting 500 churches in 4 nations by next June. See below! -sj

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Cambodia is a beautiful country of rivers, mountains, forests, palm trees and rice fields nestled in the heart of Southeast Asia. A relatively small country of 14 million people, most of them live in more than 13,000 villages spread throughout the countryside. It is also the location of the famed Anchor Wat temple ruins from the 9th to 12th century, a world heritage site.

But not everything is so beautiful in Cambodia. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. forces dropped over 2.75 million tons of bombs on Cambodia. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the pull out of US troops in 1975 from South Vietnam, revolutionary Cambodian leader, Pol Pot, and the Khmer Rouge army killed over 1.7 million Cambodians. They are buried in mass graves in over 300 locations throughout the country. The genocide took the lives of over 20% of the population at the time. I have never spoken to a Cambodian whose family was not directly affected by the genocide. Cambodia is a country in recovery and still has great social, economic and spiritual need.

Of the 13,000 villages in Cambodia, it is estimated that there are over 11,000 villages that do not have a single follower of Christ. These villages make up the places where over 80% of the population lives. The housing and lifestyle of these Cambodians is simple and predominantly agricultural. The villages are remote and the roads are often impassable. In fact, no one just casually visits one of these villages. Someone must intentionally go to them. That’s where you come in. The One Prayer church planting initiative in Cambodia is going to help train and mobilize Cambodian believers to go into these yet unreached villages with the gospel of peace.
Based on the testimony of a church planter I talked to in May (we’ll call him “Mark”), the journey into most of these villages in his area is not at all easy. He describes trying to find a remote village that he heard about deep in the jungle forest which rises up from the Mekong River that flows through the area. He and his companion were walking deep in the forest as dusk began to make it almost impossible to see. They had hoped to make it to the village before dark, because these particular forests are full of malaria carrying mosquitoes. He and his companion continually prayed about what to do.

Surrounded by the closing darkness of the forest he decided to climb a tree for a better view. In the distance he saw the glow of a fire. He got his bearings and they began to walk in that direction. When they approached the cluster of small bamboo and wood homes, he saw the cooking fire of a woman outside her hut which stood on stilts above her. It was not the village they were looking for, but they were glad to find people, any people.

The strangers had no idea how they would be received by these people who rarely see anyone from outside their village clusters. However, the men were greeted by a woman with a warm smile and the aroma of steaming rice. Almost as if she were expecting them, she invited them near and naturally began to ask them questions. Off to one side, under the house, lay a man. It was her husband who had passed out in a drunken stupor, oblivious to the strangers who had emerged from the forest. Bro Mark and his companion inquired about her life, her husband and family. These men shared their own testimonies of a changed life and the Creator God who loves and seeks the people he created. News about the strangers quickly spread to the other houses and people began to come and listen to them tell stories into the night as they ate with the growing crowd. They prayed for the family and thanked the village for their hospitality. The people wanted to hear more, so the men stayed there in that village, sharing God’s Word with them and seeing many of them come to faith. What seemed like the wrong village was the right village. This “woman of peace”, prepared by God, welcomed the men of God and helped the people in her village receive the gospel and they are growing in His grace.

Thanks to the One Prayer Church planting initiative, Bro. Mark will now have opportunity to train and mobilize at least 8 teams of church planters in his province to seek out more of the 200 to 300 villages he has heard about that have yet to meet a believer and hear the Good News of Christ. Pray for Mark and his teams as they risk malaria on their trek of faith, or even climb trees to seek out those who need the gospel.

ONE Prayer Update: Sudan

As many of you know that we are coordinating the missional elements of the ONE Prayer campaign, i thought it would be fun to list the weekly updates that we are receiving from each of our field partners in Sudan, India, Cambodia and China. As a result, please see below for what we recently received from our partner in Sudan.
-sj
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Jesus walked from town to town with his disciples, but Sudan, Africa's largest country, is more than 100 times larger than the territory of Judea and Samaria. 55 church planters in two groups are already in training and have begun to share Christ in the villages of two unreached districts. Planting churches in rural towns and villages in Sudan can be very difficult because people quickly recognize and are suspicious of strangers. The church planters learn to go first to one of the village elders and ask for permission to visit the village and start a school. The word "school" does not mean an institution with a building, but something as simple as a teacher sitting under the tree or in the shade of a hut with any "students" willing to learn.

One of the church planters currently working with/through the ONE Prayer network (we will call him Michael) approached an elder in the village he was praying for. He asked the elder for permission but was refused. The elder said that everyone in the village was Muslim. The elder walked with Michael through the whole village to prove that there were no Christians there. Michael left, but returned regularly to the village, always visiting the elder and reading to him some passages from the Bible. Finally, he confessed that he had grown up in a Christian family, but did not know anything about the Bible. In order to live in this village, he had converted to Islam and taken a Muslim name. But now that the elder was hearing the Bible, he wanted Michale to start a school in his home. On the first "official" day of the school, almost 50 people came to listen.

Michael and all of the church planters visit several villages each week. The bikes that they use (like the one featured above in the inset picture) greatly improve their mobility and outreach capability. The early stage of church planting involves a lot of conversation and relationship building, and the model offered is based on Ecclesiastes 11:6 ("Sow seed in the morning and at evening, let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that or whether both will do equally well.").
8/1/08
rvg

ONE Prayer... MANY Cool People...

A week from this past Friday, i spent the day with some really cool people. Seriously. The people in this photo have literally changed the face of the world, and while you've never seen their faces on a political ad (or "most wanted list"), these people are some of the Smartest Zombies i have ever had the privilege to meet.

We'll be working with each of them through the ONE Prayer movement to facilitate the goal of planting 500 churches in 4 countries, and each of them works with an organization that is handling the planting implementation in one of the key geographic focal points.

Let me tell you their stories quickly:

Bob Craft (New Generations) - left side, closest to camera - Bob has worked in SE Asia for nearly 10 years, and has done a variety of missions oriented church-planting initiatives for most of his adult life. Currently, working with New Generations, Bob coordinates planting and partnership development for most of SE Asia, including Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and beyond.

Waldemar Kurz - left side, closest to wall - Waldemar is one of those people that Indiana Jones describes as "you'll never find him... he speaks a dozen languages, knows every local custom, he'll blend in, fall through... with any luck, he's found the Ark already!" Working from the Ukraine and Russia all the way to China, Waldemar has literally been behind the scenes training, resourcing and networking local churches since before "the wall came down" and beyond.

Vicki Miles - right side, closest to wall - Vicki owns her own software development company, and has just returned with her husband from a stint in Portugal, resourcing a local church in that country and also working with ex-pats. Vicki has graciously volunteered her time to help us figure out all the complexity of the ONE Prayer movement and is helping us to put together (and track) our budgets, implementation strategies, and reporting.

Renata Kurz - right side, in the middle - Renata is married to Waldemar and operates a ministry called "Little Lambs" that focuses on resourcing orphans and other "forgotten" people in the former Soviet Union and beyond. She's intense, and you can't help but immediately be won over by her passion and determination to care for those who truly have fallen through the proverbial "cracks" of society.

Ron VanderGriend - right side, closest to camera - Most of us all already know Ron (aka "WorldMan") VanderGriend here at GCC. I liken Ron to the following analogy: "Let's say that you are pastoring a local church and you decide that you would like to have an IT Dept at your church. Then let's say that Bill Gates just happens to attend your church and says that he would like to help." Ron is "that guy". He has personally mentored, instructed and helped us to do all that we do at GCC from a missions point of view, and we are privileged to know him!

Between the 5 of them, they have been instrumental in planting over 50,000 local, indigenously pastored and led churches in over 50 countries in the last 30 years. And when i say "churches", i don't mean "we met for a Bible study one time", i mean "we meet regularly to engage in worship, service, community, discipleship and reaching out to our communities". Honestly, these people are the kinds of heroes behind the massive movements of the People of God in unreached and developing nations that you simply never see, and i was privileged to get to spend the day with them talking about what we'll be doing together through the ONE Prayer movement.

ONE Prayer Movement

Many of you already know that we here at GCC are deeply involved in the ONE Prayer movement. Around about this past May, the team at Life Church dared to ask what would happen if churches around the world got together as One Body for the purpose of sharing teaching, worship and mission for four weeks. The project was called ONE Prayer, and ended up being something HUGE! As churches began to stack in from all over the globe, the "end number" of those participating numbered just over 1,700 from as far away as India and China to as near as the church on the corner of your street, and GCC participated as well, hearing from Wayne Cadero (at New Hope Fellowship), Craig Groeschel (LifeChurch.tv) and our own Mark Beeson.

As part of this initiative, we were asked by the team at Life Church to run the "Mission" component for the entire campaign. Due to our long history in India and the relative level of success we've had there in partnering with grass-roots networks of indigenous Smart Zombies (aka "church planters"), we pitched an idea to see if the ONE Prayer network might partner in 4 geographies to plant a total of 500 churches. The 4 target geographies are Sudan, India, Cambodia and China, and at last count, over $740,000 has been raised through the network to ensure that such will be possible.

I'm excited to say that to date, our partners in India (Life Mission International) have already begun training the first batch of 150 planters, and Cambodia, China and Sudan have also begun their initiatives as well. You can track the progress of the entire movement by clicking here, and we'll be posting regularly with both video, "hard metric" and "blog-style" posts on a weekly basis.