Meeting Jesus Anew

Tammy, Rebecca, and I were blessed to visit with Living Waters Community Church for services last night and twice this morning. During these services, Pastor Winn gave his congregation a challenge. He challenged them to use the remaining 16 days in October to read all of the four gospels -- Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Not to read them academically, but to read them as if they were getting to know Jesus for the first time. It was a powerful challenge and one that I am going to take up. I also felt the Holy Spirit's prompting to challenge all our blog readers to take up the same challenge. So, now the challenge is to you. No matter when you read this posting, make a promise to yourself to take the next 16 days to meet Jesus anew by reading all of the four gospels. You never know the impact that meeting one very special person, even someone you thought you already knew, will have on your life.

For an online Bible, check out Bible Gateway at http://www.biblegateway.com. They have multiple versions of God’s eternal word. One is sure to be a good fit for you.

Coup in Thailand

An interesting thing happened while I was in Thailand in September. The Thai military decided it was time to overthrow the government and stage a coup. I am a man of faith and I do believe that God is in all things. However, that Tuesday evening, while sitting in the cyber lounge of our hotel, catching up on email and talking to Tammy over Skype, it was a little unnerving to see a headline pop up on My Yahoo that said "Breaking News - Coup in Thailand." It was even more unnerving when all the broadcast TV stations suddenly switched to broadcasting old patriotic songs and showing pictures of the King. The final straw was when the live broadcast from CNN where the reporter was about to tell the viewers about the tanks and troops that were assembling downtown suddenly was replaced with a red screen and a message saying that there were unusual sunspots interfering with the broadcast. Yea...right...sunspots...at 11:30 at night. That was also about the same time that the Internet went down.

Nervous? Absolutely! Hopeless? Never! With God, there is always hope. I called my friend, Ruthie, who was staying just a few blocks from the government center. She confirmed the tanks and soldiers, but also confirmed that there was no shooting. That was good news. Then I turned to the one item of international communication that the military apparently forgot about. My cell phone. I was able to call Tammy, ask her to keep up with what was happening on CNN, and then to text me whenever anything new came on. Even in a so called "total blackout" of communications, God provided a loophole for us to stay informed.

We were blessed in that there was no violence associated with this coup. Church services on Wednesday night were canceled, and that did alter my plans a bit. However, since our meeting to plan the new version of The GodMan was taking place in our hotel, we were able to continue our work without disruption.

My thanks go out to our prayer partners around the world. Through Tammy's phone calling, and Victory Church's email prayer network, we were able to get word out to hundreds of prayer partners. I truly believe that it was the action of these faithful prayer warriors that helped us to complete our work with absolutely no disruption. Thank you to all who prayed.

September Travels

September was an adventurous month. It started with a trip to Moscow on the second. From there, I traveled to Manila on the ninth and then to Bangkok on the seventeenth. I finally arrived back home on the twenty-second, having successfully circumvented the globe.

In addition to being adventurous, it was also a very productive and rewarding month, with ministry training in Moscow and Manila, and planning a new version of The GodMan in Bangkok. There was lots of work involved in these activities. But it was very rewarding work. The next several posts will provide stories related to these travels. I hope you enjoy them, and I also hope that you will take away a heart of prayer for the needs expressed.

September Moscow

September is an interesting month to be in Moscow. The summer has ended, but the cold of winter has not yet arrived. It rained some each day we were there, but there was also some beautiful periods of sunshine. Comming from hot and humid Florida, the weather was a refreshing break.

In Moscow, I had the privilege of participating in the Regional Distribution Seminar for Book of Hope the CIS region. The CIS region comprises those countries that made up the former Soviet Union and many of her aligned countries. While these countries were closely aligned during the soviet era, today there is fervent nationalism with strong feelings between many of the now independent countries and Russia. In one way, this is a positive. Each country feels fully empowered to engage in the work of evangelism in a way that best fits the needs of her people. However, there are also negatives to this attitude. This fervent nationalism can also result in resistance to direction and an attitude that says I will not do something, simply because they do it that way in Russia. This is an important issue to be in prayer about. As we work with ministry leaders from throughout the CIS region, we need each of them to think in terms of how to reach their children and youth, without regard to how some other country does it.

In many ways, this issue of pride is like when Naaman was told to wash in the Jordan River to be cured of his leprosy. The story, as told in Second Kings, chapter 5, tells how pride, nationalistic pride, could have prevented his healing. Pray that the nations of the CIS can put aside their nationalist pride and, like Naaman ultimately did, receive their healing.

The exciting aspect of the Moscow meeting was that many of the individuals who serve on our various ministry teams in the region were there. This was not just a meeting of leaders, but also of those who are daily putting their faith into action to reach their the children and youth in their country. It was wonderful to see the members of the Perm team whom I had ministered with back in May. It was great to be able to meet the members of the Izhevsk and Chita teams and to hear their ministry stories. Throughout Russia, we have team members who every day are traveling from village to village to bring the good news to a lost and dying world. Pray for their safety and effectiveness in their ministry.

September Manila

From Moscow to Manila, we spent almost 24 hour in airplanes or airports getting to our second destination. Manila is a fabulous city – especially so because there seems to be a Starbucks on every other corner. There is actually one place in Manila, near the Greenhills Mall, where you can stand in one spot and see a Starbucks, no matter what way you are facing. This week was filled with formal meetings during the day, and informal meetings in the evenings. My name became know as Wayne “Meet me at Starbucks” Brown. It was the perfect atmosphere to put the meeting participants at ease while we talked about the ministry opportunities within their countries.

The meeting in Manila was a gathering of ministry leaders from throughout the Asia-Pacific region. This included people from Southeast Asia and from the islands scattered between the Asian peninsular and Australia. It was a wonderful mix of people, all focused on taking the good news to every child and young person in their country or collection of island countries. Those many meetings at the local Starbucks were informative events. Many of these ministry leaders, such as those from the Philippines, Indonesia, and the Oceania area, are reaching into areas that include thousands of individual islands. The concept of jumping into your car or truck to go to the next village for ministry simply does not apply here. In many cases, movement from one place to another requires a boat or an airplane. This makes ministry slower and more costly in these areas. It also requires more people to effectively carry the gospel message forward.

People, laborers, harvesters, all are words used to describe the worker who takes the gospel message forward. Oceania needs laborers to partner with our leadership to effectively and aggressively take the gospel message forward. The books are ready, the students are there, and the access is available. But the laborers are few. The Philippines, a nation divided across many islands, a nation that has seen a Christian presence for hundreds of years, is a nation that has grown indifferent to the need to spread the gospel. However, that indifference is being faced down by a dedicated group of local evangelist; evangelist who are taking the gospel message into the schools and communities throughout the country. However, as hard as they work, they cannot work alone. They need partners. They need dedicated believers who will stand beside them to distribute books and to do The GodMan in every school and every community. There is the potential for four million children and youth people to receive the life-changing message presented in The GodMan in the Philippines in 2007. However, without the necessary laborers, only a small fraction will likely be impacted by this presentation of the gospel. Pray for the Lord of the harvest to call up laborers from Oceania and the Philippines to reach the children and youth of these island nations.

Almost every country represented at this meeting in Manila shared needs similar to Oceania and the Philippines. In almost every case, they need laborers to bring in a harvest that is ripe. One very exciting fulfillment of this cry is coming from Singapore and Taiwan. Churches and believers within both of these countries have recently begun to send missionary teams from their own lands into other countries. While they are aggressively taking the gospel message forward to their own people, they are not totally inward focus. They are truly living out an Acts 1:8 existence by being witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Join us in prayer for God's blessings and anointing to be with these dedicated labors has they follow His call to the ends of the earth.

September Bangkok

With the conclusion of the meeting in Manila, my mode had to shift from one of educating and training to one of gathering information and understanding. The next leg of our itinerary took us to Bangkok. Bangkok is an interesting city. It is large and continuing to grow rapidly. No matter which way you look, you are likely to see a large construction crane. And you are just as likely to see an old Buddhist temple, the old and the new coexisting in the same area. What impressed me the most about Bangkok was not the architecture or the layout of the city, but it was the people. These are a people who value service to their fellow man. I have never been anywhere in this world where I felt better cared for, or more sincerely cared for, than in Bangkok. It is a part of who they are.

This spirit of service is not just applicable to a bellhop or waiter. It is also applicable to those doing ministry work within Thailand and her neighboring Southeast Asian countries. Each person we worked with, either a ministry leader or an expert in Christian children’s media, had a sincere heart for reaching the lost in their communities. This heart shone through as they talked about the greatest needs of the children and youth in their country.

I was especially touched by the missionary from Cambodia who joined us. He is a missionary from the Southern Baptist Convention who is there to do a “good works” ministry, but for whom God has opened the doors to do great evangelism through media. His stories of difficulty in Cambodia echoed what I had heard the previous week in Manila from our Book of Hope Cambodia national coordinator. This is a country with very little in the way of infrastructure. It is also a country whose people have very little understanding of the Christian world view. To them, Jesus is just another one of the “pick of the day” gods that they can call on. The concept of one true God and redemption from sin are totally foreign to most Cambodians. This missionary’s approach to the issue is through one-on-one evangelism. We hear the term one-on-one evangelism used frequently in closed countries, because it can be done quietly. However, Cambodia is not a closed country. It is open and there are many opportunities to minister to the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual needs of her people. The greatest impediment to effective ministry is not the lack of a message – the Word of God is the greatest message. It is not for lack of desire – the people of Cambodia are open to hearing and understanding the truth. No, it is a lack of laborers; laborers from both within Cambodia and from other countries. Cambodia is a difficult place to live and work. After years of killings and oppression, relationships have to be nurtured before the message of love and acceptance from Jesus Christ can be received. Please pray for Cambodia. Pray for the Lord of the harvest to call up laborers from this nation, from this region, and from around the world to come to Cambodia to bring the good news to a people who desperately need to hear it.

I also ask that you pray for Myanmar, also know as Burma. This country has existed under decades of military rule, with fierce oppression to anyone who advocates democracy. It is a predominantly Buddhist nation, but with a growing Christian and Muslim presence. Evangelism is difficult and is strongly discouraged by the military junta. Therefore, our labors in this land must take other creative approaches to presenting the gospel. They must work in areas that meet the social needs of the youth of this country in a way that does not raise undue attention by the government. And they have been very creative in doing so. For obvious reasons, I will not detail those ways here. However, I do ask you to keep our laborers in Myanmar in your prayers. Pray for their safety and protection. Pray that their public work gives them favor with the leaders where they work and with the youth with whom they interact, so that their private work can move forward undeterred.

Our team members from Indonesia were a joy to work with. They really helped to bring to bear the special focus that needs to be in place when ministering in Indonesia. This nation of over 17,000 islands, located south of Thailand and the Philippines and north of Australia, is home to over 120 million children and youth. It is also the most heavily populated Muslim country in the world, with 88% of her 245 million citizens being Islamic adherents. This makes doing ministry in Indonesia very different than anywhere else in the Asia-Pacific region. In fact, as we were doing our planning work, the phrase most frequently spoken by the participants was "Except Indonesia!" As we reviewed the issues and discussed the needs for Asia-Pacific, many of the ministry options would work in every country, except Indonesia. However, in spite of the difference in approach that must be taken in this very large country, the heartfelt needs and social issues that her children and youth encounter were very similar to those in the other countries throughout the region. And the bottom-line answer was the same. They need to know Jesus and the hope that comes by way of salvation through faith. Pray for our laborers in Indonesia. Pray for effectiveness as they reach out to all the inhabited islands. Pray for their safety as they reach into some of the more difficult areas. And pray for strength as they carry out this very difficult work, often times with little in the way of outside support. Finally, pray for laborers from within Indonesia who will go into every island and every village and every neighborhood to take the good news to all the people.

There were other countries represented at this meeting. However, due to the political situations that exist in those lands, they will not be mentioned here. Nevertheless, I ask that you pray for them. God knows who they are. Pray for their safety and for strength to carry on with the work that the Lord has given them. And pray for laborers to come along beside them and support them.

September 2006 Newsletter

Our September 2006 newsletter is now available online. Click here to go immediately to this newsletter. You can also find this and all our previous newsletters on our website at http://www.YourWorldMissionaries.org/. Click on the "Update" tab and look for the links to all our newsletters on the left side of the “Update” page.