The Art of Networking

About 700 church volunteers from nine churches in the Longmont, Colorado area participated in their fourth ShareFest, an annual event to help transform their community by fixing up area schools. This year’s volunteers worked at ten schools, cleaning, painting, gardening, and completing minor repairs. “This is an amazing partnership,” said Rick Ring, assistant superintendent of auxiliary services.

“Where schools have made budget cuts and can’t afford some of the repair work they need, we come alongside them and help out,” said volunteer Marie Zwart. “We provide the labor. They provide the materials. It works out pretty well.”

The original ShareFest, an annual worship and service event uniting local churches for strategic and visible demonstration of Christ’s love in their communities, was started in 1999 in central Arkansas. ShareFest now has participating churches throughout the country and around the world.

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Partners Words of Hope and the Middle East Reformed Fellowship have been spreading Christianity through radio broadcasting, now reaching 340 million residents of 22 countries in the Arab League–and growing. With WOH’s help, MERF produces Gospel programs, which are presented in three major Ethiopian languages–Amharic, Oromo, and Somali. MERF also supports indigenous evangelists and pastors with training and leadership.

Now, a new series is being added to MERF’s Arabic programming and will air for four minutes every Saturday. It will address problems relevant to young people, such as finding housing and jobs, choosing a spouse, and reconciling broken families.

Despite the region’s instability and political tension, MERF and Words of Hope see progress of God’s Kingdom in the Middle East.

“The number of Muslims positively responding to the invitation to follow Christ…continues to grow in response to [these]…media ministries,” MERF said.

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At the prestigious Codex Sinaiticus Conference, hosted by the British Library in London on July 6 and 7, an international collaboration of four institutions–the British Library (Great Britain), Leipzig University Library (Germany), St. Catherine’s Monastery and the National Library of Russia (Russia)–aims to re-unify the entire Codex Sinaiticus (which is the original manuscript containing the Christian Bible in Greek) in digital format and make it globally accessible for the first time in history.

Together, these four institutions hold 400 of the original 730 parchment leaves of the Codex Sinaiticus, considered one of the most important books and treasured artifacts in the world because of its role in the reconstruction of the Christian Bible’s original text, the history of the Bible, and the history of Western book making.

Says Dr. Juan Hernandez, Jr., Bethel Assistant Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies and only junior American scholar to present his work at the conference, “It is an historic moment both in the quest for knowledge and in the collaboration of scholars, curators, and conservators.”

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Facilitated by the Eleutheros Christian Society (ECS) and the collective efforts of 11 villages, the first Public Private Partnership (PPP) project in Nagaland, India–a new health center in remote Tuensang–was inaugurated on June 7. Alemtemshi Jamir, Additional Chief Secretary and Development Commissioner of Nagaland, thanked the ECS and the villages for completing this bold initiative and hoped such success would encourage additional community projects, lessen government dependency, and attract global investments.

Other proposed projects include the development and expansion of the state’s horticulture produce, installation of telemedicine services, construction of a channel-based 700 KW hydro project to support a cold storage, the renovation of the middle school to a high school, and the establishment of a bank in this area.

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This June, more than 1,700 churches representing nearly a million believers kicked off the second annual One Prayer movement, hoping to accomplish more of God’s work together than on their own.

One Prayer joins together churches from across the globe for four weeks of prayer, fasting, sharing sermons and changing lives. Through the One Prayer movement, Christians work together in faith to help their own churches, their surrounding communities, and needy countries far from them.

Last year, One Prayer churches helped plant more than 660 churches in Southeast Asia, baptized over 7,000 individuals, and enrolled more than 44,000 in Bible studies. This year, One Prayer plans to plant another 500 churches in the same target areas plus 100 more in northern India where Christians have been attacked by Hindu extremists this past year.

This year’s One Prayer can be followed on Facebook, Twitter, and its Web site.

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To Henri, who lives in the batey community on the Dominican Republic’s northern coast, life seemed hopeless. Ten years ago, Henri* learned he was HIV positive–and his world dramatically changed. First, his friends and neighbors rejected him, and then his wife left him, taking with her their three children. Sick and alone, Henri struggled to support himself, facing discrimination at every turn.

When Henri’s wife died five years later, Henri was reunited with his children. However, he could not sufficiently provide for them because he could not earn a steady income. As a result, his children became malnourished and frail, and they could not attend school because there was no money for pencils, notebooks, and uniforms. As their father, Henri wanted to fulfill his responsibilities–but how?

 He believed in God, but did God believe in him?

For Henri, God’s answer was HOPE International, a Christian faith-based, nonprofit network of microfinance institutions focused on alleviating physical and spiritual poverty. Through a loan from HOPE Dominican Republic Henri built a business in his home selling basic items like rice, flour, and vegetables. As his business grew with additional capital, his ability to feed and provide for his children grew as well.

After receiving four loans for his convenience store, Henri decided to begin selling used clothing and shoes on the streets because this form of employment allowed him more time to interact with and raise his children. It also gave him more time for a cause that is close to his heart: providing counseling at a local clinic for those who have recently been diagnosed as HIV positive.

Today, Henri no longer feels hopeless. As a business owner he has gained respect in the community. Through his connection to HOPE D.R., Henri can obtain the antiretroviral drugs and the medical treatment that he needs to manage his disease. Last year he married an HIV negative woman and became stepfather to her three children.

His new wife and blended family are a great help in his business. With his next loan and their help, he will be able to reopen his convenience store. He now volunteers four days a week at the health clinic, helping other men and women confront the difficult HIV diagnosis so that they will seek appropriate treatment.

With six children and a wife to care for, money is still extremely tight for Henri. He prays constantly for God’s guidance and help in providing for his family, but he has also experienced God’s faithfulness in the past. Life may still be hard, but it is now filled with joy…and hope.

In 2008, HOPE International awarded the Thurman Award (which honors a client who exemplifies HOPE’s corporate values) to Henri for his success as a father, community leader, and business owner in the Dominican Republic.

The programs of HOPE International effectively reach nearly 250,000 entrepreneurs around the world with the love of Jesus Christ and the opportunity to start or expand a business. Network-wide, HOPE’s programs boast a 99.6% repayment rate, pointing to the efficiency of HOPE’s methodology.

To learn more about HOPE International, view a Webisode on HOPEtv. 
 
* Name has been changed to protect privacy.

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More than 15,000 people assembled at the open-air Tao Dan Stadium in Ho Chi Minh City this Easter to worship God and celebrate Christ’s resurrection. Such massive, public celebrations by unregistered groups are not usually permitted in Vietnam, which has highly restrictive religion laws. Participants, obviously inspired by the large-scale Christian unity, described this special event as “spectacular,” “splendid,” “glorious” and “phenomenal.”

Because the Vietnam Evangelical Fellowship (a house church umbrella group that sponsored this Easter service) wanted to include all house churches and not just its own members, its leaders and organizers struggled for many months to obtain the government’s permission to stage such a large venue. Authorities demanded the removal of one of the organizers and did not grant final permission until just three hours before the beginning of the service. Then heavy rain threatened to disrupt the Easter program and drench the worshippers. 

Thankfully, the rain stopped just before the start of the service, which began with congregational workship. During the service, participants watched a dance group perform and listened to a 120-voice choir, and many chose to become followers of Christ.

To these Vietnamese leaders of the celebration and religious freedom advocates this event was significant in two important ways: (1) unregistered house churches were allowed to hold a large public celebration, and (2) Vietnam’s house churches, widely known for divisiveness and provincialism, could cooperate with good results.

“Those who have long urged and worked for unity can be pleased,” said one advocate. “While there is still a long way to go for Vietnamese Christian groups in practicing collaboration and partnership, this Easter celebration is seen as a significant step forward.”

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Sevenstar Academy delivers online Christian education to schools, families, churches, and nonprofit organizations, offering more than 60 courses for grades 4-12. Working with three private Christian colleges, it also provides online dual-credit college courses to partner schools around the world.

Now it is offering Christian schools partnership grants and tuition assistance, since the current government stimulus package does not include funding for private Christian schools. This Sevenstar “stimulus package” will help Christian schools save nearly a million dollars or more this summer, along with additional fiscal stability throughout the year.

“We believe in the mission of Christian schools and want to help them accomplish that mission using tools of the 21st century–online courses. This Christian school stimulus package will assist hundreds of schools to advance that mission with financial assistance from Sevenstar Academy,” says Dr. Mark Beadle, Head of School of Sevenstar Academy.

Sevenstar Academy has helped hundreds of Christian schools. Its collaborative partnership is designed to help any size school address its academic challenges and accomplish its academic goals by incorporating online courses into the school curriculum. Schools use the partner program to meet the needs of their current students, connect with new students, and effectively manage their schools’ resources.

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In July 2007, the Christian Defense Coalition organized and led a delegation to Baghdad to meet and pray with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki and his Cabinet members. During this historic meeting, delegates discussed positive, practical, and tangible ways to strengthen relationships of openness, conversation, and trust between Iraq and the United States.

Last month, a representative group met in Washington, D.C. to discuss its plan to establish a first-ever student exchange program and other ways to build bridges between the two countries. According to Kristopher Keating, Director of the Hillside Missions Organization and organizer of the students exchange program, such an exchange between communities of Iraq and the United States “presents an unprecedented opportunity to broaden perspectives, embrace cultural diversities, build meaningful relationships and demonstrate the Christian and universal principle of love.” He notes that many “Iraqi children have lived in an environment of violent conflict. This program gives American families the privilege and opportunity to invest in the lives of those young people.” He anticipates that this new program will be a life-changing event for the participants and a potential catalyst for larger-scale collaboration between the two countries.

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In Thailand’s Christian hospitals, only one doctor in ten is a Christian doctor. To rectify this situation, General Secretary Rev. Sayam Muangsak and Associate Secretary Elder Suthin Kumata from Church of Christ are seeking a medical and mission partnership with Taiwan’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. Mackay Hospital can help Thailand’s Christian hospitals by providing medical equipment and offering short- and long-term medical training since Mackay has a lot of experience training Christian physicians. In return, Thailand Christian hospitals would like to partner with Mckay for medical missions and exchange opportunities to share ideas and lessons learned during proposed future medical forums hosted by both countries. 

Mackay Superintendent Tsai Cheng-Ho believes such a partnership between his hospital and Christian hospitals in Thailand will greatly support one another in furthering their ministries.

Mackay Memorial Hospital, well-known for its cutting-edge technology and research in long-distance medical treatment, has recently focused its attention and resources on treating diseases that afflict elderly people.

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Filed under: Southeast Asia, education, mentoring, partnerships on May 17th, 2009 | No Comments »