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Edition Issue 30 Let’s Fish Bible Fellowship Churches sharing resources to evangelize the world. A place for the exchange of ideas on short term missions projects and local outreach. "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men."
All responses can be sent to office@bfcbom.org
Current and past issues can be found on the web at: www.bfcbom.org look in Let’s Fish, Archives
Greetings from Allentown!
4. Trips in the works (updated weekly)
Pastor Dave Peters; youth pastor at Quakertown wins last week’s recruitment prize. Sending me two student applications for RWR automatically places those students on the Let’s Fish readership. Thanks Pastor Dave for your interest in Let’s Fish and the BOM RWR! Your prize is in the mail!
Dear Dana,
You can note down that we have set the dates for our Paris Prayer Conference 2004: June 12th through 18th, 2004. More details (brochure, e-mail version of the brochure, and link to a website) will be available by early October 2003.
In His grace,
David
David & Rebecca RIDDELL France V.I.E. (World Team France) 4, Val de la Raviniere 95520 Osny FRANCE
Write me. I love e-mail!
WHAT A DAY!
On my way to work today I passed the Emmaus High School. Out front was a host of students circled around the flag pole praying for their teachers, fellow students, for God to do something special on their campus. Hundreds of students and teachers walking by saw these students head bowed hand in hand praying! What a testimony. The exciting thing is this was happening on campuses all around the eastern United States. As I am writing, this same thing is happening to our west. In another hour it will again be taking place out in the Mountain States, yet another hour on the West Coast, and yet later, on the Islands!!!! A wave of student prayer crossing this Nation!
Will you join our young people and make this a special day of prayer for the young people of the BFC. Pray for our youth pastors and lay youth leaders. Pray for the Youth and Young Adult BFC committee. (Coincidently they just met last evening!) Pray for the special needs of our MK’S. Pray! Pray! Pray!!!
4. Trips in the works (updated weekly)
The Board of Missions is keeping statistics of all short term missionary trips (both by teams and individuals). As you can see the 2003 trips are quickly coming to an end. Please register your 2004 trips as soon as they materialize. WHO, WHAT, CHURCH, MISSIONARY, COUNTRY, and DATE. Contact: office@bfcbom.org
Aug. 30 - Dec. 1 Pastor Carl & Charlene Cassel in Kenya, Carl to teach at Moffat College of Bible and Charlene, hostess at Kijabe Motel. Sep. 5- Serbia Trip Reading September 18- 29 Royersford Barnabas Team to visit with the Moyer's in France and with Rick Erb in the Ukraine. September 19- 29 Royersford Work Team to put roof on Church building in Palowice, Poland. September 19-28 Bethlehem to Romania Late September Harleysville to Hungary
Trips highlighted need our prayer support RIGHT NOW!
Oct. 9 - 17; work trip to Guatemala (Mi Refugio). Building skills sought. Several from the BFC mid-Hudson churches are planning to go -- elder Hans Waldvogel (Faith BFC, Holmes, NY) is the contact person hwaldvog@jhmc.org October date to be determined Cedar Crest to Kosovo Work and ministry.
2004 June 12-18 Paris Prayer Conference all invited!
Don’t forget to register your 2004 trips!!!
November 14-16 BOM Missions RWR
This annual work/study weekend sponsored by the BOM is for high school and post high school young people serious about knowing God’s will for their life and the possibility of career missions. This weekend fills up quickly so register early on line at:
This just in!!! Missionary Craig Tress from Australia will be with us for the entire weekend!
Registrations are already coming in! Don’t miss out!
Mark your Calendar!
Urgent last day to register! Short term Missions Symposium
Purpose: To gather the leadership from all short term efforts of local BF Churches over the past months to debrief and to plan for the future.
Time: September 19 6:00 p.m.
Place: Blandon Bible Fellowship Church
Cost: $7.00 Topics covered:
>My #1 “best idea” that I will use in every future trip. Round table. >My #1 “worst idea” that was a total flop never to be repeated. Round table. >Partnership opportunities now available with BFC missionaries. >Craftsmen mobilized and ready when needed >Long term ministry partnerships. >Preparing for your trip part 1 Bonding and Training. >Preparing for your trip Part 2 Practical ideas >Fund raiser ideas and IRS issues >Church preparation for individuals going “solo”. >BOM resources >If you can’t debrief don’t go. Getting the long term advantage
Don’t Miss It!!!
Register today office@bfcbom.org
Don't miss our 2nd
Annual College Fair
coming the weekend of October 3rd and 4th!!!!
Representatives from
Christian
Colleges will be there to answer questions, as will financial aid officers who
will also host workshops. Other seminars will deal with spiritual and
intellectual issues that may confront the new college freshman. Last year's
College Fair was a great success, even though it was our very first. If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Claude Gates via e-mail at: cgates@sunlink.net , or Dr. John Studenroth at: studenroth@juno.com.
This article from Elizabeth Studenroth is long but worth your time! Please read!
I'm back. I've been to two camps and recovered a lot since last time, and I think I'm up to finishing this. Or at least digging myself in deeper. I shall pick up with the plane trip, because before that is a very stressful lot of packing. Profound advice to other people number 1: whatever vital article you may forget, it is not worth the stress of trying to think of everything before you go. I was a bit relieved to get out of America and find that if I had forgotten something there was no longer anything anyone could do about it, so all people could stop worrying. And I survived just fine. Next time maybe I'll do what the Russians did: two outfits, a toothbrush, and sunflower seeds. So anyway, the plane trip. This incident was really exciting to me. I shall quote that journal of mine: "I noticed as I looked down at the world, while the ground was still in sight, how filthy and messy and polluted it looked. He told man to subdue the earth, but man couldn't even subdue himself, and he's sort of messed up the face of the earth. And then, higher up, the clouds below us and the earth below us no longer looked far apart from each other, but looked quite close, until the little pure white clouds appeared to be floating on the filthy surface. And I said, 'Oh Father, that's what my soul feels like: a deep and filthy sea with pure white bits of goodness floating on the surface and getting dirty.' And at that very moment - as I was still speaking, this huge white cloud came rolling over beneath the plane and covered up the ground and the little white clouds and everything, and instantly there popped into my head the verse, 'Behold, I have blotted out thy transgressions like a cloud, like a thick cloud thy iniquity, and will remember thy sins no more.' " Did I say anything about the Russian subway? Or metro, if there's a difference. I love that thing! It's like a whole world underground, and everyone measures the city by the metro stops and which stop you live on, and we got to ride it quite a bit. You scan your pass on this thing as you enter, and then you're in and can ride around under the city as much as you like, and submerge in whatever place you knew how to get to. Since I didn't know how to get anywhere I clung to the sight of the person who did. Once you've scanned your pass you hold your breath and hop onto the World's Fastest Escalator (honest, it officially is) and catch your breath again since that didn't kill you after all - this time, and enjoy the descent of The World's Longest Escalator. Mr. Harding said Russia likes to get world records. They also made good bomb shelters during WWII. You have to stay to the right side of the things, so the left side is a clear passage for people who want to be Faster Than The World's Fastest Escalator and run up and down the thing. Underneath is all stone, like the mines of Moria in excellent upkeep and overrun with people and signs pointing you to places with long long Russian names that make you feel ignorant. But one get's quite used to feeling ignorant in other people's countries. And on one side is tracks and on the other is tracks, and you go to the different sides depending on which direction you wish to go. And the trains are contantly pulling up - you never have to wait, and they are exceedingly noisy and dragonish. We had a lesson on what to do if you got on one but the others didn't make it, or the others got on one and you didn't make it. The lessons terrified us into staying very close together and on our toes, and we all made it. Sometimes you'll get on one and there's enough standing room to stand without touching another person - that's Empty. And sometimes you can actually sit down - that's A Miracle. And it pulls off with a lovely yank, trying to throw you off balance, and chugs into the next stop. You stop very frequently, and watch people get on and off, and anxiously glance at your leader to see if you're getting off soon, and count how many fingers he holds up. And when you no longer turn green with motion sickness you turn green with envy at these people who ride a roller coaster to school every day. And once we got to ride at rush hour - that was the greatest. Someone was reading a book as he walked; the person in front of him guided him, the people on either side kept him from falling over, and the person behind propelled him forward - all he had to do was move his feet and be carried along in the crowd. You're caught up in this huge swarm of humanity that is too crowded to notice that you're an American and don't belong there, and you can't help but feel like you're a part of it. I was thinking as I did it how I would describe it, and at first it was like no longer thinking of yourself as one individual but one little fish in a great school of fishes, and then it changed and you became no longer a fish but just one little fin on one great fish. That was how it felt. But hey, if you get on to ride four stops and you ride four stops and get off looking confident and submerge and there's your destination, why, you don't feel quite so ignorant. So the metro was one of my absolutely favorite things. And I didn't tell you about Steve. I told you that I didn't tell you about Steve, but that's all I said. I was trying not to let the topic of him dominate my whole letter, but I have a lot of dear memories of him. He was the student with the least English and the most confidence. He is very opposite to me, who am terrified to say anything in Russian unless I'm sure I've got it correct, so I liked talking to him. He had very little patience with me, but oh well. He's the one I blame for the loss of my swim mask. He'd ask to borrow it for one minute. As soon as I handed it to him he upped it to the three or five minutes and dived off. I tired of this after several repititions, refused to surrender it, realized I couldn't wrestle it from him all afternoon and his it under the water. Too well. And watching Wallace draw pictures of me with my face on the back of my head because he changed his mind halfway through about which way I was supposed to be facing. And running through the museum together counting the order of Stalin and order of Lenin medals on the statues of famous people until someone yelled, "No touching!" or some such thing in Russian. And dumping sugar packets from Sbarro's (they have those over there) over the handrailing at the mall into the river/heads of people who got in the way.
Profound advice for other people number 2: if you're going to play stupid practical jokes like that you have to make sure it's OK in their culture. That means you wait 'til they do it, and then you can join them.) And learning Russian card games with Elena and Russian Anna and him into the late hours of the night. And walking by the playground while going to bed at the ghastly early hours of 12:30 or 1:00 and hearing him and Alexei up on the three headed wooden dragon strumming the guitar and singing at the top of their lungs some Russian song. That enthusiastic place between singing and shouting. And the incidents of me slapping him for saying dreadful things he hadn't meant to say (sometimes it pays to be cowardly in second languages). And racing up the stairs to the dining room. He told me he was a vegetarian, but then when I was sharing my slim jims he said he loved them. I wasn't sure how to reconcile that, but I thought it would be easier to just give him one and see if he'd eat it than communicate the question across the language barrier. He took a bite and I ventured, "I thought you said you were a vegtarian." He spit it out. Oh dear. I thought slim jims made themselves clear. And the ping-pong game! If I ever play ping-pong with you, you can know that I either really, really like you and am desperate for you to want to spend time with me, or I'm making a great sacrifice to missions and relationship building, along the lines of eating grubs and sleeping in wigwams. I cannot play ping-pong! But Steve had brought up in our English class on friendship in trying to explain the idea of friends sharing common interests that, for example, if he wanted to play ping-pong he would want a person to play it to be his friend. So I played when he asked me that afternoon. After the score was 5 to 0 within the first thirty seconds he realized why I'd hesitated and found someone else. However, with all that we were still friends when we said goodbye and he told me so as he got on the bus, so God is good. By the way, playing vampires was Wallace's idea, not mine. I have never played vampires before or since, but I met Holly Harding at Pinebrook and she wanted to know what I was teaching her little brother, so I wish to clarify that I proposed nothing of the sort.
Profound advice for other people number 3: Quoting my journal again for this. "I've learned in the past two days that one's spiritual state is carried with one wherever one goes. Distance from or nearness to the omnipresent God cannot be changed by moving around on the globe. Did I think I would automatically be driven to His heart just because I was on a missions trip? But I run, fly, flee there because I know that is not so. My struggle at home was that life was so beautiful and abundant and delightful it was driving Him fom His place as my best thought. Well, life here in this new place is a hundred times more beautiful and abundant and delightful. I'm not sure the struggle is a hundred times worse, but it's certainly not instantly solved. We're not even going to be able to go to church this Sunday. If I don't draw near to God, it won't happen." Profound advice for other people number 4: This is my biggest and most important thought. I knew this, I believed it, but going to Russia myself drove it home. I've only shared it with one other person since coming home, but I want to talk to everybody about it. If I have after one trip any right to give advice, I have one message. My disovery: MISSIONS AND EVANGELISM ARE NOT WORTH IT. (Elizabeth shocks everybody. Elizabeth must explain. Please do not quote her out of context.) Jesus Christ is worth it. To be one of His treasured disciples and worshippers is worth it. It is so much so that one may and must invite others to be His too. That is what makes missions worthwhile. But it is not what makes one's life meaningful or valuble or great, it is not "The Lord's servive" or "The Lord's work" or a spiritual job in a way that to be an ordinary Christian is not spiritual and the Lord's service. Because what are we telling these people? How to become an ordinary Christian! If it is not worth it just to be Christ's, it is not worth it to tell others how to be Christ's. To be Christ's is the greatest thing one can be, and it is the greatest good news one can tell. But what we shall be doing for eternity is worshipping Him - with the people that we helped lead there. I think a part of my desire to be a missionary throughout my life has been wanting to have a life more spiritual and full of God than what I saw a lot of around me, more than a half-hour devotions each day and a church servive on Sunday and prayer before meals, and He didn't relate in between. Oh people, we are going to spend eternity glorifying, enjoying, worshipping, loving, delighting in, reveling in, the Lord our God, the Lord of all things. He is the One all things are for and to. We can start now. He has to do with every bit of our lives. He displays His glory there. Every one of us is in the Lord's work, His servant, living a life that is worth sharing. This is my passion, whether I am to share it here or there or somewhere else, and what I would wish the message of my life to be. I am not trying to make missions out to be any less, but to show it has a foundation bigger than itself to stand on. So in that horrible packing business, forget your toothbrush and your socks and your passport (I'm exaggerating, don't forget the passport!) but do not forget your vision of Him, and of how worth sharing what you have is. It was what I felt most the need of. You will be bombarded by a full, incredible, different culture that will knock everything out of perspective without that vision. What do I have to offer these people? I found myself asking. What do I possibly have the right to say they need? Why am I here? It's when I stand on a Moscow balconey looking over the city at night, the people below, the dark trees, the lights of the amusement park, the old cars parked by the garbage cans, and cry exactly what I cried in my own American bedroom, "Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart."
My love to you all.
Elizabeth
What could I add? Thanks Elizabeth. (Elizabeth is registered for RWR…Are you?)
Most of all, Keep Fishing!
Dana
A cooperative effort of the churches of the BFC to win the world for Christ Your response is always welcome at: office@bfcbom.org 610 398-8776
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