The Seabourns

Ministry

Eastern Europe. The hard times.

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Imagine this scenario. Dad goes to the airport to leave on a ministry trip. Officials look at his passport and say his visa is no longer valid. He must leave the country immediately. He cannot go home. He must get on the plane and leave the country. His family is at home and doesn’t know this is happening. He is able to telephone them and explain the situation. He has to get on a plane and fly away from his family in the midst of tremendous ambiguity and confusion. It’s two weeks before the family can pack up their belongings and leave the country also.

Over the next days, other expatriate staff (Americans, in this case) are told their visas are no longer valid. They can no longer reside in the country. Family by family, they pack up and depart.

Young national staff are now thrust into positions of leadership earlier than expected. Dealing with ministry strategies, finances, communications, and relationships with churches and other organizations now become the responsibility of those who are just learning how to run a local ministry on a campus.

Stress is high for everyone. God is sovereign and he is never surprised. But this turn of events is difficult for all involved.

This happened recently in a country in this area.

2007 has been a year of trial around the world. Just in our organization:

  • 5 staff couples were evacuated out of a Central Asia country, leaving behind their homes, friends, and possessions — essentially everything. They were under the threat of death by religious leaders in their country.
  • 7 staff members in a communist nation are currently in prison.
  • 2 staff members were martyred in a closed nation earlier this year, targeted by radicals due to their faith in Christ.
  • 5 staff serving in Gaza, along with their families, were recently evacuated from the area after a Bible bookstore manager — with whom they shared a building — was martyred. That manager had come to Christ through the ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.
  • In another nation too sensitive to name, 6 staff are in prison for sharing their faith.
  • More than 40 staff are imprisoned in a closed nation, sentenced to five years, for insulting the dominant religion of the country. They include several mothers of young children.

How do we think about these difficulties? How to we continue on when facing such persecutions and trials? Some thoughts come to mind:

  • I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
  • And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)
  • Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35-39).

As one speaker here at the Eastern Europe conference reminded, “We’ve read the book! We know the ending! The good news is that God wins!”

Eastern Europe. Languages everywhere.

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Translator boothsKay and I enjoy being in an environment where there are many languages. Overcoming the results of the tower of Babel take effort. Here at the Eastern European Staff Conference, there are translator booths where live translation takes place. Five booths: Polish, Bulgarian, Albanian, Romanian, and Russian. All speaking is done in English. Those who need translation are given FM radios and headphones. Translators do the grueling work of live translation for the many hours each day during main sessions.

Last night, we spent 2 hours in a concert of prayer. It was great. Kay and I prayed with a staff mom from Albania. She spoke good English, but preferred to pray in Albanian. This is very normal. I was never able to pray in Hausa either, so I completely understand! It’s amazing to sit in a small group of three at the foot of the throne of grace and mercy and know that God hears our prayers and understands our language.

Singing worship songs in English, Russian, Romanian, and Slavic was a challenge, but really fun.

Ahh, heaven is going to be a glorious place. I have no idea what language or languages we will speak, but I’m confident that we will all understand!

Eastern Europe. Amazing stories.

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Who is an evangelist? Anyone who feels the moral responsibility to tell others about Jesus. Anyone who recognizes people are lost without Jesus, that people without God are perishing. ( first national staff member in Poland)

Kay and I are attending the Eastern Europe staff conference in Hungary. We’re in Tihany, a resort area in the summer, but a lake of ice in the winter. [Click here for a map.]

We’re hearing tremendous things. We’re hearing amazing things.

(To see the countries mentioned below, go to LonelyPlanet. Move your mouse over the name of the country on this webpage and see the country highlighted. Very helpful!)

In Romania, a student shared with his roomate. The roommate received Christ and began going around on campus sharing Christ with others. The roommate was talking with his Orthodox priest. The priest asked “How do you talk to people about Jesus?”. The student explained the basic gospel using a simple presentation. The priest went with him witnessing. He saw people coming to Christ. Seeing lives changing has transformed his preaching and ministry. Another priest asked the first priest how to share his faith. They cycle continues, one-at-a-time. This is how movements are born.

In Moldova, 5000 people were contacted through surveys. This was exciting, but how could they followup all these people? Someone suggested using text messaging. So they created 8 messages. They found Christian students who wanted to be a part. The first message begins, “Hello. My name is __. I want to tell you news that changed my life. Call me.” People would call back to hear more. One girl called back and during the conversation, she received Christ. She’s now in a bible study.

Poland is exploring a partnership with Czech Republic. The director in Czech had asked the director in Poland to send staff. The Poland director wondered, “Why are your needs more important than ours here? We have a strategic plan. We have many unreached campuses. We need our staff to do our own plan.” Then he attended the Campus Mission 2007 conference in Busan, Korea. Someone there was speaking on the principle of giving. He talked about tithing. The director for Poland began to think about giving a tithe of his staff to help reach the world, starting in Czech Republic.

And on and on it goes. Our cup runneth over and it’s only Day 1!

Knowing our associates

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Christmas was a fun time. Kay and I received greetings from staff friends around the world. Friends in Asia, in the Middle East, in Europe, in Africa sent Christmas greetings. We heard from so many of our U.S. donors and friends.

We had the privilege of spending time with our children and grandchildren and parents in Texas.

Many of the Christmas greetings we received and the family updates came by email or an electronic greeting card, especially from our friends around the world. It’s fun to live in an internetworked, connected world where we can communicate so easily and inexpensively. Some of the Christmas greetings came from people I’ve never met in person, but we’ve met and worked together in online forums as members of “virtual” teams that work together online.

Kay and I, as individual staff members of Campus Crusade for Christ, have a very large network of friends and associates living and ministering around the globe. We know a small fraction of the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ.

When I put on my “Chief Technology Officer hat”, I realize how important it is for our ministry to know who our staff are around the world, where they are ministering, how it is going, how we can help them more. But currently, we do not have a global system where all our staff are known.

This might sound atrocious, but at our core, we are a highly decentralized group of individuals called together by God and bound together by our passion to know Him and to make Him known. Our staff are well known within each individual country, but not as well “known” across geographic and continental boundaries.

This hasn’t been a significantly limiting issue until recent years. With God’s gift of the internet to speed missions and allow us to win boldly, build deeply and send urgently using email, web, chat, video and other internet technologies, geographic barriers no longer exist.

We can also work together as staff members across these geographic boundaries. This happens every day in Campus Crusade for Christ. We have teams of people working on common projects where some live in Asia, some live in Europe, some live in North America. We work as a single team because God has provided communication that no other generation of missionaries has ever had.

We now have a greater need to know who the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ are at a global level. We need to know who to invite into some of these projects.

To put this project into perspective, imagine a project to know all the church members in your city, in all churches, that is accurate every week. How would you begin such a project?

So I am on the road again. In an airplane seat again. I left my best traveling buddy (Kay) behind in Orlando. I’m making a short trip to Singapore where for a meeting top global leadership to begin addressing the issue of how to create a global human resources system so that we can know who our staff are, how God has gifted them, where they live, how they are ministering and contributing to the Great Commission, and other simple information.

We’ll launch this project with a physical meeting in a geographic place (Singapore). We’ll mostly work the project through internet communication tools like email, Skype telephone, Oovoo video conferencing, Global ConneXion virtual teaming, and WebEx online meetings.

Living as a missionary in 2008 is filled with tremendous possibilities that never existed for previous generations of missionaries. It’s a tremendous time to help everyone know someone who truly follows Jesus.

Global cell phone use at 50 percent

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Global cell phone use at 50 percent – Yahoo! News

I read today that the number of cellphone subscriptions now is half the population of the planet.

Worldwide mobile telephone subscriptions reached 3.3 billion — equivalent to half the global population — on Thursday, 26 years after the first cellular network was launched…

What does that mean to you? I thought about it. To me, it sounds like half the planet is only a phone conversation away from hearing the real meaning of Christmas. Emmanuel — God with us. Half the planet is only a text message or a web page away from knowing about Jesus.
It sounds to me like we’ve got work to do, co-laborers.