Ministry

Feeding a Missionary Soul

April 29, 2013 by Keith Seabourn 2 Comments

Even missionaries do it. I did it last Monday.

We don’t take advantage of opportunities to talk about Jesus.

I have long said that the airline seat assignment system would be God’s appointment system for me. So last Monday, why didn’t I take more initiative to talk with the man from New Zealand about Christ? Flying to Dallas, he was talkative. We talked about the economy (he is deeply concerned). We talked about political instability in Nigeria (he has done business there).

But we didn’t talk about Jesus. And I didn’t even get his name. I was not very friendly or engaged!

After the flight, I talked with God about it. I told him I felt unable to turn the conversation to spiritual things. I haven’t felt that unable in a long time. Kay and I have been traveling together most of the time lately so I’m not engaging another seatmate. I must be out of practice.

So with a renewed dependence on God’s empowering, I took my seat on this morning’s flight home to Orlando.

And I had a wonderful conversation with A—. She grew up an active follower of Jesus and even thought of mission work but has become engrossed in her career since college. She no longer attends church. Her parents have split up. She told me she is drifting.

But in her story, I heard a heart for Jesus. Her eyes danced when she talked about a missionary friend’s emails from Ghana and a college friend’s job in Kenya.

I left her with a challenge—find an accountability partner who will ask her hard questions to help her stop the drift, someone who will hold her accountable to find a group that can feed her soul. I challenged her to save $3000 and join a mission trip to Ghana or Kenya and come back a changed person because she’s seen God at work in a place very different than she’s ever experienced.

To give her something tangible to feed her missionary soul, I showed her the Jesus Film app on my mobile phone with films in hundreds of languages. As we taxied to the terminal, she had already downloaded the app and eagerly showed me the app on HER phone.

A— is reconnecting to a seed God planted many years ago. The worries and cares of the world have been growing and choking it out. My prayer is that the garden tending of yesterday will help the seed to grow and bear fruit.

And once again, the airline seating system provided a divine appointment, as long as I’m willing to talk about Jesus!

Who can you talk about Jesus with today?

What’s happening in Ethiopia

March 11, 2012 by Keith Seabourn Leave a Comment

25 years ago Ethiopia was a closed, Communist nation. Christianity was illegal. Now Ethiopia is open to the gospel and it is spreading like an unquenchable fire. The harvest is plentiful and the laborers, well, not so much.

While we were in Ethiopia, Kay and I had dinner with a Campus Crusade for Christ short-term STINT team. I learned of this exciting video where Seth shared these opening remarks.

Watch and enjoy!

[iframe http://player.vimeo.com/video/38076449 400 225]

God has chosen now as the time for Ethiopia from Tim Casteel on Vimeo.

Thanks to Tim Casteel for publishing and to Karin Tome for alerting me.

Fighting jet-lag

March 10, 2012 by Keith Seabourn Leave a Comment

Mosquito netting It’s 2:30 in the morning. I’m looking at the drape of white gauze mosquito net illuminated by the security lights outside our building. The buzzing of mosquitos is a safe distance away.

As I’m laying in bed fighting jet-lag, I think of a childhood song “his banner over me is love”. This mosquito net is like a banner that I’m beneath. I think of the hedge God puts around us to protect us. This mosquito net is like his hedge.

This is what travel to a far part of the globe looks like for the first few nights. Sleeplessness during the night watches. Can’t stay away during the daytime. I’ve learned a lot about helping my body adjust, but jet-lag is a companion of travelers. God doesn’t seem to hedge jet-lag away from us.

I hear my roommate tossing and turning. He flew in from East Asia. He’s fighting jet-lag also. When I room alone, I can turn on the light and read. But I don’t want to disturb my roommate, so I spend this sleepless time looking at the white gauze and listening to the buzz in the room.

And I pray for Betsy.

Betsy was my seatmate for 7 hours flying from Amsterdam to Nairobi. Betsy loves Africa as I do. She lived in Kenya for a year and comes back frequently. She is married to a writer for National Geographic who is in Tanzania doing a story. She runs a wildlife conservation foundation. We talked of our experiences in different parts of Africa.

And we talked of spiritual things. Betsy grew up in a Christian home, but she’s explored most of the world’s major religions. She converted to buddhism a few years ago. She said she loves the beauty of all the religions. We talked of Christ’s claims which seemed to rule out other ways to God. We also talked of the exclusivity claims of Islam and Jewdaism. She was troubled by these but kept talking about how beautiful the religions are.

Betsy’s conservation group teaches monks in Mongolia to care about the earth. She is attending a conference in Kenya to help religious leaders care for the environment. She is very aware of the good that religious leaders can do.

We had a robust conversation, but I felt unable to help her think more critically. I especially wished I could have connected her with the God whose banner over me is love, who cares deeply about his creation, and who cared so much for Betsy that he sent his Son to pay for her sins.

I was not able to get that far with Betsy.

I was encouraged, though, that I was able to have a robust conversation without bruising the fruit of Betsy’s heart. She commented that she hadn’t had such a good conversation about spiritual things in a while. I am glad that I could be the evangelical Christian who could love things about Africa with Betsy and could talk about God without bruising her.

So I pray for Betsy during these night hours.

Five articles on mobile phones

February 4, 2012 by Keith Seabourn Leave a Comment

Kay returned from teaching how to use mobile phones in Ghana and Kenya (click here to read the story). But is mobile a viable platform for discipleship and training?

Here is some good reading on mobile devices. I’ve put some of my favorite quotes beneath each article link.

1. Tablets are starting to impact African education

Africa is the second-largest mobile-phone market in the world behind Asia … Over the past 10 years, the number of mobile connections in Africa grew an average of 30 percent a year, and the report predicted it would reach 735 million people by the end of this year on a continent with about a billion people. [Note: this would be about 70% of the population.]

USAID recently started an education mobile-phone initiative and last year hosted, in Bethesda, Md., the first International Symposium on Mobiles for Education for Development. The initiative aims to improve access to low-cost mobile technologies for education globally.

It’s important not to oversell the use of mobile technology in Africa. While many people in Africa have mobile phones, many aren’t smartphones that can access the Internet, she said. Mobile learning, she said, is not going to take the place of traditional teaching methods. … education with mobile phones in Africa typically involves a student or teacher using his or her own technology and bearing the burden of associated costs, even if those costs are low.

She expects a very low cost tablet to be introduced in the marketplace soon and to explode in Africa. “I know mobile phones are all over Africa, but I’m not sure that’s the right form for education,” she said. “The tablets are great.”

2. Mobiles starting to edge out internet cafes in Africa

Smart mobile phones are slowly edging out internet cafés in Malawi, says a new report.

He said most youths are buying high-tech mobile phones because they want to appear to be ahead of the game in terms of living up to modern trends and fashion.

3. Wikipedia will be available on free mobile access in Africa via Orange

Orange has struck a deal with Wikipedia to make its digital encyclopaedia available free of data charges to millions of mobile phone users across the Middle East and Africa. The mobile phone operator has 70 million customers across Africa and the Middle East.

The ability to access the internet, and websites such as Wikipedia, is currently limited to about 10 million Orange customers who have mobile devices with 2G or 3G capability.

4. Next billion mobile users will come from developing rural areas

Operators can expect to see the next billion mobile connections to come from rural areas in emerging markets, according to analyst Ovum.

5. In 2012, there will be 200 million more mobile users in India

The mobile phone will drive internet use in India in 2012. Computing begins with the mobile and its growth is fast in India.

He believes that the increase in smartphone and internet capable phones, selling below $94 and built by Indian manufacturers, is making it easier and more affordable to own such devices.

The other big change when it comes to India and the internet is how people are using the web. With better connections, mobile phones and computers, Indians are increasingly using the internet for more than just checking their email.

In both rural and urban areas, social networking is a key driver of use. The most popular site in India is now Facebook, which in the past six months saw its user base grow by more than a third.

When I lived in Nigeria in the ’80s and ’90s, few people had a landline telephone. The introduction of cellphones allowed Africa countries to skip the installation of telephone line infrastructure. I think the growth in smartphones will similarly allow Africans to skip the computer + internet that most of us associate with internet connectivity.

Yes, I think mobile phones, and especially tablets, will allow us to increasingly disciple and train people better than ever before. What about you? In what ways can mobile assist discipleship? In what ways should we be cautious?