e3 partners - Until the Whole World Hears

THIS VIDEO IS SO COOL! Explains what I do at E3 Partners... Check it out!

Let's do this 2011!

I am SO super excited about the trips that we have planned so far for 2011! We will be traveling to our brothers and sisters in Arba Minch, Ethiopia in the Gamo Goffa region from May 26- June 6. We will then be going to beautiful Porto Viejo, Ecuador! These are both church planting trips with E3 Partners and Bridges Church. As many of you know, the philosphy of E3 Partners Ministry is that "If Mary can't walk to church, Mary can't go to church". Millions of people all over the world don't attend a Bible believing church because there is not one where they live. It is our mission to change that! Feel free to join us on mission for either of these trips, and please pray! For more information feel free to contact me at any time. Our first meeting is February 6th, 2011 at the Bridges CHurch office at 11 a.m.! Hope to see you there!

Check out our trips online @ http://www.e3partners.org/

...and a Happy New Year!

Well, I had a great time visiting my brother in Susanville this Christmas. We had a lot of fun quoting our favorite Christmas movie lines, like from Elf... "You're not Santa!... You smell like beef and cheese!... You sit on a throne of lies!" Hahaha. Plus it snowed! A real White Christmas!However, it is always so bittersweet. We laugh together and cry together but then we leave, which is the hardest part. Fortunately we got to be together... even if it was just for a few hours.

And now, as I sit on my couch plauged with Strep Throat and a temperature of 103 I am pondering my inevitable "resolutions" for 2011. While I usually tend to focus on the physical (loose 20 pounds, establish a significant savings, get out of debt), I am thinking that this year I would like to look at this from a different angle...

In 2011 I would like to focus on growing in areas of weakness in my life. I resolve to grow in contentment, patience, wisdom and discipline. As I petition the Lord to grow me in the areas, and as I follow His moving in my life, I am anxious to watch Him grow me into a woman more like Him.

"If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you." James 1:5

May you all be blessed in the upcoming year.

A Merry Christmas?

While my mind is flooded and invaded with Christmas to-dos, gift ideas, cookie recipes... I keep having this feeling of apathy. Blah. Why am I not feeling jolly? Where is my Christmas spirit?

After reflection I realized that Christmas to me has become a sad time. Since my brothers terrible accident was in December, this month just leaves me with memories of horror and sadness. Ya, I know, not very elf-like. Over the past few days I have been actively reminding myself what Christmas is really about. As much as Target and Amazon would like for us to think that is about materialism, and as much as the liberal world would like us to think that it is about family and warm snuggles, it isn't. Christmas is about our Lord humbling Himself to become a man. He let go of all of His Heavenly awesomness and lived like a human. In the dirt and heat.

...and the reason why He did this was to accomplish the Father's role for Him here on Earth... To die for the sins of humanity.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." Hebrews 12:1-3

And this is what I find joy in this Christmas. Despite having a brother who will spend this and many Christmas' to come in prison, despite any hardship that I can endure or even imagine, Jesus died for me. He endured this opposition for us... so that I will NOT grow weary or lose heart.

Thank you Father for sending your Son to this Earth. Merry Christmas.

Off in October!

I am so excited to go to Ethiopia again in October!
This trip will be a medical trip and we will be holding a medical clinic as well as sharing the gospel. I am not the Coordinator for this trip so I will still need to fund raise! If you are interested in giving please go to www.e3partners.org/kbethiopia. Please be in prayer for us to get a few more nurses for our trip and that God would go before us and prepare the hearts of those who we will share with. Excited to see what God has for us in Ethiopia this October and excited to plan for next year! Blessings!

Home again... for now...

Wow! We had such an amazing time in Ethiopia this summer! We saw over 400 people profess faith in Christ! What a blessing to be a part of such a special miracle.

On a less enthusiastic note...
So, we are in the Addis Ababa departures terminal, awaiting our flight down to Arba Minch. We are about 45 minutes past schedule which is not uncommon. We are on Ethiopian time. Our team boards the rickety old plane, the only plane available to make the twice weekly flight down to the small town. After taxiing for about 30 minutes the plane returns to the terminal and we are ushered off of it due to some mechanical difficulties. If you have ever met me you probably know how thrilled I was to hear the words "mechanical difficulties".

4 cups of Ethiopian coffee later, after waiting about 3 hours with no answers and unsettle nerves we are placed back on the same plane. This time we sit in our unassigned seats for about an hour and are once again asked to exit the airplane. Finally, after countless cups of coffee, warm sodas and cold egg pasries we are placed on a new plane (and by new I mean 25 years old, no airline label on the side, and black smoke stains by the engines) and we take off.

All seems to be going smoothly, despite the freezing cold water dripping on us from the vents above. About 45 minutes into the flight, all passengers develop severe pains in their temples. People are clenching their foreheads and hunching over in pain. Houston, we have a problem. Immediately the distinguished Ethiopia pilot comes on the loudspeaker and begins to explain the issue in Amharic. We are desperately looking around to gauge the reaction of those who understand him. The young man in front of me crosses himself in the Sign of the Cross. "He thinks he is going to die" I realize. This can't be good. After the announcement the plane makes a giant U Turn in the sky and begins to immediately drop altitude. I conclude that we are going to crash in the Jungle, in a big plane with no airline listed on the side. No body will know who we are and our bodies will be eaten by lions.

Charlie, a man on our team who is a new believer was on his first mission trip and was sitting next to me. I am holding back tears and digging my fingernails into his arm. I turn my i pod on to my favorite worship song and begin to read Joshua 1:9 ... over and over again sharing it with Charlie. "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." I had a surprising sense of clam. Behind me, Ethan was choosing the song that he would like to die to, and the flight attendant was frantically refreshing herself on the emergency procedures card. And then silence. We were all quietly awaiting our fate. Out of the blue we smoothly glided onto the runway. We were back in Addis Ababa safely. There had been a sever pressurization problem and the pilot took us back to home base. We ended up staying over night in Addis again, on the airlines dime, and we reluctantly flew out the next day, safely arriving in Arba Minch. Praise the Lord.

We had missed our first day of ministry because of the delay and quickly realized that God had another plan for us. Because we were not their the first day, we were taken to our first location on the second day. My pastor JT was given the opportunity to speak with the Mayor of a village and to the whole town he visited because of these scheduling issues. We will now go back to that location and do follow up ministry with the permission of the Mayor. God knew this. He ordained it. He planned it and all we had to do was GO. Despite the scary airplane the trip was a huge success and our team was very aware of God's hand everywhere we went. God is good.

"He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose" — Jim Elliot

Simply the Story

Wow! A few weeks ago I attended a workshop called Simply the Story. At this workshop we were taught how to learn a Bible story accurately enough to retell it properly as a story, as well as how to invent questions that draw the listener through the story. This allows them to remember it accurately as well. The listener can then pass the story on through a similar technique to another listener ans so on...

This strategy is called "storying" and there are numerous organizations that teach "storying". The reason that I learned how to story is so that I can train interested individuals in the strategy so that when we visit our friends in Ethiopia, the Gamo people, we will have a usefull tool in our belt in reaching them as an oral culture... or as illiterate learners.

As you can imagine you run into a bit of a wall when you share the gospel with an illiterate learner and they ask you "how can I learn more about this God that you speak of". "Go to church" is a great answer... if there is one planted already... "Read the Bible" would be a fabulous response in America but poses a problem when your new friend cannot read, or when the Bible is not printed in their native language.

For this reason storying has become a common and extremely usefull tool in the missionary's tool belt. I am so very excited to go into Ethiopia this summer with a way to teach the people Bible stories... stories that Jesus taught himself... in a way that they will be passed down for generations.

For more information on Simply the Story you can google it... there is another workshop coming up in April in Texas if you are interested. Peace.