A great article written by a missionary living in Turkey.  Photo (Chris D.) There are more fully supported pastors in Christchurch, a city of 350,000, than there are pastors and foreign “workers” among Turkey’s 78 million.
Are Paul’s Methods Ours? Has The Western Church Has Missed The Bus??

Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.”” 15:36 read more on Chris’s blog

‘Last fall I got a book called Kids Make It Better by Suzy Becker. It’s a journal that asks kids how they would solve world problems. When I got to the part that explained that not everyone in the world has clean water, I was confused and asked my mom about it. I thought everyone could turn on their faucet and get clean water. I was pretty shocked when I found out that people in other parts of the world are getting sick and dying because there’s no clean water to drink’.
Click here to read more.

Charity Water is a non profit organisation set up to bring clean fresh water to parts of the world where this is a need

“On 26 July, we have a special support from the team at Wanganui in Cambodia who come from New Zealand, to bring our kids at the center to Phnom Penh Water Park. They send the bus to pick up the children and the staffs to the water park. This is a very first time in the children’s life to come to the water park and some of them even the first time to ride on the bus. They really enjoy and are exiting with this new experience at the park. Thank you so much to the team from Wanganui for making this fund and great time for the children.”

Thearith and Charia
Directors
Joy of Cambodia

We pulled off the motorway and immediately saw the lines of shopping carts, sleeping bags and people settling down for the night. We pulled over on a side street and Emma, our 9 year old and me got out with coffee and cookies. I was amazed at my little girl. She wasn’t nervous, scared or even hesitant. She just grabbed the chocolate chip cookies and walked beside me as we headed over to hand out goodies. The first man that we saw gladly took some coffee and Emma gave him a cookie, it was rad.

We stopped by 15 or so more people, all of them were fully grateful to get a hot cup of coffee and a cookie, or 5 cookies in one girls case. Emma was right in there, saying your welcome when they said thanks and offering more cookies when they asked.

We passed by this one man who looked a bit like a rough Santa Clause. He was coughing and seemed like he was in bad shape, so we offered him some coffee. On our way back to the truck Emma was talking about him, and was concerned that he may be sick. We crossed back over to his side of the street and asked him if he was OK. He told us that he was, he just had a bit of a cough. We asked him if there was anything we could pray for him about, he said no and so we left him and headed for the truck.

Even on the way home Emma was talking about this man. She said “daddy, i am really glad that he is ok, I don’t want him to be sick.” Then we prayed for the Santa looking man and continued driving home. I am so thankful for the time we had last night. Thankful that as a family we had the time together and really proud of my Emma for being bold and for loving those that our society deems unlovable.

click here to read the rest of Jenna Wilson’s blog

Cambodian youth by Gabrielle Crisafi

Although goodbyes are often sad, it seems to be a good way to judge the friendships made. The disciples seemed to be a bit despondent when Jesus left them. There is the obvious hole left in the group where their leader should have been, but there would have also been heavy hearts – Jesus after all was a friend they had journeyed with for a couple of years. Our friend (and design guru) Dave Laird likes to preach on how the disciples would have known what Jesus farts smelt like… I’m not so sure myself though. The sadness didn’t last too long for the disciples, read Acts 1, to see how Jesus came through for them.

After spending two weeks in a foreign culture saying good bye means different things to different people. For some it’s a bye to crazy people, for others it’s a goodbye to friends, yet to others it is good bye to something deeper – and that’s from the local’s perspective! We should always seek to leave something lasting behind on our outreaches, after all that’s why we go right?!

Check out this short video clip of the Eratap farewell that the Anchor youth received last year.

There is a people group in Cambodia who live in a sweltering hot, rocky place with hardly any shade and only muddy water to quench their thirst. To earn a living, they turn the rocky mountainside into gravel for $10 every 1.5 tonne truckload – which takes over a month to do. Our team got to partner with Rock Foundation, a ministry started to help these impoverished people. Because of the exposure to such poverty and seeing how they can help, our group from TeAtatu Bible Chapel are inspired to continue missions wherever they are. Please pray for the Cambodians reached by this team, for those oppressed through poverty and sex trafficking and pray that these youth continue to make a difference for Jesus.

To read more from Jed and Kayla Olsen click on their beautiful faces to view their website.

This building will seek to provide four main things for the village it will be built in:

1. A hurricane proof shelter, to ride out storms when other dwellings may be too dangerous to stay in.
2. Clean bathrooms with a sewerage drainage system that falls away from the village and water ways.
3. Hygienic cooking facilities that have adequate ventilation for smoke to escape.
4. A collection of fresh rain water to be stored in a water tank built off to the side.

Our future plans are to not only to continue to provide water tanks for villages in Vanuatu, but also to bless them with safe buildings that will encourage healthier living and minimise preventable diseases.
Fact: Did you know that children are twice as likely to suffer from asthma, ear infections, stomach, and speech problems if they are on a dirt floor rather than concrete? Also, moving from dirt to a concrete floor reduces reoccurring diarrhea by 43%. Diarrhea is still one of the worlds most lethal killers.

It’s a great buzz to share Jesus with the people of Vanuatu as well as bless them in a practical way – especially when we come from a country with so much resource. But the coolest thing is an excuse to work alongside the locals. In this way it is less of an ‘us and them’ project, and more of a ‘we’ thing! We’re counting down the days…

1. A Youth pastor had naughty pictures drawn on his face in a village by locals – with assistance from the team… We are still not sure if that was a highlight for the year or a low light!

2. We went with Hamilton Christian school to Samoa and worked down on the Tsunami coast… kind of like rescue workers but much cooler!

3.We awarded our first ‘Nerd of the Day’ to a person outside the team. That was taken away by an older lady in Cambodia who almost broke her neck showing off, but it was totally awesome to witness.

4.We worked in a village who ate the missionaries sent to them 100 years ago. Apparently that’s why they are still shy when outsiders come into their community now.

5.Like Bill gates who hires people more smarter than himself to make his company better, this year we have done the same by getting people much cooler than us to lead teams. Thanks Eric Mailau, Erana Pound, and Jed & Kayla Olsen for making Mission Adventures great.

Thanks Fleur Hanner and Dave Bosma for your ongoing serving too – you guys have been cool for ages!

Additional points unique to 2010:
1 dog bite;
1 scabies infection (wasn’t scabies but looked gross);
3 marriage proposals;
around 1 metric tonne of ‘lap lap’ consumed…well it seemed that much;
numerous spider incidents that involved squealing ( inc males – Jo);
0 toilet accidents (thanks Jesus);
8 Outreaches
& lots of God…
challenging,
blessing,
and working through kiwis around NZ. In Cambodia, Fiji, Samoa and Vanuatu.

Feel free to add your own highlights too.

The inspiration for this style of fasting came from a good friend of mine Steps of Justice‘. The idea on day 22 (during the 30-Day Steps of Justice) was that we would not wear shoes to remind us of poverty and people that were not as blessed as we were.

feet in Vanuatu - Deb DeGraaf 2010

On that day that I “stood in the gap”, and in all kinds of things, I had a spiritual experience. As I was walking around my neighbourhood in downtown Auckland, I felt I was connecting in a way I never had before. There was the obvious connection of soft feet on hard concrete but I also started noticing parts of the pavement I have never noticed before, bits with cracks and patches with stones and places with broken beer bottles. I really connected to my surroundings when I used the toilet at Esquires Cafe on K Road and stepped in someone else’s pee. It was sticky too.

There is a sense of nakedness in not wearing a protective layer between my soft un-calloused soles and the concrete that blankets my neighbourhood. Usually you walk barefoot in your own comfortable protected environment, but never in a rough neighbourhood that is known for prostitution, seedy sex stores and drug consumption. During that day I felt like my feet were doing what a person does when they pick up a dirty child and hug it even though he/she is grubby, just because he/she needs some love.

If fasting food scares you or gives you a headache, try this style of fasting. If anything, it is a wake up call of how lucky we are to live in a prosperous part of the world. To do something about this specifically see http://www.toms.com/how-we-wear-them/