Sunday, May 11, 2008

  • ITeams progress

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    A Theology As Big As the City
    By Ray Bakke
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    Last night we met with the rest of the team to hear about our annual ITeams leadership gathering.  Our new team leader, Sarah Miller, was able to attend the week-long conference in Manila.  It is exciting what God is doing through people who are a part of International Teams.  I think the most recent report was us having people from 65 countries serving in 49 countries.  There are certainly other agencies doing much more on a broader scale, but we certainly are excited about the international flavor that is coming together on behalf of a lot of our teams around the world.

    Our team has been forming in the last several months as new staff arrived and our team leader changed.  Most of you know Charity is working full-time so her time has to be limited in terms of her involvement in refugee ministry.  Sarah Miller is our new team leader (as of mid April).  She severved refugees for 9 years in Germany and has worked the last 4 or 5 years here in the US in an administrative role overseeing ITeams refugee ministries in many parts of the world.  She is now transitioning out of the global leadership role in becoming our local team leader.  Linda Lang has been part of International Teams her ein Minneapolis for the last 4 or 5 years and has been the sole team member until this last year.  She and her church have an ESL program that runs four days a week and is going strong.  So at this point, the team consists of 3 full-time and Charity who is part time. 

    We also found out last night that Seth and Jeanie Prince who have been raising support for quite some time to join this local team will be stepping away from ITeams and moving into a paid pastoral role here locally.  We hope to have a partnership with their church at some level.  

    So it is exciting that our team is finally coming together and we look forward to where everything will lead.  Please be praying for our upcoming "TEmP" meeting where we will be getting together and nailing down lots of details on where we are going as a team.  There are lots of ideas, vision, etc., but we obviously have to bring them all together. This meeting will be on Sat. April 24th and we really need to commit this to prayer.  The four of us on the team are quite different - all from different denominational backgrounds and range from age 28 to our early 40's.  It is a beautiful thing when very different people can come together and learn to build God's Kingdom together.  So we invite you to join us in prayer for this.

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    In other news, Charity and I got to help a 21 year old woman who is trying to obtain her GED.  She has been in the country for 17 mths and is the first of her immediate family to get to the United States.  She left her country and had been at a refugee camp in Kenya for 16 years!  Sixteen years is a long time to not know what your future holds.  Her English is exceptional for her brief time here (I imagine she learned a lot from the UN in Kenya) and she is a "go-getter".  Charity and I are excited to deepen our friendship with her, help with term papers, teach her more about the computer, and watch "Law and Order" together. :)  We found out that she and Charity have he same favorite tv show in "Law and Order". 

    Again, it's all about being in the right place at the right time.  So often I get asked (when people know I have a plan to meet a refugee) "how are you going to help them?"  Most times I have no idea until I sit with them what is going to happen.  I think so many of us want a pretty structured plan of how we can measure effectiveness and make things nice and orderly.  At this point, we are just trying to seize every opportunity to serve and quit making excuses.  I could have easily dismissed the phone call to help our new friend w/ English and we would have missed a golden opportunity.  Being a native speaker and knowing my own American culture is so key to helping refugees.  Just by being an American, it raises our ability to help a lot higher than it would if we were in another country.  We just want to be present and are thrilled that God lets us do this!  

     

     

     

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