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bible study.
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gurukulum.
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the mixer.
Our team’s Business Development Center (BDC) is launching next month, so David and Jonathan have been connecting with entrepreneurs and businessmen in the city to promote the 16-week course. David was invited to an entrepreneur event last night, and convinced me to go with him to mix and mingle. I am here to report my experience to you. If you are a girl, you know the foremost question in my mind: What should I wear? Thankfully, my friend Amanda has been to these events before, and was able to prepare me: business casual. So, after a thorough wardrobe search (I don’t seem to have a whole lot in the “business…
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things that make me happy right now: city church.
A week of my favorite things . . . In November, we moved to the center of our city, because we wanted to be apart of starting a church here. You know, the fact that I’m saying “we” is a big deal. David has talked, dreamed and prayed for as long as I’ve known him about planting churches. It’s in his blood. And in college, as we were friends, then fell in love, dreamed about the future, got married, and dreamed some more, I always thought, subconsciously, This is David’s dream, and I’m going to support him in his dream. But I wasn’t very happy about it. He knew that,…
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discipling pastors.
An army of 118 national church planters in our denomination are laboring in cities or remote villages spanning four states and five languages (here’s a clip of me preaching in four). For these men, some new to the faith, few with any formal theological training, a robust, flexible, mobile, contextual discipleship effort is needed. Our goal is to launch healthy, sustainable, multiplying churches in the least reached corners of the country. It is an enormous task. This past week I spent several days between three groups of pastors, preaching, teaching, and discussing church planting. During these times I get to hear incredible stories from the front lines where the gospel…
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rwanda bdc.
The purpose of our trip here is to become licensed in Rwanda’s Business Development Center and launch our own in May. The BDC is a terrific 14-week course that trains entrepreneurs and small and medium-size business owners how to create and grow their business with ethical principles and a broader purpose than the bottom financial line. We hope the BDC will stimulate strong businesses in South Asia that employ and empower many. We’re also excited to have a mentoring role in the lives of many potential business owners. Below are some pics of the course and our facilitator training. The BDC office and building. Small group work during…
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rwanda today.
I’m writing from Kigali, Rwanda. Jonathan and I are here to get licensed for a Business Development Center we hope to bring to our city. I’ll write about that later. For now, I am gushing over this little nation that has overcome tremendous obstacles to become the beautiful, bright country it is today. For most of us, the only thing we know about Rwanda is her scarred history – a 1994 genocide that claimed a million lives. In a hellish frenzy of racial violence, neighbor hacked neighbor to death with blunt weapons in the worst human catastrophe of recent history. I walked through her genocide museum and saw unspeakable crimes.…
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saturday.
Tonight David leaves for nine days in Rwanda. He and our friend Jonathan will be attending a business training class there put on by Regent University in VA. We’re excited for this opportunity, but are going to miss him a ton. As I write this, he is in the office, making videos of himself reading books and practicing letters and numbers and a Bible verse for the kids. He’s a good daddy.
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pastor-and-families gathering.
Today we had the first annual gathering with pastor’s families in our presbytery. About fifty of us met at a local church from 10:30 to 2:30 today for fellowship, worship, games and lunch. This was the first time most of us had met as families. I think it was one of the highlights of my year. I am so, so grateful that we are settling in and my health is better so that I can start being more involved in David’s job. Really what this looks like is visiting churches together as a family, getting to know the pastors we work with, sometimes hosting them in our home. It’s hard…
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we’re moving!, part one.
By now many of you know that we are moving next week. We signed our lease and got the keys on Monday. Here’s our new apartment building: I have decided to tell you about our move by answering some frequently asked questions, which I’ll spread out over this week while we’re cleaning and organizing and meeting with painters and movers. “Why are you moving?” This may seem sudden, but we’ve been talking about moving for months now. We just weren’t sure where. We weren’t even sure what city. We’re learning that’s what happens when you join a brand-new team. It takes a long time to figure out exactly what the…