New Blog

Although God's work continues in Manila, we no longer play a direct role in this ministry. We pray that God would bless the Manila team and help it prosper. May God continue to call Filipino men and women to himself to the praise of his glorious grace. May those Filipinos draw others into the family of God through their worship and witness. May they be agents of transformation as they look after orphans and widows. May more Filipinos proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ in areas that restrict access to Western missionaries. Lord, may your kingdom come and your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

With bittersweet feelings we close this blog and start another. While researching some statistics on the border, I ran into a discontinued periodical named "Borderlines." I thought that would make a great name for our new blog. So please stay in touch at Borderlines.

New Direction

We had a great time visiting with the BEAMM team, and accepted a call to serve on the US/Mexico border with Mission to the World. We hope to go to language school for 9 months to a year. Then I will apprentice under Manuel Padilla, a church planter in East El Paso. This community is 90% Hispanic, and is crucial for training up the next generation of leadership for both sides of the border. Some of the specific needs are for leadership training, and community outreach through sports. I better get my brother Rob to help me out with my soccer skills. After this apprenticeship in El Paso/Juarez, we would like to go to Nogales, Sonora and help start churches there.

Our team has several church plants in Juarez. We train pastors at San Pablo seminary where I hope to teach when my Spanish gets up to par. And we are planning a community center to focus on mercy ministries. We are currently accepting short term teams for English language camps, VBS, and construction projects. Please see BEAMM's website if your church is interested.

The Next Step

This week we will have our second interview with the Border Evangelism And Mercy Ministries (BEAMM) team on the US/Mexico border. This team is a partnership between Mission to the World (MTW) and Mission to North America (MNA) to reach strategic border cities through church planting movements resulting in a transformation of society for the glory of God.

Their goal is: By God’s grace and His blessing, BEAMM will promote church planting movements by establishing a network of churches in each major border city: Brownsville / Matamoros, McAllen / Reynosa, Laredo / Nuevo Laredo, El Paso / Ciudad Juarez, Nogales / Nogales, El Centro / Mexicali, and San Diego / Tijuana. Associated with each church network will be a regional Theological and Leadership Training Center for the training of future pastors and lay leaders, and a Christian Community Center which will provide English as a Second Language (ESL) and skills training, counseling services, job placement, and mercy ministries to the community. Furthermore, BEAMM will partner with MNA in establishing bilingual church movements in local Hispanic communities throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Please visit http://www.beamm.org/ for more details on their vision and work.

After pursuing recommendations on several continents, both Heather and I agree that this ministry would be a good fit for our family. It would use our gifts, our passions, and our experiences. It would use our gifts in mercy and evangelism. We have a passion to see Christ glorified through the planting of local churches. We have a vision for identifying and equipping leaders to plant churches and reach out to the poor. In Wichita, Jeff started an English as a Second Language Outreach to Hispanics, and Heather taught Bible clubs to the kids of the parents attending. We took the Heartland youth to Chihuahua on several mission trips. Jeff's parents and extended family are from Las Cruces and El Paso. We would start out doing a two year apprenticeship in El Paso and Juarez. After that we would like to go to Nogales, Sonora on the Arizona/Mexico border.

We will let you know how things develop. Please keep us in prayer this week.

Sealing the Envelope???

We are eager to bring you up to speed with some big changes in our lives. We feel blessed to have so many people who believe that God will use us to help his Kingdom grow. Thank you. We think about you all often and pray for the Holy Spirit to empower you as you live for his glory.

We completed all of our training and reached 100% of our support in February. The Lord made our path straight and everything came together until we reached the final point of buying our tickets to the Philippines. But suddenly the Lord has clearly shut the door to the Philippines. The missionaries who were going to mentor us in cross cultural living and ministry are moving to other countries. As a result, Mission to the World is working with us to find a new field of service.

As you can imagine this took us by surprise and we have had a hard time letting go of a growing love and vision for the Filipinos. As we seek God’s leading we are getting counsel from MTW, some key mentors, and our home church. These people have reminded us of the truth that God is in charge and his plans cannot be thwarted. Even though the situation seems very confusing to us, this is all part of his perfect plan. We are looking to him as we seek direction for our future. We have come to a place of peace, thanking God for his providence.

This prayer from the Valley of Vision has been the cry of our hearts through this process.

O God, whose will conquers all, there is no comfort in anything apart from enjoying thee and being engaged in thy service. Thou art All in all, and all enjoyments are what to me thou makest them, and no more. I am well pleased with thy will, whatever it is, or should be in all respects, and if thou bidst me decide for myself in any affair, I would choose to refer all to thee, for thou art infinitely wise and cannot do amiss, as I am in danger of doing. I rejoice to think that all things are at thy disposal, and it delights me to leave them there. Then prayer turns wholly into praise, and all I can do is to adore and bless thee. What shall I give thee for all thy benefits? I am in a strait betwixt [between] two, knowing not what to do; I long to make some return, but have nothing to offer, and can only rejoice that thou doest all, that none in heaven or on earth shares thy honor. I can of myself do nothing to glorify thy blessed name, but I can through grace cheerfully surrender soul and body to thee.

We are looking into several options at this point. We ask for your prayers and patience as we are eager to move forward. We hope to let you know very soon of our future plans. Thank you for standing with us as we seek to serve our Savior.

Missionary Kids

You know we have been doing too much travelling when the kids make believe "customs." The other day Gracey was pretending to be the customs official, Sam was the traveller, and Betsy was the bomb-sniffing dog. Sam would bring his "luggage" and Gracey would ask for his id. Then Betsy would check the bags. Then Sam would go back and do it again. They did this over and over. I almost died laughing.

Please pray that our kids would be rooted and established in Christ as they go through a lot of transition. May we all find our identity in Christ.

Peace and Quiet

I got home last Monday night. We've enjoyed a week of catching up on sleep, going through two months of mail, laundry, and unpacking all but 2 of our 12 suitcases. Many people are asking when we are leaving for the Philippines. We are waiting for some info from the field and getting things squared away with the home office. We should be able to give you a better idea by March 1. In the meantime please pray for us as we get stuff ready to ship. Please pray for wisdom in the many decisions facing us during this transition.

We're Back!

We are back in the United States! We returned to Atlanta Sunday evening, February 4th. My Grandpa Vaughn passed away early Sunday morning. Tuesday I flew to Las Vegas, Nevada for the funeral. Last Thanksgiving, Grandpa wandered off in a demented state. He ended up hiking 35 miles to Red Rock one of his favorite spots. He was found a day and a half later walking back. The day after the funeral, we hiked Red Rock in memory of Grandpa. We are thankful for the two extra months to spend with him. Gracey, Betsy, and I got to visit with him last Christmas. I returned to Atlanta this morning and took Heather and the kids to the airport where they flew to Wichita. I am currently in Chattanooga, TN where I will speak at a Sunday school at Covenant Presbyterian tomorrow. From there I will drive home. Please pray that God will give us peace and rest following our two months of travel. We need to recharge our physical and spiritual batteries for more transition ahead.

Thank you to the many of you who have been praying faithfully. And I especially want to thank our small group at Heartland who turned on the hot water heater, bought groceries, and had a hot meal waiting for Heather this evening.

Here are the newsletters our group put together over the last four weeks in Belgium:

Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4

To view the PDF, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader:

Little Morroco

Heather and I spent the day in Little Morroco on the border of Scharbeek where we have been working. We loved the food, the people, and the music. Heather said it was more fun to hang out down there than sightseeing in Brussels. One of the things that struck us was all the kids. We've rarely seen couples with more than two children. But this neighborhood was teaming with kids and young people. The traditional Europeans have a low birthrate while the immigrant population is booming. I wonder what the demographics will look like in 100 years.

We ate hummus and kabobs at an Egyptian restaurant and had tea at a Morrocan tea house. Everything reminded us of our Algerian neighbors in Wichita.

Tomorrow we have presentations summarizing what we have learned. We have made incredible friendships here and though we are looking forward to going home, we will miss the community we have experienced.

Overcoming Babel

This week Heather and I have been in intensive linguistic training. We are learning tools for acquiring a language. My practice language has been Flemish, and Heather has been learning Turkish. It has been helpful, but our heads are swimming. We have also been going through vocal gymnastics to help our mouths recognize and make sounds common in other languages and not in English.

I am including some pictures from last week.

Some Entries from Jeff’s Journal

(Jan 7-13) Sunday, we visited Bethel Kirk. We had a hard time getting there. Our guide slept in and by the time we left we missed the bus. Karen from Zav Centre was going by car, so Tom Wilson and I hitched a ride while Heather and the kids stayed at the Centre and went to the service there. Bethel is a Flemish church in a primarily Turkish and Moroccan neighborhood. The sermon was on being salt and light. The congregation is a mixture of Flemish and Dutch. Pastor Gottlieb (Loved by God) is a Dutch immigrant who has been ministering to this church for 8 years. He is encouraging the congregation to reach out to their Muslim neighbors. We got a ride from Jonathan the youth pastor at Bethel. He graduated from Colorado Christian University (where Larry Crabb teaches) with a degree in youth ministry. He was excited about two young men who are taking on leadership within the group. Both pastors are bi-vocational. They work in the public schools, where each student is required to take one of five religious classes offered. Many evangelical pastors work in the public schools teaching Protestant kids, during the week and pastoring on the weekends.

This week’s training focused on cross-cultural leadership development, team dynamics, and Biblical strategies for handling conflict.

Thursday, Tom and I got on the bus on the way to Bethel Kirk. I looked at Tom and asked if he had the directions. He said, no I thought you had them. We should have gotten off and found the directions and phoned the missionary we were to meet. But instead we thought that we could find it on our own. We got off too early and wandered around for almost an hour and a half. We asked directions in an internet café and eventually found it. Then we passed out tracks and invitations to a church outreach in the rain. We had a great time eating at a Turkish restaurant. I had tripe soup and lamb on pita. The yogurt drink was fantastic.

Friday night, Tom and I went with the pastor and invited people to come to a meal at Bethel. He would go into a pub and invite everyone to come. Pastor Gotleib is very winsome. He coaxed several people out of the pub and into the church. One couple was just curious to know what a Protestant church believed. After the meal we brought the leftovers to the Brussels train station and handed it out to the homeless.

Saturday, the Danielson family, dear friends from Wichita who are currently living in England, visited. We spent the day in Ghent and saw a really cool castle built to keep out the Vikings.

Week of January 14-20

On Sunday, we missed our bus stop and ended up walking for an hour trying to find the church. Heather had to stop and nurse Elijah on the steps of a Moroccan bakery. The kids were hungry and tired so we sampled their flat bread and drank some yogurt drinks. By the time we got to the church we had three crying kids. The sermon had just as the sermon was underway and the nursery is on the other side of the sanctuary. The pastor stopped his sermon and said, “Jeff, why don’t you take your children to the crèche, eh?” We had to traipse down the center aisle, past the pulpit and into nursery. The congregation was very forgiving, but I had to swallow my pride. I have found that when you enter a new culture, you often feel helpless. I pray that God gives me a good sense of humor, because I am going to make a ton of mistakes.

This week we discussed a Biblical paradigm for understanding culture, how to deal with culture shock, and took some tests that showed our specific weaknesses in adapting to other cultures. Heather and I found this last exercise helpful in understanding how to love each other through this process.

Friday, Tom and I passed out tracks again. We got into some better discussion because we had a French interpreter with us. Heather and Theresa went to the red light district to invite the prostitutes to an outreach our church is having Friday the 26th. This deeply impacted Heather and has moved her to pray for these women. Please join her.

Saturday, we visited a family friend in Brugge. Kathleen and her husband, Diedier, live in a 16th century house within a beautiful medieval village. The kids loved exploring the “dungeon” of a basement and sleeping in the attic. We attended mass at the Holy Blood Basilica, where Kathleen sings in the choir and Diedier serves as a lay reader. We had some fascinating discussions about history and religion in Belgium. It helped me get an insiders view of Roman Catholicism.

Sightseeing

Saturday afternoon we went to see downtown Brussels. It was rainy as usual for this time of the year. The kids were quite impressed with the old buildings, especially the cathedral with parts dating back to the 11th century. The day was complete with a dinner of frites (fries) and Belgian waffles. Sunday we were supposed to meet someone who was going to show us the way to church, but they slept in. So Heather and the kids went to the church at the OM Centre where we are staying. I hitched a ride to the church we will be working with in a Morrocan/Turkish neighborhood.

We made it to Belgium

Our family made it to Belgium. We are staying at the OM Centre outside Brussels. We will spend four weeks here in linguistic and cross cultural training. So far the chocolate has been a big hit with the kids. The plane ride went smoothly. Everyone is adjusted to the time change except Elijah. And that is hard on everyone especially Heather. We've met a lot of great people. I had better go to bed, Elijah might be up again soon.