It is awesome to see how God has blessed the ministry here at the Bible College in Hungary. Not only does He continue to bless the work here through His Spirit and Word, but now the school has received international accreditation through the EU. Check out the story at the College website. www.ccbce.com/degree
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to exchange some emails with a friend who has a passion for business and mission and is affiliated with a mission organization overseas. While starting off as more of a traditional missionary approach, in his 20 year career as a business consultant he has been apart of developing several businesses. During the past 3 years he has developed a very profitable business that allows him to fuse together faith + business. A few months ago he had the opportunity to speak about some of the invaluable lessons that he learned to some of the key mission agency leaders across the country. I asked him to share some of his thoughts. Here’s what he had to say…
1) God loves Business as Mission
• Doing business (organising people to work together & thus provide for their current & future material needs) is part of the call on God’s people.
• Over the centuries (e.g. Paul was a small business owner & not just a tentmaker) God has blessed organisations which have taken their business abroad & proclaimed His kingdom.
• God is putting in on the hearts of business owners world wide to use their resources for God’s glory.
2) Business as Mission is not just about starting a company in another country
• Starting a company in your home country has a success-rate of 1 in 10. Opening a branch in another country has a similar success rate. Starting a new company in another country does not increase the likelihood of success!
• Starting a company is complicated, time-consuming and requires more money than was forecast. Doing this in another country is rarely less-complicated, less time consuming and never more predicable!
• Effective cross-cultural business takes an existing effective business in one country and adapts it to a new country. Rarely do people who try to re-invent the wheel, succeed in doing something beautiful.
3) Business as Mission is not a way to get more money or more time to do mission
• Running a business is time-consuming so if your workers want more free time don’t get them to run their own company. Being in charge means that they don’t have anyone else to shift the responsibility onto!
• Businesses require money to run. If raising support of US$40,000 a year was hard, why will it be easier to raise at least US$200,000 to open a business in a dangerous country?
4) Business as Mission is vital for communicating the gospel
• The gospel impacts individuals, families and communities. It impacts them physically as well as spiritually.
• Communities need to see the gospel implemented not only in individual lives and in families but also in other social environments.
• After the family, the most common social grouping is business.
5) Business as Mission is not the job of charities
• The type of person with experience to run a business do not often join a mission agency in the way that, say, a teacher or doctor does.
• Charities (and people with a charitable background) have difficulty managing for-profit organisations because of the difference in organisational culture.
• Charities cannot simply own for-profit organisations without risking their charitable status (since the charter for each charity rare permits them to establish or run such businesses).
• The authorities in the US (& elsewhere) are concerned with money-laundering of charitable funds. Moving money to another country to pay money to a business (either for salaries or equipment) with no legal relationship to the charity is likely to be construed as money laundering!
6) Mission agencies have key roles to play in Business as Mission
• Business as Mission people may not join mission agencies in the same way but that does not make them lone rangers. They value professional experience (including in missions) & they expect to work in partnership with the rest of the church.
• Business as Mission people need advice & guidance to how to do mission appropriately. Mission agencies can work with the business leaders to form their Business as Mission strategies & to provide ongoing insight.
• Agencies can specifically encourage certain types of business to enter their fields so that it is easier for other Business as Mission people to enter. For example, if there are experienced sympathetic consultants on the field then it is easier for other Business as Mission people to assess how to enter that market.
• Agencies can fund research into market opportunities to attract Business as Mission people onto their field.
• Agencies can take advantage of effective Business as Mission people by providing them with competent tentmakers with a strong BAM ethic.
7) Mission will look different after this latest Business as Mission wave
• Mission agencies are likely to need to work with Business as Mission people as peers not employees. This means that some agencies will tend towards becoming service providers rather than employers of missionaries.
• Mission will be seen as something done by the inter-dependent church not merely by local congregations sending their members to work for mission agencies.
• If a business leader came to you today, how would you explain what you can do to make the business more eternally effective? How would you relate to that Business as Mission person? How would you enable the Business as Mission person to pay for the services? What happens if that BAMer is from Africa or Asia?
• If a business leader wanted help to do what you do on your field, would they be able to find you at all today? (Business as Mission owner are typically too busy to attend mission conferences so how do they get to hear about you?)
posted by Justin Forman | www.businessasmissionnetwork.com
Hello, CRNH Volunteers/Prayer Warriors!
Just a reminder that the Nursing Home outreach will take place this Saturday, October 31. As usual, we will meet at Coral Reef Nursing Home, 9869 SW 152 Street at 3 pm (till 5 pm, if you are able). Thus far we have two new people who signed up (who signed late last month) and I will be getting word shortly as to how many signed the sign-up sheet at West campus this month. Special thanks to those who volunteered last month while many of us (including myself) were at the Marriage Retreat!
Feel free to bring in sugar-free candies/cookies, hand lotion (for hand massages), combs/brushes (for combing/styling residents’ hair), nail polish/manicure sets (for ladies who would like manicures), etc. More than these things, the residents love to talk and be encouraged and loved by volunteers. I am bringing some spiritual literature (Spanish/English) to read to the residents (or hand-out to read, if they are able) and you are all free to do the same.
Please feel free to e-mail me should you have any questions or concerns. Thank you for all your continued prayers on behalf of this outreach.
In Christ,
Minerva
phoenixfaith@yahoo.com
Dear Family of Friends,
It has been an amazing journey, and it all began ten years ago, on October 4, 1999, when our family boarded the American Airlines jet bound for Lima, Peru. The Lord has done way beyond what we could ever imagine, and we anticipate Jesus wanting to do so much more in the months and years ahead.
We hope that you will rejoice with us in all God is doing in South America. On behalf of the students and staff of Calvary Chapel Bible College-Peru, and the fellowship of believers at Calvary Chapel Lima, allow us to express our most heartfelt gratitude for your continued prayers and support of this ministry.
Your Missionaries to Peru,
John, Pilar, Michelle, Jason and Joshua Bonner
An Afar song
If there is still any place
On which we have not already put our foot!
If there is still any place
On which we have not already put our herds!
The only place where we did not yet live is the sea.
We also do not want you oh grave!
The foreign land we do not want!
The foreign rivers will not water us.
Our herds expect no danger
And graze outdoors at night.
Our young men are there always there to protect them!And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. (Revelation 7: 16-17)
Despite being known as a warrior people, the Afar are very hospitable, filled with humour and enjoy in their own way the beautiful side of life. However the challenges of daily life in the hot lowlands of the horn of Africa can be crushing. Heat and drought shape the life of these 1.5 million people, feared by their neighbours and maintaining a solitary existence. With their herds they trek across the hottest areas on earth: Africa‘s Danakil Desert which extends over south Eritrea, north Djibouti and parts of east Ethiopia. Most Afar are illiterate, they breed camels and live almost exclusively from camel’s milk and corn bread. During drought periods in the early autumn the camel’s milk is often only enough for the children – the parents live for weeks exclusively from tea extracted from coffee trees. Even in such meager times the Afar write poems and humorous and sometimes sarcastic songs about famine and the end. Visitors can be impressed with the tenacity and resilience of this people.
For centuries the Afar have had little chance to hear the Gospel. Recital of Qur’anic verses and fear of the spirits of the desert goes back generations for the Afar. But decades ago God already sent people from the Horn of Africa. Together with the few Afar believers, a radio work of high quality has been developed. The Gospel is now heard! During the last three years many in the Ethiopian church have begun praying fervently for the Afar. Some Afar have come to faith and are being trained and baptized. They often experience harsh persecution, but they are ready to suffer. In 2008 believing Afar sisters compiled an expanded radio series for women. Thanks to the devotion and love from these sisters nomadic women have the possibility of new life in Christ.
Have you ever wanted to see the land where Jesus walked? Join Pastor Pedro as he leads a group from Calvary Chapel Kendall to the Holy Land. There, we will join up with Pastor Greg Laurie from Harvest Ministries. For more information visit this site.
Adoniram Judson was a famous missionary to Burma(Myanmar) during the mid 1800’s. He is known to be the first American missionary to be sent to foreign lands, and was instrumental in the formation of the first American denominational missions organizations. He also translated the first Burmese 
Bible and his story has been an inspiration to millions.
In reading about Judson I came across a letter that he wrote to a missionary association in America with ten bits of advice for those considering missions. I thought some of these were very interesting and useful to those involved in missions today. Here they are, and I have highlighted the most interesting and convicting points:
First, then, let it be a missionary life; that is, come out for life, and not for a limited term. Do not fancy that you have a true missionary spirit, while you are intending all along to leave the heathen soon after acquiring their language. Leave them! for what? To spend the rest of your days in enjoying the ease and plenty of your native land?
Secondly. In choosing a companion for life, have particular regard to a good constitution, and not wantonly, or without good cause, bring a burden on yourselves and the mission.
Map of BurmaFourthly. Take care that the attention you receive at home, the unfavorable circumstances in which you will be placed on board ship, and the unmissionary examples you may possibly meet with at some missionary stations, do not transform you from living missionaries to mere skeletons before you reach the place of your destination. It may be profitable to bear in mind, that a large proportion of those who come out on a mission to the East die within five years after leaving their native land. Walk softly, therefore; death is narrowly watching your steps.
Fifthly. Beware of the reaction which will take place soon after reaching your field of labor. There you will perhaps find native Christians, of whose merits or demerits you can not judge correctly without some familiar acquaintance with their language. Some appearances will combine to disappoint and disgust you. You will meet with disappointments and discouragements, of which it is impossible to form a correct idea from written accounts, and which will lead you, at first, almost to regret that you have embarked in the cause. You will see men and women whom you have been accustomed to view through a telescope some thousands of miles long. Such an instrument is apt to magnify. Beware, therefore, of the reaction you will experience from a combination of all these causes, lest you become disheartened at commencing your work, or take up a prejudice against some persons and places, which will embitter all your future lives.
Sixthly. Beware of the greater reaction which will take place after you have acquired the language, and become fatigued and worn out with preaching the gospel to a disobedient and gainsaying people. You will sometimes long for a quiet retreat, where you can find a respite from the tug of toiling at native work — the incessant, intolerable friction of the missionary grindstone. And Satan will sympathize with you in this matter; and he will present some chapel of ease, in which to officiate in your native tongue, some government situation, some professorship or editorship, some literary or scientific pursuit, some supernumerary translation, or, at least, some system of schools; anything, in a word, that will help you, without much surrender of character, to slip out of real missionary work. Such a temptation will form the crisis of your disease. If your spiritual constitution can sustain it, you recover; if not, you die.
Seventhly. Beware of pride; not the pride of proud men, but the pride of humble men — that secret pride which is apt to grow out of the consciousness that we are esteemed by the great and good. This pride sometimes eats out the vitals of religion before its existence is suspected. In order to check its operations, it may be well to remember how we appear in the sight of God, and how we should appear in the sight of our fellow-men, if all were known. Endeavor to let all be known. Confess your faults freely, and as publicly as circumstances will require or admit. When you have done something of which you are ashamed, and by which, perhaps, some person has been injured (and what man is exempt?), be glad not only to make reparation, but improve the opportunity for subduing your pride.
Eighthly. Never lay up money for yourselves or your families. Trust in God from day to day, and verily you shall be fed.
Ninthly. Beware of that indolence which leads to a neglect of bodily exercise. The poor health and premature death of most Europeans in the East must be eminently ascribed to the most wanton neglect of bodily exercise.
Tenthly. Beware of genteel living. Maintain as little intercourse as possible with fashionable European society. The mode of living adopted by many missionaries in the East is quite inconsistent with that familiar intercourse with the natives which is essential to a missionary.
In regard to your inquiries concerning studies, qualifications, etc., nothing occurs that I think would be particularly useful, except the simple remark, that I fear too much stress begins to be laid on what is termed a thorough classical education.
Praying that you may be guided in all your deliberations, and that I may yet have the pleasure of welcoming some of you to these heathen shores, I remain
Your affectionate brother,
A. JUDSON
Maulmain, June 25, 1832
You can read his complete letter here.
Muslim scholars believe that while the Qur’an was revealed over a period of 23 years the Night of Power is considered the night in which the first revelations of Islam and the prophethood of Muhammed began. This night is in celebration of the arrival of the Qur’an.
In Arabic, Laylatul Qadr (the Night of Power) is described in the Qur’an as, “better than a thousand months” (Sura 97:3). Al-Qadr means power and implies having power over something, particularly to Allah. The character of Allah is said to be excellence in power, capable, all powerful, almighty and also implies “high esteem” and thus the Night of Power is to be highly esteemed.
It is often a point of debate among Muslim scholars as to when exactly the Night of Power occurs. Some scholars say that this night is hidden. Some say it occurs on either the 1st, 7th or 19th night of Ramadan. However, there is strong evidence that the night occurs during the last 10 days of Ramadan, specifically on odd numbered nights. In a report by Bukhari, Muhammed said, “Seek it on the odd nights of the last 10 days of Ramadan.” In Hadith by Ubayy bin Ka’ab, Muhammed also said, “By Allah, I know which night it is. It is the night the Messenger commanded us to observe, the night of the 27th.”
The whole Night of Power, from sunset to dawn, is the holiest night of the year. It is believed that there are groups of special angels who are only seen on the Night of Power. These angels perform special purposes. Some come down for worship, others for granting the request of the believing Muslim. Other angels come down bringing with them proclamations of the coming year.
Today, many Muslims think this is a special night when God gives heed to their requests. Often they are open to dreams and visions as they seek for guidance and revelation. Many Muslims pray all night seeking a response to specific requests. One common belief is that angels will shower down the peace and blessings of God on all who remain awake during this “night of power”. According to the Qur’an, God either listens directly or via the angel Gabriel, to the requests of Muslims concerning their fate.
As Muhammed had his destiny fulfilled by receiving the revelation of the Qur’an on this night, Muslims also call this the “Night of Destiny”. This night seems equally important among orthodox Muslims and in Folk Islam. It is on this night, and during the following weeks, that many Muslims have had supernatural encounters with God.
Muslims are encouraged to stay awake the entire night, and pray for blessings and forgiveness. According to Abu Huraira translation of the Hadith, the Prophet Muhamed declared that “whoever prays during the Night of Power with faith and hoping for its reward will have all his previous sins forgiven.” There are many things that a Muslim will endeavour to do on the Night of Power including recite and study the Quran, make special requests from Allah, evaluate their own lives and make plans for the next year.
Some Muslims will take the day off work so they can stay up all night and will often spend this night in the mosque.
Muslims come to this night with several attitudes. Some want to prove their devotion to God through their prayers, even being proud of their religious accomplishments. Others, knowing in their hearts that they are incapable of really pleasing God by their own religious activity, will feel disappointed with themselves. Finally, significant numbers will be praying in desperation and are genuinely seeking help from God.
Researchers contend that 80% of new Christians in South Asia come to Christ as a direct result of supernatural encounters. More than half of new believers in Iran have had a dream or vision of Jesus and at least 35% of all recent Turkish conversions were in response to a dream and/or vision. In most cases, these supernatural encounters are in relation to a specific need or answer to prayer and are the result of years of prayer and labour by God’s people, including martydom. Often, a Muslim has heard the message of Jesus or even read parts of the Bible. While not all Muslims experience dreams or visions of Jesus, the supernatural is very much an accepted part of life.
There are many stories throughout the Bible where God spoke through a dream or vision. (Genesis 41, Genesis 46:2 & 3, Daniel 4, Judges 7:10-15, Ezekiel 11:24, Matthew 2:12, 19, Acts 10:3-20, Revelation 1:1). In many of these cases the end result was for the purpose of salvation or physical safety. Ramadan is a strategic time for Christians to believe that God would sovereignly reveal Himself to those who do not yet know Him.
* Consider setting this night aside as an all night prayer time with your church or mission group. Look for ways to make your time of prayer varied and interesting. For example: Flags, photographs, maps, posters, video documentaries will all add lots of interest and give you ideas to pray for.
* As you pray during this night, pray for issues such as Muslim leaders and governments, Muslim families and children. Pray for increased numbers of missionaries and workers, and pray for new believers (1 Timothy 2:1).
* Pray for a supernatural move of the Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus to the many Muslims who will seek God tonight (Psalm 118:21, Acts 4:33).
Malegaon is a city of about a million people located in the hot, north eastern part of Maharashtra, India (220 kilometres northeast of Mumbai). Known for its textile industry, the city is divided both physically and socially by a river. On the western side of the river reside a large number of Hindus as well as a small number of Christians. On the eastern side is a vast Muslim community (well over half of the city’s population). From the top of an old fortress near the fruit and vegetable market the city’s divide becomes clear. The skyline shows the minarets of almost 200 mosques on one side of the river and the cones of Buddhist and multiple Hindu temples on the other side.
In the Muslim district, the narrow streets are lined with shops where men, children, animals and vehicles circulate along with veiled women shopping for daily essentials. Tea shops are filled with men discussing their day over cups of chai (Indian tea). Several large Qur’anic schools educate boys aged of 6-25 in Islamic faith and practice. Mufti Ismail, one of Malegaon’s Muslim leaders, is part of the influential council that governs Qur’anic schools throughout the country.
Most local Muslims belong to the “Ansari” people group. Many Ansaris are employed in the city’s textile factories – dark, hot warehouses where raw cotton and polyester is processed, spun into thread, dyed and woven into cloth. Traditional Indian clothing is then produced from this cloth, sold and sent nationwide. Though Hindu-Muslim relationships are quite strained throughout India – in this city the communities are interdependent. Hindus from outside Malegaon provide the raw material to Muslim loom owners. Other Hindu businessmen buy the woven cloths produced by these looms. Each community relies on the other for the success of their businesses.
The only known Christian presence in the city consists of a very small struggling Christian community. May God encourage and transform these believers to truly live out their faith and be a light across the whole city.
Prayer Starters:
- Muslims in Malegaon hold firmly to the traditions, the teachings and counsel of their leaders. Even when tactfully presented with the Gospel in 2008, many Muslims would not even consider the claims of Jesus Christ nor would they read the New Testament (Injil). Pray for the salvation of their community leaders like Mufti Ismail.
- The average Muslim on the street in Malegaon remains in ignorance concerning some of the basic questions of belief in God. May God give them enlightenment.
- Some are seeking for more understanding. One Ansari truck driver was asked what to do about his shame and guilt, knowing he has sinned against God. He paused, bowed his head and then looked up saying in a sincere tone, “I do not know.” In 2008 some Muslims did ask for tracts and Bibles. Pray that this openness could be directed toward personal contact with God.
Note: There are possibly 145 million Muslims in India. God loves them all. India has more Muslims than all the following countries combined: Yemen, Iraq, Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and Egypt.
