Skip to main content

Short-Term Missions: Albania and Romania 2018, by Pastor Charlie Handren

By Anonymous
     Last week, I wrote about the vision for global missions at GCF and toward the end I mentioned that we sometimes partner with our global partners by sending small, short-term teams to encourage them, pray with them, and serve alongside them in a variety of ways. For several years, we’ve wanted to send a small team to Albania to encourage and work alongside our partners there, Amos and Meredith Anderson. The Andersons have been working to plant churches in that needy country, first in Korche and now in the capital city of Tirana.

     Accordingly, I reached out to the Andersons last summer and asked if it would bless and help them to have a team from GCF visit for about a week in June of 2018. At the time, Amos thought it would, however, as their spring and summer plans solidified, it became clear to them that they would be better served by a shorter visit by a very small team of two or three.
     When offering to visit with our global partners, our primary goal is to glorify Christ by serving them well. Often, the things we think will serve them actually bring a lot of stress upon them, and so we go out of our way to communicate our hearts desire and then we follow their lead when making our plans. Therefore, when the Andersons expressed their desire to change the original plan, our immediate response was to affirm their wisdom and follow their lead.
     So, here’s the plan. By the grace of God, Ethan Larson and I are planning to travel to Sighet, Romania with Training Leaders International to continue training pastors there in the interpretation and proclamation of the Bible. Specifically, we’ll be using the Old Testament books of Ruth and Jonah to demonstrate how to rightly handle the Word of God in all its parts. We are scheduled to arrive in Sighet on June 3, teach from June 4-8, preach in several churches on June 10, and then return home June 11.
     Since we’ll be in the neighborhood, we plan to travel to Tirana, Albania on May 30 and then continue on to Romania on June 3. This will allow us to spend two full-days with the Andersons, seeing their ministry context, praying with and encouraging them, and learning ways we can support them in prayer and otherwise. 
     In the coming months, we’ll have more to say about the trip but for now let me call you to prayer for the short-term ministries of GCF, the Andersons, the pastors of Romania, and Training Leaders International, and Ethan and I. May the Lord hear and answer the cry of our hearts! 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord, by George Muller

By Anonymous
To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord By George Muller “It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost for more than fourteen years. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord, but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. “I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God—not prayer, but the Word of God. And here again, not the simple reading of the Word of God so that it only passes through my mind just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what I read, pondering over it, and applying it to my heart. To meditate on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed. And that thus,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reflective Glory: How the Moon Displays the Mercy of God

By
Our sun is a fitting metaphor for the glory of God. In the context of our solar system, it is massive, bright, beautiful, powerful, self-sufficient, heat-producing, life-giving, and dangerous. It is, by far, the dominant feature of our solar system and without it the system would fling apart and all living things therein would die.  On the other hand, our moon is a fitting metaphor for human beings, especially for those who believe in Jesus Christ. First, compared to the sun, the moon is tiny and dim. The sun is 400 times larger than the moon, its mass is 27 million times greater than the mass of the moon, and from our perspective its light shines 450,000 times brighter than that of the moon. The sun is so much greater than the moon that it’s difficult to quantify and express the difference. Likewise, the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is so much great than each and all of us that it’s impossible to quantify or express the difference. Indeed, the Lord is very great and greatly...
Post a Comment
Read more

God Displays His Beauty While Lifting Heavy Burdens by Pastor Kevin

By
I know I am a little bit overweight. My doctor tells me so. The mirror that I look into affirms it and the scale (that I mostly avoid) reminds me every time I step on it. All of that makes what I am about to say so much more impressive. I had the privilege of sitting on the beaches of Florida's Atlantic coast for 8 days on our most recent family trip. For me there is something magical about the beach, especially on the Atlantic side with the waves washing up against the shoreline. We have been lucky enough to find a sleepy beach town to vacation at. A nook, if you will, that typically features retired folks or families with kids. Out of the way of those who want to party, the beach is truly a relaxing place for me.  Let me tell you something that I gleaned this time around that never quite landed on me. This last week it landed on me, almost literally. My son Ben and I are the more adventurous specimens in the Feder five. We actually get into the salty water where there are jelly f...
2 comments
Read more