Gord Martin - Kenya trip

It has been intense! We've had 12 hour days with our trainees. It seems that I am either with them or in bed!!

Our presentations have been very well received. Our entire focus for this week is on having a Christian perspective on self awareness and our individual, God-given personal design. We have had vigorous but respectful discussions about every presentation, interspersed with generous amounts of laughter.

This is very different from previous years when our focus was on conferences with larger numbers. We are working with carefully pre-selected people who will train others with the material we are walking through this week. This afternoon they spent time working though how they will re-teach the manual we developed specifically for this occasion.

This afternoon Chris led a session on finances which was disturbingly plain for everyone. It was followed by a very frank and good spirited conversation. These are very competent people.

We have a day and a half to go with this class, finishing on Saturday at noon. On Sunday we will speak at the same church as last Sunday. The service will be followed by a joint service with leaders from other churches in Nairobi. On Monday we travel west to Lake Victoria. We will meet with church leaders there to encourage and support them.

We thank God that we have received more than enough funds to cover the cost of this Training of Trainers event. We are hoping to raise an additional 25K in order to cover the entire Vision Ministries Kenya 22/23 annual budget. If you'd like to participate, click here to see the available options https://vision-ministries.org/donate/ That amount provides for a significant portion of Ishmael's support as well as for essential travel and other ministry expenses.

For additional photos and information go to my Facebook page.

My voice is holding up well and we are getting our sleep! Thank you for standing with us in prayer!

Gord Martin

Gord Martin - Kenya trip

It's 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning.

Our first day was fantastic! Our students are very sharp, experienced and are eager participants. It was a long day! Their experiences are so different from ours. One very mature and capable man told us how he had lost all he had during election-related violence twelve or so years ago: house, business, church...everything. The rest of his incredible account is already blurring in my memory.

We taught our lessons, had great interaction with our students during the class times with honesty and humour. Doing this more intensely with a smaller group of pre-selected people is looking like a great idea.

I won't write again for a few days, just wanted to let you know we got off to a great start!

Gord Martin - Kenya trip

It's late afternoon in Nairobi. It's been a little warmer than i expected, 26-27 degrees most days. So far we have:

• Spent quite a bit of time with Ishmael, E.D of Vision Ministries Kenya which had been most helpful. Last night we were at his house for dinner. His wife Molline made a huge meal for us!! A Kings' meal!!

• This morning Chris and I both spoke at Hope Chapel which is located in the KIambiu slum, a dynamic young congregation with lots of energy.

• Tomorrow morning at 8:30 our classes begin. Trainees are coming from all over Kenya. I have been reading their testimonies in preparation for our time together. God has done amazing things in the lives of these people.

• The Ugandan teacher we were expecting to join in teaching with us is not coming after all. That's a disappointment. Chris and I will now be doing all of the teaching.

Please pray that our teaching will be effective and that our relationships will gel - magnificently!! See my Facebook page for some additional photos. The elderly lady below has been a great prayer warrior.

Marissa Brubacher - Short term Mission to Central America

Praise & Prayer Report

I would love for you all to join me in prayer for the people in Nicaragua. So many of them are already so faithful to him even though they don’t have much which is such a big praise. But I pray that even when they go through hardships they would continue to lean on God even when they might not fully understand what he is doing.

Pray that I would continue to step out in faith and not be shy to speak about him.

Prayer for when we go to Costa Rica (we leave on Oct 12) the reality that we have to say goodbye to the friendships we have here in Nicaragua is quite hard. So prayer that we would be able to go into Costa Rica with a good attitude and excited to see what God can do in this new place.

A praise I have is that there is a girl we met named Kimberly who has kidney problems. The family doesn’t have the money they need to give her the proper treatments and they also have a very small house with a lot of people living in it. Kimberly’s mom has been praying for a long time that God would provide them with the funds they need for Kimberly’s treatments but also money to build a new home. One of my teammates decided to reach out to people she knew back home to raise some funds for them. She ended up raising $530 which is insane! That is enough for Kimberly’s treatments and for them to build a new home for their growing family. So the organization we are working with, REAP, is going to help her build a new home and get Kimberly to and from her appointments.

God is so good and has shown himself in so many ways here in Nicaragua. I am excited to continue to see the ways he works here in Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

Marissa

Russ & Meredith Martin

What does "majority world" mean?

Defining Mission Terms

Dear WBC Friends,

Did you know that widely-used mission terms like ‘the 10/40 window’ and ‘unreached people groups’ originated from Lausanne Movement congresses?

Currently, Russ is leading a team responsible for all the marketing, communications and digital strategy leading up to the Lausanne Movement's Fourth Congress on World Evangelization in Seoul in 2024.

Lausanne Movement gatherings have a long history of nurturing the language of missions. In keeping with this tradition, Russ' team has started a new short video series called ‘Difficult Mission Terms’. In this series, key missional terms are defined in an easy-to-understand way.

The first videos of our series have been released, including ‘polycentric’, ‘Majority World’, and ‘orality.’

Your support enables us to bring the leadership energy and creativity to lead teams in being at the forefront of defining and redefining missional language for our times. Thank you for your partnership in bringing the whole gospel, through the whole of language, to the whole world.

Our new address:
30 Sturdee Road
05-01 Kerrisdale
Singapore 207852

Photos below:
A. Meredith being youthful on her 39th birthday.
B. New flat, new reading spots.
C. First day back-to-school.