I can’t believe in only 26 days, the people around us will be speaking a different language, eat different food, and have a different outlook on God. I have spent all of my life in the bible belt. I have rarely met a person that has never heard the gospel. It will be amazing to me to share the gospel with a person who may have never heard about the Bible!

As you likely know by now, Monica and I will be helping lead a group 6 staff and 14 students on a summer project in East Asia. Over the 6 weeks we will be there we will be taking culture and language classes in the mornings and spending our afternoons and evenings meeting students and sharing the gospel. The long term staff in this country have told us that 1 out of every 4 people who heard the gospel become Christian! This is a tremendous opportunity to take the gospel to people who desperately desire to know God.

With less than 4 weeks until we leave I wanted to send out some ways you can be praying for us and our team.

Followers of Christ have a clear mandate to take the gospel to their cities and the world. I have a certain affinity toward sub-Saharan Africa. To love another people group or country you need to know it. Therefore, good demographic studies are a must. Here is an interesting talk from Hans Rosling at TED. He talks about the changes in the third world over the last few decades in education, child mortality, economy and life expectancy.

I want to note that one of the greatest global needs continues to be clean water. One of the best ways for Christians to love the world and the global church is to assist with clean water and sanitation.

It is worth you while to check out the TED talks.

You can also download the video for your iPod/iPhone.

Tell the gospel.
Live the gospel.

First few days:

Luggage trickled in over the first few days. The MIA luggage count went from 13 to 10 to 6 to 5. Five bags are enjoying a safari of their own - where? we do not know. We were able to purchase necessary meds from some local pharmacies. We bought them out of several items. Hakuna matata (no worries). We just rolled on and were effective and efficient anyway.

The two areas where we minister are very different.

Jambo. Jambo sana! [Hello. Hello (with enthusiasm)!]

Wow, day one complete! Let me catch you up:

We finally made it to Moshi, Tanzania last night after 56 hours of travel. No, that is not a typo. 15 bags made it, 13 did not. Today we had three more arrive. The bag we prayed most about had the medicine for a diabetic team member. It arrived a couple of hours ago. Thank you, Sovereign God. We are still missing a lot of medicine. I am missing both of my checked bags. Good thing I packed some of my clothes (and a toothbrush) in my carry-on.