The Eurasia Experience: How did it go in Monroeville?

 
First of all 11 people felt called to missions and over 125 committed to prayer for Eurasia!!! If all you're into is the numbers, then read no further. While some people say God isn't concerned with numbers, I beg to differ, He put a whole book in the Bible about them, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, NUMBERS! You can thank my Central Bible College education for that joke. But most of all He's concerned with individuals, you, me, and the little Russian boy, and Asian girl, and Middle Eastern couple, and your neighbor.

 Where is Monroeville?  It's in Pennsylvania right outside of Pittsburgh. Do you know that there are really people who exist that talk JUST LIKE ROCKY?! Forrealtho, the pastors took us to a Primanti Bros. restaurant downtown and I'm pretty sure Rocky's little brother waited on us. When the pastor tried to get his burger without their signature slaw topping, (the fries are also INSIDE your sandwich BTW) Rocky Jr. said, "Um, there's a McDonalds right down the road!" I was scared to order.

  Pittsburgh was really cool though except for that cult they have there with all the yellow and black and terrible towels. I'm going to guess they didn't allow a showing of "Concussion" in this city.

  Oh, this post was to be about the Eurasia Experience? My bad.  It went great. Each church is different, each pastor is different. What stuck out to me here?  The heart of the pastors and how it shines thru in the culture of the church. First of all, these pastors have been on staff at this church for almost 2 decades, longevity and faithfulness are obviously part of their character. However, they don't SEEM like they've been there 2 decades. Their heart for their congregation, their community, and the ends of the earth is vibrant and fresh. They are still having visions and dreaming dreams. Refreshing. They worked tirelessly, had us into their home for dinner, and poured into us as a team. Hospitable. Pastoral. They invited the local area churches and community and they CAME.  We needed an interpreter for the Spanish church they invited and a section roped off for the deaf community they minister to, these are good problems to have. They are inclusive. Entire families volunteered together. There was no shortage of senior saints or young people volunteering either. So I guess what stuck out was outstanding, godly, faithful, and servant leaders. Here's a few pics from our time with Monroeville:


  Exceedingly thankful for experiences like this one. Thanks for having us!

                    

 

 

 

The Eurasia Experience: How did it go in DC?

Well first of all, I had no idea we were in the DC metro area. Country mouse realization:  Evidently big cities have these things called suburbs and Chapel Springs Church in Bristow, VA is in a suburb of our nation's capitol.

There are tons of cool things about this church not the least of these is their fabulous mission's department. They brought the Eurasia Experience in as a portion of their mission's convention, unfortunately I didn't get to see all of it,  but it was IMPRESSIVE. They do missions BIG and they do it RIGHT!  This link MISSIONS will take you to this portion of their website, they believe everyone is a missionary and I agree, I agree, I agree.

Here's another fabulous thing about their church. THIS GUY!
 As we were setting up, this guy walks in with the other volunteers and says, "What's the jail for?"  I have no idea who he is, so I respond, "It's for YOU, we lock up the bad people." (Actually, it's an actual size representation of where a Christian pastor was held in the Middle East along with 9 other men for sharing the gospel.)  Later I see him, setting up the Russian souvenir booth and ask him how he got out of jail. He said, "They said if I helped I could get out." Later I see this picture on my co-worker's site with the caption of, "Pastor Scott helping to set up for Saturday."  Oops! Turns out "this guy"  is actually the senior pastor of the multi-campus over a thousand member church, that supports over 200 missionaries and provides multiple service opportunities in their community and the US and abroad all year long. So he's kind of a big deal, but you never would have known it by the way he came in and served on a Thursday morning. In my defense, if he'd at least said, "I'm the pastor," I probably wouldn't have told him he was going to jail.

Only set back at this place was that a lot of government officials attend here and signed up to help with the Experience. Government employees are not the problem, but when the government goes into lock down and said volunteers get stuck in DC and can't volunteer any longer, well, you really CAN blame the government.

Here's what their fabulous mission's pastor had to say about our time in the burbs:

Hello Team,

Thank you for all of your effort to make the Eurasia Experience and our opening weekend so special!  We had 28 people indicate they feel a call to missions!  There were so many stories of people coming out of the experience with a fresh perspective on missions and it is because of you and your efforts.  I can’t thank you enough for giving of your time and talents.  You truly made an eternal investment in the lives of others.  Nearly 700 people went through the experience!  Thanks again.  It was a pleasure working with you.

For the Mission,

Pastor Doug Dreesen

Thanks for having us Chapel Springs!

    The EE Team

The Eurasia Experience: How did it go at Trinity Bible College?

There's a gem hidden in Ellendale, North Dakota. One third of it's population of 1,300 folks is made up of Trinity Bible College students and faculty. A combination of stately old buildings and brand new facilities, it's a beautiful and welcoming campus.  I guess buildings of brick and mortar can't really be welcoming in and of themselves, so it must've been something else that brought all the fuzzy feelings.  As a graduate of one of our Assemblies of God colleges and having been on many of our campuses, I had preconceived notions of what this place might be like or at least what North Dakota would be like with a yearly average temperature of 42 degrees and 41 inches of snow, let's just say my preconceived notions all the way around were that it would not be a WARM place, but it so IS! I think I'd move there if I were taller than their annual average snowfall.

What made it so great? Well, first of all they have this really awesome program called Pack Your Bags, so if you're a student called to missions, this is the program to check out.  Right off the bat I noticed that the students loved their school and the faculty loved their students.  I'm pretty sure they all loved me too, which makes them all great judges of character. Just like any Bridal  Bible college, there was a lot of LOVE in the air!  Love was evident, a love for worship, a love for physical fitness, for missions, for personal growth, for encouraging one another, for doing things with excellence, for education, and outreach and of course meal times! Their cafeteria has REAL homemade food, my only complaint is that they are a Pepsi campus, YUCK! 

Their football team helped us unload at 7am after their morning work out. They invited their community to our event. Nearly 100% of their students and faculty were involved in or attended the Eurasia Experience even though it fell the week of their mid-terms and the week before their Spring Break (which many were preparing to use this as a week of service and ministry all over the world!) Even after the event when they needed to pack and study several dozen people stayed and helped us tear down, load up, and clean up until the trailer doors were shut! (Right now TBC holds the record time for packing up coming in just under 2 hours!)

I believe the numbers for the event were 11 felt called to Eurasia, another 12-15 felt called to missions in general, and over 100 people committed to pray and financially support the ongoing efforts around the world, but it's definitely not about the numbers.  Trinity Bible College is a place where education, the Holy Spirit, frisbee tournaments, the love and call of God, and football collide, creating a Big Bang that will effect the course and eternity of nations.  It attracts and produces world changers and I'm excited to get to be a small part of their institution  family.  

Thanks for having us TBC,

The Eurasia Experience Team