My Love Language

I'm waay behind on blogging and have several in the que, so I'm not sure why this one has made it to the top of the list, but I figure you're all dying to know so I'll go ahead and tell you, my love language is....

Pssh! I'm not going to tell you in the first 2 sentences or you won't read any further, I'm no dummy!

One of the "privileges" of being on one of my teams is you get the benefit of my counseling expertise and a usually a good laugh at my expense every once in awhile daily. All of my team members have GREATLY appreciated and enjoyed my psychoanalysis skills. (Please read the bold print with dripping sarcasm. )

I'll never forget the look on the guy's face when he asked me to diagnosis him and I said, "ED. Definitely ED."  Bewildered he replied, "Whaat?!" I'm slow so it took me a minute to figure out that thanks to viagra commercials everywhere he thought I was diagnosing him with something other than Emotional Disturbance. My bad!

This most recent team, which I will devote half a dozen blogs to in the near future, provided me quite a number of diagnostic opportunities, but I'll save that for later. Other than finding out if they are an Otter, Beaver, Lion, or Golden Retriever, we also researched our love languages. If you've never read, "The Five Love Languages," you really should.  I'm proof that it won't help you FIND love, but you'll sure know what you're missing out on.   AND BONUS you can update your e-harmony profile with your findings like, "I like to receive gifts and physical touch." These are my two LOWEST scoring categories by the way. I DO like to GIVE gifts just not receive them, but in case you're wondering monthly commitments aren't considered gifts and I LOVE to get those and you can show me some love by clicking the donate button in the tabs section to the right of this blog. :)

While quality time was a close second my highest scoring category was... Acts of Service! I hear "I love you!" when people do stuff for me! And can I just say some of you have been knocking it out of the park lately?

This Team.Thank you for an amazing summer and first term. I LOVE YOU and miss you like  a fat kid loves cake and I for sure would know! ;)

These pastors.

 These guys drove from KC to Springfield to take us to KC to the airport, kept my car and had the brakes fixed and filled it up with gas, and picked us BACK up from the airport in KC and drove us to Osage Beach.

These friends.
When I made a logistical error, they drove our cars from Springfield to Osage Beach and then turned around and went back home all in one day to help me out.

These family members. Mom and dad helped us in B'desh and then brought back our heavy items so our luggage wouldn't be overweight. Matthew and Cara grocery shopped for us and then grilled out and cooked for us and took us out on their lake toys upon our arrival back to the states.













These supporting churches. Answered a last minute financial project need for our team when I emailed and asked for help.

 
And last, but totally not least.... These guys!!

 

 

It takes a village and I have a GREAT one! Thanks for being an AWESOME village ya'll!

Here's to hoping that each of your love languages is Words of Affirmation! :)

The Eurasia Experience: How did it go in Memphis?

I'm going to let the pictures and people of First Assembly Memphis, TN speak for themselves here, but it sure was nice to be in my home state! Rocky Top You'll Always be....

 Hi Mary Beth: the weekend at First Assembly was beyond amazing; I felt like I was on a mission trip in Eurasia (I took your words from your talk you gave in the Sunday School classes we visited )!!.....the presence of the Lord was so evident in the gym as you and the team and the volunteers transformed it into Eurasia; it was quite an adventure for usI to be involved with this effort to further the Kingdom of God and I have added this experience to my Prayer War Room and will always remember and cherish the new friends we made during this time; our prayers are with you as you travel and journey for the cause of Christ. It was fun having a early morning breakfast with you.

Mary Beth, off-the-charts mission experience. God bless!  Pastor Lindberg 

Good Afternoon,

"I've been coming to mission events and meetings at First Assembly for over 20 years. The Eurasia Experience moved me like nothing I've ever attended." 

I am still so moved by the purpose and thought behind the Eurasia Experience - and I so appreciate being a part of something that God used to further His kingdom.

I cannot speak for everyone, but my eyes were certainly opened to some of the realities our own missionaries face and the desperate need that exists for millions of people. By faith, I believe they can be saved by our Amazing God! 

Hi Mary Beth; I have thought about last weekend so much and how the Lord blessed me through this experience was a life changing event in my thinking and praying for missions everywhere!!.

 
 

 

 

                                    Thanks so much First Assembly Memphis! Appreciate ya'll!

 

The Eurasia Experience: Life 360 Park Crest Campus

Well stewarded. When we go into a place to do an Experience it's quite the ordeal, or "experience" if you will.  We get up close and personal with their building pretty quickly.

Every building is different. Life 360 has a beautiful Park Crest campus, but to be honest EE doesn't really need beauty. It DOES need space and this campus has lots of that too. Space that is very, very utilized.

  What's going on at a church mid-week, mid-morning, on a summer day? We know because
 we arrive on campus 3-4 days before each event to begin set up and such. We walked into an office whirring with activity to find the associate pastor, who had been tasked with our care and coordination.

      He walked us thru the building zipping by the janitorial staff and lines of pre-schoolers toddling after their teachers.  He pointed at a room we would be using over the weekend, but couldn't go into quite yet because there was a volunteer appreciation banquet that night followed by a men's breakfast the following morning. The gym was being emptied out so we could begin set up after the Royal Rangers loaded up all their camping equipment for an upcoming outing. Soon we were dodging flying objects as the youth department made their way into the building where their youth pastor quickly channeled their energies from throwing things to setting up things.

   Over 400 people went thru the experience and many committed to pray and give and a couple even felt called to GO and all that is great and why we do what we do, but my take away was this:

1. They are excellent stewards of their facility and ministries to their people and community. It may have been crazy to to navigate around for our weekend event, but stepping over people young and old who are in and out of the church for school, fellowship, discipleship, and service is a good problem to have. To say the "church" (the people not the building :) are alive and well would be an understatement.

2.  My second take a way was this:  Look closely at these next three photos.

Not only do they have this wall of suggesting you pray for area churches and have invested in printing these prayer cards, they've made an even bigger investment; they allot time in their Sunday morning services to lift up one of these congregations each week.  In case you didn't know, service time on a Sunday morning is a BIG deal!!  AND if you'll look closely, these are churches of all different denominations and I LOVE that!!! Life 360 is truly a missional church and I'm not just saying that because they brought me back a few weeks later and gave me a GoPro and very nice promotional banner and let me teach Sunday School :) , but you can drive by their church any day of the week and see life and ministry taking place. It's not just a Sunday thing for them, actually nothing they do is just for "THEM," and that's kind of Jesus thing. Thanks Life 360 for having us! 

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