CBC Missions

Friends and Partners, 
Today May 6th I celebrate my one year anniversary of moving back to the U.S. after nine years in China. It has been quite an exciting year of transition and change. Even though we have been back in the country in some ways we are not home yet since we are still not living in the house we own. That does not happen until July. However as a part of this return anniversary and a reminder of what it means to own a home, I was told today by a plumber and our tenant that we need to put in a new water heater; Such is life.
I want to thank you each for your continued prayers and investments which have made the transition a positive one. The ministry here this year has been very meaningful and enjoyable. I was reminded how strategic too when I was recently at the dedication of the new COM office and our staff conference in central Pennsylvania. We got to hear of reports from ministries around the U.S. and about some who have returned to China. We really do have a special opportunity to influence some of the best and brightest that China sends here to study. These quotes say it all:
* "I think that reaching out to students from the People’s Republic of China in the U.S. is simply the most strategically important Christian missionary endeavor anywhere in the world!" –Dr. David Aikman, China expert with 23 years experience as a senior correspondent with TIME magazine.
* "Never before in human history have so many young talents, coming from one country in ever-increasing numbers, studied in another. Can this unprecedented phenomenon pass through history without notable impact?" (The Washington Times, 2/17/95, p. A18) -Dr. Cong-Pin Lin, adjunct professor of government at Georgetown University.
The conference was a great time to meet the other COM staff and made me so thrilled to be a part of this ministry and made me thankful for each of you as ministry partners.
You have a part in the lives of each of those we touch here. Just last Friday one of the men, who is a Party member, with whom I meet each week, told me that he is wondering what life is all about; he knows that it is not in the Party’s philosophy or in just getting rich. He has heard the gospel in many forms since the Fall, but it seems that now God is making him aware of what is missing in his life. Pray that he comes to faith before he returns to China in August.
Some friends at an English class. Pray for God to open hearts and minds!
Again, thank you for being a part of our team.
Grace,
Joe May
China Outreach Ministries

1. OPEN DOORS FOR SUMMER MINISTRY TEAMS FROM THE USA. Years ago when learning church planting from guru Ralph N. he emphasized meeting community leaders as one of the church planter’s first crucial steps. Yesterday a friend and I visited with the city district leaders in Mustamäe - a part of Tallinn. My friend had already built a relationship with these leaders and yesterday it paid off! We asked for locations to host a children’s club and a basketball day camp in July. They were sharing information and other contacts with me so quickly I could scarcely record it! The result is that we have the use of a centrally located school gym for our basketball camp FREE OF CHARGE. A second centrally located Cultural Center will be our kids’ club (a.k.a. Bible Club) site. These civic leaders were thrilled to have someone doing something positive in the community. They also invited our church to do concerts in the park using a stage they are having built! God is continuing to "make our paths straight" as we prepare for this ministry by people from New Castle, PA.
2. TALKING ABOUT JESUS. Did you ever stop to think how much Jesus wants to be
known? Often my time is spent with those already in the kingdom. Such is the nature of my job. At the same though Jesus says that as his child I am also to help others become missionary followers of Jesus. I asked you to pray that God would give me the specific opportunity to talk about him to others last month. He answered your prayers specifically. I was able to meet with "L" and "W". "L" joined me and some other guys for a sauna evening and he turned the conversation to God. Later in the month I asked "W" to grab lunch. He and I met on the basketball court. He was completely intrigued and asked lots of questions about
what I do. He mentioned, "You presented yourself as someone from whom I could ask questions, so I’m glad you asked me to lunch". Praise God for his grace!
3. SWEDEN PIONEER CONFERENCE OPENS NEW DOORS. I asked you to pray with us that God would set up the right connections during my participation in this conference at the beginning of April. God did just that! I was able to meet John V., a church planting pastor and visionary in Stockholm. I proposed to John the idea of partnering with United World Mission to advance the gospel in Sweden just as we are beginning to do in the north and south of Sweden. He was receptive and has opened the doors to do this. At the same time I had been looking for ways to explore new ministry opportunities in Norway. It turns out that a Norwegian DAWN leader was there. We shared our hearts, dreams and visions and agreed to cooperate together in Northern Europe to stimulate the planting of churches.
Please join us in praying for…
1. SUMMER TEAM PREPARATION. Pray for the people of Mustamäe and the kids around the "Saksa Gümnasium". Our target group is children ages 5-12. We will be advertising in this area, but most important is for the Holy Spirit to begin drawing people to himself.
2. CHURCH IN THE PARK. Pray for us as we develop ideas for connecting with people this summer in public places. We feel God is opening the doors for us and we want to capitalize on these opportunities to see our church grow and plant new communities of believers. Mustamae has 65,000 people and only one small congregation.
3. LATVIAN CONNECTIONS. Pray for my UWM colleagues Mark S. and Monte E. as they present mission opportunities to a group of church leaders on May 14th in Alabama. We are asking these leaders to adopt N. Europe as a ministry area. Specifically we are asking them to consider opportunities in Latvia and Sweden. Pray also for my relationships with Latvians. I will be in Latvia again May 28-30.
4. FINANCIAL UPDATE. Our monthly support is lagging $1450 behind our ideal budget. This affects us personally (salary reduced) and for ministry work funds (monies used to do the ministry). Pray with us as we think creatively about how to discover this new support while thousands of miles from our support base in the U.S.A.
Area Director for N. Europe and East Africa Serving with United World Mission.
Kevin and Wendy Mason
Our Vision:
To see the nations of northern Europe saturated with worshipping, serving, disciple-making churches that reproduce themselves and transform society for God’s glory!

- Sam, who has just finished a stint on the Elder Board of his local church; who visits local nursing homes to minister; who is often invited to counsel with those going through hard times; who along with Berness, his wife, and Joshua, a coworker, has seen souls won through their joint ministry in the past year.

Its been said that a river will only rise as high as its source. A congregation or organization will rise, intellectually and spiritually, only as high as its leadership. Without a growing/emerging leadership the church and the nation cannot grow deeper nor wider. While it is true we need MORE churches, equally, we need BETTER CHURCHES.
As you read this update I will have completed teaching 40 cross-cultural church planters at the Carey Training Center in Orissa. Many of these leaders have also been in one of my training sessions with TENT. This conference is a refresher course, hearing reports and consulting those for their field ministries. Next month I will give you a full report.
My beloved country of Kenya is my next stop. I will be in the country for 10 days discussing the possibility of cross- cultural training for 2009.
Richard Lewis
www.Lewis-Training.com

This a special update about our family. Generous supporters made it possible for Wendy and the kids to attend the SHARE Family Education conference March 1-8. This turned out to be a breakthrough event for Chelsea, who has been suffering from regular migraines. Since I was not there, it is best to hear it straight from Wendy!
Hi! I wanted to write to tell you a bit of what your gift and prayer has done for our family. To say we enjoyed the SHARE Conference is an understatement! I felt that the whole week was exactly what the Lord knew we needed. Each of our kids THRIVED in the classes, and quickly bonded with other missionary kids. They automatically click with other kids who understand their lives. All four kids are already talking about going back next year!
Every morning we had an hour of worship and Bible teaching. I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to sing and worship in English! The speakers truly understood the challenges and pressures of living cross-culturally.
I attended all sorts of seminars relating to the theme of education. It was SO helpful to pull away from the normal bustle of life (home-school, child training, ministry) and just focus on our kids educational issues. The seminars dealt with topics like understanding our children’s learning styles, preparing kids for high school, issues of learning in a second language, teaching writing, etc. I was so refreshed by all the stimulation and new ideas!
A whole team of American medical and education professionals were on site and available for consultations. Chelsea has been struggling with migraine headaches very frequently. We were able to meet with a doctor, a counselor, a nutritionist, and a vision therapist. Even though I speak Estonian, doctor visits in Estonia have always been a frustration. There is a huge volume of medical vocabulary that is not used in ordinary life. It was wonderful to communicate with a doctor in English!
I praise God that the vision therapist was there (I didn’t even know there was such a field as vision therapy!) A regular optometrist deals with the health of eyes, but a vision therapist concentrates on how the brain interprets the signals that the eyes perceive. She did a whole battery of tests with Chelsea, and discovered that her brain is having to work on overdrive because her eyes are not working together. Somehow they classify the brain’s ability into age levels, and Chelsea is about at an 8 year old level. (Not intelligence wise, but just how the brain receives info from the eyes). As you can imagine, this has been very frustrating for Chelsea, who is 14 and doing junior high work, and so much of school is reading! She often sees double, the lines jump around, and visual recall is greatly affected (meaning that with her brain working so hard, by the time she gets to the end of a line of text, she forgets what she read at the beginning of the line). The poor kid didn’t know this wasn’t normal, since she has always been that way! This could very well be a main cause of her constant headaches.
The great news is that this condition is treatable through eye therapy. I was able to talk with several other families whose children have been through the therapy, and they had wonderful results with their kids. It’s even something we can do here in Estonia, since it works through a computer program. We are in the process of researching and ordering that, so hopefully relief is on the way for Chelsea! I’m so grateful that we were there at SHARE and that God provided the vision therapist for us!
Both Chelsea and Cam took the standardized test, Iowa Test of Basic Skills. This was their first time to be tested, and we were all a bit nervous! As a home-school teacher, I always wonder if I’m covering all the bases and doing a good enough job. I got their test results the next day, and was thrilled! God knew how badly I needed that encouragement right now.
Well, I could tell lots more great things about the conference, but the main message I want to tell you is THANK YOU! We all have been incredibly blessed by your kindness. May God bless you richly in return!
With a grateful heart, Wendy / Mason-Express is the source for news and ministry of Kevin and Wendy Mason in Northern Europe

Dear Friends at Community Bible Church,
When a Christian says that someone is a “New” creation, that has the possibility of bringing a strange image to the mind of an unbeliever. Just what is a “NEW” creation? The Bible explains to us just what is implied with that phrase. It also tells what is involved in order to become a one.
Last Friday, I (Charlene) received word that there are “new” creations in a tribal group in PNG!
After the people heard about the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, one tribal man stood to say, “When I heard Jesus say ’It is finished,’ I knew that there was something to this that we had never heard. … Do you hear this? We have never heard this before. His work was finished. There is no more work to be done. The free gift is just sitting out there for us to take it.”
Others took turns and told how the Gospel affected them. “I just am so happy about what Jesus, the Redeemer, did for my sin on the cross,” said Klara.“He had to carry so much heavy pain and sorrow and burden for me. My inner being just cries when I think of what He did for me. He cleaned my dirty inner being and my body of sin. He washed it away with his blood, and He made me clean again. My inner being cannot stop thinking about this. Last night as I tried to sleep, I just turned and turned, for my thoughts would go back to Jesus and what He did for me on the cross.I am so happy about the free gift that Jesus gave to me .”
Ismail shared, “Today, I believe that Jesus is my Redeemer and that when He died on the cross, His blood bought my sin. The big space that Adam and Eve made between them and God, when they sinned in the garden, all men who are born get that big space as well.But today I believe in the Redeemer, and the great Creator Being (God) joined me back to Him, the original Source of Life. Now I am standing in God’s canoe, never to go back to Satan’s canoe again.”
The missionary went on to say that some of the people have heard the teaching, but they still have questions. Pray that they will soon have their questions answered, so they can join those who are rejoicing in their new life.
I am sure you rejoiced as you read how God has answered prayer, and how the Word has changed lives!
As I was working on Indonesia’s monthly update today, I worked on a new email message from the missionary team working with the Dao people group in Papua. It was such an interesting story, that I have attached it with this message. The “new” creations in Dao have a big concern for others! Please read through their report and pray that as God’s Word goes out, that there will be more “new” creations soon.
Marty and I want to thank you for your encouragement, financial support, and prayers. God is so good to us, and we are thrilled that you are a part of that!
In His Care,
Marty and Charlene Wilson

New Tribes Mission
1000 E. First Street
Sanford, FL 32771
Read the rest of this entry »