Friday, October 30, 2015

Team of the Week: Island Castaway

In the western Philippines there are many remote islands where there are very few believers. People feel like castaways:  isolated and disconnected. Slow down for the summer, make friends, learn culture, share LIFE.

Your first stop will be a joint orientation with other Nehemiah Teams. Learning the skills needed to carry out your assignment as well as team building will fill these first few days. Your team will then fly to your final destination for the summer. Following your ministry time you will return to the US for a joint debrief... sharing all God has done over the summer.

IMB Job #: 111882
Location: Palawan, Philippines
Team size:  4 guys
Field expense: $1448 plus round trip airfare, passport & visa costs, and required travel insurance


Click for MORE INFO or TO APPLY

Dates for Summer 2016
May 23  Team leader orientation begins
May 26  Team member orientation begins
May 31  Teams leave for the field
July 26  Teams arrive back for debrief
July 29  Students return home

Traveling Team Newsletter: Aug-Oct 2015

Click on logo above to open their newsletter
What's the NT Traveling Team been up to?  Meet the team and see how the Lord has been using them over these past few months. 

Please use their prayer requests to help you pray specifically for them.

Click on the logo above to open their newsletter.


Monday, October 26, 2015

Our new arrivals!

Our team has grown! Joe & Elizabeth Blandeburgo arrived on October 30th and will be serving with us for the next 2 years. We're excited about having them on our team! Read more about them on their NT Staff page... www.nehemiahteams.com/joe--elizabeth-blandeburgo.html

They've finished their first couple weeks of language study & gotten settled in their new apartment... you can keep up with their adventures & new experiences on their blog: www.joeandelizabethphilippines.blogspot.com

  • Pray for Joe & Elizabeth as they push full speed ahead in Tagalog language study.
  • Pray for their growing relationships with their neighbors... so thankful they are open to hearing about the Good News!

Sunday, October 18, 2015

I Came Back from Thailand

Riding the shuttle, sleepy-eyed, cranky, and Thailand-sick, I had 2 1/2 hours left of this journey from the Atlanta airport to the middle-of-nowhere Alabama.
I couldn’t hold it back while sitting with two of my friends telling me of baptizing upwards of 50 people that summer in the waters of the Philippines. When expectant eyes turned to me ready to hear my relaying of all God did that summer for us, all I could choke out was, “We prayed and prayed for so many. And we didn’t see anything.” And then tears began to roll down my face. This was one of the first times I allowed myself to cry for that summer. Two months there, and I really didn’t allow myself to feel the things I was holding so deep within. None of us did.
I vaguely remember the 12 hour plane ride home, journaling and scratching out these angry prayers, ones filled with so much confusion and hurt. “God, why?” seemed to be the over-arching theme of the words I actually did let out.
And at debrief in Alabama, even other teams whispering gentle, “Are you okay”s. We were learning how to put into words what we had experienced that summer, when we could barely muster the ability to speak at all.
I’ll never forget one of my friends even a month later asking if I had ever really “come back,” and I told him no, expecting that one day maybe I would. That right now something was horribly wrong, and it could all just go back to exactly how it was before. Until my best friend reminded me it’s okay if I never do fully come back. That experience shaped me for the rest of my life. And it’s okay if I never was the same again.
_______________________
The day God spoke to me the most in Thailand was around half-way through, a month in. I remember learning a whole awful lot about prayer, and as one of my teammates and I were walking down the street, I was telling her all about it. How God was teaching me to pray specifically, boldly, and He was teaching me about my authority before the throne. How He was using Philippians 4:6 to teach me how to plead and petition and make my requests known. How to truly and intentionally pray for these women we loved with our whole hearts. And she told me how she was learning the same.
That was a marker moment in the summer, as all four of us starting praying with more fervor and fire, begging our Father for the lives of people we had grown to more than adore.
I remember standing on the roof of our little apartment crying out to God for Him to just please save one of my friends I was about to meet with.
All of us in a circle just saying the names before the Throne of all the people we had met and learned to love.
Writing them all down on a piece of paper we kept all summer, that we kept adding to, and kept praying over relentlessly.
We prayed like we never had before.
But for a reason that is beyond my understanding, we never got to see any of our friends come to know the one true God.
And I came back, knowing I was angry and confused, but not even understanding the extent of that.
I stopped praying. No, I still talked to God. But not with passion. Not with impossible requests. Not with absolute trust.
I allowed this to go on for months, and months turned into a year. And I can’t believe it’s been a year.
The Lord really began to get my attention on this back in July. I was in Guatemala with some of my youth, and one of the mornings I was sitting at the breakfast table before anyone else was awake. I was reading Isaiah 6:
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”
And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.  And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
Isaiah’s Commission from the Lord–
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” And he said, “Go, and say to this people:
“‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
Make the heart of this people dull,
and their ears heavy,
and blind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
Then I said, “How long, O Lord?”
And he said:
“Until cities lie waste
without inhabitant,
and houses without people,
and the land is a desolate waste,
and the Lord removes people far away,
and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
And though a tenth remain in it,
it will be burned again,
like a terebinth or an oak,
whose stump remains
when it is felled.”
The holy seed is its stump.
The first part makes us feel all warm and fuzzy. “Here am I. Send me.” We plaster it on every missions site and showcase it on every Lifeway coffee cup.
Yes, Lord. Send me. Send me! 
But how often do we (I) miss the next part, as if it isn’t even a part of the chapter? “Keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive…” I don’t see that on any posters.
And while I cannot even begin to understand the richness of His knowledge and sovereignty, here’s what I get most from this chapter: Only HE holds the power to open or shut eyes. And although my thoughts and prayers and feelings are precious to Him, He alone holds the power to make the blind see.
How dare I?
How dare I question His motives or His goodness? When He is the One who gave me the very breath I was yelling at Him with in the first place. When He is the One who formed my heart to yearn for the unreached. When I was made in His image and His heart breaks even more than mine for the depravity of the world.
Speaking of Guatemala, our very first day of ministry there, I saw a man, broken from this world, living in a village, no ability to walk…see grace for the very first time, cry out to the Lord for the very first time, go from completely blind to seeing with new eyes, death to life. 
On the very first day. And tears rolled down my face, as I was hit with the realization that it is by Him and for Him and through Him alone.
Ever since July, I’ve been slowly coming back. No, not to the person I was before Thailand because I could never possibly be the same. But coming back to the eyes of prayer I had seen with before.
We have this authority, brought forth by our Great High Priest, who took on the sins of His children and with it took the shame too, who tore the veil top to bottom so that we might boldly approach the Throne of Grace.
And this is my humble promise: Even if everyone I ever pray for never has opened eyes, I will still declare His goodness.
-Ashley
Read more about Ashley's journey on her blog: www.ashleynicoleyates,wordpress.com

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Team of the Week: Tip of the Spear

GO into a new area to build relationships and give a verbal witness while demonstrating a life witness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Be a bringer of light this summer!

The team will work a new region that has very little opportunity to hear the Gospel. This country is less than 1% evangelical Christians. There are large areas and communities without a credible Gospel witness. Your team will be sent into this area to build relationships and give a verbal witness as well as demonstrate a life witness.

This country doesn't allow evangelism, missions trips or missionaries. You will be tourists seeking to understand the culture and enjoy the natural beauty. You will operate very independently from long term personnel for security reasons. You will be gathering data for long-term personnel and national partners about the local communities and places of "light" and "darkness," names of seekers and believers, and making an assessment of the communities' receptivity to the Gospel.

IMB Job #: 111886, 111887, 111888
Location:  Southeast Asia
Team size:  Each request needs 2 team members
Field expense: $1499 plus round trip airfare, passport & visa costs, and required travel insurance


Click for MORE INFO or TO APPLY

Dates for Summer 2016
May 23  Team leader orientation begins
May 26  Team member orientation begins
May 31  Teams leave for the field
July 26  Teams arrive back for debrief
July 29  Students return home

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

It is not just an overseas project...

Has it really been over two months?? It's hard to believe I survived being this far away from Africa for this long. It is so crazy to think that a place I was only in for two months has completely taken my heart. It hurts to be away from Africa. It is literally taking my breath away to look back at these pictures and recall the brokenness and yet beauty, the poor and yet rich, the sorrow and yet joy that a camera lens cannot capture. I was blessed beyond measure to be able to experience all that I did. 

Even though I want more than anything to go back right now, I know God is using me here where I am and teaching me what I need to learn. It has not been an easy transition these past few months coming back to the states with losing a few things I had before I left, hearing unexpected news that is completely life changing (which I am very excited about), and being in a culture that once was my whole life and now is foreign to me. But, God is sovereign and faithful and He knows what He's doing with me. "He's got this," is what I am constantly telling myself throughout each day.

And how could I forget the people around me? They need Jesus just as much as an orphan in Africa does, believe it or not. How can I be an overseas missionary if I cannot even turn to my current neighbor and tell them about Jesus? It is just not an overseas project, it is a lifestyle I must live daily, no matter where I am. I cannot wait to go love on the people on my campus today. 

Cheers, 
Alex

Want to read more from Alex?  Go to http://alexgraceanthony.blogspot.com

Sunday, October 11, 2015

How Heaven Became Real

“I’m here because the gospel reached me through their obedience to go… to send… to pray.  I’m here because God used others to share His story."

-Destinie
Waray Riverboat 2014

Read more from Destinie on her blog... https://chasingdestinie.wordpress.com/2015/10/11/how-heaven-became-real-the-journal-entry/

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Accept the Command

So . . . Wow God is good.


I just had a precious memory from my trip to Zimbabwe, and I wanted to share it with you.

I had been paying no attention to our schedule because I got to the point on my trip where I couldn't keep up with our crazy schedule and I was just thinking, "Okay, I'm up for anything today."
So to be honest, I was not in a good place in my life. I was farther away from God than I wanted to admit to myself or anyone else. But as we pull into a very rural primary school where a lot of kids didn't even know English (which is very uncommon in Zim), I remember thinking, "God, this is going to be the best day of my life."

Over the past few years prior, I lost my joy and heart for a lot of things, including Africa, even though my life dream was to work with little African children and love them like Jesus does.

So as we pull up to this school with my heart in terrible condition, the past few years of neglecting God and ignoring all the plans He has for me was completely forgotten.

We get out of the car and the school is awesome! Like I said before, this was a very poor and rural area. A lot of the kids have their only good meal at that school. The headmaster of the primary school walked us around campus and took us to different classrooms. We got stares and giggles and smiles. When class was dismissed, a BUNCH of kids came darting in our direction. One of the girls on my team and I were suddenly surrounded by at least thirty small African children, all fighting over who gets to touch (not just touch, but hold in amazement) my white skin and hair. Oh, how crazy about my hair they were!

In that moment, all I could think was "God is so good. God is so good. God is so good." I looked at these kids who were in bad shape and dirty and broken, and I saw Jesus. I saw joy in their eyes that I had never seen before. And in my heart, I felt a kind of love that I have never felt with anyone or anything before. I didn't know someone could love so much. This isn't the kind of love you get for a boyfriend or girlfriend, it was a kind of love that could only come from God. It was a love that I can only experience again with how I love Christ, and the thing is, I love Christ even more than I love those beautiful creations of God in Zimbabwe.

It breaks my heart to say that unfortunately, a lot of those children are lost. The reality is those who are lost are going to hell. They don't have anyone telling them about the Lord because of us Christians. We aren't doing our DUTY. We aren't doing our COMMAND. When I went to Zimbabwe, people were telling me left and right how special I was for going there. They were telling me how wonderful it is that I am doing this for God. But we are missing the point!! I did NOTHING significant for going, I was simply accepting the call God has given me to go.

It should be normal for Christians to go tell people about Jesus. It should not be significant when one Christian we know actually goes.

We should not say that only specific Christians have the calling to go be missionaries. When Jesus said to His disciples, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men," He didn't say, "and I will make you fishers of men" for no reason, He meant it. And when He said, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations," He didn't say, "only go if you are called." This was a command for all Christians. So, if we assume that we have to have a specific calling, then why don't we say we have to have a specific calling to stay? Because as far as I can tell, Jesus meant all of us.

So, go. GO AND TELL THE NATIONS ABOUT THE HOPE THAT IS IN YOU! Don't keep it in, don't contain it. Start a revival in our nation and in our world. You can make a difference. You can make disciples.

Accept the command!

-Alex A
2015 Zimbabwe Orphan Care

“It will not do to say that you have no special call to go to China. With these facts before you and with the command of the Lord Jesus to go and preach the gospel to every creature, you need rather to ascertain whether you have a special call to stay at home.”
-Hudson Taylor