Barnabas Task

Everything on this website is accurate and true.  It represents heart, passion and pure desire.  I desperately woud love to help  Neill and Diana Gilbert raise money in Mae Sot, Thailand.  My good friends Jason and April Ruggles are there right now, getting the story on video.  I am dialoguing with Bulgaria, dreaming with leadership there.  We are available to do God’s bidding, wherever He will lead.  Nancy and I have been wrestling with the Lord and wanted clear direction as to what that means; what was our role in His plan?    Some doors open, other doors close.    He was speaking.    

While in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (DR), several months before the Foursquare Convention in Anaheim, CA,   we freely shared  with Foursquare missionaries Charlie and Darla Finocchiaro about what we sensed God was saying. To plant a church in Santiago.  They are incredible people that listened to our hearts.  

Finally, we traveled to Santiago and also shared with Paul and Eileen Allyn, veteran missionaries whom we highly respect.  They are looked to often for counsel and have the respect of missionaries and pastors throughout the DR.  They have given their lives to Bible School education.  They are in agreement as well as to do what we were thinking and planning for.

Totally  independent of our conversation, and after we had left the DR, Charlie and Darla’s youth pastor and his wife had shared their desire to start a church in Santiago.  John and his wife Diana are credentialed Foursquare  ministers from the country of Colombia.   Could it be that God was setting something up?

I went to the convention quite open to whatever God  was saying to us.  How would it all work?  I was asking for another confirmation.  We were not going to jump into something quickly.  With His timing,  God spoke to us in a way that it could not be mistaken.  There were  no words spoken during specific conversations that would have manipulated another. He has given a mandate that has the sensitive affirmation of Pastor Bill Campbell, Life Bridge Church, Fort Wayne, IN,  Life Bridge Missions Council where I am the Missions Pastor and the Barnabas Task Board.  

• While in Anaheim, a Chinese lady spoke to me while standing in line at the Starbucks of the Anaheim Hilton.  We had just talked for about 15 minutes when she turned and asked if she could share a word with me.  ”Focus.  Develop a model.  Build leadership.”
• The very next day, a pastor came up to my while having coffee.  I had never seen him before in my life.  I was minding my own business.  He said, “I see the Fatherheart of God in you….signs and wonders following you and angels protecting you…focus.”  I was shocked, amazed and delighted.
• On Facebook, a friend from the past who I stay in touch with, but not often, simply wrote:  “For the man who sees his future through the eyes of God, there is one road…your focus is clear and your purpose is defined…….”

These  words were spoken to me within 48 hours of each other.  They are the culmination of intense prayer and reflection, waiting.  During this time I was studying the Song of Solomon and was amazed at what I was learning.  I found the Lord to be quite attractive.  I longed for Him.   The Holy Spirit was speaking about some different things.   But who wants to settle for that?  When God speaks, directs, re-directs, it is time to listen and obey.  It is the better way.

These kinds of things do not happen every day.  We were not looking for some sign to come out of the woodwork and say “Do this.” God has given Nancy and I a clear mandate to start a church in Santiago, Dominican Republic (DR).  We are stepping into it, absolutely humbled by His grace and calling.  This second largest  city of  of the Dominican Republic is home to about one million people.  The DR  is about 18,700 square miles,  has 31 provinces and is about the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined.  I have planted three churches, all different.  I would say though that I am at the beginning again.  God help us.  Past is prologue.

The goal is to initiate and start a church that will eventually  become self-supporting, self-propagating and self-governing, creating a model and develop leadership.  We do not know everything.  We are broken, humble and we are learners.  We will tenderly discover this with others.  In time, we will turn the church over to a pastor for full leadership and direction.  Our motive is not long term, rather long enough to establish and train someone to take our place and work ourselves out of a job. God knows the timing and our pure desire.

Just Relationships, to me, means open honest, relationships with integrity. When considering the trajic results of Human Trafficking, one quickly surmises that there is nothing just about what you see and feel.  According to Business Traveler Magazine,  ”Human Trafficking is modern day slavery.  Each year, more than eight hundred thousand people are sold into slavery across international borders. There are over twenty seven million slaves in the world today. The sale of people creates the second largest black market estimated to be worth over $9 billion dollars.

Modern day slavery effects every nation. The U.S. Department of Justice estimates nearly eighteen thousand people are trafficked into the United States every year. They are forced into the sex trade, used for slave labor or confined as domestic workers.”

Eighty per cent (80%) of slaves around the world are women and girls, while 50% are children. This is due in part to the high demand for young female sex workers.

You can Abolish The Silence.

    * Stay informed about human trafficking

    * Report suspicions of human trafficking

    * Adopt a project.  Make a Difference.

Below are photo progess updates from the orphanage being built in Thailand. We are almost ready to lay block.  Also these are some of the kids that will understand Just Relationships because someone cared enough to make a difference.  Thanks for doing all you can to help Neill and Diana Gilbert build this orphanage.

We are always wondering where we get answers to certain medical questions. According to Parkview Hospital  (Fort Wayne, IN), where Nancy works as a Critical Care Nurse, the following are  websites you can count on:

www.pdrhealth.com

www.mayoclinic.com

www.medlineplus.gov

www.webmd.com

www.medem.com

www.healthfinder.gov

www.cdc.gov

www.kidshealth.org

www.nccam.nih.gov/health

www.cancer.gov

Jason and April Ruggles (right) left last week.  They lived  with us for the past five months.  They are authentic, wonderful people.   We miss them but know they are where God wants them to be.  Pray for them as they start their journey as Foursquare missionaries in Thailand.    While there, Jason will help tell the missionary story in Southeast Asia through media.  April will teach English as a Second Language (ESL) at the World-base Center, which is located about three blocks from the largest university in the world.

Jon and Heidi Heisterkamp  (left) arrived home in Fort Wayne, IN after being over-night delayed because of rain in Cleveland. (Incredible son-law and daughter)   We welcome them home!    They have just completed 2 1/2 years of successful missionary ministry in Panama.  Jon was the business manager for the Lutheran church, traveling to various countries assisting missionaries.  Heidi taught at an International School.  They are here for a few days and then move on to St. Louis for debriefing as missionaries with the Lutheran Church.  After a few days there they will drive on to Des Moines, Iowa where they will begin life again in the states.  Jon has taken a management position with Wells Fargo.

The Touch of Barnabas Task from tom hinton on Vimeo.

Global Impact 2009 from Jason Ruggles on Vimeo.

Jason Ruggles and I worked on this for the Life Bridge Missions Convention. (lifebridge.cc)  I was in a meeting with new people from  our church  attempting to identify in a few short words what Missions was.  Ever been there?  What is Missions in a few short words?  As I wrote it first and then voiced it, I was cognizant that something special was taking place.

            NEIGHBOR   CITY   COUNTRY   WORLD

I have a passion for the lost that is not fully developed yet.  However, I do know and recognize that  Missions  is more than a far away country.  Missions can be meeting a need for a neighbor, serving in some area of a city  where I live, an honorable attempt to do something in my own country and finally and no less important  an endeavor in that far away country.  I want to help people understand.   Looking at it this way helps me define Missions in a simple way so that the listener can “get it,” without me having to define “it” a second time.  What about you? I would love your input on what Missions means to you!  And I would love your thoughts on this awesome media tool we used to define Missions.

Special Note:  Jason and April Ruggles left for Thailand today.  They are Foursquare missionaries going because God said “go.”  When Nancy and I prayed with them and said goodbye there were tears of joy.  As part of Barnabas Task, we took them in for five months.  They became part of our family in every way.  It is Jason who who edited the above video.  He is good.  He will do stuff like this in Thailand and Southeast Asia.  April will teach English as a Second Language (ESL) at the World Base Center there that is about three blocks from the largest university in the world.  (more than 500,000 students)  Follow Jason and April at jasonruggles.com

As we follow the Lord, there are certain messages that seem to be constant in our spirits. One for me has been the prayer for workers for/in the harvest.  It  seems to be constant.  

Thus, with a humble heart, I submit to you  one of the themes of a life message that is mine.

Compassion for the lost that is authentic and genuine for me  is articulated through prayer and the training of others to both do and teach what Jesus did.  He taught us.

While in Paris, France, the Lord spoke to me about winning the lost, sharing my faith and mobilizing others to the same.  I believe as I  recall He said, “For the rest of your life you will lead less people to Christ but you will train more people to do so who in turn will lead more people to Christ.”  And that has happened and is happening.  I remember this as if it were yesterday.  Part of this emphasis has been the training of others however, not excluding myself from “doing the stuff “as well.  

Getting back to the prayer emphasis, there is a fresh touch of perspective on this that has been made known to me.  Howbeit that  I feel I have this “life message” (and I say that humbly, not for any glory to myself; but for reasons of clarity in my thoughts)  the Lord has captured me recently with an emphasis of intimacy with Him.  

I am wrestling with the two tensions of intimacy with the Father and what I feel is a cry of His that workers be sent forth. God has placed on my heart to pray the ”harvest prayer”  but also to agressively gain/grow in intimacy with Him.  One of my favorite/and conflicting verses has been Psalm 27:4:

“One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.”

How did David have this desire?  Was it a gift?  Was it cultivated?  What about me/us?  Surprise for both Nancy and I.  He has recently  touched us in a very powerful way and caused us to reflect on these thoughts intensely.  So imperfect we are, so undeserving, but ever so grateful!  So we yearn to be in the presence of God. Please don’t misunderstand me.  Our present journey is not one of higher spirituality nor superiority.  It is something that we are walking in humbly and simply ask for your prayers because we have not arrived yet.

It has been said that the motivating factor for a missionary who goes to some place in the world to do God’s bidding that the call of God is a difference maker.  To stay or not to stay on the field is many times processed through the call.  He who calls us in light will be there when we are in a dark, tough, confusing  place in our lives.  The “call” to reach the lost is such an overwhelming thought.  I have several thoughts on this subject.

We do have unfinished business.  There is a world that needs to be reached. We must do what we can while it is day to reach the lost.  While everyone should get a passport and be ready for whatever God has, there is also a need for being aware  where you are at.  Who can we  effect?  What can we do with what we have right in front of us?  Need, disaster, conflict,the lost,  compassion for…….all become relevant in the context of where we are at.  

Whatever the response that is ours, relationships is a key for what we are doing.  I remember meeting with my friend Roberto Ruz in Chile.  We had a passion to reach the lost, a true desire to do something for the Lord, to complete the task that was ours.  Where did we start? We sat at a table with a cup of coffee. We did it again and we did it again.  This coffee and table time is the standard for everything I have a accomplished  with people in my life.   Out of relationship ministry flows.  There is a lot said today about a changing culture that won’t listen.  In the fast lane we are.  My take on this is that investment in time with someone still works.  A table and a cup of coffee.  

An intimate relationship with Father is a key factor as it relates to the Unfinished Task.  I have wrestled with the call of God  and I responded.  I  have prayed to the point that my heart has ached for the lost of the world.  I have experienced groaning in the Spirit as I have interceded for those still have not heard  the loving message of God the Father.  I submit to you that I have miserably failed in so many areas of my life.  One of those areas is the failure to understand the intimacy that God desires from me.   I am being courted by the Holy Spirit.   To do or attempt anything without attempting to gain such a secure, loving, caring intimacy with the God the Father is fearful  thought.  But I have done this.  

I am at the beginning again.  I understand who I am.  I feel called of God.  We must do all we can to reach the lost.  It is in me and I can’t ignore it.  I know relationships are a key to everything I do in ministry.  I also know that knowledge of “how to” does not replace this desire  to simply rest and sit at the feet of God and learn, basking in His presence.  I guess I am a fool for this.  I have fallen in love.  Whose fool are  you?

A Faith Promise Missions Pledge by itself does not seem significant – one pledge, one financial commitment from a church or an individual. Multiply that times 100 pledges or more though, and you can quickly surmise that one pledge is part of a loving commitment from many people so that the missionary can do what he/she is “sent” to do. Your “Missions” pledge, then, is a significant connection to worldwide evangelism.

• Connection to the vision and commitment of your local church. The best way to touch your world is through the local church.
• Connection to pray and fast for missionaries. The pledge goes beyond the financial emphasis. What is needed is committed intercessors for missionaries. You are needed.
• Connection to the heart of Jesus. It was Jesus who said, “The harvest is great, the workers are few, pray that the Lord of the Harvest would send forth workers.” (Matt. 9:35) In the middle of great revival and wonderful things happening, Jesus was concerned for others.

Your pledge is one. One commitment. It joins others who voice the same so that the Kingdom of God can be advanced and our Lord glorified. All across the world there are missionaries, many in harm’s way, who candidly share how grateful they are to you for sending them, supporting them. You are making a difference because you have made a faith promise to Missions.

“The only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.”
C.S. Lewis said it well