LIGHTING the WAY

If you would like to support us financially, we are in need of monthly pledges for living expenses once we are on the field, as well as one-time donations towards our outgoing expenses. The following are ways to give:

– Checks made payable to “Africa Inland Mission” can be mailed to our home address.
– One-time or monthly payments can be set up through AIM’s online giving site. (Please let us know if you set up a payment to start at a later date).
– You will receive a receipt for your tax-deductable gift through either payment method.

We would love to talk with you more if you have any questions. We would also love to present our ministry in your church, Sunday school class, small group, or any other forum. Please let us know if this would be a possibility

Our newest prayer letter is headed to your inbox! If you would like to be added to our mailing list, you can message me your email address or sign up here: http://eepurl.com/oMexj

You can also view our most recent letter here: http://eepurl.com/B88_D

Jesus said in John 14:3, “I am the way, the truth, and the life…”. Jesus is the only way to the Father and to forgiveness for the sins that condemn us all to an eternity in hell. Jesus also said that wide is the way to destruction, but narrow is the way to life. We have both dedicated our lives to showing those who don’t know, or can’t see, the Way. We want to “Light the Way” for all to come to know the One who died for them.

We are privileged to live in a nation where we have every opportunity to learn of this Way. But the Lord has opened our eyes to a dying and hurting world, full of people who have never once had the opportunity to hear that. Through the years, God has continued to burden our hearts for the lost. It is our passion and life’s goal to share God’s light with these people, showing them hope, and lighting the way for for salvation. We believe that God is leading us to make disciples among unreached people groups in Africa. Although we are currently unsure of the specific people group, or even the country we will eventually be serving in, we are open to the Lord’s leading, and continue to pray for His direction in this matter as we prepare to shine a Light on the Way.

How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? –Romans 10:14–

Good evening! We hope you are enjoying the sunshine and summer weather. This year has really been flying by for us, and we have plenty of news to share!

As we mentioned in our previous letter, we have been praying for wisdom and direction as we search for a full-term placement location with AIM. We were initially looking to join a two-year outreach team among the unreached, semi-nomadic Mbororo people group in the Central African Republic (C.A.R.). As we prayed through the details of that team, we began to develop a burden for the Mbororo people. Unfortunately, due to instability in the region, that team has been postponed for the time being.

However, we have been presented with an exciting new possibility that we are prayerfully considering, and we ask you to join us in prayer as well as we seek the Lord’s direction in this. There is a possibility of forming a new team with another couple who had planned to be on the original C.A.R. team. We would be joining up with a veteran missionary and be based in the D.R. Congo, where the Mbororo people are nearby. While the details are still yet to be worked out, the idea would be to spend our first term primarily focused on language and cultural acquisition, along with discipleship, hoping to eventually move into the C.A.R.

While we are so enthusiastic about the possibility to move forward with this new team, there are still so many details and logistics to be worked out. We ask you to please join us in prayer as we seek wisdom in moving forward. Pray for the leadership within AIM as they work on the logistics, pray for the other couple who is considering the team, and for the veteran missionary who is already there laying the groundwork. Please also pray for us in our preparation, and for the Mbororo people. You can learn more about them here: http://prayafrica.org/mbororo/.

We are also stepping out in faith and moving ahead full steam with our support raising process. We are not certain the exact amount we will need yet, but we trust that when the Lord is ready for us to go, the funds will come in.

If you would like to support us financially, we are in need of monthly pledges for living expenses once we are on the field, as well as one-time donations towards our outgoing expenses. The following are ways to give:

– Checks made payable to “Africa Inland Mission” can be mailed to our home address.
– One-time or monthly payments can be set up through AIM’s online giving site. (Please let us know if you set up a payment to start at a later date).
– You will receive a receipt for your tax-deductable gift through either payment method.

We would love to talk with you more if you have any questions. We would also love to present our ministry in your church, Sunday school class, small group, or any other forum. Please let us know if this would be a possibility.

Thank you again for your continued prayers and support, and we will be sending out more details as they come!

We are back home from Candidate Week in Peachtree City, GA, and we are thrilled to announce that we are officially appointed as missionaries with Africa Inland Mission!

The week was full of training, interviews, small group meetings, and just getting to know the staff members and all the “ins and outs” of AIM. It was such a blessing to be there and meet other new missionaries who are in the same process with us. We felt like we were with family the entire week, and we can’t wait to see where God takes all the other appointees who were there too!

So what’s next? At this point, our hope is to join a 2-year TIMO (Training in Ministry Outreach) team to South Sudan. In case you missed our last newsletter, you can read all about TIMO at http://www.aimint.org/usa/serve/timo.  We will be working in an unreached village among the Lopit people. You can learn more about the Lopit people at http://prayafrica.org/lopit/. Please join us now in praying for them, and for the leaders and other members of the TIMO team.

Now that we are appointed with AIM, we are also beginning the support raising process. In order to go on the South Sudan TIMO team, we will need $19,902 for our outgoing expenses (which covers medical costs, travel expenses, Africa based orientation school, language acquisition courses, and housing setup). We will also need to have $3,696 in monthly pledged support for the 2 years we will be there.

At first the numbers seemed overwhelming to us, but we know that God has brought us this far, and if He desires us to be on this team then He will provide the finances as well. We ask for your prayers as we seek to trust and follow him in this next step. We want to see the support raising process not as a burden or obstacle to overcome, but as an opportunity to minister to others now as we share the passion that God has placed on our hearts.

We would love to talk with you more about what God is doing in South Sudan and especially among the Lopit people. Please let us know if you have questions, or would like to learn more about our TIMO team. Also feel free to contact us with any prayer requests of your own. Thank you again for your continued prayers and support.

-Brandon & Heather

The promised Italy debrief is here! All the information you wanted to know, along with a little extra just for funzies 🙂

We were so blessed to have the opportunity to lead our third Xtreme Impact missions trip, and we were super excited to go to Italy this year! It was truly a learning experience as we got to see a completely new side of the mission field in a post-Christian society. God truly had his hand on every aspect of our trip, and we were amazed to see the wonderful group of people He put together.

Our team worked in conjunction with Saints Equipped to Evangelize, a local mission agency and Bible Institute. All of the staff members and local missionaries were amazing! Logistically speaking, this was by far the easiest and smoothest trip we’ve led with XI, although Italy proved to have its own set of challenges.

For those of you wondering what exactly we did in Italy, I’ll give a brief synopsis of a typical day. We were based in a beautiful little township in northeastern Italy (at the base of the Swiss Alps!), but we did most of our ministry in several of the surrounding cities. In the mornings we would usually do tract distribution and hand out invitations to the church plants that the local missionaries have started. Throughout the course of our time there, the missionaries said that they received multiple phone calls from people who received the invitations inquiring about the church services, which was really exciting to hear. Afterwards, we would head back to our base for lunch and riposo.

In the early afternoons we went to parks to do children’s ministry. This included puppets, stories, wordless bracelets, games, face painting, balloons, and of course, conversations with both children and parents. During one of our ministry times, a small group of our students took a walk around the park to pray for the ministry that was going on. Along the way, they met a man sitting on a park bench, started a conversation, and ended up leading the man to Christ! It was so exciting for our team to see this, since salvations are rarely seen on short term trips to such a dark country as Italy. On another day in a different park, a young Albanian girl living in Italy accepted Christ after learning about the wordless bracelet. Please be in prayer for these two people.

After park ministry, we would go back to our base for dinner and then head out to the town squares for drama ministry. Our team learned 2 different “mimes” (dramas performed to music) that portrayed the gospel message. We would begin the evening with an “attention gathering” dance routine, followed by one of the gospel dramas. Afterwards, one of our team members, with the help of a translator, would give a brief gospel message and our team would go out to talk with people in the crowds. After the crowds dissipated and new people began to walk by we would repeat the set several times. Our team members were able to have some really great conversations with the Italian people, and we are praying that God would continue to work in their lives, soften their hearts, and use those dramas to draw people to Him even now that we are gone. One afternoon we did ministry in a tourist town further away from our base, so instead of going back for dinner we ordered pizzas from a restaurant and ate in the town square. While two of our students were in the restroom, they met two 12 year old girls from Albania who were there on vacation. The girls followed them back to the square where we were eating to continue their conversation, and our students were able to lead the two girls to Christ! It was so encouraging to see our team get so excited about seeing God work in peoples’ hearts!

I’m beginning to border on rambling now, so I’ll try to wrap up. Our Italy team was so amazing, and we definitely saw the Lord working in awesome ways!  We are so thankful  for everyone who was praying for our team, and pictures are available on Brandon’s facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/#!/media/albums/?id=170200009)

The updates aren’t coming as frequently as we would like, but we wanted to give you some update on our travels.

Heather and I just got back from a great trip to Northern Italy with our third Xtreme Impact trip! Out team and the ministry were fantastic. In the next couple of posts we will give a review and pics from this great experience.

Our team!

Tomorrow January 9th has major implications for the country of Sudan. This country has been on our hearts for a while. Heather has been burdened for these people since high school.

Tomorrow the peace treaty that was signed several years ago will be up and the people in South Sudan will vote whether to break away from the north. The north does not want this to happen for most of the oil is in the south. Civil war is imminent and the future of the country is up in the air.

Despite this turmoil, we see a strategic opportunity. The north, which is mostly Muslim, has been persecuting those in the south. This has caused those in the south to question their Muslim faith. With Sudan being the largest country in Africa and containing the most unreached people groups, the fields are ripe for the harvest. Yet, that harvest is and will be difficult with there being such uncertainty.

Please join with us in praying for this country and the turmoil it is in and the taste of war in the air. It is difficult to know how to pray in this situation, but our prayer is that no matter what happens the country (or countries) would have openings for the gospel to be spread.

Be in prayer for the referendum in Sudan…

For more please read these links:
Josh Hamby’s blog
AIM’s work in Sudan

This week started out really rough for us. We were already exhausted heading into it after a very busy previous weekend. Then we got the news that our World Help Children of the World boys were back in town for a concert, and needed a place to stay. Of course, we jumped at the chance to have our boys staying with us again, but that led to some very long days. We picked up our boys on Tuesday after work, but since I had already made a prior appointment for that evening, we had to rush home so I could make dinner and then rush off to my appointment. Brandon was wonderful and played Legos with the boys while I was gone. The next morning was kind of crazy…perhaps all mornings are crazy when you have two 9-year-old boys? Maybe you moms out there can relate. But we did get to see our boys in concert that night, which is always a blessing. On a side note, if the Children of the World visit any churches close to you, I would highly recommend that you go to their concert….and tell Dan and Ashish that Uncle Brandon and Auntie Heather say hello! 🙂 Thursday night Brandon had the responsibility of watching our boys again, because I had my Apples of Gold group (I’ll post more about that later…it’s a whole story of its own!)….but I came home around 9:45 only to discover that our dog had eaten one of our boys’ shoes….So then I proceeded to make a late-night Walmart run! Unfortunately, it was a flip-flop that had been eaten, and seeing as summer is officially over, Walmart was very low on their stock of flip-flops. After 30 minutes of searching, I finally found a pair that was the correct size and somewhat resembled the eaten shoe. The small success boosted my mood. Friday brought about another crazy morning, and emotional goodbyes as we dropped our boys off for the last time. By the end of a long day at work, we were ready to come home, crash, and do nothing all weekend….but that was not an option for us. We had made a commitment to attend a CrossWorld New Teams retreat all weekend, starting as soon as we got off work on Friday. To be honest, neither of us were really looking forward to this retreat, but we knew that we needed to follow through on our commitment. Little did we know, this retreat was exactly what we needed. The purpose of the retreat was to promote a new idea that the CrossWorld mission agency has developed. One of the biggest challenges on the mission field today is team relationships. You are thrown into a new culture, new surroundings, a new language, a new home, and on top of that you find yourself suddenly relying on a group of people you barely know, and tensions start to run high. But what if you developed a team here in the States? What if you planned your ministry together, starting bonding with your team here, and then went out to face the challenges of a new country together? How much more effective could we be? That was what this weekend was all about. CrossWorld has 3 ministry locations set up, and the majority of the weekend was spent sharing the vision for those 3 groups, and giving us time to interact with potential teammates, as well as with CrossWorld missionaries and mobilizers. We prayerfully considered the 3 locations, and asked the Lord to make us open to joining one of those teams. However, we truly believe that he has another plan for us. And we met another guy there who felt the same way. We spoke with the CrossWorld staff about the possibility of starting a new ministry among an unreached, unengaged people group in Africa…specifically in southern Sudan! My heart is overjoyed at the possibility. Logistically, there is a lot that goes into opening up a new ministry location, but the staff seems very optimistic about it, and a small team has already begun to form. Please be in prayer with us as we await to hear further news from CrossWorld about this opportunity. One thing we really took away from this weekend was that CrossWorld is definitely an agency that we could see ourselves serving with full-time. They truly have an amazing infrastructure and philosophy of missions. We also ask that you would pray for us as we pursue a more committed relationship with the agency, and as we seek to develop a team while we are here. This weekend was nothing but encouraging, and has left us with so many open doors. Pray that we walk through the right one. The future is bright, and we are so excited about the journey along the way.

This morning was the beginning of the missions conference at our church, Heritage Baptist Church. What a great start to this conference with the theme “Until All Have Heard.” This subject revolves around our deepest passion to reach those people who have never heard. We need these times to remind us of things we have forgotten and even things we have never known…

…there is a huge need. It is hard for us to watch this and not feel compelled to GO. I guess we are a little biased, but shouldn’t we all pray for this passion for the lost to be flamed within us? We struggle with sharing our passion without coming across as arrogant. But we see a need that is not being met. How many people will die while you read this without having a chance to hear about Christ… more than should be allowed… now you know.