Author: Ken Guenther Page 35 of 42
Director of SEND U
Bertha and I are on a short home service, and so I am not quite as involved in SEND U activities for the next month or two. But in July, I was back in Farmington to help lead our 2011 Member Orientation Program. Twelve participants came from Poland, Austria and the USA. We were trying a few new things in MOP this year, including visits to Angel House (a Middle Eastern center in the heart of Dearborn), an Iraqi mosque, and an ethnic church. We will definitely want to repeat these hands-on opportunities for cross-cultural exposure and learning.
Again we noticed how the spiritual formation parts of this pre-field training stand out as highlights for the MOP participants. This year, Carl Kresge led most of the morning sessions on spiritual formation, building up to the “Day Alone With God” which happens the day before MOP ends. Carl emphasized that busyness… Read the whole post
All the missionaries from the Eurasia region of SEND gathered in Lemgo from June 8-14 for Family Conference, which happens about once every 3-4 years. This year, the team leaders and area leaders from Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine arrived 3 days earlier (with their families) to participate in our first-ever Becoming an Effective Leader of a Team training (B.E.L.T.).
We met at a beautiful conference center called Sanderhof, just outside Lemgo.
Equipping missionaries for greater effectiveness must begin with the foundation – a rich and growing relationship with our Lord. A few months ago, I highlighted a book that enriched my personal devotions by showing me a simple method to journal – The Divine Mentor: Growing Your Faith as You Sit at the Feet of the Savior by Wayne Cordeiro. Recently I finished reading another book that has re-energized my prayer life – A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World by Paul Miller.
Child-like dependency
The author helped me to understand more clearly how essential a child-like attitude of dependency is. We need to learn helplessness when we come to God in prayer. Miller says,
‘When Jesus tells us to become like little children, he isn’t telling us to do anything he isn’t already doing. Jesus is, without question, the most dependent human being who ever lived. Because he can’t do life on his own, he prays.”
In the leadership course I recently taught in Khabarovsk at the Far East Russia Bible College, one of my assignments required my students to read through the first 6 chapters of Nehemiah. They were to describe five leadership characteristics or actions of Nehemiah that explain why he was able to motivate and organize the people to build the walls of Jerusalem in such a short time.
During the week that I was in Khabarovsk, I decided to re-read Nehemiah for myself in my personal devotions, and pay particular attention to his leadership qualities. Over the years, I have read Nehemiah many, many times, and marked dozens of papers on this subject. But again, I noticed leadership qualities in Nehemiah that I had missed before, particularly in the chapters following chapter six. My reading and reflection on Nehemiah continued after my return to Kiev, and I would like to share a few observations from the dedication celebration of the wall that Nehemiah organized, and which is recorded in chapter 12.
From May 4-8, nine new leadership couples from various parts of SEND’s world joined our International Director and his wife, our Europe Regional Director and his wife, and Bertha and me at the Walzer Hotel in Budapest for training and orientation to their new leadership role. Each of these new leadership couples is now responsible for SEND’s ministries and teams in a particular country, and a few of them are actually responsible for ministries and teams in two countries. Most of the leadership couples are serving in Europe, and thus Budapest was selected as the venue for this training.
The topics we addressed included transitioning to the leadership role, the leader profile, the leader’s vision, the role of the wife, dealing with loneliness, keeping your marriage strong, delegation & empowerment and managing area finances. The complete list of topics can be seen on the SEND U wiki.