Return to Missions
Jeff and Mischa (Undisclosed, MTW)
A Changing World
October 2008
Dear Partners,
We trust that you are well despite the chaotic economic and political news these
past few weeks. Despite all that is happening in a world that seems a bit out of
control at the moment, I need to remind myself that Jesus is on the throne!
God is indeed ruling. I realized this as I recently traveled and worked with our
workers and national partners from various parts of the world over the past month.
Central Asia
It’s amazing what God is doing in parts of the world where one would have no idea
that people are interested in the Gospel. I just returned from a country in the
heart of Central Asia – a Muslim country with a Soviet history where I helped facilitate
our leadership in defining vision and structure for our work in the Muslim world.
I thoroughly enjoyed the culture in this country – painful history, great food,
and intriguing people. Our work is very new to this country within the past year.
One of the highlights for me was being able to interact with three national leaders
in training. It was exciting to hear their testimonies of coming from a Muslim and
communist context as well as their vision for bringing people to Christ and seeing
churches planted.
West Africa
Authentic partnership is becoming the new paradigm for missions. As we seek to empower
our national brethren, we are seeing more discussions around the table about vision
and strategy that are putting westerners and nationals on an equal footing. This
is no easy task. I just finished facilitating meetings among African leaders, the
MTW team on the ground in West Africa, and key PCA churches committed to West Africa.
We worked on vision, expectations of each other, roles and responsibilities, and
learning how to treat each other with all the cross cultural issues that are involved.
In this West Africa partnership, composed of three countries with significant Muslim
populations, our role is changing as we come along to serve and train. But the vision
and strategy are being cast by local leadership. As I reviewed the goals at the
end, the vision is bold. The goal of the partnership is to plant 125 churches in
the next five years in Islamic regions of the involved countries in West Africa.
We continue to thank you for your prayers and commitment to seeing churches planted
and leaders trained!
For His Kingdom,
Jeff and Mischa
jdm@swissmail.org