Prayed up at church and ready to go!

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India mission trip to Dehra Dunn March 2010. Watch this blog for upcoming trip information. Your prayers in advance would be greatly appreciated.  Intercessory prayer makes a difference. Please pray for safe travel, good health, Kingdom breakthrough as we go to minister and build relationship in a Vineyard mission partnership trip.

On My Way Back Home - See You Sunday!

I am writing this sitting in Johannesburg airport with my team, Stacey Miller and Ben Cloud. We piled into a 66 seat bus with delegates from 18 nations on board. I sat beside a South African worship leader from Cape Town Vineyard and in front of me was the couple who pastor the Harare Vineyard in Zimbabwe. It seems that wherever I turned, I was connecting with someone from the Vineyard in Zimbabwe. The room next to Stacey and my room was full with the Zimbabwe team -- I gave them all an mp3 player that I brought from our generous church. The mp3 players were loaded with Kingdom of God teaching, something they need to hear over and over again.

WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?

As I talked and asked questions about Zimbabwe with the couple in front of me, the question Jesus was asked in the gospels, "Who is my neighbor" kept going through my thoughts. The church of Jesus Christ and the World around us cannot sit in comfort and ignore the social injustice that is happening in our world. Our society, whether we realize it or not, is crumbling around us. The forces of darkness are on the offensive. Any sense of security we have is really false. Things can deteriorate overnight, literally, as it has in other parts of the world. This is the hour to leave our comfort zones and be the CHURCH wherever we find ourselves. The gospel message and the transforming power of that message is the HOPE OF THE WORLD. No wonder it is call the good news. It is the lifeline between man being totally depraved or totally transformed.

The 4th day of the conference was just amazing. Great prayer times, a powerful message from the partnership in Burundi - Pastor Ananie spoke on the church being the hope for change in this world. We ended the day with a banquet, totally awesome food and a lot of special times of prayer after a message by the leader of the South African Vineyard's Costa Mitchell. Costa spoke on the need for everyone to rise to a level higher than where they are. To get out of our comfort zones, use the knowledge we have, and influence your world.

I want to say a huge THANK YOU to my church family at Dothan Vineyard for their all their support -- the prayer support kept us going and the way you have sent us forth to be a part of this historic trip is a commentary on the character of our church family and I am truly privileged to be their pastor.

Can't wait to be in church with everyone on Sunday. See you there! In a little while, I will be boarding a direct flight to Atlanta, 16.5 hours of flying and then home!

A Price to be Paid

Day three of the conference for me was a real heart rending day.  It started when the Vineyard delegation from Mozambique was introduced. As they went down the line introducing everyone, they came to Pastor Ezekiel's wife: "Everyone, this is the widow of Pastor Ezekiel who was murdered by a Religious group as he was planting a Vineyard Church."  There was his wife standing strong, proud and moving forward with what God had called them to. 

 

A modern day Vineyard martyr.  A real martyr.  Not just language used in a sermon or a historical account.  This is the real thing.

 

Then in the afternoon it was announced that we had a rare opportunity for a private screening of the new movie documentary, "Mugabe and the White African."  It is up for an Oscar and will soon be released to the public.  The movie shows first hand accounts of what is going on in Zimbabwe, how the government has taken ownership of all the white African farms, evicted the owners, sometimes beat them brutally.  Interspersed in it are comments by Mr Mugabe, in his gravelly tone, such as: "Our present state of mind is you are now our enemies," and, "I will never, never sell my country. I will never, never surrender; Zimbabwe is mine." 

 

Peter Chamada, the son of Nathan Shamuyarira, a Zanu-PF stalwart and former information minister, tells Mr Campbell a white African farm owner: "You are in the wrong home, you are in my home." Asked if a white person can still be a Zimbabwean, he responds: "Not any more. We don't want to have anything to do with you any more."

 

What was so surreal about watching this movie was the context I was watching it in.  With 18 other nations, INCLUDING, the Vineyard delegation from Zimbabwe. After the movie everyone was sitting stunned, shocked and amazed that the world could sit back and allow this kind of injustice to happen.

 

After the movie, South African leaders Costa Mitchell and Alexander Venter put everything in a Kingdom of God context.  How the church should rise and respond to this crisis.  How the Vineyard Pastors and churches in Zimbabwe need our prayers and support.  We ended the session laying hands on and praying over all the Vineyard Zimbabweans. This was the most powerful prayer time I have experienced the entire trip.

 

Again, the sense that our church, Dothan Vineyard Church, is a part of current Kingdom of God issues worldwide is quite daunting .  On the other hand, we are exactly where we need to be as a church - a part of what God is doing in all the world. 

 

 

Meat Sauce on Top of French Toast

As you know, Americans love to venture out with food - for breakfast at the camp we had a meat sauce on top of French Toast.  It didn't look that great but actually wasn't that bad, but kind of unusual.  Day 2 of the conference was very good - networking, great teaching, workshops and a bonfire to end the day.  At the bonfire Stacey and I had a great time of connecting.  He met and talked about an hour and a half with a couple of South African worship leaders.  I connected with an Indian couple who pastor a Vineyard in Durban - found out they know some people in India that I also know.  There are several generations of Indians in South Africa.

 

We had a networking meeting with everyone who is pastoring a Vineyard in Tanzania or is working in partnership with a Vineyard.  We had a nice group, 4 churches were represented: Arusha, 2 in Dar Es Salaam, and Iringa, The other Vineyard is in Ukonga but the pastor of that church is not at the conference.  It was obvious that there is very little connection between any of these Vineyards -- so this conference is of highest value to get these Vineyard pastors connecting and working together.  Part of the problem of course is the difficulty of travel in Tanzania.  The roads are not good, it takes a long time to travel, and the communication systems are not always reliable.  They have planned another get together today which is wonderful.

 

Last night was Tanzania night.  Each pastor and each partnership leader was given time to share on where and what they are working towards in Tanzania.  I had the opportunity to share about Dothan Vineyard leading the USA Tanzania partnership and explained about the purpose of our trips and what we hope to accomplish.  I gave the story of Peter Msgiwa's saying, "What's not happening?" on our first trip -- it became a hit, especially when he got up to share the message (by the way, he did a great job).  I explained that is our motto for our partnership, to find out what's not happening and address it.

 

Stacey ventured out and played soccer yesterday afternoon - they lost and had to be 'skins' - Stacey was glad no one was there to see it. LOL!  He had a great time.  Today is day 3, looking for a ride into the little village near here just to have a look around, because all we have seen is the airport and conference center . . . . hope to post more tomorrow.