ENGAGE - A Global Mission Magazine of the Global Church of the Nazarene for Wednesday, 30 July 2014 Issue #81

ENGAGE - A Global Mission Magazine of the Global Church of the Nazarene for Wednesday, 30 July 2014 Issue #81 
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Farm in Zimbabwe prepares youth for jobs by Simone Finney
In Zimbabwe’s third largest city, the biggest challenge is its 80 percent unemployment rate. More than 1 million people who call Gweru home are all too familiar with poverty and its related challenges, and the township of Mkoba is home to many widows, orphans, economically disadvantaged individuals, and people living with HIV / AIDS. 
“With so many orphans around us, education becomes the next challenge,” said Pastor Noah Sibanda, who has been working in the Mkoba area since 2003. “When people are poor they tend to turn to anything that will give them money, such as prostitution for girls and theft for young men. Winning their souls for Christ is one thing, keeping them in Christ is another thing. As a pastor I had to take a holistic approach to salvation. After they receive Jesus Christ as a personal Savior I also had to give them training in different areas of their lives.”
He decided to start with education, specifically, finding a way to pay the school fees of children who could not afford theirs.
Planting the seeds
In 2007, Pastor Noah met Nazarene concert pianist Jerry Nelson (Colorado) while touring through Africa. On a Saturday night drive to San Antonio from the city of McAllen, Texas, Jerry and his wife Rachel spent the early hours of the morning telling two friends Les and Lane Thomsen about the pastor they’d met in Zimbabwe and the vision he had for helping the young people in his community.
“God spoke to me and simply said, ‘Help Noah,’” said Les (right in photo left), who had lived in Kenya and Uganda for two years as a teenager when his father was teaching co-op farming with the U.S. State Department there. “At the same time, God spoke to my wife who was sitting in the back seat with Rachel; she heard, ‘Help Noah.’ So I thought, ‘We’d better help Noah.’ We had no idea at that moment what that meant or where it would lead us.”  
Les and Noah began to correspond via email, discussing what support was needed. When Les learned that elementary education costs approximately USD $60 for a child for one year, he knew he’d found one practical way they could help.
Pastor Noah identified 20 children to receive a one-year scholarship: all they had to do was maintain good grades and attend church regularly.
The Thomsens began to tell their friends about the opportunity, and many decided to give the cost of a scholarship in the place of traditional Christmas gifts in 2007. When Zimbabwe’s school year began in January 2008, all 20 of the children Pastor Noah had identified were enrolled.
Friends and friends-of-friends of the Thomsens continued to support scholarships over the following Christmases, and by 2009, 53 children were enrolled in the program.
“We believed providing an education would provide the church with young people equipped to be leaders for the next generation,” said Les. “What we didn’t anticipate was how God would use these kids.”
“[Noah] believed in education, he wanted to grow the church, and he needed equipped pastors,” said Les, “so we started helping him sponsor these young people who wanted to be pastors.”
New growth
In Gweru, one of the students told Pastor Noah he had a “green thumb” and wanted to plant a garden and supply free vegetables to anyone who worked in it. Any extra produce would be sold to help pay more students’ fees.
With water from a well (photo left) the Thomsens helped install just 25 feet from the door of the church, the garden now generates the best vegetables in the area and funds education for several children. But the success of the vegetable garden highlighted how hungry many of the students were, making it difficult for them to focus on their studies, and the team began to dream bigger.  
“They thought, ‘If we can do this, what about a farm?’” said Les.
A self-sustaining farm would supply food and jobs through share-cropping, and the profits would pay for the workers children’s education. At the time, one of Pastor Noah’s sponsored students was in his third year of college, and was training in a government office responsible for rural development. There, he discovered a little-known government program that allows an organization with a detailed plan for land use to lease the property from the government at the rate of $1 per month for 99 years. He also discovered that the land adjoining the local Nazarene Church was available under these guidelines, so the team applied for the program and was granted approval.
Once the lease was signed, the church was ready to build a permanent building and a neighboring farm. When completed, the building will serve as farm headquarters during the week and a church on the weekends. Volunteers from the congregation are currently clearing the land, and will make bricks once resources are available. The Thomsens are raising funds for cement and materials to build a fence for the church, and people have already begun to donate toward seeds and farming supplies, water wells, goats, chickens—even cows. 
“The Noah’s Farm project is not only for raising crops and animals,” said Les, “but it’s cultivating and raising up a generation.”
Early harvests
At its core, Noah’s Farm is an education project, training young men and women who want to be pastors, and providing others with valuable job training.
“Education makes a person reason and weigh things out before acting,” said Pastor Noah. “These young people have hope now, they have a bright future ahead of them.” 
Some have gained practical job skills, like how to make and lay concrete blocks, construct buildings, or cut and lay tile. One young woman earned her teaching degree and was immediately offered a full-time teaching job. Another young woman (photo left) completed secretarial school and now runs her own business producing typed documents for people without access to a computer.
Pastor Noah worked with Nazarene Theological College Central Africa (NTCCA) in Malawi to educate students who had a desire to be trained for ministry. In 2011, 11 students graduated from NTCCA, and are now all involved in church work. Many are pastors, one is a chaplain in the military, and several have planted churches.
When Pastor Noah arrived in Mkoba the local Nazarene church had less than 10 members. Today, there are more than 500. With the students who have graduated from NTCCA, eleven new churches have been planted.
On Easter 2014, the Mkoba church hosted a combined service for 750 people from all of the preaching points they’ve planted. With maize they harvested from the farm (photo right), this small rural church was able to feed everyone.
For both Pastor Noah and Les, the project has satisfied two different but similar callings: Noah spent years as a young man trying to decipher the pull he felt toward preaching and pastoring, while Les’ time in Africa as a teenager and desire to serve God finally came together in Noah’s Farm.
“There was never any time in my life that the dots all connected until this,” said Les. “I can say now that my life has been fulfilled – now that I have, after all these years, found the ministry that God wants me to do. He’s right there with us and it’s been an absolute joy to watch this project grow and the lives it has impacted.”
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Missionary profile: Jessica Morris
Jessica Morris is a global missionary with the Church of the Nazarene serving in Bulgaria in the areas of theological education, literature development, compassionate ministries through various projects with special emphasis on social enterprises.
She has been serving in Bulgaria for almost 5 years now following 4 1/2 years in Palermo, Sicily, where she was doing church planting through a coffeehouse ministry. Jessica served first as a Mission Corps volunteer in Bulgaria for 2 1/2 years just out of university (making her total tenure in the country 7 1/2 years).
Engage: How did you first recognize God’s call to be involved in missions? 
Jessica:  Watching a film put out by the Wycliffe Bible translators at our neighborhood Nazarene church.
Engage: Please share a story of a significant event or moment that has happened in your current assignment.
Jessica:  Just recently I’ve been able to start a compassionate ministries center the church in Montana (a town in northwest Bulgaria) that focuses on helping the jobless find work.  We do this through helping them apply for free grants from the European Union to start small businesses.  Since this area is the most impoverished in Bulgaria and all of the European Union, a lot of grants are being offered to stimulate small agriculture and other enterprises.  People just don’t have any access to them or knowledge about how to start such businesses.  We have founded the center to educate people about the opportunities that they have, to help them write the business plans necessary to receive the grants, and to offer seminars that will help them be successful in each phase of the process.  It gives me much joy to see the progress that we’re making and to work together with Kameliya and Valentin, the two employees of the center.
Engage: What are some of the challenges that you face in carrying out your work?
Jessica: It seems that working in the church and with people, in general, is often fraught with interpersonal conflicts.  Everyone wants you to take their side.  Trying to encourage peace and to seek peace can often make you feel that you’re in a meat grinder. Jesus never said it would be easy.  Come to think of it, I’m not always easy to be with but I’m sure glad that He loves us all equally and without prejudice.
Engage: What is your favorite aspect of what you do in your present assignment?
Jessica:  Despite all hardship, my answer would always be….being with the people.
Engage: What are some aspects of the culture where you live that you have come to love or embrace?
Jessica: Bulgarians are an incredibly creative and resilient people.  A foundational part of their culture is that they are survivors.  They survived 500 years of Turkish slavery.  They survived alliance with Hitler and even saved the Bulgarian Jews from Adolf’s death camps.  They survived communism, and they’re now trying to survive the economic crisis, that is even worse for countries outside the West than it is for those in highly developed countries.  Bulgarians can do more with $2 than many can do with $20.  They just amaze me.
Engage: How do you connect most with God?
Jessica:  Spiritual retreats are significant moments that help me connect with God in a deeper way (especially when they’re in the mountains).  Even though it might sound nerdy, reading Scripture and commentaries together has been really meaningful to me at different times (not for sermon preparation but just to know God more).  Lately I’ve discovered 30 Days with Wesley: A Prayer Book (published by NPH) and I’ve been enjoying using that as a part of my devotional life.  For me, my journey with the Lord is fluid and the ways that I connect with Him are as varied as the tides. However, I enjoy the creative ways that He seeks to connect with me and I with Him.
Engage: What do you like to do for fun? 
Jessica: As much as I love the mountains and hiking, I am equally enamored with snorkeling and the sea.  Basically if it’s outdoors and active, I’m for it.  Movies, reading, and being with friends also bring joy to my life.
Engage: What is something people would be surprised to learn about you?  
Jessica:  That’s a hard one.  I’m pretty much an open book.
Engage: What advice would you have for others exploring a possible call to missions, or embarking on their first missionary assignment?
Jessica:  Spend your first six months living with a family that will only speak to you in their native language (even if they speak your mother tongue).  Being single is fantastic because it makes this easier.  However, I have colleagues with families who have succeeded in doing much the same thing by renting an apartment in a house where they shared a yard with native speakers or some other such setup.  It will be hard at times, but it’s totally worth it as you’ll learn the culture and the language at the same time. In the process you just might even make good friends for life! 
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Nazarene youth in Nepal dig tube well for village 
“The deep tube-well is like a green tree in the desert,” says Biren Rai, Eastern Nepal area coordinator. “Now hundreds of families have felt relief from water scarcity like getting some shadow in the sunny day.”
When migrants came down from the mountains to the plain, they occupied the best part of the land without worrying about malaria and the tropical climate of the summer season. Less productive high altitudes were left over for the late migrants. This belt of land mainly extends between the lower hills and the fertile plain land, called the terai. Fertile plain land has the advantage of fresh water wells due to its lower altitude, whereas the upper part of the terai remains dry and barren in winter and spring. There is very little chance of cultivating vegetables or any plants until the favorable rain starts in the middle of spring. Abraham Rai, a 70-year-old Nazarene pastor, says, “Women walk 1 to 2 kilometers to fetch water for cooking and some of them even carry water from there to feed animals.”    
Local Nazarene youth observed that most of the tube wells and streams went dry in winter in Aitabare, a small tole of Peltimari village of the Ilam District, and villagers suffered for lack of water. Students made the 500- to 800-meter walk from their school to drink water. Villagers had built a water tank in the jungle nearby but it was unsafe and insufficient to them. So the local Nazarene youths thought they could do something for the villagers.
One day the local CDC (child development center) invited some experts from AWANA (Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed) club and arranged an open health check-up for the village children. Many children were found victimized by water borne diseases. So they planned in cooperation with AWANA to supply water.
The local Nazarene youth began to raise funds for installing a deep tube well. The local Church of the Nazarene funded some amount for the deep tube well. Funds were also granted by the CDC's parents’ Self-Help Groups (SHGs), local church and AWANA club.
Some parts of the tube well were not available in the local market so the Nazarene youths went to another place called Birgunj, which is 379.3 kilometers away and brought all the things needed for tube wells. The youths also volunteered to dig the hole for the tube wells and labored very hard in the hot sun.
“It is not easy to physically do something in the spring sunlight in terai but we made it,” said Arpan Rai, a local Nazarene youth leader. "We were all sweating and our clothes were all wet.” They were worried whether they could be able to find water under the ground, but they did when they installed the pipe 62 feet down from the level of the well, which was already dug 20 feet deep. Now the deep tube well has benefitted more than 100 households. Villagers are getting plenty of water for household purposes, such as to drink, for cooking, washing clothes, feeding animals and even nearby school students come to drink water.
While building the tube well, there were many challenges. For instance, there was not enough manpower, not enough funding, or enough local people who were willing to volunteer for digging the ground; some of them didn’t show up. Not everybody was able to contribute to the fund. So, the AWANA club contributed the remaining fund.
“Now there is a learning for the villagers that difficulties can be overcome if there is unity,” said Biren Rai.  He also added that villagers are inspired by Nazarene works and they are planning to install another deep tube well from their own investment and efforts.
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Jóvenes nazarenos en Nepal excavan fosa de agua para una aldea 
La profunda fosa es como un verde árbol en el desierto," dijo Biren Rai, coordinador del área este de Nepal. "Ahora cientos de familias han podido sentir el alivio de tener agua fresca, así como si encontraran un lugar con sombra en un día de fuerte sol."
Cuando grupos de trabajadores migrantes se trasladaron desde las montañas hacia la planicie, estos ocuparon la mayor parte del territorio sin preocuparse de la malaria o del clima tropical de la temporada de verano. Las altitudes de menor productividad fueron dejadas de lado para los migrantes que llegaron más tarde. Esta faja de territorio se extiende principalmente entre los cerros menores y la planicie fértil, llamada terai. La planicie fértil tiene la ventaja de contar con fosas de agua potable debido a su baja altitud, mientras que la parte superior del terai se mantiene seca e infértil durante el invierno y la primavera. Las chances de cultivar verduras o cualquier tipo de planta son escasas hasta que llega la lluvia a mediados de la primavera. Abraham Rai, un pastor nazareno de 70 años, dice, "Las mujeres caminan 1 o 2 kilómetros para juntar agua para cocinar, y algunas de ellas incluso cargan consigo agua para dar de beber a sus animales."  
Algunos jóvenes nazarenos locales observaron que la mayoría de las fosas de agua y las cuencas de agua se secaban durante el invierno en Aitabare, parte de la villa de Peltimari en el Distrito de Ilam, y los aldeanos sufrían a causa de la falta de agua. Los estudiantes realizaban una caminata de 500-800 metros desde su escuela para beber agua. Los aldeanos habían construido un tanque de agua en la jungla cercana, pero era poco seguro y el agua no era suficiente para ellos. Así fue que a los jóvenes nazarenos locales se les ocurrió hacer algo por los aldeanos.
Un día, el centro de desarrollo infantil local  invitó a algunos expertos del club AWANA (Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed, o "Las Mujeres Aprobadas No Tienen Por Qué Avergonzarse") y organizaron un chequeo general de salud para los niños de la aldea. Muchos niños habían sido víctimas de enfermedades acarreadas por el agua. De éste modo, ellos decidieron cooperar junto con AWANA para proveerles de agua.
Los jóvenes nazarenos comenzaron a recaudar fondos para la instalación de la prfunda fosa. La Igleisa del Nazareno local proveyó algunos fondos para el proyecto. También hubo contribuciones por parte de los grupos de ayuda de los padres cuyos hijos concurren al centro de desarrollo, de la iglesia local, y del club AWANA.
Algunas piezas necesarias para la construcción no se encontraban disponibles en el mercado local, de modo que los jóvenes nazarenos se dirigieron a otro lugar llamado Birgunj, el cual se encuentra a 379.3 kilómetros de distancia y de allí trasladaron los artículos necesarios. Los jóvenes también ofrecieron su mano de obra para construir la fosa y trabajaron duramente bajo el caluroso sol.
"No es fácil llevar a cabo este trabajo físico bajo el sol primaveral del terai, pero lo logramos," dijo Arpan Rai, un líder de jóvenes nazareno local. "Todos sudamos, y nuestras ropas estaban completamente empapadas." Ellos se vieron preocupados en cuanto a si podrían llegar a encontrar agua subterránea, pero lo lograron cuando instalaron el ducto a unos 19 metros bajo el nivel de la fosa, la cual ya contaba con 6 metros de profundidad. Hoy en día la fosa beneficia a más de 100 hogares. Los aldeanos cuentan con mucha agua para todo tipo de uso hogareño así como para beber, cocinar, lavar ropa, para los animales, e incluso para que los estudiantes de todas las escuelas cercanas puedan beber agua.
Se encontraron muchos desafíos durante la construcción de la fosa. Por ejemplo, no se contaba con suficiente fuerza laboral, fondos, o suficiente personal local que se ofreciera para cavar la fosa; algunos  que se habían ofrecido no se presentaron para la tarea. No todos pudieron contribuir fondos, de modo que el club AWANA contribuyó los fondos faltantes.
"Los aldeanos han podido aprender que las dificultades pueden ser superadas si existe la unidad," dijo Biren Rai.  Él también agregó que los aldeanos han sido inspirados por los trabajadores nazarenos y que están planificando instalar otra fosa mediante su propia inversión y esfuerzos.
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Heart of God: Revelation's promise by Howard Culbertson
"The Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light"(Revelation 21:23-24)
The next-to-the-last chapter of the Bible closes by alluding to world evangelism.  That is very significant.  A reference to world evangelism in Scripture’s final pages trumpets the great importance God places on reaching all people with the Gospel! 
To be sure, Revelation 21:23-24 does not exhort us to finish the job.  Instead, the phrase “the nations will walk by its light” celebrates the harvest being gathered around the globe.
The Bible frequently uses light and darkness to contrast good with evil. Remember, for example, Jesus’ bold proclamation: “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12)?  That proclamation strengthened when John wrote in Revelation that the New Jerusalem will be totally illuminated by the Lamb of God.
Furthermore, John used his statement about the New Jerusalem’s illumination to affirm that the gospel is for everyone on earth. The Greek word in Revelation 21 that is rendered as “nation/nations” is ethnos/ethne. English words like “ethnic” and “ethnicity” come from that particular Greek word. Recognizing this, the Easy-to-Read Bible translation renders ethnos in Revelation 21:24 as "the peoples of the world."  What powerful implications that has for the cause of world evangelism.
“Nations” in the sense of “ethnic groups” echoes the “every tribe and language and people” phrase used earlier in Revelation 5:9, 7:9 and 14:6.  People from “the nations” walking in the Lamb’s light will wonderfully fulfill the promise God made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring” (Genesis 28:14 as well as 12:3 and 18:18).
World evangelism has long been described as shedding light in dark places. Thus, when Ada Blenkhorn and E. Meyer collaborated in the early 1900s to write a song about Africa’s unreached people groups, they called it “Dark Africa.”  Today that title can seem derogatory or disparaging. It was not meant that way. That century-old song was written to awaken people to the lack of spiritual light for “the nations” of Africa.    
In addition, we must not ignore the fact that Revelation 21:23-24 announces a fulfillment of the Isaiah 60:3 prophecy: “Nations will come to your light.” These two prophecies -- one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament -- will be fulfilled when believers carry out the Great Commission. 
Thus, though the prophecy in Revelation 21 appears descriptive, isn’t it in some ways prescriptive for us?  That is, aren’t we to do more than simply rejoice that people from all over the world will be in the New Jerusalem?  Revelation 21:23-24 grows out of every other biblical passage concerning our responsibility to share the Good News of the gospel with every person on earth.  As we work to carry out the Great Commission, we can rejoice that the vision of Revelation 21:23-24 is headed for fulfillment.

Dark Africa by Joachim Amoako

Mystery

They say it is

The land of wonderful Africa

Where dreams shatter to tears

Souls lost as water of sweat

Our landmarks bordered by wars

We cry to our so blessed destiny

Yet we worship to feed our motherland

The rich land of resources

Basins potent per world fill

When shall we be free oh Africa

When shall we love ourselves?

Our honor we bury in mass with the souls we take

Our streets we fill with blood of innocent mothers

Tension heightened in our political system

Our entire land host chaos

Yet we claim world provider

So why not feed ourselves

Rather than killing ourselves

Breathing gunshots as they blare our skies

So cursed not for freedom

We scream everyday

Yet we are blessed with no disaster

We have killed our bird

And replaced it with a bat

Where are our brave democratic leaders?

Where are the men

To stand up to this bitter trial

And restore the land before our fatal exploitation

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