Read this month's Where Worlds Meet
Inside this edition of Where Worlds Meet you will say goodbye to several field leaders and look back over their many years of service and God’s faithfulness in their ministry: Lindell and Kay Browning, Hermann and Brigitte Gschwandtner, Kyle and Jayme Himmelwright and Kamal Nade.
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TRANSITIONS SAYING GOODBYE By Gina Grate Pottenger, Eurasia Region Communications
In the January edition of Where Worlds Meet we were introduced to two of the new field strategy coordinators (FSC): Khalil Halaseh, of Eastern Mediterranean Field, and Sukamal Biswas, of the South Asia Field.
Now we look back on decades of service by Hermann Gschwandtner, FSC for South Asia, who announced his retirement scheduled for April 2015; and Lindell Browning, FSC for the Eastern Mediterranean Field, who is currently on a year-long home assignment prior to retiring at the end of the year.
In December, Kyle Himmelwright, FSC for the Western Mediterranean
Field, announced plans to return to the US to take on pastoral ministry this month.
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ALABASTER GIVING MONTH BRINGS OPPORTUNITY
Eurasia Region Communications
Traditionally, churches around the world receive an offering for the Church of the Nazarene denomination’s Alabaster fund. The Alabaster fund has raised more than $100 million since 1949, which is used to purchase land, construct churches, medical facilities, schools
and homes for missionaries and national workers.
If your church would like to have an Alabaster Offering, there are
promotional resources in English available on the NMI global web site (the video is in three languages):
http://nmi.nazarene.org/10079/story.html and there are promotional ideas as well: http://nmi.nazarene.org/10082/ story.html
If your church or other property or building were made possible through Alabaster, send us a note so we can work with you on a story: communications@eurasiaregion.org.
The Eurasia Region is saying
goodbye to three of its field strategy
coordinators (FSCs).
____________________________
Brownings retire from 35 years of leadership by Gina Grate Pottenger
Eurasia Region Communications
Editor’s note: Last month we met
Khalil Halaseh, who is stepping
into the role of field strategy
coordinator (FSC) for the Eastern
Mediterranean Field, taking over for
long-time leader Lindell Browning.
Now we say goodbye to Lindell and
Kay, as they plan their retirement at
the end of this year.
A field strategy coordinator
provides leadership, strategic vision
and direction to the districts and
local churches that are located
within a field. The Eurasia Region
has seven fields.
Lindell and Kay Browning are
nearing retirement after serving
the Eurasia Region for more than
35 years. For 22 years Lindell has
led the Eastern Mediterranean Field
as field strategy coordinator. served the Eastern Mediterranean Field for 35 years, helping to identify and equip national people to take over across all levels of leadership in the field. This
year he is turning over that role to
Khalil Halaseh, a pastor in Jordan
(read Halaseh’s profile in the January
edition of Where Worlds Meet).
The Eastern Mediterranean Field
today is made up of six countries:
Cyprus, Egypt, Jordan, Israel,
Lebanon and Syria and two CAA.
There are 30 organized churches and
a membership of more than 2,000
people (based on statistics from
2012).
Recently Lindell and Kay reflected
on their years of service on the field.
After studying Arabic for two
years in Jordan, they began their work
by pastoring a church in Nazareth for
six years. From the very beginning,
their intent was to raise up national
leaders who could take over ministry
at the local, district and field levels.
“We have 33 pastors, now,”
Lindell said. “We don’t have any
churches pastored by non-Arabs now.
That was significant because that
was our intention when we went – to
identify indigenous leaders.”
In 1985, while they were
pastoring, the Nazarene church across
the field experienced a revival, and
out of that movement came today’s
pastors and district superintendent in
Israel. As a result, the field relaunched
the Eastern Mediterranean Bible College,
where many of them trained for ministry.
The college, which had first opened
in the 1950s, had ceased operations in
1960s due to regional conflict.
The Intifadah in Israel between 1988
and 1994 also prompted the church to
become involved in ministry in the West
Bank through Nazarene Compassionate
Ministries.
Another significant moment came when
the Brownings were first able to reestablish
contact with the leader of the
church in Lebanon, Abdo Khanashat. The
Lebanese churches and a primary school
had been cut off from the rest of the field
and the region from 1975 to 1991 due to
Lebanon’s civil war.
“Our first trip back to Beirut, meeting
our leaders there, Abdo wept and
said ‘We’ve been so cut off from our
church; we’re so glad you came back
and reconnected us with our church,’”
Lindell recalled.
Through the reconnection the region
was able to send support to the
churches and the school, which helped
them boost and expand their ministry
to their communities, even in the
midst of turmoil.
A renewed commitment to the
field for the family came during the
First Gulf War in 1991. They had
been serving in the Middle East for 10
years.
“That was a very stressful time
and we were told we would have to
leave if it got bad,” Kay said. “Our
kids were in school so it was difficult
to think about disrupting their lives.
We were torn between doing what
we were told to do and wanting as a
parent to keep our kids safe and also
be sensitive to how traumatic this
was. When we finally decided to go to
Cyprus, we stayed there six weeks.” While they were in Cyprus they
realized how much they longed to
go back and felt a fresh sense of
commitment to the field. Thankfully,
they were able to return.
Lindell and Kay love the beauty
and diversity across the Eastern
Mediterranean Field, and are grateful
that all four of their children, who are
now adults, have a love for the Middle
East and consider it their home.
“I think of a rich culture, a
diverse culture, a fun-loving
culture,” Kay said. “All the cultures are really family oriented. They love
children and they loved our kids. A
lot of preconceived ideas are wrapped
around the Middle East. [We have] the
opportunity to dispel some of the preconceived
ideas and judgments in that
part of the world.”
Lindell said that he is most proud of
the indigenous leadership that has been
developed, including the milestone of
turning over his job to a local leader.
Halaseh is grateful for Lindell’s years
of leadership and mentoring as he grew
up in the church and answered a call to
pastoral ministry.
“Pastor Lindell has the heart of father
and heart of shepherd,” Halaseh said.
“He cared for me all the time and I
believe he loves and respects me.”
The two first met in 1989 when
Halaseh visited a relative in Jerusalem.
As a new believer of just two weeks,
he visited the Church of the Nazarene
where Lindell was the pastor. Lindell
took time to encourage the young man.
Years later, when Halaseh was a leader
in his Nazarene church in Jordan, Lindell
was named field strategy coordinator,
and Halaseh remembered their encounter
and his humility as a pastor. Over the
years, Lindell continued to counsel
and encourage Halaseh as he grew
in his leadership and took on more
responsibility in Jordan and the Middle
East.
“I feel very positive about the
future,” Lindell said. “I think there
are going to be some adjustments for
a new FSC, but I think he’ll do very
well and the indigenous church is really
now driving the ministry. I think our
leadership are determined to stay and
I think we’re going to see some great
things.”
“Our leadership are
determined to stay
and I think we’re
going to see some
great things.”[Lindell Browning
Lindell and Kay Browning]
____________________________
Hermann Gschwandtner looks back on service
Hermann Gschwandtner retires by Gina Grate Pottenger Eurasia Region Communications
Editor’s note: As Hermann
Gschwandtner retires from decades of
ministry in the Church of the Nazarene,
stepping out of his most recent role of
field strategy coordinator for the South
Asia Field, he turns over leadership
to Sukamal Biswas, with whom he has
worked closely in developing the church
in Bangladesh for the past 20 years.
This article looks at Gschwandtner’s
years of leadership in the church, from
Eastern Europe to South Asia, through
compassionate ministries and JESUS
Film.
Hermann Gschwandtner is retiring
from his role as field strategy
coordinator for the South Asia Field, a
position he has held since 2010. But his
leadership on the Eurasia Region goes
back decades.
In his native country of Germany,
Gschwandtner was
running a parachurch
organization that
dealt with literature -
evangelism. He became
acquainted with the
Church of the Nazarene
when he met Richard
Zanner, at the time
district superintendent
of the church in
Germany. They met to
discuss Sunday school
materials and they
would talk late into the
night about theology.
“He said to me,
‘Well, you are really a
Nazarene,’ and asked
me whether I would
want to come and work for the Church of
the Nazarene, and we developed a pretty
good friendship,” Gschwandtner recalls.
Through that connection, he
eventually became the pastor of the
Frankfurt First Church of the Nazarene.
Yet, he had always been involved
directly or indirectly in missions,
and thus emphasized missions at
Frankfurt First. When he had general
superintendent Dr. Jerald Johnson,
come to speak for his church, Johnson
suggested that Gschwandtner lead the
denomination’s efforts in Eastern Europe
and the Soviet Union as Gschwandtner
had experience and contacts in Eastern
Europe through his previous work.
Gschwandtner soon realized that it
was extremely difficult to register the
church without other efforts. Therefore,
entering new countries through
compassionate ministries became the
strategy. This allowed the work of the
church to begin legally and it opened
the hearts of people to eventually hear
the gospel when they first felt loved and
cared for regarding their physical and
material needs, such as clothing, food
and education.
Eventually, he added the
responsibility of running compassionate
ministries in India, South Asia, and
the Eurasia Region, including starting
the work of the church in Bangladesh,
Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. In
several of these countries he had contacts
through his earlier ministry.
In 2000, Gschwandtner was requested
to run the JESUS Film Ministry in
India and South Asia, and a year later to
help part-time with the work of JESUS
Film Harvest
Partners
(JFHP), a
U.S.-based
Nazarene
ministry that
built a bridge
between the
U.S.-based
parachurch
organization
Campus
Crusade for
Christ and
the Nazarene
denomination.
JFHP raises
funds to deploy
ministry teams
around the
world who
conduct evangelism and discipleship, as
well as plant churches, using the JESUS
film and spin-off films about the story
of Jesus. Gschwandtner turned over his
compassionate ministries work, except
for in South Asia and India, and worked
for JFHP for a couple of years. Then
he and his wife, Brigitte, returned to
Germany to pastor part-time, as well
as to continue running compassionate
ministries and church planting (JESUS
Film) in South Asia and India. In 2010, he took over as field strategy
coordinator for the South Asia Field,
building on work done by those who
held the role before him, which included
Arlen Jakobitz and Ron Gilbert.
Gschwandtner credits many of
the accomplishments in South Asia
to Sukamal Biswas, who served as
district superintendent of Bangladesh
and developed the strategy to make
every church self-supporting from its
birth, combined with planting churches
holistically through compassionate
ministries and JESUS film. Biswas
will be taking over as field strategy
coordinator when Gschwandtner retires.
The two have worked together for 21
years.
“One thing I have learned is if you
want to have the impossible as a result
you have to dare the impossible,”
Gschwandtner said. “We did things
that were just absolutely contrary to
everything that is being done in missions.
We refused to work in villages or places
where other denominations were already
working. In one of the five poorest
countries of the world we built over
4,000 churches, of which not even one
ever received one cent of subsidy.”
When he first became involved in
South Asia there were five church plants.
At the end of 2014, there were more
than 161,000 members, with nearly
3,300 organized churches (not including
Pakistan). There are more than 1,000
licensed ministers and 261 ordained
elders. In 2014, the field raised $100,000
for the work of the church.
Today, the Church of the Nazarene
is the largest Protestant denomination in Bangladesh, quite a feat considering that some denominations had been working there for more than 200 years
and the Nazarene church only entered the country about 20 years ago, he said. Even in countries with a small population like Nepal and Sri Lanka around 10,000 people or more belong to “the people
called Nazarenes.”
“When I look back, I am filled with gratefulness to the Lord who performs the impossible and who opens closed doors and who gives a great harvest that is truly plentiful and who provides the leaders and people and who truly builds His church,” he said.
“He is not only a leader,” Sukamal said. ”Brigitte and Gschwandtner are like parents to me. Twenty years is not a short journey. Always I find he is along with me.”
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Kamal Nade, beloved Sunday school teacher
Mrs. Kamal “Kamalbai” Surendra Nade, a long-time
beloved Sunday school teacher at the Buldana Church
of the Nazarene, India, passed away recently after serving the
church for nearly 50 years.
Kamalbai began teaching Sunday School, especially reaching
out to non-Christian children at her former church in Jalgaon
Jamod in 1979. She herself had come to Christ as a child in
Sunday school. When her family moved to Buldana, they began
to attend the Nazarene church in 1989 and she continued Sunday
school ministry there. She also led vacation Bible school to
children in the community.
Kamalbai was known to teach using Christian songs,
telling Bible stories with a flannel board and pictures, teaching
Scripture memorization, and showing the children how to pray.
She also led small skits and dramas. There were typically about
50 children in her classes at any one time.
Her daughter-in-law said, “I grew up in faith in God and
learned to trust in the Lord for everything in my life. I also
learned to fast and pray through her. I have been blessed by her
teaching and have experienced the power of the same in my
personal life over and over.”
The Buldana church Nazarene Missions International (NMI)
president, Mrs. Orpah Battase, said, “She was my inspiration.
She was an evangelist, she would never miss the NMI meeting
and in every meeting, she would take detailed notes of whatever I taught or preached.
She was a woman of sincere prayers. I am going to miss her a lot.”
Rajiv Yangad, superintendent of the Central Maharashtra District said, “I
experienced a huge prayer support from her. She would personally come to me
and clearly state how and what the Lord has spoken to her from the preaching and
would assure her and her family’s daily prayer support without fail. She was a great
Christian influence to her own children, church children, youth, women and several
members as well.”
Kamalbai was preceeded in death by her husband, Surendra and their son Sachin.
They have two surviving children: Kiran and Leena.
“I thank Christ Jesus
our Lord, who has
strengthened me, because
He considered me faithful,
putting me into service.”[1 Timothy 1:12]
____________________________
Farewell to the Himmelwrights by Arthur Snijders
Eurasia Regional Director
At the beginning of February the
Himmelwright family will return to
the United States to pastor the Columbia
First Church of the Nazarene, South
Carolina. We are grateful for the eight
years they have been missionaries in the
Western Mediterranean Field. Although
they lived and served in Portugal, they
have been engaged with the ministry
in France, Spain, Italy and the Azores.
As they themselves shared, they fully
believed that the Lord had called them
for long-term missionary service in
Eurasia. As such Kyle and Jayme have
given themselves to teaching, training,
evangelistic projects and many other
things.
Two years ago they adopted three
daughters. This brought joy and many
changes in their lives and ministries.
As regional director I am sad to
see a committed and gifted couple go.
However I believe Kyle and Jayme carry
God’s calling in their hearts wherever
they serve. They will be a missionminded
pastor couple with a big heart
Farewell to the Himmelwrights
By Arthur Snijders
Eurasia Regional Director
for Eurasia. Please pray for all the
transitions for this family. Also pray for
Bruce McKellips, who will serve as field
strategy coordinator for the field from
1 February.
____________________________
Is God calling you to mission?
The Eurasia Region is looking for people within the region whom God is calling into mission service. The new initiative, M-Power, is a way to identify, equip and mobilize Nazarenes to serve as missionary volunteers around the region. Sites are already being set up to receive missionaries. Visit the website to submit your application: www.eurasiaregion.org/volunteers. And share the site with people in your church or district who may be interested.
____________________________
3“I am the Lord,
your God, the Holy
One of Israel, the
God who saves you.
4 To me, you are
very dear,
and I love you.” [Isaiah 43:3a, 4a]
All content in Where Worlds
Meet is permissible to be
republished within the Church
of the Nazarene. Simply include
this statement: “Reprinted with
permission from Where Worlds
Meet, February 2014 issue,
available at eurasiaregion.org.”
www.eurasiaregion.org
____________________________
Prayer Requests
- Please pray for Lindell and Kay Browning, Hermann and Brigitte Gschwandtner and for Kyle and Jayme Himmelwright and their daughters as they transition to chapters in their mission calling that take them into new ministry or retirement. Ask God’s blessing on their adaptation to living in the U.S., and for Him to meet all their needs.
- Please pray for the family and church of Kamal Nade, as they mourn her loss. Ask God to bring comfort, and to also raise up many new leaders from her 50 years of investing in children in India.
- Christ commands us to pray for more workers for the harvest in Luke 10:2: “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (NIV). Pray that God would raise up and equip new workers across the region.
Where Worlds Meet is the monthly newsletter for the Eurasia Region of the Church of the Nazarene. To subscribe, e-mail communications@ eurasiaregion.org or visit www.eurasiaregion.org.
We welcome stories, photos and prayer requests. E-mail submissions to
communications@eurasiaregion.org
Gina Pottenger, Comm. Coordinator gpottenger@eurasiaregion.org
Zarah Miller, Video Producer zmiller@eurasiaregion.org
Denis Sawatzky, Graphic Designer dsawatzky@eurasiaregion.org
Arthur Snijders, Regional Director awsnijders@eurasiaregion.org
Transforming Our World: In Christ • Like Christ • For Christ www.eurasiaregion.org
E u r a s i a R e g i o n a l O f f i c e • P o s t f a c h 1 2 1 7 • 8 2 0 7 S c h a f f h a u s e n , S w i t z e r l a n d Phone (+49) 7734 93050 • Fax (+49) 7734 930550 • E-mail
whereworldsmeet@eurasiaregion.org
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