Summer 2021 multiply.net
together that the world may know
Witness
God’s Growing Family
Witness Summer 2021 Contents Editorial: Becoming God’s Family................... 2 God Sent Grace.........................................................4 Global Bridge for a Global Family...................6
Becoming God’s Family
Let’s Ask the Kids....................................................8 Pass the Guampa...................................................10
Editorial by Vic Wiens
This Kind of Family............................................... 12 Fatherhood................................................................ 13 An Open Table.........................................................14
Staff Managing Editor..................Mark J.H. Klassen Layout & Design..........................Darcy Scholes Illustration & Design..................... Colton Floris Prayer Mobilization..........................Nikki White Story Research..................................Eric Geddes Media Director................................ Daniel Lichty
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When concluding our missionary service in Brazil back in 2007, my wife, Marty, and I reflected on the highlights of our twenty-five-year journey in that country. One of the memories we cherished most was seeing young adults come to faith in Jesus, grow as disciples, and then fall in love with their spouse to be, all in the context of a loving local church. Most of these couples had come from broken homes or dysfunctional families. Their new lives in Christ, new models of marriage, and new guidance from God’s Word were joyfully disrupting the cycle of family brokenness. God was building a new house and home with their lives, and we had hope that their children and grandchildren would continue to experience this abundant life. Today, we maintain contact via social media with many of these families and, as we consider our investment in discipleship, in premarital counseling, and in family friendships, we remember that our labor was not in vain. Family is a gift not to be taken lightly. The New Testament is filled with family language in reference to fellow believers. John writes, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1). He refers to his readers as brothers, children, youth, and fathers. We are the family of God, adopted by the Father, embraced by the Son, and nurtured by the Holy Spirit.
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” 1 John 3:1 Multiply is now walking with a new family of churches in Uganda called Lifehouse Community Church. Robert and Esther Mponye are shepherding this growing ministry that began twenty years ago when they adopted a newborn child who was literally thrown away. (See page 4 to read the full story, “God Sent Grace.”) As they realized there were many other abandoned children in their town of Mityana, God called them to become family to these children, offering protection, nurture, and instruction. When I stayed in their home, served in their
of churches desire to be linked with a broader family. As Mennonite Brethren, we have been working at this since the 1870s, knowing that we need each other, and we can accomplish so much more together than alone.
Becoming family to vulnerable children in Uganda church, and saw scores of healthy children on their school campus, this Scripture took on new meaning for me: “God sets the lonely in families” (Psalm 68:6). Even though family is complicated at times and takes a tremendous amount of effort to develop and maintain, it is so worth it, and so meant to be shared. I believe God created us to experience his Fatherhood. Until we do, even when we have human fathers and mothers, we are incomplete and, in a sense, homeless. When we went as missionaries to Brazil, we experienced the loss of our home culture, but we could endure it because we knew we were not ultimately homeless. We knew that we had a Father in heaven and we were blessed with a spiritual family, and we were called by our Father to share his blessing with the families that we were to live among. Genesis 12:3 has been called the Great Commission of the Old Testament: “I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Abram and Sarai left their home, not knowing their final destination, neither knowing how on earth God would make them, a childless old couple, into a great nation. When Jesus gave the Great Commission, the disciples also did not know where they would go, or how the families of the earth would experience the Father’s blessing of salvation. They only knew the promise of Jesus, “Surely I am with you always.” How have you experienced the Fatherhood of God? Have you seen God setting the lonely in families? Do you see the Church as the family of God? Would you be willing to leave your home culture like Abram and Sarai in order to share the gift of the Son with the families of the earth? In my work with church networks, I often hear them yearning for family. In the same way that we as individuals experience the Fatherhood of God through his Son, Jesus Christ, and in the same way that the local church becomes a spiritual family where we find belonging, so too networks
The New Testament is filled with examples of local churches uniting in their common mission and “spurring each other on to love and good deeds” (Hebrews 10:24). The church in Jerusalem offered spiritual assistance to Antioch, who in turn sent famine relief to Jerusalem (Acts 11). When there was a dispute about the inclusion of the Gentiles, church leaders and delegates gathered in Jerusalem to collectively seek God’s guidance (Acts 15). Out of this posture of welcoming, Paul could later write to the Ephesians, “you Gentiles are not foreigners or strangers any longer; you are now citizens together with God’s people and members of the family of God” (2:19, GNT). A year ago, the International Community of Mennonite Brethren (ICOMB) formally welcomed the MB Church of Malawi (Southeast Africa) as full members of our global family. Just a few years ago, this fledgling network of local churches began in a refugee camp and was looking for broader connections. As a mission agency, we took initial steps to welcome them. Today, they number fifty-four churches and are bearing fruit in various joint ministries for leaders, women, youth, agriculture, and church planting. Now, their leadership is sensing a call to mission beyond Malawi but wants to be sent by the family of churches and form a team with mission workers from other MB families in DR Congo and Angola. As these leaders practice welcoming the stranger, we fully expect much more fruit to come in Africa as a result.
Who is God calling you to welcome into the family? Who is God calling you to welcome into the family? God is on a mission to be Father to the fatherless and to the lonely. Into his family, he adopts orphans, marginalized groups, and disconnected churches. He invites us into his family so that we in turn can become family to those without. Vic Wiens serves on the Global Lead Team as ICOMB Liaison and is currently acting as the Interim Board-Executive Team Liaison. He and his wife, Marty, spent twenty-five years as missionaries in Brazil. multiply.net | 3
God Sent Grace By Mark J. H. Klassen | UGANDA
“It started in my wife’s heart,” said Robert Mponye about the ministry to vulnerable children that he and his wife, Esther, began several years ago in their home country of Uganda. “She was an orphan herself.” When Esther was thirteen, her father passed away. Her mother and her extended family couldn’t care for her, so they discarded her. “They threw her away,” Robert said, recalling his wife’s tragic story. “And so she lived with this sense of rejection.” Two years later, at the age of fifteen, Esther met Jesus and her life was transformed. She was immediately given a heart to serve others, especially children who had been rejected. When Robert and Esther met and got married in 2000, they had a dream together of caring for orphaned children. “We knew we wanted to take them into our arms and love them,” said Robert, “but we didn’t know where to begin.”
Together they rescued Grace and brought her to the local hospital where doctors immediately went to work on her, to remove the filth from her eyes and mouth, and to give her the medication she needed to survive. But once the doctors saw that Grace would live, they didn’t know what to do with her next. At that point, one of Robert and Esther’s children heard about the incident and came home to tell their mother about the baby who had no one to take care of her. “At the time, I was on a ministry trip in another part of the country,” said Robert, “Esther called and said, ‘There is a baby in the hospital who I feel the Lord is asking me to bring into our house.’ I responded, ‘If the Lord is speaking, then let’s obey.’” For Robert and Esther, that was the beginning. They took Grace into their small house and cared for her like she was one of their own. When Grace was five years old, the
Then God sent Grace into their lives. Grace was a baby who was born to a mother who didn’t want her. On the day of her birth, Grace was wrapped in a plastic bag and thrown into a public toilet.
On the day of her birth, Grace was wrapped in a plastic bag and thrown into a public toilet. Fortunately, the bag ripped as it tumbled into the toilet and Grace was able to keep breathing. The next morning, at 5:30 AM, a woman came to use the toilet and heard a baby crying. She called for help and people came running.
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Grace in 2020
couple started King’s Kid Home School. Now, more than twenty years later, Robert and Esther are involved in caring for hundreds of children. Today, 359 children attend daily classes at the school and 107 are full-time residents in the home. “It started with Grace. She was our first King’s kid!” said Robert. “But God sent many more Graces to us.” Over the years, this ministry to orphaned children has developed into a broad ministry that now includes a network of church plants, a Bible School, a vocational school, a children’s choir, a medical clinic, evangelistic outreaches, farming and much more.
“God sees the lonely and vulnerable and he invites them into his family.”
“God sees the lonely and vulnerable and he invites them into his family,” said Robert. “He rescued Grace seventeen years ago and brought her into our family. He’s still doing that today across Uganda and around the world.”
PRAY/GIVE Please pray for Grace as she continues to grow and mature as a young woman of God. Pray also for Robert and Esther as they lead this vital ministry to vulnerable children in Uganda. Multiply has been partnering with this ministry since 2018. To contribute financially to the ongoing operating costs of the King’s Kid Home School in Uganda, go to multiply.net/uganda
As for Grace, according to her proud parents, she has become a great blessing to many. “Through her life and her transformation by Jesus, many children and many communities have been impacted, ” Robert said. “She’s such a great girl and her future is for the nations!” Now seventeen years old, Grace is living a joyful life. She’s currently doing a hair dressing course, which follows in Esther’s footsteps. Grace loves to make the hair of women, both young and old, look beautiful! She has a dream of becoming one of the best beauticians of her generation! Grace is also gifted in music and enjoys leading her church family into God’s presence through praise and worship. “When she leads,” Robert said, “people are always blessed.”
Robert and Esther had a dream of caring for orphaned children
WATCH OUR LATEST VIDEO: WOULD YOU GO? An excerpt from the video featuring Cecil Ramos (Bakersfield, CA), long-term global worker in Thailand: “You know when Jesus talks about us being brothers and sisters, and uncles and grandparents? I never truly understood that to the depth that I do living in Thailand, because I experience it here. Like the Thai grandmothers and grandfathers here, they’re my grandfathers and grandmothers, right? Aunts and uncles here, they’re my aunts and uncles. They are my family, and we live like family. In one sense, family is far away in the States, and in another sense, family is here in Thailand.”
multiply.net/cecil-ramos-story multiply.net | 5
Global Bridge for a Global Family By Larry Neufeld and Mark J. H. Klassen | SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA & USA *Certain names have been changed for security reasons.
“In many ways, it’s an unlikely global connection,” said Stephen Humber, Mission Mobilizer, referring to the bridge that God has been building between America’s Midwest and Sub-Saharan Africa. “Those two parts of the world seem so far apart,” he said, “but during the past several years God has linked them together in ways that are having a huge impact.” Several years ago, God called Travis Jost, a man from Kansas, to move to Sub-Saharan Africa where he would partner with local churches to see the nation of Burundi reached with the love of Jesus. In some ways, it seemed random. But God was up to something. He brought different churches together throughout the Midwest to get behind Travis and to support the work in Burundi. In the process, many people sensed that God was doing something bigger, creating a connection that would involve many more lives. They envisioned a global bridge.
What does mission look like today for the global family of Mennonite Brethren? What does mission look like today for the global family of Mennonite Brethren? It’s about people coming together for a purpose. It’s about collaboration between workers willing to go, churches willing to send, and others willing to partner, whether in the host country or elsewhere, all for the purpose of reaching a nation with the Gospel of Jesus. Around the time that Travis was mobilized, a relationship was also growing between several Midwest churches and a couple named Youssef and Reyna. Youssef was
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originally from Sub-Saharan Africa where he grew up as a devout Muslim, but he came to the US to study agribusiness and miraculously met Jesus. Eventually, he and his wife, Reyna, returned to Africa with a strong sense of calling to proclaim Jesus among the people of his home home country and beyond. When they returned to Africa, Youssef and Reyna went with the prayer and financial support of a variety of churches in the US Midwest. One of those was an MB church in Enid, Oklahoma. As these churches continued to invest in the work of the Gospel through the faithfulness of Youssef and Reyna, the global bridge was strengthened and the work in Africa flourished. Today, the Gospel is having an impact as God continues to open doors in many peoples’ lives. Again, God had gathered a diverse team of people and churches to collaborate on a specific mission assignment— in this case, for the sake of the Gospel in Youssef’s home country. The bridge that God was building was facilitating more and more traffic for greater mission impact. In 2016, Enid MB sent a short-term team to visit Youssef and Reyna to offer assistance and encouragement. “The team from Enid invited a few people from Buhler MB to join them on the trip, including a young man from Kansas named Kai,” Stephen recalled. “For Kai, that trip was a life-changer.” While in Africa, Kai saw a broader picture of how God could use his practical skills to support Youssef and Reyna’s ministry. The following year, he and his wife, Denisa, made a long-term commitment to serve in Youssef’s homeland. In 2019, the couple was mobilized,
and they have been working closely with Youssef and Reyna ever since. Denisa had previously served in Multiply’s Midwest office as a Short-Term Mission Coordinator, mobilizing teams into global mission and facilitating discipleship-in-mission training. Both she and Kai had earlier been a part of the TREK program. Incidentally, while Kai and Denisa were serving in Africa, the TREK program was moved from BC, Canada, to Kansas. When those leading the program began to discuss possible international assignment locations, Sub-Saharan Africa again came into view. The bridge was ready for more traffic. Early in 2021, during a global pandemic and growing political instability, two TREK teams were mobilized to Sub-Saharan Africa: one team hosted by Travis Jost and his ministry partners in Burundi, and another team hosted by Kai and Denisa in Youssef’s home country.
Everyone benefits in this scenario as God builds bridges between nations and partnerships are developed for the sake of the Gospel. Recently, Stephen visited Kai and Denisa in Africa to encourage the ministry partnership and see how the TREK team was doing. He was impressed with the strong connection that was developing between the young adults and their local partners. As the national co-host, Youssef was thrilled and told Stephen how worthwhile he felt it was to invest in the lives of the five TREK participants. Stephen said, “When I took the five of them aside and asked how many of them could see themselves returning to Africa, all their hands went up!” Everyone benefits in this scenario as God builds bridges between nations and partnerships are developed for the sake of the Gospel. Not only are the nations introduced to the saving
New global friendships in Sub-Saharan Africa knowledge of Jesus as people live and work on mission together, but the people and churches that are involved in sending workers also receive the gift of revitalized faith and a renewed sense of mission.
GO Are you a part of a global bridge that God is building? If you want to speak with a Regional Mobilizer about developing international partnerships for the sake of the Gospel, call 1.888.866.6267 or go to multiply.net/go.
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Families on Mission: Let’s Ask The Kids with Connie Peters Being called to live and serve cross-culturally presents families with unique adventures. Meet Dylan and Mary and their three teenagers: K (girl, 17 years), B (girl, 15), and J (boy, 13). They are Canadians, but they used to live in Central Asia, and now they live in Austria. They use aliases and initials in their communication because some of their ministry is sensitive and requires extra security and privacy. We recently invited them to share some thoughts about being a globally connected family.
What are some smells and sounds that remind you of other places? B: Whenever I smell cigarette smoke, I feel like I’m instantly back in Central Asia where we used to live. K: There’s an air-raid siren that goes off every Saturday here (for practice), and it reminds me of the Muslim call to worship. I have a friend who is Muslim here and it reminds her of that too. J: Anytime I smell a campfire, I’m reminded of summertime with our grandparents in Canada. Those are happy memories.
How has living internationally shaped you? K: We go to an international school, so our friends are from Croatia, Korea, and really all over the place. We slowly pick up funny mannerisms and pieces of culture from each other. It’s completely different than it was for our parents, who grew up in small towns in Canada with other people like them. We are very used to being integrated with all the other religions. B: In the Austrian dialect they say “oyda” often as a bit of an extra word. It really doesn’t mean anything, but the way you say it expresses how you feel. Now we all say it too. I like that we can experience the cultures instead of just learning about them based on what the internet tells us. K: When we see things online about countries we’ve lived in, it seems all negative and it creates an overall fear of people groups or whole countries. That makes me mad. Here we actually get to know and experience the real people from those countries and we don’t shape our biases on what the internet says.
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J: When I make a friend, I never consider how different they are. We just become friends based on how we get along. I celebrate their culture and they share their food with me!
What has been hard about living internationally? J: It’s fun to go back to Canada every other summer, but it’s not always fun to go to all the churches. They ask so many questions. B: People think we are Canadian because we speak English but we don’t relate to the world as Canadians. We come from a mix of cultures.
J, K, and B on mission with their parents in Austria
What about your experience, Mom and Dad? Mary: We are closer as a family because of our experience. We understand each other like no one else around us can. We still fight, but we all know we need to support each other because sometimes all we have is each other. Dylan: As parents, we still compare things to Canada, but for the kids this is what they’ve known. They don’t feel like they live overseas because this is just where they live. Our new global perspective has shaken up our traditions and reshaped our thoughts about life and discipleship. Mary: We feel like Ausländers (foreigners) everywhere we go. In Central Asia, we were the blonde family that everyone stared at, and here, because we speak English, people assume that we can’t understand their language. But we can. We often feel misunderstood. It’s challenging when we go back to North America and it’s challenging here too.
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Pass the Guampa By Nikki White | LATIN AMERICA
Families can be complicated. So can churches, and groups of churches. This seems to be true everywhere, including Latin America. “Trust does not come easily,” said Emerson Cardoso, Multiply’s Regional Team Leader for Latin America. “Churches with different religious structures are often reluctant to work together, and this impedes growth. Structure matters, but it does not create church growth. Doing the will of God does. And God’s will for the Church is that we be united in love.” What does love look like in this context?
“The Church must be a home for those who have no home, and a family for those who have no family to turn to.” In Latin America, poverty, corruption, and disease, including COVID-19, have created an ever-widening rift between the privileged and the impoverished. In years previous, as a pastor, Emerson led his church in running an orphanage, a drop-in center for at-risk teens, and a shelter for unwed mothers and others in need. He argued that a holistic presentation of the Gospel was key to uniting individuals from vastly different religious and socio-economic backgrounds. It was also the key to uniting vastly different churches, allowing them to serve together in reaching the world for Jesus. “The Church,” he stated emphatically, “must be a home for those who have no home, and a family for those who have no family to turn to.” 10 | witness
Emerson pointed to Uruguay as an example. In 2018, Basilio Schur, a mission worker associated with a denomination of churches in the United States, set out eagerly to plant churches in a remote village of northern Uruguay. However, he was denied funding because it was the policy of his sending organization to focus only on planting churches in communities of 5000 people or more. While understanding this decision, Basilio could not let go of the vision that he felt God had given him for the isolated rural communities of this country. It was then that the Uruguayan Mennonite Brethren conference stepped in and offered him the use of a church building that had closed its doors some years previous. Basilio began to realize that God was leading him to look beyond the parameters of his own church family to also embrace the extended family of another denomination, for the sake of the expansion of the kingdom of God. So, he accepted the offer from the MBs and began to partner with them. Within a few years, the church grew and planted other congregations, resulting in over seven hundred groups meeting in seventeen different locations throughout northern Uruguay. Basilio eventually connected twelve more churches that he had previously planted over the last twenty years into this network. As with any extended family, there were some uncomfortable moments around the table. “In the beginning, most of the MBs felt uneasy,” Emerson said. “There were some difficult and lengthy meetings over those six months, but we just kept passing the guampa around and drinking a lot of mate!” It took time for both groups to become familiar with each other and to overcome their cultural differences. But
over time and tea, the balance of opinion tipped toward a merger. In the past two years, this partnership between the more charismatic values of the newcomers and the structure of the MBs has galvanized church growth in Uruguay like never before.
It took time for both groups to become familiar with each other and to overcome their cultural differences. “Now,” Emerson grinned, “only a small number of us are uncomfortable.” That growth has continued even throughout the pandemic. Emerson described how, before COVID, Basilio had become accustomed to travelling around to visit each church and preach in the center of their villages. “But during lockdown,” Emerson explained, “he could not do this. So, he would record a sermon on a mobile app and send cell phones to be shared with the families in each village. The Word of God was heard in this way by over twenty thousand people every week!”
Since the Uruguayan MBs first agreed to the partnership, they have been hosting training initiatives based on Anabaptist principles, such as peace and reconciliation. Seeing the fruit born in Uruguay, ICOMB is hopeful about similar collaborations occurring elsewhere in South and Central America. In Peru and the Dominican Republic, for example, Emerson has been involved in spearheading leadership exchange programs, pastoral coaching, and the sharing of MB teaching resources with a wide spectrum of churches. As God’s people become a vibrant and dynamic extended family in Latin America, Emerson is determined to promote this kind of radical collaboration throughout the region. “It pushes us to move,” he said, “to venture beyond our zone of comfort, to leave the safety that religiosity provides. The Church is not an organization, it is a living organism!”
GO Is God calling you to join him on mission in Central or South America? Go to multiply.net/latinamerica to learn more or call a Regional Mobilizer for information about current service opportunities: 1.888.866.6267
The traditional South American guampa horn and mate tea is passed between friends in social settings.
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This Kind of Family By Katie Mount & Sarah MacNicol | THAILAND
Standing by his dying father’s bedside, twelve-year-old Tee knew he was about to lose the only family he had left. His mother had passed away when he was a small child, and now he was facing the harsh reality of death yet again. As an HIV-positive orphan, Tee came to the Abundant Life Home (ALH) in Chonburi shortly after his father died. He stayed for the next three years and, during that time, accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. At the age of fifteen, however, Tee left to live with his aunt. It did not go well. In Thai culture, the stigma and marginalization experienced by HIV-positive people is not unlike the experience of those who had leprosy during the time of Jesus. Tee suffered verbal and physical abuse at the hands of his uncle and cousins and was pushed out of the house. At sixteen, he was homeless. For three years, Tee camped in the forest, ate whatever he could find, and drank rainwater to survive. His life was one of fear, sickness, and eventually drug addiction, which also meant that he was in and out of jail numerous times. In the absence of adequate medication, his HIV symptoms grew severe. During those years, Tee met New, another orphan who was living on her own. As neither of them wanted anything to do with the families who had rejected them, they decided to stay together. Their relationship grew closer, and they were eventually married in a Buddhist ceremony. They returned to the city and tried to make a living selling sausages from a cart, but the business did not meet their needs. When New became pregnant, the situation became more desperate. Throughout this time, Tee never forgot the truths he had learned about God while at ALH, and still sensed that God was with him. He would pray, “God, help me. Make my life different. I want to start over.” He shared what he understood of the Gospel with his wife and, after their daughter was born, New decided that she would also put her faith in Jesus. The couple continued to struggle to provide for their little family. They often had to rely on the charity of others simply to have a safe place to live. Then COVID hit, and Tee and New found themselves not just unemployed, but starving. 12 | witness
Deep down, Tee knew that he was hungry for far more than just food; he was hungry for God. He decided it was time to reach out to those who had first introduced him to Jesus. Tee called ALH and spoke with one of the house mothers. “I can’t find work, we have nothing to eat, and I don’t know what to do,” he said, “Can you help us?” She was glad to hear his voice, and eager to help. Tee was put into contact with a pastor who gave him a job in his construction company, but the labor proved more than his ravaged body could manage. Eventually, Tee and New and their child were invited to return to Chonburi and to live at ALH. It was like coming home. Once he was able to regularly obtain the medicine he needed for his condition, Tee’s health improved dramatically. With the stability of having consistent food, shelter, peace, and loving support from a family of believers, their lives were transformed. Tee took on landscaping work, while New began cleaning houses and cars. Attending Zion church, they committed themselves to being discipled, and today they are attending Bible school with the dream of one day serving in full-time ministry. As the young couple listen to their small daughter pray with eagerness and simple faith, Tee and New marvel at how God has led them to this place. They have become the kind of family that they themselves never had. Together they pray that God would one day use them to help others experience this kind of love.
GIVE Consider contributing financially to the Abundant Life Home (ALH) in Thailand where children and parents affected by HIV/AIDS are provided with a loving family environment and introduced to the person of Jesus Christ. Go to multiply.net/ALH or designate your donation to project C0438.
Fatherhood A Father’s Day Reflection by Pastor Isaiah | MYANMAR
It was not easy growing up in Myanmar. For various reasons, there was widespread instability throughout the country. For much of my childhood, there was no work for my father and no rice for our family to eat. During those hardships, one of my fondest memories was going fishing with my father in the early morning hours before school. If we found the right spot in the river, we could catch enough fish to exchange them for a bowl of rice. That one bowl of rice meant that my younger brothers and sisters would not go to school hungry. I was the oldest of six siblings, therefore it was my responsibility to help my parents provide for the family. With our poles in our hands, my father would sit next to me on the edge of the river and tell me amazing stories of riding water buffaloes in the rice fields and shooting birds with his sling shot. I believed my dad could do anything! We had to start fishing by 4:00 AM, so by 6:00 AM I was famished! Somehow my dad always managed to pull out some dried fish and rice that he had wrapped in a banana leaf for me to eat. When I offered him half, he always muttered that he wasn’t hungry. Deep down, I knew he was sacrificing his food for me. Not long after this, I was sent to work in Thailand and was separated from my family for more than two decades. However, it was there that I started my own family and found faith in Jesus.
Thirty-three years later, I returned home to Myanmar because I felt called by God to help my people. In the last five years, there have been positive changes in our country and opportunities for business development and agricultural progress. We have been taking small steps forward. However, in 2021, Myanmar experienced more setbacks. Another military coup destabilized the country and suddenly, I was unsure about what the future held for my three sons. This Father’s Day, during so much uncertainty, I still have so much to be thankful for: I am thankful that my father is still living, and that I can say to him, “Dad, thank you for sacrificing so much for me.” Recently, I have been thinking long and hard about being a good father. Is it about having lots of money or sending your child to the best private school? I never had the luxury of graduating from high school, yet now I realize I had something even more valuable—I had a father who loved me.
PRAY Please pray for peace and freedom in Myanmar, so that families and churches would be able to flourish. To receive the Daily Prayer Guide, go to multiply.net/dpg or to learn more about the Multiply House of Prayer, go to multiply.net/mhop. multiply.net | 13
An Open Table By Joan Godard | LATIN AMERICA
In August 1984, Trever and I loaded up an old, green Chevy van and started a journey from Canada to California to Costa Rica to Colombia. We lived and served for fifteen years in Colombia and another fifteen years in Mexico. In March 2021, we once again packed our vehicle (not the same green van) with belongings and drove back to Canada. The largest item in that vehicle was a table that symbolized something special for us, something that our thirty-seven years in ministry had taught us.
Living separated from family is one of the most difficult parts of cross-cultural life. When we originally responded to God’s invitation to mission so many years ago, we were confident we could make a home anywhere in this wide world. Over the years, we have lived in many places and painted the walls of numerous rental houses, always seeking to make a little nest for our family, whether it was in steamy valleys or high elevation plateaus. But what about our extended family? For many of us as global workers, even the most adventurous ones, living separated from family is one of the most difficult parts of cross-cultural life. There wasn’t one year of those thirty-seven that living far from family hasn’t felt like a chosen sacrifice. But I use the word “chosen” because we had the right to choose. We have missed out on big and little happenings within our extended family, yet we have stayed connected, even if through a phone call, letter,
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or message. And in the many places we have settled, we have welcomed new expressions of family—neighbours, friends, disciples, shepherds, rogues, and religious leaders, and more than a few strangers. Even enemies have become family. Though we have been foreigners in other lands, without our families of origin near us, we learned to embrace God’s family. Instead of sitting down for borscht and buns at the tables of our own mothers, we have enjoyed sancocho or tortilla soup at the tables of other mothers. God’s family is diverse and beautiful; it’s a place of belonging. Yet I grieve the lack of family that I see everywhere. I grieve the number of children and adults living on the same streets of big cities that we lived on, walked, shopped on, parked our cars on. It is absolutely jarring to see state orphanages full of abandoned children, or ragged, unprotected children on the streets of Cali, Bogota or Guadalajara. Over the years, we’ve heard the devastating stories of far too many students in our discipleship programs who grew up as fatherless children, or were abandoned by their mothers, which to them was far worse. Even back in our “home and native land” (from the first lines of Canada’s national anthem), it is horrifying to hear stories of First Nations children being taken away from their families, only to be buried in unmarked graves at residential schools. Again, and again, this truth has seared my mind—our deep human need is for family. Those of us who have enjoyed the shelter of a loving family, do we see the despairing and ghost faces of the lost and abandoned all around us, yearning to belong in family? Those who have experienced the care of the Shepherd and his Church, do we see the lonely sheep who are wandering around our shelters, wanting to be included within the fold?
One of Trever and Joan’s legacies: a spiritual family at the Matthew Training Center in Guadalajara, Mexico
When our children were growing up, we desired to teach them God’s expression of family, so we prayed together for eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to love those who didn’t know a loving Father. That desire led us into
We always sought to make room for strangers, enemies, God-seekers, and friends around our table. some Christmases with street-dwellers. It also led us to rent larger homes to accommodate young men from gangs who were disillusioned with family. Later, we gathered a community together to build dorm rooms for disciples. We always sought to make room for strangers, enemies, God-seekers, and friends around our table. The table became our symbol of family. It was, and continues to be, the place where we pass peace and forgiveness along with meat and bread. It is the place where stories are shared, and we are nourished by
tears and laughter and love. It is the place where we all partake of the Word of Life who brings healing to our bodies and souls. It is the place where everyone belongs. So, it was important and fitting that, when we returned to Canada this year, we brought a table with us. It is a piece of live-edge Mexican hardwood that has become the heart of our new home. Around it, children and grandchildren, foreigners and guests, and hopefully a few rogues, will come to dwell together as God’s family.
GO Joan asks a probing question, “Do we see the despairing and ghost faces of the lost and abandoned all around, yearning to belong in family?” Is God calling you to engage the lost and invite them into his family? To explore opportunities in growing God’s global family, go to multiply.net/go or speak with a Regional Mobilizer at 1.888.866.6267. multiply.net | 15
multiply.net/go
go Where is God calling you to go with the Gospel?
