May – Aug 2013
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Missional Biscuits Silaa Farms Coffee
Biblword The Story-Teller
A Support Masterclass Being Here: Helping There
The Art of Communication
Bringing hope to hard places
We serve the church and seek to bring the gospel to all the peoples of East Asia. We help place Christians with professional skills in China and other Asian countries, and share the love of Christ with East Asians worldwide. Through God’s grace we aim to see an indigenous, biblical church planting movement in each people group of East Asia, evangelising their own people and reaching out in mission to other peoples.
From The Editor ‘God has communicated to man, the infinite to the finite. The One who made man capable of language in the first place has communicated to man in language about both spiritual reality and physical reality, about the nature of God and the nature of man.’ Francis Schaeffer The pressure might be off a little, as we don’t need to ‘create’ communication, but we do need to use communication for God’s glory. We may have to learn what ways work best in different circumstances; storytelling, the language of trade or listening. We may need to hone our communication skills like craftsmen, but we have a God who is an expert at explaining the infinite to the finite and who is passionate about his message of salvation reaching the ends of the earth. Tony Waghorn Editor – twaghorn@omf.org.uk
AUSTRALIA 18-20 Oxford Street Epping New South Wales 2121 Tel +61 2 9868 4777 Fax +61 2 9868 5743 au@omfmail.com
MALAYSIA 3a Jalan Nipah Off Jalan Ampang 55000 Kuala Lumpur Tel +60 3 4257 4263 Fax +60 3 4251 4313 my.cd@omfmail.com
SINGAPORE 2 Cluny Road Singapore 259570 Tel +65 6510 3130 Fax +65 6474 0727 sno@omfmail.com
INTERNATIONAL HEADQUARTERS 2 Cluny Road Singapore 259570 Tel +65 6319 4550 Fax +65 6472 2398 ihq@omfmail.com www.omf.org
Design: Sparks-Studio.com Print: www.printd.com.au
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Missional Biscuits Mission at Work Silaa Farms Coffee Rien and Maaike de Bel
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A Support Masterclass Biblword 4 Useful Tips The Word on Facebook Being Here: Helping There Support Opportunities
The Story-Teller 14 Central Mindanao, Philippines
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Biblword 4
Getting the Word out on Facebook – ‘I am glad, I am getting most of my answers from this page,’ Anisha from India wrote on the wall of the Facebook page Biblword.
Isaan region Bangkok
Over a billion people all over the world are using Facebook. Many of them use it to be spiritually fed or to get answers to their life questions. OMF missionary Marten Visser was a late-comer to Facebook. ‘When I joined in October 2011, over 600 million people had gone before me.’ Yet he was no stranger to social media. To force himself to be faithful in his quiet time, he had started a Bible account on Twitter. ‘Every day I am reading and studying one chapter from God’s Word, and ask the Lord to give me something to teach, encourage, or exhort. I try to put that in 140 characters. Each entry includes a very short Bible quote, with a thought about what the quote means for us today.’ Over ten thousand people were following his daily mini-messages on Twitter. Yet when Marten started placing them on Facebook, it took off in an unexpected way. His Facebook page Biblword grew to 750,000 subscribers within 18 months. When Marten realised the extent of the audience he could reach on Facebook, he started to place other messages as well – pictures with Bible texts, questions about the Bible, Bible studies, and more. Once a week subscribers to the page get the opportunity to ask their questions about the Bible. A team of volunteers writes articles to answer these questions. Every day one article is placed on the Facebook page, and also on a dedicated webpage. Biblword is reaching people all over the world. Some of the subscribers are evangelical Christians, but many others are not. Cultural Christians, Roman Catholics, and people from other faiths form a large part of the readership. The geographical reach of Biblword is surprising. People from almost every country of the world, including countries hostile to the Gospel, like Afghanistan and Saudi-Arabia, are subscribing. There are large numbers of subscribers with unexpected locations like Medan in Indonesia; Kathmandu in Nepal; and Karachi in Pakistan.
Marten Visser Missionary to the Isaan of North Thailand and to the unreached on Social Media! Twitter users 500m (200m active monthly) Facebook users 1.06bn (618m active daily).
Biblword grew to
As a missionary, Marten is used to thinking cross-culturally and therefore he soon started to think about ministry on Facebook in other languages. ‘Besides English, Biblword now exists in six other languages; Arabic, Dutch, Indonesian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Thai. Together these pages now have more subscribers than the English one. The largest one is the Indonesia page, with well over 300,000 subscribers. This page grew so large because Facebook started recommending it to people in Indonesia. That is quite something for the largest Muslim country in the world!’ Ideally, online seekers become church members in real life. Marten is experimenting with various methods to make this connection. ‘On the Thai page, I invite all the subscribers to do an evangelistic course online. Every time I place the invitation, we have over 40 people subscribing to the course (though most do not finish it). At the end of the course, the students get the opportunity to be linked to a local church.’ Marten still has many plans to continue to grow the Facebook ministry. ‘I hope to be able to start Bible pages in all major languages. For every language I would like to see a team of volunteers engaging with the subscribers and answering their questions. And I want to continue to find ways to invite the subscribers to take the next step in their walk with the Lord.’ • Are you interested in engaging the subscribers of Biblword, many of whom are not Christians, to answer their questions about faith, the Bible, and God? You could become part of the volunteer team of Biblword. Contact Marten Visser at marten.visser@omfmail.com. • Biblword is an international project of OMF, project number P68120. You or your church may adopt a country or a language version of Biblword.
750,000 subscribers within 18 months
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A Mission Support Masterclass There are many ways you can support missionaries. People feel comfortable with different ways of doing it. Here's a grab bag of ideas you might like to consider.
Keep them informed and included 6
Let them know they are remembered Missionaries love to know that they’re remembered. And because they aren’t with you, it is hard for them to know unless they’re told or shown. • Emails and Facebook messages are great but what about real letters and postcards*? • Phone calls or Skype calls might be more difficult with busy lives, but they can be especially encouraging. • Tell them what you prayed for them. Paul models this in 1 Thessalonians, telling the church, not only that he was praying for them, but what he was praying for them. * If your friend is working in a creative-access country, check with them about safe communication.
• Keep missionaries informed of significant changes within the church, like changes in leadership, or direction. • Don’t assume they know about changes in contact details. When sending out prayer letters each month, it can be a pain to find many emails returned. • Include the missionaries in the church directory and ensure they get a copy. • Let them know what is happening in church: events like church camps, baptisms, births, deaths, and marriages. These things may also make it less of a shock to transitioning into the church when they’re home. • Ask your missionaries for photos or a PowerPoint presentation to show at church during a missionary spot or prayer time. • Ask them for advice and ideas for Bible studies or home-group study ideas via email.
Wendy & David Marshall, Callum, Douglas and Jamie (Australia) OMF Japan
Population 126.4m OMF Workers 133 % Christian 0.6 % Wendy writes almost daily on her life in Japan: www.mmuser.blogspot.com
Care for them with gifts Love can come in care packages too, especially ones that have been thoughtfully put together. A surprise is good, but a care package is even better if it contains items that your missionary especially wants, so it is good to ask them what they’d like.
Show loving concern for their wider family Caring for missionaries’ families at home can be a way that churches can show their love and support. We have a colleague whose father became a Christian after their home church showed care for him and drew him into their church fellowship.
When they are back in your country Missionaries appreciate practical care when they’re transitioning in and out of the country. A full pantry speaks volumes when you’ve just landed back in your home country and cannot face grocery shopping yet!
Visit them Would they enjoy a visit? Send one or more members of your church or leadership team to visit them. Here are some tips: • Do consult with them first! People have different coping thresholds when it comes to houseguests. It can be easy to become overwhelmed with visitors. • Be aware that they have busy ministries to attend to, as well as potential limitations in providing you with accommodation. • Ask them when a good time would be for you to visit. • Be sensitive about the length of your visit. • Be considerate about their finances too. (Don’t be a burden by cleaning out their pantry without helping out with the expense.) • Travel light so you can take goodies from home to them. Maybe take things back from Asia for them, for supporters at home. • Babysit the kids so a couple can have a night out.
It's over to you There are many ways to go about supporting missionaries and it’s okay to feel comfortable with supporting them in different ways. However, we've found that it really helps to come from the top. If the leadership of a church is mission-minded, it is easier for the church to be mission-minded. You may never know until heaven the difference your care might make to someone having a tough time. It is easy for missionaries to feel that they’re out of sight, out of mind. But missionaries are still a part of the body of Christ – they’re the hands that are overseas. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:25 "There should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other" (NIV).
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Missional Biscuits Anita worked for a pharmaceuticals company. She and her fellow scientists would come to work each morning and shuffle off to their individual cubicles to carry out important research. And then in the evening they would shuffle out again and go home.
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It wasn't long before Anita realised that this way of doing things wasn't good for them and wasn't good for the business either... nobody shared ideas, nobody knew what else was going on that could have been relevant. There was no team work. So Anita decided to try and change things. She performed an experiment to see how many scientists would come out of their cubicles if offered freshly brewed coffee and chocolate biscuits at 11am on a Friday. And she discovered that 97 per cent of scientists would indeed emerge... and they started to talk to each other... and discovered that they could help each other with ideas and techniques. Who would have thought that chocolate biscuits could be an instrument of the Kingdom? But they were for Anita. Through those biscuits and coffee she released relational wellbeing amongst her colleagues, and it was good not only for them but for the business as well. You see, the gospel really is good news not just for our working colleagues but also for our work and workplaces. When we work, we can reflect our working God who created beauty and order, gave us a means of providing for ourselves, our families and others less fortunate, and a way to release the huge potential that lies in people and the world around us. And as we work we can join in with God's bigger mission: to help fix what was broken when we decided to go our own way in that first workplace, Eden. We don't need to leave God at the door when we go to work. We can be those who shape the world on God's behalf as we work and be shaped by him through our work.
Illustrations by Jason Ramasami saamvisual.com
Charles Hippsley Charles is the Director of the LICC Work Forum which provides a range of projects aimed at equipping Christians for their workplace context and helping local churches to support them in their calling. charles.hippsley@licc.org.uk www.licc.org.uk /work-forum/
Sometimes though we need help to see what being a disciple of Christ looks like in a world of work that seems so remote from our church community. Well here's a framework to think about that could help you work it through. We call it ‘7Ms’. Ask yourself these questions:
With God's help, how could I… • Make good work? – doing good work intentionally for the Lord: your best with his help • Model godly character? – how might we manifest the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control? • Minister grace and love? – the way we work, the way we set up a meeting, the way we do an appraisal, with the other person’s interests at heart • Make culture? – how are things done in your workplace? Is there anything you could do to help change them for the better? • Make learners of Jesus’ ways? – how could you show others what Jesus is like by what you do or how you do it, so that they see it’s good and join in? • Be a Mouthpiece for truth and justice? – speaking up for what is true and just, or against what is unfair or unhealthy • Be a Mouthpiece for the gospel? – praying and being prepared for the opportunity to share something of what Jesus has done in your life Clearly we can't do all these at once… we need discernment as well. • Ask God for eyes to see what you're already doing… and be encouraged. • Ask God for eyes to see what you might do… and be courageous. Remember this doesn't need to be complicated – eyes to see and a packet of biscuits could be enough!
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Being Here: Helping There
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Coffee Bean Counting
Mobile Marketing
Feeding Fish
Business: Organic coffee bean buying and roasting Owners: Rien and Maike de Bel (Netherlands) Location: North Thailand Need: Accountant Remote supporter: Ray, trained accountant and printing firm owner Tools Required: Email, Skype and visits Result: Spreadsheet accounts transferred to accounting software and fully checked accounts for Rien and Maike, freeing them to concentrate on developing the Business. Website: http://silaa.eu
Business: Software Company Location: West China Need: To assess local business needs and bring an innovative and profitable product to market. Remote Supporter: Wilson, marketing expert Tools Required: Email, Skype and visits Result: A targeted text message based advertising service to offer to local businesses. (Sadly before the new product could be introduced the company had to be sold. We look forward to hearing how progress is made with the new owners.)
Business: Fish farming Location: South East Asia Need: Expert in feedstuff development Remote Supporter: Still needed Potential Result: A sustainable locally-produced feedstuff to supply a fish farming missional business. This will enable local fish farmers to benefit from the latest disease-free growing methods. There may also be opportunities for local farmers to grow crops for this feed.
Andrew Jackman Missional Business Support Unit One way of engaging in mission is to go and take part, but if you can’t do that, have you considered working with a business to help and support them remotely? Your skills could impact a business, a community or maybe a nation.
Healthcare Accreditation
Stop Press
So why not?
Business: Healthcare Location: West China Need: To assist a hospital owner and his senior management team explore the alternatives for gaining international accreditation. Remote Supporter: Andrew, Senior Healthcare Manager Tools: On site visit, followed by ongoing consultancy. Result: The decision was made to concentrate on gaining a recently developed Chinese accreditation status, then seek widely recognised international JCI accreditation.
A really urgent need we have at the moment is for a couple to run a branch restaurant in West China. The first restaurant is successful and premises have been obtained for a second. Restaurant experience would be very helpful but good Mandarin is essential.
Business people often have drive and determination but do not possess all the skills needed to run a business. Accounting, marketing, design, IT and distribution skills are often required, as well as a number that are more industry specific. Why not get your name on our database so we can keep you up to date with what’s going on and what the specific needs are.
Interested? Get in touch missional.business@omfmail.com
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Silaa Farms Coffee 12
I come from a background in electronic engineering, and I worked for the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment on the storm surge barrier in the eastern Schelde.
After I had been there for a few years, Maaike and I felt called into ministry by the Lord through a sermon on the life of Jonah during a day from the Dutch Mission Alliance. Romans 10:14–15 has also played an important role in our lives when we sought direction for where to go. In order to have opportunities to share Christ or to build up believers in their faith, you need to have relationships with people. A missional business can be a great help in developing authentic relationships with the people you work with every day, and the people you meet through the business. It gives you a genuine reason to be at a certain place and a good opportunity to live out Christ who lives in us. People will observe you as you lead the business and watch how you deal with life’s problems and difficulties. Colleagues that work with you closely will see your heart; they will see what motivates you and why you do things in a certain way.
To start a business we needed a product and a market. Initially that was a quite a challenge to decide what to choose. We wanted a product that the local people could successfully work with or produce independently. Coffee has been promoted in Thailand for several years, but when we started it was not easy for a lot of farmers to have access to a good marketplace. In hindsight I am happy we went along the route of an agricultural product. Agriculture is still very labour-intensive in much of Asia and because of this it takes more people to produce the product than it would in the western world. The benefit of this is that it brings you in contact with a lot of people! We work very closely with a number of local people and one couple in particular. We've known them for a long time and we share the same vision. I am thrilled to see the hand of the Lord under our company. We have gone through difficult times and we are still in operation. I see our company as an instrument in God’s hand to reach out to those in need, to those with fewer opportunities and to those that seek the truth.
Rein and Maaike de Bel Agriculture and Produce Silaa Farms Company Ltd www.silaa.eu Watch videos of Rein & Maaike's work: www.omf.org/work
North Thailand
Karen People in East Thailand Population 57,000 % Christian 3%
I see our company as an instrument in God’s hand to reach out to those in need Our prayer now is that people will help us by buying our coffee. We could still use a bigger market. We also need more people to join our team long-term to help us work out more of the potential that we have through the company. We need an agriculturist, a sales person and people to lead community development. There is also always place for short-termers who share the same vision. If you are thinking about moving to Asia and setting up or being part of a missional business – pray about this, and come with a calling. Setting up a business in the West is already difficult to do, and in an Asian setting it is even harder. It is important to have trustworthy local partners. To identify these, and learn the local language and culture in order to build relationships with them takes time, but is certainly worthwhile.
Prayer • Pray that Missional Businesses would choose the right kind of business to be involved with. • Pray for more people and churches to import Silaa coffee to help grow the opportunities in North Thailand. • Pray for Rien and Maikke’s need of an agriculturalist and other specialist skills. • Thank God for their local business partners and their heart to reach the Karen people.
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Ang Tigsaysay
Manilla
Manobo Area
Davao
The Story-Teller Chronological Bible Storying: Communicating the stories of the Bible by telling them aloud to listeners. Traditional oral communities often resolve conflicts and transfer knowledge by story telling. As many aspects of Bible culture are very similar to their own, they can resonate and identify with these stories.
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It was difficult to see exactly how many people had crowded into the tiny wooden room. There were children sitting on the floor and others suspended from the walls as they perched on the flimsy wooden structure surrounding the crowd. There were old people spitting tobacco, clicking their tongues and uttering noises of affirmation as they listened intently. There were women, violently shaking ropes suspended from the rafters attached to blankets containing babies. Apparently it was an attempt to pacify them. The lack of air, combined with the stench of unwashed bodies, stale tobacco and damp dog was nauseating, but that didn’t seem to bother anyone. The story-teller was holding his audience in rapt attention. He was a small man with a big voice, with ill-fitting dirty clothes and big farmer hands. He was telling a story about a man – it could have been someone from any one of the communities around there – who had tricked his brother out of the farm and all the inheritance. The only recourse open to this man now was to flee to another village, to some distant relative who would feed him and let him stay there until his brother’s anger had died down. He would return in time, of course, but only after he had sent someone ahead of him to determine if the brother had forgotten about the past. So much of the story resonated with those listening. The man speaking had only planned to tell one story, but the crowd had nowhere pressing to go and, in the absence of any other entertainment in the village, they urged him to tell another. The storyteller obliged and began another. He told the story of a man called Joseph, sold by his brothers as a slave – because he had clearly thought himself better than they were. They all agreed that this was fitting punishment for such behaviour. The storyteller went on to tell them that years later Joseph actually forgave his brothers and told them so! This was indeed bizarre behaviour. The story goes that the Creator God had spoken to the king (Joseph’s owner) in a dream, telling him that there was going to be a famine. However, in a strange twist the only person who could tell the meaning of the dream was Joseph, the slave! Clearly the Creator God knew him and entrusted him with the interpretation of the dream, he must therefore be trustworthy and so the King had put him in charge of the distribution of all the grain. Naturally, being in that position, he was to be able to provide food for his family and their community in the time of the famine. This was news. Imagine the Creator God warning people about a famine! Their own ancestors had told them that the Creator God had stopped speaking to even their wisest Elders long ago. The noise in the room was deafening, everyone had something to say on this subject: Where did this man Joseph live? Who are his relatives? Do any of them live near here? Imagine if there were some of their relatives who could interpret dreams from the Creator God? Maybe He would tell us about the future – we wouldn’t need to worry about famine, or drought or who was planning to attack us. We could be prepared for anything! 'Will the Creator God speak to us in dreams? ' asked one tiny old man whose face looked like a crumpled up piece of paper. 'How can we know it is not just the spirits trying to deceive us?' chirped another pessimistically. The story-teller was unsure how to answer these questions but assured his listeners that his teacher had a whole book of these stories and promised to teach them more next week. Perhaps they would find the answers to their questions in one of them.
Wilson and Irene McMahon
OMF Philippines
Area Central Mindanao Ministry Tribal Church planting Religion Animism Tribal Pop. 8,977,000 % Christian 6 tribes (0.5% – 7%)
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Missional Business
Your bean counting…
…means their bean counting…
…has gospel impact.
Engage, Support, Invest, Pray omf.org/work