CONTENTS
FINDING BETHLEHEM DR. JOSHUA BOGUNJOKO
Introduction ............................................... 2-3 New Harvest Workers .............................. 4-5 3CKamps in Paraguay ...................................6 Q&A with an SIM leader: Tim Allan ...........7 CALLED: Tan and Izumi Shimizu ...............8 Are you signed up? .........................................9 News ............................................................. 10 Leader Appointments ............................... 11 Ethiopians to Fulani ................................... 12 Reaching Canada’s hip-hop community.... 13 Sports Friends’ coach attacked.................. 13 María Teresa plants a church..................... 14 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Opportunities to serve ............................... 15
2
Faithful Witness .......................................... 16 © SIM International 2019. Connect is an internal publication of SIM International for the encouragement and information of SIM workers. SIM International Director: Joshua Bogunjoko International Communications Director: Tim Allan Editor: Tabitha Plueddemann Design: Pilgrim Communications Email: connect@sim.org Web: www.sim.org Cover: María Teresa of Ccafiamerea, Peru. p14
When SIM workers get together, we often ask each other, Where are you from? Our newsletters mention how many countries are represented in our ministry or at an event. As our teams increase in diversity – diversity of culture, ethnicity, age, language, skill - the question, Where are you from?, has no chance of dying out any time soon. But in our diverse mission, some of us will feel confident about our "from" and others will feel less confident. Maybe you’ve experienced that your "from" requires some explanation, or carries with it some misperceptions or stereotypes. You have to manage assumptions in the eyes of others. As we anticipate the Christmas season, let’s marvel at the "from" that Jesus chose for himself. He could have picked anywhere to associate with during his life on earth. Unlike us, he had every option available across time and place. Yet he did not choose citizenship in a safe, peaceful kingdom or in a powerful empire. He did not choose an affluent city by the sea or a prosperous and comfortable town. He deliberately chose his place of birth, his "from" – a tiny, inconsequential and overcrowded village clinging to the dusty outskirts of an occupied city. Like little Bethlehem, I am from a tiny village called Owa Onire, with a population of no more than 500 at the time of my birth. Attached to this "from" are many things – my culture, language, socio-
