Prayer Partners & Men and Women of God

Week four of our orientation training is almost complete and to say that we are not the same people we were when this all began a few short weeks ago would be an understatement. However, God is truly preparing us for the task that lies ahead of us. Which reminds me. We don't say this often enough, but it is always good to remind people of what that task is: to be a witness to the people of the nations in the hopes that they will put their saving faith in Jesus Christ. I just didn't want people to think that we were on a great world-wide adventure with no purpose. On the contrary, our focus is very laser-precise and any other work that we may do while we are in Russia is secondary to this. If you have never turned away from your sin and put your faith in Jesus and want to know more, please email Kellye or myself so that we, or someone we know, can talk with you about something that will change your life forever.

PRAYER PARTNERS

We have been having some trouble with our email distribution and newsletter lists, so we need the regular readers of our blogs to do us a favor. We need you to email your name, address and email address to Kellye so you can be included in our regular online and non-electronic newsletters. If you know of other people that should be (or that you want to be) included on that list, please send that information as well. Her email is: kellye@thehooksworld.com

I will be updating our prayer blog tomorrow with some issues that are coming to light. I think you will find it obvious that Satan does not particularly want 250+ missionaries to hit the field at full strength. However, our God is bigger than that and He hears the prayers of His people. So, please, if you do nothing else...pray, pray, pray! God hears and answers. Speaking of which, let me give a small testimony to the power of prayer. During our Korean cross-cultural worship time on Sunday night we prayed for a group of Korean missionaries (not IMB) that had been taken hostage by the Taliban several months ago. This week Taliban officials announced they would be releasing the prisoners and the first eight have already been set free. I don't think you can know how excited we were to get this news Tuesday morning.

MEN AND WOMEN OF GOD

It is getting late, so I won't spend much time on the topic, though I wish I could. However, let me tell you again what wonderful men and women of God serve the IMB...especially at the upper levels. Tonight we spent several hours with the three top-most leaders of the IMB and their wives in a small-group reception at one of their homes. Again, I could spend many minutes writing about this wonderful experience. Especially since we were tired and didn't really want to go in the first place. However, to hear these men and women share their hearts for missions and missionaries is uplifting and heartwarming to say the least. During our time there we were able to share things about our families and how we were feeling about the adjustments and changes to our lives thus far and about the apprehensions that we have about the remainder of our training and what lies beyond. As the evening was drawing to a close we had a time of prayer. (Gee, Marc, that is not uncommon or unexpected...) But what was unexpected was that one of the wives prayed specifically for Sarah Beth. I cannot tell you how this made Kellye and I feel, but know that we were overwhelmed. Isn't it nice to know that there are people beyond our family and our church who care enough about our little family to pray for them specifically?


THE REST OF THE WEEK

Tomorrow is an exciting day for us. One of our Moscow brothers flew in to town this evening (and boy are his arms tired!) for a presentation tomorrow. Please pray for "B" as he shares what his team in Moscow is doing and how they are reaching the city for Christ. The people who serve in the former Soviet Union are excited about the emphasis the IMB has placed on our region this year and like to wave our flag every chance we get.

Friday is another immunization day. I think we may be scheduled to get as many as four shots plus a TB test.

On Saturday the people from our region (Central and Eastern Europe) will partner with one of the local churches for a ministry project and then will gather at a local park for a picnic supper and time of fellowship. We love the folks who are going to serve in our region, so it will be a great day. And...

SATURDAY IS THE START OF OU FOOTBALL SEASON!!!!! Need I say more?

Thank you for your prayers and for your sweet cards and emails. They brighten every day. We love you all.

Blessings,
Marc

House Church and Cross-Cultural Worship

Have you ever shared living quarters with three other families? Well, during our time at FPO that is exactly what we are doing. We live in a "quad" which is basicilly four two or three-bedroom apartments that share a common living room. As you can imagine, after two weeks we have started to become rather close with our neighbors. So, I explained all of that so that I can tell you about house church. In many parts of the world Christians worship in small groups in apartments, huts and housees rather than in fancy multi-million church buildings like we do here in the United States, so while at FPO we are encouraged (nay, required) to learn how to study the Bible and worship in small groups. So, every Sunday morning at 9am we gather together in our living room for "house church." I love house church. The setting is intimate and we take turns each week leading the "service" and the music (rest assured, I will not be leading the singing.) One of our rules is that the "facilitator" asks the questions, but is not allowed to answer any of them, so our Bible study is just that. It really is a wonderful way to worship. I am sure I will write more on this in the next few weeks. We have been working our way through the book of Acts chapter by chapter. Because we have such a diverse group in our quad, it is interesting to hear what each other have to say and what we each get out of the passages we are studying. This week we will start meeting for worship every Tuesday through Friday morning as well as on Sundays. I think it will be a great way to start the day!

One of the goals of our time here at FPO is to get ourselves used to worshiping in different cultures and languages. So on Sunday evenings we all gather in the large meeting room for cross-cultural worship time. Last week we Indian (the country, not Native Americans) worship and this week we worshiped as they do in Korea. Now, I could spend a lot of time telling you how moving this experience is, but I am not sure that I have the words. We have an unusually large contingency of native Koreans here at FPO and I cannot tell you how moving it was to hear them give testimony and lead us in familiar hymns in their native tongue. I think the highlight of the evening was when one of the women sang "The Holy City" for us in Korean. There were many wet eyes when she was finished.

It is easy to fall into familar worship patterns and to totally miss meeting with God when we go to church. I challenge each of you to find new ways of approaching the throne of God in worship. For some of you, you may have the opportunity to attend a worship service in a different language. For others it might mean going to the "contemporary" service instead of the traditional service and for others it might mean going to church on Sunday night for the first time. I can assure you, that no matter what you do or what the language, if your heart is open you will be touched by His spirit.

Continue to pray this week. While our family always enjoys the benefits of specific prayer, I would encourage you this week to pray for two things: First, pray for the missionaries here at the International Learning Center. Making this transition from "regular life" to "missionary life" is not always an easy one. I have watched many families struggle with many different issues over the past few weeks. So, pray for the missionaries here as we meet with God and prepare our hearts, minds, bodies and spirits for the task that we have before us. Pray also for the lost people of the world. I will ask you this week that you pray specifically for the people of Central and Eastern Europe. All of the missionaries in our house church will be serving in this area of the world and the work will not be easy. Many of these countries are less than 1-percent evangelical Christians. The work there has been described as "plowing concrete." Many of the people in these areas proclaim themselves to be athiestic. Pray that the the Holy Spirit will begin working on each person that our group will come into contact with over the next three years. Pray that their hearts will be softened and they will be receptive to hear us tell our story about how having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ has changed our lives.

Know that each of you who reads these blogs are special to us and we love and miss you very much. We have not even left the States yet and I can tell you that missionary life is not an easy one. However, I cannot imagine a life outside of what God has called us to do. The temprature in Moscow is dropping this week, but our excitement continues to grow as we head into week four of our training.

Blessings,
Marc

Shots, Special Meals & Church Doctrine...Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore!

As you can see from the title, we have had quite a week here at ILC! The week stared off with a bang when I had to take SB to the dentist on Monday. Over the weekend she broke part of her back tooth on a peppermint, so first thing Monday we were in the dentist's office. Next week she will have a root canal and the week after that she will go back to have a crown put on. Of couse, we are trying the best we can to look for the brighter side of every situation, so we are grateful that she is able to have this situation taken care of here and not by a Russian dentist. So, that is how the week started.

Now, those of you that know me well know that two of the things that I dislike most in life are needles and trying new foods. Well, I think that God spent the better part of the week laughing at me. One of the things they do here is try as best they can to prepare us to live in other cultures, so they have the cafeteria staff fix for us "special meals." We had two this week at lunch time. On Wednesday we had a North African/Middle East meal and Thursday we had a Hungarian meal. Now, let me say that the fresh bread the made was amazing! I loved it! (See, the brighter side.) Wednesday we had small spicy meatballs of some sort served with a diced tomato, onion and cucumber salad. We were not allowed to use silverware and had to eat with our hands. It was actually pretty good, though I didn't much care for the texture of the meat. However, I quickly learned that if you ate a small portion of meat with some bread you can make it more palatable. On Thursday we had Hungarian goulash with cabbage and more bread. I ate it. And, the bread was very good. We only have one "special meal" scheduled for next week, but don't let that keep you from praying. On a related, but side note. My quiet time lead me to Proverbs 23 on Thursday morning. Give it a read and think about our "special meals". I think you will find the humor that I found while studying the passage!

If you see misspelled words in this blog, you will have to forgive me. Today (Friday) was shot day. Kellye and I each had three shots and my arms are still pretty dang sore. John-John was the big hero though, he sat up in the chair and played his Gameboy while they stuck him in each arm. He was a trooper. The other kids did great too and I don't think anything ever phases Kellye.

We had an interesting exercise during class this morning. We had been studying Luke 10 where Jesus sends out the 70 on a short-term mission trip and instructs them to look for a "man of peace" in each of the towns they come to. While this is not a commandment of the Bible, it is good teaching and we have heard story after story from the field where missionaries were taken in by a person like this. So, it was time for a little role playing. Two people from every group were assigned to go to a village and encounter the people and talk with them as we sought for the "man of peace" among them. I am sure that our experiences in Russia will be vastly different from our collegues who are serving in small African villages, it was overwhelming to be surrounded by a group of people who were all talking to you at once, asking you questions, wanting things from you, picking your pockets, etc. Sometimes it was hard to think of anybody but the man of peace while other times you just wanted to go running from the room. Altogether an interesting experience.

The highlight of my week was two days of teaching about church doctrine from Tom Elliff. He is an Oklahoma pastor, former SBC president, and also a former missionary himself. Not only is he a delightful man and an inspired speaker, but he is a gifted teacher as well. You also have to understand that I love to study Southern Baptist doctrine. While my family may have raised me to be Southern Baptist, I am Baptist by choice because I believe the SB doctrine comes straight from the Word of God. Anyway, it was a great week and I learned a lot from his teaching. On a side note, I was introducing myself to Brother Tom before the session on Tuesday morning (I was on duty as the audio engineer that day) and mentioned the fact that I had graduated from OBU. He looked at my name tag and I watched his face as he recognized my name. (I thought the reaction was kind of strange) "I was on the OBU board of trustees when you graduated," he said. Now, that is impressive, my friends.

I am also taking a seminary class while I am here these two months. We had class Tuesday night and I am doing fairly well at keeping up with the reading and writing. Pray that I am able to continue to juggle that with all the other things I have to do.

Rachel and Rebecca Tarleton (Ed and Terri's twin daughters who have been here at ILC with us the past couple of weeks) flew back to Moscow this week. They are such sweet girls and we know that God arranged for them to be here, and in our quad, so they could help SB during this transition time. The night before they left we stayed up late playing Phase 10 and laughing. I know there will be many such nights like that around our table in Moscow and I thank God for their friendship with our family.

Well, that is what kind of week it has been around here. Next week we will be studying Church Planting Movements and have another round of shots and another "special meal." However, next Saturday is the start of college football season. BOOMER SOONER!

Know that God is in this place and he meets with us and challenges us daily. I hope that you are meeting with Him every morning as well. If you get a chance, give Luke 10:2 a read. Notice that Jesus says to the people whom he is sending out that they should pray for workers. Our family is praying that there will be others who feel called of God to join us as we enter the mission field. We all have our mission fields. Won't you find yours and commit yourself to go?

Blessings,
Marc

Hard Lessons and The Week In Review

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth." Acts 1:8

I have to tell you, after this last week at ILC, the remotest parts of the earth seem pretty far away. We are now two weeks into our eight weeks of training and the week was filled with some pretty hard lessons. You would think that the hardest part of this training is getting ready to live in different cultures and speak different languages, but it is not. The hardest part is the daily conviction by the Holy Spirit that we must continue to evolve and grow in our faith. Dr. Jerry Rankin, IMB President, spent three days with us last week teaching about spiritual warfare. He told a familiar story about a sculptor (Michelangelo, I think) who when asked how he made such beautiful sculptures said "I start with a block of granite and chip away at anything that does not look like a horse." That is pretty much what we have been through this past week. The Holy Spirit has spent the week chipping away at everything that does not look like Christ. Needless to say, I look more like a block of granite than I do a horse.

I was just looking through my notes from Dr. Rankin's last session and wanted to share some of what he taught. Of course, the goal of spiritual warfare is to have victory, and we can have victory as long as we rely on God and not ourselves. He reminded us that Satan is merely a fallen angel...a messenger. Satan is not equal with God and does not have the power of God. So, here are Dr. Rankin's six steps to spiritual victory:
1. Faith
2. Renewing of the mind
3. Commitment to the Lordship of Christ
4. Obedience
5. Abide in Christ
6. Love

We spent yesterday morning in a session about "What does a New Testament church look like?" Also very interesting. I will refrain from editorializing at this point.

Thursday we had a class on transitioning to a new culture and on grieving. Afterwards we had discussion in our small groups (these are the same groups we have house church and other activities with, so we are getting pretty close.) Kellye and I reacted in the ways that God has wired us...Kellye cried while I cracked jokes and laughed. One of the other guys in our group is my age and we are pretty similar, so we laughed while our wives passed a packet of tissue around the circle!

We have a map on our wall that gives statistics of the number of IMB missionaries, baptisms, church plants, etc. It is overwhelming to think that we only have just over 5,000 missionaries around the world...just a fraction of one percent of Southern Baptists in America.

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I cannot tell you how much fun it is to be surrounded by this wonderful group of people. I could go on and on about the great folks here. The teachers are fantastic, the Missionaries in Residence (MIRs) from the field bring such insight, and the other couples and Journeymen that are here make me smile and laugh daily. They are special people.

We have a lot of OBU folks who are here. Want to baffle a group of strangers? Break out in Ka-Rip and see what happens!

Humm....so much to tell it is all getting kind of jumbled in my head this morning. We have been so busy and are just physically and mentally exhausted. I think things are going to slow down a little bit, though. We don't really have much planned for the weekend, so I will be able to catch up on my schoolwork and write a few papers that are due this next week. Tonight the AV Team is sponsoring "High School Musical Night" and will be showing HSM 1 and 2 on the big screen along with popcorn and other snacks. Those of you with kids know what a big deal HSM is. Of course, OU football kicks off in two weeks, so I will be finding a television and making a pot of chili!

We had a huge storm Thursday night. Lost power several times and the wind was incredible. You could see it blowing sheets of rain across the small lake out our back window. However, it did make for a relaxing night's sleep.

One of the requirements of the people on the Russia field is that we walk to the front gate and back several times a week. That is a 3-mile trek every time we do it. I was proud of the kids, they did pretty well the first time we did it. We are trying to go at least three times a week. As for me, I think it will be easier in the Moscow winter than it is in this heat!

Well, it is almost 10 AM and the kids are relaxing and Kellye has gone to town to shop with a friend. While that should make for a relaxing morning for me, I have reading and writing for a seminary class that has to be done. Know that you are missed, loved and prayed for.

Some Random Photos from FPO (Field Personnel Orientation)

This is the kiddos outside of the CERC (ok, I forget what that stands for, but it is their school) on their first day of "Missionary School."




John-John gets settled in at his desk as Kellye helps.



Hannah is a good "cousin" to Lydia Gilpin.



Sarah Beth with her new best friend, Sammy Gilpin

By The Numbers...

I thought I would share a few numbers and other missions-related thoughts with you this evening.

There are currently more than 5,000 missionary units (family or single individual) commissioned by the IMB serving in the field.

This is the largest group of IMB missionaries to be trained here at the International Learning Center.  In our "class" there are 88 couples, 79 singles and 99 children who in another eight weeks will cover the earth for one purpose...to share the good news that God provided his son, Jesus, as a sacrifice for our sins and that we can be made right with God through our faith in Jesus.

The IMB Vision Statement says that "We will LEAD Southern Baptists to be on mission with God to bring all the peoples of the world to saving faith in Jesus Christ." (emphasis mine)

In his book, "To The Ends Of The Earth", IMB President Jerry Rankin says "It is not the responsibility of the International Mission Board to do missions on behalf of Southern Baptists; the Great Commission was given to every believer and every church.  The role of the IMB as a denominational mission entity is to serve, enable, and facilitate all Southern Baptists to be obedient to our God's kingdom purpose and fulfill the Great Commission."

So here are some staggering numbers for you to consider.  With more than 5,000 missionary units in the field there is one unit for every 1.6 million people in the world.  In South Asia there is only Southern Baptist  missionary for every 4.6 million people.  More than 4,000 ethnic, linguistic people groups are identified as "unreached" and hundreds of them have no access to the Gospel whatsoever.  1.3 billion people have never heard the name of Jesus.

Rankin writes, "I have always assumed that reminding people of the Great Commission would motivate them to at least consider the possiblility of going as a missionary....However, we apply the Great Commission to whatever we do to witness where we live and choose to label it as "missions." We rationalize away this mandate meant for the church and all of God's people and assume it applies only to an elite few who are called as missionaries. We give token financial support for them to represent us and carry out the Great Commission on our behalf. We assume we are exempt and can pursue our own plans with no responsibility toward those throughout the world who desperately need to hear the good news of Jesus."

Rankin reminds us that while Southern Baptists have more than 5,000 missionaries on the field that number represents less than three-tenths of one percent of our church membership. "Does He (God) choose only one out of every three thousand faithful church members to go and witness to 95-percent of the world's population, while allowing the rest of us to live contentedly among the remaining five percent that has abundant opportunity to hear the gospel?"

It is time that each of us ask ourselves what we are doing to be actively involved with being on mission for Christ. What can we do to help spread the Gospel to every tribe and tongue around the world? The IMB has boiled down what you can do into three simple statements: "You can pray. You can give. You can go." Won't you take that first step today? Start simple...pray. Pray that God would reveal to you how you can be an ambassador for Him. Pray for missionaries who are on the field. Pray for missionaries who are here at the ILC for training. Pray for the different (or a specific) people groups of the world. And finally, as you are praying ask God, "Is it me that needs to go."

When you look at it, the numbers are staggering. Won't you join us on mission?

Blessings,
Marc

She Stole My Title!

I was going to write to you today about having tacos for dinner.  Seriously!  (Read Kellye's blog to find out why.)

Anway, I will write more today, but I wanted you all to pray hard for us today and for the rest of the week.  Our training starts this afternoon and the kids start school this morning.  We are happy, excited, scared, nervous, and feeling altogether unworthy of the task God has called us to.  So pray.  Pray without ceasing.

Time for breakfast and taking the kiddos to school, so more later.

Blessings,
Marc