Our Last Day

Greetings from Ghana!  This is our last day in-country. Today the conference is over at noon.  Following another good lunch, we will visit the busy market place, barter for some ware to bring home, and continue on the airport for the long journey back.

As always, the visit here has been very impactful.  Being among these 40+ Ghanaian Christian  gentlemen and two beautiful ladies, is very inspiring.  They are kind, generous, loving people dedicating their time and energies to telling others about what God has done for us; telling and showing how we can be refined to be more like Him.  Many of the men are only in their 20s.  Some are full time teachers, others, preachers.  Many work a full day, continue on to do more ministry, then proceed home to be husbands and fathers, wives and mothers. All are dedicated to what God has called them to do in this season.

Yesterday we heard a few of the testimonials from them.  Here are two:

One of our ladies was born into a Christian home.  She did not feel that the message was for her.  She left home, converted to Islam and married a Muslim man.  Over time, she became extremely unhappy and became unwell with a sickness.  Nothing seemed to cure the illness and the suffering became unbearable.  She remembered her Christian roots and sought out a church.  She found a nearby Catholic church and let them know of her afflictions.  They prayed over her and immediately the illness was lifted.  She now mentors under pastor Seth and continues to spread the good news of the Gospel.

One young man was born into a home with a Catholic mother and a father with traditional tribal beliefs.  He grew up not holding tightly to either belief system.  Once during a youth group meeting he realized the real gospel message required a complete heart change, one could not believe in Jesus half way.  You were either "all in" or "not at all".  By God's grace, that day, he dedicated his whole self to Christ.  He now mentors under Pastor Seth and continues his growth day by day.

Are you "all in"?   Have you understood to your core what has been done for us?  We are SO loved by God.  When we realize this, we cannot keep it at bay.  We must respond.  Do you remember the first time you had a crush on that special someone?  You could not hold back your response to that love.  You wanted to run and shout and tell the world about that person.  That is just a spark of the love that God has for you.  He runs and shouts and the angels rejoice every time a human heart and soul orients completely towards Him.  Let Him draw you.  KNOW that he loves you.  Trust him, GROW into his vision of transformation for.  Then GO and tell the world how that love changed your life.

"The Lord you God is in your Midst, a mighyt one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will quiet you by his love, he will exult over you with loud singing." --Zephaniah 3:17

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.  The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him."  --1 John 3:1

"...Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."  --John 4:11

  

A shout out to my FamBam….can't wait to see you all tomorrow!  Love you lots!  Chris/Mom

Shout out to the dental team members:  Charlene and Theresa say "HI!".   Daniel, David, David, Thomas, Willie and the team say "HELLO!".  They have all sent their regards to you all and would love to see you again.

Here are some of the ''people on the street" around Pioneers:

Day 3: Spiritual Formation as Part of Discipleship and DISC Personality Profiling

"...Everyone is in the process of spiritual formation.  Every thought we hold, every decision we make,

...every action we take, every emotion we allow to shape our behavior, every response we make to the world around us, every relationship we enter into,...

...every reaction we have toward the things that surround us and impinge upon our lives...

...all of these things little by little are shaping us into some kind of being"....M. R. Mullholland Jr.

Knowing who we are and how we respond to the world around us can help us to better relate to others, especially those we are developing a relationship with.  Dan is doing this by teaching the DISC personality test.

So...Who are you and how can you best use that to bring the image of God through you to others?

NCC and Pioneers: Pastors and Teachers Learning Together

A testimony about how one act of generosity started a whole new church....

The message of Jesus and discipleship transcends all cultures...

Knowing who we are and what we are good at can help us to be better leaders and better disciple-makers....

In what areas did God gift me.....

Greetings from Pioneers Africa in Accra Ghana!  We are so thankful to finally be here!

It is interesting how our senses of sight, sound or even smell can key us in to a place and the memories of a place before it even registers with our conscious mind.  The sight of the red dirt as the plane descended skipped my brain and went straight to my heart, I love this place and its people. The smell of Ghana immediately brought to mind mental images of  past missions with the dental team; when the colorful, chaotic scenes of the traffic and vendors in the city would slowly give way to the country roadside stands and villages as we bumped along to Banda.

This visit we are staying in the city at the headquarters of Pioneers tucked away in a slowly developing neighborhood.  Building here is done a little at a time, as money is available.  It is more common to build as one acquires resources, rather than build now pay later as we do in America. 

I would argue our Christian life is more like the Ghanaian way of constructing.  As we build our faith in Christ, it will be reflected in what the structure of what our life looks like.  When we first accept Christ, we are like a foundation.  As our relationship deepens and we let the Holy Spirit guide us; we transform, we develop a frame.  The deeper we go, the more complete the structure of our life becomes.  The frame fills in with walls, rooms, and decorations.  May you spend your lifetime investing in Him, so that you reflect the completeness of His love in your words and actions.

Here are some pictures of Pioneers headquarters slowly developing into the vision set forth:

Stay tuned in a little while we will share some of the conference that is now taking place....

Luke 6:47-49 New International Version (NIV)

⁴⁷ As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. ⁴⁸ They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. ⁴⁹ But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”

Chris

“O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways” (Psalm 139:1-3).

And, so O Lord, you knew that yesterday I was going to rise early, send my youngest off to high school with her lunch, scurry to Walmart to pick up the last of a few things I still needed for the trip, long for my workout that I didn't have time for, scurry home to pack, repack and repack to fit a week's worth of clothes and toiletries into the carry-on sized luggage, have a quick chat with my older daughter, text my younger son, and then head off to the Pittsburgh Airport.  

And you knew that after my very nice husband dropped me off at the door, he would have to turn around after 15 minutes to bring me the cash I forgot to get from his wallet.  And, you knew that Hollis would get the third degree going through TSA.  And, you knew that we would be sitting at our gate and realize that the board was now saying Baltimore, than Atlanta, and not New York City.  And you knew that we would sit there, enjoying each other's company and sharing stories for 6 hours and we would not ever board an airplane.

Due to rainstorms in New York City all flights that were not already enroute to JFK were being dropped one by one as our flight moved later and later on the departure board.  I suppose the weather was just too risky for that many planes to be moving in that limited airspace.  In addition, we discovered, the Accra flight out of JFK that we couldn't get to on Friday...did not fly at all Saturday.  

But, we still went places through our stories and through the people we met along the way.  We went to Ohio to visit Hollis's mom.  We flew Air Thailand and had a great flight with Dan.  We went to South Carolina during our conversation with Steve who is about to move to New Castle (and who first clued us in to the fact that we were waiting on a plane that might not be there...).  Then it was off to Friday's for a nice dinner where we met Chelsea.  Then with George, the ever-so-patient Delta gate agent, we went to Atlanta, Amsterdam and Ghana, and back again looking for alternative to our predicament. 

By the end of the night, Hollis and I even did get to Africa through our Taxi driver who was a native Tanzanian.  When our driver heard about our predicament, after getting back in the cab at the gas station, he said "Welcome to "Ghana". We appreciated his humor!

And, this is life.  It is not always predictable, it is not always easy and it doesn't always go the way we planned.  But, if we realize we are the passengers and let God do the driving, we can make the journey knowing he will never steer us wrong.  He may take us the long way, and he may let us have very serious bumps along the way.  But, I promise you this, we can trust Him. It is always about honing us, deepening our relationship with Him, and/or about the greater good for the others around us...Even if we can't see it.  Remember the tapestry?  

Tomorrow we will try again.  We will leave PIT at 11:58am, God willing, and get to NYC soon after.  Since the Accra flight doesn't leave until 11pm, we will try for an adventure for a few hours in the Big Apple.  Stay tuned for that one...


God Bless!
Chris

Whatever Gift You Have Received

Welcome to the latest New Community Church Blog!

The bible tells us in I Peter 4:10, "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms."

Together with our partners at Pioneers Africa, we are doing our best to put this into practice.  Pioneers missionaries and NCC members, each using their various gifts have brought villagers medical and dental care, started a water business together, and for just one short week, we will give you a peek into the latest venture in our partnership with Pioneers Africa:  A Pastor's Discipleship Conference in Accra, Ghana.

This joint undertaking is the culmination of an existing conference held by Pioneers' every year, brought together with Hollis's love for teaching discipleship, Dan's excitement for teaching leadership and David Yebuah's passion for caring for his missionaries.  It is a manifestation of many parts of the body of Christ coming together to do his purposes; each of us "using the gifts we have received to serve others".

One of my favorite things to watch as a Christian is how God so beautifully weaves the tapestry He is creating.  He is a master craftsman.  Each of us is but one tiny thread; such a part of the tapestry, that we cannot yet see it's full glory, but can only imagine what it will look like some day.

Use your gifts, follow His will.  If you aren't aware of what those gifts are, I dare you to step out of your comfortable place and into the weaver's hands.  Let Him have your whole heart and the Holy Spirit will take you on an amazing adventure to show you what your gifts are!

We take off on our adventure tomorrow at 4:30pm.  Please pray for God to prepare the way and to give us safe travels.