God is not pleased that you see your half-empty cup as half-full . . .  

He is not satisfied until you see it overflowing!

At this year's end, it is so easy to focus on what we lack or what we have not accomplished in this past year and miss what God has done and will do for us and in us. In his most famous psalm, King David writes about this very thing where he speaks of facing death and still having an overflowing cup. If you have ever read his life story, you know he had some major low points in his life before the world came to know him as the illustrious ancestor of the Savior. About one of his most difficult years, he wrote how God made “his cup” to overflow. Here it is in context:

“You serve me a six-course dinner
    right in front of my enemies.
You revive my drooping head;
    my cup brims with blessing.

                             From The Message, Psalm 23: 5

What this poet king is saying is that even in the worst of times, God has already showered his children with blessing and wants to give even more. Meanwhile, we are missing the point trying to improve our outlook from half-empty to half-full when in fact we are like George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, badly in need of a reality check so we can see that the emptiness we focus on is beside the point. We already have so much, but devalue all that.

So, in this New Year, don’t settle for a half-full perspective when you can savor an abundant, overflowing life because of Christ, the Son of David.

Along with the wonderful things, God is doing in our ministry as we shared in our last post (Dec. 12, below), here are some of the family blessings Nancy and I are counting as our cup overflows.

(Clockwise) David, Nancy, Jessica, Joey, Matt, Monika holding Olive, Megan holding Sophie, and Josh.

Year End Review

So Much To Thank God For

 

 

Dear Friends and Family,

We thank you for taking time to read our year-end news – it means so much to us! We were grateful to see many of our Chicago friends in September and then last week for a few days after Thanksgiving. You are gracious to make time to stay connected when we come and we were blessed!

 

We've had significant progress this year with:

• Board Development with excellent facilitation
• New projects being pursued in China and further developed in India
• New staff additions (read below for the details)
• Transition in leadership with our strategic Women to Women Ministry Training
• Funding for our “More Than A Mile Deep” Africa Training System

“We are doing something we are really excited about,” David told a friend recently who asked over a cup of coffee, what his thinking was concerning retirement. Nancy and I feel that retirement, at its best, should be the opportunity to do something you have always wanted to do. But, if you are already doing that, then why look for something different? God has given us a very strategic part in His kingdom to equip church leaders with the knowledge and tools they need to succeed in leading others to the transformed life Christ offers. This is the critical bottleneck in the Great Commission . . . not bringing people to an initial decision to follow Christ, not gathering converts into churches, but providing trained leaders who can shepherd those churches, full of new believers, in the manner Christ commanded.

 

Here are some quick snapshots of key leaders we have added to the Entrust team. We feel this represents some great progress for our ministry! We knew one of our challenges was to fill certain key leadership positions within our organization. Frankly, we had no idea where these leaders could come from. As it turned out some came from within the organization and some from outside. Here are just four examples!

  

“If you ask me to do development I will quit!” That was what Carol, one of our staff members, told David early on. He was sorely tempted, however, since before coming to us she had superb success in development, but she burned out in the process. One of David’s prime responsibilities is raising funds for the organization (in addition to raising personal support, which many of you contribute to). So guess who is now our Development Director (and happily so!)? And God did the asking . . . which is always the best way. It is a privilege to team with Carol Crom, our gifted Director of Development at Entrust.

  

“Mothers, don’t let your babies grow up to be missionaries . . .” is not exactly the way Waylon and Willie sang the song nor is it quite what you expect to hear from someone charged with recruiting for Entrust. But Entrust’s new VP of Mission Mobilization is Dwight Ekholm, a guitar/banjo player from Campus Crusade’s New Folk/Armageddon days now also a veteran missionary whose earned doctorate seems to give him a license to quote Bob Dylan whenever he speaks. Among the wonderful set of tools he utilizes, in recruiting new staff, is this creative tongue-in-cheek parody of all the reasons a parent might try to dissuade a son or daughter from becoming a missionary

 

When a Swiss unbeliever enrolls in a linguistics class full of missionaries, you can guess what might happen. He will either develop skin like a rhinoceros or succumb to the incessant efforts of his classmates. Ruedi’s interest was linguistics and little did he know that he would marry one of those classmates (from California) and become a missionary himself. Ruedi and Jenny Giezendanner come from Wycliffe Swiss to Entrust as VP of Innovation (a position they fill jointly). They bring a great deal of expertise having served in Switzerland, Germany, Cameroon, Morocco, Dallas, Indonesia, Malaysia and India. Their assignment will be to ensure Entrust is using the finest educational methodology appropriate to the distinctive needs of each culture.

 

We thought we were meeting about a China partnership, but God wanted us to meet our future HR Director. God had multi-purposes in our dinner together with Jon and Peggy Sperling. Our great need was for an HR director and I was resigned to the possibility of having to hire someone who would essentially learn on the job. While talking about China in a Chinese restaurant (where else) we find the spouse of our eventual partner is a trained HR person seeking a meaningful position where he can bring glory to God. God’s plan is great and we praise Him for His provision!

 

We thank the Lord and we thank you,
David and Nancy.

 

P.S. – Please check out David’s articles, including his most recent one – “Busy Mind, Frantic Heart, What Happened to Jesus?” on our ministry website www.entrust4.org.

All Gifts Should be Sent to:

Entrust

P.O. Box 25520

Colorado Springs, CO 80936

719.622.1980

For online gifts click on this link:

http://entrust4.org/involved/give

 

  

Yes, we had a fire . . .

Waldo Canyon Fire - most destructive in Colorado history.

347 homes on 34 streets burned to the ground.

Flames up to 100 ft. tall.

Fanned by winds up to 65 mph.

An official said, "This is as serious as it gets."

A number of Entrust staff evacuated, but none lost homes. We know of seven homes lost to Navigators staff alone.

That fire is contained, but there is no stopping what God is doing around the world!!!

Nancy and I want to thank you for your prayers and expressions of concern. It is hard to concentrate under threat of evacuation, making lists of what to grab at the last minute, if a huge fireball starts heading for your home (where you already are storing what other people grabbed when they were on the evacuation list). A big distraction for about a week, but we are so glad to be back to total focus on the ministry God has called us to.

As we told friends recently, we have never been more enthusiastic about what God is doing than we are now. It seems like things are coming together on many fronts, with some strategic staff additions, fresh partner opportunities and a few initiatives that have required a lot of energy to get started, which are now picking up speed.  

Yes, some exciting things are happening for the ministry. God is bringing some very strategic people who are excited about Entrust’s particular vision for attacking the greatest bottleneck to winning the world . . . trained church leaders.

On the next page, I have tried to describe how Entrust does it differently and why we feel so strongly, about what we do. (See "Let me tell you what excites us . . .")

We so appreciate your faithful support. We have made some wonderful gains in our support since coming here. For that, we praise God. In October, it will be three years.

Praise Notes. We thank God for: 

• How Africans are embracing More than a Mile Deep (MMD), our "written for Africans by Africans" accredited leadership training program as it continues development.
• Our exciting new China partnership with Global Partners in Hope (http://globalpartnersinhope.org).
• New additional senior leadership joining Entrust (soon to be announced).
• Our new, very capable Human Resources Director, Jon Sperling.
• Giving to Entrust staff and Operational Funds are up significantly over last year!
• Nancy and Women-to-Women Ministry Training leadership team seeing extensive multiplication in equipping other missions.
• Increased favor with significant foundations for funding some of the above ministries.

Our Prayer Requests:

• Stamina for heavy responsibilities and demands of travel
• Protecting personal boundaries so we don’t forget to have fun while we work hard
• Our personal walk with the Lord
• Wisdom in every area – including strategy, team building, problem solving
• Continuing the trend in new staff additions and fresh recruits
• God would lead additional partners to our personal support team

Let me tell you what makes us excited about leading this ministry of Entrust.

We work in leadership training for which there is an abundant, well-documented need in the developing world. That’s why just about every mission (other than relief agencies), do some form of leadership training.

What makes us different from so many is that we take the time to listen and learn what is needed in each particular culture we work in. Instead of a “one size fits all” approach where we take all the accumulated knowledge the church believes essential in the West and dump it on the “have nots” around the world, we take the time to find out what they already know (which often surprises us).

Then we watch, listen and finally ask lots of questions to find out what they really need to know. Often they have little need for what the West would say is most important for leadership training. Just as often, the knowledge and skills they may need most are not even addressed in the West and we must create the training together.

This is what we do in sub-Saharan Africa, India, Central Asia and the Middle East, in Eastern Europe (where we have been for over 30 years), and beginning now in China.

Everyone loves an adventure...

. . . especially with a tub of popcorn, sipping a mega-sized Coke and reclining theater seating. Sometimes you are glad not to be on the other side of the screen.

If the choice is between playing it safe or taking a risk . . . We want to take the risk, if it is calculated for a reward that matters. We would just as soon be on the other side of the screen.

Risk has its rewards whether it is Nancy training trainers for International Women’s Ministry or David recently embarking on an adventurous tour of foundations in search of support for African training. We love what God is doing as we embark on His adventure.

David writes: Accompanying me on my recent trip was Johan Boekhout, who never shied away from a challenge himself. Hailing from Amsterdam, Johan was the mastermind behind our African “More than a Mile Deep” project. We visited four foundations in five days. 

Sometimes I am asked if I hate visiting foundations and asking for money. The short answer is absolutely not! Foundations exist to make a difference by resourcing ministry and are always searching for a solid kingdom investment. I know I have exactly what they are looking for. My job is to try to help them understand that.

The challenge is that there are plenty of people like me visiting these same foundations. Some foundations receive thousands of requests each month.

Let me describe the adventure.

On the last Sunday in March I met up with my trusty sidekick, “the Dutchman,” AKA Johan Boekhout. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call me his sidekick, because he is the “Dr. Livingstone” of our organization having explored all corners of Africa to hear from distinguished Africans how they felt African church leaders needed to be equipped. Then he recruited a blue ribbon group of African scholar/practitioners to write a truly innovative accredited church leadership-training program.

So, whoever the sidekick is, we grabbed some sleep and had a couple of hours together to prepare for our morning appointment at a foundation who turned us down several years before. At this point, you may be asking, if “I have just what they are looking for,” why then are we ever turned down?

Ah well . . . herein is the risk, the challenge, the adventure that gets the “fight or flight” juices flowing. Some missions represent things everyone can identify with . . . clean water, education for children, food for the hungry. Almost everyone has a frame of reference for those things.

Yet, God called us to a mission that addresses what we believe is the greatest bottleneck in reaching the world for Christ—equipping leaders who can equip other leaders to win and nurture people in Christ. Few people in the US think any more about the training and equipping of pastors than they do about where table salt comes from. You just buy it in the store, right? A church in the US will have thousands of resumes to sift through when they are searching for a new pastor. However, in other cultures where the church is growing rapidly, untrained church leaders are pressed into service as unpaid pastors desperately in need of on the job training. Without adequate training, the new believers they lead will not be grounded in their faith as Jesus commanded us “teaching them to obey all I commanded you” and the Great Commission is far from finished.

“So what makes you different?” Foundations want to know. So many solutions to this dilemma are already knocking on their doors.

I have found the easiest people to explain the differences to are pastors who have been trained in the US. Why? Because they understand how much of a pastor's most practical knowledge and equipping for effective ministry came from sources outside of seminary. Many overseas training programs are only variations on a US seminary theme (without the essential continuing education and abundant resources available in the US). It is sometimes difficult for a foundation representative to conceive of why simply exporting out “tried and true” seminary training into other languages and cultures often misses the mark.

When I buy a car, I know it will be 20 years till I buy the next one, so I look at Consumer’s Reports to figure out its expected rate of repairs. These foundation heads are not leadership training mechanics and do not have any Consumer Reports handy, so they listen to all the competing claims and then make their decision. I feel for them and work hard to try to make the complex issues for equipping church leaders in very foreign cultures clear and accessible to them in the half hour I have to make my case.

So that’s why I love doing this with Johan. It would be hard to find anyone who has spent more time listening to what Africans describe as the leadership challenges (often uniquely African) that church leaders face. That research shaped MMD training, taking essential biblical knowledge, applying it to African challenges by sending students out into the community to develop hands on ministry skills as part of their coursework.

That is where this missionary’s kid becomes the Dutchman’s sidekick.

Please pray for us in this adventure! During this year we will continue to meet with foundations and a few individuals, seeking God partnerships in what I believe will become one of the most significant steps.