Zach Motts (Japan) @ G.C. (9/17/06)

If you missed last night, you missed a good Global Cafe`! Zach did an awesome job sharing about the needs in Japan, while sharing his own personal story of his call to invest his life there. I'll let you know when the audio is posted online. Meanwhile, there's a few picts below. Click here for the slideshow.

A little editorial explanation for those of you who weren't here for Zach's great bean demonstration. Typically performed for Sunday school kids, he graciously shared it with us too. Hey, we remember that kind of stuff, don't we? The light-colored beans represent those who claim to be Christians, the dark-colored beans represent those who do not claim Christianity. The pile on the left represents the U.S., the pile on the right represents Japan (see photo below).

Luke & Teresa at the coffee bar

The infamous piles of beans. Now to further underscore how few Christians live in Japan, consider that 2/3 of those "white beans" in the right-hand pile that claim the title "Christian" are actually cults...

a few of us praying for Zach at the end of his message...

New Additions to our DVD Resource Library

I always love getting unexpected packages in the mailbox! (Duh! Who doesn't?) This afternoon's surprise package held 2 new DVDs from WGM's media department, Ideas in Motion. The first DVD is the newly released Paraguay Field video. Paraguay is a little-known-of country in the heart of S. America with BIG needs! The 2nd DVD is all about how one can intern at WGM doing web design, media, photography, writing, information technology, and graphic design. Are one of those items a passion of yours? Come to the student center to watch this video (or click here for a Quicktime movie) and see how you can further the Kingdom through producing top-shelf material to promote the missionaries and ministries of WGM!

These DVDs, along with several others, can be found on the bookshelves across the hall from the student center office. If you're going to take them out of the student center, sign them out with us first, please. Otherwise, just pop 'em in one of our DVD players here and enjoy!

Learn about Japan...

This Sunday we're going to be hosting Asbury grad, Zach Motts ('05) who is headed to Japan as a missionary with WGM. In preparation for his visit I've been studying up on the challenges facing missionaries in Japan so we can better support and pray for Zach as well as communicate those issues to those who come here Sunday night!

This morning I assembled some of that information in the form of slides accompanied by some great photos by our friend and WGM colleague, Bob Bushong. I was super excited because I just got these photos yesterday from Zach! I particularly liked this image of this young mother with her child. After reading the sobering statistics on the few numbers of Christians living in Japan and the even fewer numbers of pastors and missionaries, one has to wonder if this young woman and her little boy will ever hear about Jesus?

Click here to view the slideshow of images and information...

Jeannie Banter -- Global Cafe` 9/10/06

Sunday's Global Cafe` brought out a HUGE crowd (~120 folks!) to hear Jeannie Banter's testimony about her time in Congo this last summer. If you missed it, you can link here to download the audio from Sunday's service. To see more photos from the evening, click here for the slideshow.
And oh yeah, (I was chided by Jonathan for neglecting to mention this sooner), go Bucks! Way to beat Texas Saturday!

Cabinet Retreat '06 -- the slideshow

View a slide show from our retreat this weekend by clicking here. I'll write more tomorrow(?). It's halftime of the Ohio State/Texas game...

Going away...

Hey everyone... the student center is going to be closed for about 24 hours (starting late this afternoon) while we go to the Gorge with the cabinet for our annual brainstorming/planning retreat. We are excited because the forecast looks great and it's been way too long since our last visit (I just hope we can remember how to find some of our favorite trails)! A good number in our crew have never been before so we're anxious to introduce them to one of Kentucky's prettiest parks. I hope to get some fun picts to make into a slideshow when we get back. I'll be sure to post them here on this blog as soon as it's finished!

Holiday Weekends

Who doesn't love a three-day weekend? Sometimes I think we look for too many excuses to take a day off, but today I was grateful that someone instituted a holiday TODAY! I know we've only had two weeks of classes, but we managed to cram them quite full, eh?

This holiday weekend, while we didn't take it completely off, we did manage to set aside some time for a couple of fun things:
1.) the Ohio State football game -- though the blowout was evident early on, it was still fun to celebrate the start of the college football season,
2.) impromptu Sunday night movie night after Global Cafe` (which we still had 'cause we figured that most folks were still on campus, which they were, and we had a great time with Tim Bailie) -- with the projector still out and speakers set up, we popped some microwave popcorn and found some cold Ale8 and settled in for a guilt-free late night movie with some student friends!
3.) playing with some new actions in Photoshop CS2 on my favorite photos from Hungary! (if you don't know what that is, don't feel dumb, I just learned about "actions" a few months ago myself -- they're basically a very easy way to snazz up ordinary photos)

And while this isn't really related to the subject matter of this post at all, I really enjoyed church yesterday! If you like to download sermons, I recommend you listen to Dr. Elliott's sermon yesterday on the Parable of the Sower (otherwise known as the Parable of the Soils). So many ramifications on the way I think about missions, not to mention the other personal applications! Click here for a link to FAC's audio download page, then select the message for September 3.

Sorry I have no photo today! I guess I was really in the spirit of the holiday and rested the camera as well. :-) Cydil