transforming the lives of global youth
Listening to Enrique in Southeast Asia anyone up for Spanish Rice?
Overwhelmed with Excitement!
These are the final few days before the first classes at Opportunities NOW. It’s been a busy week doing a teacher orientation, tweaking the curriculum, and having lots of final meetings. It’s amazing how everything has come together. The last two years of ideas, meetings, and research are all coming together on Monday when students enter our facility to start their journey toward starting their own business. …
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U.S. Moves to Normalize Relations with Myanmar
What this means for holistic youth development? …
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Did you ever see an episode of “30 Days” that aired from 2005 to 2008 on FX? If not you missed out on Morgan Spurlock (better known for the documentary “Super Size Me”) immerse himself in something for 30 days. Episodes ranged from living on minimum wage for 30 days to spending 30 days in prison. He actually only spent 25 days because most prisoners in Virginia serve only 85% of their sentence. Like Morgan Spurlock’s “30 Days” I’ll be living off $1 a day for food for the full 29 days of February.
I will be joining 2.7 billion people in the world today who live on $2.50 or less a day.
Last month I was traveling a lot raising support for Mary and my ministry in Myanmar. In the midst of my travels I visited one of my best friends, Matt Hickman, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Matt has a huge heart for the poor and is planning to start an organization in the next year and a half called “truth be told” that will …
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Internship Timeline
Pre-field Orientation May 19th-23rd Fly to Thailand May 23rd IBAM Training Thailand May 25th – June 8th Myanmar June 8th – July 27th Debrief July 27th – August 1st
What will you be doing?
Asia has some of the fastest growing economies with some of the largest populations of poverty in the world. The country you will travel to has been under a Military dictatorship for the past 20 years. This last year was the beginning of transition for the country. The country was once known as one of the worst human rights violators in the world, but after a November 2010 democratic election there have been fast changes. Businesses have now opened up and this country has been accepted into the Asian business community. Recently the U.S. sent diplomats to discuss leniency on years of …
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God’s timing is amazing. Myanmar in the last year has gone from oppressive Military Dictatorship to newly formed Democracy. A couple of years ago YouthHOPE decided to put a lot of emphasis on Myanmar as there were some very exciting youth ministry opportunities.
As we were training youth pastors and creating resources for them, we came to understand some of the major needs that youth have in Myanmar. We did a survey a little over two years ago at a youth meeting and we heard their overwhelming cry for help. On the survey these young people told us that the greatest need in Myanmar was professional education and job creation. We did further research and decided that we couldn’t do youth work in Myanmar without trying to address these issues. Since we made that decision a few years ago we now have the foundation within the country that is necessary to make a positive impact in this area. God’s timing is …
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Many people would lead you to believe that it’s not possible to raise money for missions projects in poor developing countries. The thought is that the money must all come from the affluent church from the West or the affluent countries in the East. Those people are wrong. They leave out the fact that there is a generous church in developing nations often eager to invest in projects helping their own people.
Today, Sunday September 18 my wife and one of our conference committee members Zat Pung traveled to Adonai Church in Yangon to ask the members to give to the Myanmar MOVE National Youth Pastors Conference. The Conference has a goal to be fully supported within the country of Myanmar after 4 years. The conference committee is responsible for raising over 50% of the conference costs to train 300 youth leaders in 5 days. In turn, these leaders will put on their own camps and conferences that will reach literally …
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The process of creating a youth ministry book in Myanmar started almost two years ago. Like most things, the end product was way different than the original idea. When we first thought of creating a book on youth ministry we imagined a single author who had youth ministry experience and was probably a youth ministry professor in a local bible college. We actually found someone with those credentials who was living locally. I had talked with him multiple times about taking his lecture notes and adapting them to be in a book form. He said it was a great idea and started working on it. As we got closer and closer to our first Myanmar MOVE National Youth Pastors Conference it was evident that he wasn’t finished and he had changed his mind about the future of the book. We philosophically differed about the result and implementation of the plan and decided to part ways in the partnership. That book is still not published. …
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Foreword to “A Glance at Youth Ministry”
The idea that there should be ministry to youth isn’t a new thing. Jesus said in Luke 18:16, “Let the little children come to me.” In the Old Testament after God had given the Israelites the Law He tells them in Deuteronomy 4: 9 to, “Teach them to your children and to their children after them.” Much of the Church has realized that we are today living in a very young world where there are over 1.8 Billion youth. Most developing countries have 40- 60%, of their populations under the age of 25. Right now is the perfect time to learn how to do youth ministry effectively so that this young generation can be reached for Christ. Let’s bring the youth to Jesus and teach them his ways.
Myanmar has kept a changing world out for a long time, but there is a flood of change coming. Is the Church ready for the change that is coming? That is why it is important for the …
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I found Irrawady’s article on Burma’s Education Crisis very accurate to what I’ve seen In Myanmar on my travels there the past few years. I’ve spent 8 months in Myanmar over the last year and a half working on projects focused on youth ministry leadership and researching the viability of the entrepreneurship school we plan to launch in the spring of 2012. We have taken great length to understand the situation of education in Myanmar. Below are some excerpts from the article that stood out to me.
“We used to have the best education in Asia,” a high school teacher told The Irrawaddy. “If we continue at this rate, our public education will forever be ruined, and I can’t see how the next generation will manage the country.”
“Everyone just buys books in the market, which you can copy the assignments from. During the lessons we just sit there and listen to the teachers. There is no discussion.”
“The …
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The year started out strong here in Southeast Asia with 60 director level leaders from 33 different churches and organizations gathered for a one day summit on holistic youth work. The leaders represented over 4,000 churches and a half dozen Bible Colleges and Seminaries. Those in attendance were challenged by local leaders to think about what holistic youth work looks like in their context. One leader in attendance said, "I will plan on reaching youth in the four areas physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional." They celebrated what the church was doing right and asked what the church could be doing better. The leaders through the job creation session decided the church had to do a better job creating opportunities for their youth and brainstormed what was possible. Many leaders were able to network and share their ideas with one another. "In order for us to reach youth for Christ, networking is important because we can …
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I am exhausted from the last two months. I have learned many things but continue to be reminded by God really what my calling is, "promote healthy youth ministry worldwide and to strengthen the unity of the Church." April 26th through the 30th was a testament of that call in action. While here in Southeast Asia, the committee I am consulting and I have delved deeper into our desire to see the churches here unified and for holistic youth ministry be taught throughout the country. Our goal is for all the churches, denominational and non-denominational to be putting on effective youth outreach conferences throughout the country to reach this generation for Christ. The last week of April we saw the first phase of our goal realized. We gathered together 160 youth leaders from 34 different churches for a 5 day conference. Leaders from Christ In Youth (CIY) and YouthHOPE (YH) were able to come from the states to do teaching in effective camps …
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This is a slideshow that shows the CIY Move Conference that took place in Southeast Asia during April 2010. …
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Hello everyone,
How are you all doing? Certainly Ellen and I are the one who should answer that question from you! Well, with God’s unconditional love, WE’RE FINE!
Ellen and I have been pretty close to knowing what is it like to fall from a third storey during a earthquake, but somehow it didn’t happen! Because The angels of the Lord camp around those who fear the Lord and are walking according to his purpose.
We were in downtown Jacmel, visiting my sister where she is staying and we were there in the third storey when that happened. We had no choice to run down, we could only hang on to each other while some of us were crying, praying, thinking about jumping.
God saved us, we are attaching some pictures to let you see the situation in Jacmel, then you will realize that it’s not bad only in Port Au Prince. While God saved Ellen and I and our family from preventing the building we were in to collapse, there are …
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