Urbana is an every three years student missions conference between Christmas and New Years. The Lake family has been there since Year One back in Toronto, Canada shortly after World War 2. This conference has been used as a turning point in the lives of many. Every three years upwards of 20,000 young adults between the ages of 18 - 35 gather to learn, worship and pray. The speakers are legendary names like Graham, Elliot, Stott, Zacharias, Pulau, Warren and Bono to name a few. Learning and exposure tracks include International Students, Arts and Media, Advocacy and Poverty, Business as Mission, Evangelism, Jesus and Justice, The Mission of Healthcare, and The Church Around the World.
We are praying that 50 Lake young adults will respond to the challenge to go this year. Will you join us praying for those participants? Will you join us in being one of those participants? Listen to experiences of other LACers who have attended Urbana and begin to ask God now what role he would have you play. Watch Lake stories about Urbana or look for the Lake Goes to Urbana 2012 Facebook page.



And if you know already the sidelines are not for you, than if you want to send, we have a role for you! We need prayer partners for those going and we need investors to partner with our students. To discover how to beome linked to a Goer by being an Urbana Partner contact us at globaloutreach@lakeave.org.

Go Global in 2012.  APPLICATION DEADLINE IS PASSED FOR CAMBOIDA, THAILAND AND SPAIN.  Pleae contact our office for other opportunities

Impact Short Term Mission Assignments opportunities include ministry with children in SE Asia, outreach to recent immigrants in Southern Europe, prayer journeys in SE Asia and hosting a respite retreat in Cambodia.  We are praying for 6 teams to be raised up in 2012.
The Global Outreach Department will train and prepare you including fund raising equipping.
Deadlines are approaching soon.   Ministry Locations include:
- Thailand
- Cambodia
- Spain.

Select "Read More" below to learn about all the Short Term opportunities being offered this year.

Van, once a city of 700,000 is barely 200,000 people today following a 7.1 and a 6.4 earthquake in October.  An LAC member, trained in mountain and earthquake rescue calls another part of Turkey home, but soon after the dust settled he was on sight to lend his skills. Thousands have been left homeless and hundreds killed.  Tom  has been 'commuting' to and from Van since late October and I spoke with him via Skype last week for an update.  That conversation needed to be relayed to the Lake Family so I present a summary of our conversation here:

My month of November was spent overseas visting LAC families primarily in Africa.   This is a written snapshot taken from a day spent at the ministry site where LAC missionaries, Jill and Ray Davis teach.

I heard someone say once that “God doesn’t have the Church in the world that is to carry out his Mission…but that God has a Mission in the world and therefore he has the Church.” It is a little bit of clever, syntactic two-step I grant you. However, in this two-step we can discover a bias toward priority in the mouth of the speaker. So which is it? I don’t know, but a Church in the world without a mission sounds like a club and a mission without the Church, well that sounds subject to fanatism and individual manipulation.  So lets just call it "a tie" and say, as is true with airplanes, I prefer having both wings when I travel and preferable mounted in the same direction.

My month of November was spent overseas visting LAC families primarily in Africa.   This is a written snapshot taken the day my companions (LAC Congrgational Leaders Jim Howe and Peter Gazanian) and I were headed to Western Central Kenya to spend four days with LAC missionaries, Jill and Ray Davis.

This is Africa - abbreviated as T.I.A. 

This is a common statement here, from both African and Ex-Pat alike. It is like a blanket statement that is kept easily accessible like a handkerchief in a shirt pocket. It is just something you need on continuous standby to explain why things happen in the way they do; why things happen later than expected or for the way things end up not happening at all. It is a very useful expression.

  My month of November was spent overseas visting LAC families primarily in Africa.  It began with a family that lives in the U.K.  This is a written snapshot taken the last day we were together of my three day visit.  It might be best titled "Taking Sunday From Familiar to Surprised..."  

(The family is unnamed to protect their anonymity due to the nature of the places they work as cross-cultural workers for the gospel.  They were sent out by Lake in the late 80s and England is now the site from which they do their work.) 

6 months ago, the NE of Japan was devastated by Earthquake and Tsunami.  The generous family at Lake responded personally and through a corporate gift which we collected two weeks after the event.  The monies were split between World Vision and Asian Access which allowed us to participate both in relief and the early stages of redevelopment.  Recently I received this letter from the President of Asian Access, Joe Handley who wanted to give us an update and again express his thanks on behalf of so many Japanese in the devastation zone and under the shadow of the ongoing Nuclear powerplant crisis...

(One other note: Asian Access, formerly Life Ministries, was founded by LACers Ken and Jan Wendling and former Lake Senior Pastor Ray Ortlund was a member of the founding Board of Directors.)

On this night of the month of Ramadan, Muslims seek a special revelation from God and for 7 years we have been gathering to pray that God's revelation might indeed come in fullness to the Muslim world near and far.

For over 25 years Christians around thhe world have prayed in a very intentional and unified away during the 30 days of Ramadan.  A shared prayer guide in dozens of languages shapes and directs our prayers.  One of a Pastor's role is to be a pest...as I understand it, so I can be a pest just for a moment?   (Like you have any choice...I mean te net is interactive but only so interactive! :) )

Here comes the 'pesty part':
When was the last time you joined with other Christians to pray for grace to fall upon the Muslims in your life, neighborhood, country and the world?  Maybe never...well good news.  On FRIDAY, AUGUST 26, it is time to break the streak!  FL 204/5  7 - 9p is the place and a time.  Led by our Al Haq outreach team leader Dina Basta, we will join together and ask God to move in love, grace and mercy.  Special guests prayer leaders include Believers from Muslim Backgrounds and a couple recently returned from Libya

We are going to engage with a Billion Muslim peoples that night and we need you to do it so dont miss out on this unique annual evening.  See you there.

Economic opportunity for self sustaining business has too often been the missing piece of the international developmental puzzle.  This has been even truer in Christian mission whose compassionate Kingdom outreach has too often been brought to a halt by a lack of sustainable, indigenous economic empowerment and opportunity. 

This November a team of 5 can have a chance to change this trajectory on a small but personal scale by participating in a “Developing Your Business Plan” seminar in partnership with Scott White, Pastor of Global Outreach at Lake Avenue Church and DKU (a Christian University) in Cameroon, Africa.  This one week seminar which sold out last year(200 participants), draws college graduates from around Cameroon and surrounding nations to learn how to develop a general business plan and to receive specific training in a number of specialties related to that plan, e.g. finance, accounting, marketing, business operations and management, etc.

27 Million fellow humans are victims TODAY of modern slavery.  Some roll cigarettes 15 hours a day in India, some make bricks 15 hours a day in SE Asia, some farm rise in Asia, some as house servants in the Middle East and some as slaves in brothels on every continent.  Join the modern abolitionist movement and learn how you can make a difference.  Workers sent from Lake to SE Asia are here to tell stories of change and hope in Thailand.  Workers from Pasadena...yes PASADENA, are here to tell us how we can make a difference in our own backyard where a number of human slavery and trafficking operations have been uncovered over the last few years.
Learn, Pray and Respond.  All of these will be elements of a very special one time event as part of this year's Breathing Out WOrld Focus Weekend.

Time: 7p
Room:  FLC 203
Cost: No Charge

This update is an upclose look at the area devastated by the Tsunami reported by LAC missionary Rob Gill.  Rob and Jean Gill have been doing Church Planting and Leadership Development in Japan for over 25 years.  This story helps paint the physical, emotional and spiritual reality right now.  After reading this, I encourage to pray for all those effected and for all these seeking to bring a compassionate Christ-filled response.  

April 2011 - NE Honshu Island, Japan

If you can picture the coastline of California from San Francisco to Orange County – that was approximately the length of beautiful coastline of northeast Japan that was devastated by the tsunami at an average distance inland of 3 miles. Of the estimated 25,000 – 30,000 people who perished that day, probably less than ½ of 1% of them were Christians.

The second week I joined my long-term colleague, Pastor Sugaya, and a team from his church in taking supplies and offering assistance in five locations in the devastated area. More debilitating than physical destruction, which was enormous, was the mental, emotional, and social scarring on the lives of so many previous Japanese people. Let me share one such story:

GOers is a Lake Avenue Mid-Sized Group that comes together once a month to encourage and support people preparing for cross-cultural, disciple-making. Goers may be one of the best kept secrets at Lake, and the Global Outreach Team wants that to end!  If you are in process to head out in missions or ready to actively explore what that might look like in your life, this fellowship exists to link you with like minded folks of all ages and in all phases of their missions journey...from beginning of exploration to launching out!

Now What is Next....Pray.

Lake International Staff, Rob and Jean G were sent to Japan by LAC over 30 years ago.  It is their second home.  Though now in a broader teaching and training work through East Asia, Rob jumped on a plane recently and headed to Japan to reconnect with the netwrok of pastors he and Jean helped devleop, coach and minister alongside. When asked what to do now, he responded with this recommendation for all of us and note the last item which speaks to what it means to live differently as followers of Jesus as we do life calculations differently...

 

Noruz is here again! This is the annual Iranian celebration of the New Year.  The New Year takes place on 21^st of March every year, but the celebration is not until the 13^th day after that. This year the celebration is on April 3^rd

Following the Southeast Asian tsunami in 2004, one of World Vission's Directors for Relief published this "Myth List" to help educate us all.  While some of the items are directed to under developed nations, most of the list I found very beneficial as I reviewed it today.  This list provides a "what to do" and a "what not to do."  Fell free to share with others or link to it.  We all feel moved to take some kind of action in light of the enormity of the destruction but we can respond with reflection and not just reflex. I think this tool can help us reflect as we each consider ways to respond...