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.
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:
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.
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.
(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.)
(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.)
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.
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:
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...
It was a horrible flashback to Dec 2004 and the devastation we witnessed in SE ASia, when many of us at Lake walked through it with those who suffered, whether onsite or through the pain visted upon their families in their home countires. Like then, we look to God as ways to respond...
That is the question so many are asking.
The head of the Crescent Project, Faoud Masri, who trains and equips followers of Jesus on how to build relationships with Muslim peoples, primarily in and from the Middle East and North Africa addresses this. Below is a letter I received from him. Masri is originally from Egypt though now lives in the United States.
When Things Aren't as They Ought to Be...
Tom Little is one of the ten who died in Afganistan last weekend. Shot by gunmen in a remote area of Afganistan where Dr. Little (30 year resident of Afganistan) and the team were providing medical and dental services in a village so remote, they had to carry there gear in over an 8 hour haul. Less than two years ago, he wrote an article in the midst of a spike of violence in Kabul and Afganistan generally. It seems more poignant a call today than it did even then. The article is found here where you can first read a remberance of a life and then read his own thoughts on a world with a great deal of senseless pain and suffering.
We never had much of a vegetable garden till the last year and frankly, Nancy doesnt really want me going to close to it. She plants, she waters and she tends. And I confess, I dont pay a lot of attention overall but every once in a while, something does catch my eye. That brings me to the carrot.
Everything in life has a price tag associated with it.
Some have put it this way: “Jesus’ last words…the Church’s first priority.” Those final recorded words from Matthew 28 
. Matthew 28:18-20 are filled with purpose and direction. Authority: All his. Purpose: All peoples. Teach: All he commanded. Companionship: All the time with us.