April update (a little late…)
I can’t believe it’s May already! With Easter so late this year, it’s thrown me off. We hope you all had a wonderful Easter, too, remembering what a wonderful, loving Savior we have in Jesus!
Keynote has soooo much going on this month. Every May we have our annual fund raising Golf Challenges, so we would love your prayers for God to use them to provide for our ministry expenses. These funds do everything from paying the electric bill to sending teams out on the road, so they are vital to Keynote fulfilling the ministry God has called us to.
Keynote is also shifting gears around this time to preparing for this year’s Summer Project! We have a smaller group of students, only 34, this year. There will be two bands and one film team formed out of students and staff. They will all learn how to communicate the love of God effectively using the medium of music or film to share their personal stories. Then they will hit the road!
God uses the training time so greatly in the students’ lives as they learn more about themselves and God in the process. Please pray for God to work wonderfully in each of their lives. Pray for wisdom and love to flow from our staff, and pray for many lives to be changed by God through the teams’ efforts this summer.
And of course, New Media Labs is continuing to work on channeling new media forms into great ways to reach people and connect believers with ministry opportunities. We housed a campus staff member and student last night as they came in from St. Louis for a day of meetings on how to take a witnessing tool, called Perspectives, and “make an app for that”. We would also ask for prayer for the Mission Accelerator (just a working name) to be developed on time to train our U.S. staff how to use it out in Colorado in July.
We personally are gearing up for leaving for Colorado in less than 4 weeks! Pray for Karl especially, that he would have wisdom and stamina for organizing and running the tech needs of the whole Staff Conference Team. I am presently reading lots and lots of books for my classes this summer and am already learning a lot. We so love being able to serve our U.S. Staff specifically every other summer.
Lastly, I just wanted to share about online ministry. Both Karl and I volunteer with Global Media Outreach to be available to people who have responded in various ways to evangelistic web sites. Most of the time we get one of two responses, either first time decisions for Christ or recommitments to Christ. Occasionally we’ll see a believer who wants to learn how to share their faith or someone who has not received Christ, but wants to know more. And most of the time it’s a simple matter of sending them a prepared email directing them to a site that will help them learn more about their relationship with God.
Occasionally, though, we have people with questions. Some share really hard sins they’re wrestling with, some just ask for prayers, and some ask all kinds of questions about how to grow. Today I had the joy of answering the latter. It’s such a blessing to see someone sincerely wanting to grow and to get to help them on their way. And it’s a blessing to be able to reach this person (in Africa in this case) from my living room.
I mention this because I want you to have the opportunity to experience this as well. GMO is continually expanding and needs lots of volunteers to help with the responses they receive. They have a great system of training and a community leaders to turn to if you get a tricky one. If you are interested in learning more, check out www.gmojoinus.com. God bless you!
. My highlight of the month though, was being able to host friends from Orlando who we used to work with. Keynote occasionally has communication trainings. This past week was a marathon of Comm Lab and then Speakers training (for those whose ministry is predominantly in front of groups). Our friends came in for the latter, and stayed with us, so that we could care for their little girl and make it possible for both husband and wife to attend.
It was a pleasure just to reconnect and hear how God is using them, but it was also a joy for me to use my home to serve. Ironically, my back got cranky, and made it tricky to take care of their child, but that turned out to be a blessing, too. Anja and Karl were around to help, and we all thoroughly enjoyed having a sweet, singsongy little girl in the house. I loved seeing Anja rise to the occasion and be so sweet and kind and helpful with her. It did my heart good (especially after a week of dealing with her sin issues, and my sin issues, too).
