Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Our Globetrotter

Jeff: Hubby, Daddy, Pastor, Child of God...........GLOBETROTTER!

Today Jeff departed for three weeks of ministering across the globe.

First off he is leading a team of nine people from our church to Kabul, Afghanistan. For about the past fifteen years our church has been committed to missions work in Central Asia. This commitment has included "adopting" the Turkmen people with the hope of helping to establish an indigenous church in Turkmenistan. Recently, however, all of the missionaries our church supports who were working in the region have returned to Colorado Springs indefinitely for various reasons.

After much conversation with the returned missionaries a vision trip emerged. The main focus of the team will be to build relationships and through those to look and to listen in order to evaluate if the church should continue to be involved in Central Asia and if so, how to do it most effectively.

Post Kabul Jeff will be heading to Russia to meet another team of 15 people from our church. The team will be visiting an orphanage in Pokrov, a town about an hour from Moscow. Covenant has been partnering with Children's Hope Chest for many years to help orphans in Russia.

Individual families in our church sponsor kids and the church as a whole commits to work with an orphanage. The team in essence act as surrogate grandparents to the children. The team will spend every waking minute with the kids. During their time they will lead a vacation bible school type program with crafts, games, bible stories and other fun activities. In addition, they will hold a program for older orphans to help them with practical skills that they will need when they 'graduate' from the orphanage.

Jeff is looking forward to seeing our sponsored child Lena (pictured right) as well as other children that he has built bridges with in the previous 3 trips.

Last night we talked to the kids again about daddy leaving and we prayed together as a family. To h the kidlets visualize the days until daddy returns we made paper chains. Tonight before the twins went to bed they each tore off one piece of the chain and we talked about how special daddy is to us.
Please pray for both teams - safe travel, good heath, team unity and for us back home...for many graces, peace and sanity.

5 comments:

  1. We will definitely be praying for Jeff and for you and the kids while he's gone. What a good idea with the paper chains!

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  2. What a great opportunity for Jeff. I know the next three weeks will seem long without him. Prayers your way!!

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  3. I love the paper chain idea. The twins look so cute with them! We will be praying for you and Jeff and he travels around the world.

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  4. We'll be praying for you all and Jeff. Three weeks!!! I usually do okay for the first 2-3 days ... but by day 4 of Ben's trips ... I'm done! It usually means lots of outings with the kids - to get out of the house - and lots of POPCORN for dinner for me!! Only 2ish weeks after he returns ... we'll be there!!! Can't WAIT!!!

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