Integrating Ministry and Personal Life

Missions has taught me that ministry is a lifestyle, not merely a vocation. One of our greatest blessings (and greatest challenges) over the past few years has been learning to live out our calling in a way where personal life and ministry life are blended into one.

Mission Adelante began by building friendships in a local ice cream shop, having English classes and Bible studies in our home, and inviting neighbors over for dinner. Which category do these activities fit into? Ministry or personal? The wonderful answer is both! Now, when we take a family walk to that same ice cream shop we pass no fewer than five homes where Mission Adelante families live. And, when many of them are out on their front porches or in their yards playing, a family walk to the ice cream shop becomes a ministry opportunity!

Our children get to experience the blessing of being involved with our ministry as well. This Fall we launched a “Leaders in Training” program for pre-teens that meets Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons for tutoring and character development. As home-schooling parents we were excited that Annie and Caroline get to participate in this program as a way to supplement what we are doing with them academically and allow them to build cross-cultural friendships.

Of course, the challenge in all of this is that if ministry is our work, and it is intertwined with our personal life, then how can we avoid always being “at work?” Indeed it is a mixed blessing. There are deep ravines on either side. Compartmentalizing ministry into a professional activity strips it of its authenticity. On the other hand, neglecting personal and family needs in the name of ministry is a recipe for disaster.

Enjoying and embracing the blessing of an integrated ministry lifestyle while learning how to overcome its inherent challenges is one of the keys to surviving in ministry for a lifetime. Please pray for us as we continue to learn how to live out our calling in this way. Pray for God to help us know how to minister as a team and to each other.

God's Metric: Enduring Faithfulness

"Victory belongs to those who believe in it the longest." Those inspiring words were spoken by the commander of an Air-craft carrier in the movie Pearl Habor. They were true in that context, and they are true in ministry. Ministry, especially cross-cultural ministry, requires persevering faith in the ultimate victory of God. Everyday battles are won and lost. Peoples' lives are destroyed by the enemy and by their own poor decisions. Pastors and missionaries who are desperately looking for results and confirmation that they are winning battles struggle with their own sin, and with the discouragements and disappointments of people who seem to love God one day and then crash and burn, or disappear, or turn on them the next. How can a person stay in ministry for a lifetime?

The only real answer to that question is, "by God's grace." Ministry by its very nature is a pouring out of oneself. When lived out as Jesus modeled it is sacrificial, it gets involved in the messy lives of sinful people, it endures abandonment, and yet it always believes in the ultimate victory of God's kingdom. It does NOT believe in the ultimate goodness of the human heart. On the contrary, it must come to peace with the fact that that so called "goodness" is a myth, in order to avoid disillusionment and synicism. Instead, enduring ministry comes to believe in the certainty of God's ultimate victory and rejoices in it.

Over the past two and a half years since we began Mission Adelante, mixed in with some glimpses of exciting ministry fruit, we have experienced a lot of these disappointments and discouragements. Several times during those discouraging seasons, Kristen and I have lain in bed asking ourselves, "what if this ministry doesn't grow?", "what if nobody responds to the gospel?", "what if we were left to do this alone?", "what if immigrants never open up to us on a personal level." Each time we have asked those questions God has only solidified and increased our commitment to this calling and ministry. While we currently enjoy measurable results and occasional victories in Mission Adelante, God reminds me that He is measuring "Enduring Faithfulness."

Will we continue to believe in His ultimate victory even when all we see are disappointing defeats? By His grace we will. Over the years, please make this your number one prayer for our family.

Caroline, Annie Finish Suzuki Piano Book One

After about 17 months of piano lessons, Caroline(9) and Annie (7) are finishing book one of the Suzuki series! It has been a great experience for our whole family! What began as hours of peck, peck, pecking annoying rhythms such as "MI-SSI-SSI-PPI HOT-DOG" has metamorphasized into beautiful music echoing off the plaster walls and the hard-wood floors of our 1922 home. Caroline and Annie have both become good young pianists, playing songs such as Claire da Lune, and Musette. And Charlie...well Charlie always takes a bow with the girls after their lessons even though he hasn't begun playing yet.

What has been most exciting to me is the girls' continued enthusiasm for it. They don't seem to view practice as drudgery and they often sit down at the piano to try their hand at making up their own melodies. I have become a believer in the Suzuki method which emphasizes playing familiar songs by ear before learning music theory. This gives young children enough early success to keep them interested while gradually introducing the necessary skills of sight reading. And, the repetition required to master the songs progressively instills fingering mechanics. Of course, our instructor, Charlotte Garwood, has just the right balance of discipline and patience and genuinely enjoys teaching. This combination of method, instructor and emphasis on parental involvement seems to be working marvelously for Caroline and Annie. They are excited to discover what come next in book two!

God's Soverienty in a Risky Plan

Before Jesus ascended to Heaven He gave His disciples what is now referred to as "The Great Commission". He told them to "go and make disciples of all nations." Disciples of Jesus learned this process from the Master. Jesus' method of making disciples was investing his life in them. Walking, talking, eating, doing ministry together, praying together, teaching them. It was a much more integrated approach than Sunday school or a Bible study program.

From a human standpoint it seems awfully risky that Jesus entrusted the future of His church in the world to a rag-tag group of wavering disciples. And yet that was His plan; call, equip, and send. And sending was not alone, but with the power of the Holy Spirit.

From the beginning, our passion and mission with Mission Adelante has been to "Serve Hispanic Immigrants to Christ and mobilize them to serve". For us this is just another way of saying we want to do what Jesus did with His disciples. Serving is the beginning of calling immigrants to a knowledge of a loving and gracious God. As we build relationships and invest, and walk alongside, and teach, we hope that the Holy Spirit will work to bring them to a place of being able to invest in the lives of others as well to share the gospel and bring them to maturity.

Leticia received Christ as her savior in January of 2006. Since then we have invested our lives in her in many ways. Last week Leticia began doing an introductory evangelistic/discipling study with two other Hispanic women. It was not a Mission Adelante scheduled event. It was Leticia initiating and meeting by herself with these women with the promise of walking alongside them to see them to maturity in Christ. And so the miracle of the Great Commission continues, and I stand in awe at the sovereignty of God in His seemingly risky plan that the nations should know Him.

Quick Updates

Internship-Mission Adelante is planning a summer internship for emerging leaders in cross-cultural ministry. Megan McDermott (left), a current volunteer, is the first to sign up. The program will require interns to live in the neighborhood for the summer and will include ministry training and practical experience. Please consider making a financial contribution to help us cover the costs of the internship! Funds are needed to cover the costs of housing, ministry and training expenses, and a modest stipend for each intern.

Building Remodel-The scope of our building remodel project has increased significantly. We are working with an architect and a general contractor on a plan that will include a combination of professional contractors, plus skilled and unskilled volunteers. Contact Seth Sears (seths@missionadelante.org) to sign up for a Saturday workday this year or to offer your skills!

Compelling Compassion-Graciela's English class prayed for her husband to get a job, God answered this prayer through one of our prayers and two weeks later Graciela and her husband were visiting our worship celebration. Compassion in the name of Christ is compelling!

Multiplying Leaders-Some preliminary evidences of fruit are suggesting that God is accomplishing the full cycle of our mission, "Serving Hispanic Immigrants to Christ and Mobilizing them to Serve." Leticia, who received Christ two years ago through Mission Adelante, is now discipling two new Hispanic women. Elaine, another recent convert is nearly finished with her basic discipleship study and is preparing to teach it to a friend whom she invited to our worship celebration last Sunday!

A Lifestyle of Befriending the Friendless

Suburban Christians often have a genuine desire to befriend the friendless yet struggle with the cultural, geographical, and lifestyle chasm that exists between them and those whom they would serve. Mission Adelante has discovered a cross cultural mission field on our own doorstep and we are passionate about helping you tap into it!

Abundant volunteer participation has been one of the most significant blessings and fruits of the Mission Adelante ministry. There are currently about 45 volunteers serving in ongoing roles with Mission Adelante. More exciting than the numbers though are the people. Some of them have made a lifestyle out of serving broken people. Felipe and Morgan Ham and Bill Medley have been volunteering on the front lines with Mission Adelante since before we began in 2005, now over two years ago. Valerie Kalny has kept our books since inception. Our board members also fit into that category of those having served since inception. They include Scott and Paulette Robinette, Ben Kalny, Dru Shiner, Ethan Vaughan, and Paul Nobrega.

Todd Jones, Susie Simpson are now completing their second year of service. And a majority of the rest have served for multiple trimesters including Chris and Veronica Lang, Mary Ann Bettis, Caren Collins and others who are nearing the two year mark..

We praise God for the incredible partners we have in this ministry. And we praise Him for the ways He is working in their lives through serving.

Immigrant Kids in a Cultural No-Man's Land

“That’s where my dad is,” said Felipe as we passed the Wyandotte County Detention Center. “Yeah”, said Emanuel, “We go there to visit him”. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Only three weeks earlier I had greeted their father at the door as he picked his 4 kids and 3 nephews/nieces up from our Thursday night outreach Bible study.

Eleven of us had squeezed into two cars and we were on our way to a local Columbian restaurant to drink Mango smoothies and play UNO. When we arrived I asked Nayeli, the oldest sister, about their father and got a shrug and a mumble. It was clear she didn’t want to talk about it.

There was “Mango en leche” for everyone. And “Skips”, “Reverses” and “Draw Fours” were almost as plentiful as the laughter. And yet I wondered how these children, could laugh when their father/uncle was in jail.

Immigrant children are in a cultural no-man’s land. As they grow, they learn English quickly and integrate into some aspects of American culture through the school system. Yet, their parents often lag behind in both cultural integration as well as language acquisition. The gap widens and a young teenager finds himself in cultural flux; not really a part of American culture, distant from his parents, and highly susceptible to negative peer influences. With a father in prison the deck is stacked against these children.

And yet I am hopeful that in the case of Felipe, Nayeli, and their siblings and cousins that God will use Kids Adelante to fill the cultural gap they live their lives in as well as the gap their incarcerated father has left. And, I have hope that they will find a relationship with the Savior of the world.