Youth in Ukraine

I met a remarkable young man who has a passion for young people in Ukraine.  Usually we hear about people after they have achieved some significant goal.  Chris Loux’s significance is not his achievement (yet) but his relationship to the Lord.  He is a work in progress and by reading his story, you get an inspiring insight into the transforming work of the Lord in a young man’s life.  He’s an American, a Gringo, who’s been to Ukraine twice.  Now he’s got a vision that infects others.

 

 

Okay, where’s Ukraine.  Geography lesson (that I just gave myself): check out the map!

 

 

Now give his story a read . . . and consider praying for him.

 

 

Two years ago I was asked to step in, at the last minute, and lead a team overseas to Ukraine to teach English to Ukrainian youth at a summer camp in the heart of the Carpathian Mountains. I had never been overseas and I had never been on a proper mission trip before. So, at first blush, I was inclined to say, “No.” However, there was a sense of adventure and a tug upon my conscience not to pass this opportunity up. So I agreed to lead the team and start the support raising process and training with my new team. My prayer was simple, “God, if this is meant to be, you will bring everything to pass. I trust you.”

My church back home has a long-standing partnership with Josiah Venture, a missions organization concentrated in Eastern Europe whose vision is to see the youth of that post-communist region affected and transformed by the Good News that only Jesus Christ can bring to the weary, the tired, and the lost. My trip in 2010 was no exception and we continued to partner with Josiah Venture to provide them a team to teach English at one of their many summer camps.

My experience in 2010 was nothing short of a revelation. Having never been overseas to experience what life, or Christianity, is like in another culture, I was unprepared for the divine surprise and adventure that was given to me in those seventeen days. For one, even getting to our destination was an adventure; we traveled on a train for over seventeen hours from Warsaw, Poland to L’viv, Ukraine with nothing but the trust that God would provide and allow us to arrive safely in L’viv. True to form, the Lord proved to be right there alongside us as we overcame language barriers and switching trains in five minutes and the many strange and peculiar characters we encountered along the way.

Josiah Venture’s model for English Camp is to empower the local church by providing them the resources necessary to host camps throughout Eastern Europe. God’s Design Church was the name of the church that we partnered with in 2010. They are a small church out of Lutsk, Ukraine whose numbers barely crest fifty. They actually only meet once a month corporately. The rest of the time they choose to meet in each other’s homes.

My first impression of the men and women of God’s Design Church was that they acted more like a family than a church. Ironically, that is the way that God would have us relate to one another, as brothers and sisters in Christ. Throughout camp I was astonished by the love that was expressed in their interactions with each other and with us. Although an enormous language and cultural barrier threatened to divide us (only a handful of Ukrainians actually spoke English) the Lord worked to unite our hearts together in a display of Spirit-filled friendship that swooned my heart like nothing else.

I was moved so deeply by my experience in Ukraine that summer that, upon returning to America, I began praying for God to allow me to return in 2011. I believe that once you’ve tasted the sweetness of God’s fruit in foreign missions you will hunger for more. I was never convinced of the wonder of the phrase “God’s heart for the nations” until I was actually there, in another culture and another country,

Shaping the Destiny of Children Worldwide

Sheila Etonga is a remarkable person with an inspiring vision.  She wants to devote her life to shaping the destiny of children — orphans particularly.  In some of my other posts, (1, 2, 3, 4)I have expressed how central this care is to God’s heart.

Sheila is from Africa, Cameroon to be exact.  She is here in Dallas to get her Master’s Degree in Christian Education and to promote the work of Shaping Destiny.  Nothing half-baked about this woman of God.  Her thoughts are well worth your read.  Take a few moments to read this.  Then take a few more moments to sponsor a child.  You’ll be blessed.

“We have for once learnt to see the great events of world History from below, from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the mal treated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled, in short from the perspective of those who suffer.  Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior.  Christians are called to compassion and action”. (Dietrich Bonheoffer 1942)

My childhood in Douala, Cameroon (Central Africa), was one characterized with the joys of a great education, great family bonds and the simplicity of a child-like existence.  I remember that during some of our Christmas celebrations we welcomed the orphans from an orphanage just a few miles away.  They spent this special day with us, a tradition that had become our way of life.  This was never done, to fulfill a call to compassion or action for the powerless and fatherless, but it was more, a natural compassion that my mother had for the least of these.

My heart now, several years later flows with this same compassion.  Compassion to change the destinies of children who have been marginalized for reasons outside of their control, children who might not get a chance to hear the gospel because in their communities they are invisible.  In this I know I have the heart of my heavenly Father (James 1:27, Isaiah 61:1-4).

It is this compassion that Shaping Destiny was birth. Shaping Destiny is a Christian Charitable organization founded to meet the needs of orphans all around the world.  Like a child who says to her father, “I am going to be a doctor one day”, we have the dream of taking care of over two million orphans in one hundred countries over the next forty years.  These dreams are lofty and bold, but so is our God.  This dream is not only ours as an organization, but one which God exemplified, when He rescued us from being orphans with no hope to adopted sons (Col 1:13, Eph 1:13).

Shaping Destiny exist as a grace arm to the orphans in any community, who are victims to the effects of HIV/AIDS, poverty, illiteracy and poor leadership.

Six years ago we began serving three children and now we serve 580 children and we just had two of our Shaping Destiny kids adopted by a lovely Christian family living in Waco, Texas.  They arrived in the United States on August 31^st, 2011.  This picture shows Haly and Jude with their new family, the Leblancs in Waco.

That is why it is with great pleasure that I offer you the privilege of caring for the needs of orphans all around the world through the grace arm of Shaping Destiny.

How can you help?  Here is how,

To know more about us

Sponsoring a child/children

Find out what’s new in the Shaping Destiny world by checking our blog.

Medical students at Texas A&M join together wtih Kenneth Acha (founder and student at the time) to partner with Shaping Destiny

1/14/2013 edit — Sheila has started a blog of her own.  Check it out.  http://comfortnotes.blogspot.com/

 

Christar – a Distinctive Mission Organization

I started this year to work with a mission organization called Christar.  I help to assess and evaluate candidates for training in a life of serving in the least-reached areas of the world.  Here’s their focus:

It’s a remarkable organization.  Their goal is clear: “. . . to establish churches among least-reached Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and other Asians worldwide.”  At a banquet in January, US Director Dr. Robert Kilgore shared some eye-popping statistics.  For example, “More Muslims have come to Christ in the past 25 years than in all previous history combined.”  The proportion of believers in the world has grown at a remarkable rate over the past 40 years.  Look at the graph.

I was encouraged to hear that the number of languages with the scriptures has exploded over the past century.

I am particularly impressed by Christar’s sensitivity to and respect for other cultures.  They’re not interested in Americanizing other cultures.  Instead, they want to introduce the person of Christ to people whose hearts and lives can be transformed.

All nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name.  (Psalm 86:11)

The Bible indicates that this is the where humanity is to end up.  So I think Christar is participating in the grand scheme of God who will bring this about.

. . . for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.  (Revelation 5:9-10)

I think the world would be a much better place if everyone in it were more Christ-like.