December 2007

Dear Ones,

We are just back from a week-long retreat in Kenya for PC(USA) missionaries in Africa, and our hearts and minds are so full of things we want to share with you. First of all, we are encouraged by all that God is doing to renew us in the PC(USA). He is tenderly calling us again into mission, and we, as a church, are listening and responding. Mission Challenge ’07seems to have been a great success. If you have not identified a missionary to support, please do so! (Contact Peter Kemmerle in Mission Connections.) Mission is God-initiated, and we are invited to participate with Him. Mission is mutual, for the growth and encouragement of us all!

Dr. Kwame Bediako of Ghana was our Bible study leader during the retreat, and we could have sat at his feet and absorbed his wisdom and insights all day. How do we capture his wisdom and perspective in a few words? Here are some highlights:

• Africa is where God has called us, first to hear Him and learn from Him, then to serve Him. We must learn to appreciate the significance of African Christianity and how interacting with Africa will teach us more about our faith and the Kingdom of God.
• The world is changing. Christianity is changing and must change. It is increasingly associated with the countries of the south. There has been a shift in the center of Christianity from the West to Africa. Historically, the Church began in Jerusalem. By the time the last apostle died, it was no longer predominately Jewish, but was scattered throughout the Roman Empire, particularly the Mediterranean basin, which includes North Africa. The Reformation came out of Augustine’s (of North Africa) teaching of free grace. This was Africa informing Europe. Later, it became associated with the strongest economies in order to finance the early mission movements. This was God’s purpose.  Now it is moving again.
• Mission is a concentration of the people of God on the most vulnerable. Judea, in its day, was a geopolitical “backwater.” The death and resurrection of Christ there caused barely a ripple in Rome. Africa is the current geopolitical “backwater,” and it is significant to consider that it is inexplicably the new focus of Christianity. The Kingdom of God does not follow the kingdoms of the world.
• The changing foci and concentrations are important because they illustrate that God is and can be anywhere. Christianity has no permanent home or place of pilgrimage or center. Mission is not globalization. It helps us learn an alternative view of the world. And it is full of surprises.

Meanwhile, we wanted to conclude with some new “nuts and bolts” about mission giving from our World Mission staff. They have worked hard to streamline the process and we share their notes below:

How to support PC(USA) missionaries

For individuals

Online – To give online, go to the simplified giving Web site where it is possible to give undesignated support to all missionaries or to designate funds to support missionaries in one of seven regions of the world. It is also possible to designate support to any individual PC(USA) missionary by going to the missionary’s home page at the Mission Connection Web site.

By phone – To contribute via credit card, call (502) 569-8658.

Through the mail – If individuals would like to send a check at any time, they may send it to:

Presbyterian Church (USA)
Individual Remittance Processing
P.O. Box 643700
Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3700

To designate to a specific missionary, write the missionary’s name and account number on the memo line of the check. The account number is available online. A new ECO account has been established for undesignated funding for mission personnel. That number is E051790.

As you and your church share prayerfully and financially, you enable the Church to send more “laborers into the field” and to keep us “old timers” in our places of call! Bless you.

Know that we love you and appreciate you so very much. All is well here in Lesotho. The younger children have had a great first term in the local British international school. Katie is enjoying her senior year at Rift Valley Academy, and is, with all of her classmates, in the throes of the college application process. We have missed the three older children so much, and they us, that we decided to bring them over for Christmas. They arrive on December 11 and will stay through the 30th.  So we are looking forward to being all together for the holidays! Our weather is warming into summer, and we expect to celebrate Christmas day, at least in part, beside a lake or swimming pool! We pray that your Christmas celebration will be full of warmth as well—whatever the weather is where you are.

With love,

The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 337