RockTheDesert

Silly & Not So Silly Stuff

This is Ky. He is a seasoned campaigner. He has the most amazingly comprehensive packing list I've ever seen. Retired firefighter. From California originally. Now lives in Oregon. He was on our trip to Rwanda then continued on to Sudan with Dan and Patricia. While in Rwanda, we had to make our own lunches. We brought loads of peanut butter & jelly & honey. Bread was provided for us. The bread slicer was missing half of its blades. So each loaf of bread went something like - slice, slice, slice, BIG slice, BIG slice, HUMONGOUS slice, slice, slice, GIANT slice, etc. We only had a butter knife to work with and Ky volunteered to cut each thick slice in half. Don't even ask about the crumbs and mangled slices of bread. It wasn't pretty. But when you're hungry, bread is bread, and we appreciated every single misshapen slice.   

I finally finished our Sept/Oct Team Berryman Update newsletter. Click here to see the final product.

Dan is now preparing for his second training trip. This will be E3's first ever church planting campaign in Burundi, January 17-27. He needs to recruit at least 2 more campaigners. Email Dan if you're interested and available those dates. [email protected].

Check out this great website http://www.hisgreatplan.com/. Mike & Mary Wagner are E3 Church Planters and they are very good at what they do. If you've never been on a trip before, you've got to go on at least 1 trip with the Wagners. You'll be hooked!

We are working on setting up dessert parties in the Scottsdale/Phoenix area to give us a chance to share with friends and friends of friends what it is that we've been called to do with E3 Partners Ministry. We'd love to have you join us. Please email Marina at [email protected] if you're interested in attending or hosting. Thanks.

More Travel

Tomorrow morning Dan and I will board a plane and head off to Jacksonville. We are attending a conference called Body Builders. Contrary to what you might think, this is not a fitness seminar nor weight lifting competition. It is actually a 2-day boot camp focusing on how to raise ministry support (financial & otherwise) using a Biblical model. Dan has been working on his pre-conference homework for nearly 1 month. The homework takes about 24 hours to complete.

We are entering a brand new world - one that we never dreamed we'd be a part of - asking others to support us in full-time ministry. We are hopeful that we will be able to raise necessary support in 3-6 months. In the meantime, we will simplify our lives and look for ways to streamline our budget.

More prayer is required than ever before.

Rwanda - Part 13

The Unity Goat Project. Designed to provide assistance to the poorest/neediest families in the local church. Each Church Plant pastor decides which families could benefit immediately from a goat. Then goats are distributed accordingly. Each of those families agrees that they will return the offspring of the goat to the church for distribution to another needy family. Etc. Etc. Etc. This could and should go on for a very long time. The cost of each impregnated goat is $25-$30. Each goat typically has twins or triplets. It gets a little complicated. But they have a good system. There is a three-fold value in each goat. First of all, it produces milk which the people can drink. Second, it produces manure which they use for fertilizer. Great idea. Third, they can eventually slaughter it and eat it. I suppose if times were really tough, they could also sell it for cash. I wonder how much a used goat sells for??!!

This trip changed the course of my life. I know that sounds pretty dramatic. But really, our lives will never be the same. On the Tuesday that Dan went back to work, he turned in his resignation letter. That was a pretty big deal. He signed up for a course called Body Builders which is designed to teach you the Biblical way to approach support-raising. I'm attending the course with him. It's in Jacksonville, FL. He has been assigned two mentors through e3...one will mentor him with fundraising, another with becoming a Church Planter. We are both very excited about the process he is embarking on.

And now, moving on to Burundi. Burundi is a small country in Africa directly south of Rwanda. This is a country that is very open to having e3 partners come in and evangelize the entire country. The president is a fully devoted follower of Christ. So, there is a possibility that Dan would become involved in church planting there. I am also praying about becoming involved in e3 partners as a Church Planting Coordinator. This is something that I am actually almost wrestling with. I know that I love being involved in ministry. Up to this point, it's been in music/worship in local churches. I'm wondering what in the world God is up to. Being a missionary wouldn't be so far removed from working in a church. We'd actually work with churches and mobilize groups of people from churches to go on trips. I'm watching and waiting to see God start to orchestrate the details and provide us little glimpses of what the future might hold. Maybe I need to have more blind faith than that. Maybe as I move forward, the road will be invisible. Am I ready for that kind of faith?