Adventure of a Different Kind

A new adventure begins. Ministry partner development. It's when a person like me starts the journey into full time ministry. I'm finding that God's desire is to have as many people engaged in the ministry of reconciliation. Some will go, some will support those who go, all will pray that His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Pictured above are laborers preparing to go out in the field. BodyBuilders class in Los Angeles, CA.

Worshipping in Sudan

Welcome to Jalimo, Southern Sudan

Jalimo was the village that Kelly, Joanne, Ruby and I were assigned to. The church there, Grace Baptist Church, was established about a month prior to our visit. Our mission on this trip is to help strengthen that church by doing follow-up lessons and do more evangelism. We were welcomed on the first day of ministry with a few songs by their choir. Our medical team visited the village on the fourth day of ministry. The people were blessed with eye glasses, medical attention by two doctors on our team, and with prayer and bible study by our Jalimo team. We were partnered with translators, some of whom were pastors themselves, and we also had help from pastors from Uganda and other nearby churches.

Fruit of our labor in Sudan

God is doing great things in southern Sudan. Some people are very hungry for the Word of God and want to live for Him. Some are being trained for the ministry to reach villages far away from their homes. God is blessing their steps of faith and increasing the number of churches being planted and the number of believers being grounded in their faith, and increasing the number of leaders being developed. What a blessing to work side by side with converts from two years ago and evangelize their neighboring villages as they finish their bible training to become pastors and missionaries. That was my privilege this year, and I am truly humbled and in great awe of God's mighty power.

Mission Trip to Sudan Feb 19 - 27, 2009

I am inserting a prayer letter of a team member below with his permission. We worked in the same village in 2007. What in the world is God doing in this part of the world? He is still building His kingdom...He is transforming lives of those who pray, who give, who go, and He is especially transforming the lives of those who have received Jesus as their savior and invite Him to be their Lord.

Here is Jim’s letter:

Thanks very much for praying for our trip with e3 Partners to minister in South Sudan! This was Suzy's second trip and my third trip in the past two years. It has been a huge blessing to see the growth in the churches and the people we saw come to Christ during our visits! Praise God!

Three of the men who accepted Christ the first year I was there entered Bible school and will graduate in a few months!

Moi Moses (pictured in the red shirt above) is leading the church we planted in 2008 in Kiri and it has grown to over 75 people on a regular basis! The church we helped plant in Pamoju in 2007 is also strongand Pastor Asiki is leading that. He was married to Patricia about 6 months ago and she is expecting their first child. God answered your prayers and I witnessed His hand in so many areas. You have over 360 new brothers and sisters in Christ in the South Sudan today. Four new churches were planted and should begin with an excellent base of new believers. 15 people in the village of Sunju were so excited aboutaccepting Christ they were baptized! It was not easy to find a pool of water either!

The nationals that we worked with completed follow up forms on each person so that they can get them into a discipleship program. Part of the forms for each person in the village I was assigned to be a leader in - Kiggwo - were given to me to bring home. If you would like me to mail you a few so you can pray for them specifically, please let me know. Please reply and give me your mailing address and I'll send them to you. Pray that their profession of faith was real, that they join the church, are discipled and grow.

Suzy and I were assigned the village/area called Kiggwo. It is only ten miles from the compound where we stayed but took a good two hours (one way - each day) to get there in a four wheel drive Land Cruiser - that barely made it!

We were paired up with Eric and Jen Himler, two young Christians from Huntington Beach, CA. One of the most exciting things we saw was the way they got into sharing the Gospel, teaching and ministering to these wonderful people. It was really a "God moment" to see each of them share the Gospel for the first time and then to see the miracle God did in changing the heart of the person they shared with as they accepted Christ as their Savior!

I have attached two pictures and will send more in two more emails. The first is Suzy with Moses Taban. (Pictured: Jim, Moses and Suzi) Moses has been our interpreter for all three years. He is a wonderful man of God and is getting married on March 14. He is planting a church about 8 hours north of where we were staying in an area called Mangala. It is a VERY tough area. Please pray for him.

The next is me holding a large Evangicube as Stephen Huber shares the Gospel with several people.

Stephen went with us in 2008 and now lives there (2 year commitment) and is drilling water wells. It costs about $3500 to drill a well and is the second greatest gift these people can get - the first being the Gospel! The people in Kiggwo must walk (it is the ladies) several miles each morning for 5 gallons of water which they carry back.

Numbers mean very little as God knows our hearts and he is the only one who knows the true results. The results of the campaign we are aware of:

Number of people the Gospel was presented to = 1149

Number of people that made professions of faith = 365

Number of people that received discipleship/follow up = 224
Cell group meeting attendance = 200

Number of nationals that worked with us = 40

Medical patients = 734

Eye glasses patients who received eyeglasses = 35 in Kiggwo (Suzy and Jen did these)

New churches started = 4
Churches strengthened = 1

I know many of you have asked me specific questions and hopefully these will answer some things all of you would like to know.

1) e3Partners is going back in February 2010 and I would encourage you to join us. It will be a trip you will never forget!

2) The weather in February was beautiful - cool mornings, warm days and NO mosquitoes!

3) We slept at a compound in the Sudan this year. It was comfortable and the food was good.

4) The roads are rough. Many of these people had just moved back to their homes in the past 1-3 years. The Muslims chased them out to Uganda in the war that lasted ten years.

5) The people are very nice and gracious. They are wonderful.

e3 took care of everything from training the nationals before we arrived, to training the team and putting all the logistical details together. As a result, we were able to hit the ground running to maximize our time.The really cool thing is the team was used as a tool in the hands of national brothers and sisters to start a church planting movement. Our team was like kerosene on the nationals' fire to reach Sudan for Christ.It was like walking through the Book of Acts......Thank you again for praying. It was so apparent to me that I was covered in prayer. I can't even put that into words - but I knew you were praying!

Please let me know if you would like me to mail you some of the people's names so you can pray specifically for them! That would be a blessing to them. Make sure to give me your mailing address! Also, if you would like to see some more pictures, let me know.

In Christ,

Jim West

Executive Director/Managing Partner

The Pocket Testament League/The Barnabas Group

Ministry in Guayaquil Montage

Guayaquil, Ecuador

Team Ecuador 2008: I was part of a team of 54 North Americans mobilized by e3 Partners Ministries to Guayaquil, Ecuador, to plant 13 new churches last week. The 54 team members were paired with translators in teams of four to do evangelism and follow-up bible studies. The North Americans were from various states: Pennsylvania, Washington, California, Wisconsin and Florida.

Our 50 translators were from different parts of Ecuador, many of them were young, much like our group from the States. Some distinctive qualities about this team include a mobile martial arts demo team that also presented messages and a clear presentation of the gospel, and as previously mentioned the team consisted of many young people, the youngest being an 8 year old girl, who was also part of the martial arts team.

Our team brought a second suitcase containing humanitarian aid we left behind to the various churches. These items included clothes, medical and first aid supplies, food, personal and school supplies. We distributed 400 new testaments, 200 complete bibles, and 375 tracts.

The majority of the team arrived in Ecuador on Friday night, but I arrived at 1:30 a.m. on Sunday morning. Most teams started with a prayer walk at their site of ministry on Saturday. We had team meetings every morning at 7:30 a.m. which included worship, announcements, instructions and prayer. I met my team members and translators on Sunday, along with the members and pastor of our mother church. We did door to door evangelism at the mother church after lunch.

Introductions: On Monday, I tried catching up to get to know my team and our translators, along with the members of the mother church.

My team of four includes Breanna, 15 years of age from Lancaster, PA; Amie and Gary from Olympia, WA, and me. We were paired with translators. This group just got really close in a few days. God's love was pretty intense, which seemed to just gush out of us.

Breanna’s translator, Yasnaia is a 14 old from Quito, and she has
translated for six of these short term missions trips. Both of these young ladies were impressive. There was quite the transformation in Breanna from the beginning to the end of the trip. I’m so pleased to have Breanna on the team. She was polite and kept to the task of evangelism and discipleship to the last hour. I'm so proud of her for being so brave. Besides Christ,Yasnaia is REALLY passionate about Liga, her soccer team. (Of course, I don't know if I'm spelling her team name correctly, I don't follow soccer).

Amie’s translator is 18-year-old Edison, who has been a translator for the past three years and 18 trips of experience. He said each was a blessing. Amie went to Multnomah Bible College just like me! Our world suddenly got smaller as we found that out about each other.

Gary's translator is Rodrigo from Riobamba. This is Rodrigo's second time translating. His sensitivity and loving ways makes him stand out. Gary was our group leader. This is his third trip to Ecuador with his brother, a pastor from Wisconsin training to be a church planter with e3. Gary and I are both Army veterans.

Then there's my partner in the gospel, Noris. Noris is an English teacher who teaches different grade levels. She is SOOO relational and can be quite the ham, given the opportunity, such as in the classroom. She did not hesitate to autograph shirts when asked.

There’s always a first time: This was the first time I wasn’t in a village. Our church plant was in town and the building is attached to a business that sells car parts. This was the first time I shared the gospel in restaurants and stores.

This was the first time I went to a classroom of kids to share the gospel. Noris, my translator, requested a meeting with the principal, and she led us to a classroom of 40 kids. I don’t normally like to share in such a setting because a group this size can go either way – I could get a heckler or the presentation could go smoothly. It went very smoothly. The atmosphere in the room was great, and the Spirit must have gone before us, because they received the good news with pure joy. All of them accepted Christ. I started out with an introduction and then asked them if their parents or teachers ever had to teach them how to be bad. Good thing they said a long drawn out, “No.” I agreed with them and said they have to be taught how to be good and continued on with how sin came into the world through one man, and how sin was taken away through Jesus. I was mobbed afterwards and was asked for my autograph, even to sign their shirts. When they went outside, they were so filled with joy, they threw their backpacks in the air with delight.

This was the first time I shared the gospel with someone so ready to receive Christ that she started to share her faith the next day and taught follow up lessons at the end of the week with the team. She had gone to a Christian high school and knew the bible, but had not committed her life to the Lord. She received the gospel with joy and plans to use her knowledge of English for the glory of God some day. She and her parents are owners of a restaurant named after her –“Maria Jose.” Nicknamed Majito, Maria Jose found her love for the Word of God after studying it together with us, assuring her of salvation through faith in Christ. Her parents were happy for her.

We commissioned the pastor with the responsibility of the rest of the follow-up for the 97 new believers in his area. He commended us and thanked God for the work, saying it would have taken him 7-8 years to do what was accomplished by the team.

The overall work of the Guayaquil team resulted in 942 professions of faith, 356 seekers, and 363 lessons on discipleship. What a mighty God we serve! Many thanks for sending us, praying for us, and supporting us.

Praising His Holy Name,
Amy