President's Update - January 2006

Have a Great New Year in 2006...from our family to yours!

On January 1st, I wrote in my journal:

“Lord, before I plan with anticipation for this New Year, I need to pause and look back. As I do this, my heart is full of gratitude. First to you Lord for providing this new role with Global Youth Initiative. At this stage of my life, it is the perfect fit for the gifts you have given me. It has been an exciting first year at the helm of GYI and I have been amazed at all that has been accomplished in one year. That is your blessings! Secondly, my heart is grateful for the supporters and friends who have joined the team and have sacrificially helped advance the cause of GYI. What a great team of friends! Each month as I send out our Update, I can sense their prayers and know their support. This makes for lasting impact. Help me Lord to do all I can to maximize the fruit of their gifts.”

This journal entry expresses my thanks and appreciation for what the Lord has done and how YOU have helped advance the cause of GYI. In a four-page year-end summary of the first year of GYI (which I put together for the elders of my church), I was amazed to see all that the Lord has allowed US to accomplish:

• • New mission, vision, values, logo, web site, offices, and databases established
• • Being with over 1000 leaders in face-to-face training on four continents
• • Our alliance of ministries entered 14 new countries this last year with identified staff on the ground (our longterm goal is adding 4 new countries a year, with a desire to be involved in 100 countries by 2020). The countries included such places as Croatia, Ukraine, Romania, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Namibia, Botswana, Swaziland,and countries in North Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East.
• • We have four potential new beachheads being established in the Middle East, Japan, Philippines, and China with new partnering ministries.

This is truly a sign of God’s favor and the fruit of your faithful prayers…THANKS and let’s work to make 2006 an even more fruitful year!

Over this last year I have thought more about the Kingdom of God than I ever have. In studying the 80 plus verses in the New Testament ...I have been amazed to see how often the Lord spoke of “seeing” the Kingdom (Mark 4:30, Mark9:1, Luke 9:27) and understanding the “mysteries” of it. This last year has been “granted to me” to learn more about the“mysteries” of His Kingdom (Luke 8:10) and personally “see” it in so many new ways as I have traveled. What a privilege.. and what a great God we serve! To Him belongs all the glory!

Prayer requests for January:

As I start this New Year I have several prayer requests: (which I’ve laid out according to my schedule)

January 6: Teaching the Healthy Church seminar to 100 leaders at Hope Ev. Free Church in the Minneapolis area

January 8-10: Meeting with several leaders in Orlando at a Missions Conference and Campus Crusade headquarters

January 12-16: Being involved with 10 men from my community group in a missions project in Costa Rica

January 18-25: Working to craft 8-12 modules for video training and web-based training. Please pray aggressively for this project that the Lord would give wisdom to write well and put it together in the best possible way. Several denominations have asked us to develop this web-based video training…so we have made the decision to go ahead with it. The content design will rest on my shoulders and we hope to have it done by the summer. I need much wisdom for this!! (James 1:5)

January 25-27: Finalizing initial site plans for our 2007 GYI Summit in the United States. I need to identify the location, the partnering production company, and then the advisory teams for the programming. We are anticipating 200 leaders from around the globe to be involved in this larger 2007 GYI Summit. I need to have this initial phase established prior to our 2006 meeting in Malaysia in February.

On the Lighter Side

There once was a rich man who was near death. He was very grieved because he had worked so hard for his money and he wanted to be able to take it with him to heaven. So he began to pray that he might be able to take some of his wealth with him. An angel hears his plea and appears to him, "Sorry, but you can't take your wealth with you." The man implores the angel to speak to God to see if He might bend the rules.The man continues to pray that his wealth could follow him. The angel reappears and informs the man that God has decided to allow him to take one suitcase with him. Overjoyed, the man gathers his largest suitcase and fills it with pure gold bars and places it beside his bed. Soon afterward the man dies and shows up at the Gates of Heaven to greet St. Peter. Seeing the suitcase Peter says, "Hold on, you can't bring that in here!"
But the man explains to him that he has permission and asks him to verify his story with the Lord. Sure enough, Peter checks and comes back saying, "You're right. You are allowed one carry-on bag, but I'm supposed to check its contents before letting it through." Peter opens the suitcase to inspect the worldly items that the man found too precious to leave behind and exclaims, "You brought pavement?!!!"

A friend in Florida sent me these after their last year:

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