August 2006

A Glimpse of Agapé Ministry And Finishing Details

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We are thankful for:

~ The Lord’s provision of housing in Kandern! ~ The Lord’s continued financial provision. While we still have monthly support to raise, the Lord has encouraged and overwhelmed us with His love as we wait on the remaining funding. ~Lot’s of energy and good health! ~For our time at EASC...what a wonderful opportunity to meet so many fellow staff!! ~ For safe and smooth travel from England

We are praying for:

~ Guidance in selecting a moving company, the only two quotes we have received are over 3 times as much as estimated...pray for wisdom and direction for finding the right company. ~ Pray for our spirits to continue to be lifted in this last stretch...we want to stay rightly focused. ~ Thad needs to be at an Operations meeting in Budapest in mid-September, so that he can be part of planning for upcoming projects that require his involvement and technical experience...pray for financial details to work out, so that he only has to make one trans-Atlantic flight this fall!

Nottingham, England...

...in our lives, we have only visited Nottingham in our imaginations: stories of valiant criminals, robbing from the rich to give to the poor; merry men doing what merry men do. Unfortunately, we did not see Robin Hood, the sheriff of Nottingham or even Sherwood Forest, which does exist, but we did get a glimpse of the next chapter in the Agapé Europe ministry.

We looked forward to EASC as it approached for many reasons. Two of those reasons were that we would have the opportunity to see and meet people with whom we will work for the next few years and we were hoping and praying our trip to England would be followed immediately by our move to Kandern. We are not yet in Kandern, however, the trip was a tremendous amount of fun, an enlightening time to see other workers in Western Europe (mostly European) and a vision casting event from the new leadership of Agapé Europe.

One bit of fun I will pass along is that while the conference was arranged by the Swiss team, they seemed to have the Spanish and other Mediterranean staff in mind when they arranged the schedule. After an 8 AM breakfast, we would go all day, finishing our final session at 10 PM, followed by several hours of time to chat, do business or just have coffee. There was a lunch time with siesta but if you are not used to that, it is not helpful!! With jet-lag (Jana nearly fell out of her seat into the aisle during one of the prayer times because she had drifted off to sleep!!), the schedule was a killer but we were able to meet many people and spend much time with those from Kandern.

In the coming months, we will try to talk about the new vision for Agapé Europe but we can shortly say it is exciting. For many years, Agapé has been laying the foundation of ministry in Western Europe and now seems poised to do some amazing things. In the past 40 years, the Agapé staff has grown from having only 1 European staff member to now having nearly 1200 European staff who have a desire to tell their nation about Christ’s love for them.

We can summarize many goals with our theme for Agapé ’s next phase of ministry :“The Time Has Come.” Our faith has been challenged to think big, pray big, and hope for great things to happen. As Deb Heefner, Agapé 's Campus Director, said "Big things are happening in Europe, God is up to something."

In Christ,
Thad and Jana