Check out our newest video

It is time for our newest video. It features Together Camping Ministry. Many will recall meeting Andrei Shaitar last fall, and that during his time in Canada, we raised enough money to complete the purchase of the bus needed for the camping ministry. This video introduces the Camping Ministry - its objectives and what it has accomplished over the last several years. Click the title of this blog entry to go directly to the video. Don't forget to check out the other MPI videos if you have not already enjoyed them.

The April newsletter is also posted online. From the MPI homepage, click the link on the right side, "View Newsletters", or simply click right here. In addition to Ron's challenging article, it has the story of a Mercy Ministry recipient and a little about our food ministry. It also has a reminder that time is running out to join Wayde's team to New Life Drug Rehab Centre, St. Petersburg in October.

We love to hear from you. Post a comment to this blog, send an email or call the office.

This week's prayer requests

Continue to pray for the container we shipped to Christian Hope Church in Kiev in February. It should have arrived and cleared customs, but we have not heard any news of it. Pray that its contents are quickly distributed to just the people who need it most.

• It is less than 2 weeks to the Leadership Conference for the Ukraine Missionary Union pastors and workers, to be held in Saky, Crimea. Please pray for all those planning to attend, that plans would all work out and that the conference will be a great blessing.

• Our newest quarterly video has just been released (you can see it from our video page). It features Together Camping Ministry with which Andrei Shaitar works. Camping season is fast approaching. Please pray for the Camp Committee as they prepare for the summer and that we will be able to provide funds to sponsor kids who otherwise could not go to camp this summer.
  

Garbage In, Garbage Out

With all the talk of the environment and the necessity of 'going green,' most of us are aware that we need to change how we live. This weekend features 'Earth Day' when we are all supposed to turn off all the lights for an hour, or something like that. I don't mean to be flippant about it - just ask my daughter how I chase her around the house turning off the lights she constantly leaves on. No question about it: we are consuming way too many precious natural resources and we all need to simply and reduce our consumption. It needs to start with you and me.

But we also need to re-do our whole economic system. Right now, in our warehouse, we have clothes that were made in China, shipped to Canada, and when they did not sell in the proper season, were about to be thrown out if not for some intrepid donors who either purchased them for next to nothing or literally rescued them from the dumpster. Now they await shipping halfway back to China, to some needy family somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Think of the energy costs to produce what in effect were excess goods and then transport them around the world to end up in landfill, there to decompose over the next several decades. Crazy! Unfortunately, organizations like MPI are able to rescue only a fraction of perfectly good items from being thrown out. And we have not even started talking about food, some of which has passed an arbitrary best-before date but which is perfectly good and certainly better than what about a billion people are going to eat tonight.

In a society where people are known as 'consumers,' we are going to have to change. We will have to live with less, so it is better to get used to it voluntarily. But that opens up possibilities to be rich in all kinds of ways we have neglected, in things that really matter, simple things, like relationships with God and people. Taking out the garbage leaves room for other things.

This week's prayer requests

Our most recent container should have arrived in Kiev, so our people are looking for it! Please pray that it would clear customs quickly, not incur any additonal charges and that its contents would be distributed to just the right people.

• The annual Leadership Team is less than 3 weeks away. Pray for the team as it prepares material to share with approximately 120 pastors and leaders from all over Ukraine.

• Thanks for praying for finances this winter. There has been some improvement, but it is difficult to catch up. We are especially grateful to those who have responded with an extra gift. Of course, we appreciate those who pray, so, don't give up!
  

Happy Easter

Easter is here already! Somehow, with snow still on the ground, it does not feel like Passion Week. But then, Good Friday comes before Resurrection morning. Not the way we usually think of it: death before life. But, Jesus did say, he who wishes to find his life must lose it. Nothing was ever the same after Easter. Life has new meaning. The open grave means the possibilities are unlimited for those who know God's power.

From all of us at MPI, we trust you have a blessed Easter. In order to enjoy a long weekend, when so many of our weekends are taken up with ministry, the office will be closed not only on Good Friday but on Easter Monday as well. After that, it is less than 3 weeks until our next overseas trip. I think it is already spring in Ukraine!

The Love of What?

My daughter works part-time at a bank while she attends university. Recently she had a performance review, during which her supervisor asked her what she was studying. She answered, 'Fine Arts,' (it is actually cultural studies from a fine arts perspective - she considers Africa, where she spent many of her formative years to be home), but her supervisor, whose first language is not English, must have heard, 'Finance,' because she immediately began advising Diane to think about getting into the wealth management division, where you can make serious money. Finally, Diane told her she wasn't interested in that sort of thing, and in response to the question of what she was interested in doing, she answered, 'Humanitarian Aid.' "Oh," her supervisor said, "you are not interested in making money."

Interesting conversation, given recent events. It was people in the banking sector, wanting to make lots of money that have recently brought all kinds of ruin. People are losing homes, many of whom could never afford to pay for one anyway, but now credit is being squeezed so that legitimate businesses and individuals can't get what they need. Think how much shareholder value was erased just from one company, Bear Stearns, which was sold over the weekend for just $2 per share. Apparently there is more to come.

The Bible says love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, and that those who love money fall into many foolish traps. Of course, it takes money to live and poverty can be soul destroying. But by now, in the rich West we should have learned that wealth can be soul destroying, too. Quite literally, our wealth is killing us: bored kids who already have everything blowing their minds with drugs; out of control consumption of the earth's resources polluting the environment so that we cannot safely enjoy a summer day; families so busy working and playing with all their toys there is no time to get to know and enjoy one another; life expectancy for the first time projected to go down because of unhealthy lifestyle choices; billions spent on pet food while people in our own communities depend on food banks. I could go on ...

Thankfully, some people get it. The secret of happiness is not in getting, but in giving. Joy comes in serving, not consuming. The life that is remembered is the life that is invested in others. Easter surely serves as a great counterpoint to current events. In losing his life, Jesus conquered death for all. That's our model. I'm pleased with my daughter's values. She can make a bigger impact with her life eradicating poverty than in amassing a fortune. It might be a challenge for her co-workers to understand her, but deep down, many of them wish they could get out of the rat race and do something meaningful. I know, because people say that to me all the time. They just need the courage, or faith, to begin.

This week's prayer requests

Please pray for Marilyn, who is off sick. Her husband had the flu for well over a week, and now it seems she has it.

• We have not received word about our latest container, but it should be in Kiev proceeding through clearance. Please pray that all goes well and that it does not incur extra storage charges.

• Wayde is working on plans for the next container, intended for New Life Drug Rehab Centre near St. Petersburg. We are also working on raising funds to pay for its shipping. One former team member to the Centre has agreed to raise some funds, and we are asking others to do the same. Please pray that we will have the necessary funds and the container can be shipped some time around mid-year.
  

Fear Not!

Have you noticed how much of our culture is now built around fear? Things we formerly took no notice of are now too dangerous to touch! Promos for the upcoming nightly news shows almost always have some tidbit designed to create fear to entice you to watch. One of the most hilarious ones I saw recently went something like this, "Why your big screen TV is already obsolete!" I guess nothing too drastic happened in the world that day if the only thing they could come up with is that somebody else has a better gadget than you, if you have it at all (I don't).

To be sure, some things we did in the past were not all that safe. My father's first car had two doors, a front seat that flopped forward, and no seat belts. It was great fun to stand up and wait for the application of the brakes to throw you over the seat back. I've ridden in the back of pick-up trucks, walked a mile and a half to grade one by myself, and stood on the side of the road watching the approaching school bus slide toward me on a pure sheet of ice. Not good. Some things were not safe and I guess we were just too dumb to know it!

But wow, has the pendulum ever swung. Whole industries have sprung up to both create fear and then relieve us of it. If you listened to it all, you really would go crazy. Of course, the world is a dangerous place and eventually something really will kill you. But we have to live and sometimes the measures we take to reduce risk actually increase vulnerability. Our youngest daughter was born in Africa, and it was only natural to wonder how her health might be effected growing up in the developing world. Turns out, she is remarkably healthy, with no discernible allergies. Research shows that living in too clean a world prevents the body's immune system from developing as it should. Caution is killing us!

So, bring on life, and all its risks and rewards. I don't mean to do stupid or unnecessarily risky things. But, let's not live in fear. The Bible says, love casts out fear. If we believe God loves us, and we trust him, we can get on with life without fear. Even if that means traveling to 'dangerous' places, eating less than pristine food and living in 'dirty' conditions. What is life for, anyway? To live in a safe little bubble with no risk or reward?

I think it was Tony Campolo who said, "Missions is dangerous, but everything else is boring." Right on! But, it is OK to fear snakes.

This week's prayer requests

As noted in the past couple of weeks, finances this winter have been unusally low. Other charities and churches are also reporting this. This week we are seeing some improvement and we are working to address the issue. Please pray that God supplies.

• Wayde and Marilyn had some great conversations with some people at last week's MissionFest Toronto. In spite of the weather, there were some very keen folk there to learn about missions. Pray that God would use their words to change lives - and the world!

• Marilyn's husband, Shaun, has been suffering with flu for more than a week. Ron has also had it for several days. Please pray for their recovery.

Let me count the ways

This weekend is MissionFest Toronto. From Thursday evening to Saturday night, at the Toronto Congress Centre on Dixon Rd., MissionFest is a showcase of the variety of ministries that all aim to serve the Church and reach the world with the Gospel. About 350 exhibitors will be there. Think of it as a Gospel trade show. The unvaried reaction of first-timers is that they are overwhelmed. Most people have no idea that there are so many different missions and ministries. From every corner of the world to every approach imaginable, somebody, somewhere has a passion to do something for God that you have probably never even thought about.

There are MissionFests across the country. MPI tries to attend two each year. This year we were in Winnipeg (where the welcome is warmer than the weather) and will be in Toronto. We go to connect with existing supporters, and hopefully find some new ones. Out of all the conversations, usually one or two stand out as being particularly penetrating. You just never know which conversation you strike up during the long days on your feet, that God will use to change the direction of a life. For example, in Winnipeg, Wayde had a good chat with a young couple. The next day, they returned, just before the exhibits closed. The young man said he could not stop thinking about what Wayde had said. They chatted further, and we left them in God's hands.

We also go looking for a couple of other things. One, we look for other good ideas, some that we might use and some that are just inspiring. In Winnipeg we saw the world's first wind up digitial MP3 player, designed to play a Bible reading or Gospel story for oral learners in rural areas without electricity. It was pretty cool. Sometimes we have found ideas that we have been able to adapt and use ourselves. And, we like to think that we have one or two ideas of our own that others go home to use.

Networking is another aspect of MissionFest. Some missions work in the same part of the world and perhaps we can find ways to help each other (MPI's warehouse of new humanitarian aid is one of our tools for that). Other missions produce resources that we can use to bless our overseas partners. It is amazing what is out there!

You meet the neatest people in missions. They have passion, they have traveled, they have seen and done things most people never dream. We get inspired ourselves by hanging around with these folks. You will, too. Check out www.missionfest.org and if you are within driving distance of the GTA, drop in at the MPI booth.

This week's prayer requests

For some reason, perhaps uncertainty regarding the strength of the economy, many charities are experiencing a decline in income this winter. Please pray that God's people realize their security is in God, and that the causes they care for need steady income.

• Lydia, the accountant at Christian Hope Church in Kiev, has pneumonia. Lydia is one of the three key leaders of all the church's ministries and handles a lot of MPI business as well. Please pray for her recovery.

• The container we shipped to Kiev just a month ago is due to arrive at its destination any time now. Please pray for its quick clearance so that it does not incur extra storage charges and so that its contents can quickly get into the hands of people who need it.