Our Proclaim team has just returned from three weeks in China where they were overwhelmed with the opportunities and open doors. The amazing thing was the openness of the people -- in the market place, in restaurants, on public transportation, in schools . . . There is freedom to share your faith and people are open to hear these challenging ideas and to interact. Proclaiming can't be done in the public way that has been our main Proclaim model, but just as we have adapted our approach in other less open cultures, we are seeing many innovative ways to have an impact there.
Our whole Tuesday morning Jacksonville staff meeting last week was spent learning about the intriguing ways we can work with believers there, and hearing how things have already been set in motion on this tour -- still using the arts to teach and communicate. God is so endlessly creative! The group went with only a vague idea of what they would be doing once they arrived. But God had put together a team that was ready to connect and build bridges through their gifts and passions.
Rino, our team leader in Proclaim!-Peru, was in demand as students at a music school saw mime in action for the first time and couldn't get enough of the basics he taught them in mime and movement. John and Diana gave voice lessons non-stop. Charles, a Proclaim-Jacksonville board member with an engineering background, connected in a special way with an unbeliever who traveled with the team as a translator and is studying in that same field.
Plans are already developing and tentative dates are forming for various projects that are coming out of the areas of exposure on this trip. A bit ironically, at the very time we were talking about these exciting new possibilities, our fellow citizens were in the process of setting a course for our country that could have a profound impact on how we continue to do ministry. That makes it all the more exciting as we have no basis for hope on a human level of success in expanding our ministries to include something this far reaching. God's provision and opening of doors will be undeniable and miraculous.
This week on Tuesday we are having a golf tournament fund raising event -- our first for this bunch of non-golfers. The response has been weaker than we had hoped, so we are trusting God for what he wants to do through it. We know that even in this last day before the event we could get more golfers or financial sponsors. If not, God is still at work and we rejoice in what He is going to accomplish in His way. If you have not heard about the GO TOURNAMENT here is a link with details. Would you be praying that this will be a God-honoring event.
PROCLAIM GO TOURNAMENT
Kim, Todd and Jim have been regularly frequenting the park at nearby San Marco on Friday evenings to play and share truth with people out enjoying the milder fall weather.
Last weekend Rino was here from Peru so he added interest with his mime act to the music.
They have recently been able to share the stage with a group of fire performers headed up by a professor at the local state college. The guys play for about an hour and then do some background music for the transition into the fire act when it gets darker.
We have started to develop relationships with some of the regulars to the park and with some shop keepers on the square and have had some good conversations.
Earlier in the week a church event - TRUNK OR TREAT - was the setting for some tunes like The Munsters, Star Trek, Alfred Hitchcock Theme, Purple People Eater,Candy, and Candy Man.
Cars lined up in the parking lot and treats and tracts were handed out from the trunk to local trick-or-treaters. It was another opportunity to reach out to people from the surrounding neighborhoods.
