PRAISES:

*Jesus’s presence with us at every moment and His love that compels us to live transformed lives (whether here, in Asia, or wherever you are!)

*An enjoyable and fruitful trip to NY. I’m so blessed by all the Lord’s children – our family is the best! Special thanks to those who demonstrated their gift of hospitality toward me for 3 weeks as well as all of the other artists who donated work for the art auction. Those who went home with a new piece – enjoy!!!

*Support-raising progress ~ I’m over 70% fully funded to go back to Asia in August!

PRAYER REQUESTS:

*Each day that the Bride will prepare herself for the return of the Bridegroom King. That His love would guide us in victory over all that still opposes Him and us.

*The ~25 Campus Target workers currently in Asia; the handful of us preparing to go back long-term; the dozen full-time stateside staff; and the 18 or so who are gearing up to have their lives and the lives of thousands of Asian college students changed forever when they step off that plane in August!

*Several short-term trips are happening this summer. Love, Protection, Unity, Obedience, and good Fruit.

* In a few hours I am seeing a chiropractor for my back problems (which thankfully have improved greatly); I feel this is the Lord’s lead as I am typically anti-medicine/Dr’s/hospitals etc. May He use the chiropractor to heal my back and use me to heal the Doc’s soul ; ))

May you be filled with the Spirit of the Living God that transcends all power, resources, and wisdom of men today!

As I walk through the ups and downs of my time in the States and particularly support-raising for long-term work in Asia, it’s easy to feel discouraged, to doubt, and to question God’s will, His provision, and His mysterious ways. But by faith I KNOW His claim and call on my life, and I KNOW that He will accomplish ALL that He has spoken over me and every other child of His. It’s easy to get caught up in What is happening, and forget the Why and the Who that is doing it. Pastor Josh at Elim Gospel Chapel said it well last Sunday: “It’s not the where I am going that is most important, but Who is going that matters.” And, as my good brother Steve always says, “We’re not here to be remembered, we’re here to be prepared.”

For the new recruits, those of us who’ve been on the field for awhile, and you, whatever things you find yourself in the middle of right now, may we all, as Heb. 10:23 says, “hold fast to the faith we profess, for He who promised is faithful.” Though we don’t know what lies ahead and may not understand it all, we do know He is with us, orchestrating all things to REcreate us into the spiritual sons and daughters He wants us to be. Let us walk with thankful hearts toward the Glorious One, who died and now lives for us!

***PRAISES***

A great minicamp with an awesome crop of new recruits!

Safe travels for me and all CTers

Divine appointments and opportunities! He is so amazing!

Our great big, loving family that is being added to daily with salvations around the world!!!

I could hardly believe what I was hearing from the college-age girl who approached our display table! From the moment we arrived at this young adult meeting to share about Campus Target, I thought this was a great group of people. But I had no idea how great!  Sometimes it’s hard for young people to imagine themselves going halfway across the world, let alone going away for longer than 3 weeks.

I love challenging them to consider giving a year to missions because of the powerful ministry that can be done in that length of time, but I was amazed that the first girl who talked to me was already so willing! As other people came up to us, it got even better:

“Last summer I smuggled Bibles into Asia, and I’d love to go back there!”

“I can’t believe you’re here tonight. Just two days ago I was telling my friend I should do something like this while I’m young and single.”

“I was thinking about going on a mission trip for 2 weeks this August, but maybe I’ll come to Asia for 9 months instead!”

And they kept coming! By the time the night ended, we had talked with over 20 people, many of whom already love missions. It was so special for me to see such a large group of young people who were passionate about obeying Jesus and telling others about Him! A few people from that group are thinking about going to Asia this August, and we have many more contacts for the future.

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This was just one of several young adult groups that we visited to recruit for Campus Target last month. God has been answering our prayers for more workers to join the 2012-2013 team. In just the past three weeks we jumped from 7 applicants to 21 applicants!

And now our spring training event called MiniCamp is just two days away! Over 15 young adults will descend on little Lima, NY, for three days of awesome training and vision-casting to prepare a new team to go to Asia this August. Will you please pray for a few things?

1) For people who are still making the decision about going to Asia. This next 48 hours is a critical time, when a number of people who initially signed up feel afraid, or encounter opposition as they plan to attend MiniCamp. These are future laborers in Asia, and we don’t want anything to get in their way! Please pray that God will protect them from any opposition that will keep them from attending MiniCamp, and that He would bring peace to their hearts.

2) For MiniCamp itself. We have a lot of important events this weekend: teaching on support raising, encouraging them with faith for ministry in Asia, and even helping people who are still on the fence to decide if they should commit to this year’s Asia team. Please pray that the Lord will speak to people’s hearts, and that they will be filled with faith and boldness.

3) For our roles during MiniCamp. Ben will be teaching some of the training sessions – pray that he would communicate clearly and impart faith to the group. Buttercup will be leading a small team of new recruits for the weekend –pray that she would have specific words of encouragement for each member of her team as they take this big step in deciding to go to Asia.  Thank you for standing with us! We’re excited to see this new team mobilized to reach the Asian campuses this year!

We are now back in the Du and keeping busy. Our sisters were not free this week because of the tomb sweeping festival, but our schedules have still been as full as ever. My roommate, Charity, turned twenty on Tuesday and we celebrated another teammate’s birthday today.

We had the chance to share the story with another eight girls these past two weeks. None of them accepted, but some seemed to be interested in hearing more. Ask Dad to grow the seeds we planted and soften their hearts to the truth. We only have another five weeks here in cland. I will keep you updated as the adventures continue and the Father moves in the lives of our friends. I miss you all and hope you will encounter Dad in a new way this resurrection season!

That’s kind of a picture of my past few weeks in the CT office. I’ve been doing many different tasks to fulfill one specific purpose, and although it’s a process the end result is the greatest reward we as believers will ever receive. Let me explain…

Two weekends ago, I was able to attend the Spring 2012 BASIC Conference. BASIC is a college ministry also based here in Lima, NY. They hosted this event where University Students from all over NY gather together to worship, attend workshops and listen to powerful speakers. I was there with a team of CT members to recruit students who would be interested in doing missions in Asia. We were able to receive 35 “learn more” cards from that weekend and since then a handful of those have applied to go to Asia!

That’s a whole praise in itself… April Mini Camp is happening next weekend! Mini Camp is a time when everyone who has applied to go to Asia in August will come to Lima, meet one another, fellowship, learn more about our mission and vision, and get a jump start on raising support. Well the praise is, we’ve been praying for 20-25 new laborers, and just in the last two weeks we have a total of 21! This is a huge miracle because we started with only 7 who applied throughout the last 6 months. God has perfect timing! We’re still believing for a total of 25 new laborers, so please be praying for 4 more. It’s going to happen!

In other news, our team that is already in Asia has seen so much fruit this year. There have been over 100 salvations in the past 8 months!! Can you believe that? Not only are these people accepting Christ, the locals are sharing with their friends as well, and those friends are getting saved! The Good News is spreading in Asia!

Lastly, my specific focus of being part of the Missionary Care Team has still been developing, but we’ve implemented so many new things that will help CT members in the long run. One challenging area is the many transitions CT members go through, and I definitely know this from experience. For example, they can experience hardships in coming back to the states, starting a new role, or relationship changes. As a result, one project I helped create is a transition packet. This packet is made up of documents that address re-entry for a missionary as well as ongoing care if they move on from CT. Although it’s behind-the-scenes  work, it’s going to make a huge difference in our members who are out there on the frontlines.

Even though I’ve put my hands to many different tasks, God keeps reminding me it’s for the reward of His Kingdom. As I continue to labor, I pray for compassion each day for the missionaries I’m caring for, as well as the people they are caring for — the locals in Asia. As a result, I’ve been so enamored by Jesus and how He ministers to the lost in order for them to know God.

Will you pray with me? Pray for the same compassion and burden Jesus has, and may that compel us to love and share His good news.

Starting on Tuesday and going through Saturday, we’ve been able to share the gospel with 13 people this week.  Some of our friends are very open, but not ready, like our friend Xin whom we shared with Tuesday morning, and some are ready, like our friend Ann.

We went to the vegetarian restaurant near us for lunch with Xin, and I felt like I should share the good news with her, even though Chloe already has before.  So during that time of sharing Xin was listening and she was able to explain it back to me.  But when it came time to choose about whether she believed in this or not, she said she needed more time, and maybe needed to experience something about Dad first, and then she would believe it.  So she was open, but not ready.

Then that same night we went to a Korean restaurant on that same street to meet with my friend Ann that we’ve shared with at a Girl’s Night awhile ago.  I felt like I’d be re-sharing the story with her, so during the time I brought up J and began to share again the good news about J.  She was listening, understood, and explained it back to us so well.  And then at the end we asked if she wanted to follow, and she said yes!  It was so awesome and we were able to pray with her and teach her how to share with her friends, and in this past week she said she’s already shared with 1 of her friends.  So awesome!

So what was the point of sharing that?  That there are friends who are ready.  We have shared at a Girl’s Night with 30+ people and of them, only 1 has said yes.  Or even this Saturday afternoon we shared with 9 girls altogether, and none of whom were ready or interested in following Him right then.  They may understand completely and be able to explain it back to us, but there’s a difference in someone who’s interested in knowing facts about J, and who’s ready for a relationship with Him.

I’ve found this week that while many friends like Jesus, they understand what the cost of following Him is, and they aren’t ready to surrender their lives to follow Him. Are you ready to follow Jesus?

To begin our relationship with Jesus, we must first admit our fallen state.  We have all done terrible things that separate us from God (Rom 3 part 23) and the punishment for them is death (Rom 6 part 23).  I’ve realized this is the hardest place to start, because most people don’t like admitting they’re bad people.  It’s hard to say that we deserve that punishment, but unless we do, we don’t have a need for a Savior.

A relationship with God says that what we deserve is death, punishment, for what every bad thing we’ve ever done, are doing, or will do, deserves. If I drive a car and run someone over, would it be fair for a judge to say “Oh Hope, that’s fine that you ran over someone… just try better next time, alright?”.  And then if that happens, I can go run over someone again.

What’s fair is when the judge says—you know the law, Hope.  You know the law says you deserve to pay a fine… let’s say $500,000, or you go to jail.  That’s fair, because I deserve that.  And it is the same with Dad.  He already told us what our bad things deserve, so we as humans, people that do bad things all the time, deserve that.

When we realize this, that we’re hopeless, maybe we’ll try and do things to get back into a relationship with Him.  Maybe we’ll try to go to church, or read the Book more times, or give to charity or something.  But those good things we do don’t put us any closer to Papa.  It’s like we have a wall between us, with the wall representing our bad things, and we can’t see or feel or hear God.  So what can we do?  What can bring us back into a relationship with God?  Only Jesus.

He was sent by His Father to live a perfect life among sinful people.  Although trials and tempt@tions came His way, He stayed true and perfect.  And when those same sinful people saw Him as a threat to their own positions, because He was just doing too many good things (John 12:45-57), they decided to get rid of Him.  And J silently went before His accusers, knowing that He alone, the perfect sinless God and Man, could pay our punishment for us.  There was no one before Him or after Him who could, so He went forward and was punished for us, like He was paying my $500,000 fine.

He was whipped, beat, and they put a sharp crown of thorns on His head to pierce it, and then nailed sharp giant nails into His ankles and wrists, and put Him on the giant wooden cr0ss.  And then this Easter we’ll celebrate that gl0rious day when He was raised and came back to life.  All this, for people.  For people, since the fall of man in Eden, had a separate relationship with God.  It was broken, and nothing could fix it.  So Jesus decided to pay for our punishment, and provide the way to get back to Papa.

Do you understand what Jesus did for you?  How He was punished for your sin?

The last part of this, in starting the relationship, is making a decision to follow Jesus.  Once we’ve realized that we’re so bad, we can’t get to God by ourselves, and that Jesus paid the way for us, we can say we want to follow Him.  Following requires our giving up of control.  Like if I was driving the car of my life and I say “I want to go to school!”, and I drive myself there, or “I want to go to the grocery store!”, so I take myself there.  But when we follow Jesus, we move over from the driver’s seat into the passenger’s seat and let Papa drive us.  His plans and paths for us are best, and better than anything we can think of.  We can ask Him to go certain places, but we let Him have control, for He is our Way now!

So are you ready to enter into a relationship with Papa?  Are you ready to follow, and surrender to His leading?  Then let’s pray together.

“Papa… I’ve done so many terrible things.  I deserve punishment.  But God, I believe You sent Your Son Jesus to this earth, and that He died and was risen again for me, to have life.  I want to follow You, to surrender to You, and follow You all of my days.  I love you.  Amen.”

Jesus  I hope we have many new brothers and sisters out there, and that many of you decide to follow Jesus if you haven’t already.  If you have, do you know friends that need to hear this message?

As Jesus was sent into this world, Jesus sends out His followers in the end of Matthew saying “Go!”, for us to go out and to share with our friends and families, to make more followers of Him.  And He says ‘of all nations’, which means everyone!  So we can’t pick and choose which friends we share with, ‘cause everyone needs to have this opportunity to follow Jesus!  And Jesus says ‘teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you”, which means that you become a teacher to your new ‘students’, to train them to become ‘teachers’ for their new ‘students, so each generation is being taught by the previous generation.

So if you’re ready to say yes to Jesus, I hope you pray and join His welcoming family, and tell me about it, I’d love to know!  If you’re already committed or freshly re-committed, let’s answer Jesus’s call for our life, to be ‘fishers of men’, and making discisples!

And , before I share prayer request for this week, I’d like to share this verse with you all.  “as you help us with your prayer.  Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many” (2 Cor 1:11).  So firstly, thank you so much for your continued lifting up of our times here.  We have seen so much fruit and are so thankful for all of your lift-ups for us to Papa.

As for what you can pray for this week:

1.  More G2 and G1 salvations!  Our sister Sarah shared with her old friend from high school this week who said yes!  PTL!  And we need more friends just like her to save the generations!
2.  For Dad to continue to rise up the leaders of our friends, to grow in faith in Papa every day, and to be strengthened to lead boldly among their brethren.
3. For safe travels!  The whole gang is headed on a 3-day Visa run to HK and staying with our friends in GZ, so pray for strength and Papa’s protection over that whole time!

Since my last letter, we had the chance to dunk another sister.  Ariel accepted Dad a few weeks ago. I am really excited to see how much she grows in Dad before we have to head home.

Last week Charity and I went to visit our sisters Julie and Crystal at their campus, *Du University of Technology. After an hour bus ride there, they showed us around their campus and took us to dinner. I have really come to love these girls. We are beginning the transition into making them group leaders of all our other sisters after we return home. Dad will use them to carry on the mission and the movement long after we leave. Their knowlegde and passion encourages me everytime we see them.  Lift them up to Dad, that He will deepen their relationship and strengthen their faith.

Charity and I have shared the story with over twenty more girls these last two weeks. Although we are not bringing in the harvest, we continue to do our job believing that Dad will water the seeds.

I know that Dad is working deeply in my life, but that comes with a price. The last few weeks have been some of the most difficult I have experienced since being over here. I have struggled through depression, anxiety, and loneliness like never before. I lost all joy in what I am doing here. I was annoyed with teammates, angry, and frustated, and I did not really know why I was feeling that way, which made me more angry and frustrated.  I was on the verge of burning out completely. But I serve a faithful Father, who was holding me the whole time. After talking through some things with one of my leaders, we were able to pinpoint where some of the anxiety and depression was coming from. Dad has given me new patience for my teammates and an apprectiation for them as Dad uses them to make me look more like him. He has been teaching about where I need to keep my focus. I am looking forward to coming home, which makes it hard to be here still. But I need to keep my eyes on him as I run the homestretch. Looking here or there will not satisfy me. My hope needs to be in him alone. As one of my favorite songs goes:
“Turn your eyes upon J, look full in his
wonderful face, and the things of earth
grow strangely dim, in the light of his
glory and grace “
I am counting down the days til I come home, but I know my work here is not done yet. He will give me the strength and the grace to finish strong.  Please conintue to think of me and lift me up. Ask Dad to give me stregth, grace, patience, and encouragement through His Spirit.

This week, we were astounded to hear from our relatives downstate (near Green Bay, WI) that they were awakened several nights in a row with loud explosion-like booming and shaking houses. The cause remained a mystery for days, and on the news you could sense people’s fright and confusion over the unknown. It reminded me that, as 1 Corinthians 13 says, we now see only in part, and that God is the one who reveals things to us in His timing and for His glory. Many times, we want to know things when we think we need to know them, but this only displays our lack of trust and our difficulty in living by faith, not by sight, which the Lord also urges us to do. If we knew everything all the time, life would require no faith, we would have no real free will, and, well, it just wouldn’t be any fun! 1 John also says that it’s by faith that we “overcome the world,” whether that be earthquakes or other disasters, personal trials, even death…

As I prepare to go back to China long-term, there are so many things I don’t know, so many things I would like answers to. But I truly praise my Heavenly Father that this causes me to seek Him all the more. I encourage you today to take the unknowns, the things that are testing your faith, and join me in laying them at His feet. Rejoice with me that though we don’t yet understand all things, God (who cannot lie) has given us the guarantee of so many amazing promises, sealed in His own blood. These promises are true, and give us freedom to walk as we should. May He increase our faith!

***Please pray for the following***

1) Love and unity to reign in the One world church. That God would continue to pour out His Spirit on all flesh.

2) Im embarking on about 2 months of sharing opportunities and support-raising which will take me first to Minneapolis and Eau Claire, WI this week, and out to NY in April. Please ask that I would be able to meet with everyone Im supposed to, that the Lord would move on individual hearts to be a part of the work in China, and for travel mercies (especially since I have had pretty bad back pain for about 3 weeks now).

3) That all of us would recapture the joy of our salvations (Luke 10:20), and live as though Christ will return in our lifetimes!

Thankfully,
Clive

Besides that, we’ve had a really great week this week!  God has been moving powerfully in and among us!  We’ve had 2 salvations through us three this week!  The two girls are called Cao Xin and Li Si.  Although I was not present for the first one, I started the day lifting up all our friends and people in the city asking for 2-5 salvations that day, and even though I was napping while the other 2 were out, waking up with a text of a new sister was certainly worth it.  J Then when we all went to the medical campus, making friends individually, I made some who knew little English so I had to communicate mainly in their language.  But while I was doing this, Chloe was making another friend who was ready!  So PTL for His working in our friends’ hearts!

In addition, this week was our first group d-ship meeting!  It went so well!  Although only 2 of our 4 friends who said they could come were able to make it, we were really able to enter in to God’s presence together as a family, and they really got a understood the lesson Time with J and how much He wants to spend time with us even more than we do with Him!  All in all, a great Holy-Spirit led time of fellowshipping, worshipping, and learning about God together as a family.  Wonderful stuff!

And then, to top it all off, we had a great Girl’s Night tonight!  As we were praying we each felt our parts.  Mine was games so I prepared us to play the ever-popular game ‘ninja’ (otherwise known as ‘kung fu’) and another game, while Lucia and the rest of us felt strongly she should share the gospel tonight with our friends.  And it was the best presentation I have ever heard her say!  The HS was all over her and she was talking more slowly, clearly, and explaining everything better than she ever has!  It was so awesome and such a smooth transition from game time to sharing.  And while we got to talk to our friends we found out the two girls I met at the medical campus were actually already Christians, and it was so encouraging to hear their stories about how they met God.

The one girl, Yan Nan, her grandma was going to have surgery on her eyes because she couldn’t see and she was very scared for her grandma.  Then during this time one of her friends told her about Jesus and she believed in Him and she started talking to God and found strength from God that she didn’t have before.

Then she wanted to tell her grandma too so her grandma could have strength during the surgery.  The other girl, You Yi, came to know J the same year that Yan Nan did, and she was having hard times too.  Her best friend was no longer hanging out with her as much and she really wanted a best friend.  Then another friend shared Jesus with her, and now she has many earthly best friends, and a best friend she can *always* talk to!  It was so super encouraging to hear how both of them already knew God.

The rest of the girls at our party did not accept that night, but of the 6 who didn’t know God, at least 3 were pretty interested, and one girl, Nancy was asked Lucia all sorts of questions and was really searching out the truth in what she was saying.  And even Nancy said that she thought Lucia was a quiet and shy person, but when Lucia started sharing, she said, her face lit up and she could tell Lucia really see the joy and love of God in her.  So praise the Lord of evidence of the Holy Spirit among us tonight!

It was definitely an amazing week and we’re so *so* thankful for Dad moving this week.  Your inheritance is in this too for Dad working, so count yourself also as blessed as we are!

And something we’d really appreciate is more lift-ups for this next week:

1.  Firstly, in physical health.  For all of us to be well enough to be out and doing Dad’s work and not worrying about that stuff.

1.  Secondly, please be praying as we hope to continue to have this discipleship group we had this week meet every week.  In addition we hope to make a second group with some more sisters.  We wanna see this happen, so let’s do it!

1. And thirdly, salvations!  We want some 2^nd gen up in this place (as well as more 1^st gen), so be lifting up our sisters that Dad will give them grace to share as they go out and share with their friends!  Light the fire in their hearts for the passion to share your Word, Papa!

Thank you all *so* so much for all your lift-ups and how much you encourage me as you write me little emails to let me know you’re thinking of me and the group and lifting us up.  Sooo much appreciate it.