3. Persecution and Peace

This week was a bit different from the rest! Our morning outreach times were the same but our afternoons were completely different. Let me tell you about the mornings first.

Persecution

During my morning time at the garden I got to visit several families, tell Bible stories, and lead a Bible study. One morning was a little more sobering than the others though. A few weeks ago I had made a connection with a Burmese refugee family that comes from the Rohingya people group. We've been able to visit this family several times and this week the father, Nor, opened up to us a lot about what his family has faced. If you type "Rohingya" into Google you will find an array of news and political articles about the extreme persecution these people are facing. The Rohingya are a primarily Muslim people group living in the Buddhist nation of Burma. Because of this religious difference, the Burmese government refuses to grant the Rohingya citizenship or basic human rights. Murder and other acts of violence against them have forced many to flee to other nations for safety, this was the case for my friend Nor and his family. They were forced to leave their home and live in a Malaysian refugee camp for ten years while seeking resettlement. Many of their family members who could not leave Burma have been forced to change their names to hide their identity.

During our visit Nor showed us a video of the U.S. Congress passing legislation to pressure the Burmese government to grant citizenship and rights to the Rohingya and to stop the crimes against humanity. An impacting statement made during the video was this; "The things we are witnessing being done to the Rohingya people right now are the same signs that we saw before the Rwandan and Cambodian genocides. If something isn't done soon, we will have a similar situation on our hands." It was an eye opening day. Pray that the persecution against the Rohingya people with stop and that laborers may reach them with the Gospel. Pray for Nor and his family that they may have their eyes opened to Jesus as well.

Peace

Our afternoon time this week has been focused on one apartment complex called Woodside Village. A local church has a heart to reach the families in this area but needed more man power to find the best contacts and People of Peace in the area. The People of Peace concept is based off of Luke 10. We are seeking believers or potential believers who are welcoming to us and the Gospel and with a network of friends and family that they would be able and willing to reach. After much prayer, we broke up into teams and began meeting people in the community and praying for them. Our teams had doors slammed in our faces, plates of food put in our hands, and a remarkable amount of moments where Jesus showed up. Our goal was to find 5 people or families of Peace that the church could follow up with to begin sharing the Gospel with the hopes of planting house churches. We surpassed that number in four days and are confident that the Lord is starting something great in Woodside Village and revealing Himself to the people there in extraordinary ways. Please pray for the continued ministry in Woodside Village.

Emad

Because of our special afternoon events this week. ESL classes could not meet. A teammate of mine, Chris, and I were able to visit our ESL student Emad twice though and both visits were full of laughter and friendship. Emad recently had a surgery and has not been able to work because of it. It was his second surgery to fix the same problem, the first surgery was unsuccessful. We had been praying every day with Emad that when he has his check up the doctor will give him good news and that he may be able to work soon. Chris and I visited him Thursday after his check up and the doctor said all is well! He should not have to have another surgery and he is able to work again starting next week! Praise God for those answered prayers! We got to celebrate with Emad and share in his joy. We are going to continue ESL with him this coming week. Please pray that there is no difficulty in Emad starting work this week and that he can continue to learn about Jesus through his relationship with Chris and I.


We are now preparing to have our third short term team come in this week. A team of 22 from Virginia is coming down so it should be a busy but fun time! I'm expecting God to do awesome things with this week that I get to share with you next time!

God bless!

Jake

2. Teams, Tours, and Teaching

I apologize for the delay in getting another post up, from touring Hindu temples to making late night home visits, things have been busy! I'd like to share just a few things from this last week.

Team One: Living Hope Church

Our first short term team came in last week. Teams will be coming in for a week at a time throughout the summer to come alongside us and see the work we are doing. We hope to educate them, train them, and let the see first hand what God is doing amoung refugees so that they can enact similar ministry in their home towns as well as explore a potential calling to missions or even Clarkston! The team was a huge encouragement to the staff and interns and it was obvious many of them had experiences that refocused their hearts on Jesus and the task of reaching the nations. Two of the short termers, a young couple named Brian and Lea, have already planned to apply and participate in this internship next summer. The two have a huge heart for missions and plan to pursue full-time mission work! I ask that you pray for Brian and Lea in their journey!

ESL: English as a Second Language

As I mentioned last time, I work in the community garden in the mornings. In the afternoons, all the interns participate in ESL teaching. We traveled out into the community during the first week to find families and individuals that would be interested in learning and studying English. Last week we began classes! My student is a 34 year old single man from Iraq named Emad. He was a taxi driver in his home country and left because of the continual bombings and shootings. Since the first time I met Emad I knew that I wanted to work with him and it has been extremely rewarding, he is very welcoming and eager to learn! We meet for two and half hours a day and practice English, in that time we have gotten to know a lot about each other. 

During one afternoon session it was myself and two short termers, Brian and Jimmy (Jimmy is a missionary and missionary mobilizer and one of the wisest guys around). After a while Emad asked Jimmy and Brian why they were there and Jimmy said that they were volunteers but Emad didn't understand this word so Jimmy got the idea to tell Emad the parable of the Good Samaritan. As we were explaining to Emad that we were going to tell him a story from the Bible and asked if he had heard of Isa in the Quaran, and immediately he said "Jesus, yes! I love Jesus!" He had read about Jesus in the Quaran and it was obvious he wanted to know more. Jimmy read him the parable as Brian and I acted it out to make it more clear. Then we explained that just like the Good Samaritan that loved his neighbor, Jesus calls us to love our neighbor and that Emad is our neighbor. Emad smiled and said "this is a very good teaching!" Emad had to have surgery last week and can't work until he is better so I ask that you pray for healing and that he would be able to find a job soon. We pray in Jesus' name with Emad every day and he is always very open and appreciative of it.

This is Jimmy showing Emad the Bible on his phone.

I ask that you continue to pray for the team as a whole as many have gotten sick and worn out this week.

God bless,
Jake

1. Jesus Shows Up In Clarkston

Wow. It was been a busy, exciting, amazing first week here in Clarkston Georgia.  There are Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and animists all living within feet of me. Walking into Calrkston feels like walking into another country. Jesus is everywhere and His Spirit is in all of His followers, but in the last few days I've seen Him show up like never before.

Our missional community is made up of about 18 interns and around 10 staff and helpers. We all slept in the same basement together for the first few days to bond as we were trained and taught and poured into by each other. The first days were often compared to drinking water from a fire hydrant because they were so full of thought changing teaching, team build, laughing, crying, and on-field training. By the end of it we were exhausted but but all closer to Jesus' heart for this town and had a clearer vision of what we were called here to do.

Jolly Avenue

During the mornings I will be working at the Jolly Avenue Community Garden where families from several countries and languages come to grow food for themselves. Most of the families in the garden are not believers but for every language spoken there there is a believing family that has offered to translate for us at any time! God has removed any language barrier! Including myself there are 6 interns working in the garden so we are responsible for about 10-12 families each. Our jobs is to disciple the followers of Jesus that translate for us as well as love and share the Gospel with the families through daily interaction and telling Bible stories. We want to train our translators in disciplining so that when we leave they may continue the work themselves. The biggest connection I have made so far in the Garden is with a man from Nepal named Rajesh. He is a believer and when I asked him if he would be willing to translate Bible stories for me his face lit up and he said "Yes yes, I would like to, that will be very good for me!" He has recently been laid off from work so I asked that you pray for Rajesh's employment as well as our partnership in the Gospel.

House Church

Each Thursday the interns and staff get together for church. We practice a house church based off the model we see in Acts and in 1 Corinthians 14:26 "What then shall we say, brothers and sisters? When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up." So we gathered together on a porch and sang praises to Him, shared what He had placed on our hearts, encouraged one another, and prayed for each other about whatever was burdening us. Several interns shared about family members of their's that are bound by the chains of addiction, illness, and unbelief. As we gathered around them to pray an intense thunderstorm broke out and rain began to pour down. We prayed louder and harder and as God displayed His power around us we proclaimed healing and deliverance in the name of Jesus. It was a powerful night. I ask that you pray for freedom, healing, and that eyes would be turned to Jesus for the following people.

Rachel's mother

Wesley
Taylor
Zack's family

I also ask that you just keep our team and Clarkston as a whole in yours prayers as we really get down to work next week!

There is so much more I would like to share but for the sake of brevity it will have to wait. I look forward to sharing more as the summer continues. 

God bless,
Jake

Revelation 7:-9-10

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”