Pan Dulce

The Jordan River

On Monday we visited the Jordan River and several members of our team chose to be baptized in this river. The river looked much like the Guadalupe River in South Texas. Rich green water stocked with pretty large catfish. Several members of our team commented on the similarity of the Jordan River with the Guadalupe River.

In fact, the word Guadalupe has a connection to this region. Guadalupe comes from two words in Arabic: Wadi and Alyupe. A Wadi is a creek, brook, stream, or river and Alyupe means love. When you put these two words together you get River of Love. So the word Guadalupe, not only used for the River near San Marcos, Texas, but also used to name Latino children, both boys and girls, means River of Love.

There are about 21,000 words in Spanish that have Arabic Roots and 7,000 words in Spanish and Arabic that are pronounced identically. I have heard some words in the last few days (mainly in Egypt but also in Israel spoken by Arabs) that sound just like words in Spanish. Just yesterday I heard the word Roz in a restaurant. This is the word for Rice. In Spanish it is pronounced Arroz. There have been a number of times when I have recognized words in Spanish that are being spoken in Arabic.

On several occasions I have experienced Arabs speaking to me in Arabic because they think that I am Arab as well. Most people guess that I am from Syria. But, of course, I am from Texas. In some ways, this region feels like El Paso and San Antonio.

This region seems so compressed and small. I can see how Jesus was able to travel to Jerusalem, Nazareth, Tiberius, Capernaum and other places. One thing is for sure. Jesus walked a lot. If Mount Tabor is truly where Jesus was transfigured, he walked a long way up a steep hill. He lived a simple life in a small area but he impacted history with his example of sacrificial living.

Even today, the world is indeed small and children who are abandoned or left to fend for themselves in this region are not different from children who need help in Egypt. From this area I have been able to watch CNN or Fox News and I have been able to keep up with the winning streak of the San Antonio Spurs.

On Tuesday we visited Mt. Carmel, Megiddo, and Bethlehem as well as the West Bank. We will continue to explore ways we might be of service to the children of this area. Please continue to pray for us and the children we will meet. Pray that the Lord will develop the resources we need to respond to the needs we will encounter.

The Sea of Galilee

On Sunday we flew from Cairo through Jordan and arrived in Tel Aviv, Israel. We boarded a bus and drove to Tiberias in Golan Heights to our hotel right off the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Tiberias is a town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee founded in 20 AD and named in honor of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. The Sea of Galilee is a spring fed fresh water lake as well as water from snow in winter and is the water source for the region of Israel, Palestine, Syria, Jordan and Iraq and is about 8 miles wide by 13 miles long. It is hard to believe that I am in the Holy Land with our team from Buckner.

The Sea of Galilee lies on the ancient Via Maris which linked Egypt with the northern empires. The Greeks, Hasmoneans, and Romans founded flourishing towns and settlements on the lake including Gadara, Hippos, and Tiberias. Much of the ministry of Jesus took place on the shores of Galilee. Jesus came to this place to enlist four of his disciples: Simon and his brother Andrew, John and James. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount was delivered on the hillside facing the Sea of Galilee as well as the feeding of the five thousand.

We met with Pastor Jay Abernathy and Steve Jenkins from First Baptist Church of Palestine, Texas and we have been joined by Rev. and Mrs. Munir Kakish of Ramallah Christian Outreach and Home of New Life, a home for orphan children in Ramla, Israel. We arrived on Sunday at the end of the Passover Holiday.

On Monday we visited the Mount of Beatitudes in Capernaum, Cana where Jesus turned the water in wine, Mount Tabor, and Megiddo and later in the week we plan to visit the Home of New Life to consider ways Buckner might be of service to this ministry. We ended the day with a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee.

When I was a teenager I helped my younger brother, Fred, memorize a verse for a play he was in at church. This was the verse: “What manner of man is this that the wind and sea obey him?” (Mark 4:41) This is the verse following the account of Jesus calming the sea. I was on a boat today on the same sea that Jesus calmed.

We saw several sites that are allegedly the places where the Holy Spirit spoke to Mary, the place where Jesus turned the water to wine; the place where Jesus preached the sermon on the mount and fed the five thousand; the place Jesus told Peter “Feed my sheep;” and the place where Jesus grew up in Capernaum. It was intriguing to see these sites and to see the Holy Scriptures come alive.

I was also intrigued by the multi-national and multi-lingual crowds we ran into every where we turned. The wind and the seas still obey him. Pray that we will obey Jesus when we are confronted with the opportunity to serve children.

Once You Drink From the Nile…

In one of our meetings this week, one of our Egyptian hosts said that they have “a saying here in Cairo.” Ready? Here it is: “Once you drink from the Nile you will always come back again.” This does not make sense unless you realize that the Nile River is the water supply for the entire region. So if you drink water in Cairo, you are drinking from the Nile. My hunch is that we will be back.

Once again I sat by in a restaurant this evening to share dinner with our travel group and was reminded about a key phrase that was mentioned in our meeting with a group of Evangelical businessmen and women: “We can talk about God’s love in this context.” The word “God” is the name for the redemptive Lord of history. This is a multi-religious faith context where Christians (Evangelicals, Coptics, and Catholics) as well as Muslims and Jews have freedom to worship. Work here in Egypt will require specific efforts at contextualizing our approach to augment the magnificent work that is already being done by Egyptian Christians. We are being invited to supplement the work here and fill gaps that exist. We are in the preliminary stages of working through the process for beginning work here in Cairo. We have already passed the Ideation stage and are almost at the end of the exploratory visit to this region. Next, we are moving through stage of proposal and commitment phase followed by structure, and eventually launch. We are on our way.

The Lord has been preparing a network of churches that span Nevada, Atlanta, and Dallas. These churches have come to the conclusion that they are being called by God to invest heavily in Egypt over the next few years. They have been waiting patiently for two years to find a partner who they can connect with for Egypt. Enter…Buckner International. The network’s hub is housed out of Hope Baptist Church in Las Vegas, Nevada. Chip Riggs is the lead pastor in this project. He and two other friends, Mike and Kim Stickler from Nevada and Ric Drudy from Florida traveled with us.

One of our strategies when considering work in a new country is to line up resources before we begin. When the Lord puts resources in front of you it is hard to not see that as a sign that the Lord is leading us.

I will wake up one more time with a view of the Nile and then fly to Israel. This is an amazing sequence of events. I am reminded that Moses was placed in this very river and then was adopted into the house of Pharaoh. The Lord would raise him up some day to become a leader for the nation of Egypt and the nation of Israel. My vision for this region is to serve the children who will become leaders that will serve God’s purposes in this generation years from now. Developing Kingdom leaders from my circle of influence to the ends of the earth is my life mission. That is what I am doing here. Pray that the Lord will guide and protect all of our new relationships for the future of our work here.

Worship at Garbage City

Ok, you have to really use your imagination on this one. First let me start with a picture I would not have ever imagined in Cairo. We were sharing dinner with some government officials on Thursday night on the Nile Crystal, a dinner boat, along with about 100 other customers.  Of course, there was a band playing while we ate. At first the band started out playing indigenous music and broke into a country western song and then in a Latino cumbia (dance song). Then next thing I know a group of Asian customers got up to dance to the Latino song. So imagine this, a group of Asian tourists dancing to a Latino cumbia played by an Egyptian band on the Nile. All I can say is “unbelievable.

Perhaps not as unbelievable as our visit to Garbage City within the city limits of Cairo, Egypt. Garbage City has a population of 35,000 and is a complete community with store front markets, lots of garbage and recycling businesses, and a complex of church facilities. Garbage recyclers take their work seriously and have developed a business and livelihood from garbage.

The odors were what you would expect if you drove into a garbage dump but what I did not expect was a complex a beautiful church facilities built by Coptic Christians. Icons were carved into the side of rock cliffs and caves were converted into large worship centers complete with hanging screens and modern sound equipment. We toured three different worship areas in one church complex. We were told that the three worship centers accommodate 20,000 worshippers on the weekend. One of the worship centers was a large cave converted into a contemporary looking worship area. Another worship center was an amphitheatre style worship center, and the third worship area was a smaller cave recently discovered.

Imagine living in a garbage dump and going to church to worship there as well. The odors were striking but the worship centers were even more striking and beautiful. As we toured the largest cave worship center, Kenton Keller shared a devotional with the group regarding Religious Tolerance. He applied principles of the five pillars of Islam to Christianity in a unique fashion with reverences to the Scriptures and the ministry of Jesus. He led us in prayer and then we sang Amazing Grace and enjoyed the outstanding acoustics as we worshipped the Redeemer in a Coptic Church in Garbage City.

I remembered that the Lord inhabits the praises of his people. We heard the testimony of our guide and how he came to faith in Christ. It was truly a day of ironies and contradictions.

Earlier that day we visited the National Egyptian Museum and viewed the mummified body of Ramses II, allegedly the pharaoh that heard the liberating words “Let my people go!” from the mouth of Moses. Jesus, quoting the Prophet Isaiah, said “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me and has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, to give sight to the blind, freedom from the prisoner, liberty to the oppressed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of our Lord’s favor.” Pray that we envision what the Lord would call us to do in this place.

Children of the Nile

Wednesday was our first full day in Cairo, Egypt. I can see the Nile River right outside the window of my room. It has been an amazing day that included meetings with leaders from the Evangelical Church in Egypt and leaders from NGO’s interested in inviting Buckner to collaborate. See Ken Hall's blog at www.bucknerprez.typepad.com for all the details.

The highlight of the day was a visit to the Fowler Orphanage. The orphanage was founded in 1923 and later operated by the Faggala Presbyterian Church. The home serves about 76 girls supported by five staff members and a few volunteers.

I have to stop here and reflect on what I just wrote. It is amazing to think about Egypt. Egypt is the place where Jesus fled with his parents shortly after his birth fleeing King Herod who sought to find and kill him. Egypt is the place where Joseph landed after he was sold as a slave to a traveling caravan. Egypt is where he served Potiphar and was tempted by Potiphar’s wife. This is the place where Joseph practiced his management skills, became second in command under Pharaoh, and later used his skills to save his family and the nation of Israel as well as the Egyptians. This is the place of the Exodus and the ministry of Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and Caleb. This is where much of redemptive history has its footprint.

Today there are 3,000 churches in Egypt which include Coptic, Catholic, and Evangelical. There are 200,000 to 1 million street children in Cairo and Alexandria alone.

I was asked to lead the first devotional of this trip, so here goes: According to Darrow Miller, in Discipling the Nations: The Power of Truth to Transform Cultures, there are two Great Commissions in the Bible. The one that we are most familiar with is the 2nd one found in Matthew 28:19-20. The 1st one is found in Genesis 1:28. It says “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it…” The 2nd Great Commission focuses on Discipling Nations and the 1st Great Commission focuses on Developing the Earth.

Thom Wolf developed a model for discipling the nations that starts with spiritual regeneration of the individual, moral transformation of families, and social reformation of the culture.  Darrow asserts that moral philosophy provides for stewardship of all that God has placed in our hands. Stewardship emerges from the word “Oikos” found in Acts 16:31 and gives us words like oikonomia for economy and management. In other words, our role is to manage or steward what God has placed in our hands like the garden he placed in Adam and Eve’s hands.

This brings us to the issue of Resources. Julian Simon, in his book, The Ultimate Resource, argues that resources are not really limited. He says “Resources are limited only by man’s moral imagination, creativity, and stewardship. Resources are found first in the mind, secondarily in matter.” May the Lord of creation help us develop imagination, creativity, and effective management for the children of the River Nile.

One more, “Welcome to Buckner, Arnie”

Today I have asked Victor Upton, Vice President Missions Resource Groups to share with us while I’m in route to Cairo Egypt.  You'll hear from me later in the week.

Arnie is correct in his comments that, “Relationships are what make the world go ‘round’”.  Relationships are the core of the Buckner ministry. The relationships we have with those that God brings to us around the world and the relationships we have with those who walk with us in being change agents for the disenfranchised are the essence of Buckner.

I’ve asked Arnie to guide our efforts to align Buckner’s mission and strategy, ‘to make life better for orphans, at-risk children, and families’, with our constituent churches interest and passions, by  providing leadership and direction for Buckner’s development, implementation, and management of a contact management system that connects churches in their work to fulfill God’s mission.

In so doing we’ll establish a centralized, coordinated and personal contact management structure to maximize our relationships with churches, institutions, Para church ministries and other groups desiring to serve. We will create a data driven tool to monitor, record, share, and add value to Buckner ministries

We will enhance existing relationships, embrace new relationships and eliminate missed opportunities by magnifying relationship as a core competency and key cultural value in the tapestry of Buckner ministry.

Our strength is not just our interaction and relationship with those who have come alongside us but the depth of those associations. We have a responsibility to be good stewards of the gift of relationships. To cultivate, nourish and grow our interactions is a reflection of our commitment and seriousness in fulfilling God’s plan for Buckner and those within our sphere of influence and ministry.

We will value our relationships and be intentional about our contacts. We will be strategic about our dealings with others. We will develop systems and tools that translate the interest and passions of our constituents into the love of Christ.

Again, Arnie is correct, it will be fun!

Welcome to Buckner

Today I have asked one of our new staff members Arnie Adkison, Director of Church Relationships to share from his heart as he joined our Buckner family on yesterday.

"Welcome to Buckner!" I wish had a nickel for every time I heard that yesterday. Coming to Buckner has been (and I’m sure will continue to be) incredibly overwhelming, mostly at the “bigness” of it all. Like others who have only experienced the “outside” of this great ministry, I have had to learn how little I really know about the big work of Buckner in being an ambassador of Jesus to a world in need. Big staff, big dreams, big opportunities. Not many things are more humbling for a guy like me than meeting 50 new people—20 of which whose names I won’t remember, and another 20 of which I will swear had a different name the day before…fortunately there were 10 people I already knew.

My journey to Buckner has not been intentional, at least not on my part. I grew up in the oil patches of Oklahoma, New Mexico and West Texas. Probably the single most track-changing decision of my life was to attend the University of Texas at El Paso. In spite of its reputation as a dangerous border town, my 19 years in El Paso changed me for the better. Living on the border gives you a different philosophy of life and work, and a wonderful appreciation for people (not to mention real chiles rellenos). It was in El Paso I fell in love with Latino culture, and with an Argentine girl. It was there that all three of my cross-cultural kids were born. In El Paso I cut my ministry teeth as a pastor and parachurch leader. Then our last five years were in San Antonio at Baptist University of the Américas, another wonderful place of people and relationships.

My assignment at Buckner involves relationships. Relationships are what make the world go ‘round. Quick, here’s a pop quiz: when was the first relationship in history? No, before Adam and Eve. Before Adam and God. Yes, even before God and the angels. The truth is it’s a trick question. Relationship has always existed within the triune God we serve. He is relationship within his own person, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Consequently I have come to understand that relationship is the greatest thing that human beings can ever experience.

Specifically I am assigned to manage Buckner’s relationships with the 9,000 or so churches in our database, plus some denominational groups, parachurch ministries and a few other external groups. Talk about overwhelming!

Buckner has hundreds of staff who maintain thousands of touch points with churches all around Texas, the U.S. and the world. Whether you’re talking about program folks providing childcare, missions resource staff leading international mission trips, or Buckner Foundation’s development officers looking for ministry funds, you’re talking about people who have relationships with churches. My assignment, as I understand it, is to work with all of those people and more, managing the relationship information on churches, and ensuring high quality “customer” satisfaction for Buckner’s partner churches, denominational groups and other entities. Sounds like my kind of fun!

Opportunity Management Part II

Last week I started blogging on how we are handling new opportunities that come our way? Kenton Keller, Chief Strategic Initiatives Officer for BCFS has introduced a new way of thinking about and processing new opportunities. He calls it the Opportunity Management Pipeline. The OMP is a process that funnels new opportunities through a process grid with 7 steps including: Ideation, Screening, Exploring, Shaping, Structuring, Formalizing, and Launching.

Shaping – During this part of the process, we develop a clear ministry plan that would be used to communicate with partners. This would be the first draft of an operating model for how we would conduct ministry in a given area.

Structuring – During this part of the process we would develop a complete business plan that communicates roles and responsibilities, processes, outcomes, and resource commitments to underwrite the project.

Formalizing – In this phase, we would delineate funding sources and resource responsibilities with our partners for that ministry. We would develop a letter of understanding to formalize these agreements.

Launching – Once we have a formal agreement a launch date would be set and operations would begin with an effort to stabilize the ministry. A process of continuous improvement begins at this point.

The process may seem lengthy and arduous. However, I believe it will help us grow responsibly and sustainable fashion. We reserve the option to discontinue the discovery process at any time if we are not able to move to the next phase in the process. This method allows us time to discover resources and build a business plan that can be implemented with excellence year after year.

Today I am leaving for an exploratory trip to Egypt, Palestine, and Israel to discover possible points of ministry among children in the Middle East. We will be meeting a group of leaders from Nevada and from Palestine, Texas while we are there. The trip will be exciting and shows high promise for what the Lord might do in that part of the world. I will be blogging about this trip over the next two weeks and may send some pics as well. Stay tuned. On Tuesday of this week I am asking Arnie Adkison, our new Director of Church Relationships to tell us about himself as well as his passion and vision for our work at Buckner.

Opportunity Management Part I

There are so many opportunities to serve children at risk, orphans, and families that it is sometimes hard to know where to start. Calls for assistance come in weekly from nations around the world as well as within our own communities in Texas and states across the nation. We have recently begun new work in Illinois and are exploring new possibilities in New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Florida. We have expanded work in Lubbock with the addition of My Father’s House as part of our Residential and Transition Care Network. Internationally, we have added Mexico to our Latin American network of ministry. We have also completed an exploratory visit to Viet Nam and are about to leave for Egypt and Palestine with India planned for later this year. In the meantime we have requests pending from three other countries.

So how are we handling new opportunities that come our way? Kenton Keller, Chief Strategic Initiatives Officer for BCFS has introduced a new way of thinking about and processing new opportunities. He calls it the Opportunity Management Pipeline. The OMP is a process that funnels new opportunities through a process grid with 7 steps including: Ideation, Screening, Exploring, Shaping, Structuring, Formalizing, and Launching.

Ideation – Ideation helps us capture ideas from internal and external sources. In this phase a one page Ministry Opportunity Summary is produced by the person who generates the idea.

Screening – In the Screening phase we are placing value on the proposal and considering feasibility. We will use a set of criteria to evaluate the location and the opportunity by filtering the idea through a qualifying matrix. At this point we plan to eliminate unsound concepts prior to making a decision involving the commitment of resources. Once this process is complete, a team of leaders will decide whether or not to request a Ministry Opportunity Invitation Letter.

Explore – Once a Ministry Opportunity Invitation Letter is received we move into the Exploration Phase. During this phase we consider alignment with this opportunity around real needs. We will verify the need and whether or not we can affectively address it. The end result will be a preliminary proposal.

On Friday I will deal with Shaping, Structuring, Formalizing, and Launching. As you can see, we are putting together a process to grow responsibly with focus and discipline to best serve the needs of children with the resources the Lord has blessed us with.

Send Me: Four Missionary Movements

My message last week at the first Go Be Do Global Missions Conference was an interactive experience involving sight, sound, and touch senses. I explored the experience of Isaiah the year that King Uzziah died and he saw the Lord as the framework for personal reflection for mission.

Sometimes we focus on the “Going” part of missions without thinking about the “Being” part. I asked the group to consider reflecting on what we are sending in the going…us. Isaiah choreographed four movements that led him to the response: Send Me!

The Movements, in brief, are as follows:

His Invitation and My Response
The Bible says that “He never sleeps, he never slumbers, he is always watching over me. The Father invites us, the Spirit invites us, and the Son invites us to participate in what he is doing. God is inviting you whether you serve as a pastor, a Director/Team Leader, a direct care giver, a business professional, a medical professional, a student, a teacher, an administrative professional, etc.

His Holiness and My Sinfulness
The Steadfast love of the Lord never fails and his grace is new every morning. This theology helps me become comfortable with my own shortcomings as well as those around me. We are not perfect, but we are growing into the image of God through Christ. So I am comfortable with folks making mistakes as long as they acknowledge shortcomings and learn from them.

His Grace and My Gratitude
Wonderful, infinite, matchless grace! These are the words that I used to sing when I was a teen as part of a quartet. In fact, I was singing this song when I met Belinda at her church when we were teens. If God did not spare his own son to save us will he not also freely give us all things? All we can do is say thanks with out lives.

His Commission and My Mission
This is your specific assignment. For those of you who have gone through the LDP, this is what I mean when I say mission: your specific assignment as an expression of your life. It is a joy to know that God has an assignment for me in his Kingdom.

Click here to listen to this message online. You can also see the manuscript on this blog under Sermons and Speeches.