Are we ever really hungry?  In the Western world we eat for enjoyment, therapy, love, social gatherings, and the list goes on.  Some fitness experts tell us we should eat 6 light meals a day to ward of hunger pains; consequently, never feeling the pains of hunger.  The idea of eating 6 meals a day doesn’t even fit into the schema in the under-developed, under- resourced world.  My children are funny.  It never fails, we’ll be eating breakfast, lunch, or dinner and nearly every time over the course of that particular meal they will ask, what are we eating at our next meal.  Eating has become a hobby, past-time, luxury, an expected event multiple times a day.  If only the whole world knew and experienced the abundance of food options the way we do.

GPC has recognized some of the hunger issues of the world.   Our people have given generously and are intending to help fight against the global hunger needs.  We are particularly focusing our attention on the severe malnutrition in Mali, West Africa.  We are in partnership with SILAH-Mali (NGO humanitarian organization in Mali) and MANA a manufacture of “Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Foods” (RUTF) to help alleviate the growing malnutrition needs of a nation where 38% of Malian children are chronically malnourished.  One of our SILAH Mali reps who sees the malnutrition daily, wrote me an email detailing an account of increased malnutrition and it’s affects that are comparable to the holocaust  and the hunger suffering that was endured during World War II.

Read the account below and visualize the tragedy of the holocaust and the modern day tragedy of hunger today.

I am so excited!  My wife left me on March 16th with a group of 7 other women.  This isn’t the first time she has left me.  She’s gone to Amazon without me, bungied with a team of volunteers off the Vic Falls bridge in Zambia without me (while would anybody jump off a perfectly good bridge), she discovered, with 3 other ladies from GPC, a little village in just south of Timbuktu, Mali without me.  We call the village “K-village” for antimony reason.  For reasons I won’t go into on this blog.  She does a lot of cool stuff without me.  She is strong, courageous, beautiful and HOT.

We do a lot together: raise 3 awesome children, start churches, travel on mission to 20+ countries together, but I am so proud of her that she is a confident and capable leader, communicator and missiologist.

Lori may have left me but in 4 hours and 23 minutes (not that I am counting), I am picking her up from the airport and bringing her home.  She is returning from K-village where she traveled with the 7 other women.  They were armed with only their backpacks, and a translator or two, to live in a mud hut (AKA: the Grace Point Hilton), draw water from a well, and teach villagers about Jesus.  But to top it off she sprained her ankle while in the capital city and went to the bush on crutches…wait the story doesn’t end there.  K-village church (GPC first church plant) and GPC have been working together to see a 2nd generation church born in N-village some 2 hours walk away.  Despite the crutches and 100+ degree temps she and a couple of other ladies from the team and some leaders from K-village church traveled with her to N-village and shared more stories of Jesus.  Thirteen ladies became Christ followers in N-village.  There are now 19 Christ followers in a very remote village with a population of 600.  This is an amazing harvest in a predominate Muslim and animistic setting.

My wife left me…but she can leave anytime if this is the kind of work she is goin be about.

PS: she also proofs my blogs, but since she left me I might need your help with my grammar or spelling, send any needed correction to mike@gracepointchurch.net

Here is an article that is worth reading if you are a Beyond Borders thinker like myself.  Eric Swanson, of Leadership Network (and outstanding para-church thinking, equipping and catalyst organization) had this article in their recent Network Advance. It is a great help for seeing the mission effects of when churches become missional.  When churches go on mission with God, the way we look at the world, the mission of God, and our mission in life is effected.  Read and be blessed.

1) Mutuality- The future of missions will be shaped by mutuality between East and West, North and South, sending and receiving nations. Because there are now vibrant believers and thriving churches in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eurasia, and even the Middle East, we in the West shouldn’t think of ourselves as the saving force in world missions. Churches worldwide are learning to come together.

3) Investing in leaders -Leadership is everything. Wherever good things are happening, a capable and passionate man or woman will be leading the way. Churches that are effective overseas have learned to leverage the passion of local leaders. How do you recognize good leaders who will make great partners? The most obvious sign is they are already engaged in effective ministry without any outside help.

says that even in the toughest of countries they don’t leave Jesus at the immigration booth. Jonathan told me, “When we are asked if we intend to proselytize people through our service we tell them, ‘We’re here to make Jesus known and Jesus gets known through his followers doing good’–as opposed to, ‘We are not here to get followers of Jesus.’ So far, that has worked for us.”

5) Greater financial accountability-Churches that effectively engage in global ministry are thinking differently about who, what and how they support missional engagement. The days of cutting a check and hoping for the best are rapidly disappearing. With all the needs and opportunities in the world, global missions leaders of the future are working to maximize every dollar expended on global outreach. Effective missional churches of the future support mission-critical projects that their global partners deem important. This type of giving can only come from a trusted relationship. Churches are learning never to start initiatives that will require western dollars to continue.

6) Business as mission-An emerging funding model ties business and mission together. This is more than missionaries posing as businesspeople but rather missional entrepreneurs who are starting businesses and creating jobs in the countries in which they serve.

7) Focus-There is a power in focus. On the flipside, the most frustrated pastors I interviewed were those whose churches supported scores of scattered legacy missionaries who were serving all over the map. Much of the time, these missionaries were not home-grown but rather nephews of former staff, or friends of friends, or a missionary tied to a designated gift. The often unstated missions goal was to place representatives from the church on every continent of the globe. Churches today are learning to do better by focusing on fewer places of engagement.

Technology -With every breakthrough in communication technology, there have been innovators who have exploited that technology to advance the gospel. The printing press, radio, TV, and the Internet have allowed the church to increasingly enter a world without boundaries. All around us are glimpses of churches that are discovering the power of today’s newest technology–to impact a country without ever physically visiting that country. Tech-savvy mission leaders are shrinking the world with technology.

i. William Gibson, quoted in The Economist, December 4, 2003 Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gibson. Accessed June 20, 2009