Tegucigalpa Ministry trip travel clips

Last week I was in Tegucigalpa, Honduras with Matt Allen. We were getting to know the radio and church planting ministry "El Camino de la Vida" for the Allen's future deployment. My job is in helping set up the official partnership between LAM and the Partner ministry as well as making sure that our missionaries are well placed and well set up. The great part is that I LOVE getting to know what the Lord is doing through some amazing ministries and encouraging our own missionaries as they seek the Lord and walk through what He's called them to. Please keep me, the ministries department and all the other LAM missionaries in your prayers.

Relationships (It's What We Do)

Over the past six months of overseeing the ministries department at Latin America Mission I’ve come to appreciate the concept of partnerships and real relationships. LAM does not have our own projects on the field but rather we rely on “partnerships” with the Latin Church by strategically placing missionaries under and along side existing, national Latin ministries. This approach is culturally and linguistically difficult in many ways, but enters into a relationship of trust. Obviously these partnerships are of extreme importance for the care of the missionaries, but also for the health, growth and expansion of the Gospel in Latin America. As in the Church, poor relationships and a lack of care poorly reflect the Gospel on the mission field as well, whereas strong, trusting, Christ centered and caring relationships better reflect and personify the Gospel message.

The LAM ministries department is responsible for approximately 100 missionary units (families or singles) and their partnerships or “ministry covenants” with the ministries they serve, be that a children’s home in Costa Rica such as Roble Alto, a seminary in Colombia such as the Biblical Theological Seminary or a Church Planting and pastoral care ministry in Mexico. But as you know, a true relationship is not maintained through a business contract, but regular communication, heartfelt involvement and tangible expressions of care. As I stepped into the ministries department six months ago I was tempted to “just get the paperwork done” and assume in a staunch, business like manner that the partnership was then in place. But a signed document does not a friend make. Relationship building takes time, energy and involvement. It’s slow going, but very much worth it. Please pray for me, the ministries department and the LAM as we seek to better serve those that we have a history of partnership with and those we are getting to know on the road to new partnerships. This is a time of change with the mission, a time of diving in deeper with those we serve along side of throughout Latin America. It’s an exciting time. I’ll share more of this in future entries, but for now I ask you and thank you for your prayers.

God bless!

What a story!

I heard a report on my way to work yesterday about a baby Jesus that was stolen from one of the displays at a local shopping establishment. Following the report, one of the radio personalities commented: “Whoever steals a baby Jesus at Christmas is in for some really bad Karma!”.

Every Christmas I ask the Lord to impress upon me a new aspect of what celebrating our Savior's birth means to this world, my family and my own life. Following the “kidnapped Jesus” news report I found myself reflecting on the Gospel storyline, and how it’s packed with drama, intrigue, harrowing escapes, betrayal, dirty politics, supernatural events and dazzling ghost like appearances. It has all the makings of today’s best sellers or a blockbuster movie, yet we are (or at least I am) so VERY familiar with “that baby in the stable” that the event loses the crushing impact that it truly deserves. If the reality shattering power of what Almighty God did through an event that literally defines all prior and succeeding history can be so easily lost for someone like myself that was raised in the Church, it’s no wonder that the world sees little more than a plastic light up baby and good or bad karma during the Christmas season!

So what does Christmas mean for me as I dig through e-mails, respond to phone calls or converse with pastors regarding Cuba ministry? This year I am especially drawn to the name of “Emmanuel” or “God is with us”. The name that the Angel gave Mary for the baby she would give birth to (see Matthew 1). His name exemplified the unthinkable idea that the All Powerful-Creator God would literally be with us in a new, very tangible, and eternally significant way.

I have always been moved by Old Testament passages where God shows Himself to “be with” his people. I think of uncompromising Daniel as he is thrown into a cave filled with lions (Daniel 6); of David as a boy standing before a battle hardened, giant warrior with nothing but a few small stones (1 Samuel 17); of Gideon and a few ill equipped men before a mighty and experienced army (Judges 6-8); of Shadrach, Mesach and Abednego seconds before being hurled into a fiery furnace (Daniel 3); and of Abraham ready to sacrifice his only beloved son –the miracle child that God had finally given him in his old age (Genesis 22). God was with each of them in the midst of unimaginable fear and uncertainty. They couldn't know how things would turn out, and by human standards could only anticipate unimaginable pain, suffering and death. But He was there, exemplified in undeniable movements of His mighty hand. Still, all those things -in fact all of history itself, lead up to that precise moment when God took on the very form of His own creation and was physically “with us” for the specific purpose of salvation in the definitive, ultimate and final sacrifice of His Own Blood.

May the Lord impress upon your heart a new, fresh understanding of what Christmas means and an overwhelming joy of what we have to celebrate in our Lord's birth.

Date Nights and Answers to Prayer

I’ve never been an actor and usually try not to sing too loud out of respect for those around me, but two nights ago I found myself onstage for the curtain call of “Forbidden Broadway” playing at the Carnival Center for the Performing arts. What a surreal experience! Well that’s the latest in a series of blessings I want to share with you in order to give testimony to God’s faithfulness. Just before Christmas ’06 I had committed to having more “date nights” with Claudia so that we could step away from the normal routine and do the marital maintenance on the wonderful relationship that the Lord had blessed us with. The only problem was that we had precious little “discretionary income” to put towards these nights. I remember praying and asking the Lord for the means to do a little more than a cup of coffee every now and then. I had no idea as to what the Lord had in store!

Only a week or so after that prayer I was leaving for work at 7:00 AM, about ½ hr later than usual, when the home phone rang. The woman calling asked: “This is going to sound strange, but are you Kevin Ayebeg?”
“Yes, who is this?” I asked.
“That’s not important.” she said hurriedly, “I found your name in the directory. You need to call WIOD (local AM News station) right now! They just announced your name as one of the Christmas prize winners and you’ve got 5 minutes left to call in!” She quickly gave me the station’s number and hung up. I never even got her name.

Sure enough, I called the station, gave them my name and they told me that I had won a $100 American Express gift card (and a Rush Limbaugh bobble-head doll). Claudia and I got two really nice date nights out of the card and blessed our mailman with Rush.

It was about two months later that I called in on the same station’s early AM commute trivia show and got through on the second try, only to win yet another $100. certificate for a local Seafood Grill, resulting in another wonderful pair of date nights for Claudia and I.

Since finances have been tight, I’ve been doing various home repair projects for friends and neighbors to make ends meet. I often find myself in the garage working on pieces of furniture or simply getting the tools together I will need for the next project while listening to the local “oldies” station Majic 102.7 which also has various games and contests. I occasionally (maybe two times a month at most) will attempt to call in but only take time to dial up to two times in a row figuring that any more than two tries is a waste of time. Well, again, I got through and won a dinner for two at the local NYPD Pizza Parlor and was entered into a drawing for a new Lexus. I was relieved to not win the Lexus since we couldn’t have afforded the taxes, licensing, registration or insurance, not to mention how to reconcile a missionary driving a brand new Lexus, but we sure enjoyed a nice meal out once again!

It didn’t stop there though. From a local hardware store that I shop at we won a drawing for two tickets (usually $50. each) to the Weston Food and Wine festival, yet another great date afternoon. The most recent answer to my date night prayer came in an unsolicited phone call from another local radio station informing me that I won their monthly birthday drawing which included four tickets to the Broadway show I started with. Since my parents were in town we got to treat them to a night out (and I even looked generous doing it! :-)

God bless!