Valdensian Valley getting ready

The Valdensian Valley, near Torino at The Italian feet of the Alps is getting ready for 200 participants from 26 European nations at the ECSU GATHERING 2015 (ECSU.eu/encourage) next week!

Pray for the facilitation team and OM/FCA team working hard locally to host us there.

Ray for a great time of encouragement and vision for what's ahead for Sport Missions at our continent in the coming years.

A number of our AIA European leaders and staff will be there. Lidia and the kids are coming with us and they are anticipating it as you can imagine with great enthusiasm.

Here's the info on our meeting location. If you haven't visited this valleys and the historic sites of the XIII century Valdensian reformation you need to do it sooner than later.

Le Casermette

Esercito Della Salvezza

Via Pellice, 4, 10060 Bobbio Pellice TO, Italia

http://www.lecasermette.org

http://goo.gl/maps/z5vle

Golden Land & More Than Gold

Hola,

Ready for the last lap of my return home in a train Madrid-Malaga. It’s been an exciting 16 days. I feel very honored and thankful for the privilege of working alongside each of you, the team that has worked in the SportLife material we have been testing and our prayer warriors.

In a good “faena” (labor), a torero (matador) gets offered the bull’s two ears and the tail and he walks off the arena through the main gate over the shoulders of his cheering fans*. 

All that goes to Jesus! May those ears and tail be a good picture of an abundant sowing and reaping harvest!

*Read below Reid's last post and the Bullfighting analogy will make sense :-).

Praying with you for Jessie, NiHoi and Luke, still there at Gold Camp and for Reid, Se Yu, Luke and the Thai and Singaporean teams going to the SEA Games.

Olé! 

Rubén

El 19/5/2015, a las 8:04, Reid Lamphere <aialamphere@aol.com> escribió:

Greetings from Atlanta!

Carolyn and I are home - and mostly in our right minds.  So far we’ve eaten one steak, two Mexican meals (without rice), a couple bratwurst and one Chic-Fil-A.  I turn my head away when I drive by Asian restaurants.  

Our four-month project will be wrapping up in 36 hours.  I could fill pages with the faithfulness of God in bringing this about.  But the first page would have to be about the faithful prayers of so many of God’s people.  Thank YOU for walking with us for nearly a half year and praying open the doors that let the Holy Spirit move among the souls of hundreds of the best athletes in the country of Myanmar.  

When I was in Myanmar in January, with Brad and Adrienne, I once made a comment to Brad that I was seeing our project in the Gold Camp kind of like a bullfight.  I’m not sure why, but this image kept playing in my mind throughout the four months.  I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a bullfight.  The fight takes place in three stages.  In the beginning the bull is let into the ring and he kind of goes crazy - smashing into the walls, trying to knock the padded horse over.  During this phase the “Picador” uses a long lance to weaken the muscles in the bull’s neck.  Not only does this make him weaker, but it causes the bull to focus on what’s happening.  He’s no longer disengaged and charging at everything that moves.  He begins to focus on just one thing.  And this is what we did in the beginning when we introduced a very new concept to the athletes - their SOUL.  Suddenly they were confronted with something they had never thought about before - an eternal spirit within them.  

The second phase of the bullfight is carried out by three “Banderillas”.  They each plant two barbed sticks in the shoulders of the bull - designed to both agitate the bull and yet further weaken him.  The majority of our time in the Gold Camp was centered around challenging the values and life philosophies of the athletes.  Our talks were designed to “agitate” their thinking and at the same time “weaken” the distance and barriers that existed between us (the teachers) and them (the learners).  

In the third phase…enter the “Matador”.  We all know what this guy is about.  The bull has been prepared to such a point that the Matador can finally draw his sword from behind the cape and make the final thrust.  And this is what we were waiting to do for several months.  A total of 24 of our staff and associates from 6 countries worked diligently to prepare the “bull” for the right moment.  In the last few weeks we started introducing deeper and deeper spiritual challenges.  I watched the faces of the athletes as our staff taught and shared about spiritual life.  I actually saw heads nodding at the mention of a personal God and Creator.  They continued to nod when the name of Jesus was brought in.  

   And then we came to the final week - last week.  It was time to draw the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.  It was time to present the gospel of Christ to the athletes.  Our last two staff, Ruben and Jessie, gave the final message to the teams and shared, through their testimonies, basically the whole gospel message.  And check this out - Ruben is from Spain - the land of bullfights.  Jessie is Dutch, but has been living several years and serving on our staff team in Spain.   

Please pray that this sword will pierce as far as the division of soul and spirit into the hearts of many of these athletes.  

Ruben leaves in 36 hours, which will officially end the project.  Jessie stays another 3 days and will just wrap up relationships.  One of our project members (Luke) returned for a second “tour” at the camp.  The Myanmar basketball team asked Luke to return to be their coach for the last weeks before the Southeast Asia Games take place.  You can hold Luke up in prayer through June 16 - the end of the Southeast Asia Games.  

It’s not the end…….

Blessings,

Reid

Training Total Athletes at South East Asia

This morning I start a long journey (this trips make me always think of what took to the ancient adventurers who travelled by foot or whatever they had handy). Ahead I have 1 train, 3 long flights, car, long and bumpy bus in the jungle for near 2 days.

As you know, I'm part with Jessie Starrenburg (from our team in Barcelona), of a 4 month Sport Project teaching 15 Critical Issues in Sport to the top 25 national teams of an SEA country, who are training at the GC Academy in preparation for the South East Asia Games in Singapore this summer. In addition to AIA USA, Canada and Spain, the project brought together other sport ministry leaders from Thailand and East Asia. 

During the next 2 weeks (3 for Jessie) in Camp we will teach on the issue of Life after Sport, and we will recap on the concept of Total Athlete, and Issues on Identity, Anger, Unity, Winning, Fear of Failure, Conflict...

We would appreciate your prayers for Se Yu and Ni Ho, our translators who have been there the entire time.  Please pray also for the small but growing group of our Master's followers who have being gathering and growing with the Book. Pray that we can grow on intentional addressing of who can truly and lastly help them address these Critical Issues. Pray for abundant reaping fruit, with more or less medals at the Asian Games for this country. Pray for Reid, our team coordinator whom has a great opportunity to tour the country with the Minister of Sports and for wisdom and direction for next steps there and hopefully in other global locations in coming years.

Please, pray for Lidia and the kids to be fully surrounded by His grace and protection.   

Yours always thankful. Until the nets are full,

Ruben, Lidia

Samuel, Josue, Lucia & David Azarias

"If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast." Psalm 139:9-10

Parenting in the Valley of Dry Bones

"Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lᴏʀᴅ. Thus says the Lord Gᴏᴅ to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lᴏʀᴅ." (Ezekiel 37:4–6)

Our Father knows I needed this. Thank you Jesus (the article is excellent and worth the reading).

Yesterday was one of those days of parenting in the Valley of Dry Bones. It was particularly very difficult as I have been very little at home with so much traveling, and you wish it was more happy-clapping and celebrating life with those you love the most and will have to kiss "hasta la vista" for 2 long weeks the next morning.

On top, both Lidia and I had warfare and dreams during last night as well, as the enemy was obviously trying to get through our tiredness and weakness.

"He Knows What to Do

Jesus has gone into the barren field, to the place where death once reigned, and he emerged victorious. He is the Resurrection and the Life. He is the one who makes alive. God didn’t tell Ezekiel to first bring life and then speak. It is the speaking of the words of God that brought the life, and that is the only way we can move toward the hearts of our children with hope-filled steps.

We can face the areas of sinfulness in them we once feared, convinced that the God who speaks life is able to breathe life into them. He is able to make them know him and live for him forever. He is the one who said the harvest of his people is plentiful, greater than the number of stars in the sky. He is the one who sent his only Son that your son or daughter might proclaim the wonders of his grace.

Teach the truths of the gospel to your children, “seventy-seven times” (Matthew 18:21–22). Go into the chaotic, death-filled valley of your kids’ sins and walk amongst it all because you know that every raindrop that falls on the earth today shows his mercy toward those who’ve rejected him (Matthew 5:45). Serve them with peace and humility because you can smell the breakfast cooking on the beach for a man who, three times, denied even knowing Jesus (John 21:9–19). Speak confidently of God’s power over every competing rule, including your child’s heart."

Do not fear the death you see in their lives. God knows what to do with it. After all, dry bones are all he’s ever had to work with in his people*."

*That includes me Emoticono smile

Thanks for your love, care and prayers

http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/parenting-in-the-valley-of-dry-bones

Always on our knees

Personal prayer requests

• Protection and direction for us as family. With 4 little children, it’s a time of blessing, opportunity for disciple-making 24/7, and character testing :-).
• Our support development. $400

The year we will be living as a family at Pasadena as I start Master in Theology at Fuller starting next September.

Ministry requests

• Pray for Wouter & Nadine leading AIA NL. Just married, baby, transition of leadership at AIA and at Agape NL, and a full summer ahead as you can imagine if you know our duchess a bit.
• Pray for Sandrine & Jean Pierre in Paris leading Sport et Foi France. Our french team has gone through tuff journey. Pray for them to come up strengthened and vigorous.
• Pray for Abraham and Amy as they have just taken the baton from Ruben and Lidia for AIA Spain.
• Pray for AIA Swiss leadership with Vinci and Regula and team expanded. Pray for multiplication out of great program this year. 

Country leader in your area but would like you to add any additional requests for the country.

• Pray for leader/s to help consolidate AIA UK, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Italy, Malta.
• Pray for wisdom and direction and Christ followers in sport to start new AIA ministries in Northern Europe, Greece, Portugal...

Major area events in the next 6 months

• Praise for the UTC 2015 in Gran Canaria, the Euro Cycling Camp in Tenerife and the different L1&2 ESLT trainings around Europe these past months.
• Pray for the ECSU Gathering next May 28-31st in Italy, where 140 leaders (West and East Europe), many of our AIA teams will be there will gather to encourage, engage and equip.
• Pray for a Global Church Resourcing training in the Netherlands this summer, and key european leaders attending.
• Pray for the key leaders from 26 European teams countries we are selecting to be equipped in Orlando next November to be trainers of ReadySetGo.

IR's or STINTS in our area

• Praise and pray for the (once stints) long term internationals from USA (In Germany) and Netherlands (In Spain). 
• Pray for many more coming in the future.

Urgent needs

• Pray for the year Ruben and family will be in California to be a great opportunity for the shared ownership from AIA existing leaders and teams at the different countries over the reaching and building mission in Europe. Pray for a stretched focus and scope.
• Pray for the Think Tank & Design Team which will have to plan and develop next steps for UTC Europe 2016-2018.