Tuesday, December 28, 2010

I Want to be a Threat

From Caffeine Injection - June 2010

Recently the staff and students at the North Africa base were discussing the harsh spiritual conditions that they face -- both in their time with Cafe 1040 and in their futures. In a conversation about the way that Satan attacks them, one student spoke up saying:
"I want to be a threat to the enemy. Because if I am not, then I am not doing my job."
Wow. Read that again! What an amazing attitude to have -- coming from a girl in her early twenties with a world of self-serving possibilities in front of her. Yet instead, she is choosing to advance the Kingdom. Even more, she is serving not just as a passive observer of what God is doing, but rather as a confident, self-sacrificing child of God who is passionately pursing His life-changing work.

The really awesome thing is that she is a great example of all of the participants in Cafe 1040. There are approximately 130 young adults like her; some already overseas, some preparing to go, and some here in the US mobilizing other believers. They are a mighty army that God is raising up! Join us in prayer that they will passionately desire to be a threat to the enemy in whatever God has called them to do.

Friday, December 3, 2010

What's Keeping You?

From Caffeine Injection - August 2010

The following article was written by a Summer 2010 Cafe 1040 graduate upon her return to the States. Take 2 minutes to read it, you won't regret it!

North Africa: an Arab culture... 99.8% Muslim... 80% of those people practicing "Folk Islam," which intertwines Islam and mysticism... It is illegal to share the Christian faith in country...these people have no way to hear the Truth. That breaks my heart; does it break yours?

Cafe1040: Intentional and purposeful in everything. How better to learn a culture than being completely immersed in it? How better to learn what missionary work looks like than to do it? This program was confirmation, training, preparation, and 3 months of reality. My perspective and life have been eternally changed and I am eternally grateful. Through God using this program, my heart is drawn to a people it never was before; I feel prepared in a way I never would have imagined; and I understand more of God's
character and heart for His people.


My Story: I went on this trip NOT expecting to fall in love with the Muslim people - my heart was set on Europe - I just wanted some training before I went. But God really changed my heart and my perspective the longer I was in North Africa. He showed me more of His heart, His desire, and how I fit into it. Before, I was concerned about which country to go to specifically. But God showed me His heart is for the NATIONS - every single one of them, every people group! There are over 6,700 Unreached People Groups that have not heard and have absolutely no way to hear. This training was out of my humanly comfort zone. But then again, I take a look at our friend Paul, the life of Jesus Christ, and so many others including today's missionaries... I wonder, "Did God ever intend for us to have a comfort zone? Or is it something we have just created for
ourselves because we don't trust Him enough?"


With that said, what's keeping you from going? They are our brothers and sisters, and I desperately desire to see them on our side on the Last Day. I continue to realize more and more that people are the same no matter where they live - same desires, same emotions, and same questions, etc. The only things that are different are: 1) The culture. But God created all cultures, so He will help you learn it. He promises to not give you more than you can handle. And 2) They don't know the saving blood of Jesus, and that should break our hearts. So, what's keeping you from going? He doesn't need you or me, but wouldn't it be amazing if He uses you to spread His Name and Glory to those who don't know Him, to make His Name famous throughout the world?


That's what I want to live for. It is my deepest desire! Is it yours?

So, what's keeping you from going? If you follow Christ, you have been entrusted with His Good News. You are God's voice to the Nations. Go; speak boldly.

-Katy

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Minorities Report

"You are the first foreigners to ever
come to this village."

It seems fairly insignificant, but consider the impact of that statement. The first. And it wasn't said once last week, but multiple times as we scoured the rice pattied countryside on dirt roads to remote villages. Our tour guide, Howie, is from an ethnic minority tribe himself and had only known of these villages for a short time. He happened upon them en route to a different destination. Amen.

I expected to feel the weight of oppression and evil in these villages. I didn't. I expected to be overwhelmed by the weight of being the first light-bearers to enter these villages. I wasn't. I expected the locals to be skeptical of us and run the other direction. They weren't and didn't. I expected the worst and found that I was overwhelmed by hope. Our students will set foot in these villages in the spring, and I'm hopeful that continued relationship will spring up. You and I will pray for these villages, and I'm hopeful for movement of the Holy Spirit. Evil practices will continue in these villages and I'm hopeful that Light will overcome the darkness.

-Jennifer

Monday, November 22, 2010

A Change of Conversation

Recently it occurred to me how often we sit down as Christians at a dinner table and God isn't mentioned once.  What are we talking about?  What's more important that a Savior who gave up everything for us and continually pursues all of us in the hopes that we'll love Him back?  What's more pressing than lost souls or hungry children?  God's heart breaks every second for these things, but somehow we're too busy with carpools and perpetual dieting and what to buy so-and-so for his birthday that we forget to discuss things like poverty, injustice, or the fact that we live in a world where 50,000 people die daily having never heard of the name of Jesus.  We're missing it!  We are missing it.  Is it possible that maybe it's time for a new dinner topic?
I hope that as you do life and community with those around you that you would have hard conversations and dig deep into the heart of God.

-Jennifer

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Praying for the Fullness


Traveling into a new country was one big leap where I don’t think I ever fully landed until this past week. When arriving to North Africa, we always had some type of object that would make us feel somewhat at home; whether it be the people I was traveling with and their wonderful comprehension of English, the fries and pizza that would show up on our plates at restaurants, or simply the Western toilet that we have in our apartment. This all changed though as I walked through the streets arm-in-arm with my little “mama” for the next week into an unfamiliar home. My feet touched the ground completely once I entered the home, said what I could in Arabic for probably literally two seconds and then realized no one in the family spoke any English. Silence entered the whole room and the weight of the situation came into play. I was by myself in a home with six other people who couldn’t understand anything that I was saying, who were okay with using a toilet where you had to squat and who didn’t fully comprehend that my stomach might not be able to handle all of the food that they would later force me to eat. Shortly after this revelation though I was brought into the living area where the TV blared of an Indian soap opera. Not being able to speak words was okay here, although I would listen to not just the TV characters forming Arabic words, but the family interacting in these unfamiliar words around me. Sometimes I would just fill in the conversation in my head and hope that God was in some way intervening in their hearts as they raised their voices at one another. An image sticks out in my mind and my heart about this experience.

It is of the mama that took me in as her own child and her oldest daughter. Now imagine these two smiling faces in robes (the oldest daughter in a tye-dye one), bowing down to a truth that is still leaving part of their souls empty and leading them to a road of destruction. My heart was broken when I witnessed this. My heart yearned to talk to them and understand more of what they took on as their own belief. My heart desired greatly to know if they would be open to His truth, but I was empty of words to speak into their lives. God took me through a journey with this family and allowed me to show His love to them in anyway that I could, whether it be doing the dishes or just randomly smiling and showing that I was thankful for their hospitality. He works in the little ways just as much as the big ways sometimes. These families need the truth proclaimed just as much as anywhere in the world, if not more, and I’m learning how to do that in these circumstances. I’m learning to trust His work that doesn’t always look like what I would have preferred to do. Prayer is a huge portion of initiating His work, so please continue to pray for the hearts of these people. They are His people and He wants them back.

-Danielle

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Love Is Easier than You Think

So the team just returned from our first home stay a few days ago, and I must say, Dad really made some cool moves and really re-ignited my fire during my home-stay.  We stayed together in a house with 10 girls and 3 guys.  It was quite an experience.  What was beautiful though, was that 4 of the girls were under the age of 12 and were in primary school, which was perfect as they are just above our level of understanding, so they were phenomenal teachers. The mom and dad of the family were in their late 50’s, and had 2 sons and a daughter, all in their mid-twenties, and the daughter is married with a beautiful 1 year-old daughter.  There was also a family with all the young girls staying with them, close family friends, so the house was pretty packed.  And when I say house, I really should say "Riad," and describing it as a house in the American sense really doesn’t do it justice. 

It was beautiful in the most simple and elegant sense.  Just to find their home, we had to wind through the towering clay walls of the medina for about 20 minutes then duck as we entered through the hobbit-sized door.  After entering into this seemingly tiny hole in the wall, we find ourselves standing at the southwest corner of a beautiful tiled courtyard with a fountain encircled by plants in the center with 20-feet tall painted clay walls surrounding the 1000 square feet courtyard with no roof above our heads.  There's one staircase that hugs the wall to your left and goes up to the second floor and turns into a balcony that wraps around the next two walls.  Multiple rooms exit off the balcony and is where we slept at night.  Downstairs there’s a similar design with doors leading from the walls of the courtyard into bedrooms and closets and of course the teeny-tiny kitchen where the mom and her friend spent the majority of the day baking fresh bread and delicious pastries and slow-cooking chicken or beef or lamb with tons of veggies for lunch and dinner every day.

Our day was spent mostly with our families with an hour and a half language lesson at American school breaking up the afternoon.  Every day we’d come home and have the girls help us with our Arabic and we’d help them with their English. The two sons worked full-time, one working from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. six days a week.  So most of our time was spent playing Charades and Pictionary (aka learning Arabic) with the mom and the oldest daughter and with the girls when they got home from school.  When we weren’t learning Arabic or playing with the toddler or playing Marco Polo with the girls or sleeping, we were consuming sugar. So much sugar.  I honestly can’t remember a time when we were sitting on the frosh (couch) without a pot of tea, a thermos of coffee, or a plate of sweets in front of us.  But hey, I’m not complaining.  They fed us like kings, very fat kings with an inability to say, “No thanks. I’m full.”  There was also lots of Shakira sing-a-long time, but I won’t get into that.

It was probably the most encouraging and rewarding experience of the trip for me thus far.  It was amazing to see how, even though we didn’t know a lick of Arabic, and they didn’t know any English, save some lyrics of “I’m a Barbie girl,” communication was still pretty easy and for the most part very effective.  They were incredibly patient with us and showed so much hospitality, encouragement, and love toward us that I really came to develop a close bond with my family.  Dad really showed me just how similar all of His children are.  How we all have the capacity to love and to be kind to our neighbors even if our neighbors believe something different and live thousands of miles away.  He showed me how positive people can respond if they see that you truly want to be a part of their lives and that you care about them and show them His love that He’s shown you.  I believe that if He can open the doors of families here to some random American college students like us, He can do it all over the world with anyone.  You just have to knock, and the door shall be opened.  But don’t be too surprised when they answer the door, and you find yourself in more familiar surroundings than you expected.

-Mike

Assimilation

Last week we traveled to another city in country to begin the “language acquisition” part of our trip. Our program was designed to give us very minimal language for the first month so that we’d see how possible it is to live daily life without knowing much of the native tongue. Now that that’s over, however, we’re beginning to be taught Arabic, and let me say how amazing it has been! I feel as though Dad has really been opening my mind to absorb and understand this language, and has even been giving me little victories throughout these last 2 weeks to keep me encouraged. B’smeela! (Praise be to God!)

In the city we were in last week, we stayed in homes with native family called home-stays (creative name, huh?). I stayed with another guy on the team, and let me say how faithful He was. Our family had 9 or so girls and 3 guys, so there was a ton of people in the house. The guys mostly worked or slept day, but 2 of the girls were in elementary school and one knew a few words in English. For the first day, we sat around for 2 or 3 hours just pointing at different things we wanted to know the names of. Arabic has a few sounds that we don’t have in English, so we all laughed a ton as the Americans tried to replicate all these weird words. Having school-aged kids really helped, as everything they were learning, we were trying to learn as well. Another day we sat down and helped them with their multiplication tables. They were learning math and we were learning all the numbers (I may have been refreshing my math as well-it has been quite a long time).

One night we somehow got roped into playing a game that is kind of like Marco Polo but without the pool. One person is “it,” gets blindfolded, and tries to grab another person while everyone else pushes or taps or grabs the “it.” If you’re thinking this sounds crazy, it was, but everyone was laughing and joking, and there were several times the older ladies would get involved too. By the end of the night I felt like they were my younger and older sisters and that we were all family.

The food was incredible too, and I don’t every think I’ve eaten so much. Every few hours someone would come out with tea or coffee or bread or pastries or a full-blown meal, and right as you’re starting to feel comfortable from the last “session”, more food is brought to you. But please don’t hear this as complaining. Everything we ate (for the most part) was incredible. The traditional dish is called “tajine,” which is a little like pot roast. One night we had a lamb, potato, and carrot tajine. It may have been the most incredible thing I’ve eaten since being here. At the end of the week I must have been 5 pounds heavier (or maybe 2 kilos, as we say over here).

Thank you all for your intercessions and lifting us up to CJ. I can tell that He has been hearing and answering them. I love you all, miss you all, and hope that you all are well, and Inshallah (God-willing) I’ll see y’all soon!
B’slama! (Good-bye!)

-John

Breaking Down Walls

It’s amazing how God will work through others without them knowing. I just spent four days with a Muslim family who barely spoke English in a city in North Africa. This family took me in like I was their own. At times it was frustrating because of the language barrier but after the first day that barrier seemed to be crumbling. I learned how to make tagine, kouskous, North African pancakes from our host. I was surprised she let me come into her kitchen after seeing me try to cut an apple. She was so proud of me when I finally got the hang of folding the pancakes just right or when I made it home all by myself for the first time. We laughed, sat in silence and just smiled at times with each other. God used this family to comfort me when I needed the comfort. I still don’t understand Muslims, but I do know they are full of love, and it’s just waiting to be made pure by Him.

-Stephanie

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Full of Culture by Mary

Culture is something I have always been interested in studying. While in Africa, we have had the opportunity to take many classes, meet many people, and see from afar the culture around us. This past week I was welcomed into the home of a Muslim family where I experienced the culture like never before.

The first thing our host said when I stepped into her lovely home was that I was now one of her daughters. She has three children, and they were all so much fun and made sure to include me in everything. The second day I was there our host let me help her cook and make bread that we took to the community oven to be baked. Meal time is something that is very important in this culture. Apparently the guest is expected to eat until they explode because every meal all I heard was “cooli, cooli, cooli,” which is “eat” in Arabic. I know for a fact that I gained at least five pounds in five days. I actually forgot what it felt like to be hungry.

One of the things that stuck out most to me about their culture was when I asked our host where her husband was. She told me that he was on Hajj. It was the third time in his life that he had made the pilgrimage to Mecca. This is amazing because you only are required to make it one time if you are able. The fact that he has done this pilgrimage three times makes him “extra holy.” She was so proud of him and you could tell that she was filled with love when she told me the story. It broke my heart to know that these people, who I have grown close to, hold on tight to a truth that will not save them. I remembering trying to go to sleep one night just begging God to somehow show them the truth. It is hard to grow close to people and share life with them knowing that they are missing the one thing that gives them true life, Jesus.

Please remember my Muslim family in your prayers. Specifically ask that God will reveal truth to them in a culturally relevant way.

God has revealed many things to me through this experience. The main insight He hit me with is that living as Christ does not mean we have to try our hardest to act more like Him every day. It literally means that we have to die to self and allow Him to live in us. To be a vessel is the greatest honor.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

What's It Like Shopping in a Foreign Country? By Amy


Salt. Such a seemingly easy thing to shop for - at least if you know how to ask for it. Here I was, though, lacking the word for “salt” and my teammate and I were at a loss as to how to obtain it. This was our first shopping experience and we wandered around the “souk”, or open air market, taking in the sights and sounds. Fresh fruit and vegetable stands next to people selling bread, sides of fresh beef hanging in the market while being surrounded by the sound of chickens waiting to be butchered. This was not Wal-Mart; that was for sure.

We saw a stand that looked promising: dried fruit and various spices. We approached it, greeting the older gentleman that was working. Not seeing anything that looked like salt we looked at each other, unsure of how to proceed. We spoke little more then the basic greetings so we had no way to verbally describe what we wanted. He invited us back further into the stand to look at the various spices. With a lot of hand signals and a little bit of tasting and some patience, we finally were able to find it. It had been in the front of the stand all along. We laughed and thanked him for his help, glad to have obtained our shopping needs as well as a new word for our vocabulary.

That was week one. I was nervous and excited, but I had accomplished something I never thought I would be able to do. I had bought my own food in a foreign country. A week later, I would be celebrating leading my team across town in one of the countries largest cities, and not but a few weeks later I would be celebrating the fact we did all our shopping for the week without using English. Before Café 1040, I would never have believed I could live and get by in a country where my language was not the predominate language spoken. Now, on the other side of it, I’m excited to think about learning and mastering a language so I can speak to the hearts of the people I live among.

-Amy

What Made You Want to Travel to the 1040 Window? By Lauren


I first heard about Café 1040 in 2008 when I spent my summer in Philadelphia with the Traveling Team. The year was symbolic for me, a period of new beginnings. If only I’d known then what my future would hold, how much of a beginning that summer would be. God had so much in store for me—a revelation of His kingdom, of every tribe and tongue and nation gathered before Him in praise. He extended a personal invitation for me to join the harvest. I’ve been going to church all of my life, but it wasn’t until that summer—after seeing God’s redemptive plan laid out in full—that the gospel of Jesus began to click. All of the layers started to make sense. By the end of that summer, I was sold out on going overseas.

I went back to college with a soul on fire. I wanted to box up all the information in my brain and make presents of it for my friends—neat little gift-wrapped packages for them to claim. I tried my best to share the vision with my peers in Campus Crusade, but it was a huge struggle for me. No one understood what I’d been through. No one could grasp what a life-changing summer it had been. How my world had been turned upside town. To this day, many of my friends see missions as another branch of ministry, something they can choose from, like whether they should help with music or children’s church or a college bible study. A choice to go overseas instead of a command to, as Paul Washer would say, “either go down into the well or hold the rope for those who go down” because those are the only two options we have. I was disappointed in my friends for not understanding, disappointed in myself for not being able to make them understand, and worried that the vision would end with me.

In Philadelphia, our team had been exposed to many sending agencies with many different opportunities to go overseas. I remembered meeting with a recruiter from Café 1040 because several of my teammates had toyed with the idea of going to North Africa together the summer of 2009. It was when I was feeling so confused and alone back at school that Café 1040 began to solidify as a next step. A way to revive my passion. To refuel the flame that seemed to be dying in my heart. And to give me confidence that the burden I felt for going was truly of God. I also wanted to see if I could hack it. So, a year and a half later, I had not only graduated a semester early, but I had left my friends, my family, and my boyfriend at home and I had boarded a plan to Southeast Asia with a with a handful of strangers.

To describe Café 1040 as an “intensely experiential” journey is absolutely fitting. The Traveling Team and Perspectives had given me solid foundational knowledge about the 1040 window, but Café 1040 let me live that knowledge out. Everything I’d predicted about how I would react—to the country, to the culture, to a new way of life—it was wrong. But that’s kind of how the program is designed. To challenge your way of thinking. For example, I had personally expected to be extremely homesick. I wasn’t. Not for the people anyway. I found a new family in Asia, and for the three months, they sufficed. We bonded and grew together, living in community and fellowship, as we aimed to be the body of Christ in our city. So I wasn’t too homesick for my friends or my family. I missed them, but I was fine. Instead, I was homesick for superficial things, for the materialism I professed so much cynicism toward, and I wasn’t prepared for that. I missed dishwashers and washing machines and hot water. And that really shook me up. I never ever thought that being a little inconvenienced would be a struggle for me. But I learned that, when I’m already out of my comfort zone, inconveniences are magnified. Looking back, I think I just wanted a little bit of home to be with me. Maybe I really was homesick for my friends and my family, and I just didn’t want to admit it; a hot shower would do. Whatever the reason, it’s hard to leave everything behind. And I’ve realized it’s okay to admit that—as long as I believe that the work being done is absolutely worth it. And I do.

All of that said, as time went on, I was surprised to find how much I felt at home in Asia and how foreign home felt upon my return. In country, the community embraced us. Sure, they sometimes pointed at us, they almost always stared at us, and they occasionally thought we were weird. But they also took us in and considered us family. I was amazed at their hospitality, the way they served us and made us feel as if we belonged. It was an interesting thing to see these people, whom we had come to save, living out the gospel more effectively than many believers. Overseas, people have genuine respect for relationship. The priority is always people over time. When I returned, I was amazed at how opposite life is in the United States. Our lust for the American dream—for more power, more money, more prestige—it sucks away our relationships. We’re always pressed for time, afraid of vulnerability, wanting everything to appear perfect. We are afraid to get too close. We hide behind our stuff—buying far more than we give, most of it stuff we don’t need—in order to keep up some kind of an illusion. Or maybe because we think we do really need it. Breaking loose that hold of materialism was a struggle for me in Southeast Asia, but I’m glad for it. What I do have here, I don’t take for granted anymore. And what I didn’t have there, I eventually realized I could do without. I have an African friend back home who owns a little store downtown—a sweet man who teaches me so much about life in such brevity. As he would say, “it is a good thing.” And it is.

But if you’re applying to the program, I’ll say this:  be prepared.

Be prepared for an experience that will move you to prayer. Be prepared for a shove that will take you out of your comfort zone. Be prepared to accept a challenge. Be prepared to fall. Be prepared to fail. And be prepared to learn from your mistakes. Be prepared to grow and be prepared to grow up. Be prepared to see life differently on the other side. Be prepared to walk with a different swagger—and by that I mean, be prepared to evolve because you’ll be a different person when you come home. And home will also look different to you. But it’s worth it because it’s an experience you will never forget. I am so thankful to God for pursuing me, for inviting me, and for challenging me to go overseas. I am thankful to my family for giving me up. I’m thankful to my supporters for making a way for me to get there. And I’m thankful to Café 1040 for existing, for catching the vision, and for keeping it going.

What Made You Want to Travel to the 1040 Window? By Jennifer

What made me want to travel to the 1040 window was when I became educated about what the window represented. I learned through my friends in college that there are still places that have never heard the name of Jesus, and that as his followers, it is our calling to go to them and spread the gospel. This became reinforced more and more as I spent time with my best friend and my church. After attending the Passion conference in Atlanta, GA in 2006, I decided missions was exactly what I must pursue, but I had no clue of life outside the US. I found out about Cafe 1040 and how the program is designed to not only expose people like me to life inside a window country, but offer training and a chance to tear down any obstacles.

In the Spring of 2010, I was able to experience life as a missionary on the other side of the world. I arrived with expectations regarding the food, culture, and even every day life. Overall, I was surprised almost daily. I never thought I would enjoy going to an open air market so much, or even get a small thrill out of bargaining with the sellers. When you walk down the street, everyone welcomes you and says "hello," or even invites you inside their home. One of the lessons I learned is to shed my expectations of what may or may not be, and learn to live in the moment.

Through my time away from my family, close friends, and comfort food, I was stripped of all the things I depended on outside of God. It was my time to get real about my view of who He was and liberate myself from my idols. Life overseas is not easy, but the change in me from understanding that God is good, and that I can trust Him, was alone worth the struggles. I am still working out my faith and the same lessons back home, but my view of who my Father is and who I am has changed.



-Jennifer

Sunday, August 29, 2010

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