Cyprus Trip 2007

Dear Praying Friends,

Thank you so much for your prayers over this past week; things could not be going much better. The prayer team has visited a couple of different campuses and they have had plenty of opportunities to meet with people and to share their faith. Since I don’t see much of this team I’m not sure of the details. When I get information from them I will forward it on to you.

The wrestling team is doing great they have been training with local wrestlers and we have had national media coverage each day. The wrestling team’s picture was in all 3 of the main daily newspapers this morning. Don Shuler, the coach of the wrestling team and I have been invited to many functions with local officials. We have twice been able to clearly communicate to the N. Cypriot officials that we have been coming to N. Cyprus primarily to pray for God ‘s blessings on the N. Cypriot Turks. We have also continued to bring more and more attention to N. Cyprus. The officials are very open to our intentions. Most of them are open to our intentions, but some are not. We’ve noticed on two occasions where individual’s facial expressions reflected a heavy displeasure in our mentioning of the name of Jesus Christ. Still, we’ve been scheduled to meet with the President, Prime Minister and other top officials on Friday.

Please pray for our visit with the lead government officials on Friday. I’m praying that God will give me the opportunity to articulate to these officials that we are not political and we are not representing a political solution to the plight of the N. Cypriot Turks. We believe that the solution is a spiritual one and that Jesus and the teachings of Jesus will provide the ultimate solution to the conflict between the Turk and Greek Cypriots. I have been asked twice by lower officials my opinion and both times had a chance to share that I think the hope for N. Cyprus will be found in Jesus.

Our prayer is that this will, first of all, be well received and that this will not harm our relationship with the government. I would not want to jeopardize our opportunity to come back in the future. The wrestlers have had a couple opportunities to share their faith and to interact with Cypriot Turks usually after dinner. Our meals are served right in the heart of a Cypriot neighborhood so after dinner we simply walk around the neighborhood and talk to people who are sitting out on their front porches. Many have read about our team in the newspaper and they are very open to talk with us.

We will have our first competition tonight. The high school wrestlers compete tonight while the college wrestlers compete tomorrow. Again, please pray for this opportunity for we will have many spectators watching us and we think we may have an opportunity to make a public address. This would be a perfect opportunity to again talk about Jesus.

Thanks again for your prayers and for you support of this work to proclaim the love of Jesus to the N. Cypriot Turks.

Blessings,

Warren

Cyprus Trip 2007

One more thing to keep in prayer: The first day many of us have faced some difficulties struggling and wrestling with a spirit of doubt and a lack of joy. for many of us it can cause as you can imagine a lack of intentionality and initiative for Gods work. This is something we all recognized in some form or another this morning and confessed that to the Lord. Pray that we would all continue to walk in the victory of Jesus and the power of His Holy Spirit. i know the enemy wants to keep us from doing the work that god has prepared for us and he will try many ways of getting at us. Please ýntercede for us if you remember.

Thanks again

Dean

Cyprus Trip 2007

Greeting from Cyprus,

i hope you all are well and that this fýnds you in good spirits. We have arrived in Cyprus early early sunday morning about 3 am. Sunday was a acclimation day for us and then yesterday we started into things.

it has been great reconnecting with all of our friends here in Cyprus who we are praying for and reaching out to. They were all very excited to see all of us and us them. As many of you know there are really 3 teams here with us this summer. There is a media team from steelroots which is the media action sports ministry out of Charlotte that my brother dar works with. the second team is the team of wrestlers who were invited by the ministry of sport in northern cyprus and the final team is the team which i am a part of which consists of people mainly from our church in VA.

The first night we were here we went and had dinner at an englishmens resturant who we have known for the last 3 summers. We had a great evening and seemed to find favor with him once again. hýs buisness has struggled to get off the ground as he just started about a year ago and while we were there for 4 hrs the other night the phone was ringing off the hook for busýness and people were coming in left and right. He noticed that ever since we were there that night business picked up tremendously and told us we should come back more often. This may seem small but God used this night to open up the door to find favor with him and his girlfriendç He wants to throw a 4th of july party for us americans so pray for this tomorrow night that this may be something were we could connect with them and others. we have also found favor with his girlfriend who is cypriot and she has invited us to go and show us her home and a place where she just finished with a cypriot tv show comparable to our big brother show. it is amazing how the lord brings these opportunities as we walk seriously by faith. most of this we dont plan and god inevýtably brings up these divine appts.

Also please pray for Warren, don shuler(wrestling coach), and the steelroots media team. They have been invited to go and speak with the president and the governer of northern cyprus today. please pray the lord would lead in this opp.

Please keep praying for Ali and Mehmet 2 people who we have the most influence with now and that the Lord would draw their hearts to God in a greater way. We will be spending time with Ali tomorrow so please pray for that. Pray that the connection would be rich and powerful. I also had a chance to talk a little more in depth with mehmet as he is still seeking and reading the word. pray that he would see that it is a way of life and that God wants to redeem every part of his life back to him

We have prayed for so many of you today thanking God that he has provided a team of prayer supporters in you all to make it possible for us to be here. We pray that you would experience his rich blessing as you to pray and labor with the lord in his work. your prayers for each of these things means so much. i know the enemy would love to convince us that our prayers are not making a difference, but we must in faith believe that God is doing great and mighty works, many that we may never see. We continue to pray for all of you.

Please keep praying for these specific things that God would lead us by faith and that he would bless in this work this summer.

Talk to you all again soon

in Christ.

Dean

Cyprus Trip 2007

Hey everyone,

Zeb, Eli, Luke and I have arrived, but without three of our bags. We hope they will catch up to us tomorrow. I’ve been busy all day making arrangement for the arrival of the rest of the team. They all get in tonight and we are ready for them. Sunday will be a recovery day and we will get started on Monday. I will keep you all posted as to how things are going.

Blessings,

Warren

Take the Initiative

"We are in danger of forgetting that we cannot do what God does, and that God will not do what we can do. God will not give us good habits, He will not give us character, He will not make us walk aright. We have to do all that ourselves, we have to work out the salvation God has worked in.

Beware of the tendency of asking the way when you know it perfectly well.
We have to get into the habit of hearkening to God about everything, to form the habit of finding out what God says. We have to take the initiative where we are, not where we are not."
-Oswald Chambers

It starts here

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."
- Romans 12:2

I think most of us have heard this verse, it has been on my mind and heart a lot likely.
I can't do any better than what the Bible is already saying but in plain language I am reading it like this. God is saying: Stop acting like everyone around you, be different, be who I made you, be changed by constantly renewing your mind through My Word and My Spirit. As you do this your choices, your life will start to align with My will and My plan and My will is good and acceptable and perfect.

-James

A Prayer for the Universal Church

Gracious Father,

We pray for thy holy catholic church.

Fill it with all truth,

in all truth,

and with all peace.

Where it is corrupt, purify it

Where it is in error, direct it

Where in anything it is amiss, reform it

Where it is right, strengthen it

Where it is in want, provide for it

Where it is divided, Reunite it;

For the sake of Jesus Christ thy Son our Savior. Amen

"Gentlemen, this is a disciple . . ."

In the spirit of V. Lombardi, I have it on my heart that we would do well to seek to truly understand who we each are, and what qualities, actions, and beliefs we will seek to nurture in the lives of people God chooses to reach through us. The more we understand what a true disciple is, the end result of what God wants each us to become, the more we will be capable of discerning if we've reached our mark and the more we will be able to discern along the way what aspects to intentionally pray through, discuss, and encourage in people's lives.

One danger I see in this is that we may seek to make people like us, instead of people like Christ. What I mean by this is, I personally cannot yet echo the words of Paul where he said "Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ (1 Cor. 11:1 (NIV))." Because of this, I recognize that the goal we seek to nurture people toward is not a replication of Kelly (who only echos aspects of true discipleship), but instead is Christ likeness in the vain where Jesus said " . . . go and make disciples of all nations . . . and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you . . . Matthew 28:19-20)."

My goal is that we would begin to have a clear picture in mind so that we can be actively engaged in nurturing the aspects of true discipleship in people that will take them from "our door to becoming a true disciple."

So I submit this to us as a group to begin a discussion on this basic question in hopes of getting a picture of success will look like:


What does a disciple know and do?

Kelly J. Mahoney

So I have an idea....

Dearest Kairos community,

I was having my time of solitude in the prayer room at the Wingate Inn on Saturday and began to pray for you all. I was praying and thinking alot about where things are headed and so forth. I then read the portion of "my utmost for his highest", and though this isn't word for word, Oswald said something to the effect that we do NOT need more people who will say, "I'll do that" but what we need is people who just do it. So needless to say, during my time of praying I thought it would be really nice if we had another forum to have discussion and post questions and problems and announcement, etc. So I created this blog to do all those things. I will email the password out, and log-in I.d. so that we all can post blogs and comment on what we each write. I am very excited about this, and hope that you are too.

much love,

josh