News From The North.......

Hello All,

We hope this newsletter finds you well and full of hope for the upcoming year.  We are well and full of hope for what the Lord is doing; not just through LTI, but in all parts of His body, in all parts of the world.

While we are in the opening days of this New Year, we want to take a moment to share with you where we are, the plan for the upcoming year, and our heart for the bigger vision - a “State of the Ministry” letter, so to speak. 

In looking forward to 2015, we knew it was time to take stock, and get our bearings. In the process, it feels to us like we are coming full circle; both with LTI and with us personally. As most of you know, the story of LTI started with a heart to meet the overwhelming need in the developing world to raise up pastors and teachers who could shepherd the rapidly growing numbers of believers in those nations. At that point in time, the people of those nations had little to no access to any kind of systematic, structured teaching curriculum that would sufficiently prepare their church leaders. Bud & Mary Ann were presented with the impossible vision of raising up a Bible Institute in Accra, Ghana in just four years. They developed a curriculum and set out on a plan. At the four year mark, they accomplished what no one thought was possible and turned it over to the nationals. That’s LTI’s/our core vision, our “DNA,” if you will. It’s why “taking the torch of Truth…lighting other torches” was chosen as the vision statement all those years ago. To bring light and start a fire; that’s the torch we’re passing.

Over the last 35 years, there have been seasons where the venue or the vehicle of ministry has changed or expanded. We went from a Bible Institute in Ghana, to doing short-term crusades and holding in-depth Leadership Seminars, to conducting Annual P&M (Pastors’ & Ministers’) Conferences in Nigeria and India. Later, we expanded our vision to include orphan ministry in Romania, Mexico and Guatemala, and taking on the prospect of building a radio station in Nigeria. All in all, though, our core, our DNA remains the same.

For Julie and me, personally, we’ve been in a season of examining what it means for us to embody that vision. We aren’t Bud and Mary Ann, so of course it looks different. Our specific gifts, strengths and methodologies are different, but we still share the same DNA. At the same time, we have been in a state of transition for LTI. In addition, the works in Nigeria and India have matured (as they should have), causing us to examine what our involvement in those areas ought to look like going forward.
In the middle of all this, the doors to Romania and Kenya have flung wide open, and here is where we find ourselves coming full circle.

CASTING THE VISION FOR 2015

In Romania
Much of the church is very young and growing at an astonishing rate. The need for leaders here is just as overwhelming as it was in Ghana (and other places) 35 years ago. The cry from the existing leadership is for an expedited Bible Institute training program to meet the immediate need for equipped pastors, church planters and other leaders. Taking the LTI curriculum along with my (Mark) experience in leading short, intensive discipleship schools, as well as incorporating other materials, we are developing a fast track curriculum that will hopefully allow us to condense the training time to 18 months by having students do both their theorems and practicums simultaneously.

Tackling this feels a little like Amos 9:13: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed…” We realize how much continuing support these students will need in the future, so we are also looking to develop a mentorship program and, ideally, an online continuing education component. Our dream would be to have a network of pastors here in the US and around the world who would volunteer to mentor the graduates.



In Kenya
The short term vision is different as they are facing the loss of a generation to AIDS and a church

awash in legalism, sin and corrupt leadership. There is a need for more hands on ministry, evangelism, feeding the hungry and caring for widows and orphans. The over-arching issues are different, requiring as much emphasis on reformation as on revival. Our long term goal remains the same: discipling a nation by raising up a generation of leaders in the church through a school of ministry.
In the weighing of all these things, our priorities for 2015 are:

• Complete the curriculum for the school of ministry in Romania.
   
• A Spring trip to both Romania and Kenya. For Romania, this trip will be focused on continued planning for the school of ministry. For Kenya, this will be focused on evangelism, some type of P&M conference, and laying the ground work for a school of ministry.
   
• A Late Summer/Early Fall trip to Romania. This trip will be focused on finalizing plans for the school with a hope of launching the first school late this year.
   
• A trip to India in the Fall as the trip in February did not come together. This trip will be focused on working with churches directly to see how we might best serve them.
• Begin to develop the network of mentors.

In looking at the practicalities of these things, we are increasingly aware of the limitations that being based in Juneau creates for us. Opportunities to increase our support base are severely limited as travel in and out of Juneau is a minimum of $1,000/round trip/person. Without being able to increase our support base, we will never be able to stop “tent making.” More and more, we are feeling the need for us to be able to make trips and minister together. However, that cannot happen until we have the needed financial support. We are considering several potential locations for relocation, understanding that a transitional time of “tent making” may still be required until our base is built up. Relocating to the “Lower 48” would also allow us the opportunity to wed the overseas ministry with ministry to the American church, which has been on our heart for some time.

The financial need for the year is going to be somewhere around $15k just for travel alone.

Our first goal for personal financial support is $40-50K/year.

Your prayers over the vision and our financial needs are coveted and appreciated more than you know.

Yours for the Kingdom,


Mark & Julie