URGENT REQUEST FROM KEITH PARKS OF SEEDS!

Dear Friends:
This is the first time I have felt compelled to contact you in this way. An unprecedented opportunity came before me a few weeks ago. Church leaders in Cuba heard about Project Seedbag and asked me to come and meet them. After two days of sharing our vision and how it could impact the children of Cuba, they asked if I would return right after Easter, in April, to implement the program. In the passion of the moment I said “Yes.” Here is what we agreed to do:
1. Print 20,000 Spanish Seedlings and 1,000 Teacher’s Guides on a church press in Cuba. (Literature cannot be taken into the country). They told me that “Semillitas” would be the first book most of these children would own.
2. Take a team, in April, to teach over 500 children’s workers in three seminars with three major denominations. Take as ma y toys and stationary kits as we can carry in our luggage. They will cut the crayons and pencils. They will share them among the children.
3. Try to gather 20,000 New Testaments. One for each child.
4. Take 1,000 prayer-pal cards in our luggage with picture and handprints of Canadian children.
They promised to:
1. Gather over 500 children’s workers to be trained.
2. Divide the Semillitas (Seedlings) between the trained workers (30-40 each).
3. Oversee the project in the 500 children’s cells.
4. Partner in a prayer-pal system between Cuban and Canadian children. (They begged for this.)
Another missionary organization, IN Network, agreed to partner with us in the project. However our Seeds International share in this venture is approximately $50,000. This includes: printing, New Testaments, seminar expenses, hands on leadership and oversight for one year. As of today I have $4,850 designated funds.
As I woke this morning and thought what do I do? I thought of sending an email to some special friends who could help me out in two ways:
1. Please pray for this venture. We can’t make a public appeal because of where it is. We need God’s favour at every point in the next few weeks.
2. Consider a special financial response before the end of March. I apologize for the shortness of time, but the need is urgent - and the dates where theirs. Send to my personal attention and make payable to Seeds International.
I am taking a training team of four people and another four or five are joining us a prayer partners and to help hand the books (inside the plastic bags which we also have to take with us) to the newly trained workers.
Thank you for your consideration and your prayers.
II have kept names of people and denominations out of this letter for good reason. Feel free to phone or email me at any time.

Yours faithfully,

Keith Parks
President: Seeds International
P.O. Box 276, Abbotsford, BC V2T 6Z6
Office: 888-817-3337
Home/Desk: 604-826-9927
Cell: 778-908-2522
Email: kp@seeds.org

to go or not to go, but is that the question?

OK, obviously i'm a BIG short-term mission fan. i wouldn't be directing this network if i wasn't! i've been thinking lately that the question was NOT IF you should go on short-term mission trips, but that it was more about the HOW you go now.
not everyone shares my opinion. it would be a scary world if everyone did! i recently had the opportunity to teach a class on STM teams @ vanguard college in edmonton. i showed the students an episode of "travel the road" (http://www.traveltheroad.com/), a missionary reality show, to provoke a discussion about the need for flexibility and adaptability while on short-term mission trips. after the class ended, one of the young ladies approached me, very upset about the video. in her opinion, the short-term missionaries hadn't done "enough" (witnessing, disciple-making) to even warrant their trek that particular day/episode. another young man joined the discussion, offering his thots that it didn't matter what they accomplished, it was simply important that they went.
i decided to continue the discussion in class the following day. it turned into a heated debate! on one side, we had a group of people who believed that in going on STMs, if you can't stay around and make disciples, you shouldn't even bother going. the other side argued that it was important to just GO, obeying and fulfilling the Great Commission, even if it meant you made no disciples.
tough arguments. i can see the validity on both sides. how can you not go, just because you can't stay for months and disciple people? isn't it better that you give someone the opportunity to hear the Gospel? then again, are we actually disobeying the GC by not "making disciples" as Jesus commanded? maybe it's better to leave people with their own beliefs if you can't stay around to help them walk thru their new faith.
ultimately, when you're doing a STM trip, it is best to work through a church or missionary that can be there to follow-up and continue to teach those who make decisions for Christ. then at least you went, and someone else discipled. if it all gets done, does it matter who did it? paul didn't think so, and said as much in 1 Corinthians 3:6 - "I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow."
sounds like everyone has a job to do. i'm OK with that! any thots?

another one of those "guilt" videos

one of my friends recommended this video to me the other day. after watching it, i felt a big BAM in my gut. i wondered how many STM teams could make a video like this?

"this STM trip for a team of 22 people cost $39,600.*

$20,000 on airfare

$6,000 on hotels

$3,600 on food

$2,500 on transportation

$2,000 on passports & vaccinations

$1,500 on souvenirs

$4,000 on a building project

...what's wrong with this trip?"

yikes.

*these are the budget numbers from a STM trip i led to guatemala in july 2002.

short-term missions for the long haul

one of the most frustrating things about short-term missions is how quickly a person forgets what they experienced. for a pastor or team leader, sometimes you wonder why you even went...nobody from your short-term team was changed for the long-term.
a good friend of mine and the former director of this network eldon wright told me once that a good STM team leader plans a trip with the "now that you're back home" part in place first. ask: "why are we going? what do we want to do with this once we're back?" if you don't do anything @ home with what you xp'd on the field, you wasted your money and you should have just gone to a resort!
i've come across some great STM curriculum that offers practical tools to enable leaders to plan, conduct and FOLLOW-THROUGH with short-term missions trips for long-term impact. it is called "The Next Mile", and you can check out their web site at www.thenextmile.org. if you decide to order the leader and goer kits, use code SMS01 when you order. they'll know you're a canuck then and they'll send it with extra special mail detail.
think about the end before you start. it might change everything in the long run...including the people who went!

calculated risk or blatant stupidity?

i'm back! i didn't know blogging was supposed to feel like homework.
i was listening to 680NEWS in the car the other day, when a story about a 14-year old teenaged boy from england caught my attention. usually news stories about teenagers on this station involve guns and shootings. this boy however was in the news because he was the youngest person to sail solo across the atlantic ocean. my first thot was: what kind of crazy parents let their 14-year old cross the ocean by himself? then his mother's comments ripped thru my ears like firecrackers in your sleep: "i'm so happy he made it. i was a bit worried for him, but at least he wasn't sitting @ home glued in front of the TV." i started laughing so hard i almost drove off the road. i couldn't help but think of all the mothers who didn't let their kids come on some of my youth events to laser-quest because of the potentially dangerous bus ride.
i shut off the radio soon after and started thinking about this boy, his mom, and the risk they'd just taken. the boy could have gotten lost, shipwrecked, died, OR played video games and watched TV @ home all day long. something about the boy's mom really appealed to me. i can almost picture her standing at the dock waving goodbye to her 14-year old son saying something like this: "call me when you get there if it's not too late!" its like she was almost daring the world to accuse her of being a bad mom, then left us no chance when she gave us her son's other option: watching TV. way too funny!
so was this a calculated risk, or just a mother gone mad? its made me think about risk in a whole new way today. i could take a risk and do something wild and different, or i could do the same old same old and nothing would change. something about sailing across the ocean on my own sounds like more fun than watching TV...even if it is a new LOST episode!
i'd like to try this risk thing on something practical in my life soon. not sure what that will be. i just know the words of that mother are going to haunt me until i do.
i'm not exactly sure how this relates to missions, except that a lot of missionaries i know have taken calculated risks to get where they are. they risked being ridiculed when they told people they were going, they risked missing out on family and friends' lives "back home", they risked financial instability when they quit their jobs, they risked their personal safety and security when they left, they risk persecution when they speak of Jesus, and they risk rejection when sharing their message of hope with others. some people would even accuse them of blatant stupidity.
it makes me think about what risk looks like then for us in our churches. maybe we could take some calculated risks in 007 and send more missionaries, more money, more teams, more prayer, more support. sounds better than sitting in our churches glued to our chairs in committee meetings...
btw, you can check out the boy's whole voyage here: http://www.sailmike.com/. he had left gibraltar on november 18/06, and arrived in antigua on jan 3/07. turns out his dad followed him 2 miles behind in his own boat! sounds like a mother's job to me.

what's my real mission?

so today's my first day on the STMnetwork job. so far, so fun! i had some time to really reflect on what i'm launching into on my way home from dropping my son off at the babysitter's this morning.
i've been staying home with my kids now for almost 2 years. i've rediscovered what life is all about in that time away from full-time ministry. what an identity crisis though! at first, i didn't know what to tell people i was anymore. i used to say when asked: i'm a youth pastor. that was easy though, because #1 - i was, and #2 - it gave me a real solid identity. when i left that job, i wasn't sure how to answer that question. i came up with answers like: speaker guy (because i've done some of that in the interim), unemployed bum, self-employed pseudo-bum, renovations guy (because i've done some of that too), and finally a stay-at-home dad. that last answer, when given by itself, usually raised the most eyebrows! not a lot of guys do that for a living, but i learned to be proud of it, and to embrace my new identity. my wife worked very hard for those almost 2 years so that i didn't have to, and it helped me refocus my priorities and life purposes.
so why all the reminiscing? well, now that i've started a new job, in the "missions" world, i want to make sure i don't give my now old but previously newfound identity the shaft. my real mission is to live my best life now (no i haven't read joel osteen's book, and never will) with my wife and kids, to be the most amazing husband and father i can be with God's help, and to keep the Great Commission the focus of everything i do around those things.
the STMnetwork will get the best of my 9am-5pm days, and some evenings and weekends when needed. sounds like a cell phone plan! BUT, my family will know that they are my #1 priority...my real mission. thank you God for Heather, Emma, and Tyler. wawaweewa!
can't wait to get this thing going...

interesting article

The End of the Youth Mission Trip as We Know It
by Jeff Edmondson
When did youth mission trips become such a fad? Walk into the exhibit hall at any major youth ministry convention and you'll find at least a half dozen mission organizations soliciting your business. Open the pages of the leading youth ministry or Christian youth magazine and you'll see their advertisements. Mission trips are certainly popular these days, but is that necessarily a great thing?

check out the rest of Jeff's article here: http://www.youthspecialties.com/articles/topics/missions/the_end.php

i think this article bugs me so much because i've taken missions trips for the wrong reasons before. sorry God.

just in case you don't have time to read the article, here's how Jeff wraps it up:

What's the Real Purpose?
Those are some of the wrong reasons that groups take mission trips, but what are some right reasons? "We go so our youth group can experience life outside of their comfortable bubble." Youth need those experiences to develop a proper world-view and to expand their ministry potential. "We want our teens to gain a perspective on cross-cultural and multicultural ministry." In this polarized world, our teens must understand the problems and issues that segregate us. That's the only way that the Church is ever going to unite across social, economic, and racial boundaries. "We take the missions plunge as a teaching event, further cultivating compassion in young lives."
All of these are fine, noble reasons, but the reason at the heart of each mission trip should be because Christ commanded his disciples to be servants, both to each other and to the world. He commanded the church to make disciples of all nations, in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. When we participate in short-term mission trips, we're doing our part to fulfill those commands.
If that isn't at the heart of our mission encounters and if those commands don't shape our planning, then we've missed the point. And if we miss the point, it's a safe bet that our kids will, too. We don't do short-term missions for the fun and excitement, or because everyone else is doing it, or because we're told we have to go. We go to serve and share.

some great points. what do you think?

YOU should GO!

i'm thinking about a new catch phrase for the STMnetwork:
"you should GO."
what do you think?
the new web site would be built around the word GO then.

• places to GO
• where others are GOing
• helping you GO
• so on and so forth...

something tells me i've heard "you should GO" somewhere before. i don't want to get sued. have you heard it used elsewhere?

one last thing...

oh yeah, by the way...
the STMnetwork provides:

• NETWORKING Facilitate like-minded missional leaders through relationships for the purposes of more strategic and effective short-term mission efforts for the Kingdom of God.
• MENTORING Encourage the development of missional leaders as specialists in short-term missions through regional and national summits.
• RESOURCING Provide web-based support for local church access to short-term mission leadership development and team training materials.
• TRAINING Assist local churches in the preparation for short-term missions through individual consultation and team training locally and regionally.
• MOBILIZING Offer a connecting place for STM teams, mission agencies and missions personnel on the field. Check us out at http://www.stmnetwork.ca/ or call 647-231-MATT

what's an STMnetwork?

the short-term missions (STM) network consists of and welcomes anyone who has a passion for mission and for what God is doing globally through strategic, effective short-term missions.
are you already doing STM trips?
would you like to do them?
curious about what it takes to put one together?
the STMnetwork is committed to working with local churches to help build:

• confident leaders
• stronger teams
• life-changing experiences

like home depot says: "you can do it, we can help!"

welcome!

welcome to the STMnetwork's blog.
i'm matt. i also answer to "m@".
i'll be contributing to this blog on a regular basis, and checking in on what you're all saying a few times a week.
if this is your first time here, i'm glad you made it.
i'm looking fwd to making this the place to talk short-term missions for pentecostals in Canada.
meanwhile, who needs an STMnetwork?