Going to the Nations

What an adventure we are on! Everywhere we turn, we hear different languages, and see people from many different countries.....

For Karen and I, this has been an amazing opportunity to interact and network with people from around the world. Coffee Breaks, lunches, dinners and times at night after the last session are times to interact with one another and others who are doing online ministry.

In the conference room, we are seated together at tables that always have multiple nationalities represented. One morning we had 6 different countries represented, from the Netherlands, to Great Britain, Canada, USA, Singapore and Kyrgyrstan.

What's been so fun has been to see old friends that I met two years ago when MinistryNet met in Bangkok...from England, Singapore, India, and the Netherlands. But it's also been a chance to meet new friends that I have been working with over the past year, like Marina from Russia! We have had many emails and skype calls, became friends on Facebook and finally now we got to meet face to face!


Marina is key in her area of Eastern Europe and so last night after the final session she organized a meeting with us along with staff from several different countries where Russian is spoken....what fun to dialogue about how we might partner together in the different countries! God is at work across the globe and we are privileged to have front row seats to what he is doing.

As I walked away from our last meeting last night with the 'Russian' Team I couldn't help but reflect that my maternal grandmother spent her early years in Odessa, Russia, across the Black Sea from Turkey and my mother was born in Romania, a country that also borders the Black Sea. Now here I was in Antalya, meeting with these dear men and women who are doing ministry in Russian and who we are and will continue to partner with in the weeks and months ahead. God is soooo good!