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Caleb Knox Campus Outreach Missions Update Letters

Cumberland District Disaster Response Team Needs Your Help

Project Tariro

Caleb Knox shares his experiences bringing the Word of God to college students in Australia.

Letter dated June 20, 2010:

Friends and Family,

We are now entering our final week here in Sydney. It's hard to believe that our time here is almost up. It has been a great experience and the fastest 6 weeks of my life. Thank you for making this possible for me!

The students here have been taking final exams for the past week and a half so it has been tough to meet with them. Some are willing to take study breaks and meet for lunch or coffee. We have still been very active with the students from the (SOW) Student Outreach to the World ministry and with the Harbor City Church-Plant. We have continued to see that this trip has been more learning than doing. We have all realized that there is no blue print to ministry or to sharing the gospel. Ministry is different here in this post modern culture for the fact that a large amount of the population seems to have little interest in God. Missions here is different than expected, and it has not been extremely easy. We have been challenged and it's been a blessing.

We have continued investigating and learning more about the college life here. We will be meeting with more Campus Outreach staff to discuss the information we have compiled. Campus Outreach will make a decision if the near future is a good time for them to expand to Sydney.

A lot of people wonder how to measure the success of a trip like this. That question can be hard to answer, and we may not see any major fruit from this trip until years down the road. We have invested a lot in the lives of some new Christians, and shared a lot with some non believers. Our team can rest in the fact that the Lord is sovereign over all and he brought us to Australia for a reason. Our team has grown closer to the Lord and closer as brothers and sisters in Christ this summer, he has done a work in us. I believe the Lord has grown me and shown me how big my sin truly is, which makes the cross that much bigger! I hope the summer is going great for everyone! Thank you all so much.

Caleb Knox

Letter dated June 2, 2010:

Dear family and friends,

   I would like to thank you once again for joining me in ministry! Some encouraging things are going on here in Sydney and your role has been just as important as mine. Sydney is a great city and I am starting to feel a little less like a lost American trying to find my way around town.

   After getting settled in and going through some preparation with our team leaders, we arrived on campus May 24. Half of our team has been placed at the University of New South Wales, and the other half, including myself, was assigned to the University of Sydney. Our team was slightly nervous and uncertain on what to expect as we got to campus. The nerves quickly went away as we began meeting students. It's fairly easy to talk to an Aussie student after they hear our American accents. They find us entertaining since we are different than the norm.

    Our first week on campus involved a lot of investigating. Campus Outreach is potentially going to expand to Sydney, so we are gathering as much information about the students and campus as possible. The culture here as a whole seems to be somewhat closed off to the gospel. It's very common to find people who claim to be atheists or simply don't care much about any type of faith. In spite of this, we have had some great conversations with students and we have made some contacts who are open to hanging out with us again.

    We are working with a campus ministry called SOW (Student Outreach to the World). It is a fairly new and very small ministry. SOW is having trouble growing their ministry and it's evident that the Lord has put us here together. They have been very encouraging to us and we have been the same to them. One thing I have been wrestling with is how to judge the actual success of a mission trip like this. Our ultimate goal is to see Aussie's come to Christ and I have realized that this is a process. The Lord is using us to help the SOW students grow in their faith, and being able to encourage them is a blessing. Campus Outreach may partner with this ministry permanently in the near future. We have realized that we will only be here 5 weeks, but this is home to the SOW ministry. So whatever impact we can make alongside them, will last much longer than the short time we are here. We are planting seeds here that need water and nourishment, and I am confident that eventually fruit will be produced from these seeds.

   Thank you so much for your support and prayers. The same God that is at work in your lives, is at work in Sydney, Australia! We serve an enormous powerful God. Thank you.

By His Grace,

Caleb Knox

CUMBERLAND DISTRICT DISASTER RESPONSE TEAM NEEDS YOUR HELP!

CLEAN UP CONTINUES AND REBUILDING HAS BEGUN!
Total recovery from the May flooding is expected to last 400 days. The Cumberland District of the United Methodist Church has set up a unified disaster response program and website, http://cumberlanddisasterresponse.com to manage the volunteer activities across the district throughout this continued disaster recovery period to help those affected in the North Davidson County, Old Hickory, Hermitage, Sumner County, Trousdale County, Wilson County and surrounding areas.

Many thanks to those who have already volunteered their time and talents, but much is still to be done. The initial response and relief phase has passed -- NOW IS THE TIME TO REBUILD!

WE NEED YOUR ONGOING COMMITMENT
WE NEED VOLUNTEERS on an ongoing basis to help in this critical Recovery Phase.
Even if you have signed up to help using the inserts from Sunday’s bulletin, or volunteered in other areas, it is important that you sign up on the Cumberland District’s Disaster Response website so that your volunteer hours can be logged and accounted for and so that the federal aid dollars will get paid back to our county.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE AN EXPERT TO LEND A HAND!
What we need now is labor. The disaster response team will identify volunteers’ skills and will build recovery teams led by a skilled team member who will direct his/her team of volunteers to hang drywall, rewire electrical, build fences, or whatever is called for.

We have currently been assigned to assist three specific project areas. By signing up on the district website, we can provide assistance as it is needed and eliminate groups arriving to find the materials for the job haven’t arrived and their services aren’t needed.

David & Becky Plaskett
908 Anita Drive
Old Hickory, TN

The Plasketts have completed clean-up and are awaiting funds for rebuilding their home.

Dale Felton
401 Jackson Drive
Goodlettsville, TN

Mr. Felton needs assistance with cleaning and recovering tools and cleaning fence rows to allow his boarded horses to graze freely – this is his livelihood.

Dodson Chapel UMC
4207 Dodson Chapel Road
Hermitage, TN

The church’s foundation has been damaged. Volunteer teams including structural engineers have already assessed the situation and are discussing options to repair. Securing the funds to move forward with the repairs is a critical first step in moving forward on this project. Current needs include cleaning the playground equipment and replacing the mulch in the playground area.

There are many other families that are in need of help. The response team continues to assess the needs and deploy volunteers as the resources become available.

THE RISK-TAKING MISSIONS AND SERVICE Team is asking for your help with just three simple steps:

1. Sign up as a volunteer at http://cumberlanddisasterresponse.com.
2. Be available and willing to serve as needed over the next 360-day recovery period. You will be assigned as your schedule permits.
3. You will be blessed to be a blessing.

If you are interested in helping us grow our missions program, please join us on Monday, June 14 at 6:30 PM in Room A3.

Project Tariro

The Grace Risk Taking Mission and Service Team is hoping to send volunteers in 2010 under the leadership of Bobby and Sharon Naylor to do construction work remodeling a building donated for Project Tariro ministries. If you are interested in being on this mission team to Zimbabwe, contact Paul Van Buren, 758-4635 or paulvanburen@comcast.net. If you can not go, consider donating the cost of one pair of shoes to this effort as your ALTERNATE GIFT GIVING, so that journeys to "positive living" in Zimbabwe will become the norm rather than the exception?

You may learn more about Project Tariro by going to www.projecttariro.com or by joining the Facebook group, Friends of Project Tariro.

Click here to read about an encounter from Paul's most recent trip to Zimbabwe.

Click HERE to find out more about the Zimbabwe Mission Trip!

Grace United Methodist Church
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