karenoch

Missions to Sweden?

I thought I would tell the story of how I came to join a team from you church for on a short term missions trip to Sweden. I have been praying and thinking about going on missions trips on and off since I arrived at BCEC. It seemed like summer 2010 was a new window of opportunity with my kids being older and a bit easier for K to handle. My mother-in-law also was gracious to plan a visit during the dates I would be away.

So I mentioned my interest in joining a summer missions trip to the brothers and sisters on our church’s Missions Committee. Then one sister, Chik Ching, told her contacts in Sweden about one of our pastors applying to go. Within a few days she asked me, “What if you went to Sweden as a guest speaker?” I said, “I’d be open to that!” And after a few emails and conversations, it was arranged. Lord willing, I board a plane in about 30 minutes that will fly to Iceland, and then on over to Sweden.

One feature of being an invited speaker instead of a more typical missions team member is that I did not have to raise financial support. But I still wanted to raise prayer support so I have been sharing about my trip to different folks. But I thought I would share a fuller explanation of my trip details.

I and other members from my church are serving the Scandinavian Chinese Christian Church for their annual summer camp. The camp will run from Monday, July 12 through Sunday, July 18. There are three parts to the younger camp. A junior camp and a youth camp, which will cover kids up to about 19 years old. And for the first time, they will offer a “young adult” (YA) camp. The ages for the YA camp will run ages 20-70. Yes, a septuagenarian.

What Will I Do?

I will be preaching 5 morning sessions. I will also teach 3 evening workshop sessions. And finally, I will preach to a joint session with all three of the non-Chinese camps on Sunday morning. I also hope to spend plenty of time with each camper as there are less than 20 people in my entire group. That gives some perspective about the state of the Chinese church in Scandinavia.

Chinese in Scandinavia?

Yep, there are. You can learn more about it here. To put this in perspective, the entire younger generation or Scandinavian-born population of Chinese is less than one of our teen conferences. Our church has sent teams there for a number of years already. And I a few of my teammates are returning team members. It’s an honor to serve with this team, and serve the Scandinavian church.

Prayer Requests

1. Please pray for the Spirit to give our team unity, humility, and love as we serve.
2. Please pray that the Spirit would strengthen people’s faith in Christ through this camp.
3. Please pray for sensitivity and adaptability to another culture and the different climate.
4. Please pray for my church in Boston while I’m away, especially ministries like our summer day camp, my college Philip who will be preaching and leading a new sermon series.
5. Please pray God’s compassion on me as I miss being with my family and that God would protect and grow their faith through this process.

Thanks for reading. I hope to update as I can while in Sweden. If I have Internet, I will also try to update my Twitter during this trip in case anyone would like to pray in more “real time.” Thanks!

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