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Dear Family and Friends:
Eric is one of our great volunteers in English-speaking Africa. When I was leading this division of our ministry,
I took note of of him as someone who consistently answered his own mail and led his team well. I eventually
elevated him to lead Africa’s entire Southern and Eastern region (almost 100 volunteers). One of the key factors
in this decision was the testimony he gave in his profile. I thought I’d share it with you all this month as a
way to explain about a new development in our technology and partnership structure: our “On The Ground
Connections” module, due to be released in the fall.
“Start out every day, thanking God for His blessing and provision for the day.
Then end the day with thanks. In this way, we can ‘train’ our minds to be grateful.”
—Community Guardian Eric
In that year, she gave him assurance of salvation, gave him clear teaching about the Holy Spirit and got him
connected with a local church. He quickly entered training to be a deacon and pursued theological education
through Campus Crusade’s International School of Theology in Nairobi.
“Eric took it on his own to go back to the School in Nairobi, as I suggested, and begin to take courses to work
his way through. I knew he had orphans, besides his own children, that he was putting through school, but I
could not help him financially. He did not let it deter him. I also suggested he begin working with GMO, since
he loved the Bible so much and wanted to tell others about Christ. He had already demonstrated that by sharing
the Four Laws.
From there, Eric is a self-motivating machine! He went far beyond where I thought he was going, showing me he
truly does have a heart for ministry.”
— Online Missionary Cindy
Eric’s story shows the synergy of working with other International and local ministries. We have great local
relationships in some areas of the world (like Kenya, Ethiopia and Ghana), and none in others. Cindy had been
Campus Crusade staff from 1971-1981 and used her understanding and connections to help Eric find the local
resources he needed for his growth.
Not every Online Missionary has such a background to leverage in order to help prepare a leader like Eric. But
we’ve always striven to foster on-the-ground connections in our ministry. Our system is built to capitalize on
anonymity and the availability of inexpensive mobile devices worldwide. So encouraging local connections hasn’t
been that simple. That’s why our upcoming system release is so important. Partner organizations, such as missions
agencies and local church planting movements, will have a way to register with us so as to be identifiable with
a region. They will then show up on a list of local connections, and a spiritually sensitive Online Missionary
can request personal contact information from his evangelistic contact. This contact information can be a Skype
address, a telephone number, email or even Facebook.
As you might imagine, proper training for this will be a key to the development of this sensitivity, as well as
the understanding of how the technology works. In Eric, we have a memorable story of how well it can work.
Please join us in prayer that we can make this a part of our ministry culture, and grow our outreach
exponentially!
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