Go west, young man! (Travel Update)

by | Apr 20, 2024 | What's New, Where We're Going

Dear All,

I just dropped Scott at the airport for the first of his three flights toward Asia for a powerful Raising Disciple-Makers mission trip in the Philippines! We’ve had a number of new partners join our email list – WELCOME! –  so, if this next paragraph is old news, you’re welcome to skip to today’s bottom line.

We are truly grateful for our partners’ prayers, especially during a mission trip, so I’ll be sending emails (usually daily) to update you on what’s going on with Scott and our friends in the Philippines. I’ll give you the day’s “bottom line” and prayer requests first, so please do read that part. Following those two sections, I’ll give more detailed information for those who have time and interest to read on.  

Saturday’s Bottom Line:

It’s been a wild week, and we almost overslept, but Scott has now completed the first leg of his journey and will soon depart Houston for San Francisco. Then, it’s on to Hong Kong for a three-day visit with our family there before traveling on to the Philippines.

Saturday’s Prayer Requests:

1. Safety and comfort for Scott as he travels; specifically, no back pain and good seating on his 15-hour SF to HK flight.
2. Scott and all his luggage arrive intact and on time in Hong Kong. This time, he has two checked bags instead of his usual one. 
3. A great visit Monday-Wednesday with Jessica (our daughter), Matthias, and their three wonderful children.Saturday’s Details:

Scott usually travels directly to the country or countries he will be ministering in, but since he’s headed to the Philippines (which is only a hop, a skip, and a two-hour flight from Hong Kong), he added three days in Hong Kong to the front of his trip to spend time with our grandkids—well, with their parents, too! I will try to resist my grandmotherly temptation to tell you all about those three, but it is the nature of grandmas to share pictures, right?
The whole family in December (L to R: Ezekiel, Matthias, Ellie, Jess, Nate)

Ezekiel (almost five), ring-bearer in a wedding today

Ellie (three-and-a-half) “She’s a diva!”

Nate (eight months), mellow fellow?
Okay, I’m done with pictures of our grands. = )

We left our house at 4:31 AM Saturday, and Scott will arrive at their house around 8:00 PM Sunday (local time), which is 7:00 AM Sunday our time. So, his total travel time is expected to take about 26.5 hours. I know he appreciates your prayers very much, and so do I!

Blessings,
Patty 

Pastors in Poondi and New Work in Nepal

by | Nov 5, 2022 | What's New, Where We're Going

Dear Friends of TTC,

As we mentioned in our last update, Scott is excited to be heading back to India next month. He will partner with our team there to invest in a new group of Indian pastors and their wives. As we did in April, we will again host two three-day pastor’s couples’ conferences in the Poondi Madha Retreat Center in south India. We have had such good results with this facility, and I (Scott) am really looking forward to ministering there again.

Scott ministers to pastors and wives in the Retreat Center

 
Pastors and their spouses will stay two nights at the retreat center, which provides food, lodging, and conference facilities for up to 150 people. We have found that having the pastoral couples come away from their home area and providing them with nice accommodations consistently yields great results (listen to one pastor’s testimony here). To top it all off, the total cost per couple for food and lodging for those two nights and three days is only $40.

We will be inviting 75 couples to each of the two conferences. If you would like help us by sponsoring three or four couples, please go to our egive portal and select India Pastors Seminars as the fund.

Scott’s host in India, Pastor Rajan, has been facing harassment from government officials because of his ongoing work of training pastors. The map below shows the number of pastors being trained per county.

This past week he was interrogated for three hours, but the officials could not find anything for which to charge him with wrongdoing. They are now pressuring on the owner of the building their church has been meeting in for more than ten years; he has given them an eviction notice. The church is about $2000 shy of the total needed to purchase land for a new church building. Please pray for Pastor Rajan and Bethel Church.

After two weeks in India, Scott will be traveling for the first time to Nepal, a land-locked nation between India and China that is largely Hindu. Over half the Nepali people have never heard the gospel, and many have not even heard the name “Jesus.”

Scott will be working with Pastor Mohan (“MOW-hahn”), a local pastor whose church has planted 25 new churches in the past 10 years. Together they will spend three days investing in Nepali pastors and will then travel to a remote mountain village to preach the gospel and encourage the church there. Pastor Mohan has been attending one of Scott’s online disciple-makers groups for the past few months and is working to translate the first volume of the Pressing Toward the Mark discipleship material into Nepali prior to Scott’s arrival.

Nepali youth rally in October 2022


Praise Reports:
1. Great deal on conference center room and board (12 meals and two nights in a hotel room for only $40)
2. An open door to the nation of Nepal.

Prayer Requests:
1. Favor and provision for Pastor Rajan and Bethel Church
2. Sponsors for 150 Indian pastoral couples to attend a TTC Pastor’s Conference
3. God’s guidance and provision for Scott’s upcoming trip.

Thank you so much for your prayers. We really appreciate your partnership!

Blessings,
Scott, Patty, and the whole TTC team

Man plans his way…

by | Aug 1, 2021 | Uncategorized, What's New, Where We're Going

Dear Praying Friends of TTC,

Everything has been coming together for Scott’s mission trip to Kenya this month, August 4-24, 2021. The schedule includes seven Raising Disciple-Makers (RDM) seminars, five Better Together marriage seminars for pastors, ministry leaders, and their spouses, three Sunday morning church services, and two full-day planning sessions! Our goal for this trip is to raise up a dozen weekly Disciple-Makers group with pastors who attend one of Scott’s RDM seminars. This should enable the impact of Scott’s time on the ground there to have a much greater and more enduring impact.

The strange thing is that a few weeks ago, Patty had a strong sense that Scott would not be going to Kenya; not that Scott shouldn’t go to Kenya, just that he wouldn’t be going. When she shared this with me (Scott) on Tuesday July 27, everything about the trip was moving forward as planned, so I just “put it on the shelf,” wondering what it could mean.

Well, when I met with pastors from multiple African nations on Friday afternoon July 30, one of them had a prayer request regarding the new nationwide ban on in-person meetings in Kenya. The Kenyan Minister of Health had just stated that, “All public gatherings and in-person meetings of whatever nature are suspended countrywide.” After prayer and consultation with the TTC Board and our team on the ground in Kenya, the decision was made to postpone my planned trip to Kenya.

Although disappointed, I am so thankful that God revealed the secret things to Patty well before it happened. I am also very thankful that this happened before I got on the plane. God knows the end from the beginning, and he is not wasteful. We believe he will make full use of all the pre-trip work our team has been doing, and that this will greatly expand the network of disciple-making churches being raised up in Kenya.

The Delta variant of the coronavirus is truly wreaking havoc across the African continent. Our pastors in South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe are all requesting prayer regarding this as it is having a big impact on their ministries. Pastor Rose from Zimbabwe told me, “Here it’s funeral after funeral.”

Prayer Points
1. Pray for our TTC team in Kenya to have God’s wisdom regarding how to proceed now that the TTC pastor’s meetings have been suspended.
2. Join us in thanking God for saving Scott the time, expense, and possible danger of making this trip only to have his meetings be canceled.
3. Pray for the nations of Africa to be freed from the grip of the global pandemic and for the Church to keep winning the lost and making disciples during this trying time.

Despite this delay, we here at Take the Challenge are determined to fulfill the call of God to come alongside pastors and leaders worldwide and equip them to raise up disciple-makers. We are thankful to have so many who are running with this vision around the world. We realize that without people like you supporting us in prayer and financially, none of this would be possible.

With Gratitude,
Scott, Patty and the whole TTC team

Kenya – October 2019

by | Jul 8, 2019 | Where We're Going

Kenya – October 2019

Scott will return to Kenya to continue training pastors and leaders with Pastor Martin. This trip will involve sowing seeds of biblical truth into pastors in new areas as well as gathering a small group of pastors with whom he will go deeper on raising disciple-makers. During this trip Scott also hopes to hold his first pastors seminar in neighboring Uganda.

South Asia – July 2019

by | Jul 8, 2019 | Where We're Going

South Asia – July 2019

Scott will make his fourth trip to South Asia, in continued partnership with three different South Asian ministries. First, he will teach at a three-day pastors conference in northeast Andhra Pradesh, hosted by Pastor Stifan (“Stephen”). Pastor Stifan’s Agape School of Evangelism has trained and sent out over 150 pastors into multiple provinces over the past 18 years. This will be the third of five of Pastor Stifan’s regional conferences at which Scott will be teaching. Listen here to a testimony from the last regional pastors’ conference.

Scott will then hold six pastors seminars in five different cities in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. These pastors are all part of the Joshua Mission network which is led by Pastor Dass. One of the seminars will be a three-day, in depth Raising Disciple-Makers seminar, which will include the Barnabas Method, discussed in this video testimony.

Finally, Scott will hold four, two-day seminars in the Tamil Nadu area with Pastor Rajan. Rajan is one of the pastors Scott has been mentoring through an online, weekly disciple-makers group. He is a passionate disciple-maker who has traveled as many as 28 hours by train to pass on what he is learning, by hosting his own disciple-makers training in regions where westerners would not be welcome.