51 protesters wounded in Thailand explosions - Yahoo! News

51 protesters wounded in Thailand explosions - Yahoo! News

As violence grows, please pray for our friends in Thailand. Keep in your prayers our fully devoted friends: Dave, Tutu, Christian and Bonnie who all serve the Lord in this volatile area.

May God protect and advance His kingdom amid hostile environments.

Thanksgiving for the nations

by Mike Licht, Notionscapital.com

I returned from Wooster Grace where we served 65 people at the Internationals Thanksgiving Dinner. Most internationals in the Wooster area are unfamiliar with preparing Thanksgiving type food. So Celeste Hodgdon mobilized people from our church to provide an American Thanksgiving meal with all the fixin's.

Many were invited. Sixty-five joined us in the South Fellowship Hall. We ate a meal together. We had various nations represented: Brazil, Germany, Japan, China, Ecuador, Chile, Mexico, United States, and Navajo.

We even had international prepare and share typical dishes from their country of birth. I tasted marinated chicken in a soy sauce/ginger/pepper soak. I wolfed down fried rice. I savored German pastries and cookies. Everything was great!

I thank God that we could provide a meal for internationals to taste the foods of the season with new friends for this season in their lives. Most are involved with graduate school or work in town. Two families benefited from a immigration lottery so that they could be in the United States. I tried learning how to say thanks for coming in the various languages. I mimicked, got corrected, receive more laughs than compliments but I know that everyone was personally thanked. What a great team effort!

I saw the Hodgdon's with a digital camera. So if I can get their pictures, I will post some later. Overall, God is helping our church to develop all people from all the nations of the world into fully devoted followers of Jesus.

Reach out to the nations here in the US

Which Direction Is New York? MTV

If you ever want to know how challenging it is to come to the United States, then check this MTV True Life Series episode. You will have a better understanding how difficult it is for the nations to come to our country.

"All over the world people dream of moving to the United States. Some come for freedom, some come for work; but all immigrants must face the harsh realities of a place that can feel very strange to them. In this episode of True Life, you'll meet two young people from different corners of the globe looking for a better life in America against difficult odds (Taken from MTV episode summaries)."

Each student decides to come to America; Bara from the Czech Republic and Timonthy from Burma. It intringues me that we have missionary partners who serve God in the Czech Republic (The Swains) and we have missionary partners serving in SE Asia (Kevin & Jill Kane; Steve & Deb Wise--Cambodia). I wonder what their take on this journey for these students would be.

Anyways, if you come to a place during Thanksgiving when you feel bored or need a change from festivities, then check out the segments on the link above.

Developing all people into fully devoted followers of Jesus in all the nations of the world! The nations even come to America. Who is near you that you may be able to reach out to for Christmas? Maybe God has placed an international family in your neighborhood, workplace, a place where you frequent regularly to shop or to visit, all may present opportunities to reach out to the nations.

Thanksgiving in Cambodia

Steve and Deb Wise, our missionary partners in Cambodia share from their newsletter what they are thankful for:

Happy Thanksgiving week! Since Thanksgiving isn't a Khmer holiday we will work most of the week as usual. However, we do have plans to get together with some CAMA missionary friends on Thursday evening and have a meal, complete with turkey and everything! We hope you have plans to be with friends and family. It's hard to be so far away from our families this time of year; that's what we will be missing the most come Thursday. The thing we'll miss second-most is all the football on TV. Ah, the sacrifices. :-) In spite of that, we have a lot to be thankful for, and we'd like you to praise the Father with us: (taken from Wise Weekly Newsletter--to subscribe email them at stevendeb@mac.com

Being so far from home is a challenge for our fully devoted followers who seek to develop more fully devoted followers in all the nations of the world. So I've taken only one of several requests the Wise's shared for your consideration. Take a moment to offer thanks to God and to offer a prayer to God on behalf of the Steve and Deb.

Praise God for a year of relatively good health. We are grateful for the strength He gives us to do our work every day. That being said, pray for Steve who feels like he's coming down with a cold. Also please keep Steve's Aunt Betty in mind, as she has one more week of radiation therapy to go, and is feeling quite sick from it.

As you stay up late the eve of Thanksgiving, remember those in SE Asia who will greet the sunrise at midnight. Say a prayer for them! They are truly fully devoted followers of Christ.

Sowing Hope Gives Thanks

photo by bucklava

One of the ministries that we conduct regularly is the Sowing Hope ministry. We get to reach out to those families who are the hard-working poor on the southside of Wooster.

We invited many to attend a Thanksgiving Dinner at 5pm on Sun Nov 23. We seated 65 people (families with children, couples, and single adults). We sent five dinners home with those who stopped by and could not find a seat. Then the team decided to take dinners door-to-door so that we can share God's bounty with others. Thus, we delivered another 30 meals to the apartments at the South Towers. All together we served 100 meals.

My favorite story is little Macyn. She is a girl who wanted to help other children and their families out. Macyn brought her mom. Together they brought a dish to share and they served the plates to all the families.

A little girl wanted to help out by reaching out with God's love to those who may not have anything for Thanksgiving. That's the heart of outreach!

May the young be the examples to the older ones. As the Bible says in I Timothy 4:12a, "Let no one look down on your youthfulness..." or to put it another way, "And don't let anyone put you down because you're young. Teach believers with your life: by word, by demeaner, by love , by faith, by intergrity."

Plasters of Paris

photo by viZZZual.com

One thing I am learning to enjoy is a friend's sense of humor. Rob has a passion for people. People matter to the Rob & Nichole.

Rob & Nichole serve as our missionary partners in Paris, France. Though labeled a romantic city, Paris is spiritually dead.

Still, they have many contacts you can pray for; those who will join them for an American Thanksgiving Celebration. As they shared on their e-newsletter:

Thanksgiving Dinner in our Home in France! This Saturday (November) 23 people will be sharing with us a Thanksgiving celebration! We will share about being thankful for what God has done for us. Pray as we share to this audience of French who live in a culture where the concept of being thankful does not exist. We ordered our turkey from the butcher last week since normally turkeys are not ready until Christmas. We look forward to a great time as we share a holiday that is dear to us.


Rob states the challenging of sharing Christ with Parisians and how things are going in Paris on his blog. You can learn how to best join them in this mission by praying for them and sending them an occasional email encouragement note.

























Grace Brethren International Missions offers a daily email update called PrayNow! which sends you prayer requests from the missionaries partnering with the Grace Brethren. You can email Ron Guiles to add your address to the daily email updates at rguiles@gbim.org.

Reach out, reach out, reach out

One of my heroes of reaching out is George Swain. Both he and Cindy faithfully offer opportunities for people to come hear the Gospel.

In his latest Top Ten E-newsletter, George shared the following prayer request: Pray for the salvation of the people who received the 1,200 pieces of literature that George distributed last week.

If you don't receive George & Cindy Swain's Top Ten e-newsletter, then send an email to them.

For Christ at the University

Annie Michaels is a fully devoted follower of Jesus! She faithfully follows God despite distractions. She is focused and does what God sets before her.


Please pray for her and her ministry to the college students at the College of Wooster. Thanksgiving and Christmas are opportunities to share your encouragement with Annie. May God provide encouragement to her in the near future.

Annie helped mobilize students to address slave trade issues on campus with The Price of Life campaign (Nov 10-14). The fellowship of Christians on campus raised awareness and sought to raise funds to adopt the many orphans and widows who constantly fight against the slave trade and who often are victims of the slave traders and slave system. May God continue to empower Christian studenst to bring up the Gospel even after the week of emphasis has concluded.

Touching Tomorrow

by beru8ra

At Wooster Grace we have utilized missions funds designated from Touching Tomorrow to initiate church planting here in the U.S. One of the beneficiaries we partner with is Ron & Chery Boehm. Please pray for Ron & Chery as they facilitate church planting here in Ohio.

Wooster Grace partners with Ron & Chery Boehm as well as the Kent, Ohio church plant, CATALYST Church. Jonathan Herron leads this new church plant in Kent, Ohio. Please pray for Jon as he recovers from back surgery.



Ron is secunded to VisionOhio from the Grace Brethren Church of Columbus (Ohio). Currently he is assisting the development of 12 new churches in the following cities of Ohio:

• Apple Creek


• Ashland


• Cleveland


• Columbus


• Englewood


• Jerome


• Kent


• Mt. Sterling


• New Albany


• Plain City


• Springboro


• Springfield

To see how VisionOhio is contributing to each of these church planters, please visit VisionOhio's webpage here.

Fully Devoted followers to Africa

If you haven't checked out the team sent to the Central African Republic, then please visit here. It is our passion to develop fully devoted followers in all nations of the world.

We have established a partnership with villages in Central Africa to address spiritual and physical needs. Wooster Grace reaches out to all people groups because people matter to God. Regardless of the ethnic makeup, each person matters to God.