January 01, 1994 by

Adopt-A-People Conference

The USCWM Eastern Regional Office, Washington D.C. Center for World Mission, and USCWM Southeast Regional Office co-sponsored an Adopt-A-People conference, November 5-6, 1993 focusing on unreached peoples of the CIS. Responses from the 200+ participants have been very good so far. A conference notebook called, Unreached Peoples of the Former Soviet Union, included twelve people profiles with plans for twelve more to be added at a later date. Notebooks are still available for a cost of $15.00 each. Regional Offices, USCWM

Modified Perspectives Held in Russia

Jim Overton reports: "Last spring a condensed Perspectives class was offered on the Campus of St. Petersburg Christian College. Kirghiz, Dagestani, Uighur, and other ethnic groups were among the participants. It was evident that these students had interest in reaching their own ethnic groups and their presence helped awaken the Russian students to the needs of these peoples. The twenty-four students used translations from: Mission Mundial, Unveiled at Last and Focus, the Power of People Group Thinking, as textbooks. One outcome was the completion of certain people profiles. For their final exam, they were asked what they would do to help complete the Great Commission in the CIS. áSeven students planned to spend the summer in ministry to Muslims in the Transcaucasus Region." Jim's goal is to establish a permanent Center for World Mission in association with the college. Revised excerpts from Jim Overton's newsletter

Philippino Missionaries Called Forth

Two-thousand attended a missions conference in Mindanao where over 200 mature E-1 church planters pledged to become cross-cultural missionaries, many to the Muslims! In another location students held a missions conference for their group of churches and over 1,000 came with more than 250 dedicating themselves to full-time cross-cultural missions. Incredible things are happening each week for missions. A huge missions movement is beginning - on a scale that may be unprecedented before it is over. Recently a Filippina was commissioned to cross-cultural ministry in Japan - the first of four who will go out from a single church in the next year: another to a Muslim people and two to unreached tribal groups in the Philippines!

Revised excerpts from Dr. Larry Caldwell's personal newsletter

Multitudes of Hindus Turn to the Lord

Many Hindus are turning to the Lord in India. Various ministries are reporting that large numbers of Hindus are being discipled and baptized in India. Still others are waiting for baptism with perhaps as many as 15,000 Hindus a day are coming to Christ. One mission reported over 5,000 new believers in only one month's time.

Henrietta Watson, Institute of Hindu Studies, USCWM

Missionary Training Consultant Seminar

William Carey International University will host a WEF seminar for missionary training consultants February 22-26, 1994. Proposed outcomes will be:

    Unite for the first time WEF-MisCom staff, regional heads of missions associations and regional Int'l Missionary Training Associate (IMTA) coordinators to produce a strategic plan in missionary training for the WEF Missions Commission for the next five years.
    Introduce potential IMTA leaders with other key individuals committed to and involved in missionary training to the ethos and workings of the IMTP and its objectives.
    Provide concrete training for IMTAs and others in the following four areas:

1. How to Start a Missionary Training Program
2. How to Conduct a Profiling Exercise
3. How to Convert Training Outcomes into

Curriculum

4) How to Conduct a Standards Setting Exercise

    Produce a practical book for missionary trainers that develops in written form the four topics presented in the training seminar.

    William Taylor, Executive Sec., WEF Missions Commission

Student Mission Mobilizers Consultation II

The Student Mission Mobilizers Consultation II will be held at the USCWM in Pasadena, California from Jan 4-7, 1994. The first consultation was held in Seoul, Korea on March 18-19, 1993. Fifty participants drew up the SMMC Seoul Declaration as a reflection of their commitment to finish the unfinished task by the year 2000, and to cooperate together to mobilize students. SMMC II will bring Korean and Korean-American student mobilizers together for the first time (Mission Korea has played a vital part in this collaboration) as a form of consultation to network and cooperate together. Some forty or more key mobilizers are expected to participate.

Alice Choi, Korean American Center for World Mission

World Christian Foundations Curriculum

(WCF) Update

As of December 1st, the field-based M.A. Program took on a new name, the Global Civilization Curriculum. The World Christian Foundations office is also the new office name under which it will function.

The first course of the new WCF program has been finished. What remains is to edit a few of the earlier lessons and then publish the books and tapes. The first course hand-outs and daily study lessons will amount to three volumes, totalling approximately 1400 pages!

So far, more than 100 students have enrolled in this new program, from 17 different countries. One note for prayer is that 16 students (mostly from foreign countries) have had to discontinue studies, mostly due to lack of finances. On the positive side, two major U.S. seminaries have chosen to offer the program and it is hoped that soon others will follow. Steve Burg, WCF Office, USCWM