July 3 Honduras Update

 Most of the BGU students have made their way back to their cities. Lennox from Cayman Islands is hanging out with our short term mission team for a couple days, and Funmi and Kolade are spending a couple days with Olu to see more of his ministry in Honduras up close. The mission team is currently relaxing in Valle de Angeles after a wonderful camping experience with young people from Hope For Honduras. 

The kids learned about God's Grand Narrative. Their Bible study times focused on that, and they had many activities related to that topic. 

We celebrated the ending of the camp with a lunch. And, we watched a fun video of all of the antics from three days of camp. 

There were lots of hugs as we all said goodbye. There were also lots of commitments to stay in touch, and many members of the mission team have expressed that they want to come back next year. 

For many years, Lisa and I dreamed about putting together a short term mission trip that would inspire people and serve to expand Lisa's ministry in Honduras. We also dreamed about combining a mission team with a BGU city immersion. It's so amazing to see those dreams come together! I'm thankful for God's goodness. 

July 1/2 Honduras Update

 The Honduras city immersion with Bakke Graduate University students has officially come to a close. The North Way short term mission team is still going strong with the camp that they're helping to lead for students from Hope For Honduras. It's a beautiful camp and I enjoyed having both the BGU group and the mission team together there again yesterday. It was awesome to see the groups bond so well together around our common purpose to learn from the people of Honduras. 

The campground is an incredible place. We were thankful that the director showed us around and shared about the vision of the camp.

After the camp tour and a session with a CCI counselor who shared about the vision of camp, the BGU group participated in an experiential learning activity together. 

The mission team starting working on getting crafts and games ready for later in the day. The slime that they prepared turned out great!

The approach to camping is for the kids to connect with God. Local Honduran leaders serve as camp counselors, and our team works alongside them to connect with the kids and to jump in at various points to join in on all of the fun. The campers seem to be having a wonderful time!

After lunch I traveled back to the retreat center with the BGU students to do one final debrief of our time together in Tegucigalpa. We discussed how the powerful examples of transformational leadership that we saw throughout the week could lead to our students serving as more powerful examples of transformational leaders in their own cities. And I had them design their own cities from some craft supplies that I had on hand. They had a lot of fun!

I'm thankful for another excellent urban immersion from BGU. These never get old! Each one is unique, and God shows up in special ways. Praise God for his goodness to all of us!

June 29/30 Honduras Update

Our main goal over the past couple of days has been to fully immerse ourselves in the streets with the amazing people in Tegucigalpa. We wrapped up two full days of immersion with a powerful time of prayer for the city from a popular lookout point and park. 

One of my favorite parts of leading city immersions is seeing how the students from different parts of the world enter as strangers who over the course of just a couple days develop relational connections that will last a lifetime. 

There are lots of inside jokes the emerge through all of the ups and downs of exploring a new city and culture together. Our friend Lennox suggested that we snap a photo with our backs to the camera so that we could show off our t-shirts with Hope For Honduras, an urban ministry that we visited and served with earlier in the day. This fountain that is located right in the entrance to the park is such a beautiful place to sit and reflect on the day's activity.

Our BGU and North Way Christian Community teams met up to serve together at Hope For Honduras. We divided up into groups, and we went out into the community to serve others. Some spent time with smaller children in their classrooms at their school, while others went out into the streets to distribute food and pray with people. It was a powerful time of ministry together. We had the opportunity to spend time with the founder of Hope For Honduras to reflect on their work and the experience of serving. 

Our groups have been meeting up each day at a central meeting point in the city where host families drop off their new family members and where the BGU team is dropped off from the retreat center. There's also good coffee there which everyone seems to appreciate!

Yesterday we had the opportunity to exegete the city of downtown Tegucigalpa. I started us off with a tour of some historical sites like churches and museums, sharing about some of the history and culture of the city. 

After the initial tour, I unleashed five groups to head out into the city for a scavenger hunt. That's always a fun way to get to know a new place. I think everyone had a good time!

Our BGU group is enjoying the adventure. It's been a pretty packed bus over the past couple of days with two large teams traveling around together. 

Today, the BGU team will head out to visit another nonprofit organization and then we'll head to Valle de Angeles, a beautiful small town in the mountains, to do some shopping and exploring. The North Way team will start their camp with students from Hope For Honduras today. Please pray for them as they work with local leaders to present a meaningful camp for the kids. Dr. Lisa will be with the North Way team all day today as they prepare, and I'll be with the BGU team. Should be another good day! 

Honduras Update 6-28-23

 Our BGU team started out the day by visiting a beautiful basilica, one of the largest in Central America. We met with priests who are doing some remarkable work in Tegucigalpa.

The views from the location in front of the church were amazing. We could see out to the whole city! And we got a tour of the entire facility with the priest. It's hard to describe the beauty of this place. 

We gathered for lunch, where we reflected on the ministries that we had learned about during our visit to the basilica. We were fortunate to be entertained by some local musicians.

In the afternoon we met up with the short term mission team from Pittsburgh. We joined forces with our translators, and we sent everyone out in groups to explore the city through a cultural immersion exercise. 

In the evening, the short term team unloaded all of the materials that they brought down from Pittsburgh for this week's camp with children from a local urban ministry. They'll be staying in the homes of local Honduran families, so they met up with their families and we prayed for them and sent them on their way. They're getting a fully Honduran cultural experience!

It's a joy to have both of these groups together. Today we'll be setting out to explore the city center of Tegucigalpa. More adventures to come!

Honduras Update 6-27-23

 Yesterday we spent all day at our retreat center, with guest lecturers visiting us from different parts of the Tegucigalpa to share with us about their leadership approaches and models that are utilized at their businesses and nonprofit organizations. We're staying at a beautiful place! It's perfect for us to enjoy God's creation while have a hub to explore the city. 

The first leader that visited us has an amazing ministry to women and children who are victims of domestic abuse. We were all inspired by her passion, and by the powerful example of calling-based leadership that she lives out. 

Dialogue is a big part of our educational approach at BGU. Our students have been asking thoughtful questions, interacting well with each of the leaders that we're learning from this week. The leadership examples are powerful, and often disorienting to students with absorbing so many new concepts. We do a lot of reflection and do our best to connect with each person to help them process what they're doing and what the Lord is doing in their lives through this immersion experience. 

In the afternoon, we met with a business leader who is doing remarkable work with building and leading a hospital that is doing great work in the community. His heart broke for the conditions that he saw in many hospitals in Honduras, and he set out to create a hospital through a foundation that is truly a safe and clean space with excellent health care. From his journey, we were all impressed by his servant leadership. He's an architect by trade, and he's combining those skills of place making with community development acumen to build an asset in the city. 

After that presentation, we had several leaders from a local nonprofit organization who are doing child advocacy work visit with us. They modeled prophetic leadership in their approach to advocacy. It was another inspiring example for us. Throughout the day yesterday, Lisa and I connected with our doctoral students to assist them with shaping their projects for this course and with some brainstorming about their dissertations. Our BGU students make a significant different in the world with their research, so it's fun to dream together. Today, we're heading out to do some more exploring in Tegucigalpa. We'll visit one of the most breathtaking basilicas in Central America, and we'll visit with the priests. This afternoon, we're meeting up with the short term mission team from North Way Christian Community to do some cultural immersion exercises. Should be an interesting day!

June 26 Honduras Update

Yesterday was a blast. We started our day off with quiet time, then we attended a worship service at a local church. What an amazing experience that was! When the music started to start the service, a whole bunch of children and teens made their way to the front of the room and starting singing and dancing. There was lots of interesting imagery in the building and throughout the service. The pastor of the church was a former Barrio 18 gang member in LA and Honduras. His church was founded by himself and other gang members coming out of prison, and they have a remarkable mission in Tegucigalpa to reach the least, the last, and the lost. There was probably more passion at this church than at any other church that I've attended. The pastor's story reminds us that God's redemptive mission is open to all people at all times in all places, even to prisoners in solitary confinement cells in prisons. 

The pastor has invited me to come back to his church on Wednesday night to preach. That wasn't on the agenda, but I'll roll with it. Should be a lot of fun to point people toward Jesus in such a lively church!

Our BGU group of students had the opportunity to interview the pastor and his wife after the service. Our group is asking great questions and they're fully engaging with each of the site visits and guest lectures. After a few days together, there's starting to be lots of laughter and deeper conversations. 

We at lunch at Power Chicken (my favorite!), then after some afternoon time to rest we joined Lisa at her property for an experiential learning experience. One of the themes of the trip is to train others in experiential education. Lisa has been training groups for 40 years, and she didn't disappoint with this group. 

Play is at the heart of Lisa's training and ministry through Christian Camping International. Many of us stop playing when we grow up, but play is so fun and it's a great way to connect with other people. Lisa's property provides many opportunities for play. 

Everyone here is up for an adventure. These urban immersions aren't for the faint of heart... we squeezed a lot into one day yesterday. There's always a fine balance between pushing a group with many activities and creating down time to rest and reflect. We probably never get it quite right because each immersion is unique. I'm thankful for this group and they've jumped in whole-heartedly!

Honduras Update 6-25-23

 Each summer I've had the opportunity to lead short term mission trips to Honduras with teams from the church where I serve as a pastor, North Way Christian Community. We always visit Dr. Lisa Anderson Umana and her urban ministry partners to assist her with he work with Christian Camping International. Last year we had an amazing team that did great work in Tegucigalpa. On one of our bus rides around town, Lisa and I schemed up a trip where we would attempt a city immersion with students from Bakke Graduate University that would overlap with a short term missions team from North Way. This week, that dream is becoming a reality. On June 23rd, Lisa and I welcomed students from around the world to Tegucigalpa to begin a ten day city immersion. The North Way team is having their final trip planning meeting today, and they're flying to Tegucigalpa on June 27th to join us for our adventures in Honduras. It's all coming together!

During our welcome dinner on Friday evening, we took the chance to get to know each other. Usually everyone is tired during the initial travel day to open a BGU immersion, so we keep the schedule pretty low key. One of our themes for the immersion is experiential learning, so Lisa is incorporating lots of fun ideas into the week to help us reflect on what we're learning. 

We're staying at a beautiful retreat center called Villa Gracia. There's tropical flowers everywhere, amazing views, and nature all around. We'll be going in and out of many different parts of the city while we're here, so this place will be a nice place to rest our heads. We start each morning off with quiet time and an Ignatian devotional that was put together by BGU's director of spiritual formation, Dr. Nita Kotiuga. God does special things through city immersions, so it's important for our teams to spend time with the Lord each day. 

On Saturday we started the learning off with guest lecturers from the Tegucigalpa chamber of commerce. They shared a presentation on how business can bring about transformation, and they shared practical examples of how they're doing that in Honduras. The highlight was probably spending time with several entrepreneurs who have started up exciting new businesses in different parts of the city. In the afternoon we discussed missions. We had two missionaries visit with us, and they shared about a very unique ministry model that they've developed where they have developed a network of missionaries and ministries throughout Honduras that are now collaborating with each other. It was a beautiful picture of shalom leadership. 

After dinner in the evening, we enjoyed an evening of dancing. A local Honduras dance group shared traditional folk dances with us. It was a great opportunity to get to know the culture better as we prepare to explore the city this week. We were even invited to join in on the dancing for a few songs (I won't post any pictures of me embarrassing myself with my awful dance moves). I'll do my best to post on this blog as the BGU team, and eventually the North Way team, join forces to learn more about what God is doing in Honduras. It's going to be an amazing couple of weeks!

Taking on a new challenge at BGU

 I'm in an interesting transitional season at the moment. Bakke Graduate University has invited me to serve as their next President. I'll officially step into that role during BGU's graduation ceremony in Dallas on June 3, 2023. I'll still be pastoring at North Way, but I'll be taking a lot of responsibilities off of my plate in order to free up time to lead BGU and to serve the community of East Liberty well as a pastor at the Ministry Hub. In these transitional months, I'm handing off leadership with LAMP mentoring. I'm sad to not be dedicating as much time with that, but it's in good hands moving forward. I'll also be handing off leadership of the academic programs at BGU to a new academic dean. I really enjoyed that role at BGU and I learned a lot. Hopefully the experience that I gained on the academic side of higher education leadership will assist me with leading as a university president. I'm looking forward to the challenge. 

More details on succession plan at BGU can be found on their website: https://bgu.edu/growth-energized-by-new-president-and-new-chancellor