Jeff Adams

You haven’t heard from me the past couple of days because we have been busily engaged in a retreat of our pastoral team. We are having a wonderful time together!

Before the retreat we read the book Integrity by Dr. Henry Cloud. This is a great book and I highly recommend it. We were able to watch a couple of videos  by Cloud and his colleague John Townsend and found them very edifying. The premise is that integrity goes far beyond mere morals and hinges on six principles of character. We have built our time together around this theme.

Each of us has had time to share things we struggle with and what we are asking God to do over this next year. We have had ample time to pray together and this time together has been very sweet. I can’t tell you how fabulous it is to work with a group of men like this with whom we truly respect each other and just have fun being together. It’s also very nice to be able to open our hearts to each other in confidence.

We all did miss our Tuesday night prayer ministry, but we have been praying here as part of our 24/7 prayer cycle leading up to The Summit. We are expecting God to do some powerful work at The Summit.

EPIC International is the mission agency that facilitates our alliance of churches working with Ks who speak B_dini. My dear friend and mentor Roscoe Brewer is the founder of EPIC. For the past year it has been my privilege to serve on the EPIC board of directors. I took off yesterday morning to Atlanta from Kansas City as the snow was just beginning to arrive. Now, I am at the Atlanta airport ready to head home.

I am amazed at what is happening in the areas where EPIC is working. What makes it even more spectacular is the fact that they are doing all this on a shoestring! The return on investment is abundant! I only wish I could share everything that is going on. However, one of the disadvantages of working with the least-reached is that most of them live in places that tend to be a bit dangerous and security issues prohibit giving a lot of details. This is why being at The Summit beginning February 28th will be important. As a reminder, most of what is said will not be recorded for the same reason of the security of those with whom we work.

As I fly home I will be reviewing my thoughts on holiness for tomorrow morning. Thanks to those of you who participated with your input.

Well, our team made it home yesterday around noon. We were all ready to get home and the cool temperatures actually felt great after the heat of the past two weeks.

I was very proud of of our team. And, I was very glad we put our tourism days up front before we went to CIMA in Cordoba. Had we reversed the order they would have too tired to have enjoyed their time in Buenos Aires and Montevideo. The temperatures in Argentina were in the upper 90’s and around 100 every day. Arriving at the international fair grounds our student team discovered that their assignment was to keep the bathrooms clean and help with the trash detail. Keep in mind the hot temperatures, no air-conditioning, and the fact that several days the water was off for hours at a time during the day.  1,800 students had registered and over 2200 showed up. After working hard all day and participating in the activities, they retired to “sleep”on the  floor of giant pavilions where bodies were crowded side to side. Several staff members and the CIMA founder were quick to tell me how valuable our team was and that their attitude was exemplary.

In the next few days I hope to post a few pictures on FaceBook, and I am sure several of the team members will, too.  I’m not sure if it was the extreme contrasts of temperatures, fatigue or the contamination of airplane air, but I came home with a cold. Whatever the case, I was delighted to gather together as the church this morning, thankful for the wonderful experiences and also thankful to be home.

It’s over, CIMA 2010. Three years of work on the part of many people. Over 2000 students from the five countries of southern South America and beyond came together in Cordoba, Argentina to explore God’s mission and the implications for their lives. Over 400 made decisions regarding cross-cultural missions.

What makes this student event unique is not only the high quality of every detail, but the fact that approximately half of these students will leave tomorrow to put into practice what they have been challenged to do. They will go to short term missions in strategic ministries in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Peru, Japan, Austria, Germany, Senegal and Nepal.

Last night Argentine Pastor Gerardo Ferace preached one of the deepest and substantive sermons I’ve heard in a long time. Tonight was CIMA Fest, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Cristian Training Center (CEC) that is force behind the CIMA events.

Tomorrow morning our little team will meet at the airport for the flight to Buenos Aires. We’ll have quite a long layover before flying out shortly before midnight tomorrow evening (Friday) to arrive back in Kansas City around noon on Saturday.

You can be very proud of this team. CEC founder Thomas Vogelin told me this evening that his staff has given glowing reviews of their work and attitude, saying that they saved the day when it came to taking care of the logistical cleaning needs. I’m sure they are all very tired, but content that God has stretched them and that their lives will be forever changed.  See you Sunday!

Whew! I hope I have enough fuel in the tank to finish this week. But what a blast it’s been!

I couldn’t post an update yesterday because the Internet was down in the hotel again. Maybe they just turn it off at 0100hrs. I wouldn’t know because I don’t usually get back until 0130 or so. I had every intention of posting this after I finished teaching my plenary session this morning. I got to the speaker’s “green room,” opened my computer and the lights went out. I was able to come back to the hotel for just this brief time before returning for tonight’s activities and fortunately the Internet is now working.

Tuesday night’s speaker was Guatemalan Junior Zapata, one of the leading youth speakers in Latin America, a man I first met years ago when he was finishing High School and I was the speaker at a youth camp in Guatemala. Our students really loved what he had to say and begged me to ask him to come to The Summit in 2011. I wrote about our reconnecting after many years in this post from April of 2008 if you’d like to know a bit more about Junior.

Last night was Night Without Borders at CIMA 2010. Pastor Yun was the speaker. If you have not read the book about his life called The Heavenly Man, you need to get it. It will stretch you and probably make you uncomfortable, but you won’t be bored. Yun is one of the principle leaders of the house church movement in China. Forced to leave due to harsh persecution, he now lives with his wife and son in Germany. His son Isaac, who speaks German, is often his interpreter. Last night a Chinese pastor who lives in Argentina interpreted into Spanish.

You would all be proud of our group of students from KCBT. They have been stretched to the limit but they have responded splendidly. They have all been serving in areas like cleaning restrooms, trash duty and other menial chores that are not much fun under normal conditions much less in a foreign culture with temperatures in the upper 90’s. Just this morning one of the staff leaders stopped me to comment on how pleased he was with this group and what a delight it is to be around them. We have had some great times.

I’ve told you that you could go to http://www.cima2010.com and click CIMA TV to watch the evening events via live streaming. I just found out yesterday that my morning sessions are also being streamed live! I found this out because a Salvadoran friend who lives in Calcutta, India posted on Face Book that she saw the last part of my teaching yesterday morning. I have one more session tomorrow (Thursday) if you would like to join us at 0730hrs Kansas City time. You can click the British flag to translate the site into English, Browse around and you can even see a few pictures already posted. Most are from three years ago. I’ll post some pictures on Face Book when I get home and there will be videos up on YouTube before long.

God is doing some fabulous things in young lives here. The atmosphere is electric. Thanks for your prayerful support. And, thanks to you who gave to some of these students to help them make this trip. I have no doubt it will be life-changing.