Welcome: What this is all about…

This is the first edition of the NCC aone:eight missions newsletter! We hope that this newsletter will accomplish three goals: 1) give opportunity to the greater community to participate in the experiences of our missions teams and the amazing work that God is doing around the world 2) be an educational resource to learn more about each of the seven  issues A1:8 is focused on this year 3) provide a space for missions events, fundraisers, prayer requests, and art to be highlighted and lifted up. Perhaps this will inspire a life lived more fearlessly.

Arts & Mission

Photo taken by Beki Gangi while Jamaica missions team served lunches to the homeless in Ocho Rios

Introspective: Vondell Bethune

Obedience Unto Promises, Sarah Bayot

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. – James 5:16

When you go to Ebenezers Coffeehouse, you are bound to run into an energetic and easygoing man in his 50’s who is as well known at the coffeehouse as he is in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. You usually see him helping out the baristas, engaging with regulars, and greeting new customers. This same man was homeless for 6 years struggling with a drug and alcohol addiction. This same man had nothing – no home, no assets, no material when he started seeking the Lord again. In the fall of 2010, this man committed to go on the first aoneeight missions trip of the year set out for Jamaica. And though he had no income, he committed on faith and received a double blessing raising twice the amount needed to go on the Jamaica missions trip. This is not only a story of him going on a missions trip but this is a story of how the Lord seized his heart and took him on a journey to a promised land of blessing. Despite his homelessness, he laid the groundwork of love and care for his neighbors, which positioned those around him to give to his cause. He didn’t have material wealth. But he was sure rich in relationships. While society may judge him by his financial assets, God judged him by the wealth of his love. And that’s all that matters.
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Mission Jamaica

(Left-Right: Marja Toan, Kokoete Etim, Natasha Bajema, Vondell Bethune, Davey Shepherd, Noah Schmidgall, Michael Knox, Nora Jorgensen, Carol Casco, Robb Schmidgall, David Cobb, Jeremy Powell, Inga Green, Darren Cogan, Joey Taylor, Beki Gangi, David Collier, Steve Mechels, Courtney Holden, Elizabeth O’Herrin, Joel Schmidgall)

Back From the Field: Joel Schmidgall

The T.C. students had gone through multiple programs and had heard it all!  We couldn’t provide different content for 25 former addicts, but we could provide different context. It’s amazing what happens to a person’s heart when you sweat together, get paint on your clothes together, when you accomplish a physical task together, and along the way share about God’s life changing power.  Suddenly a hard, untouchable man is open to hearing about the potential God has for him.

But here’s the key.  WE were changed by them.  And the fact that we learned about God and life through them brought understanding of their own worth. Their freedom from addiction was less about heeding advice and more about handing out life!

The true secret is that the miraculous life changing power of God is not taught; it is put into action. Putting ourselves in a place of humility to learn opens up another person’s ability to learn. In Jamaica, we saw 25 addicts take a step closer to freedom from addiction. And in so doing, 21 “missionaries” from NCC found a greater faith in God. The rehabilitation process works when all sides share life, learn from each other, and grow towards God.  True rehabilitation equals life change for all who are involved!

Quote

“I learned something about rehabilitation in our week at Teen Challenge Ocho Rios.  The key to rehabilitation does not hinge on what the mentor can teach, but on what the student can learn.”
– Joel Schmidgall

Witness: Inga Green

Conversations About Witness, Sarah Bayot

Sarah (S): What led you to the Jamaica missions trip and what were your expectations leading up to the trip?

Inga (I): When I started serving at the GALA location, everyone was talking about missions. I wanted to do one but didn’t know why exactly except for I’ve always been a big volunteer person. My roommate, Temi, and I volunteer for a lot of different things so I saw this as another volunteer opportunity. When the Fearless catalog came out, I kept my eye on Jamaica. Then Pastor Dave spoke at GALA about the 10-year anniversary of the Jamaica trip and the significance of it since it was the first missions trip that NCC went on. I finally sat down and read about Teen Challenge and Jamaica. I honestly didn’t know Jamaica had as big a drug problem as they had and that they needed good rehabilitation programs. I knew drugs were trafficked through the country and that it was abused. But I didn’t know the people abused it in such a destructive way. I wanted to know how this happened. I really wanted to meet this guy and see the Teen Challenge program.

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Snapshots in the Community: Columbia Heights

Sunday Serve @ GALA Theater, Jenny Ottenhoff

On January 30, the GALA Theater, where National Community Church has evening service at 6:30pm, did not gather due to a tech night for an upcoming theater production. Instead, members of the church gathered to be the church and serve the Columbia Heights neighborhood through a variety of projects. One of the projects at Neighbors Consejo spoke to rehabilitation and proved to be a powerful experience between the volunteers and the residents. Neighbors Consejo is a non-profit in Columbia Heights that works to prevent homelessness in low-income Latino communities, as well as among substance abusers and those diagnosed with mental illness.   They provide a “continuum of care” model that includes case management, outpatient and after care, as well as classes in English as a Second Language (ESL), computer literacy, job skills, and “workforce” training.  Neighbors Consejo also has a number of residents who have mental illnesses and substance abuse issues who live at their facility as well.

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Investigation: Rehabilitation – Calling Us to His Perfect State

Calling us to His Perfect State, Courtney Brode

Rehabilitation (Noun): a) to restore a former capacity or state; b) to restore or bring to a condition of health or useful and constructive activity.^[i]

Did you notice the key word here? It’s restore; akin to likeminded words such as refurbish, renovate, repair, rebuild, recondition, touch up, fix, reinstate, and return.

If there was a way to sum up the story of God and His relationship with creation in one word, it would be restoration. The Bible tells time and time again how God restores His people back to Him, back to how He intended His people to be – in relationship with Him. In Genesis, we see how He created the world and saw that it was good. Adam and Eve had relationship with God and were faultless and without shame. But when sin entered the world, creation fell away from their original state of goodness and fullness that can only be experienced in direct relationship with the Lord. God could have easily given up on His creation and left it in its state of brokenness for eternity.

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In the Pipeline: February Newsletter

ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT | NICARAGUA MISSIONS February 14th-21st
Please pray and support the NCC missions team, led by Pastor Jason Yost, going to Managua Nicaragua. This team will be working alongside missionaries Matt & Eva Barlow to complete the coffeehouse project and minister at the local deaf school. La Puerta Cafe & Christian School for the Deaf were established to help bring economic stablity and social equality for the Deaf Community in Nicaragua.