Preparation for KAGADI, UGANDA!

Kagadi, Uganda

Right now, Harvest Ministry is getting ready for our next evangelistic outreach (in early October, 2010) to KAGADI, a remote and spiritually needy city/village in Western Uganda, near the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

 

This area has a reputation throughout Uganda for being involved in deep witchcraft and for continuing to practice human cannibalism. Kagadi has a few small and isolated churches and some local believers who are praying hard for their community, but as far as we know, it has never had an evangelistic outreach to openly proclaim the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. It is a region desperately in need of God’s salvation and the power of His Holy Spirit to penetrate the darkness.

Advance preparations, advertising, and government permissions have been underway for some time, and we are believing for a mighty harvest of SOULS.

Our greatest need for this upcoming mission outreach is POWER, spiritually and physically: we need fervent PRAYER support for God’s anointing and for spiritual freedom for theses people…and we also need a new GENERATOR (as our faithful and hard-working old generator finally “bit the dust” after years of rugged missionary service).

Photo: Harvest Ministry altar call in Southern Africa (with Jon Dunagan)

What an exciting time!

Please keep our family and the city of KAGADI in your prayers, as we ALL joyfully live to expand God’s Kingdom!

In His Harvest,

Jon & Ann Dunagan (& all)

 

“Sympathy is no substitute for action.” — David Livingstone

“Expect great things of God. Attempt great things for God.” — William Carey

“You have one mission on earth — to save souls.” — John Wesley

“Go into all the world and preach the Gospel…” — Jesus Christ

Be sure to also see:

>> KAGADI: Day-by-day Kagadi updates & photos
>> KAGADI: God’s Protection During Flight Emergency
>> KAGADI: 4-minute MISSION VIDEO from KAGADI, Uganda

Our Secondary School at GUMA NA YESU

Exciting things are happening at Harvest Ministry’s Guma Na Yesu in Uganda, East Africa. This week, a new Secondary School is launching for the older children.

The vision . . .

It’s the beginning of dreams-coming-true and many prayers being answered.

This week, in Uganda, East Africa, a new secondary school (high school) is launching to help the older teenage children at Guma Na Yesu (Keep With Jesus) Children’s Center. It’s called Kingdom Vocational Secondary School and the vision is for a Christ-centered secondary educational training center, with potential to become financially independent.

The secondary school is beginning with a combination of day students (who will pay tuition) and overnight boarding orphan children (who will receive free education).

Christian families from the local churches has been requesting a Christ-center secondary (high) school and Guma Na Yesu Children’s Center has been needing a secondary school to help the older children. This vision helps to fulfill both needs.

February orphan focus . . .

This month’s orphan-focused memory verse:

“Learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the ruthless,
defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”
Isaiah 1:17

This month’s orphan prayer focus: EDUCATION

Students check in . . .

(Some of the older children – orphans – from Guma Na Yesu Children’s Center who will be benefiting from the new secondary school. This secondary education, with a Christ-centered foundation, will give these teenagers increased training for life and hope for their futures.)

New uniforms . . .

Secondary Education (High School)

The property and buildings were formerly the main “mother-church” center; a few years ago, the main church moved to a new location and since that time, this building has been mostly unused. This is an exciting answer to prayer and a good example of making “full use” of what we have in our hands!

Caring Teachers . . .

Vocational Training . . .

Practical vocational skills includes carpentry, tailoring (sewing — which is also benefiting Guma Na Yesu Children’s Center by making the school uniforms), poultry farming, and goat keeping. We are also preparing to launch a Bible training school (using an international Bible college curriculum), both for these secondary students and for remote village pastors.

It’s a beginning of a new dream . . .

This week, the secondary (high) school began with over 30 students and 8 teachers . . . and many more students are in the process of enrolling.

NETS ministers, Naboth & Alice Tumuhairwe, are directing (and delegating) this new project, and we would appreciate if you would keep them (and us) in your prayers, for God’s wisdom and direction and provision.

A Beautiful Baptism in Asia!!!

 

One of the most beautiful praise reports from Josh & Anna’s mission outreach (ministering throughout remote villages in South Asia), was a water baptism service for new believers with N.E.T.S. Minister, N. J. Paul Sundersingh Babu. What a joy to be a part of baptizing believers, as they commit their lives to follow Jesus Christ.

 

Please pray . . .

As we continue to rejoice in the work that God has done (and is doing), we also need to remember to keep these precious new believers in prayer, as new believers and Christians in this part of Asia are often persecuted for their faith in Jesus.

For more, please see Josh & Anna’s Gospel Projects International
More about Harvest Ministry’s N.E.T.S. Minister, N. J. Paul Sundersingh babu
And here’s a Glimpse of Josh & Anna’s Mission Adventures

Raising Missionaries – by Laurel Diacogiannis

“We didn’t make a plan to raise up missionaries; we made a plan to raise up children who joyfully love and serve our Lord. Whether He calls them to the military, to missions, to teaching, to the pastorate … it doesn’t matter. Really … ALL we have wanted for our children (career wise) is for them to love and serve the Lord in whatever they might do. And, that’s exactly what they are doing.” – Laurel Diacogiannis

Raising Missionaries

We are honored to feature this guest article, written by speaker and writer (and good friend) Laurel Diacogiannis of A Journey of Faith. Jim & Laurel Diacogiannis are mission-minded homeschooling parents of a dozen children, including two adopted children from Ghana, West Africa.

Recently, someone asked me how I have raised up 3 children who have chosen to live overseas in service to the Lord.  (I have one child serving the Lord in Argentina for the next 2 years; one in Jordan for the next 2 years; and one currently in India as part of a 6 month missions outreach.) This woman went on to say that it is exciting when even one child from a family chooses such a personal journey … but for 3 to choose a similar journey was quite unbelievable for her.

No, we did not tell our children, “When you grow up, you should be a missionary.”  We did not focus all of our homeschool curriculum on missions (which would not at all have been a bad thing, it just wasn’t something that we thought of).  So, what did we do?

1. We demonstrated an active, everyday, personal walk with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The heart of a true missionary must come from such a daily, vibrant relationship with the Lord, that they absolutely know, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are called into missions work.
2. We trusted God for financial provision, when having 13 children and a teacher’s salary don’t match up on the budget spreadsheet. Our kids know that the Lord will provide for their needs.  They grew up learning how to pray, and how to trust God for the outcome.
3. We talked about and read about missionaries … ordinary people doing extraordinary things for God. One year, each of the children that knew how to read (7 kids that year, I think), read the Trailblazer Books or Christian Heroes Then and Now series (both from YWAM Publishing) for their homeschool history course.
4. We watched videos of missionaries. The Gladys Aylward story (The Inn of the Sixth Happiness) was our first, I think.
5. We went to hear missionary speakers. Cassie told us at age 10 or 11 that she wanted to go to India, after hearing (and meeting) K.P. Yohannan.  (And, that dream came true when she was 21, after previous trips to Haiti, Senegal, and The Gambia.)
6. We supported missionaries. (We have supported Gospel for Asia, K.P. Yohannan’s ministry for over 15 years.)
7. We took our family on Mission Trips. In 2001, we took all 9 children to work in inner-city Los Angeles for 10 days.  We weren’t afraid to take them to the ghetto, to work at a church there.  In 2006, we took all 10 children to New Orleans for 2 weeks.  Just the other day, Elijah (who was only 4 at the time) asked me, “Mom, do you remember when we went to New Orleans and gave all the presents to the kids there?”  We didn’t buy our children any Christmas Presents that year, but not one ever complained … they were filled with joy to be giving presents to the children in New Orleans.

Seriously, we didn’t make a plan to “raise up missionaries.” We made a plan to raise up children who joyfully love and serve Our Lord.  Whether He calls them to the military, to missions, to teaching, to the pastorate … it doesn’t matter.  Really … ALL we have wanted for our children (career wise) is for them to love and serve the Lord in whatever they might do.  And, that’s exactly what they are doing.

While we have 3 young adults serving the Lord overseas, we also have 3 young adults serving the Lord here on the homefront.  And, we have 7 younger children, still at home, that we are raising up to follow the Lord, follow their dreams, follow their passions, and to be excited wherever it may be that the Lord leads them.

This article is an excerpt from “What Does the Future Look Like for Our Children?” — originally published on Laurel’s blog – “I’m Ghana Adopt.”

For more about raising mission-minded children, and having a mission-minded family:

The Mission-Minded Child – Raising a New Generation to Fulfill God’s Purpose

The Mission-Minded Family – Releasing Your Family to God’s Destiny

FREE – The 40-Day Mission-Minded FAMILY CHALLENGE

Mission-Minded Passports

Are you considering international travel, or taking a family mission trip?

 

Click here for a fun article on Mission-Minded Families: 

Passports for Missions:

Craft Passports
Just for Fun!

Real Passports
Just in Case!

 

Audio #2 – COMPASSION

God’s compassion is nothing to fear; it’s compelling and exciting. If God “moves” your heart with compassion in regards to a specific need, rest assured that He will provide all that is needed (in finances, wisdom, and connections) to do all that He’s called you to do!

Audio #2 – COMPASSION

The second audio in Ann’s 3-part-series, “Living Joyfully as a Mission-Minded Family.”

Complete 3-part series . . . (or click here)

FREE Homeschool File Folder Charts

How to Make File Folder Charts for the

Teaching With God’s Heart for the World Curriculum

To my homeschooling friends:

For those of us who are committing to teach our children, we’re all in our last remaining days of summer . . . and our final chance to prepare for a new school year. (Although one thing I always keep in mind is that I don’t need to prepare for the whole year at once . . . I just need to stay a day or two ahead of where we’re going!!!)

Here in our household we’re gearing-up for a super year . . . with hopes and feelings of expectation that this year may be our best homeschooling year ever! And I’m really excited about it!!!

For those who will be utilizing the Teaching With God’s Heart for the World curriculum, I wanted to share a specific teaching tool that has really helped our family.

Kids Keep Focused, Diligent, and On-Task

One of my biggest continual challenges with homeschooling life . . . is that we have continually have LIFE going on!!!

There are many people who give homeschooling a “try” for a year or too; but sometimes, despite the best of intentions, many homeschooling parents realize the commitment is simply “not working” on a consistent basis. I’ve heard many homeschooling moms share genuine feelings of concern and inadequacies, feeling that they’re “cheating” their children of consistent instruction (because these moms know what’s “really” been happening at home). A homeschooling parent may attempt to stay consistent with his or her teaching plans . . . but sometimes their best efforts can lead to burn-out . . . or quitting . . . or too much stress on the family . . . or maybe “persevering” in the decision, whether or not the kids not getting the education they need.

Let’s face it.

There are times when our best intentions and wonderful “teaching plans” are interrrupted. How can our children’s home education continue . . . even if we get an urgent phone call, or if there’s a little one who needs immediate attention, or if our husband has a specific job he needs us to do, or if we have a time in our lives when God is focusing our passions in other areas?

I love teaching and training our children . . . but I also know how my personality works (and I’ve come to recognize my weaknesses).

I tend to focus my thoughts and attention in concentrated whole-hearted “spurts.” I get extremely passionate about things (whether that’s life, or a hurting family, or rescuing orphans, or helping with a specific project at church, or writing a ministry newsletter, or meeting a book deadline) . . . and that focus can be good . . . but it can also be very distracting to our homeschooling.

Despite this, I’ve come to “rest” in the fact (for our family) that homeschooling is God’s will and His purpose for our lives. For us, it has been tremendously successful, both educationally and spiritually for our “big” kids; yet even so, I still deal with inward questioning and times discouragement. We’re now in our 18th year of this journey, and we believe we’re called to continue homeschooling our children . . . for the long-haul. And day-by-day, we continue to rely on God’s grace to follow Him.

When I feel like throwing-in-the-towel if things aren’t working, I simply know that I need to seek the Lord for help and wisdom. If God has truly called us to homeschool (which for us, I believe He has) He will show us the way.

In the forward to my new book, The Mission-Minded Family, I really appreciate what longtime homeschooling pioneers and ministers, Greg & Sono Harris, wrote. They said:

“God is too good and too wise to give us conflicting obligations. Every obligation from God is perfectly compatible with every other obligation that comes from God. Not only are our obligations to family and missions compatible, they are mutually supportive in His purposes.”

For me personally, my biggest homeschooling need is how to keep my children working and independently motivated, especially when other things are happening. I know that I need an on-going “structure” that is well planned, yet also completely flexible (even at the last minute) to flow with our family’s life and with the needs of our missions work and ministry.

In the midst of really praying about this, I woke up one morning with a “picture” in my mind of this little weekly “To-Do” Chart.

I spent a full day figuring-out an ideal homeschooling week for my kids . . . and then broke it down into sixty 20-minute sections. Our family usually does only about 4 full hours of homeschooling each day (not counting daily athletic training, extra reading, art projects . . . and all that other “real-life-learning” that takes place all the time). I love keeping the big picture and vision in mind (of where we’re going), and at the same time, I know that my kids need concentrated education in reading, writing, language arts, history, math, science, geography, and Bible training . . . to get ready for God’s purpose.

I’ve come to realize that (in reality) I can usually only “consistently” devote about an hour or two of actual “Homeschool Teaching Time” with my kids each day (some days are better and I really “pour my heart” into our homeschooling . . . but other days are really full, and I can’t even do that. So for us to homeschool, my husband and I need to know, that no matter what, our kids will be self-disciplined and successfully progressing on their studies).

Okay. So let me show you how our “how-to” chart works:

Last year, our charts were made with simple hand-written cards; but this year, I wanted to make sure that our weekly and daily plans would fit with the Teaching With God’s Heart for the World curriculum.

So I created some pdf files (which you can print out for FREE here) with these sixty 20 minute learning goals.

We cut-out these printed cards I made and then taped them to colored pieces of construction paper (rectangle pieces – 1.5 inches x 2.5 inches) with clear packing tape to keep the cards sturdy.

For each child, we used: 15 red cards (for spiritual training), 11 yellow cards (for math), 5 orange cards (for science), 14 blue cards (for language arts), 15 green cards (for social studies).

And the kids have been helping make these cards, and their individual files. This feminine-looking file folder is Caela’s (age 10). Mark (age 12) and Philip (age 7) have identical cards, but their file folders are black-and-green and black-and-blue with cool-looking masculine checkers. The whole project only costs about $1 per folder . . . and a little bit of time (but it saves SOOOO much time later on!!!).

How to make the folders:

We take a sturdy file folder, and cut-up the pockets to make new 9 new pockets: four little square pockets (on the left side) to hold the entire week’s schedule in main categories, four long pockets (on the right side) for each child kid to “lay out” his or her daily goals, and one long pocket (on the bottom-left) to place each card after the assignment has been completed. We use packing tape to hold them on.

(By the way, I found it helps to put about 15 cards in each square-category pocket before taping it on, to make sure the cards “fit.”) The daily “hour” pockets can be totally flat.

Our four main categories are:

• God is #1 (Prayer, Devotions, and Bible)
• Math and Science (“Teaching Time” and “By Myself”)
• English (Literature, Grammar, and Writing)
• Social Studies (History, Geography, World Missions, Music, and many international cultural ideas to keep things fun!!!)

So, here’s an example of how one of the kids can “lay-out” a day. They need to include 3 cards from each category each day, but they plan their own schedule (which teaches self-motivation). And I can make sure that the areas which require my “Teaching Time” can be arranged (and adjusted at a moment’s notice) to adapt to my schedule. I usually prefer to keep my “Teaching Time” during the 2nd hour (for one-on-one teaching, like math and grammar) and 3rd hour (for all-together family teaching, like devotions or history).

A huge benefit of this system is I know that if I can’t get to a “Teaching Time” on a paticular day, I simply tell the kids to rotate those cards back into the category pockets and to replace with with their “By Myself” cards. We know we’ll get back to those “Teaching-Time” cards before the week is over.

While the kids are working on the “By Myself” cards, I can be working on things I need to do, such as laundry, or household jobs, or getting lunch together, or working on ministry office jobs. I’m still available for questions, but the kids know that they need (as much as possible) to keep working as hard as they can on their own.

As each one completes a 20 minute assignment (and we continually use a kitchen timer to keep everyone working diligently), they transfer that particular card to their “DONE!!!” pocket.

These cards will then remain in this “DONE!!!” pocket until the following week.

For our family, this little homeschooling tool has really helped; and I believe it will really work well with this particular curriculum. I wrote Teaching With God’s Heart for the World many years ago; and since that time our homeschooling (and ministry) has adapted and changed, and I believe it’s also “matured” and become more relaxed and fruitful.

I think this change will help make this year-long curriculum more practical, easier-to-follow, and more of a blessing for the dynamics of your family-life.

Hope this will be a blessing to you!
(And I hope you and your family will ENJOY these last few days of summer!!!)

In His Love,
Ann

Mission-Minded Homeschooling

September is “Back to School” month, a perfect time to refocus our mission-minded families back on God’s priorities — to rekindle our love for Him and for others — and to remember the lost.

September: It’s a Time to Refocus!

We need to remember that the Great Commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength; and the Great Commission is to go into all the world to preach the Gospel. These are our priorities in life, and for our new school year.

How we spend our days is how we live our lives.

As Christian parents (whether we have chosen homeschooling, Christian school, or public school), we are all called to teach and train our children for God’s purposes. Other leaders in the church or community (teachers, children’s ministers, Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, Bible study mentors, coaches, or tutors) can come alongside, to assist us in this calling; but the ultimate responsibility to disciple our children for Christ, is ours as parents.

Harvest Ministry has many educational resources for mission-minded families, which are especially good to note during the month of September:

PASSPORTS: Fun Mission-Minded Passport Craft

ORGANIZATION: Homeschool File Folder Organizational Charts

READING: Great recommended family mission reading

FREEBEES: 7 FREE Mission-Minded Family Resources

VIDEOS: Take the 40-Day Mission-Minded Family Challenge

RESOURCES: Our Mission-Minded Books & Family Resources

HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM – Teaching With God’s Heart for the World

Have a wonderful mission-minded month!

In His Harvest,
Jon & Ann

Audio #1 – VISION

To fulfill God’s purpose for our family, we need God’s perspective and His vision. God’s heavenly perspective is so much bigger than ours. God sees from the vantage point of the entire universe and all of eternity!

Audio #1 – VISION

Listen to the first audio in Ann’s 3-part-series, “Living Joyfully as a Mission-Minded Family.”

Complete 3-part series . . . (or click here)

Lwakhakha HARVEST! – mission video

Our recent Harvest Ministry outreach to Lwakhakha, Uganda – on the Kenya border – was so exciting! The Lord moved mightily as this remote and predominantly-Muslim area was “shaken” for Jesus Christ!

Five small local churches gathered together for this first ever open-air Gospel outreach in Lwakhakha – with worship, dancing, prayer, and preaching of the Gospel. During the daytime, hundreds of local believers gathered together (with NETS Ministers Naboth, Paul, and Joseph) for a local believers training, and in the evening approximately 5,000 people a night gathered in this isolated area (standing 360 – all around the platform!!!) to hear the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. Multitudes listened intently and many (approximately 1,800 precious people, over the course of the evangelistic outreach) turned from their sins and surrendered their lives to the Lord. On one evening, lightning and wind came just after the altar call – It was awesome!

These people definitely need our continued prayer support, as the Christian persecution and opposition many will face (especially newly saved wives) in this Muslim area may be great. Please pray for the five hard-working local pastors, and for the local Christian leaders, as they are beginning to follow-up on these new believers.

Thank you for your prayers, your heart for world missions, and for standing with us at Harvest Ministry to REACH SOULS for Jesus Christ. To God be the GLORY!!!

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