Currently, they are spending a week at a Missionary training school in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Our family is traveling there on Friday, July 11, to join them and explore what it might look like for Evangelical Friends to send future missionaries there for training. Please pray for wisdom for us, the interns, and the leaders of the school in Dar as we discern the possibility of students from EFC going there in the future.

On July 16, we will all travel to Burundi to join the EFC-MAYM Saltshaker team, a youth and young adult group that is coming to visit the Evangelical Friends Church of Burundi. Please pray with us for various church visits, meetings, and a youth camp with Burundi youth. Pray that we can be a blessing and also that our group will be attentive to learn from the Lord through our Burundi Friends and the special ways God is using them in their communities.

On July 31, our family will travel to Kenya for a few days of vacation before we travel back to Rwanda for the last few weeks of the summer.

Please pray…

1. For Brad’s health, as his acid reflux symptoms are not yet resolved, and can cause lost sleep and other issues
2. For our whole family, but especially our children, as they deal with unknowns, differences, and discomforts on this trip. Pray that they will turn to God for help, and that they see him and his glory in new and special ways
3. For all of us (family, interns, and the U.S. team) to be willing to listen and be used by the Lord, to surrender to his will and his Kingdom over our own
4. For the safety and health of everyone during flights, drives, and all of our stays.

We are really excited to see new things during this trip, to help in all the ways that we can, and to experience everything as a family. Thank you so much for praying for us and walking alongside us.

Love in Him,

Brad & Chelsea

Sarai, Gideon, and Ian

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This morning, I was thinking of our supporters – and feeling a little troubled, knowing how much you sacrifice in your time in prayer, in your finances, and in other ways. I know that you pray for, give to, and invest yourselves in other ministries, including the ministry of your own daily lives. I know you face troubles and difficult situations and that you still give to others. Then, I was reminded that you are not just giving to our family, but that you are giving to God and his work, and that you are giving out of obedience to him. So, I am filled with thankfulness for you all over again, and also challenged to examine my own prayer life, our finances, and our daily lives so that we can also walk in closer obedience to the Lord. Thank you, again, for your partnership in his Kingdom!!!

In the past month, we’ve done more traveling! We’ve been able to visit Glen Elder, Bolton, and Derby churches and people from those areas. We were also able to hang out with some close friends from college and some of Chelsea’s extended family members for a couple of days in Missouri. Then, Brad and Chelsea spent some time in Colorado while the kids stayed with family members in Wichita. We are so thankful for the sweet connections and reconnections the Lord has allowed us to make with churches, friends, family, and each other during this last month.

This past month, we’ve also seen the need for more financial and prayer supporters, and we have also seen the Lord provide those in a short amount of time – we are 100% funded! If the Lord is still laying on your heart the desire to partner with missions in Africa, please feel free to sign up below or contact the EFM office about different ways to do that.

This week—our LAST week in the States—will be full of meetings, fellowship, family time, packing, shopping, logistical tasks, and emotions. We’d love your prayers for all of these things, as well as for our travel on August 18, 19, and 20. It has been an amazing time in the U.S., and we are also looking forward to being home in Rwanda soon.

Love in Christ,

Brad & Chelsea

Sarai, Gideon, and Ian

P.S. For those of you curious about our house wall project – the work has been completed!  We will have to rearrange the furniture and get settled back in, but we are so thankful that the moisture can now vent out of our walls instead of building up and causing problems.

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We currently have 974 prayer partners and still have a goal of raising it to 1,200. If you know anyone who would like to pray for our ministry, please forward this form to them.

The post The Carpenter Family | Deputation Update | We are Fully Funded! first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

Thank you so very much for continuing to pray with us!

Would you please pray with us for the Lord to help us finish the remaining process of fundraising? God is leading us in exciting ways, and the expansion of his work requires more funds. We still need to raise about $2,000 per month in ongoing giving toward our ministry funds in Central/East Africa. These funds help with communication, transportation, and other things that are needed for whole-life discipleship and missionary sending in the region. We are confident that the Lord will lead those he is calling to give toward this ministry. Below is a group of future missionaries from Rwanda and the U.S. visiting a community in South Sudan on a recent trip.

If you have been giving and plan to continue, please let us know so we can know what to expect in the coming years.

One observation we have made is that many of those who have been giving financially for many years are over 60 years old. And in the last four years quite a few of them have passed away. We are asking God to raise up younger generations to catch the vision of God’s mission in the world. We believe that God asks us to give our time, prayer, finances, and lives to join him in what he is doing. If you have never given towards God’s mission among the nations, consider asking God where you should give and start by giving $5 per month to that ministry.

Is he asking you to join us with an ongoing monthly gift? If so, please see below for four ways to partner with us financially.

Thank you for partnering with us!

Brad & Chelsea and family

The post Partner with the Carpenters! first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

We are so thankful for you who read our messages, pray for us, and support us! If you’re not already signed up as a prayer partner or as a financial support partner, we invite you to prayerfully consider if God would have you do so. We know he has called us, and that he will call others to be a part of this team! We are also so thankful for the other teams and ministries you are a part of, and we pray that God will empower each of you every day in every part of your lives.

It’s been about a month since we last wrote, and during that time, we have been able to travel to churches in Paonia and Denver, Colorado, as well as Plains, Haviland, and Hutchinson, Kansas. We loved visiting churches and spending time with family along the way – including a family vacation in Colorado. The past week, we have seen that all our travel is starting to affect all five of us in our emotions and attitudes a bit more. We need God to keep helping us and showing us how to still be loving and kind in the midst of this specific kind of deputation-tiredness.

However, everywhere we go, several people in each place show a special kind of sensitivity to our family. They give opportunities for rest, for fun things for our kids, and for helping with our kids when we are speaking or working. We have been so blessed to share updates from Rwanda with people who really want to know and who really care. One highlight was being able to present a (very short) basic training on some of the foundations of D for D (Discipling for Development) at Paonia Friends Church. We believe the Holy Spirit was moving in us, challenging us, and calling us to some new ways of thinking and living life with him and others.

We are so thankful for God’s protection on the road (for example: a punctured tire we were able to drive on until we found a place to fix it), for healing from sickness (yucky stomach flu on the way to Colorado), and for the amazing people we get to connect with in each place (if only we had more time with everyone!)

We’d appreciate your continuing prayers for:

• Our hearts, attitudes, and emotions during our travels.
• God to bring all the people he’s calling to partner with us – whether through prayer, finances, coming to Africa, etc.
• Our long lists of things we need to do – that God would help us do what needs to be done and let go of everything else.

Thank you, and God bless you all!

Brad & Chelsea
Sarai, Gideon, and Ian

We currently have 974 prayer partners and have a goal of raising it to 1,200. If you know anyone who would like to pray for our ministry, please forward this form to them.

We are currently at 84% of our ongoing monthly need. If you are a current monthly supporter, thank you. It is important to let EFM know that you plan to continue or increase your giving. If you are not currently giving, please prayerfully consider supporting our ministry in Central Africa.

There are four ways to partner with them financially:

• Online. Visit https://catalog.friendsmission.com/carpenter. You’ll be given the opportunity to indicate whether you are making a recurring or one-time gift.
• Credit Card. This may be given online (as stated above) or by calling the EFM office (303-421-8100) to give your information to a live person.
• Automatic Bank Transfer. Download the form aquí and email it to Debby McElroy (EFM Bookkeeper) at debby@friendsmission.com. Please note that ACH payments are processed on the 10th or 25th of the month.
• Check. Mail a check to EFM, P.O. Box 771139, Wichita, KS 67277. Make sure to mark your check “Carpenter Support” and note if you will be giving on a recurring basis (monthly, quarterly, etc.). Pay to the order of “EFM.”

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In each town, we have had the privilege of sharing the Sunday morning message at the Friends Church, meeting with small groups, meeting with some people in their homes, and having some fun along the way! Over and over, we have felt overwhelmingly blessed by love and support. We have also felt like people in the churches have connected with the messages and stories from Central Africa – like about Africans growing with the Lord in every part of their life, and those Rwandans and Burundians who are willing to give up country, comfort, and money to start missions movements to the unreached people groups in South Sudan and Tanzania. We have all been challenged to surrender more to the Holy Spirit so he can empower us to join him in mission wherever we are.

At Quaker Ridge Camp, we had a great time at the Future Missionary Retreat, as well as at the EFM Board meetings. Not only was the Colorado mountainside a beautiful place to be with the Lord and with others, but it was also so invigorating to worship, study, and grow with this group of future missionaries, mentors, and EFM staff and board. I (Chelsea) was personally challenged by them and by the Lord to open my hands more in surrender to the Holy Spirit and be willing to do hard or scary things for and with the Lord, who loves me and loves everybody! Being at Camp Quaker Haven in Kansas was extra special for Brad and I, since we have loved growing up attending and working there, but hadn’t been back in about 20 years! We were privileged to be the speakers for two evenings there, telling the kids about Rwanda and our call as missionaries. We hope and pray the Lord used us (even though we’re not used to speaking to kids!) to show that he loves and calls all of us every day, normal people to himself and to be on mission with him.

After we had been traveling for a few weeks, Brad asked our kids what they were thankful for. And they answered, “we have so many friends wherever we go.” It’s been such a blessing to introduce our “old” friends to the kids, and also have them be brave and make new friends in each place. We are so proud of them for their patience with travel and their fresh perspective each morning, even after a hard night or stressful experience. We’ve been hot and cold, tired and kind of rested, high-speed and low-speed, and trying to make awesome family memories out of all of it!

Here are some of our memories and photos from this first month:

• Getting through that long trip from Rwanda to the U.S.
• Being welcomed to Wichita by our family and also by our church family.
• Attending our nephew’s graduation from high school.
• Enduring a long wait at baggage claim, only to have a long wait to rent a car, only to encounter some broken glass in the rental car!

• Swimming in pools and playing in splash pads!
• Sarai and Gideon sharing at Uncle Jeff’s school and at the children’s church.
• Attending a friend’s baseball game.
• Seeing the ocean and petting the sting rays at Kemah Boardwalk.
• Visiting the Space Center in Houston, with its massive rockets, models, and displays.

• Going on a bike ride in Denver with friends.
• Visiting kittens, goats, peacocks, and ducks at QRC (Quaker Ridge Camp).
• Hiking up Soldier’s Mountain and seeing deer on a morning jog at QRC.
• Making new friends with the resident kids at QRC and building an awesome place to play in called “Car Land”.
• Getting to hang out with our niece, who came along to help with the kids at QRC.
• Sarai attending CQH (Camp Quaker Haven) for the first time and loving it!

• Gideon conquering the swim test, doing a flip off the diving board, and reaching the top of the climbing wall at the CQH pool – all for the first time!
  Ian conquering his fear of the BIG SLIDE at CQH – and then asking to do it again and again!
• Celebrating our nephew’s 14th birthday!
• Seeing lots of family, friends, and mentors: laughing, and reminiscing.
• Spending some family time at a bookstore, a big swimming pool, and the science museum in Oklahoma City.
• Joining the Friends Church and all the town residents at the big ice cream festival in Chandler.
• Ian learning how to jump in the pool for the first time, thanks to a new and daring buddy.
• Special times with our family – playing Barbies, planting flowers, playing board games, playing soccer with cousins, flying drones, and laughing around the table.

Thank you so much for your support!

Love,
Brad & Chelsea
Sarai, Gideon, and Ian

We currently have 973 prayer partners and have a goal of raising it to 1,200. If you know anyone who would like to pray for our ministry, please forward this form to them.

We are currently at 81% of our ongoing monthly need. If you are a current monthly supporter, thank you. It is important to let EFM know that you plan to continue or increase your giving. If you are not currently giving, please prayerfully consider supporting our ministry in Central Africa.

There are four ways to partner with them financially:

• Online. Visit https://catalog.friendsmission.com/carpenter. You’ll be given the opportunity to indicate whether you are making a recurring or one-time gift.
• Credit Card. This may be given online (as stated above) or by calling the EFM office (303-421-8100) to give your information to a live person.
• Automatic Bank Transfer. Download the form aquí and email it to Debby McElroy (EFM Bookkeeper) at debby@friendsmission.com. Please note that ACH payments are processed on the 10th or 25th of the month.
• Check. Mail a check to EFM, P.O. Box 771139, Wichita, KS 67277. Make sure to mark your check “Carpenter Support” and note if you will be giving on a recurring basis (monthly, quarterly, etc.). Pay to the order of “EFM.”

The post The Carpenter Family | Deputation Update #1 first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

The post The Carpenter Family is Coming on Deputation! first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

Thank you for praying with us as Brad was with Matt Macy and Burundi and Rwanda Friends leaders. We had wonderful meetings talking with them about the next steps towards our Evangelical Friends in Africa sending their own missionaries. It was exciting to dream together about what God is going to do as we partner together for the Kingdom.

Monday, March 4 through Friday, March 8, Pastors Augustin, Gerard, Tertullien, and Brad will meet with key leaders from Burundi and Congo that we are mentoring in Discipling for Development. Please pray with us for:

• Safety in travel and while we are together.
• Wisdom as we mentor and coach our friends toward having what they need to help each Burundi D for D leader to successfully move their groups through the Mobilization phase of the D for D process and into the Empowerment Phase.
• Our families back home, for safety and blessing on each of them.

Love,
Brad & Chelsea
Sarai, Gideon, and Ian

The post Join the Carpenters in Prayer This Week! first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

We hope and pray you are doing well so far in 2024! Our family had some special times together in December, but we were also thankful to get back into some more normal work and personal rhythms in January. Unfortunately, three special families are leaving the country these days, so saying those goodbyes is not easy. However, God has been and will be faithful to provide friends during each season here in Rwanda. Our kids are still doing well in school. We are so thankful that they are learning well, growing in character and maturity, and enjoying their friends and teachers who come from many different countries.

On Friday (February 2) Brad will be traveling with Matt Macy to Burundi to continue conversations with our Evangelical Friends Church Leaders in Burundi. On January 7-9, we will be meeting with Evangelical Friends Leaders in Rwanda. Please pray for the Holy Spirit to guide each part of those discussions, and that the Lord of the Harvest would push through various fears, areas of confusion or misunderstanding, and lead us to his way for EFM to partner with EFC-Africa churches as they send their own missionaries and we go with them.

You can see Ian in this snapshot of the group we worship with in English sometimes. It’s a small group, and we really appreciate the support we offer each other!

Sarai and Ian enjoying some time with a friendly baby after worshipping at Kagarama Friends Church in Kigali.

Please also pray:

1. There are some disagreements and issues in this area of Africa that cause closed borders and make it more difficult to travel, so please pray for peace and for those situations to be resolved well.
2. For Chelsea and the kids while Brad is gone

Coming up:
March 2024 – We will welcome a team from Paonia, Colorado!
Summer 2024 – We will spend three months in the U.S. More details to come!

Chelsea took the kids on a hike in our neighborhood while Brad spent some concentrated time on school work.

Brad and Chelsea on Christmas Eve at our small candlelight service at our house.

Thank you so much for being on our team – on God’s team – here in Central Africa! May he bless you abundantly today,

Love,
Brad & Chelsea
Sarai, Gideon, and Ian

The post The Carpenter Family January 2024 Update first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

Thank you so much for praying with us. It is hard to believe that there are only two months left in 2023!

Luke 10 Update:

Since we last wrote, Brad has been a part of two, second Luke 10 Exploration Trips to explore and discern if God might be calling Evangelical Friends Church (EFC) to start a mission in South Sudan and/or Tanzania. Hopefully, you have seen general emails from EFM about these trips as well as reports. But we will summarize here:

The trip to South Sudan took place September 10-17. Our group consisted of three Rwandan pastors and key church leaders, three who came from the US, and Brad on behalf of EFM.

On September 18th we visited a missionary training school in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Then from September 19 to the 24th, four Burundi pastors and church leaders and four from the US (including Brad) visited an area in eastern Tanzania.

On these trips, we visited with Christians and non-Christians in various communities attempting to see what God was doing in each of those areas and to see if he is asking us to join him there! It is so exciting to see the Lord increasing the passion and commitment of our EFC-Africa leaders to send their own missionaries out to unreached / under-reached people groups. In both South Sudan and Tanzania, we saw that the Lord is working and our African Friends sense that God is calling them to join him. As EFM we are still discerning what God wants us to do. In the next few weeks, EFM will have several meetings to discern the next steps in the decision-making process. Regardless of whether the Lord leads EFM to send missionaries to South Sudan and/or Tanzania, we look forward to finding appropriate ways to partner with our EFC-Africa Friends as they work to develop their own vision, strategies, principles, and practices for mission work. Brad has been asked to walk alongside them as they work on these things. This is an exciting time! But we also realize that we need the Lord to give lots of wisdom and courage throughout this whole process.

Would you please pray with us for EFC-Rwanda, EFC-Burundi, and EFM as each group works to be faithful to God and his calling for us as Evangelical Friends?

Family Update:

We praise the Lord for how he is taking care of us as a family. Though we go through some difficulties and times of travel and exhaustion, the Lord is faithful to fill us back up, renew us, and keep taking care of us!  We recently had the privilege to go and visit Chelsea’s aunt and uncle, who live in the south of Rwanda, over a long weekend, so we had some beautiful family time. The children are all healthy and doing well in school. Gideon continues to love soccer and plays every chance he gets whether at school or home with neighbor friends! Ian is sleeping better these days than he has in a long time and is usually pretty cheerful at school and at home. He tends to keep us laughing with the cute and/or smart things he says! Sarai has been enjoying some reading and writing projects at school and recently participated (and did really well!) in a skit project for her Kinyarwanda class.

Current Burundi Trip:

Brad and Simparinka are traveling to Burundi from October 31-November 3 to help mentor the D for D groups there.

Please pray that what God wants is able to happen, even though the trip is only a few days long. Please also pray for travel safety for the group, and for Chelsea and the kids at home.  

Thank you, again, for your partnership with us!

In Him,

Brad & Chelsea

Sarai, Gideon, and Ian

The post Carpenter Family: Update on Luke 10 and Burundi Trip Happening Now first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

It has been a while since we’ve written. We want to apologize for how infrequently we have written in this past season. We believe that you are an essential part of our mission team and we have not been keeping you up-to-date so you can “be with us” in prayer! So, here is a longer update to catch you up on what God is doing among and through us.

Below you will see:

• Grieving due to loss
• Central Africa missions sending conference
• D for D update
• Upcoming Luke 10 Exploration Trips
• Ministering to the Missionary Community
• Family

Grieving

This past season has been a good season of life in many ways. It has also been challenging for several reasons. God has given us MANY wonderful mentors in our lives and ministry. One of the painful parts of the last few years has been that Jesus has taken four key mentors in relation to being missionaries of ours to heaven (they are David Kellum, Gene Pickard, Ron Stansell, and Willard Ferguson). It would take too long to write about all of the ways that God used these men to prepare and mentor us to be on mission with him. They loved and served God with much wisdom and humility, they modeled life with God and shared many important insights with us that continue to shape many aspects of how we serve as missionaries.

Central Africa Missions Sending Conference

At the end of April, we had a week-long conference in Burundi in which we learned with Friends Church leaders from Burundi, Congo, El Salvador, Guatemala, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and the United States. The Lord blessed our time together! One of many highlights was hearing from our Central American Friends and Kenyan Friends share about how they have sent their own missionaries out among the nations. Burundi and Rwanda Friends are preparing to send their own missionaries out in the next year or two. I have been taking some courses on missions through Fuller Theological Seminary and am really thankful for the ways that God is teaching me and giving me new insights that will help us in the time ahead.

D for D 

Our D for D team is working with groups in Rwanda, Burundi, and Congo, helping them finish a phase called Mobilization with members of their local churches and surrounding communities. We continue to hear testimonies of transformation! There are several other churches and church leaders who are asking for us to mentor them in the D for D process. We are praying that God will give us the wisdom to know how to help them in ways that fit in our current capacity. As we write this, Pastors Augustin, Gerard, and Tertullien are in Burundi visiting the homes of those we are discipling to learn about what God is doing in them and through them in mentoring their local church teams.

Upcoming Luke 10 Exploration Trips

We will give more details in a few days, but in the next month, Brad will be a part of a second Luke 10 Exploration Trip to South Sudan with EFC-Rwanda and EFM leaders and a second Luke 10 Exploration Trip to Tanzania with EFC-Burundi and EFM leaders. Both trips will be for the purpose of discerning where God is calling our African Friends to begin mission work and how God is calling EFM to be a part of what God is doing in those places.

Ministering to the Missionary Community

We were so blessed to have a team come from Northridge Friends Church (Wichita, KS) to help us put on a missionary conference in July. We worked hard, and so did they, to love and serve around 85 missionaries from this region of Africa. Shane Shetley (pastor at Northridge) led us in some great teachings from 1 Peter, Eli Copas (youth pastor at Northridge), and a team of around ten led VBS and youth group for all the kids present from 0-18 years old. We were also blessed to have Alex Grier (Friends University student) lead us in worship in song. Missionary families walked away from the conference feeling more refreshed from our time together.  Also, we were so thankful to show the team members a little bit of our town and our lives and ministry. We had sweet times sharing our hearts and hearing from theirs, playing with each other’s kids, and feeling connected to each other in light of God’s worldwide mission.

Family

We had a busy summer, hosting family in June and the Northridge team in July, as well as other various tasks and travels. We all had a lot of fun, and we are also really tired now! Our kids just started school again at Virunga Valley Academy (an American international school in our town) and it is a blessing to be starting to get settled back into school year rhythms a bit.

Thank you so much for all your love and prayers!

Brad and Chelsea

Sarai, Gideon, and Ian

The post Carpenter Family August 2023 Ministry Update first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.