Hi Friends and Family,

I’m writing to you from the Wycliffe compound in Juba, South Sudan and am a little over halfway through my trip. For the past 6 days, I’ve had the opportunity to meet the missionaries and the South Sudanese who work with Wycliffe here, and I have absolutely loved it! I’ve felt so welcomed by various people making sure I have what I need and looking out for me, and several people have had me over for dinner on various nights to get to know me better. Beyond that, I’ve loved being with people who have a love for linguistics and Bible translation. From conversations about the process of Bible translation to Greek and Hebrew to the software tools Wycliffe uses to aid the translation process, I feel very at home here.

But one of my favorite things has been sitting in with a couple of translation teams (the Avokaya team and the Fur team) as they work on translating the Old Testament. The Avokaya team, who I visited on Friday, were checking their draft of Exodus 21 and talking about various exegetical and translation issues that came up. The Fur team, who I visited on Monday, were checking their draft of Joshua 14 and doing the same. I’ve learned a lot by watching them and was able to help out in small ways when they had questions about the original Hebrew text or about the cultural context of the passage they were working on.

Today (Tuesday), I will leave Wycliffe’s compound and have a different focus for the rest of my trip. Pastor Nicodeme, a missionary from Rwanda, has been in South Sudan for the past two and a half months to figure out the logistics of his family and him living here starting sometime next year. The plan is for Nicodeme and his family to be joined by Evangelical Friends Mission (EFM) missionaries in the near future so that we can partner together in planting churches in South Sudan. I, two pastors from Rwanda, an EFM missionary, and an EFM director will spend the rest of the week with Nicodeme to be with him, encourage him, and help him debrief. I’ve already gotten to spend some good quality time with Nicodeme when he’s visited me at the Wycliffe compound and am looking forward to hearing more about what the past few months have looked like for him.

Finally, I’m so grateful for all of you! Thank you for how you’ve prayed and are praying for me and for how you’ve given so that I can begin a disciple-making apprenticeship with North County Project in January. Currently, I’m 73% funded! Thank you for your incredible generosity! As a reminder, if you’d like to partner with me through financial gifts, here are the ways you can do it:

• Online: Visit the NCP Apprentice donation page by clicking this link. Once there, scroll to find my name and select your gift amount. You’ll have the opportunity to indicate whether you are giving monthly or as a one-time gift.
• Credit Card: You may give online (as stated above) or by calling the EFM office at (303) 421-8100 to provide your information to a live representative.
• 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 10^th or 25^th of the month.
• Check: Mail a check to EFM, P.O. Box 771139, Wichita, KS 67277. Please mark your check with “Thomas Moore NCP Apprentice Support” and indicate if your gift will be recurring (monthly, quarterly, etc.). Make the check payable to “EFM.”

Thank you again for how you’re coming on this journey with me. I look forward to giving many of you more details about this trip. I’d love to meet with you to tell you more about it if you live in Southern California or talk with you over the phone or video chat if you live elsewhere.

In Him,
Thomas Moore

The post Thomas Moore | December Update first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

Sorry, it’s been so long since my last update. A lot’s been happening here, so rather than trying to put it all in one update, I’m going to try to write three updates over the next several weeks, one for each month of this year so far.

In my last update, I shared about getting to stay with Pastor Nicodeme and his family and the wonderful hospitality they showed me. Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to stay with more of our Friends pastors, and their families. I am incredibly grateful for how each family welcomed me into their home and for all the things I learned with each of them.

In January, I had the opportunity to stay with Pastor Simparinka and his family in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali. He and his family are such gentle, peaceful people, and I felt such peace in being with them. During my time with him, I had the opportunity to meet many of our Friends pastors in Kigali to hear about how God has changed their lives through Discipling for Development (D4D), a whole life discipleship model that’s taking off in the Friends churches in East Africa. D4D emphasizes that God cares about every part of our lives. He cares about our relationship with him, our relationships with others, our relationship with the environment/things we have, and our relationship with ourselves. (Think of “relationship with ourselves” as our view of ourselves and how we take care of ourselves). Recently, I’ve been taking a look at my own life and praying and thinking about what I need to bring under Jesus’s lordship in each of those areas. What about you? What parts of these areas is Jesus calling you to follow him deeper in?

The following week I stayed with Pastor Jean Paul and his family who also live in Kigali. He and his family are incredibly funny. In the space of a week, we had developed a whole host of inside jokes that we were still laughing about when I saw them a month later. I had such joy in being with them! During that week I also had the chance to teach a few religion classes at Kagarama Secondary School. (Secondary schools are grades 7-12). I was so honored to be asked to teach. The lesson I was asked to teach most often was on Christian Commitment. Here’s the Cliff Notes version. Jesus has shown us so much love in all that he’s done for us, and our motivation in all that we do for him should be from love for him and others. It was certainly a reminder to me to check my motives and make sure I’m not just going through the motions.

Here’s a lesson plan for another class I taught at Kagarama Secondary School. I really enjoyed helping the students step into the story and imagine that they were these people hearing this news for the first time. All in all, it’s been a blessing to stay with these families and to meet all the people I got to during that time. I look forward to getting to know more of our pastors, their families, and many others during the rest of my time in Rwanda.

As always, dear friends and family, I am so grateful for how you have partnered and continue to partner with me in my work here. I’m already looking at the logistics for my return to the U.S. this summer, and I’m so excited to share with many of you in person about what God’s doing in Rwanda and about what might be next. It’s hard to believe my on-the-field training is ending in four months. I’m thankful for all that God’s done here in the circles I’m part of, and I’m looking forward to what he has next, both while I’m here in Rwanda and afterward.

In him,

Thomas

The post Thomas Moore: Ministry Update from January first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

Wow! It’s been a long time since my last update and a lot has happened. I’ll try to give you an overview. In the past few months, I had the opportunity to be a part of two Luke 10 Exploration trips with EFM; one to Tanzania, and one to the United Arab Emirates/Qatar. Luke 10 Exploration trips are exploratory trips that are part of EFM’s process for discerning where God is leading our organization to start new fields. In between those trips (and after) I’ve continued to work on learning Kinyarwanda, and I am incredibly thankful for my language partner, Innocent, who has been so patient with me as I’ve learned.

I had an incredible time on the trip to Tanzania in September. The team was made up of Burundians and Americans. Together, we prayed and discerned about whether God is leading the Burundi Friends Church and EFM to start work there. We had the opportunity to talk with missionaries working among the Zaramo and the Kutu, two unreached people groups, and to hear the missionaries’ stories. It was so encouraging to hear what God’s doing among both of those people groups. We walked away from the trip not sure yet of how God wants us to be involved long term but sensing that another trip there is needed to discern more.

The Tanzania Luke 10 Team

The Gulf States Luke 10 Team

Next up was the trip to Dubai, U.A.E. and Doha, Qatar in October. My heart was filled with so much joy in both of those places but especially in Dubai. This trip was geared at seeing what God was doing among the Nepali immigrants in both of those cities, and the team was made up of both Nepali and Americans as we discerned together. We got to spend a lot of time with Nepali believers in both places, hearing about what God was doing among them and we were grateful for all the hospitality they showed us. God is certainly working among them. On our second day in Dubai, we went on a tour with some Arab guides who told us more about Dubai’s history and Emirati culture, and my heart was so full to be able to spend time with them and learn more about them. I really wanted to hear their stories and get to know them more, but it wasn’t the time or the place for that. I am praying about what it would be like for me to work in either of those cities but ultimately, it’s about where God is leading EFM as an organization and where he is sending me within that.

A View of Part of Doha. Can You Tell It’s Bright?

In the times in between and since the trips, I’ve been working on learning Kinyarwanda more. The trips were beautiful and good interruptions, but it did mean I’d have to remember and get back into it after each one, so my progress has been a bit slower than I would have liked. As I said before, I’m so thankful for Innocent’s patience in helping me learn and for how close of a friend he’s become to me. I’m so encouraged to see the things God’s doing in his life as well.

So, how can you be partnering with me in prayer during this next season?

• Pray that I may continue to humbly learn Kinyarwanda, about Rwandan culture, and about how ministry is done here.
• Pray for the Carpenters as they settle back into life here after a missionary conference in Thailand.
• Pray for EFM as we discern where God is sending us as an organization.

Thank you so much, everyone, for your continued prayer support and financial support. I am so thankful that all of you are partnering with me and am excited to see what God will do during the rest of my time in Rwanda. I pray that in the midst of all of the anxiousness that can come with the Christmas season that God will give you his peace.

In him,

Thomas Moore

P.S. Lots of good things have been happening in December as well. I’ll talk about more of those in my next update.

The post Thomas Moore’s Fall Ministry Update first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

Greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ!

My daughter, Betti invited Angelica Moore (EFM Short Term Missionary) last Monday to one of her English classes. They had a very blessed time together. Below you can read her report of that.

Every blessing to you all!

With love,
Tony

The post Partnerships in Hungary first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.