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.