Serving the World

We have the privilege of hosting, supporting, and training staff from around the world. Pictured below is a cookout we hosted for the Repolles family from Brazil and the Firpo and Hunt families who just arrived from Thailand for a six month US Ministry Assignment. Please pray with us for the these and many other families as they travel back to the USA to meet with supporters, study, renew, transition children to college, and build up their support and prayer teams.

Wendy Enjoys New Business

Wendy has joined a new business called Willow House with her dear friend Melinda Saxton. It is a home design and decorating company formerly known as Southern Living at Home. Wendy is a Design Consultant and she is loving it! Those of you who know her know how much she loves hosting people in her home and making it a warm and inviting environment! Now she gets to help others do the same thing for their homes!

Pictured below is Wendy with her team at a recent National Convention in Atlanta, GA for Willow House. We are thankful that God is helping pay for soccer and ballet through this business! Yeah!

 

If you would like to see more about her new venture take a look at this site: wendylong.willowhouse.com. You can even shop online if you want to. Wendy says check out the close out deals!

New Addition to the Family

No, not another child! But a beautiful bouncing brown eyed girl all the same! We are so pleased how she has fit into our family. It has been so fun to see how it has affected the kids and Wendy and me for the good! Blessings come in all shapes and sizes!

Riley Long

GRC Staff Planning

This is my staff team at our quarterly planning and evaluation time at Lake Martin in Alabama. (L-R: Kent Bailey, Phillip Avery, Jeff Schofield, David Breed, Russell Long, Janet Pursell, and Chris Blazer).

We serve together in the Campus Outreach GRC (Global Resource Center). It is our privilege to serve the global movement of Campus Outreach as it seeks to Build Laborers on the Campus for the Lost World.

Thank you for your prayers and partnership in this ministry!

Support Update

As many of you know, we have been working hard to build a healthy prayer and support team over the past several months. Each month for almost last year we have had less support come in than our costs. If not for the faithful giving of so many we would not have been able to continue in ministry this year. However, we are responsible before the Lord and the Campus Outreach Board to make sure we raise all funds need for our salary, benefits, taxes, and ministry expenses. Thus far this year we have acrued a $5,000 deficit. We currently need $2,400 in new monthly support to meet our responsibilities in the future and $5,000 on 1x funds to meet our deficit from the past.

We have entered an emergency support situation, where the ministry is requiring us to devote full attention to support and begin to work from an emergency budget. In an effort to not accrew any additional deficet balance we will only receive support that comes in each month minus a payment of $643 toward the deficit and all costs, benefits, and taxes. We are committed to being financially responsible and prayerfully request your assistance.

As I have been talking with some of you there seems to be the desire to pray and ask God to raise up 20 families that would pledge $100 per month on average which would significantly resolve this situation. I know that not everyone could do that much, but some might be blessed to do more. Would you join with us in praying that God would raise up these twenty families and others who would partner with us not just in this opportunity, but in the development of leaders and laborers for God's Kingdom!

Peering Through the Storms

As many of you have heard we had a series of devestating tornados in Alabama over the past week. Praise God that we all made it through safely. Our house was not so lucky as you can see here!

We are not complaining though, many, many friends and loved ones lost family members, homes, businesses, and etc.... Please be in prayer with us for all of Alabama during this difficult time!

Latest News

Even though we had hoped to reach our budget by now we are continuing to meet with individuals and churches who God may lead to partner with us in the strategic mission of mobilizing labors for the lost world. We need faithful partners who will pray and give financially to help us complete the work God has given us. Currently we have received $300 in new monthly support commitments. Our remaining support needed is $2,700 per month.

Would you prayerfully consider if God would have you partner with us in this opportunity.

We love you and appreciate you so much! Thank you for your prayers!

Mobilization Summit

Last week Campus Outreach Directors from across the country met in Augusta, GA for a Mobilization Summit.  The goal of this time was to discuss how we might more effectively help our graduates succeed in life and ministry beyond the college campus. It was so encouraging to see all that God was doing in this area already, bu the task at hand is so great! There are are so many that we want to help. Pray with us as we continue to understand all that God would have us do to mobilize more laborers more effectively!

Current Prayer Requests

• Pray God would continue to multiply the lives of the Longs into others raising up laborers/leaders.
• Pray God would grant the Longs wisdom in raising and leading their four children.
• Pray God would help the Longs continue to help staff and students discover their divine design and align themselves with it.
• Pray God would help the Longs as they seek to develop a community group for growth, equipping, and fellowship from within their Sunday School class.
• Pray God would continue to develop a consistent support and prayer team.

Serving as Senders by Chris Blazer (HR Development Director)

February and March are the months that many Churches give particular focus to Global Missions. Though this may only be a weekly focus for individuals and churches, this is the air we breathe here in the Global Resource Center. Paul says in Romans 10:14-15 ¹⁴How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? ¹⁵ And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

It is not uncommon to get the question “so what do you do”—mostly from donors and potential donors. The answer for our team really comes from this passage. We are called and equipped to wash the beautiful feet of those who bring good news. Though not always done to the degree we would like, it certainly represents the desire of our heart. We will all be reading a book together by Neal Pirolo called Serving as Senders—how to care for your missionaries while they are preparing to go, while they are on the field and when they return to the US. We always feel like our tiny office located on Valleydale Road in Birmingham, Alabama has a revolving door—either people coming, going or passing through.  Since December we have deployed Brian and Abbey Harper to Brazil, Bobby and Katie Hamlett & Bob and Courtney McGreggor to Thailand. In addition, we also deployed Brian & Jennifer Phillips to Australia.  Janet Pursell has recently arrived in our office from Texas and is making a significant contribution at an operational level with our office. David Breed and Phillip Avery are currently raising support to join the Global Resource Center and we are in the process of deploying Melanie Rogers and Lee Cunningham to Brazil and Laura Watkins to Thailand in the early summer (God willing). Finally, we are also shepherding and coaching Anselmo and Michelle Repolles so they can return to Brazil this summer after a prolonged season of support raising and personal development.

When you cut a CO staff person we bleed Luke 9:36-38. I wish we were sending more and caring for more because the harvest is certainly plentiful but the workers are few. Just as that is true on the field it is also true in our GRC office. As we seek to grow deeper in our existing services and care for our staff we are seeking to develop new services and add others to our team so that we can sustain the doubling of our ministry efforts and staff over the next ten years. As we pray for you, please pray that God would send envisioned, motivated and talented individuals who will Serve as Senders with us.

Resource Staff Conference

In January we hosted a conference for all of CO’s Resource Staff, from around the country, in Birmingham, AL. The goal of this time was to encourage and equip Resource Staff to meet the ever-increasing needs of Campus Outreach globally. We are seeking to develop staff, services, and systems that will propel the movement strategically and sustainably into the next decade.

Thank you for your prayers! It was clear that God led this time and we were all encouraged and stimulated to greater service and sacrifice.

Questions of a Ten Year Old

My ten year old asks some of the best questions. Many of them are really difficult to answer or we will have to ask Jesus when we see Him face to face. So I thought I would share a few of them with you!

"Papa, how old will we be when we get to heaven? Will we be kids or old? Will we be old or babies like when we die?"

"Papa, why did God make people who won't ever believe in Him since He will have to send them to hell?"

"Papa, why did Adam and Eve sin and mess it us for all of us?"

"Papa, why did God allow sin into the world in the first place?"

In case you were wondering my kids call me Papa.

What interesting questions have you come across lately?

God Is Busy At Christmas Too!

I just wanted to say Merry Christmas to you! This is a special time of year when we celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ! Not simply because He is Emanuel, God with us, but because He came to die that we might have life! Thank you Jesus!

We are excited about the coming year and all that God will do build His kingdom! Thank you for the privilege of laboring with you. Please be in prayer with us as students from all over the world will invest time to learn how to have a relationship with Christ and how to grow in their relationship with Christ at strategic New Years Conferences scattered across the US. Literally thousands of students will participate and many will commit to following Christ and others to becoming laborers for Him! It is such an important and strategic time.

It was at a New Years Conference in 1986 that I gave my life to Christ and accepted Him as my Lord and Savior. After almost a year of studying the bible with our CO staff and guys on my football team, I began to realize that I called myself a Christian, but I did not really know Christ. For me, it had all been about what I believed and not what God says about Himself and me. It was so liberating to finally know Him, His  truth, and His life. I am thankful for people just like you who prayed and gave to help make that possible for me and want to encourage you that it does make a difference! An eternal difference!

How did Jesus impact your life?

Missionary Pre-Deployment Conference

December 10-14 we hosted nine missionaries preparing to serve around the world for a Missionary Pre-Deployment Conference. It was so encouraging to see how God has called, equipped, and now prepared these men and women for their ministries.

During our training sessions we focused on topics like:

• Gospel Identity
• Gospel Community
• Gospel Mission
• First Term Expectations
• Cross Cultural Communication
• Cultural Adaptation
• Campus Outreach International Network Field Services
• Longevity In Ministry

 Above: Brain and Abbey Harper and Melanie Rogers who are deploying to Belo Horizonte, Brazil to work with the Campus Outreach ministry and Church we helped launch there.

 Above: Bobby and Katie Hamlett and Bob and Courtney McGregor who are deploying to Khon Kaen, Thailand to work with the Campus Outreach ministry and Church there.

Not pictured individually is Brian and Jennifer Phillips who are deploying to Brisbane, Australia to work with Campus Outreach and the church there.

Praise God for His glorious mercy and grace that is answering our prayers to send out laborers into His harvest field! Pray with us that God would meet anything that is lacking for each staff as they prepare to leave the USA for new lands!

Update August 23, 2010

We Are Back!

We are back from our farewell visit to Belo Horizonte. We took all four kids for our time of celebration and farewell. It was such a sweet time of reflection of all the might works that our Lord has done. Thank you for your partnership in this great endeavor. We also had to dispense our worldly goods/personal possessions that had been stored there during our year of sabbatical last year. It was tremendous work, but God sustained us and used many of our friends in Brazil to see us through. Without them we could not have completed our task in the short time we had available.

The kids are now back to school and we are settling into Birmingham, AL. As you can imagine, it has been and continues to be quite a series of transitions. Thankfully God is faithful and we can lose ourselves in Him!

Please keep us in your prayers! Pray with us:
-that we would settle into a healthy routine
-that God would meet all our needs as we seek to raise the additional $2000 of monthly support we need
-for God to continue to use us as a family to draw others to Christ and grant us wisdom to know how to use our resources

It has been a while since I've posted an update on our blog, but we have sent a few email updates asking for your prayers. If you are not getting those please let me know at rlong@campusoutreach.org.