Tuesday, March 31, 2009

April Report

Dear Christian Friend,

Some new materials have been published on our website:
  • Should We Sing During the Lord’s Supper? This has been available as an 8-page printed booklet for many months but we had missed posting it electronically. Now you can access it easily by going to Tracts on our Internet menu.
  • Giving: Worship or Hypocrisy? This is our newest issue of Equipping the Saints, Volume 18 for 2009. We are working to have all of the previous issues online soon.

Our Broadcasting department has been putting together a short film on Truth for the World for quite some time – but every time it was close to completion something changed. Finally, the DVD is done!. It gives a brief 17-minute glimpse of the work we are accomplishing together and the staff here in Georgia. It is available to anyone interested. Just let us know. Perhaps you would like your congregation or eldership to see it.


Four members of the Truth for the World staff – William & Katrece Howard, and Jimmie & Linda Hill – are headed to Iceland for a campaign this month, April 14-29. You will read about William’s January trip to Iceland and the need for this campaign in our next UPDATE issue.

Iceland is the 18th largest island in the world and is located in the Northern Atlantic between Greenland and Europe just below the Arctic Circle. The people speak Icelandic, a language not much altered from the one spoken by the Vikings who settled this land more than 1,000 years ago. It has a population of about 320,000 souls. Of these approximately 275,000 are affiliated with the Lutheran church. The Lord’s church numbers less than 10. Each member of the Truth for the World team will be teaching a series of lessons designed to strengthen this tiny group of brothers and sisters. Updates during the campaign will be posted on www.hillmission.blogspot.com if you are interested in reading more on this.

Thank you for all you do for the cause of Christ.

Staff of Truth for the World

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Update on Iceland

Our preparations for Iceland continue but there have been a couple of changes so I thought I would pass along the latest.

Our campaign group has finally gelled at 4 members - William & Katrece Howard, Jimmie & me. Originally, there were several others interested in joining this effort but were not able to do so.
The airline tickets have been purchased, the accomodations booked, and we've figured out who is going to teach what - so all of the plans are coming together. We had to move up our departure by 2 days in order to secure the cheapest airfare so we now leave on April 14th and get back to Georgia on the 29th.




We will be working in the city of Reykjavik but staying in Kefflavik a few miles away because accomodations are substantially cheaper.


Being prepared for the weather has been a large concern for this campaign. The average high in April is around 42 degrees, but the island can be extremely windy. With the windchill 42 can feel like it's in the teens .

This satellite photo of the island makes it easy to understand where Iceland got its name!

But there are many gorgeous Icelandic photos on the web, so it promises to also be a beautiful country.

I'll keep you posted. Please keep this campaign effort in your prayers.

- Linda

Friday, March 6, 2009

March Report

Dear Christian Friend,

Here’s a trivia quiz for you. What nation in the world -

  • has an estimated population of 5,179,571 souls?
  • is predominately Sunni Muslim?
  • converses in Turkmen and Russian?
  • is mostly covered by the Kara-Kum Desert?
  • has a 60% unemployment rate?
  • is a northern neighbor to Iran and Afghanistan?
  • is one of the 8 most repressive regimes in the world, severely restricting human and religious freedoms?
  • is the newest nation to contact Truth for the World?
Not sure? Here are some other hints –

  • it’s nomadic people still often live in yurtas, collapsible wood houses covered in reeds and felt.
  • men still dress in baggy, blue pantaloons with a red robe over a white shirt, and wear big, shaggy wool hats.
  • women still declare their status by the braids in their hair – 1 for married, 2 for single.
  • it is famous for its horses and carpets.
The answer is Turkmenistan.

So how did a seeking soul from the nomadic land of Turkmenistan find Truth for the World? On the Internet, of course. The latest statistics estimate that almost 1.6 billion people use the Internet worldwide now. We generally assume that Americans are the main Internet users, and we do have the greatest percentage of our population online with 73% of us able to navigate the web. But in the last 8 years Internet usage has more than tripled. Internet users now number:

Oceania/Australia 20.6 million
Middle East 45.9 million
Africa 54.2 million
Latin America 166.4 million
North America 246.8 million
Europe 390.1 million
Asia
650.4 million


The Internet can be an incredible tool for spreading the Gospel of Christ and reaching lost souls. Let’s use it!

Staff of Truth for the World