Subject: Important ministry developments
Happy New Year team,
We trust that God will richly bless each one of you in 2023. Perhaps this will be the year that our Saviour returns, so let’s be about the Lord’s work where He’s placed each of us.
PERSONAL NOTE…
God blessed our family during this Christmas season with some rest and beloved family time with all of our children. Here is where our children are at as I know that many of you pray for them as well:
- Katelyn lives and works in Edmonton, Alberta. She is involved in her church and is right now discipling her roommate and an unbeliever through the evangelism portion of Establish. She exclaimed, “I got to see God use mom and dad to disciple the Mengen believers toward the gospel, and now I get to do it!” The unbeliever is stepping through one truth at a time towards the gospel. Please pray for Katelyn as she’s been accepted to enter the Ethnos cross cultural training course this August in order to go out to make disciples of all nations.
- Andrew and Jenny live and work in Three Hills, Alberta. They are both involved in their church and living Jesus in their contexts. Andrew is working on his carpentry papers and Jenny has gone back to Bible college to work on a counselling degree. Please pray for them as they are expecting our first grand child in early March.
- Amy lives and works in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She is heavily involved in our church and right now discipling a young lady through the evangelism portion of Establish. Please pray for her to find a job that would match her gifts and to give her wisdom in the different ministry roles that she has.
MINISTRY DEVELOPMENTS…
During the past few years, our team has been doing a lot of evaluating both of our curriculum and of our strategy in order to fulfill our goal: The Establish Team is engaging the Canadian church with Ethnos foundational discipling tools to establish her believers in Christ and to empower them to begin a disciple-making movement throughout Canada and beyond.
The first of version 2 of our curriculum was released in August and we began version 2 of our strategy in October – both of which seem to be moving more towards our goal. Praise the Lord for the new multiplication that we’re seeing taking place beyond our team! Please continue to pray for God’s favour and wisdom as we are working on completing version 2 of our second level of lessons by this summer and are looking to expand the reach of our strategy this next fall with one team leading a first year equipping in northeast Saskatchewan and another team leading one in BC and perhaps also piloting the second year intensive.
In the midst of our evaluating, I’ve put together a PowerPoint presentation that walks through our past seven years of ministry – it plots everything on a timeline, states the successes, lists the personal challenges, recognizes the northern challenges, and states why we pivoted in both our curriculum and strategy. Our mission leadership and team endorsed this strategy presentation and now a colleague and I will be going to Kamloops this week to walk Norm through it. Please pray that God would give capacity to Norm to process where we’ve been, what we’ve learned, and why we need to pivot. We desire complete unity, especially as we undertake more survey trips to northern Saskatchewan in March. In addition, we’ll be meeting with the senior pastor of a church in BC that Norm has been consulting with on how they can leverage Establish to disciple the aboriginal believers in and around their church. I share also share this with you to be transparent with you as our larger team on this venture. I’ve attached pictures of some of the slides to this email, but if you would like to see the larger PowerPoint, please let me know as I’d love to walk you through it. There is much that God has done as a result of your prayers, and much to trust Him for as we go ahead.
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS…
This past week, we sent the French version of our Who is God? booklet to the printer and we’ve asked for another 10,000 copies of our English Who is God? booklet to be printed. We’re also praising the Lord more hands to help carry the ministry load. As a result of our new colleagues, Jason and Erin, my workload has lessened. Please pray for wisdom as a team on how we can best leverage each others’ gifts.
Thank you so very much to each of you in how you continue to walk with us in this ministry. God continues to use you to encourage our hearts – whether your prayer support, encouragement, or financial support.
Blessings,
Dave & Judy Wright
