Summer and Fall 2010 PK 9160 444 Brickell Ave. Ste 51 Miami, FL 33131 USA to Honduras: (901) 405-9424 Kim’s Honduras Cell: 011-504-9-854-8912 Rick’s Honduras cell: 011 504 9 958 6709
yfcRickBeck@hotmail.com yfcKimBeck@mac.com www.RickBeck.blogspot.com
Rick & Kim Beck Ministering in Honduras
THE BECKONING
A Newsletter Raising Awareness, Prayers, and Support For Honduras Missions “And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them.”— Luke 5:7
Youth To Youth Ministry “Us” Training “Them” To Reach “Them” The words, “us” and “them”, are quite interesting, especially in the context of missions. Throughout church history Christians within one culture group have sent missionaries to other cultures. Probably the 1st New Testament model of this was Paul the Jewish believer in Jesus Christ being sent to various gentile groups. In like fashion you have sent us, Rick and Kim (USA citizens), to them (Hondurans) to be missionaries. More specifically, you have sent us to the Honduran youth culture.
Back row: Rick, Jairo, Jaime. Front row: Jimmy, Kevin.These are four of the nine youth learning leadership and going through discipleship training. They are leading ministry and assisting Rick to plan mission events.
Eat and Drive In Memphis. Support Us In Honduras! As you reload your Kroger gift card (time after time) we receive 5%. For example a reload of $500 = $25 gift. With your card you can purchase from Memphis-area Krogers your groceries, pharmacy items, even your gasoline. Last month Kroger mailed their first check to YFC for $250. Thank you friends… it works! Your Thanksgiving and Christmas groceries and gasoline alone could help us secure well over $1,000 by the end of 2010. So, contact Ann Beck (phone: 901 767-9203) and she will mail you a complementary gift card pre-loaded with $5.
Our modern times have given rise to a phenomenon called youth culture. Many say that it started in the USA in the 1950’s with the “baby boomers” exploding into adolescence and having there own music, “lingo”, hang-outs, and for the first time their own economic market catering to what they wanted. Every generation of youth in the USA since then had its own unique “twist” of youth culture. Now, our electronic age (with cable television and the internet) has contributed to this youth culture phenomenon sweeping the globe. Countries where teen-agers had been just another age bracket to the main-stream culture are now forming their own music, fashion, “lingo”, etc… their own youth culture. The kids in Honduras, like the kids in the USA, have their own “hangouts”, their own dress styles, their own vocabulary, their own music, and their own set of values. And, just like in the Our `91 Missionary Car On USA, the youth culture can be very Her Last Cylinder segregated from the main-stream culture. Have you ever found yourself utterly helpless, when God demonstrated His strength in your It is to them -this Honduran youth cultureweakness? That’s where we are, and that’s what that you have sent us. we need God to do regarding the purchase of our The goal of every missionary should be to raise-up those from the host culture to carry-on the ministry. The first century
next missionary car. Our friend (and past YFC board member), Joe Overstreet gave a “lead gift” of $5,000. Thank you Joe and Kathy. Should the Lord lead you to join others to meet this specific need, please e-mail Rick, yfcRickBeck@hotmail.com
every young person one at a time Rick & Kim Beck Missionary Account # 25292 Donation Information: Check # __________ Amount _______ This is a pledge of $______per month Special gift of $__________ I will pray for the YFC in Honduras Honduras Special Projects Account # 25505
Donation Information: Check # __________ Amount ________ Apply $________ to the City Dump ministry Apply $________ to the Tolupan Indians Apply $________ to the Foster Care Apply $________ to the Prison Ministry
missionary, Paul, invested his life into Timothy, the young man. Paul’s second letter to Timothy reads, “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.” 2 Timothy 2:2. Here we see the Christian faith passed along four generations of believers starting with the “missionary to the young man” relationship. Following this model… Kim and I are investing our lives through discipleship into Honduras youth who are reaching others, who in turn will reach even more.
A Special Thank You! To the:Knapp Foundation for your gracious support of our foster kids and for your gifts this year.
You are receiving an exciting report of a new group of Honduran youth who are being discipled in the Christian life of faith. Last spring, our Honduran foster daughter (Michell-age 18), lead two of our new neighbors to faith in Christ. (We moved into a new rental house last March) These two new believers, Jaime and Jairo, began to go with us to the city-dump throughout the summer to hand-out food and water. After several weeks of going with us I challenged these new believers to share their testimony of their new relationship with Christ, or to pray publically giving thanks for the food. They respectfully declined asking me to teach them how to do so. Their request lead to the formal organization of a new disciple group for them, but also includes my two Honduras foster sons (Kevin and Jimmy), and five other new disciples who come with a fellow missionary friend. We have been taking them to church and we have been teaching them the basics of the Bible, but more than this we are working a plan to teach them through “on-the-field” experiences how to pray, how to share their personal testimony, how to present the Gospel story, how to lead someone else to faith in Christ, and ultimately they will know how to lead a discipleship group of their own. Already others want to join the group, but we’re not interested in growing this group right now, but, rather in training this group of youth to reproduce (or multiply) their faith in the lives of others with a long-term goal of growing the Kingdom of God. This is youth to youth ministry that is the goal of our missionary work; this is the vision of YFC, “… to communicate the life-changing message of Jesus Christ to every young person.” Two Groups Hosted This Summer During our furlough (June 2009-Feb. 2010), we were asked not to spend our “state-side” time and energy recruiting the next summer’s interns and short-term missionary teams. So, we haven’t had the usual super-busy hosting schedule that we’ve had before. However, it was as if the Lord “pulled-together” two special small groups for us to host this summer of 2010. On July 9, I welcomed two young interns, Cole and Aaron from the Memphis area. They were a first for us… they were high school interns. Previously, Kim and I have only hosted college and seminary students, or young adults. Cole and Aaron did great during their three weeks in Honduras. Much of what I usually teach interns formally with paper and pen in a class-room setting was disguised as casual dialog. The plan with them was that more would be “caught” than formally “taught”. Whether we were driving Honduras’ back roads, walking a mountain trail between villages, resting in hammocks, or sharing a meal, they learned of “missiology”, “cross-culture living”, “language acquisition”, and just before their return we “debriefed” and discussed “re-entry”. Furthermore, the beauty of an internship is that the intern experiences in real-life that which no book, sermon, or lecture can provide.
The father/son mission team from Germantown Baptist Church worked with the Tolupan tribe. Each of the 20 households of the focus village was visited. The Gospel was shared and Bibles were presented. At least four other surrounding villages received ministry through Christian films, soccer tournaments, and giving medicine, clothing, and Bibles.
Interns Aaron, Cole (pictured with Michell – our foster daughter) served in Honduras during July. Both said that they would return to the USA different persons.
Rick and Cole make a new pass where the road was washed away into a canyon. Record rainfall, already three times the annual average, makes remote mission trips all the more dangerous. The rainy season doesn’t end till the end of November. Pray for travel safety.
A few days after the interns arrived, and for the next ten days, I was able to experience another “first of its kind”… a “father/ son” short-term missionary trip. Three fathers and their four sons arrived from Germantown Baptist, in Tennessee. Leading the team was Jason Fisher who ministered with me on staff with Mid-South YFC in Memphis. That was back in the 1990’s, so it was especially good to again “bend knees” and “lock arms” with Jason to pray and work together. Our mission was to travel to the remote Mt. de la Flor region to share the Gospel with the mostly unevangelized Tolupan tribe; specifically the village, Hierba Buena. This village has a few believers that are requesting a church be planted there. I anticipated the record rainfall this year in Honduras to impede us crossing the four rivers between us and the Tolupan. Remote and primitive mission trips have their challenges. But, the irony of the trip was that our rustic travel through the rivers went fine, but the modern airlines (for some unknown reason) split the group and didn’t let one of the “father/son” teams travel with the group. This delayed the arrival of two of them by one day. Once again we had to practice the golden rule of missions, “blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.” In his mission trip report Jason Fisher wrote, “Overall, we were blessed to have the opportunity to be used by God to share the Gospel with all of the villagers, many of them accepted Christ, and we left 280 Bibles in homes and schools in the mountains. In the end it is God that works in the hearts and uses His Word and His Spirit to teach the people.”