A generation awaits...
Josiah Venture 2X3 Campaign

We are nine months into the 2X3 campaign. Many of you have been praying faithfully with us for increased fruit. How is God answering those prayers?

Remember the story of the Samaritan woman? The opportunity to reach a village was “on the way” – the disciples just needed open eyes to see the open door. As we are praying for increased fruit, God is showing us that the answer to those prayers is often closer than we think.

I’ve been asking God for the opportunity to expand the JV work into three more countries during these next three years. Two weeks ago I spent several days in Dresden, former East Germany, with Joel and Ellen Hopkins. The Hopkins are both Moody Bible Institute grads, and Joel is finishing up a master’s at Wheaton.

Look … at the fields (John 4:36)
We are nine months into the 2X3 campaign. Many of you have been praying faithfully with us for increased fruit. How is God answering those prayers?

Remember the story of the Samaritan woman? The opportunity to reach a village was “on the way” – the disciples just needed open eyes to see the open door. As we are praying for increased fruit, God is showing us that the answer to those prayers is often closer than we think.

I’ve been asking God for the opportunity to expand the JV work into three more countries during these next three years. Two weeks ago I spent several days in Dresden, former East Germany, with Joel and Ellen Hopkins. The Hopkins are both Moody Bible Institute grads, and Joel is finishing up a master’s at Wheaton. They heard about Josiah Venture from their professor (a former classmate of mine), their mentors (a former boss of mine), and a Google search (they wanted to use the name Josiah for curriculum they are writing). It looks like we were sitting at the same well!

Pray for this fine couple – they would like to be on the field by the end of next year. God is calling more laborers into his harvest!

JV staff have led English camps for 15 years now. With 560 of these events behind us, you might say we know how to lead an evangelistic camp. But this year our team changed the entire direction of the summer program. Recognizing that most of the students entered the camp with very little information about God, they decided to focus on the “big story” of redemption – starting all the way from Adam, through the fall, flood, sacrifices, and then on to Christ.

The style changed as well, from a “camp talk” format to a simple reading of the Bible stories and then asking and answering questions. This “story of God” is having a huge impact this year and every week I hear numerous testimonies of changed lives. The camps look much the same, but this simple change is bearing great fruit. “On the way” God opened our eyes to a new way of sharing the old message.

Mart Saar has known the gospel of Jesus Christ since he was a small child. Today he leads Koma, the JV national ministry in Estonia. As a team leader, Mart has been challenging his staff to regularly ask God for increased fruit. What Mart didn’t realize is that God wanted to start with him! For years he has not seen much result from personal evangelism, but in the last two months he has led four people to the Lord, including their babysitter, a 65 year old hitchhiker, and a young man named Reiner that he had only known for half an hour.

In addition to this, by focusing on challenging people to repentance and faith, the fruit of their summer camps has tripled. This is good news in a secular country like Estonia, which is one of the least religious in the entire world!

We believe this is just the beginning of what God wants to do in answer to your prayers. Thank you for joining us in this vision to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the next generation in Eastern Europe!

Dave Patty, President, Josiah Venture

Taste … and see that the Lord is good. (Ps 34:8)

It is clear from the Bible that God is pleased when his servants respond in faith. Sometimes that belief is expressed by looking for solutions where there doesn’t seem to be any.

Katka Vlnova is Czech, but she is spending her entire summer in Romania, leading a team of interns who are sharing the gospel through English camps. One of the events was located at a remote site high up in the mountains. They rented a bus to take the young people from the train station to the camp location, but when the bus driver saw the state of the small dirt roads he refused to continue.

Tudor, the Romanian camp director, met with Katka and prayed for an answer to their dilemma. Then they began in faith to think about creative solutions. In the end they found a dump truck driver who would change his plans, and piled 30 people with luggage into the back of his truck. The group had to balance themselves in the rocking vehicle for two hours, but all arrived safe and sound at the camp. It was an adventure few of them will forget!

Mike Sullivan was faced with the possibility that he might have to cancel two camps in Slovakia. Because of the economic crisis in the States, several churches backed out at the last minute, leaving them with no staff for the first session. It would have been easy to just stop these evangelistic activities. Mike believed, however, that God had another plan and begin to pray for an answer.

Soon he found that several friends of JV had frequent flyer miles built up and could spend part of their vacation serving the Lord in Slovakia. Others paid for the tickets on their own. Piecing a team together of “random travelers” Mike was able to keep the camps from being canceled. The best news is that 5 put their faith in Christ!

A good gardener knows that pruning is essential to maximize fruit. For God’s servants, unexpected crisis can seem like an unpleasant setback.Externally imposed limitations, however, often focus our energy into a posture of dependence and acts of faith that actually increase our fruit.

Pray …for us that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly (2Thes 3:1)

Fall Training Conference

Every September our entire team gathers together for five days of inspiration and training. This year our theme is “Baton, passing the life of Christ to the next generation.” Our teaching sessions and times of discussion will focus on how to increase our effectiveness in Disciple-making. This has been a central emphasis of JV for years, but we are asking God to show us how we can be still more fruitful in this area.

This conference is an important time of connection and recharging for the entire team. Pray for the speakers, that they will be powerfully used by the Lord, and for the times of fellowship and reflection, that God would lead us into greater intimacy with him.

Exit 316 in Slovakia

After two years of airing weekly broadcasts on national television in Czech we have a library of 80 episodes of Exit 316. This is a tremendous resource that we would like to use in a still broader way. Since neighboring Slovakia shares a very similar language, we are working to see if Slovak television would be willing to also broadcast the show. This would open the door to reach hundreds of thousands of young people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Obviously a step like this will encounter the enemy’s opposition. Pray for the negotiations which are going on this month with officials in Slovak television. Pray also for endorsements from key religious and political leaders that could open the doors for this strategic project.

Most of all, pray that God would open doors for the gospel and protect the team as they stand in faith for this key opportunity.

Give …yourselves fully to the work of the Lord (I Cor 15:58)

In every issue of “Lift” we will focus on a particular project within the 2X3 campaign that you can become a part of through your giving or service. The Exit 316 television broadcast is key for expanding the proclamation of the gospel among young people in Slovakia. Central to long term impact are the small group materials and training that are distributed to hundreds of churches and used by young people to start evangelistic Bible studies. If you would like to give to this project financially, click here.

Remain…in me and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself (John 15:4)

Since fruitfulness is closely connected to spiritual health, I’ve started a regular podcast to the JV team to build into their spiritual lives. In short 10 minute segments, we are covering the key passages of Scripture that relate to increasing our fruit. We consider you a part of the extended JV team, so are making it possible for you to listen in to these “family devotions” with the team.

In this podcast we will look at Jeremiah 17 and discover what can turn a barren shrub into a fruitful tree. The first set of three messages uncovered the source of barrenness. In this next message we will continue in Jeremiah 17 and discover how a person can continually bear fruit.

• Rooted by the stream – Jeremiah 17:7-9

Click here for a link to this podcast, or go to iTunes and subscribe if you want to receive them automatically.

Look … at the fields (John 4:36)

What picture comes to mind when you hear the words “Eastern Europe?” Though the entire region shares the historical backdrop of communism, each culture and country is quite unique.

Poland shares a border with atheist Czech, but is one of the most religious countries in Europe. At one time, 90% of the population considered themselves members of the Catholic Church. Having a Polish Pope was a great source of pride for them.Though practically everyone believes in God, most have never read the Bible for themselves, and few understand the nature of true conversion through grace, by faith in Jesus Christ.

In fact, Poland has one of the smallest percentages of Protestant evangelicals in Eastern Europe. Only .1% are part of an evangelical church – that is 1 in a 1000!

Our JV Poland team has been taking the gospel forward for 15 years now, faithfully reaching young people and discipling leaders. During that time they have found that one of the best ways to reach this “lost religious generation” is to pull them out of their context for intensive weeks of camp. Several years ago they began praying for a permanent facility where they could engage in this kind of outreach year round.

God led them to a recreational center owned by the largest mining company in Poland. Located on a river, and having its own private lake, the center functioned as a vacation site for company employees. However, because of the change in economic conditions, the company was willing to sell – and through a long series of miracles we were able to buy!

Our Poland team called the place “H2O”, because of all the water. The most important water is the living kind – the inner spring Jesus offered to a Samaritan woman who was wondering where to worship.

We’d like to see doubled fruit through the ministry in Poland during the next three years. H2O is a central part of this because of the doors it opens for evangelism. It needs to be renovated and brought up to EU standards before it can be reopened for ministry. Pray that God would provide teams and resources to bring this project to completion soon.

Dave Patty, President, Josiah Venture