Greetings John,
Thank you for writing. Actually, we believe the numbers we cited in our eTouch are article are supportable. Certainly when we're dealing with nations where information is difficult
to validate we have to be careful. In this case we tried not rely on our own judgments but on ‘first rung’ sources we feel we can trust. Here are few examples:
Jim Rutz has written a remarkable book titled "Megashift." The book is not without detractors but here's a link to a review. http://www.cbn.com/700club/Guests/Bios/Jim_Rutz042805.aspx While I personally don't buy 100% of Rutz's conclusions, I do generally trust the numbers he uses to draw them.
Another source I used is http://www.globalmediaoutreach.com/about_us.html. GMO saw 15.5 million decisions for Jesus in 2010. Explore their fascinating site. They were founded by a partnership between Campus Crusade and a group of internet experts from California.
Steve Douglas, the president of Campus Crusade, has documented the evangelism results of their ‘Jesus Film.’ You can read details at their site http://www.jesusfilm.org/. Quite stunning.
In regards to China: the estimates came as a composite estimate of experts. One is Brother Peter Xu Yongze, known by many as the Father of the “Back To Jerusalem” Movement. We heard recently directly Brother Xu of his great trials and the remarkable growth of the Faith in China. 150 million is a supportable estimate number of Christians in China.
Your caution is well taken however. We do indeed need to be careful about throwing around statistics. And there are always two sides to every use of numbers. We do believe that the
light is shining around the world and at the same time we face mounting challenges On Easter for instance there was a major clamp down on Christian leaders in China. While the light is lighter, the darkness is darker.
Mark Herringshaw
Three New Perspectives
1. A New Perspective on the Down Syndrome Veil
Margi Leech, New Zealand
There are times when ‘joy’ is not a word I could use (about my daughter Emily), because mostly, her having Down Syndrome (DS) is an inconvenience. That’s her gift to us—we are challenged to give up ourselves at times and to be better people. Our selfishness is often challenged. Our future of being free from kids when they all leave home may never happen. Our present financial situation may never improve because it is impossible for the mother of a child with special needs to hold down a well-paid job.
Some challenges we face: specialist care to privately finance learning; speech language therapy, private swimming classes, occupational therapy, operations and tutoring, all coming from a small earning pool. These are the realities—sleeping every night in an alert state just in case she decides to go walk-about. There are some tough aspects of living with a special needs child— please don’t trivialize these. Some days are easy and some days are just tough.
I think the hardest thing I am facing is isolation from the community. I don’t have the joy of my daughter going to hockey practice and meeting up with all the other parents and getting together over a meal. My daughter doesn’t get invited home to play with her classmates or giggle over emails from her friends. We have a different life.
It is not all doom and gloom—it is actually enriched by having Emily in our lives. She gives us the opportunity to meet people we never would have met and enhance our community and schools the way only God could have planned. No regrets, but it’s not rosy. It’s easy to believe that other families have rosy lives, but I don’t know of many families that are totally rosy. I know of families where the kids have gone off the rails in one way or another.
Many special needs families are duped by feeling they’ve missed out. I often have reminded myself of that, in order to keep a perspective as a means of protection against fatalism, anger and blaming. Philippians 4:8 says, “Whatever is good, true, worthy . . . think of these things and so protect your mind.” This verse has been God’s gift to me ever since Emily was born. I am so thankful for the Lord’s company in this respect. He is truly wise.
Laurie and Pete, enjoy your Ruth. Maybe one day I will meet her! I travel around NZ and Australia teaching people how to use a math program that is particularly helpful for children who are visual learners. The program is Numicon. (I also introduce people to eReadingPro and Handwriting Without Tears). And I teach educators how to teach students with DS. This is a very enriching thing. I always knew God was leading me into this role and always thought it would be in a Christian context. God had other arenas for me.
Maybe one day I will speak at Christian conferences and other venues, but for now He is keeping me busy in this way. Thank for your welcome and encouragement to be able to pass the love on in the special needs community.
P.S. I am not sure if ‘veil’ is the right description for someone with Down Syndrome.
I think that the veil is really on our eyes, not theirs.
2. Removed by request
3. A New Perspective on some old YWAM Terminology
Laura Sutter, USA
I want to comment on the section about, "Is it a job or a ministry?" I have been thinking about this issue lately but from a different perspective. I guess I have always carried a passion to make sure the people who make up YWAM are treated well. That is why I work with Member Care.
I think a lot of stress and conflict would be averted if those in leadership entirely quit using the word "staff" and started using "co-worker." In YWAM we are co-workers in the Kingdom, we raise our own support, and we have to follow our own calling individually. When a leader starts treating their 'staff ' like they are 'employees,' all kinds of bad things happen. When someone is a co-worker you treat him or her respectfully; you don't order them around, you don't take them for granted.
So I do love what you wrote about job versus ministry, and hope that concept is grown into the bigger box; that we all start to view each other as valuable volunteer co-workers, from the newest recruit to top leadership.
