Team #647 - Monterrey Mexico

Check out the following video from the most recent STEM Team from Austin, TX to Monterrey Mexico!

Short Term Missions Leader's Confrence

The Short-Term Mission Leader’s Conference was held on campus last weekend. This was the first time the conference had been held as a partnership between Bethany International and STEM Intl. It was a very successful event! Huge thanks to Bethany’s STEM Ministries team - Ryan Schlangen, Alison Goldhor, Jim Levin, and Rachel Norman - who worked so hard to make this conference a great experience for short term mission leaders from around the country. It was great to see such a strong showing by Bethany College of Missions students who also participated in the three-day conference.

The STMLC conference theme this year was Becoming the Best Partner You Can Be! Author and speaker, Daniel Rickett challenged us in our thinking on what it looks like to form authentic partnerships saying, “We assent to the idea of relationship in the West and we think we’ve done it because we are “nice” to them [our partners]. But in fact it’s perfunctory relationship, easily forgotten until the next time we show up. It’s not intimate relationship. It’s acquaintances, but not intimacy. Partnership is more about communing with God and one another than anything else. It’s a way of thinking and being that Jesus modeled for us. Why do we look for more of a base for mission than this one reality? Communion is the ultimate end, not mission. We will still have communion when our mission is done. Communion should be the dominating paradigm. It’s more than just friendship or fellowship. It’s about life together the way that Dietrich Bonheoffer wrote about it. It says, ‘I’m with you’.”

Gulf Coast Team #636

Here’s a review of our activities:

We know we clearly shared the gospel with at least two home owners, but I think there were more opportunities to share and pray for people
We did not see anyone make that decision to give their lives to Christ
We worked in at least five different homes doing:

• framing
• repairing
• scrubbing with bleach
• pulling nails
• insulating
• sheet rock prep
• sheet rocking
• electrical work, repairing, upgrading, installing receptacles,
• primed an entire house (interior)
• laid sub floor
• removed & replaced windows
• built a deck stairway and railing
• reinforced a floor
• misc siding
• closed in an open wall
• hung a cabinet

We also had chances to do more than work physically

• gave three prayer shawls
• blessed home owners with lunches
• got to know some local people at the community supper
• toured parts of St Bernard Parish & the Lower Ninth Ward and the French Quarter
• had about 10 devotion times, giving everyone on the team a chance to share a brief meditation
• had a few brief teachings such as “the Armor of God,” “Give What You Have,” “Short-Term Mission – Who’s it For?” “Let Your Light Shine”
• representatives from the team scouted new possible locations for future Eagle Brook teams

There is probably much more we could list, but this is at least a snap-shot of what God did on this team!