Chris' Missional Journal

Faithful Father

2011-01-24T13:29:00.003-06:00

Once again I am blown away by my Faithful Father! His resources are abundant! (even in a down economy!) I definitely went into the end of the year with the hope and the faith that the Lord would provide my financial needs. I have seen Him provide in the past. But it still blows me away to see His children pray and give with a cheerful heart.

Through your gifts I will be able to have my timing belt replaced in my car, and because of the special gifts and increased monthly gifts I have received I can go into 2011 with an awesome jump start on the finances I'll need for the year.

Your partnership in ministry reminds me of Paul's words to the church at Philippi, "Not that I desire your gifts; what I desire is that more be credited to your account. I have received full payment and have more than enough. I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:17-19)

THANK YOU to God be the glory!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-22T15:26:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-24T12:20:00.008-06:00

I am thankful for my God, who is glorious and worthy of all praise! I am thankful for His Son by whom I am adopted into His family! I am thankful for the Holy Spirit that enables me to communicate and be guided by my heavenly Father!

I am also thankful for all of you! If you are reading this it is because you are invested with me in the expansion of God's Kingdom. As I reflect back on this year, I want to apologize that I did not communicate better some of the things I was going through. I robbed you from participating and myself of the power of your prayers. I was discouraged by my lack of recruiting this year and having to cancel a few trips. However I was encouraged by the trips I was able to do and even a trip that got plopped into my lap fully-recruited and ready-to-go! I am also encouraged that I have a trip on the calendar for next summer (with churches committed to providing the team), and more trips in the works.

I will be mailing out a Christmas letter soon with more information and updates, but I wanted to get an update out to my electronic community because some of you are not on my mailing list. (If you don't think you are on my mailing list and would like to receive my Christmas letter, please email me your address chris.truax@e3partners.org)

The main thing I would like you to be praying about is my financial support. The Lord has always provided for me in this area and I have faith that He will again. There are two main reasons why my finances need your prayers, and two main ways you can pray about partnering with me to help meet these needs.

1. This year I have had a few of my monthly donors have to drop off because of life change (loss of job, having a baby, etc.). I really could use some of you to pray about committing to give $50, $100, or $200 a month for 2011. (Or those who already give, maybe you have the capacity to raise your monthly gift.)

2. I found out that my car needs a new timing belt. This is not a cheap repair. It will probably cost between $1000-1500 to replace. Please pray and ask the Lord if He wants to use you to help meet this need.

You can give to both of these needs by going to http://www.e3partners.org, then hover over the word "give" on the title bar, when the pop-up menu appears click on "Donate Today". On the form be sure to:

Choose "Other" in the Designation field. A blank box will appear.

Type in this information, "Chris Truax's Support Account" in the Other field.

If you are committing to give monthly be sure to change the type of gift to "recurring gift".

You can also mail in a check to: e3 Partners Ministry, 2001 W. Plano Parkway, Suite 2600, Plano, TX 75075. Be sure to make out the check to e3 Partners Ministry, and include a note that says, "for Chris Truax's Support Account".

I pray that my desire matches Paul's in Phillipians 4:17, "Not that I desire your gifts; what I desire is that more be credited to your account."

Panama: Stories, Stats, and Photos

2010-08-20T13:33:00.008-05:00

Well, I have been back from Panama now for two weeks and you might of wondered if you would ever hear from me about the trip! Thanks for your patience! I do want to update you guys on what I saw God do in Panama this trip because you were a BIG part of it. You deserve to hear how your partnership and support impacted lives for the Kingdom!

First, from the very beginning I knew this trip was a blessing from God. I was feeling a little discouraged in my lack of recruiting and getting trips mobilized. Especially for this summer I had plans for two different trips that did not come together. Like I said, "I had plans"...the Lord had different plans, and as always His plans are far better then mine. This trip was supposed to be co-led by another e3 missionary, but he had been under the weather recently with different health issues. So the lady leader of the trip, reached out to those that do ministry in Panama asking if anyone was available to help her lead this trip. I jumped at the trip, excited about how the Lord provided even though it didn't look the way I was expecting.
This team was made up mainly from a church in Georgia near Atlanta (my old stomping grounds) called Hebron Baptist. We had 4 join us from PA. In fact one of those was another staff who was having trouble recruiting a team to Paraguay but the Lord provided our trip to join with. One team member was from Dallas, and it turned out to be a guy I had done ministry with before. He was on my Taiwan trip (one of my early training trips). It was great catching up with him! The team gelled nicely with each other and with the Panamanian believers we were partnering with.

We were working in Panama City the capital. We had 6 sites we were working in. Five were sites that we got to strengthen existing churches and one was a totally new church plant! I normally set it up so that I can rotate in between the sites during the week. This allows me to make sure everything is running smoothly in each site and help out where needed. This trip the Lord again had a different plan :-) (this is why we always train up our teams with the mantra, "Flexibility, Flexibility, Flexibility!"). One of my team members suffers from POTS. She goes through cycles of good days and bad days. Unfortunately, the trip landed on a bad cycle. In a bad cycle, all her joints ache, and she is in a lot of pain. On Sunday (our first day to go out to the sites) she needed to stay at the hotel and rest. She was supposed to be our volunteer site leader at her site. In fact the other lady we had assigned to the site was still learning the process because this was her first trip. So the Lord allowed me to go out to that site, and be the site leader. Our lady with POTS persevered well, and got to do some ministry, but never felt 100% or able to fill the role as site leader. That gave me the rare opportunity to spend the whole week at that one site. The Lord allowed all the other sites to run smoothly, and I was able to really plug into this site and get connected to the pastor and some of the church members. I got to experience a trip as a team member again and that was refreshing. Something the Lord knew I needed.

This is Carlos (one of the pastor's main disciples), our driver, guide, evangelist, disciple and friend. Everyday we would learn a new type of vehicle that Carlos was good at using; from cars to buses (specifically "Diablo Rojos" a form of public transportation), back hoes to dump trucks. We also learned he was a good mechanic, but what was cool to see is that he knew God had gifted him in these areas to give him open doors to share the gospel with friends and co-workers.

I shared while on the trip that we got to go to a house and teach the people there how to use their Bibles. This next picture is the man of the house. Once he learned how to look up a passage he started devouring more and more.

We got to go back to this house a few days later. Only one lady from the original group was there, but a new guy (probably a son or son-in-law of the man above) was there. We shared the gospel, teaching him how to look up scriptures in the Bible, and both prayed to receive Christ as their Lord and Savior!

Another cool story is when we shared with these two ladies (picture below), we asked them if they had a Bible and they went and got one. We started going through a gospel tract and helping them learn how to look up scriptures. We quickly discovered that the "bible" that they were trying to use was a Jehovah's Witness bible. We allowed them to use our Bibles to look up the scriptures. While we were in process one of the ladies stopped and pointed to the old book and said she did not like it, and that these new books (the Bibles) were the Truth! They both prayed to receive Christ and we gave them the Bibles and she got rid of the old book! Here they are studying the scriptures...

The personal stories of how God calls people into a relationship with Him is why we go! Here are the numbers that show the impact of what God can do in a week, if His people step out in faith and obey His calling to go and make disciples!

16 North Americans

68 Panamanians

508 People Heard the Gospel

301 Prayed to Receive Christ as Lord

120 People were Discipled

1 Church Planted

5 Churches Strengthened

PRAISE THE LORD!

Thank you for being a part of what God did in Panama!

To see more pics from my trip, check out http://gallery.me.com/crittertruax#100158

Glory to God Panamanian Style!

2010-08-06T00:02:00.003-05:00

Well we just finished our Victory Services in our mission sites. That is where we give glory to God for what He has allowed us to see this week! I was at the Mananitas site (1 of 6 sites) all week and got to see the Gospel shared with 53 people and 22 of them prayed to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior! I will be able to report the totals from all sites, stories, and pictures once I return from the states and I have had a chance to catch my breath.

One of my visits to a house stood out to me, we were able to present the Gospel to 5 adults and they were attentive, but at the end they just started asking if Baptists (which was the denomination of the church we were partnered with) and Catholics were the same. I asked them if they believed the Bible was God's Word, and they said "yes". I said we also believe that. I then proceeded to pull out our e3 track which is laid out like a questionnaire with Bible passages by each question that holds God's answer. I asked them if they had a Bible and they pulled out a few. We then started to go through the questions. I found out quickly that they didn't know how to lookup a verse, so I started to teach them how to do it. I taught the head of the household first and then moved on to help someone else. By the time I got back to the head of the household he was on the third or fourth question and he was just devouring God's Word! What a great site to see, someone having the Word of God unlocked for them! Then we had the whole group look at question 5, which asks if good works save you. Many of them answered "yes". The verse for question 5 is Ephesians 2:8-9, which clearly says we are saved by grace through faith. You could see their eyes change when they started to understood this truth from God's Word!

Please keep praying for the mission sites! My American team is done, but the work goes on! Many new babies in Christ that need to be spoon fed the milk of the Word, and the Panamanian churches are the ones that are here to do it for the long term.

Many coming to know the Lord

2010-08-03T22:28:00.002-05:00

Thanks for your prayers! I have been enjoying seeing the Lord work through our team. Especially the first timers that have stepped out in faith. They are seeing God turn there uneasiness into boldness, and allowing them to see lives transformed before their eyes. In the one site I was working in today we shared the gospel with 34 people and had 13 pray to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior!

Please keep praying for the health of my team. The team member with POTS is still not 100%, but is able to go out to her site and serve for about half the day. I have another team member who has been getting lots of nose bleeds (they are not life threatening but distrupting). And I have a team member who is suffering from poison ivy, and keeps find new areas that are effected. Thanks for lifting them up to our great Physician.

Two more days of ministry! Pray my team has strength to finish this race well!

Worshipping in Panama

2010-08-01T20:56:00.002-05:00

We had a great day worshipping with our Panamanian brothers and sisters! Some sites did more training, and prayer walking. Some sites already went out to talk to people about Jesus and how they can have a relationship with Him. We got quite a bit of rain today that disrupted some plans, please pray that the weather will not effect God's plans this week and that we are always flexible to change our plans to match His. Also please pray for one of my team who was sick today and stayed at the hotel all day. She suffers from Potts and had a flare-up (which, if I understand correctly, makes all her joints ache). Please pray that she is able to go out this week, either from healing or divine strength to endure the pain. God has her on this trip for a reason, let the result bring Him more glory!

And we are off...

2010-07-31T20:59:00.002-05:00

Well despite lots of 'hiccups' that some might call spiritual warfare, the team has all arrived and we have had our initial training and prayer walking of our 7 sites (well, more like 6+ sites ;-)). We had some health issues with team members and family of team members before the trip, which the Lord overcame. Then we had a cancelled flight, that effected 4 of our team, and a delayed flight that effected the rest of us, but God scheduled perfectly to have us all arrive at the same time (we were supposed to arrive 6 hours apart). We are all exhausted from a short night last night, but thankfully we can turn in early tonight. We will worship at the 6 churches we are partnering with tomorrow. If needed do a little more training in the afternoon, and then start going out into the neighborhoods to share the light of Christ. Thanks for your prayers!

Back to Panama

2010-07-26T11:34:00.004-05:00

I'm going back to Panama this Friday! I will be taking 16 people on an e3 trip to Panama City, Panama. We will be working in 7 different sites to Equip the believers with the tools they need to Evangelize the lost and start discipling the new believers in order to Establish a new church at each site (the 3 e's of e3). My team will be there from July 30 - August 7, but the Panamanian believers we will be partnered with are going to continue the ministry when we leave.

Please start praying now for spiritual protection, safe travel, open hearts, team unity, and surrender to God's plan. Here is a prayer calendar to help guide you in prayer these next two weeks.

Our Office Moved

2010-01-25T15:44:00.004-06:00

Just moved into my new cubical (I have a corner cube with a window!)...

Dec/Jan Extreme Panama Praise Report Vol 3

2010-01-11T16:27:00.005-06:00

e3's main mission is church planting by Equipping believers to Evangelize the lost so that we can Establish new churches. We are not a construction ministry or a humanitarian aid ministry, but we will utilize these ways of outreach in specific areas if it helps the main mission of planting a church. On this trip we had no set agenda to provide physically for the Ngobe people, but the Lord showed us the need, and gave us the resources to provide a meal, and a New Year's Celebration party (including pinatas)! This really opened up the hearts of the Ngobe people, especially the parents who saw us taking care of their kids and providing a fun time for them.

One of my team saw first hand how a little compassion can open someone's heart to listen...

"I joined the national leader [Moises Vega] and we wandered off into the village where we encountered a small boy trying to collect sun-drying cocoa beans before it rained. We helped him while unknowingly his mother watched. Impressed by our act of kindness, she invited us to her hut and shared some local cuisine with us. We planted the seed of friendship and invited the family to our main site the next day. She appeared the next day and I had the opportunity to share the EvangeCube [a tool used to share the Gospel] with her. I later saw her name on a tract, indicating a profession of faith in Jesus Christ."

Dec/Jan Extreme Panama Praise Report Vol 2

2010-01-06T17:46:00.004-06:00

What a cool team the Lord provided for this trip! Only one had gone on a e3 trip before! 3 were from my home church, one of those from my personal community group, which was very cool! Two found the trip through the internet after hearing about e3 by word of mouth. The one veteran e3 person recruited two people from her area. It was neat to see how the Lord binded us together as a team! Even the Panamanian translators were from different parts of Panama, but we were all unified in the Body of Christ.

The Lord directed which people should go to which site and which translator should work with which N. American. And even though there were struggles along the way and things did not always go the way we thought they should. He was in control and grew us through our trials, and in our weakness He was strong!

The ground was hard in some of these areas, but seeds were planted. One of the cool stories I heard was of a women that was visited. They talked with her and shared with her about Jesus and they asked her if she wanted to pray to accept Jesus as her Lord and Savior, but the whole time they were talking she was expressionless. She did not respond to them at all and so they left. A short time later after they had headed back to their campsite this lady came to the edge of the campsite and said, "I want to pray to receive Jesus!" You cannot always see the kind of impact the message of Christ is making on someone, but as Isaiah 55:11 says, "...my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."

There is also much power in the prayers of God's people as witnessed by one of my team...

"Juselino (Panamanian site leader) called Orluis (Ngobe translator) and I (Andy - N. American) up to put our hands on and pray for a man who was having trouble putting his faith in Jesus for a number of reasons. When we all began praying, the walls came down and he accepted the Lord. Seeing the power of prayer and a man's heart change because of the Holy Spirit and prayer was amazing. God was right there in everyone's heart. The smile on his face showed God was in his heart as well."

Dec/Jan Extreme Panama Praise Report Vol 1

2010-01-05T18:09:00.003-06:00

I took a team of 9 North Americans to Panama on Dec 27, 2009 - Jan 4, 2010. We went into the Bocas del Torro region of Panama to work in three different jungle villages of Ngobe people. The three villages, Monte Lirio, Barranquilla, and Guabal, did not have a church. In fact only Monte Lirio had been visited by a team before (a year ago). This was ground breaking work for the Kingdom of God. Although as you know the Lord went before us and paved the way. We found in each village persons of peace to help us establish a new church in their village. Many of the Ngobe people are hungry to know more about God and His Word. Many had never heard about God before. Some responded quickly to the Good News while others will need more time to process this new information before the Lord opens up the eyes of their hearts.

We were able to share the Gospel 210 times to people in their houses, and another 1,001 times to people in group settings (children's meetings and evening meetings)! Praise the Lord! God then opened up the eyes of 93 individuals who prayed to receive Him as their personal Lord and Savior! Thank you Lord for letting us be a part in your plan! Please pray for these people, their follow-up, and discipleship.

In order to give you a glimpse into the people behind these numbers, I would like to share with you over the next few days some stories from the N. Americans on my team. This first story is from a young man. This was his first mission trip, in fact this was his first time even setting foot on an airplane...

" The greatest memory I had was the first time I presented the EvangeCube (a Gospel presentation tool). God allowed me to be calm and think clearly. The man I was talking to seemed like he was really trying to grasp what I was telling him. After I had finished, the man told me he wanted to be saved and I was just amazed at how easy God made it for me to lead him to Christ. It made me start to wonder what had been holding me back from sharing the Gospel earlier in my life."

Asia Travels - 2009

2009-06-29T16:01:00.004-05:00

July 9-25 I will be traveling to Asia. Please keep me in your prayers as I am heading over to accomplish a few objectives. First I am meeting with new contacts to talk about future ministry possibilities, I will also be setting up a trip for next summer with a current contact, and lastly I will be joining up with another e3 team to minister to the people through training, prayer, evangelism, and discipleship. While working with this team I hope to pick up even more ways to help advance His kingdom in Asia!

I will definitely need your prayers for open doors, soft hearts, the Father's guidance, and protection from the evil one.

I was planning on bringing a team with me for the first week of my trip, but the team was not coming together. I was getting discouraged. Then I received an email from my contact saying that they could not handle a team at this time, and I realized God's hand was at work from the beginning! He did not allow the team to materialize because it was not the right timing (His timing). I do however feel He would have me go and set things up for a team to go next year.

I will email you a prayer calendar before I head out on the 9th.

In other News:

*Sorry for the lack of updates. I need your prayer support but yet if you don't know what is going on you can't be as focused in your prayers. Sorry!

*I have been talking with more people interested in what God is doing among the nations and specifically through my ministry with e3 and inviting them to be a part of my ministry team by praying, giving, and/or going. The Lord has given me a great response so far, Praise Him! Thank you to all the new ministry partners that have joined on recently. With these new funds I am able to continue my ministry and start to be more prepared for what God has in store for me in the future. Pray as I am continuing to raise up new ministry partners. I am at 77% of my new financial goal. I am targeting Thanksgiving as the date I am shooting to hit 100%.

*This blog and the emails that point you to it are the current ways most of you follow me. The email list system I use is sometimes unreliable because of tight spam filters. My ministry is in process of installing new software that will hopefully overcome this issue, and might change the way I communicate with you. In the mean time those that use FaceBook or Twitter you are welcome to look me up and follow me on those (my user name on both is crittertruax or just search for 'Chris Truax'). I will post on those whenever I update this blog.

All glory, honor, power, to our heavenly Father! Who was, and is, and is to come!

Go with me or ask others to...

2009-04-06T15:13:00.003-05:00

First, pray to the Lord of the Harvest to raise up workers for His harvest fields. Matthew 9:38

Second, did the Lord impress upon you to go? How about going with me on a trip to East Asia on July 9 - 18? The cost is $3800, which includes airfare, lodging, in-country transport, food, tools and materials. We train you in everything you will need to know.

Third, please talk to or pass on to me any names the Lord placed on your heart while you were praying about workers. Church Friends, Pastors, Co-workers, etc.

The nationals are getting ready for our team and they are excited. Now all we need are ordinary people to listen to the Spirit's prompting and say, "Here I am Lord, send me!"

Time is short on this trip, so sign up now by emailing me at chris.truax@e3partners.org.

Stay tuned for information about a Fall or Winter Extreme trip to Panama!

Panama Update 2

2009-02-25T23:46:00.006-06:00

Unfortunately the Panama trip that was supposed to be heading out this weekend is not happening. We had to cancel for a few reasons, but the main one turned out to be a way to help our Panamanian believers. That's right canceling turned out to be a help to our National Directors because they had 3 trips all coming in about the same time and felt overwhelmed with all that was needed to prepare for them.

The good news is we were able to redirect all the trip participants onto other trips. So they will still be able to be used by God, and grow in the knowledge of God thru their cross cultural exposure.

I am in the process of reaching out to more friends and sharing the vision of e3 in order to grow my ministry team. Please keep this in prayer. I am also planning out my summer trips. I hope to do two to East Asia (wink, wink), and one to Panama. If you individually or your church are interested in being used by God internationally, please email me so I can talk to you more about making an international trip an easy reality.

Thanks for your prayers!

Panama Trip Update

2008-12-19T09:29:00.002-06:00

Thanks for your prayers for my Extreme Panama Trip! We will not be able to go in January because not enough signed up, but instead of canceling we are rescheduling for Feb 28 - Mar 7! These dates actually work better for the few we already have signed up and they think some of their friends might be able to join because of the new dates as well. We need probably 5 more people to sign up, so please keep praying to the Lord of the Harvest to send out workers into His harvest fields.

Our Panamanian workers are ready for us to come and partner with them, and are setting things up for us for the new dates. Please be in prayer for Panama as they have been experiencing lots of rain which has led to flooding and mud slides. This should not effect where we are going, but it is effecting other churches we have partnered with and could effect travel of some of our translators.

Trip coming up in January

2008-10-27T14:03:00.002-05:00

I am getting ready for an Extreme trip coming up in January to Panama. An extreme trip means that we will be hiking into the jungles of Panama, sleeping in tents, and filtering our own water so that the native tribes can hear the Good News. In many of these areas it is the first time the name of Jesus has been spoken. I would love it if you would pray for this trip. I am trying to recruit a full team right now and would love you adventurers to join me. If you are not an adventurer please point any adventurers you know my way. The trip is January 10-17, you can get more information by clicking here.

Asia Travels - Video 3

2008-09-07T17:54:00.000-05:00

Asia Travels - Video 2

2008-09-05T13:26:00.001-05:00

For a higher quality and larger view of the same click here (you can actually see the water polo a lot better)

Asia Travels - Video 1

2008-09-04T13:25:00.000-05:00

Safely Home

2008-08-22T12:08:00.001-05:00

Thanks so much for being a great cloud of witness covering me and my teams while I was in East Asia! I arrived safely yesterday and was even able to keep myself awake most of the day and sleep through the night. My brain is still functioning so far today, but I will put off updating you too much today knowing that my brain is still not completely out of the jetlag fog.

It was a blessed trip and I felt like we were able to serve the Lord and His church well while we were there. It was a little bit different trip than I am used to but I was expecting that. We were able to tell the Gospel to people in one-on-one settings and during English classes and we saw a few pray with us to receive Christ! Praise the Lord! What I thought was probably the most impactful was being able to train up the Asian believers in the EvangeCube and other things and encourage them to reach out to their countrymen. They will be able to reach many more than we would ever be able to talk to and they do not have to worry about the language and cultural barriers that we would face.

Please continue to pray for East Asia, the people we met and the churches! More to come including more pics and video.

Estes Park Video

2008-06-10T23:52:00.003-05:00

Click Here

Off to Colorado

2008-05-29T16:31:00.003-05:00

I wanted to update you all on what is going on with me. I was able to go to all the different leadership trainings that I wrote about a few posts ago. The two most impactful were: the class on Storying, learning to tell the Bible in story form, the form oral learners are used to learning from; and I went to Atlanta with some of my church's children's ministers and learned some great things for my kid's worship ministry. Even though they happened back in April I am still processing some of the material :-).

I head out late this Saturday to Estes Park, CO. My church is having a Family Camp, and I am helping lead worship for the kids and will have 12 Kindergardeners looking to my partner and me for guidance and direction during the week! I will be car-pooling up to CO from TX with 6 other people (one other car) and we will be driving through the night. Please pray for safe driving, great weather, and open hearts (both adult and kid) to what God wants to teach them during the week.

Both of my Romania trips are not going to happen in July unfortunately. We had different churches at various levels of commitment back out or never really connect with the mission. This will be the first year in a number of years that I will not be traveling to Romania. I will be looking into 'what went wrong' for these trips to try and learn for the future. I definitely feel (as I stated in a previous post) that I have let my learning grow stagnant, but have come back to the notion that learning is an ever on-going process. Thanks for supporting me through this process.

I will be starting and leading a Community Group through my church in mid to late June. The group I am currently in is moving on. It has been a great group of learning and growing and I hope to pass that on to some other men. Two of the guys from this group will be joining me and helping me as co-leaders especially when I will be on mission. Please pray for the right men to get connected with us and for the leadership and direction of the group.

I am still going to East Asia in August on two trips. Please pray for open doors and for the team as we are applying for Visas.

1 Corinthians 9:19, "For since I am free from all I can make myself a slave to all, in order to gain even more people."

Panama Video

2008-04-09T14:43:00.001-05:00

Back from Panama

2008-04-06T23:40:00.003-05:00

I'm home! Because I was in the jungles of Panama during this trip I was not able to update you periodically on my trip like I try to do. But now that I am back I will try to recap the trip for you and share a few stories, pics, and videos over the next few days.

We left Friday for the Darien region of Panama. This trip was headed up by a couple other e3 staff members Todd and Sheila, but they asked me to join on late because they were going to split the team up into three teams staying in three villages. Todd, Sheila, and our Panamanian Coordinators (the Vegas) had everything planned out but God had some other plans. We thought we would be flying into Panama City and sending the night at a hotel before heading out to Darien on Saturday. Moises Vega thought it would be better to head down the road some on Friday so that the bus and boat ride Saturday would be less. He had set up a hotel for us down the road that we would arrive at around 1 am. Well in route we found out that the hotel had given our rooms to others, but we were flexible for the Lord and pressed on driving through the night in our run down school bus and the Vega's van. Trying to sleep while bumping down poor roads. At about 4 am we came to a church that Moises Vega knew about and we stopped and slept for 3 hours (allowing our bus and van drivers to get a little bit of sleep).

At 7 am we were back on the road, we arrived at the end of the road at about 11:30, and ate some lunch. We then loaded up our very large canoe with all our bags, and our whole team of 37! We thought at first that our boat ride was going to take 3 hours but before we set out we found out the plans had changed and we were heading to a different village that would take 5 hours. The 5 hrs actually turned into 6.5 hrs!

Praise God that our team was very flexible. The verse from James 1:2-4 exemplified our team, "My brothers and sisters, consider it nothing but joy when you fall into all sorts of trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect effect, so that you will be perfect and complete, not deficient in anything."

On Sunday we split into our three villages and started the ministry by prayer walking our village. It was a good way to turn our focus on relying on God's power and not our own. It was also a good time to get to meet the villagers and create a bond before coming back to share the Gospel with them. The next few days were spent sharing the Gospel and discipling the villagers through one on one times, children's meetings and adult cell group meetings. We also had some great times to sit down with the pastor and the church members and encourage them in the Lord.

More to come: Stats, Stories, Videos...

Prayer Calendar for Panama Trip

2008-03-26T14:16:00.001-05:00

click to enlarge

Leadership thoughts, and what's ahead

2008-03-03T12:28:00.001-06:00

God is cool! I know most of you know that already :-), but I was reminded of this recently. I am in a discipleship group with about 8 other men, and we are discussing leadership right now. For part of our study we are reading the book "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership" by John C. Maxwell. His 3rd law is the Law of Process, where he talks about how it takes time and continual growth to become a great leader. Then he goes on to ask, "what are you doing right now to better yourself as a leader?" When I thought about this question I decided I really wasn't doing much. I had become pretty complacent, but decided I needed to look for opportunities to grow. No sooner had I decided this I got email after email, call after call from individuals inviting me to events designed for me to grow as a leader in many different facets of my life! God is cool!

The first event will be a Business Luncheon put on by my church this Friday March 7. Then in the end of April will be my 'Leadership: Drink from a Fire Hydrant Extravaganza'. I will be attending (and volunteering at) the CMA (Christian Management Association) conference on April 21-23. Then on April 24 and 25, one of our staff is doing a training on Chronological Bible Storying (this is great stuff to learn because most people in the world still are oral learners). To finish out April, I will be flying to Atlanta, GA with Children's staff from my church, Watermark, to attend the Orange Conference on the 27 - 30 to grow in how I serve kids. This will help me both in my ministry at Watermark and my trips overseas. Thank you Lord for investing in me! The 'Process' has been put back into Drive and out of Neutral.

Also I need to update you on my travel schedule, and prayer requests. I recently added a trip to Panama that leaves the end of this month March 28 - April 5. One of my fellow staff is heading up this trip and needed a few more warm and capable bodies to make the trip work, so I volunteered. It is an extreme trip, meaning we will be camping and hiking in the jungles of Panama. We will be working with churches from Darien, Panama which is near the border with Colombia. Please keep this trip in your prayers. I had a trip of my own planned to David, Panama for May but will have to cancel because my main source of recruiting fell through. I have two trips planned to go to Romania (back-to-back) but they are also in need of more people in order for the trips to go. Please pray to the Lord of the Harvest to raise up workers for His harvest field, specifically Romania. And don't forget that might include you :-)! God could be calling you to a 1 or 2 week commitment to Romania, are you willing to answer His call? These trips are tentatively scheduled for July 10-20 and 17-27 (might shift a week earlier depending on the Romanians' schedules). Right after I get back from that I am leaving for East Asia for two trips August 2-20 that Steve Cretin is leading. I am going to learn how we do ministry there, so that next year I can lead a trip there.

In June I will be traveling to Estes Park, Colorado with my church for a Family Camp. I will serve in the Children's area as worship leader and possibly a group leader. So as you can see my schedule (and specifically [as usual] my summer) is quite full. Please keep these trips in your prayers, and especially pray for more laborers for Romania.

If your still reading, thanks for letting me ramble on! Your support is invaluable to me. You get the benefit of seeing this great picture of me and my family celebrating my Grandmother's 90th birthday.

I Survived!

2007-12-15T17:55:00.001-06:00

I survived and completed my first marathon last Sunday! Thanks for your prayers! Sorry for the delay in an update. I was recovering, but I did not post an update because I was waiting to receive some professional pictures that were taken at the race. Unfortunately because of the large number of entrants they are still not available, but I did not want to delay any further. Plus I had a few good friends follow me around the course and they took some good pics that you are seeing here.

A cold front ended up rolling in Saturday night, and race day temp started at 51 degrees and only went down from there. I actually was very happy with the temp, but I was a little worried about the forecast of thunderstorms. The Lord decided to hold off most of the rain and I only got sprinkled on a few times, Thank You Lord!

I am very glad I chose to set the goal of finishing in 5 hours because during the last few miles my legs wanted to stop, but I wouldn't let them :-). It was a great race, I felt good throughout. The cheering fans and many other runners were good distractions to get my mind off of my aches and pains. I kept a pretty steady pace of 11:21 and finished just under my goal at 4:58!
I am not sure if this will become a regular thing for me or not but I am very glad I did it, and I am excited I can share it with all of you. I hope it encourages you to persevere in whatever is going on in your life right now.

Marathon!!!

2007-12-03T13:17:00.000-06:00

Yep that's right I am a little wacko! I am going to be running in my first marathon this Sunday, Dec. 9! I am excited about this opportunity to really put my body to the test, and to literally 'run the race that is before me'. For those that do not know too much about marathons, a marathon is 26.2 miles (42.25K) long. I have been training for the past 4 months, and you know from my previous blog back in April that I have run a half-marathon (which led me to believe I could run a marthon, with proper training). So I think I am ready for the Dallas White Rock Marathon! I am not looking to break any records, just finish :-). My goal for the race will be to do it in under 5 hours. That's right, I will be running for 5 hrs!! Please pray!

You can also track me during the race! You can go here and sign up your email, cell phone, or pager to get updates of my time at different mile markers or one update of my finishing time. I will also post my results here with pics of the race once I recover :-).

I also wanted to apologize for still not updating you on my last week in Romania from this summer. It is on my to-do list. Also I wanted to thank all of you who prayed and sent financial gifts toward my new MacBook Pro laptop! I got it and have been enjoying getting to know the Mac world. I feel like a novice with my Mac computer which is a little odd for me since I know my way around a PC pretty well, but it has been a fun learning experience that is continuing.

Hebrews 12:1, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."

Please pray for me as I literally run a race set before me, and please continue to pray for me as I run the race of life and ministry that the Lord has laid before me. And even though that 'cloud of witnesses' refers back to the "Hall of Faith" mentioned in chapter 11, God has placed each of you in my life as part of those witnesses that allow me to throw off everything that hinders me. Thanks for your partnership!

Reflections on week 3 - Resita

2007-08-21T11:15:00.000-05:00

If I am going to truly reflect on week 3 in Romania, I would be reminded of the 1.5 hour car ride each morning just to get my team of 8 to the mother church, and for half of my team another hour drive to the mission site. Luckily my whole team of 8 were troopers, never complaining. In fact they realized if they were going to get any ministry time in the sites we needed to leave earlier each morning and get back later. They came to me with this suggestion and I made the changes. So we would leave from our hotel at 7:30am and normally not get back until 10pm or later. This made for loooonnnngggg days, but the Lord blessed our endurance by allowing our two teams of 8 Americans to share the Gospel with 251 people! 94 prayed with us to receive Christ and for many others we planted the seeds that the nationals will water and God will bring to fruition.
This man was one of those who prayed to receive Christ! My first impression of him was that he was gruff and tough and would probably run us off. But the Lord had already softened his heart and he listened very intently to my presentation of the Gospel. He came to the realization that he was a sinner and he needed a Savior.
Then there was this older man who listened to our presentation and had many good questions, and he too prayed to receive Christ! His friend came over to visit while we were talking to him, but he stayed focused on us. After he prayed we also presented to his friend... ...but this man's heart was hardened. After talking to him he was still set in his ways, but a seed was planted. I came to realize that when witnessing to an orthodox, it was a worthwhile visit if you got them to analyze and question one thing in their 'religion' that got them one step closer to a 'relationship' with Jesus Christ.
Here is a picture of half our team with our translators and nationals after an evening service. I added this pic though for you to see the lady in the back who is framed by the glass of the door. Her name is Giorgiana. My translator, national and I went to this one house and a man graciously invited us in, had us sit down and began showing us pictures of all the great work he had done as a sculptor. I was thinking the visit was going well but then he kept being distracted. We waited for a long while in his courtyard while he dealt with other business, and it seemed like we were just wasting our time. During one of the brief times he came over to talk he mentions he has a daughter who is an English teacher (Giorgiana), this makes him decide she should be talking with us, so he goes to get her. Again leaving us sitting and waiting thinking we are wasting our time. Finally he comes back and we have a pretty good conversation, and while we are talking Giorgiana arrives and joins the conversation. The sculptor again gets called away by business, but this is a good thing because we get some great sharing time with Giorgiana. We talked about reading the Bible and she said she had tried once to read the Bible (starting from the beginning) but got bogged down. So I was able to suggest starting with the Gospel of John. She did not pray with us but she did come to our evening meeting that night and showed real signs of desiring to read the Bible and understand truth. God had a timetable and a plan, and even though we thought we were wasting our time God was working everything out for His glory!

Photo Show of week 2 Galati, Romania

2007-08-16T12:59:00.000-05:00

I uploaded this again because it seemed to be having troubles -> 8-21-07

Reflections on week 2 - Galati

2007-08-14T13:52:00.000-05:00

First off if your looking for the video recap of week 1 scroll down one entry.

The second week in Galati looked a lot different than the first week. For starters it was a smaller team and everyone was a veteran, so the trip practically ran itself. Which was a good thing b/c myself and 5 others were wore out from week 1. We had to face oppressive heat, but with a change of schedule to keep us out of the sun during the hottest part of the day, we persevered. I briefly hit on a story in a previous post about a lady named Ana Maria. Her story is a testimony to God's timing and the importance of seed planting. I asked Jean Kinney, the campaigner who first met Ana Maria, to write up the story so I could share it with all of you so...

"It was July, 2006, when my team (my translator Dragos, and his mother Marianna, my Romanian National, and myself) went to the small village of Tulucesti, outside Galati, Romania, to do visiting and share the Gospel. Because the houses do not have numbers and the streets do not have names, we were asking everyone we met if they knew the people we were trying to visit. We were not having much success, or so we thought.

We turned down a dusty and rocky road that had deep cart ruts. When I looked down this road, it seemed to go on forever. We did not know if this was the right road or not. But, the three of us began our journey. I looked up, and in the distance, I saw a young lady walking towards us. As she neared, I could see her more clearly.

My Romanian friends conversed with her in Romanian, asking her if she knew the family we were searching for; she said no, but her Mother might. She asked us to follow her back home so that we could ask. I thought that was very nice of her to be so helpful and thoughtful. So, the three of us followed our new friend. As we walked, she looked at me, and I just smiled at her. There was just something about this young woman I could not put into words.

While Marianna spoke to her Mother, the young woman looked at me and began to speak to me in perfect English. She told me her name was Ana Maria and that she was a college student. Ana Maria was a beautiful young woman, but to me, I saw some sadness in her eyes that spoke volumes. I did not know what the sadness was from, but I knew Jesus did. It was at that moment that I knew we were not lost; we were right on schedule and at the right place. This lady had a need, and we had the eternal cure: Jesus.

I was surprised when Ana Maria agreed to help us find as many of the families as she could that we had on our list to visit. As we walked, I began to witness to her and share the Gospel. The Lord brought verses to my heart that I felt she needed to hear. She listened as we walked. We talked for almost two hours. My heart told me that there was just something special about this lady and that this was a divine meeting. As we parted, I asked her if she would come to Galati for lunch on Friday, my free day. She said yes. I was so excited. I wanted an opportunity to share with her more. I knew I had given her much to think about.

She came to my hotel on Friday with my translator, and we all went to lunch. We talked and shared our hearts, as well as discussed questions she had about the differences between the Romanian Orthodox Church and the Christian faith. She had reservations about making the decision to accept Christ, and so she did not. We spent the rest of the afternoon together at a museum, just getting to know each other. I knew she needed to trust me in order to hear me. I felt the Holy Spirit was working in her heart, and was testifying to her. At the end of the afternoon, I had shared every thing the Holy Spirit told me to, and so my part was finished; the rest was His job.

Ana Maria was heavy on my heart all the way home. I prayed for her every time she came across my mind. I prayed the Lord would bring circumstances and opportunities into her life to be exposed to the Gospel. I prayed that people would come into her life to water the seed that had been planted. This was my prayer for her.

The Lord placed her into a dorm at the university that fall with four Christians roommates. Ana Maria found a friendship with these ladies, and began to talk to them about Jesus. As all of the roommates shared, they were able to also witness to Ana Maria. She was able to see how Christians lived out their faith daily.

It was in December, 2006, that I received the email that Ana Maria had accepted Christ and had been baptized. I was so excited; I told my husband that it was the best Christmas present I could have received.

This year in 2007, Ana Maria came to Holy Trinity to see me, and it was so wonderful. The sadness was gone in her eyes, and it had been replaced with the joy of the Lord. Her face was joyful and she had the sweetest spirit. There was no doubt that Jesus had touched her life and was in His rightful place in her heart. She agreed to not only help us translate, but she also agreed to go back to her village of Tulucesti. It took courage and strength (the Lord gave her) to go back with us to her Orthodox village, where her parents lived, to help us share the Gospel.

The Lord has been working in her heart so much. She is a Senior at the university studying English and Hebrew, and I know the Lord is going to lead her to a great place of ministry and service. She is now my Sister in Christ. - Jean Kinney"

This story reminds me of 1 Cor 3:6-8, "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor." So planting has a purpose, and God will bring others along with the purpose to water, but pray first and foremost for God to make it grow.

Photo Show of week 1 Bocsa, Romania

2007-08-13T23:36:00.000-05:00

Reflections on week 1 - Bocsa

2007-08-10T09:37:00.000-05:00

Well, I promised to write you on Sunday and now it is Friday, so I apologize for the delay. I think I am finally adjusted back to Dallas time. It took me a few days. I had a few afternoons that I was walking around in a complete brain fog.

In the next few days and weeks I want to recap for you my exciting month in Romania. I did not get to update you as much as I would have liked on the field because of exhaustion and lack of internet access, but blogging about the trip will be a good way for me to reflect on the great things God did in and through my teams.

My first week was in Bocsa, located on the West side of the country. We had worked with these Romanian churches in a very limited capacity last year, but this year we brought a full team of 23. Our team included people from TN and NJ of all ages but a tilt towards young adults (college and high school). It turned out to be pretty overwhelming and difficult ministry for the entire team, but God showed himself faithful. Through our struggles he stretched and grew us and we surrendered our ideas of a successful mission trip for His perfect plan. One campaigner pointed out that we should not always focus just on the 'happy' stories, but sometimes our struggles and 'sad' stories are what God uses to grow us and teach us the most.

Like I said the Lord showed up in a mighty way and allowed us to share the Gospel truth with 647 Romanians! Of those, God opened the hearts of 244 to pray and accept Him as their Lord and Savior! We were able to follow-up and disciple 102 of those new believers, and the host churches are continuing the follow-up. We were able to start or continue the planting process of 7 village churches! People in these villages now have a Bible speaking church within walking distance that they can attend. We also were able to do some outreach around the two host churches. We strengthened them by bringing in new believers but also by training up 40 of their members that went out with us daily to share God's love.

We were able to share with the Romanians the 'living water' of Jesus Christ. You too if you are a believer can share the 'living water' to the lost and dieing. Don't go out in your power but in God's power and the promise of His Word in John 7:38, "Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."

Arrived safely home in Texas!

2007-08-04T22:21:00.000-05:00

Thanks for all your prayers! I will update you more tomorrow when my brain is functioning correctly. I am falling asleep writing this short note, sooooooo ....................

Cooler weather!!!!

2007-07-31T14:18:00.000-05:00

Thanks for your prayers for cooler weather! I almost was wishing for a jacket today! We had some rain over night and during the day, not anything to disrupt the ministry but enough to cool things off. Ministry is going very well in my small team, but a few of the sites are facing strong opposition and cold hearts. Please pray that God directs us to His ministry and we praise Him for letting us be a part even if it is not what we expected. Knowing His plans are so much better than ours.

Resita / Lugoj ministry finished...

2007-07-28T06:13:00.000-05:00

We just finished our ministry in Resita and Lugoj. The team flew off early this morning (Romanian time) and will arrive home today (American time). Pray for safe travel and no lost luggage. Please pray this same prayer for the team that is flying in a few hours for my last week of ministry in Deva, Romania. It is a team of about 12 and I will have a smaller role in leadership on this mission. Please pray for me to have continued strength and endurance to finish this race the Lord has set before me.

Ministry in Resita where I took 8 Americans was very good. Although we had to travel in a van 4 to 6 hours a day to get to the ministry sites (something we will remedy for next year) the team was very flexible and endured with great attitudes of service. We had 94 people pray with us to receive Christ just in Resita alone! I did not get the numbers from the Lugoj team but I am sure the Lord showed Himself powerful there as well!

Sorry I could not update you more during the week, but I did not have any internet access. I am hoping I will have access in Deva, so I will be able to update you more on the great things the Lord has done and will do in Romania.

Thanks for praying for cooler weather. We had a few days that were much cooler and much appreciated. Keep praying for cooler weather because the Romanians are not used to this and the Americans are used to having air conditioning to rescue them but not many places are air conditioned here.

Pray for many open doors and hearts in Deva. Also for good organization, this is the first mission team we have taken to Deva, so I am sure we will be teaching each other a lot and learning from each other.

THANKS FOR YOUR PRAYERS!

Chris

Continuing on with my 3rd mission team...

2007-07-21T06:47:00.000-05:00

Hello Prayer Team,

Here is an excert from my co-leader Linda Sims' internet update, "Thank you so much for your prayers this first week [second week for me] in Romania. We have completed our time in Galati with all glory due the Lord. God is so good to have given us wonderful and fruitful visits with so many, despite the104+ temperatures for several days. We are now in Bucharest for the day (the capital ofRomania) and will fly to our 2nd [3rd for me] campaign late this afternoon, staying at the Precept Training Center for all of Eastern Europe while we share Jesus in the villages around Lugoj and Resita. Please pray for our team of 35. Many of them are 1st timers, so pray for boldness and dependence on the Lord."
The week in Galati was fruitful. We presented the Gospel to over 350 people! Slava Domnului (Praise the Lord)!! This next week I will be working with part of the team in the Resita area. Thank you for your continued prayers. They are sustaining me and the teams.
Pray that the whole team allows the 'streams of living water that are flowing out of them' (John 7:38) to satisfy the thirst of the lost. Pray for less of us and more of HIM!

Agape,
Chris

One more day of ministry in Galati

2007-07-18T14:30:00.000-05:00

Hello Prayer Team,

Please pray for continued strength and endurance as the team has one more day of ministry in Galati. It is extremely hot in Galati and Romania in general. Please pray for cooler weather. I was told it hit 104 today! We are taking the afternoons off to avoid the heat and going out at 4pm into the evening. This helps with the heat but makes for a long day for the team, so many of the team are battling tiredness but they are perservering with God's strength.

Today I was with Holy Trinity Baptist church's team that went into the village of Tulucesti. They brought reading glasses and handed them out as a means to draw people in to then talk to them. I had many good conversations sharing the the Gospel and having God open the eyes of their hearts just like the glasses opened their physical eyes to read. Many seeds were planted. Some team members visited people they had talked to last year. I was able to work with a translator named Ana Maria. She had been visited last year by our team and had a seed planted in her heart, this past December at her university, God used her roommate to pray with her to receive Christ. It was a blessing witnessing with her and seeing her passion for her lost neighbors. The joy of the Lord is in her, in fact she said her lost brother told her that she must be high on drugs, but she has something better than drugs, everlasting life through Jesus Christ!

Agape,
Chris

Galati starting fairly smooth

2007-07-16T15:50:00.000-05:00

Hello Prayer team,

We had our first day of ministry here in Galati [Gah-lots], Romania, and it went fairly well. The first day of ministry is always a little hectic, but we have worked many years in Galalti so the two mother churches know the ministry well.

Today I tagged along with the Emanuel team to the village of Sendreni. We had an interesting morning. We met the mayor and he welcomed us warmly to the village (which is not normal). We also met a guy who was voluntering in the mayor's office who spoke English. We found out later he was a believer and is a member of a church in the city, he has many ministry oppotunities in the village because of his good relationship with the mayor. He (Viorel) took us around town and showed us many projects that the town had started and were planning on starting. One of the highlights was when Nadine Breiner was able to present the Gospel to 23 kids at a day center. The other highlight was getting to encourage Viorel by praying with him for money to build some houses for impoverished people.

The schedule has been changed a little for the trip because it is soooooo hot in the afternoons the team is resting from 1 to 4 and then going back out. So today when we went back out we had some great visits, and divine appointments. This lady was about to pass us by when Nadine Breiner felt the Spirits prompting us to talk to her. At first she was hung up on thinking good works could get you to heaven, but after some talking and sharing God's word she prayed to receive Christ as her Lord and Savior.

As far as health our team is doing much better thanks for praying, and everyone seemed to sleep well last night, but continue to pray that the team is able to sleep through the night. Speaking of, I should head to bed so I am well rested for tomorrow. Thanks for your prayers! More to come!

Agape,
Chris

Thanks for prayers during my first week...

2007-07-14T14:24:00.000-05:00

Please continue praying!!

I know I have not been able to write and update you on what has been going on, but I will try to catch you up in the next couple of days. I am pretty tired right now so I will just hit the highlights.

We had a great first week! The Lord did some amazing things amidst some hard soil and some hard lessons to learn. HE broke many of the team's hearts and expectations and then built them back up in His power for His glory. We had many come to know the Lord and got to plant 7 churches and strengthen 2 churches with our team of 23 Americans and 50 or so Romanians! Thanks for your prayers, please pray for their re-entry into the USA.

Also please pray for Week 2. I just arrived in Galati with my team of 13. We have 6 from last week's trip continuing on this one. The six are very exhausted and need some good sleep and prayer for strength. One of them Nik Breiner got a fever today, so please pray that his fever breaks and he starts feeling better. Also the team that just flew here needs to adjust to the time change and needs to get a good night sleep so they are ready for the week. We will worship with Emanuel and Holy Trinity churches tomorrow with Jim Crain bringing the message.

Please pray for unity amongst the team, renewed and passionate spirits for HIM! Thanks!

Agape,
Chris Truax

2007-07-08T14:11:00.000-05:00

We had a great Sunday! We split the team between the two mother churches we are working with, and then for the evening service swapped, so we got to experience a service in both churches.

We also had a great opening meeting with our translators and other team members. We found out that some of our translators are not saved. This is a great opportunity for ministry! In fact, one of our team led one of the translators to the Lord during our meet-and-greet meeting! I know first hand that the Lord can use the unsaved for His glory and the spreading of His gospel. Please pray for the translators to hear the message themselves but also convey the message correctly to others.

Mondays are always a little hectic so please pray for smooth logistics, flexible attitudes, and the Lord's power to shine through. We have five teams going out to different sites. Three are going to the villages while two will minister in the city of Bocsa. We also have one team member who has been feeling under the weather (Sydney Smith). Please pray for healing and strength and endurance for her so that she can join in on the ministry. The one piece of luggage still has not arrived, continue to pray for this.

I might not be able to email again until Wednesday or Thursday. Bocsa does not have a typical internet cafe, but some of the church members have internet in the homes and have allowed me to send a few updates.

Lord,
Guide us to the harvest field. Guide us to the Romanians that you have prepared in advance for us to talk to. We praise You for allowing us to be a part of Your work here! You are worthy of all the GLORY!! Amen!

2007-07-07T13:34:00.000-05:00

WE ARRIVED SAFELY!!!

The whole team of 23 arrived safely in Bocsa, Romania. The NJ team had some fun with flights, in fact their first flight from Newark to Frankfurt was delayed 2 hours, but the Lord allowed the next flight to be delayed 15 min, and this allowed them to make the plane and keep on schedule. Miraculously, we are only missing one bag, please pray that it arrives soon.

The team's spirits are high but they are desperately in need of a good night's rest, so please pray that we can sleep during Romania's night (which is 8hrs ahead of CT). We are looking forward to worshipping with Emmanuel and Grace Baptist chuches tomorrow, our host churches. Scott Russell and Dan Scanish will give a message in the services. We will also have a meeting for the Americans to get to know the Romanians we will be ministering with during the week, especially our translators during the afternoon.

Thanks for your prayers and there sustaining power!

Month long trip to Romania...

2007-07-05T13:51:00.000-05:00

Hello Prayer Team,

I fly off tomorrow for a month long mission trip to Romania! I will be working with four different teams and in four different cities during this trip. The first team (made up of a church in NJ and a church in TN) is going to Bocsa [Boak-shah] which is in the West of Romania. This will be our second year working in this area. Then I will travel (with some of the team) to Galati, meeting up with the second team in Bucharest. The second team is made up of veterans most from NJ churches. We have been working in Galati [Gah-lots] (which is in the East) for many years. Then I will travel (again with some of the team) to Surduc [Sir-duke] back in the West (close to Bocsa). We will meet up with our team that is mostly from New Orleans. During the week we will split our team to work in two major cities Resita [Resh-its-ah] (which I will lead) and Lugoj [Lou-gowsh] (which Joe Barron will lead). This will be the second year in these areas. Last I will travel to Deva [Deh-vah] (still in the West but further East than Surduc), and meet up with the last team lead by Adrian and Priscilla Nicoara made up of veterans from all over the US. I will help out Adrian and Priscilla anyway I can at this first-time ministry site for e3. I will arrive back home on August 4. Thank you so much in advance for your prayer support!

"The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." - James 5:16b
"For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil." - 1 Peter 3:12

Panama Photoshow

2007-06-25T19:27:00.000-05:00

I wanted each of you to be able to see a photo show of the Panama trip. Click here to view the show.

Safely Home

2007-06-04T18:01:00.001-05:00

Hello Prayer Team,

Thanks for praying for my team that went to Panama! We had a blessed time and saw God's glory magnified throughout David.

Through your prayers, my team...

...planted 4 new churches!
...strengthened 2 churches!
...presented the Gospel to 304 people!
...saw 151 people profess faith in Christ!
...followed-up with 91 new believers!
...had 616 come out to our evening meetings!
...worked alongside 90 Panamanian believers!
...saw God grow 13 Americans into a closer walk with Him!
...saw God's name glorified in Panama!

Ministry finished strong

2007-05-31T13:32:00.000-05:00

Our American team of 13 was able to work with many translators and other Panamanian believers to plant 4 new churches and strengthen 2 existing churches! Many seeds were planted and many souls were harvested! The trip changed many lives: the new believers, the fallen away believers, the believers who worked alongside us, our translators, the pastors, and us. We come back changed with a renewed heart to seek His glory in everything we do. We ask prayer for these churches and the great amount of work they have ahead to follow-up, disciple, and grow these baby Christians, and have them continue to gather as a church for God´s glory.

Planting a church

2007-05-30T16:36:00.000-05:00

What do you see in this picture? An open field, two men talking, a gate, trees...

I see a new church. This plot of land was donated for a new church building, but you do not need a building for the church to meet here. Open fields, a large tree, open houses are great places to use for a newly planted church. We can easily get caught up in the thinking that a church is a building, or that a building is required before you have a church. Jesus taught us though that the church is the gathering of His people. This week we are working in four sites and planting churches by evangilizing and discipling and gathering the believers together and developing leaders, but the work is just begining in these sites. My American team will be finishing up ministry tomorrow morning, and then we will be gone. What will happen to the new believers, what will happen to the seeds planted? This whole week we have been working alongside the Panamanian believers, and modeling ministry so that they can continue the ministry when we are gone. The Panamanian believers have committed to the discipleship, and follow-up of the new believers. Also they will provide the needed leadership for these new baby churches. So the work continues, and because it continues please pray for the continued work in Las Vueltas, La Rivieria, Auguacatal, and Chiriqui.

Taking the Bible for granted...

2007-05-28T23:22:00.000-05:00

...if you have been a believer for a while you probably take for granted that you understand how to use the Bible. Not that you understand all what the Bible says, but you understand when someone says ¨John 3:16¨ they mean the book of John in the New Testament right after Luke, in the 3rd chapter, 16th verse. For a baby Christian they have no clue what John 3:16 means. Today one of my team, Bryan, got the priviledge of teaching about 20 new believers how to ´unlock´ the reference code so that they can easily read and look up passages on their own. They were so excited they did not want to stop digging into the Word.

The entire team is doing well. Talsy is feeling better and Kevin was able to join us today to translate. Here are some more pics from the day and evening meetings...

Some plant, some water...

2007-05-27T18:44:00.000-05:00

...and I sometimes get the priviledge of being involved in the harvest. Today was a great day and many of my site teams have not even checked in for the evening yet. Today we got to split in our 4 site teams and worship with them in their churches celebrate Pentecost and the Global Day of Prayer with them, and then go out into the communities to begin our ministry of sharing the Gospel, discipling, and gathering people together for an evening meeting. I spent the morning with one team and got to worship Iglesia A.G. at Chiriqui. Through translation I heard the pastor preach about the power of the Holy Spirit and how before the disciples were blessed with the Holy Spirit they had lack of faith and fears, but once they had the Holy Spirit to rely on they went out with power and authority preaching the Gospel and performing miracles.
Then I went in the afternoon to check out our site team in Las Vueltas with our Panamanian Coordinator Moises Vega. We got to join the team in going out into the village. We did a lot of prayer walking and easy conversations to get a feel for the area, but we came across an 68 year old man named Marcos sitting by a tree with his friend. We started talking with him and realized through our conversations that the Lord had and was at work in Marcos. We shared the EvangeCube with him and he said he finally understood it, he prayed immediately and is now my brother in Christ. Here is a pic of him...
More to come about all the sites and the great things he is doing through this team of 13 people from the USA, our great team of translators, and other Panamanian believers!

Please be praying for more low lying fruit! Please also pray for Talsy Vega, our other Panamanian Coordinator, and Kevin, a translator, who are both sick.

Great opening rally

2007-05-26T23:34:00.000-05:00

Hello Prayer Team,

The team made it to David safely and we had a great opening rally. Here are a few pics...

Moises and Talsy Vega our Panamanian country coordinators.
Pitt´s site getting to know each other
Jimmy´s site figuring out what tomorrow will look like.

Gotta go for now more later...

We made it safely

2007-05-26T07:35:00.000-05:00

Hello Prayers,

We made it safely, and Tara our lady waiting for a passport also made it! We also received all our luggage as well! Today, we head to David from Panama City, 7 hour drive, please pray for safe travel. More later...

Another praise but prayer needed

2007-05-25T00:30:00.000-05:00

I talked to our campaigner (Tara) and her mother that are waiting for the last passport. The mother told me she had chatted with a friend at work about her daughter's passport situation. The next thing she knew her friend was on the phone. It turns out the co-worker's father works for the passport agency! (God is too cool!) If Tara can get to the DC office Friday morning early the co-worker's father is going to make sure she gets her passport. We need to keep praying though for Tara to get her passport in time, and to make it back to Richmond for her 2:51pm ET flight. Thanks for interceding for her!

Unfortunately it looks like Ruth, our Peruvian that was waiting on her VISA, will not be able to join us. Please pray that the Lord lift her spirits and provide her other opportunities for ministry.

God Provides!

2007-05-24T17:16:00.001-05:00

Hello Prayer Team,

I have some great news and also a continued prayer request. Three of my Panama team members received their passport!! Two of them actually went down to their nearest passport agency and would not take no for ananswer :-). Praise God! We still need prayer for one team member who is still waiting on a passport, and one team member who is a Peruvian who is waiting on her VISA (a small window of opportunity tomorrow for both). Both really want to be on the trip and will be sad if they do not get to go, so please pray for the Lord's peace upon them whatever the outcome.

Please also be praying for safe travel and on-time travel tomorrow the first of our group starts flying about 1pm ET and then our whole team will be flying to Panama City together from Atlanta at 5:38 pm ET.

Thanks so much for your prayers for God's will to be done and for His Glory to be shined throughout Panama! Leanne Heise and I are ready to lead the team out into the harvest fields because of God's provision and your prayer coverage.

Still waiting on passports...

2007-05-23T15:55:00.000-05:00

It seems that the passport agency is extremely extremely backed up, and not being very helpful to get my team members their passports in time. Please pray for a miracle! I am reworking the budget to see if we can go with out them. Please pray the Lord grants our Panamanian coordinators and me wisdom in how to reorganize if we need to. Thanks!

Panama Trip Prayer Request

2007-05-21T15:46:00.000-05:00

One immediate prayer request for my Panama team leaving Friday...because of the large amounts of people applying for passports right now we still have a few team members who have not received their passports yet! We have been in contact with the Passport Agency and they are supposed to be 'putting a rush' on them, but please pray that all team members will get to travel and be part of the trip. I will update you before I leave! Thanks!

Half Marathon!

2007-04-06T19:07:00.000-05:00

Hello Ministry Partners,

I do not know if this will interest you guys, but I was able to run a half marathon on April 1 (not an April Fools day joke)! I really enjoyed it although it was very exhausting.

This experience reminds me of Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize."

So I got my 'crown' (that will not last) for finishing the race and I did run trying to win (although I did not come close :-)). I am proud of my time of 2hrs 8min. I hope my running of this race encourages you to press on in the race of life that God has put before you that you might run in such a way as to get the prize. I think the writer of Hebrews puts it best in Hebrews 12:1, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."

My trip to Panama is just around the corner. I will be taking a team of 15 mainly made up of Liberty University students to David, Panama on May 25 - June 2. The team looks good. We have a few pastors and student evangelists, some people excited to work with kids, and we even have an international student from Peru joining us. She has actually worked with e3 in Peru so she will be a great asset to the team. I also have a good friend of mine from Texas joining me. Please keep this team in prayer as they finish raising their support and prepare for the trip.

Also remember to keep my trips to Romania in your prayers. I will be in Romania for the whole month of July practically. I will be heading out July 6 and not returning until August 4. I will be leading 4 trips back-to-back-to-back-to-back! I will start with a team from NJ and TN with a youth focus working in Bocsa, which is in the West of Romania. Then I will work in Galati where I have worked for the past 3 years. Then I will work in Resita. Last I will work in Deva (a new ministry area for e3).

I am always humbled when I think of who I am sending this message to. I know you all hold me up in prayer and are the only reason I can continue doing this ministry that I love. Thanks for your partnership!

Agape,

Chris Truax

Happy St.Patrick's Day

2007-03-16T22:03:00.000-05:00

Here is a great message about St. Patrick's Day from Curtis Hail, the president of e3...

"How The Irish Really Saved Civilization

As Evangelicals, most of us know little more about St. Patrick’s Day than it is a happy occasion for many Irish, and many more who at least once-a-year wish they were Irish, to have too much beer and participate in a good-natured moving party called a “parade”. Even the most fervent Protestant among us might sneak a bit of green into our wardrobe on this occasion; if not to pay homage to Patrick, then to at least avoid being a kill-joy at the office or to escape a pinch.

In the revelry, the inspiring story of Saint Patrick is often lost. Even less appreciated is the spiritual legacy he left behind which indeed could be argued truly did save, perhaps even create, the western civilization we’ve known for a thousand plus years. Patrick was born in Roman Britain, probably in the late fourth century. At age sixteen he was captured by Irish raiders and taken to live as a slave in Ireland for six years. He escaped and returned home – and returned to serve in The Church of his forefathers.

Patrick, as a Christian missionary, eventually journeyed back to the land and people who once enslaved him. In Ireland, he ministered the love and good news of Jesus Christ to those who had so abused him. His sacrificial life and forgiving heart served as great testimony to the reality of his message. You probably know about this part of the story and how he went on to establish Christianity among the Irish, being remembered by all as St. Patrick by the eighth century.

But, do you know about his greatest spiritual legacy – the Celtic Church? George G. Hunter III, in his book, “The Celtic Way of Evangelism; how Christianity can reach the West…again”, describes well the unique characteristics of the Celtic Church and its incredible impact on Europe and the world. And he argues that these same patterns and principles, which were lost when the Roman Church finally overwhelmed the Celtic Church with its rigid, formulaic “Western” forms, can be utilized today to win again a pagan Europe – and others elsewhere unfamiliar with the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

The Celtic Church developed a missions approach to evangelism and church planting which is both biblical and historically significant. They moved in close to indigenous people, learned their ways and beliefs, befriended and served them. Then using language and models which the indigenous would understand, the Celtic Christians began to introduce Christ to the people, one at a time. As they thoroughly equipped the new converts, they instructed them how to win and disciple others. And they deeply and firmly established a new church in the indigenous community before moving on. These churches continued the outreach. And though they were encouraged to adapt their own cultural elements, such as worship and music, it was inevitable that the indigenous Church transformed their communities and cultures - not conformed to the Celts ways, but transformed to the likeness of Christ and what His people should look like in their distinct cultural context. The Celtic church quickly succeeded across Ireland and then proceeded across Europe. Hunter argues that the Celtic Church is largely responsible for the truly effective evangelization – and “Christianization” – of Europe.
What was the core of the Celtic way of evangelism? It was church planting! It was bringing the Gospel to people in forms they could understand and in a heart language that touched them. And it was establishing Churches with indigenous leaders, rooted in their own relevant cultural expressions. And it was training those indigenous Christians to continue on the good work as the Celts moved to the next community to begin again. This biblical, practical, methodical and highly effective approach produced a vibrant and multiplying church across the Isles and the Continent of Europe. That is as much responsible for what the West later gave rise to as anything else. Thank you Patrick and the Celtic Church for being faithful and wise, and laying the foundation for things which would arise generations later – a few of those little “Western Civilization” ideas like democracy, value of the individual including women, free speech…

So when you see Thomas Cahill’s not-so-tongue-in-cheek book title, “How The Irish Saved Civilization”, know that there is even more to the story. Have greater appreciation for the role of St. Patrick and the later emergence of the Celtic church planting movement as one of the great forces in human history. And realize that The Church of Jesus Christ urgently and desperately needs to return to many of the Celtic Church practices and patterns."

I hope this helps you celebrate the day, Happy St.Patrick's Day!

Agape,

Chris

Celebrating 20 Years!

2007-02-05T13:46:00.000-06:00

Back in January, e3 Partners Ministry held its international conference which we have every other year. This conference was extra special because e3 Partners was celebrating its 20th anniversary! We actually flew in around 30 of our international coordinators to make it a true family reunion. We had a great time of fellowship and praise to God for all he has done through e3 (formerly Global Missions Fellowship). I would like to share with you some statistics and a great exposition from our e3 president Curtis Hail that I hope will cause you to give Glory to God!
Celebrating 20 Years of God’s Blessings…

______________________Yrs 1-18___Yrs 19-20_____Total
Campaigns Conducted_______952______253_______1,205
Americans Mobilized______17,359_____5,228_____22,587
Nationals Equipped_______51,038___209,455____260,493
People Evangelized____1,735,900__1,516,323__3,512,716
Professions of Faith_____491,499___528,859___1,020,358
Churches Established______4,452_____5,937_____10,389

Trusting God to use e3 to…

Equip 10 million Christians to
Evangelize 1 billion people and
Establish 1 Million Churches!

A bright tomorrow!

With 3,000 Americans mobilized annually and a budget of $4,000,000 we project the potential to see this doubled again in the next two to three years, as we could potentially...

Equip 600,000 nationals to
Evangelize 7.2 million people and
(winning perhaps 2 million to Christ)
Establish at least 8,000 new churches!

Remember - these are all First Generation stats and projections only!

From Curtis Hail [President of e3 Partners Ministry]:

"God has blessed us with a wonderful history and substantial ministry for twenty years now. We began taking just a few teams to Mexico in 1987 and now we take about 150 per year to some 30 or more countries. Over those two decades we have now conducted over 1,200 short term church planting campaigns, mobilizing around 23,000 North Americans (we plan to take another 3,000 people just in 2007!). Today, e3 Partners also provides the national church leaders Evangecubes, First Steps church planting materials and training resources so they can continue mobilizing their own churches year round – long after we come home or to places we can never get to with our U.S. teams!

We are thrilled to report that through the long and, now, comprehensive ministry of e3 Partners, we’ve been blessed to see one million people accept Christ – out of an estimated three million evangelized – as ten thousand new churches have been planted. (Sure, we know that not all the churches made it but we also know that many have gone on to plant multiple generations of daughter and grand-daughter and great-grand-daughter churches! Just like so many of the people in our Evangecube training have gone on beyond the training sessions to personally lead hundreds to Christ throughout the following year! So, we are only seeing and reporting the tip of the iceberg.)

God is moving in an awesome way around the world in these days. And so it is at e3 Partners as well. God used us to win about ½ million people to Christ and plant around 5,000 new churches in our first 18 years. Now, in just the last two years He has doubled those numbers to one million people professing faith in Christ and ten thousand new churches – again just as a direct, immediate result of the e3 Mission teams and the e3 Training strategy! And here is the amazing thing – today God has positioned us with the national leaders and networks on the field, the tools and strategy, the staff and infrastructure and now the experience to be able to double that again in just the next year or so!

We have the opportunity before us to equip at least 600,000 leaders and laymen in 19 countries to evangelize 7.2 million people. Based on the confirmed reports to-date, we can expect nearly 2 million people to receive Christ and we can help plant at least 8,000 new churches! By the grace of God! Here is all we are lacking, as God goes before us...

An army of Pray-ers to pray for these believers, for their nations, for e3 Partners and to pray according to Matthew 9:38, “Pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into his [ripe] harvest field.” Just imagine if one million people around the world prayed this prayer daily!

An army of 5,000 Go-ers who will go on one of our upcoming e3 Mission trips to help equip, encourage and mobilize our national partners in these countries – giving them the vision, experience and head-start to win souls and plant churches. (3,000 in 2007, but we should be taking more!!)

And Giv-ers – We are asking God to raise up an army of 20,000 financial partners to connect with these national leaders - empowering them with the resources to mobilize THEIR churches to equip, evangelize and establish! Sure, like Gideon, we need a few hundred major donors underwriting large national level strategies – and that is great – but we also offer everyone an opportunity to make a global impact at their own personal stewardship level. The blessings are open to all – and they all count equally!

YOU can make THE difference. Join with us as we partner with God and His people around the world. There is power in partnership – we’ve seen God use it to win a million and plant 10,000 churches. Let’s ask Him to use us to see that happen again in the next two years! All for His glory!"

THANK YOU for your partnership in this ministry!

2006 Year in Review

2006-12-13T13:55:00.000-06:00

Check out my photo video montage of 2006 ministry @ http://www.christruax.org/chris.truax/yearinreview/

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Wow, already another update...I'm on a role...

2006-10-13T11:39:00.000-05:00

Hello Ministry Partners,

Thanks so much for your prayers and support! I thank God every time I remember you and get the privilege to call you a friend. Thanks for the encouraging emails in response to my last post.

Even though it has only been 11 days since my last post, my mission schedule for next year has grown and been shuffled around. I thought I would post again to get you all updated so that you could be praying specifically for each trip. I added a trip in March to Costa Rica. March 10-17 I will take a group of students from Dallas Bible Church during their Spring Break. I am still going to Panama May 25 - June 2. Recruiting still seems to be going well among the Liberty students. We have gotten a lot of inquiries, but none have actually signed up yet. I know now that I will be working in the city of David. David is the hometown of our main national coordinators the Vegas. I look forward to working with the whole Vega family. I will probably be traveling to Panama in April for a setup trip

Now onto Romania where the big explosion of campaigns happened :-). In my last post I told you I was doing two trips back-to-back in July. Well now I am going to do four trips back-to-back-to-back-to-back in July! I better keep working on my Romanian! I will start by helping Joe Barron lead a trip to Lugoj/Resita on July 6-14. I will lead the part of the team working in Resita. Then I will help out Craig Poston in Galati on July 13-22. Like the last two years I will lead the part of the team working with Emanuel Church. I will still be leading a student team to Bocsa, but it has been shifted back a week to July 20-28. I will finish off my excursion to Romania by co-leading a trip to Botosani on July 26 - August 5 with Gary Pettet. This will be my third time spending a month in Romania, but first time with four trips to help lead. To help me lead these trips I will probably travel to Romania in May for a setup trip. The dates above are the full dates of the campaign including travel days that is why they overlap.

I put the full dates because I want you to join me on one of my trips. So while you are praying about me and my trips, pray specifically about if God wants to use you on one of them. You might not feel adequate, but Christ in you is the hope of glory! You might be afraid to share your faith, but Christ in you is the hope of glory! You might not feel worthy, but Christ in you is the hope of glory!

The mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me. ~Colossians 1:26-29

Agape,
Chris Truax

Monday Ministry Mupdate...er...Update

2006-10-02T12:41:00.000-05:00

Hello Ministry Partners!

Sorry it has been a little while since I have posted an update. Let me try to catch you up on what I have been doing...

As you know I got back from Romania August 3. At that time I was still thinking I had one more trip to end the year, but that trip was postponed a few weeks ago because our national workers were bogged down and could not handle a mission team at this time. That has given me some extra time to prepare for next year's trips. As you may or may not know I am still working on my recruiting skills for trips, I have had to cancel a few trips in the past because of lack of recruiting. So I ask that you pray that I allow God to build me into a better recruiter and also ask that you pray Matthew 9:37-38 as Jesus told us to pray for more workers for the harvest fields.

As of right now I have three trips planned for next year all during the summer months. At the beginning of the summer I am taking a team from Liberty University to Panama, May 25 - June 2. I am excited to say that with very little publicity and still being months away we have already had 19 people express interest. Please pray with me for a team of 30.

In July I will be leading two trips to Romania back-to-back. First I will be taking a team to Bocsa (this is the second city I worked in this summer near Resita) July 13 - 22. For this team I will be focusing on recruiting youth (high schoolers). We have just started running trips that are geared toward youth called 'epic journeys'. These trips will have the same ministry objective but we will spend more time discipling the youth before, during, and after the trip.

The second trip will be to Botosani July 26 - Aug 4. This is the city I visited after my mountain camp this summer. It is also the first city I did a trip to in Romania. The Christians we work with there are on fire and great to work with. Although in the past this has been a hard trip to recruit I believe God wants to raise up a large team this year. Please pray with me for a team of 30 or more. Another way you can help me recruit is to actually come with me yourself, and this is the trip I would encourage you to join me on.

In addition to planning next year's trips I have had a few other things to keep me busy. I and a few others have been assisting David Kaufmann who is heading up our 'epic' ministry with strategic planning and launching this ministry. Along with that I was 'hired' (because of my web design skills) to design a website for epic. As I got into the designing I decided I wanted to use a lot of Flash elements, but did not have a lot of knowledge in Flash. So for the past few months I have been learning Flash while designing in Flash for the new e3 epic website. Please check it out @ www.e3epic.org and let me know what you think.

Also one last and important thing to pray with me about, I have been looking over my support account and see that I have been pulling out more than I am putting in each month. Thankfully, I have enough saved up to continue like I am for a few months, but I need to raise some more ministry partners so I can continue my ministry into next year and beyond. I ask that you all pray that the Lord speak to the hearts of those He desires to fund this ministry, and He directs me to them.

I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. [Eph 1:16-19a]

Agape,
Chris Truax

Timisoara the town of Revolution

2006-08-02T08:12:00.000-05:00

Hello Prayer Team,

The past two days in Timisoara have been very nice and relaxing (although a little lonely). I have enjoyed touring around Timisoara and seeing its sites. One of the coolest sites is the Opera House because this is where the revolution started in Romania. Pastors and others who wanted freedom from communist reign spoke from the balcony of the Opera House and people filled the courtyard to support the revolution. It was very cool to stand in this courtyard where the people cried out to God to save their country. It gave me goosebumps.
As you look the other direction away from the Opera House you see the beautiful Victory Walkway leading to the Mitropolitan Cathedral.
One of the other big tourist sites that is much more recently built is the Iulius Mall which I visited today. That's right I said 'mall'. And this mall was quite something, a member of the International Council of Shopping Centers New York this mall made many of the malls I have been to in America look pitiful. Here is a pic of the outside.
It has 4 levels and over 200 stores many you have not heard of, but many you have like Levi, Nike, Guess, Adidas, KFC, and Swatch. It has indoor waterfalls and fountains, a rock climbing wall, a swimming pool, ice skating rink, casino, and they will be installing a movie theater. It made me feel like I was in the US. It gets about 10 million clients a year.

So pray for me as I 'rough it' :-)! Actually do pray for safe travel for me. I start flying tomorrow morning at 6am which is actually 10pm Central Time on Wednesday for you guys. I am looking forward to being home but I am also sad to leave Romania. Lord willing I will return here next summer and be able to see the Glory of God reflected again through His people here in Romania. Until then I hope my life in the USA continues to reflect the Light of Christ in everything I do.

Agape,
Chris Truax

Heading on...

2006-07-31T01:59:00.000-05:00

Hello Prayer Team,

Saturday I attended a Romanian wedding. It was very beautiful. A lot like a American wedding accept the wedding lasts about 2 hours with multiple sermons, but the bride and groom get to sit on stage throughout the ceremony. Weddings always remind me of Christ relationship with the church. How He loves us and protects us, but also how He desires that we hear His voice and follow His direction.

Yesterday I enjoyed worshiping in the Brethern church in Botosani. During the morning service 9:30 until 12:00 I gave a short sermon and sang the old Hymn "Where You There". We also had an evening service from 6 -8. I love worshiping in another language it gives me a glimpse of what heaven will be like with every Tribe, Tongue, and Nation, crying out "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lamb!"

Multumesc (Thank you) to the Cojocariu family that allowed me to stay at their house and eat their food here in Botosani. It has been a blessing! This is a great family that really tries to seek the Lord in all they do.

Today I will meet with the Baptist pastor in town and invite him to join the e3 and Brethern team next year for a Church Planting mission trip. Then I will head to Suceava (about an hour drive) to meet with Dan Boingeanu another Baptist pastor but also one of e3's Romanian coordinators. Tonight I will take a train bound for Timisoara and have a little bit of time there to tour around before I get up early Thursday to fly home via Vienna and Frankfurt.

Thank you so much for your prayers that fuel my ministry!

Agape,
Chris Truax

Botosani Blessings

2006-07-29T02:33:00.000-05:00

Hello Prayer Team,

Thanks for continuing to lift me up while I am in Romania! Yesterday I got the unexpected blessing of going and worshipping in two small village churches that my ministry got to help plant in 2001 and 2002. I was able to encourage them to live for Christ and be a light in their community. I also gave them the challenge of praying Matt 9:35-38. Where Jesus tells us we need to pray for more workers for the harvest. I challenged them to pray for more Romanian workers but also to pray for the recruiting of the team I will be bringing next year to this area. We always have great ministry here but the American teams have always been on the small side. The harvest is plentiful here and a bigger team would be a blessing. So join with the Romanians in these two villages and pray to the Lord of the Harvest that He would raise up more (American) workers for His harvest. I would love to see a team of 30 or 40 raised up.

I finally got some of the pictures of the mountain survival camp downloaded. It was a great time to build each other up in the love of Christ as we faced the struggles of survival in the mountains. I am looking into the possibilities of making this camp an add-on to my mission trip next year, allowing more Americans to experience God's majesty in the Romanian mountains.
Left: Camping under a tarp.
Below: My team on the top of Moldoveanu the highest peak in Romania (2544 m).

Above: Hiking through the fog. Above: a small taste of the beauty I saw.

Please continue to pray for me, I fly home on Aug 3. Also if you could please pray for an 'unspoken request', I have someone close to me that needs to know God's peace and hope.

Agape,
Chris Truax

I survived the Mountain Survival camp!

2006-07-26T12:20:00.000-05:00

Hello Prayer Partners,

I Survived! Thanks for your prayers! I am still in Romania until Aug 3, but I just finished the Romanian (and German) led Christian Mountain Survival Camp. It was a lot of fun, but also very exhausting. I got to see the majestic Romanian mountains and climb the tallest mountian in Romania Moldoveanu. I became very close to 16 Romanians and 1 German even though most did not speak English. We were all a family in Christ, and even through the language barrier worked as a team to survive 5 days in the mountains. Soon I will post a few pics.

This next week I will be in Botosani, Romania visiting old friends and setting up a mission trip for next year. Please continue to keep me in your prayers! May God be glorified in everything you do!

Agape,
Chris Truax

Update On end of ministry in Resita

2006-07-13T08:49:00.000-05:00

Buna (hello),

The ministry is Resita is over and it was a great week. It was great to minister for God's Glory. On the Bocsa team we worked in two sites, Izgar and Ezeris, and we presented the Gospel to 176 people and of those God added 45 to His Kingdom! For the whole team that worked in the Resita area we had 412 presentations of the Gospel and 128 people prayed to recieve Christ as their Savior! God is good! Your prayers were answered!

I am traveling to the Christian Survival Camp in tomorrow. Please pray for me for strength (I am a little tired after two weeks of ministry). I will be out of email contact for about a week and a half, but will try to update you on my condition when I get back to civilization.

Agape,
Chris Truax

Catch-up Update

2006-07-11T15:00:00.000-05:00

Buna Ziua (Good Day),

Sorry it has been awhile since I last updated you on my ministry here in Romania. It has been great but also busy and tiring (so internet has been a lower priority than sleep). I am in Resita now with a new team (some stayed over from the first week). We all made it here safely with all bags but one and it got here the next day. But before I get into updating you on Resita let me finish telling you about Galati.

Thursday ministry was great in Tecuci. It actually started out really hard. We had two team members join our group that dressed up as clowns with the idea of them drawing a crowd and the rest of us being able to share the Gospel with them. We went to what we thought was the perfect spot, the public park where many were gathered, but the grounds keepers kicked us out. Yes they kicked us out of a 'public park'. We tried to walk down the street but it did not seem to be working. We went back to the church for lunch and were trying to decide if we would even use the clowns in the afternoon. We prayed for awhile before we went back out. We decided to take the clowns but only send two groups with them (instead of the whole team) so as not to look like an army invading. The Lord blessed, while I was witnessing (talking in circles) to a very knowledgeable lost man, the two teams with the clowns were swamped with people to talk to and many prayed to receive Christ!

I do not have the stats in front of me for Galati but I believe we planted or revived about 6 churches!

In Resita we are working with three mother churches. My team's mother church is actually based out of a neighboring smaller city named Bocsa. We worked for the past two days in a village named Izgar and saw about 20 pray to receive Christ as their savior! We start in a new village tomorrow, please pray for open doors and open hearts. We got to go back to houses today of individuals who prayed yesterday and do some discipleship. It was very cool to show someone how to use the Bible for the first time. Most of us forget that someone had to show us how to use the Book, Chapter, and Verse system of reference in the Bible, but that is the first step needed to feeling comfortable reading the Bible on your own.

Hopefully I will be able to update you again tomorrow or Thursday!

La Revedere (Good Bye),

Chris Truax

Wednesday Update...

2006-07-05T15:21:00.000-05:00

Hello Pray Team,

Thanks so much for praying for me (and thanks to those that sent me notes of encouragement). Tuesday and Wednesday were good. Tuesday was our second and last day in Culdabi. I got to share with a lady named Marianne. She is the mother of some of the kids that came to our children's service. She was very receptive and looked like the Lord was really working on breaking all the barriers in her heart. She did not pray with us but I feel with follow up she might pray soon. Her she is...

After visiting Marianne we had a few minutes before lunch so I suggested to my small team of two that we stop and pray for the rest of the day. My Romania friend Nicolai suggested we go just down the street to a lady's house who has been a Christian since 1953 and would love to pray with us. I thought that was a great idea so we went to her house. We found her studying her bible! We asked her to pray for her neighbors and country and I felt like I was going to explode with the power of God being called on from her prayer, and I could not even understand a word she said. My translator afterwards told me he shivered and the power of her prayer also. I felt blessed being in the presence of a real Prayer Warrior so passionate about God's Glory and her lost neighbors. Her name was Tinka and her is a pick (she is the one in the middle she is 91 years old)

Please pray for us in Tecuci for Thursday. Wednesday was good there but harder ministry because we are doing park and street evangelism in a larger town. Pray for divine appointments and boldness!

Agape,
Chris Truax

A great day of ministry...

2006-07-03T14:36:00.000-05:00

Hello Pray-ers,

It was a great first day of ministry. Thanks for praying! We did have a few glitches along the way but that is typical for a first day. My team enjoyed ministering in Culdabi today. We presented the Gospel to over 50 people and 18 accepted Christ as their savior!

On the way out to the village our van stopped and we were able to admire God's beauty. Sunflowers! This is me with my teammate Ashwin.

This afternoon I got to help lead a children's service. It was a lot of fun and 15 children got to hear the gospel. Here is a pic of some of the kids...

Continue to pray against the spiritual forces at work in these villages. These people are in bondage thinking they are Christians (Orthodox) but their twisted knowledge of scripture only seems to confuse the Gospel message in their minds. Please pray that the Lord gives the villagers wisdom and clarity to understand His simple message of Hope.

Agape,
Chris Truax

Great day of worship!

2006-07-02T15:40:00.000-05:00

Hello Prayer Team,

My team made it safely to Romania. We had a few bags delayed but they all arrived today! We had a great day of fellowship and worship with the Romanian church. I got the privilege of preaching! I gave a motivational message about the Gospel from Romans 10 and a bit about the church being the body with many parts from Romans 12.

We had a great training meeting where the American team got to meet the Romanians they will be working with for the week. We also reviewed our schedule and tools for evangelism.

The best part of the day was the evening service. We got to go to the village church of Tudor and attend their baptism service. This was extra special for me and another couple on our team because we had worked in this village two years ago. I got to see how God had been working and growing the church. God had even blessed them recently with a church building (they had been meeting in a member's house). Here are a few pics from the baptism service. Thanks for your prayers and please continue! We will be going out for our first day of ministry tomorrow. We will be working in two villages: Sendreni and Culdabi. Pray that God grants us boldness and wisdom and guides us to the homes He wants us to visit.

Agape,
Chris Truax

2006-06-30T11:49:00.000-05:00

Please pray for my trip to Romania! I leave today for a month! Please pray for safe travel, pray also that God will go before us and prepare the hearts of those He wants us to talk to. Thank you so much for your committment to pray for God's Glory to be reflected in Romania.

Agape,
Chris Truax

Romania Funds

2006-06-13T11:05:00.000-05:00

Hello Prayer Team,

I would like to make a financial need known. On e3 trips the budget is set to include two staff to lead and organize the trip, and normally I fit into this category. For my Galati, Romania trip I am the third staff member and because of higher priced tickets and because the team is not big enough to cover the costs of three staff I will need to raise my cost. The costs for my second trip to Resita, Romania in essence will be covered by this money as well.

Please pray about how the Lord might want you to partner with me for these back-to-back trips to Romania. The cost I am trying to raise is $1800. I do have some money saved up in my support account that I can put towards this but wanted to give each of you the opportunity to help get me to Romania to share God's good news. Thank you for praying and following the Lord's direction!

If the Lord leads you to give to this opportunity, you can give online or by mail. To give by mail, write a check made out to e3 Partners Ministry with a note saying it is for Chris Truax send this to e3 Partners Ministry, 600 Development Dr Suite 120, Plano, TX 75074. To give online (by credit card), go to https://www.gmf.org/donation/donate.asp, near the bottom click 'I'd like to give to an e3 staff member' another box will appear asking for my name and amount you are giving. Giving either way is tax deductible and you will receive a receipt in the mail.

If the Lord is leading you to pray for these trips, please start praying now for preparations, open hearts, team unity, and that all of us will reflect God's Glory in everything we do!

SIDE NOTE: I love it when people leave me comments on my blog. Although, I would like to reply to some comments, but have no clue who you are because you are using a screen name I am unfamiliar with. It is probably best just to reply to my emails with comments but if you leave a comment on my blog please sign it with at least your first name. THANKS!

Agape,
Chris Truax

Back from Colorado

2006-06-10T21:03:00.000-05:00

Hello,

Thanks for your prayers for my church retreat to Estes Park, CO! I had a great time ministering to 11 Kindergarteners, and leading worship for K-5th grade. I also enjoyed my free time in the mountains.

The kids ministry was great! I enjoy leading worship for kids because they really get into it. The drama, games, and bible studies were fun with the Kindergartners. They were (for the most part) well behaved and attentive. On our last day I made sure to give a clear gospel presentation (I brought an evangecube to help me) and two kids Alex and Dawson said they wanted to pray to receive Christ. And there was much rejoicing (in heaven and on earth)!

Dawson

Seth, Alex, and Hays

Worship Band the "Realities"

The whole week we were teaching the kids to keep it R.E.A.L. for Christ. The R - redeemed, E - eternal, A - abilities, and L - legacy were the talking points of each day. I hope that each of you realize that Christ has redeemed you (even though you did not deserve it), He has an eternal destination for you, He has given you abilities to serve Him, and He desires that you will leave a legacy that points others to Him.

Thanks again for your prayers! In 20 days I will be leaving for Romania! More to come on that.

Agape,

Chris

Colorado Bound

2006-05-31T15:01:00.000-05:00

Hello Prayer Family,

I get the joy of going with my church family (Watermark Community Church) to Estes Park, CO for our annual church wide retreat. I leave early tomorrow (June 1) to help drive up the trailer of sound equipment, and will be there until I help drive the trailer back on June 9 and 10.

I am looking forward to serving in Colorado in the Children's ministry. I will be part of the worship band for the kids (5th grade - Kindergarten), and when we break out into smaller groups I get to minister to the Kindergarteners. Please pray that the kids will be attentive and able to learn more about who God is while having a lot of fun, and pray that I am able to share Christ in a way that is understood by all and many come to know Christ as their personal Savior.

Agape,
Chris

News from Catalin

2006-05-08T16:46:00.000-05:00

Hello Ministry Partners,

I wanted to share the following email with you that I found encouraging. It is from Catalin Covaci one of the Romanian heads of e3 Romania. Just in case I have not shared this in the past, the Lord has opened up some great opportunities for us (e3) to partner with our Romanian brothers. They had a vision for a nation wide movement to get churches excited about missions just as we were looking into how we were going to try to expand our work in Romania. It was such a God designed partnership. e3 is now partnered with the Romanian Baptist Assoc. in a plan they call Torch Mission. We are coming alongside and providing training materials and Evangecubes as well as coordinating all of our teams to work within the Torch Mission network. Catalin is going around training up pastors and lay-leaders with the training materials, and here is an account of just a portion of what is happening over there...

Last week I was in a small tour. As I was invited to preach in one of the churches in Bucharest, I also wanted to use this opportunity to meet the E3 Instructors in the areas I had to go through: Nicu Sotir and Radu Oprea in Bucharest and Daniel Patru in Craiova. I emailed them, I talked to them at the phone and we planed the meetings.

On saturday april 8 I called Daniel in Craiova to see if the plans to meet on tue morning, April 11, are still ok and if will be possible to also present the E3 to some pastors in Craiova.

His answer prooved that all these plans were from the Lord.
Whithout our knowlege, the president of Craiova Association scheduled the General Assembly of the association exactly in that tuesday morning. I called the president, Pastor Nelu Maior. He is an old friend of mine, since I served as a pastor in South Romania in Giurgiu. We know each other and we appreciate each others ministry in that part of the country. I call him and explained to him what I intend to do while in Craiova that tue morning. He answered that will allow me to speak to the General asembly for 45 min or more.

I arrived from Giurgiu in Craiova on time for the meeting, little bit after 10.30 am.
The surprises that the Lord had for us were not yet finished.

Before my presentation, the subject discussed was regarding the little growth of Baptist churches in last year, and ideas, solutions, problems to be faced.
I will write here some of the issues that some of the pastors who partricipated were saying. (I especially wrote them down in order for you to be happy as I was and see the mighty hand of God at work in Romania with/using E3 and Torch Mission.)

"We need a country size mission strategy!" said one of the pastors, after a long speech with his sorrows related the small growth of baptist churches in Romania in 2005.

"An evangelistic tool that will be good to reach adults, but also youths, teenagers and kids, as these are the future of the church. We don't pay enough attention in transmitting the message of the Gospel to the other generations!" said another pastor.

One of the pastors actually used "our words" in a sentence when he was trying to explain how important is to offer a vision to churches, like a mentorship from pastors with much experience to pastors with smaller experience. He said: "It was not enough promoted the concepts of extend and evangelise, even in association meetings."

All this time, I was sitting there like on springs. Several times I wanted to stand up and almost say like Paul in Athens: "What you are looking for and don't know I come to bring to you!". I hardly waited silently and took notes, even if at a certain moment I wanted to quit writing as almost everything that was said there was preparing the very presentation of Torch vision and E3 ministry. During this time I was praying: "Lord, help them to see, put the words in their mouths!" And finally, the Lord answered my prayer and somebody stood up and said:
"We need to personally build up and involve the church members. We need to re teach the church members that they need to be disciples.!"

Not long after that I was invited to speak.

I introduced using powerpoint presentation - praise God for Laptop and VideoProjector! Powerful tools! - the Torch mission Vision and GMF involvment in Romania since 1991. I explained the E3's: Equip, Evangelise, Establish (in Romanian, Expand) presenting them First Steps manual. I was very happy I came prepared from Timisoara, (even I didn't knew why I carry all these materials with me all around the country) and I offered to each of them the First Step manual. I saw them moving their heads as approval. I also introduced them the E-Cube and I gave to each of them a Cube and a Workbook manual. You should saw these pastors; They were enthusiastic like children, like their prayers were finaly finding answeres! I also took the opportunity to introduce Daniel Patru as E3 instructor in their association and I encouraged them to contact us to start working together.

Even it was the time for lunch, even I was invited to speak for 45 min, after 1 hour and 15 minutes of presentation (they kept interupting me, adding details, becoming enthusiatic, asking me related questions), when i was done with the slides, they still kept me 30 more minutes to talk with some individuals.

I am very grateful for all of you who were praying for this country trip.
It was very worthy, as another association was exposed to E3 vision and ministry.
It was worthy as we have the opportunity to see that indeed, God is in control and is using this ministry to help Romanian churches to be more and more dedicated to His Kingdom.
It was worthy as we have now a new and fresh assurance that this vision is from God and is His answer to many pastors and leaders that are crying and praying for church members that need to be more mature and for many unsaved people who need to be transformed into discipols of Christ.

Rejoyce with me seing the wonderful works that our Lord and Savior is ready to do with those that are ready to serve Him.

Catalin Covaci

Agape,
Chris Truax

PS I will be leading two teams to Romania soon, the first will be in Galati from June 30 - July 8 and the second in Resita on July 8 - July 15.

First Post - Ministry Update

2006-04-19T16:34:00.000-05:00

Hello Prayer Team,

I setup this new blog to help me get out information and prayer requests in an easier manner. I will still try and send an email out to let you know when I have posted a new update. I have named my blog "Acts 20:24" which is "But my life is worth nothing unless I use it for doing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus--the work of telling others the Good News about God's wonderful kindness and love." Spoken by the apostle Paul and something that reflects what I want my ministry to be about.

I am sorry I have not written in awhile. Let me update you on my ministry. My trip scheduled for Spring Break did not recruit a full team but we were able to send 8 Texas A&M students on a different team going to Panama. From their reports they had an awesome time and saw the Lord work in great ways. The team was able to share the Gospel with 760 people. They saw 348 of them profess faith in Christ, and 7 new churches were planted.

My trip scheduled for May, the Collegiate Quest, also had to be canceled because not enough signed up. I had been put in charge of this event/mission trip back in January and was really looking forward to it. We started recruiting late along with other things outside of our control that led to the cancellation, but on the bright side I have already begun planning for Collegiate Quest 2007 and have already spoken to some key college leaders who are interested in bringing their students to be involved. This cancellation also opened the door for me to be able to go with my church to Estes Park, CO and help at our church retreat in the children's department.

I am excited to say that my trip to Romania does look like it is a go. In fact I added on a trip right after it (a back-to-back). I will be in Romania from June 30 - July 15 working with the churches in Galati and Resita. The teams are looking pretty good, but there is room for more if you want to join me. Although tell me soon because airline tickets are hard to come by because the soccer World Cup is taking place in Germany this summer.

Another praise is that another guy and I started a community group at my church. Seven guys meet on Sunday night to share life with each other and grow in our understanding of God.

Agape,
Chris Truax