Go with me or ask others to...

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

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

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

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

Asia Travels - Video 2

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

Safely Home

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

Click Here

Off to Colorado

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

Back from Panama

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

click to enlarge

Leadership thoughts, and what's ahead

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!

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!!!

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

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

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

Reflections on week 2 - Galati

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