Busy summer of ministry and outreach

Happy Anniversary to us!!!!! Celebrate with us!!! Along with celebrating our 36th wedding anniversary, we are celebrating our 15th year of cross-cultural service overseas with TMS Global (Costa Rica, Peru, and Spain)! For the past 9 years, we have lived in Spain and served in several ministries and capacities in Europe and around the world. The scope of our work is multifaceted: training, refugee relief and development, care and counseling for cross-cultural leaders and aid workers, and community outreach. Check out the updates below for more about what we've been doing in the past few months:

Refugee Aid for Ukraine
We are partnering with other refugee aid workers to get the maximum amount of help to the people who are truly in need. Many of the larger aid organizations are funding relief to large city hubs, leaving those in smaller cities or isolated areas without food or shelter or help. We are helping our contacts and partners in smaller, more agile organizations to swiftly reach those in need and support relief work in areas that are running dry.  This includes feeding tents in Ukraine, Romania, and Poland (3 meals per day for Ukrainian refugees), food and supply drops to pastors and churches in Odessa, Ukraine, and emergency shelter programs in Romania, Slovenia, and Czechia. We are now gearing up to help refugee children have the school supplies they need to start a new school year. Special thanks to Christ Church (College Station, TX) and Covenant UMC (Dothan, Alabama) for their generous special gifts in helping us work alongside these organizations and the cross-cultural workers who are sharing Christ’s love with displaced people.

Training for new workers and church leaders
In July, Laurie led the yearly training event for new cross-cultural workers and church mission leaders. We had 60+ people attend the 3-week event in North Carolina. New workers will now be ready for launch to assignments in Kazakhstan, Albania, Spain, various USA locations, Solomon Islands, Jordan, and Paraguay. Church leaders and pastors also attended and are better prepared to send and care for cross-cultural workers, as well as implementing healthy mission work locally and internationally. In September, Laurie and her team will lead another training in Spain which will prepare workers who will be attending from or launching to United Kingdom, Spain, Egypt, USA, Germany, and Costa Rica.

Care and Counselling for global ministry workers
​Care for cross-cultural workers, pastors, and global leaders: Billy has been overwhelmed with the amount of care and counselling needs among those who work in ministry and aid roles. Response to his work for ministry worker debrief sessions, burnout recovery coaching, and care for aid workers has more than doubled this year. He has been teaching care and training workshops, leading debrief retreats, doing critical incident debrief and coaching, and guiding men’s spiritual renewal hikes for ministry workers. All of this is critical for the resiliency and longevity of cross-cultural workers.

Wide-reaching effect of this work
While it has been a very busy summer of teaching and training and care outreaches, it has been wonderful to be in a season where we feel that our gifts and talents are being used and where the ripple effect is truly reaching far and wide. From our work with refugees and aid workers to our training for cross-cultural workers to the time we spend listening to and counselling pastors, workers, and community leaders - those efforts effect the work and the people in Ukraine, Romania, Poland, Czechia, Slovenia, Egypt, Germany, Jordan, Spain, Portugal, Bali, Thailand, Turkey, Kosovo, Albania, UK, Kazakhstan, Solomon Islands, Oman, Paraguay… and even back in the USA as we help train churches and pastors and cross-cultural workers to reach out in their own country and communities.

Thank you for being a part of this important work and for being a part of our ministry team! 
Laurie & Billy

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