Projects

One of the major ways that Westminster Chapel makes an impact on the world is by sending and supporting missionaries. When we send out missionaries, especially career missionaries, we make a long-term impact. Westminster works indirectly through outstanding missionaries all over the world.

However, in today’s rapidly changing world, we also have an opportunity to make a direct impact on the mission field by getting involved in specific projects where we can mobilize our people and resources in a concentrated way. Global Impact Projects involve many people from Westminster in many ways, often in a very hands-on approach. We have adopted an unreached people group in Ethiopia, and we’ve helped people in a village in Guatemala to buy and develop their own land. We’ve come alongside a team of Ugandan leaders in Gulu who are working on the front lines of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and recently have launched an effort to build the only Christian secondary school in Southern Sudan.

Global Impact Projects…
• Provide opportunities to make a direct impact on the field
• Mobilize many people, teams, gifts and skills from our church
• Are focused on a specific goal or task
• Have a beginning and an ending, usually short-term
• Work in partnership with a mission agency and mission partner on the field
• Are led by a Westminster Project Coordinator

JAPAN

Since 2005, Westminster Chapel has assisted church leaders in Sapporo, Japan to reach the Japanese with the Gospel through the use of The Alpha Course and pre-Alpha pathways like The Marriage Course.

Through the vision of three key Japanese partner pastors and our missionaries, Tim and Wakako Clark, we have begun to expand and model successful evangelism among one of the most difficult unreached people groups in the world. In every Alpha Course since our partnership began, university students, housewives, businessmen, and homeless citizens have become Christ-followers!

Not only have six short-term teams helped with pre-Alpha activities, training, modeling, and serving at Alpha and Marriage Course events in Japan, but Westminster Chapel has benefited by learning how to more effectively reach Japanese friends here in the Bellevue area.

2009-2010 Alpha Japan Partnership Goals ($10,000)
• Send 1-2 short-term specialist teams to coach our partner churches, and provide for a pre-Alpha event (November 2009) – $3,000 for materials and airfare
• Sponsor four Japanese Alpha courses – $5,000 (Course DVD, training, and guest manuals – $400 each packet)
• Subsidize food for one Japanese 10-week course – $2,500
• Subsidize one Japanese Alpha Weekend – $1,900
• Send Alpha hospitality packages to four Japanese Alpha start-up churches (tablecloths, candles, napkins, etc) – $1,000
• Subsidize travel expenses for Japanese leaders to come to Westminster for training & ministry – $1,000

How You Can Be Involved
• Join the Alpha Japan prayer/support group
• Provide Alpha resources for start-up courses
• Serve local Japanese through our pre-Alpha pathways with the Westminster Internationals Ministry Team

Project Coordinator: Sylvia Ramquist, sylviar@westminster.org
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GUATEMALA

Since the first visit with Agros in 2003, Westminster has had a relationship with the Village of Cajixay, located in the remote highlands of Guatemala. The village is healthier, the economy has improved and the people walk with more dignity. The 100 plus individuals from Westminster who have journeyed with this village have also embraced transformed lives upon return. Through the recent partnership with W.I.N.D. of God ministries, Bible-based training is available to lay leaders and pastors in the entire region.

Mission Partners
Agros – Founded in 1982, Agros is a Seattle-based, non-profit organization that works with poor, landless farmers in Central America and Mexico. Agros extends loans to purchase farmland and partners with farmers in applying sustainable agricultural practices, with the goal of enabling families to create, develop, and eventually own their own sustainable village. Their holistic approach meets physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs.

W.I.N.D. of God Ministries (When It Needs Doing) – Created in 2007, this home grown, Westminster non-profit equips church leaders in Cajixay and the surrounding Ixil region. W.I.N.D. partners with local leaders to bring Pastor Training to the lay pastors in small area villages. W.I.N.D. strives to tenaciously respond to the needs of those God places before them; connecting resources which encourage and empower.

Project Goals
• Training and Education designed to create economic/physical sustainability.
• Pastor/Bible training for over 125 men and women, reaching over ten denominations
• Construction of a new school classroom in Cajixay
• Equip a new middle school in Cajixay with textbooks, typewriters and computers

How You Can Be Involved
• Financially support Journey with a Village and/or WIND of God
• Go on a short-term trip to Guatemala and work alongside villagers and teachers
• Pray specifically for a pastor, student or family

Funding Projects for 2011/2012
• Scholarship fund for pastors and lay leaders at a cost of $100 per student per year
• Contribute to the School Construction Project
• Support the village of Cajixay through Westminster’s partnership with Agros

Project Coordinator: Rich Rice, richr.wind@gmail.com
www.agros.org •  www.windofgod.org
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CAMBODIA

In 2000, Westminster Chapel joined two other Eastside churches and World Vision in a partnership to empower Cambodians to transform their communities by modeling the love of Jesus.  Evangelicals Serving Cambodia (ESC) continues to sponsor many children in Kampong Thom province and support the training of the current and future Christian leadership in Cambodia.
The Killing Fields of the 1970’s witnessed a generation murdered.  Today 65% of the population is under 30 years of age.  Our work allows us the opportunity to evangelize and train youth in Christian servant leaders, to offer educational scholarships for secondary education to sponsored children in Kampong Thom villages and sponsor university scholarships for Diamond Project graduates training to become Christian community leaders.  Relief and development work has seen the village of Tong Neak (SE of Kampong Thom) reach a sustainable economic level in two short years.  In early 2010 funds raised by the youth of Westminster helped build and improve several two-level homes for displaced families in the resettlement village of Andong.
In 2010 we refocused most of our ministry in Kampong Thom.  We helped launch the Diamond Project (DP) in Kampong Thom City. In January of this year 14 young people became the first DP 1 class there.  Lead by Chumno this DP satellite (head office: Phnom Penh) is making plans to open a Drop-In Center, a safe/secure place for junior high/high school students at risk, can be themselves and grow as persons.  At the center they will be mentored and taught by the students in the DP.  Funds raised during Global Impact Week this year, will help launch and run this program.

Mission Partners
Brian Maher—Brian lived in Cambodia for over 15 years, working with the Youth Commission and founding the Diamond Project.   He now lives locally and coaches the members in our partnership.  In addition he is working as a consultant in the revamping of DP1 and DP2 curriculum and writing DP3.
Lynn Ogata—Multiple short term trip peaked Lynn’s interest in Cambodia and when the research company she worked for was bought out, it opened an opportunity for a career change.  Now this research microbiologist is coaching the staff and volunteers of DOVE, the organization that runs the Diamond Projects and its ancillary ministries.

Project Goals
• Support the Diamond Project satellite office in Kampong Thom
• Launch and support the Kampong Thom Drop-In Center associated with DP
• Raise up a future missionary from  Westminster Chapel—a 1-2 year assignment focusing work with the Diamond Project and local leaders
• Support special relief efforts in distressed communities, in partnership with the local church
• Send annual short term teams

How You Can Be Involved
• Go on a short term trip to Cambodia
• Pray specifically for a student or family
• Pray for our Mission Partners
• Sponsor World Vision children in Kampong Thom province

Funding Projects for 2011/2012
• Continuing support for the Diamond Project and Drop-In Center
• Support for Mission Partners

Cambodia Project Coordinator: Becky Pommer, becky@squakmtnursery.com
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UGANDA

In 2008, Westminster Chapel and Action International began a partnership to support, train and care for the 40 Action Gulu national leaders working in Northern Uganda on the front lines of a region which has been ravaged by civil war, unrest, and the HIV/AIDS crisis. The war in Northern Uganda has been called the most neglected humanitarian emergency in the world. For 25 years, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government have waged a war which chased over 2 million men, women and children out of their villages and into internally displaced people (IDP) camps. Recently there has been a cease-fire and people are beginning to move back to their villages, but the impact of war and AIDS has left Northern Uganda in great need of relief and development. Action works to train leaders and help bring the gospel and hope back to Gulu.

Mission Partners
Jerry and Candis Bingham merged Grassroots Leadership Training with Action’s Leadership & Pastoral Development ministry in 2000 and were Action’s first missionaries called to Uganda, Africa. In 2003, they resettled from Kampala to Gulu, Northern Uganda, called the “war zone.” They work with traumatized men, women and children; including former boy soldiers, child mothers and children orphaned or abandoned because of extreme poverty caused by the war and HIV/AIDS pandemic. They also minister and train pastors and community leaders in N. Uganda and S. Sudan with Grassroots Leadership Training and Child Worker’s Training.

Project Goals
• Provide an opportunity to the Westminster community to connect and serve a people group in a very impoverished and traumatized part of the world
• Share the love of Jesus with God’s children in Uganda
• Tangibly influence the spiritual development and destiny of Action’s national leaders, their families and the people of Northern Uganda, which they affect
• Provide members of Westminster “hands on” opportunities to be involved in teaching, training, and supporting the Action staff through acts of kindness and prayer
• Enable Action International Ministry to extend their training and outreach into IDP camps and villages in N. Uganda, extending to the Sudan and Congo borders

How You Can Be Involved
• Be a part of our Northern Uganda prayer team
• Join a short-term team next fall
• Help sponsor an Action National staff member on a monthly basis or with a one time gift
• Help send school, ministry, & misc. supplies to Uganda
• Sponsor school fees for a child to attend Action’s Jesus the Good Shepherd school in Gulu
• Join the Northern Uganda Project Team
• Sponsor a child in the Home of Love Orphanage

Funding Goals for 2009-2010
• Sponsor one Action Gulu staff member – $68 monthly
• Support a child from Home of Love Orphanage – $35 monthly
• Provide a Christmas bonus for an Action staff member – $50
• Purchase a new office computer  – $1,500
• Provide funding for supplies for a 10 day leadership development training – $1,500

Project Coordinator: Gretchen Olsen-Jacobsen, gretoj@hotmail.com
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ETHIOPIA

The first phase of this project was to partner with SIM (Serving in Mission) to reach the Mursi with the Gospel of Christ. After 22 years, there is now a small but growing church among the Mursi. Bible study (Milk Time) happens three times a week, 60 believers have been baptized, The Jesus Video has been produced in Mursi, Solar powered Megavoices (like an MP3 player) have several books of the Bible in Mursi, and translation work for a Bible in Mursi has begun.

In 2008, Westminster committed to the second phase of this project – to come alongside the Mursi church and assist them in evangelizing, discipling, and equipping them to reach the 8,000-10,000 Mursi who still have never heard the Gospel. Westminster will continue to do this in partnership with and under the direction of SIM. A large part of this project will be Bible translation.

We plan on accomplishing this project through prayer, by continuing to support the missionaries on the field, assisting with fundraising for specific projects as needed, recruiting short-term teams to help teach English, taking The Jesus Video out into the Mursiland region, providing maintenance and building assistance, as well as other needs that arise at the mission station in Makki. We will also financially support the translation work over the next 11 years in order to see a completed New Testament in the Mursi language.

Mission Partners
Tim and Deborah Ricker are responsible for running the school, developing curriculum, teaching and training teachers. Tim is an MK (missionary kid) who grew up in Ethiopia. He married Deborah, an Ethiopian national, after they met at a Bible study group in Addis Ababa. They moved to Makki with their two sons, Abijah and Bereket, in 2003. While living in Makki, they have added two more sons to the family, Timmy Jr. and Jedidiah.

Bettina Muetze is the linguist and translator. She is learning the Mursi language, developing an alphabet, studying grammar, and recruiting and training Mursi linguistic assistants. Bettina is sent by Wycliffe Bible Translators (Germany) and is partnering with SIM. She is also a veterinarian, which helps her develop relationships with the Mursi since their cattle mean everything to them.

Paul and Carol Lukins coordinate the agriculture project. They arrived in Makki in 2003 and have been working on developing sustainable crops for the Mursi, many of which are currently being used as food supplements by the Mursi. Paul also works very closely with the Mursi church leaders. The Lukins oldest boys, Jon and Ben are at boarding school in Addis Ababa. While the two younger girls, Elle and Kate, are home schooled in Makki by Carol.

Project Goals
• To see every Mursi presented with the Gospel and be given the opportunity to follow Christ
• To keep the Westminster congregation informed of the needs and progress of the Mursi church and missionaries who are doing the work of growing the church in Mursiland
• To support the Mursi education project so that Mursi will be able to read their own Bible when it is translated
• To support the Translation Project and see a completed New Testament in the Mursi language 11 years from now
• To support and encourage our Mursi brothers and sisters through prayer, letters, email and visits from short-term teams to Makki
• To support and encourage our missionary partners who live in Makki through prayer, finances, letters, and short-term teams

How You Can Be Involved
•Join the Global Impact Ethiopia group on “The City” – stay informed, find opportunities to get involved, and get the current praise & prayer requests from Makki
*Sponsor a Mursi student at Christian boarding school. $60 a month covers tuition, room and board, clothing, travel expenses, and all supplies.
• Sign up to pray specifically for a Mursi
• Go! Live with the Mursi for three months to two years and teach English in the school,  work in the clinic, or join a short-term team that is headed to Makki
• Become a monthly financial and prayer supporter for Tim and Deb Ricker (Directors for the education project) or for Bettina Muetze (the new translator/ linguist headed to Makki) – both are under-funded and need more supporters
• Support short-term teams from Westminster
• Get involved in the translation project – we need everyone’s assistance to raise the funds needed
• Purchase a Mursi calendar to support the education project (offered at the end of every year)
• Correspond with one of the missionaries and build a relationship through encouragement and prayer

Funding Projects through 2012
• Translation project
• Education truck fund
• Education project – calendar sales
• Possible short-term team July 2012

Project Coordinators: Stacy and Doug deBruyn, debruyn1@frontier.com
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