Congrats Tess and Lindsey

Congrats to Ember Guides - Tess, on the left, and Lindsey, on the right, on graduating from Eastern University last weekend.

I first met Tess in the summer of 2013, when as a high school junior, she had returned from a missions experience in Europe with lots of energy and passion for serving in that context. Ember was a good fit for her to get involved and she's been one of our longest serving Guides, helping run the 2014 X, 2015 Prague, 2016 Italy and 2017 Italy teams. This year's team already feels a little strange without her.

Lindsey and I met through Tess - our first time hanging together was in Chinatown in Philadelphia seeing the sights after we had given a group some instructions on cultural navigation. Ah the fun of leadership. Tess and Lindsey also invested at the highest level of Ember Guides last summer when they were our Summer Send, being sent to Poland for 6 weeks to work with a church plant. I could not have imagined a better fit for them and they turned a great idea into an awesome experience.

The Ember Cast will miss you two. We will miss the way Tess can recite the Ember mantras by heart and how Lindsey looks just like Hillary Duff. But go do some amazing things in a world that desperately needs passion, beauty, and character and we will throw fire with you.

Summer Travel 2016

There has never been a season in my life where I traveled like I did during this summer. It was totally ridiculous, absolutely out of control and so totally worth it. Here are the stats, mostly for my benefit.

In 3 months, between Australia, Italy and the United Arab Emirates:
40 total days away. 30 days away from work including 9 days of leave without pay.
3 continents in 3 months.
4 islands - Australia, Lady Elliot Island, Sicily, Saadiyat Island.
44,300 air miles.
76 hours in flight.
18 flights including one on an 8 passenger plane.
18 airplane meals.
13 AirBnbs/Hotels.
1 boat. [1 was enough]
3 rental cars.
Drove 1,800 miles in rental cars - I only drove in Australia.
11 train rides including subways.
22 Uber/Taxi rides.
1 wild kangaroo sighting, but it was dead on the side of the road [Australia].
44 servings of Gelato [the whole Italy team].
7 days in 106+ degree F temps, with an average of 112 degrees F [UAE].
Somewhere on the order of 4,200 pictures.

My trip to the UAE was probably the most profound cross cultural experience to date.

2 pro tips:
1 - Put everything you will need for 24 hours in your carry on bag, including a clean pair of underwear and a clean shirt.
2 - Put a fresh dryer sheet in your carry on bag.

The Med

The colors of the water are what you imagine they would be - a deep blue and green, clear and cool, the refreshing Mediterranean sea. Until your host tells you that upwards of 5000 people die in these waters every summer. It then seems disenchanting to take pictures of this scene. Can I really enjoy this when so many have died here? In a blog post, you write, "Our hope is that these waters are redemptive at some point."

And then, the next day, someone decides that they would love to get baptized. 10km to the west of where you were the previous day, but the same water, the same sea. It's yelling and clapping and screaming, a small celebration with 14 people, cheering on a public declaration of a dedicated and redeemed life.

Living water.

Ember Italy Wrap Up

I'm working on a little post trip report that will be done in a few days. I'd be honored if you were interested in reading it. Leave a comment here or tonytsheng @ theembercast.org.

Italy Friday

Friday was debriefing day so we spent most of the morning discussing the week in detail. Unfiltered debate and missional imagination were key pieces of this.

We spent a little bit of time on the beach in the afternoon also working through more thoughts about the trip using the questions below. 

In the evening we went to a worship gathering at a center in the town of Ragusa. Fitting end to our time here.

We devote a whole day to debriefing because it is that important.

1 Write about - What did you love/hate

2 Story on an index card

3 20 second, 2 minute, 20 minute
4 Write about - When did time go fast (generative) 
5 Listing important people that you met
6 Envelopes - Tess has these
7 Write about - Something new you learned about God
8 Highlight points on thank you cards
9 Encouragement notes to others

Italy Thursday

Today was our last full day of ministry. We started in a city in the south to hang with some refugees but didn't find anyone. This city is right on the Med and although incredibly beautiful, you feel helpless when you learn that a few thousand people die in this water every year. The boat graveyard, next to a refugee intake center, is one symbol of the refugee struggle. Our hope is that these waters are redemptive at some point.

The common term here is refugee 'camp' although 'camp' isn't quite an accurate word. In the city we were just in, the camp was a 3 story residential building right next to our hotel with dorm style rooms, a common sitting area, and a kitchen. This afternoon we visited another camp that was outside of another city in the countryside. This was an old rectory of a Catholic church and we spent time visiting. I also listened to a conversation between R, one of our hosts, and F who is here with a missions organization and one of the key players in this work in this region. The challenges are great involving cultures, worldviews, relief vs development and systems, among lots of other things.

Ragusa

Italy Wednesday

Checked out of the city today after morning in the fish market and hanging in city center.

Drove to a city in the south where we checked into our remaining lodging. We then met up with a friend in another suburb. This friend has lived the refugee life and like most of them told us a sobering story. His hospitality was second to none though and it was humbling to be hosted in that manner. Americans don't accept hospitality that well.

Dinner was with a contact who has been helping with a system for when people actually get off the boats.

Italy Tuesday

More time in the streets this morning, creating conversations and seeing where some refugees where hanging out near city center. Our hotel is in a great location close to significant areas in the center of this city, including a very large outdoor market, the train station, and the Piazza, one of the major city squares. My group had lunch at McDonalds today. I should clarify - I had lunch at McDonalds while everyone else brought in their food. Eating at McDonalds makes for a great cultural exercise.

The afternoon was spent hanging with the high school boys, sharing some music from both the American and African side as well as some stories about life on both sides. Lots of significant stuff happening here. You would be proud of this team and how engaged they are in this work.

Italy Monday - Missions Roundtable

One of the best things we do while teams are on the field is to facilitate a 'missions roundtable' where we gather current cross cultural people and curate an interactive conversation with young people around the ideas of context and calling. We were fortunate to be able to do this last night with Ryan, Shane and Hillary.

A very small selection from an incredibly rich conversation:

Hillary:
Sicily is relationship based you need an intro
250k towns villages without gospel preaching church
1% evangelical in Italy
Italy not majority urban
Most people here are in small towns
Felt like it was leaving home and not going home when leaving Italy
Migration is a huge piece of God's plan

Shane:
Who you go with might be more than where you go
What you go with might be more important than what you go do
this means thinking a lot about spouse church agency team
Get good at gratitude
Solve big problems
Reproduce

Ryan:
20 plus years in business helped me get to vocational missions
I'm an execution guy not an idea guy, this is what I did in the business world
Little small steps of obedience
Your own directions that the Lord has been leading - talents
Follow how the Lord has been leading - your talents, gifting, passions
At the same time keep your antenna up
God uses all of it

Photo: Kelsey, Tess, Ryan, Shane, Hillary, EmCrum.

Italy Monday

Out on the streets in the morning. Soccer and games in the afternoon. There is a local housing 'center' very close to where we are staying where there are about 55 high school aged guys. Time in the park was lots of fun and good for everyone even though it was hot hot hot.

Tonight was dinner at Christian Associates staff friend Hillary's house. Fun to hear connections between Ryan, Shane and her. We also held a missionary roundtable with the 3 of them which is one of those most valuable things The Ember Cast does. More on that later.

Team doing well.

Italy Sunday

Went to church this am at a faith community that has pulled some resources and connections to be pretty engaged with the refugee issues here. Loved the service even though I didn't understand a bit of it. Had lunch with some expat families here in town. Lots of interesting connections and collaboration around this issue here.

After lunch, we drove part of the way up Mt. Etna, which is an active volcano. Gives tangible meaning to 'we throw fire.'

One of our team members wasn't feeling well around dinner time so we decided to take her to see a doctor, which in this city means going to the emergency room. Of course, we went to the 'wrong' one the first time. Always a cultural experience and lucky for us, our doctor spoke perfect English and trained in the DC area. MB is feeling a little bit better though and had a full clean bill of health, including a chest xray, an EKG and full blood work. That doctor though, what a gift.

More pictures here.

Italy Saturday

First full day here. More orientation/training this morning. Lots of walking to get to know the city including figuring out who is where. Our grouped walked the market area and an area near the theater today. The city is beautiful city, about 70 square miles with a population of about 315K people. It's pretty hot right now - mid 90s during most of the day. All of our logistics have been super great including lodging, location of the lodging, food and transport. Whole team is healthy and doing great. Mt Etna has been puffing away above the city.

More pictures here.

Italy team landed

This afternoon was city map and orientation. All luggage made it and getting on 3rd leg was a run.

Italy team all boarded

2016 Italy #8

Curated conversation with special guests, T & R, church planters from Poland: context, culture, church planting, leadership, vocation.
Packing party.

2013-2016 Support Trends

Big picture for 2013-2016 support trends in case you might be interested. Context for this is suburban, affluent, high achieving target culture with most students on these teams fitting into this demographic as well. 10 people on the team and most are well connected to people interested in this kind of stuff, meaning they have little difficulty raising money for a student missions project.

Current stats for the Italy team, as of 5 June:
+ 170 donations.
+ 17 donations electronically - 10%.
+ Rate is $340/day or $2377 a week.
+ One student averaged $60/a day or $420 a week with 37 donors at an average of $100/donation. That is really high and you shouldn't use that for comparison.
+ Average donation - $130.
+ Currently at just over $22K, which is almost 85% of budget, we still have a good few weeks before departure [this is not reflected in the trend chart though].
+ Creative revenue is around 6% which I anticipate will go up in the next few weeks.

If you are raising some support this summer, maybe this gives you a benchmark for some perspective.

24JE

For the past few months, Katie and some of her senior friends [and most of the Italy team] have been planning an event called 24JE, which was a 24 hour justice experience for high school students that took place last week. The event was a great success.

24 hours, meals of rice and beans, 9 different speakers interacting about topics such as human trafficking, war and refugees, foster care, homelessness, a service project in Curtis Bay Baltimore and lots of great interaction around these topics.

Put on by students for students. You could do this too.

2016 Ember GCC Impact Advance

Details from Ember Advance, this past Saturday. The 'Advance' tagline was stolen many years ago and this type of event is one of my very favorite things to do. We actually combined an existing student missions training engagement with some extended time with the Italy team to make up this year's Ember Advance. I'm thrilled with every outcome from this day.

Very few churches spend a lot of time and energy preparing their short term teams and we had the privilege of helping facilitate this training experience for our home church and their six student teams headed all over the world. This was a follow on piece to a leadership overnight that we had run in January. The concept behind the event is simple - teams spend extended time together before they actually get to the mission field and this year's time was spent on learning some global missions concepts and team building. After the training event, the Italy team did a few more things as a team.

Here are the major elements from this year.
+ GCC Impact Prayer Time - Teams spent a little bit of time praying for the other teams.
+ GCC Impact Mission Roundtable - Ember Guide Tess spoke on Context and Worldview; Tae, new missions pastor at GCC, spoke about spiritual warfare; and I used an illustration about potatoes to talk about dependency and erupting talent. I heard the first two rocked.
+ GCC Impact Team Building Exercises - A 90 minute rotation for 3 blocks of interesting, fun, and purposeful team building activities.
+ GCC Impact Lunch/Ember Debrief - While the GCC teams had lunch and team time together, our team had a fantastic debriefing conversation which will help make these events even better.
+ Italy - StrengthsFinder session - You know how I love this. It's difficult to do this with a team in less than 90 minutes but that makes for a long session.
+ Italy - Field trip to NCC - We visit National Community Church almost every year because I believe they are one of the most innovative churches in America and because it's healthy for our students to see other expressions of Church. Saturday night's message on discipleship by Heather Zempel was easily one of the best messages I have ever heard on the topic.
"Imagine a church that makes Jesus' last command their first concern."
+ Italy - dinner in DC - Talking a little bit about the concept of oikos.

Special thanks to the Ember Italy team for working and serving hard at this event. Beautiful day.

2016 Italy #3

Experimental team building activity
The Journey of a Refugee, Lesvos, Greece [YouTube]
Asset Based Community Development
Telling Your Story
Ember mantras