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 17 Financials

We've reconciled most of the summer expenses so maybe this will help you with your future planning or give you a baseline for comparison. This is all the big stuff even though there are some small incidentals here and there. Some notes below since this is The Ember Cast and nothing is ever straightforward around here.

11334 - Italy Airfare
3160 - Poland Airfare
1685 - Italy Lodging
1200 - Poland Lodging
~1500 - Poland on the ground costs including food, excursions, incidentals, etc.
~2200 - Food, for 2 weeks for both teams
350 - Insurance
1032 - In Country Transport
1900 - Future
58 - Bank fees
2577 - Ministry
~27200 - Total

Italy
- team of 6
- 13 days long
Poland
- team of 2
- 44 days long + 7 days in Italy

+ Two teams that overlapped in both time and locality means that some of the costs are shared and were not easily categorized.
+ We used two Airbnbs which were extremely inexpensive. Our team also felt like it gave us a better flavor for living like a local. I was a fan of Airbnb even before this trip - this is the definitely the way to go.
+ We had two people drop last minute so there was both a credit for airfare and some much smaller sunk costs due to one of the flights being non-refundable.
+ In country transport included a rental car, subway/tram and taxi fares.
+ We purchase overseas medical insurance for each person. We have a great insurance person - let me know if you need an intro.
+ The best way to get cash is to go to an ATM in country. My credit cards do not charge foreign transaction fees but my ATM cards do. Annoying.
+ Ministry costs included costs to do the stuff as well as some monetary funding to our partners.
+ In the case of the people that dropped last minute, when we can, we like to hold the money they raised to be applied to something they do in the future, whether it is with Ember or another 501C3 nonprofit.
+ Spending $27K in 13 days... Make no mistake, spending this kind of money every summer always gives me pause. When it comes to short term missions, we should always be asking whether this amount of time, money and energy is worth it but ask it with a 500 year horizon.

Learners and Sponges

RH, holding court with Tess and Lindsey, who are asking deep and engaged questions about refugees. Humility and the passion to learn are some of the most attractive qualities of our leaders.

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." - Alvin Toffler

Creating Something from Nothing

On our second day in Italy, our host RH was the mastermind of a 'day out' for the refugee boys. This entailed renting two coach buses and bringing all of the refugee boys out of the city from two different camps to a community gathering spot that one of the partnering churches had owned. After the boys arrived, a few different US based teams such as ours hosted some games and hung out with them. Lunch was served and after that, everyone got back in vehicles and went part way up Mount Etna. Dinner time was back at the gathering spot where this partner church's volunteers cooked brick oven pizzas - this is Italy after all - for everyone - about 100 people. Like the parade of American and refugee kids on the way to play football last summer, this was the first time this kind of thing had been done here.

In Warsaw, one of the things our team was asked to do was to conduct cultural surveys with Polish people. This survey included questions like "What do you like most about Warsaw?" and questions about priorities in life and if they were connected to a church. If you are like me, you basically push people running these surveys away like the plague. However in Warsaw, once you told them you were learning about Polish culture, they loved answering these questions and conversing about these kinds of topics. Our host TC was the instigator behind this because his startup church is English speaking and interested in what the younger generation thinks is important. To his knowledge, this was the first time any of this kind of data was ever collected in Warsaw.

These first time 'things' are important to The Ember Cast and are the basis for one of our distinctives when we run summer experiences - we want our high school teams to work side by side with people doing these kinds of things. There are a unique set of skills for a leader trying to execute something from nothing: raising money for the untested, embracing risk, building a network from scratch, logistics, budgets, casting vision, learning from failure, catalyzing others, etc. this list could go on and on and can be taught and modeled. This is where we bank our investment - the global leaders of tomorrow should be learning these skills today. RH and TC both embody these skills, they are creating something from nothing. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that our Italy team worked side by side with both of these men and their teams.

LHR - IAD

Last leg of 13 days of fun.

Prayer Walking Ogród Saski

Poland Sunday

Church plant that has been in existence for less than a year. Global city in post Communist country. Central European country with less than one percent evangelical.

This is The Ember Cast vibe.

Poland Saturday

Church planter TC giving instructions on exegeting a neighborhood/decoding/navigating culture. Vital tools for emerging global student leaders which is part of why we are here.

Amsterdam airport

Somewhere south of Taormino

Italy Tues and Wed

Lots of time on the street, engaging in conversations both on Tuesday and Wednesday. We also spent a few hours at one of the camps both days. Tonight, Wednesday, we and one of the intern teams had fun in one of the city piazzas, with soccer balls, glow sticks and face paint just trying to make fun.

Today was our last full day of ministry here. There is lots of interesting and exciting momentum with the team here so it's fun to see it from last year's perspective as well as be optimistic about the future here. This team has also done a great job and risen to expectations in some pretty big ways. Tomorrow is a decompression day. We devote a lot of time and energy to that process with the conviction that if it isn't done correctly, this experience goes to waste.

Missions Roundtable

One of the very best things The Ember Cast does with summer teams is what is called the Missions Roundtable. It is a simple question and answer discussion with the missionaries that we work with. At a deeper level, we run this because:
1 - So many, many students travel abroad with good teams and ministries and never hear the people they work with talk about their specific context, challenges and advice.
2 - We don't nearly talk enough with young people about calling, especially for global missions.

Really though, ask yourself, out of all the summer student missions teams you supported this summer, how many of them had an intentional time set aside for vocational missionaries to talk about their perspective to student teams?

We did this tonight as part of a July the 4th celebration with a few groups of Americans that were in town. Here is a sample of some of the questions, held in a talk show format with me as the moderator, with 5 individuals, which were 2 pairs of couples and one single, varied ages and family stages.

My Questions:
Who are you where are you from what do you do?
Why is where you are doing ministry now strategic?
Describe God's calling on your life.
One piece of advice for young person who wants to do this.

Questions from the Audience:
Biggest challenge how to not go.
What is the best skill to learn before you go to the field?

Best skill to learn?
Deal with ambiguity
Vision to see where the Kingdom is not
If God is calling you to do something, go and try. If you don't, 20 years will go by in a snap and you will have missed it.

Lots more from the conversation but you had to be there.

Photo: Gina, Donna, Dave, me, Hillary, Ryan. Easily over 100 years of collective experience.

Italy Monday

We spent a lot of time on Monday at one of the refugee 'camps' on the north side of the city. In this specific situation, the camp is not a campsite with hundreds of tents like you see in the news. Instead, it typically is an older hostel or similar building with a kitchen, dorms and common areas. Today, our task was to paint at least a few of the rooms, putting a fresh coat in rooms that needed a bit of freshening up.

+ This camp was spotless, meaning that they guys that live here take a lot of pride in where they live.
+ These kinds of projects - painting, building a church, carving a basketball court out of a rock field, etc. - are done a lot in the student missions realm. You could make the case that some or most of these projects are done just to give student teams work to do. There are also a myriad of issues dealing with dependency, ownership and economic models. This was not the case today and I should be more thoughtful about my opinions about this kind of thing, maybe.
+ In our case, once we got started, a ton of the guys that lived here jumped in and wanted to do it themselves. So we actually painted a little and helped the guys do it on their own.
+ If your worldview doesn't include the idea that poor or marginalized people actually want to do things for themselves, either read Toxic Charity or come to Italy to see it for yourself. Be warned though, once you see it, you'll never look at serving people in the same way.
+ Every guy here has a smart phone and a ton of music on it. Both are staples of their culture. Sidebar: There was music playing all day and at one point, a guy from Ivory Coast and I traded choosing what to play - I played some country music. A Chinese man sitting with guy from the Ivory Coast, in Italy, listening to Tim McGraw.

Italy Sunday

+ Church this am with one of the churches that helped sponsor the big refugee day out yesterday. Great faith community that numbered around 80 people. Great service with lots of worship, super welcoming people and a great kids program - this church of about 100 probably has 30-35 little kids. [This many people in this kind of church in Italy is pretty rare, I think...]
+ Lunch with some of the church leadership and RH and his family. Authentic Sicilian pasta dishes.
+ Helped with a post BBQ for some of the Serve the City volunteers at a local park during dinner time.

Other observations from the day:
+ Sicily is about 40 years culturally behind the US, says RH. It's worse in church world, like usual. But this church is experiencing great growth in both breadth and depth.
+ Tess and Lindsey spent a good conversation with RH about his perspective of the refugee issue, which included concepts such as the demographic time bomb. I loved how Tess and Lindsey engage people like this to learn from them and loved how RH offered his observations instead of 'solutions.'
+ Driving in Italy is nuts.
+ I think I have sung Shout to the Lord in over 15 countries and languages. Love seeing Hillsong have that kind of influence.

Italy Saturday

Spent the day with multiple teams of people involved with some of the refugee ministry here in this city, providing a big day out for them and everyone involved. This included:
+ A large team from a church from SC - super impressed with their leadership.
+ A church here that has an outreach location outside the city, they cooked authentic pizza for the whole group of maybe around 80 people - this church is super sold out to serving refugees.
+ Interns that our host RH has. There is also a semi retired couple here from the States who are the intern's 'houseparents'. This couple most recently served in a war zone in the Middle East and has a wealth of experiences all over the world.

Today was a huge operation that had never been tried before, which involved two large buses that helped transport refugees from two 'camps' in the city to the property as well as to the top of Mt Etna and a multitude of moving parts. It is this kind of thing that The Ember Cast gravitates towards - find a way or make a way. This is also the kind of leadership that we need for the future - creating something from nothing and brave enough to risk at least a few times because the Gospel is worth it.

Italy Friday

Met Tess and Lindsey at the gate in Munich.
Driving a Ford 9 passenger van in a city that is centuries old.
This city just finished a few more subway stops making it 9 stops on one line.
Our host RH has established a dynamic intern program here and has around 11 college aged young people serving refugees all summer. This is a positive leading indicator about important things.
We did a city scavenger hunt as a way of understanding navigation.

Boarding

In line. Everyone is tired from not doing anything. I'm almost too old for this. And I'm still amazed at the miracle of modern flight.

Italy Team #7

+ Some last minute team changes - 2 have needed to drop. Let's see what the Lord will do.
+ Reviewing our Travel Packet for all travel details.
+ Shopping for team supplies.

17 Italy Flight Reading

For almost every team I lead, when they check in before departure, they get a reading packet. Yup, almost as bad as summer reading. I won't apologize for it though - when else can you curate a set of ideas for your team to think about while they are held captive in a metal tube flying over open water? Trust me, at least a few of them will get bored of movies and read what you have printed with them in mind.

We depart later this week. Here is most of the reading packet:

Are you willing to be sent where few can see you?

Accelerating Revolutions

How Sociology Messed Up My Faith

The Newest Mission Field

A Question I Ask New Entrepreneurs

Photo: The Med

Italy Team #6

Recap:
Talking to strangers
Telling your story
People of Peace

New:
Tentative Schedule - Plan A never works out anywa
Finances

Creation to Christ Story
Your Favorite Bible Story:
Ethan - David and Goliath
Alan - Paul on the road to Emmaus
Niall - Jesus water to wine
Kate - Esther
Kathleen - Joseph
Tony - Jesus and demon possessed man

Less than 2 weeks until wheels up. Over this past weekend, this team became 100% funded. Poland and Italy are landing right around $30K all together. Thank you for your support - in encouragement, prayer and finances - for this team.