GP Team Mtg #1

Our GP Summer Sends and I just started reading Underground Church. It's a good read but not for everyone. But these ladies are ready to think about the intersection of leadership, cross cultural service and different expressions of Church.

Highlights from reading 1 included:
+ metaphors for disciples, including sheep, missionaries and apostles.
+ prevailing frameworks for Church: a hospital, a school, an incubator
+ the nothingness of starting something new might be the essence of discipleship

Remember, young people are more than capable of engaging with this kind of material. In fact, many of them long for the opportunity.

Creative Revenue - Commissioned Art Work

The Ember Cast believes that missionaries of the future will rely on a 'portfolio of revenue.' [credit for this term goes to Ben Arment.] In other words, they will need to actually make some money outside of personal donations. Since 2013, our summer teams have been required to dream and execute a Creative Revenue Plan - a way to make some income based on their talents and gifts. This unique income will go directly towards 10-25% of funding of their missions experience. Prayer and financial support letters are also required.

We ask students to dream up these plans by helping them assess their talents, skills and networks, and this is done as part of their application to summer teams. I'm proud to say that over $23K of revenue has been made as part of these Plans over the past 9 years and it represents students growing in skills such as pricing their product, making a pitch, dealing with customers and lots of hard work. All skills that benefit just about everyone.

If you need some commissioned art, like you have a picture or photo but want it drawn by a super talented artist, one of our Summer Sends is doing this exact thing. Contact me and I will put you in touch with Kate - all revenue will go towards her efforts for travel to Greece and Poland this summer. See more of her work here.

Photo: Kate's birthday gift to her mom, who is also an artist.

2019 Summer Sends

Periodically, The Ember Cast will execute what we call Summer Sends, sending a handful of older students that have worked with us in the past to serve with some of our trusted partners. Summer Sends represent somewhat of a progression - older students, usually a bit longer in duration than a summer team, and more autonomy. We are thrilled to announce that we are executing a Summer Send for 2019.

Ember is not running a summer team this year. Instead, the Sheng's are doing some personal travel since Emily is graduating from high school. We did the same when Katie finished by spending an amazing 3 weeks in Australia. This summer, the plan is to spend 3 weeks in a specific part of Europe.

Our Summer Sends are 4 students and they will join the Sheng's for a few days in Greece, serving with some Ember partners. After those days, 3 Summer Sends will continue on to Poland for about another 9 or 10 days while 3 of the Shengs and one Summer Send flies back to Merryland [take a wild guess on which Sheng is not flying back to Merryland...]

Thanks in advance for your support for this project.

[Reminder - we don't publish dates or locations on social media but can communicate privately.]

Summer Send - 2018

Over the past few summers, The Ember Cast has executed a series of Summer Sends, one or two fantastic individuals each summer that we send to trusted partners. It's a best of combination: a person or small team that has the Ember DNA and is committed to growing in character, competencies and capacity, a time frame that is longer than a typical student missions experience and hosting partners that we know well and desire to invest in a future missional leader. We fell into this and now have embraced it as a core competency.

Our Summer Send this summer is BM, seated next to MK [ProtoGuide 2016, 2016Italy, 2014X, 2013X]. This summer looks slightly different as BM is going to be living in the suburbs and serving part time in a local refugee resource center [details intentionally obscure]. We are excited for this knowing that there is a ton of work with this center and BM is easy going, likes to get things done and is super friendly and always willing to help someone out. If you recently arrived to a foreign country and didn't know a soul, BM would be a great first friend.

Thanks in advance for supporting BM as our 2018 Summer Send.

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.

Ember Poland Has Returned

Our second team, the Poland ladies, landed yesterday afternoon after 2 months in Poland and one week in there with our Italy team. By all accounts, it was a grand success and I'm proud for how these ladies worked, served and represented Ember.

We had intentionally set this experience up with elements of cultural engagement, history exploration and startup ministry and probably our best decision was to give it a very light tempo. It was not a 40 a week job. Instead, it gave them lots of room to experience this global city as cultural explorers first and summer missionaries second.

Ember has wanted to grow this type of summer send for a while now. This is a great alternative to the 10-15 day summer team we usually do, helping give the right people an extended field experience with some great hosts being creative and innovative for the Gospel. Maybe you'll dream with us about this kind of thing in 2018.

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.

We See Warsaw

Last week, we did a little send off with Tess and Lindsey - dinner, DC monuments, final details, budget review. They landed over the weekend in Poland where they will be serving with a church plant for the next 2 months. Tess has served with Ember every summer since 2014 and this is Lindsey's first Ember outing although she has a background with lots of cross cultural experience.

I'm thrilled that these two are part of our tribe - they are kind, they care about what kind of change they can make in the world, they are willing to risk trying new things because the Gospel is worth it and they laugh at my jokes. They also represent a pretty big milestone for Ember this summer. Although we have sent a number of students for the summer within the US, these two are our first overseas. And when Italy flies, we will have two 'teams' in the field at the same time.

Thanks to those of you that have helped support these two with your prayers, encouragement and financial support. And a few hours before they flew, some of their lodging costs dropped which enabled them to be 100% funded. That's always fun. Be sure to follow their blog.

Photo: Tess, Lindsey, moi. June 2017.

Summer 2016 - The First Send

I first met Rachel in the fall of 2010 when she was a freshman at a college on the eastern shore of Merryland and was part of a merry band of students involved consistently every week with various community impact organizations. I was impressed by her heart, her grace, and her acting on the right things even after being so new in her faith. And she was uproariously funny.

Today, I'm thrilled to announce our first summer send for The Ember Cast - Ember sends Rachel to Amadeo Church in Queen Creek, AZ. This summer, she will be their staff social worker, helping to integrate and connect various ministries under Amadeo's leadership and resourcing those ministries to serve the Queen Creek community at large.

Rachel is in the middle of getting a graduate degree in social work and her responsibilities this summer will touch multiple social work domains including working with such initiatives like:
a food pantry that serves up to 50,000 meals a year, a pregnancy center, a coffee shop, a homeless outreach, visual and musical art classes as well as physical exercising opportunities like zumba and stretching classes, a suicide support group, a human trafficking relief organization and numerous families within Amadeo that have adopted and/or foster kids. As you can tell, lots of opportunities for a social worker to jump in and help while also quite a playground for someone to dream and forge the future.

Thanks in advance for your support. The Ember Cast exists for people like Rachel.

Welcoming back Shannon

Shannon is on the left here and we had a little Ember contingent welcome her back from Arizona as we planned for a little leadership outing. By all accounts, her time with Amadeo was incredible. She hugely blessed their community and her time there was significant in her journey as well. Every person we have sent there has had a similar experience.

During her welcome back, we had her walk through a few simple decompression exercises that we've used with great success:
+ your trip summarized on a 3x5 index card.
+ your trip summarized in 20 seconds, 2 minutes, and 20 minutes [this one is just an outline]
+ a list of people you met and want to continue to remember, and why.
Great fun for me was hearing some of our guides suggest the 3rd one when I didn't exactly have one more planned - they get it!

Shannon's holy discontent has become more clarified from her time at Amadeo - to build discipling cultures. Watch this one...

"When I was in high school, just a few months ago…"

This is Shannon Linden, on the platform at Amadeo Church, outside of Phoenix, where she taught last Sunday during all 3 morning services. For those of you that might not know, Ben Cloud started Amadeo 9 years ago. Prior to that, he was a youth pastor that was an expert and hosting and sending students from and to the ends of the earth when I met him and I'm proud to say that we met each other on the Internet. The Ember Cast has partnered with Amadeo multiple times and we were thrilled that Shannon engaged with Amadeo for a gap semester experience.

Some of you might cringe at the thought of an eighteen year old teaching on a Sunday morning. Others of you might disagree with having a female in the front. Still others might despise both facts. This post [or blog for that matter] is not for you.

Shannon was one of our ProtoGuides last year and she's got a fantastic heart for the future of the Church and an iron will and commitment that helps keep her moving in Kingdom directions. We are thrilled at her direction and trajectory - the Kingdom will be rich because of her efforts over a lifetime. Ember will continue to resource Shannon the best that we can, like many of the emerging global leaders that we work with.

I'm infinitely grateful for places like Amadeo and leaders like Ben Cloud. Communities that host young people like this are rare. It is not an easy task to host a young person for a season, give them solid teaching and modeling about discipleship, putting them to work in significant and meaningful venues, and letting them stretch and contribute to your local and global efforts. Opening your pulpit to them is unheard of. At press time, you can find her talk on the sidebar on the right of this page.

We love you Amadeo Church. Thanks for taking such good care of Shannon and throwing fire with her.

Update: Here is the permalink to the message.

ProtoGuide to AZ

In 2013, Ember helped facilitate a student team from Grace, our home church, to serve and work with Amadeo Church, in Queen Creek, AZ. Amadeo's lead pastor Ben Cloud was one of my first missions friends that I met on the Internet in 2005 and this team happened to be an amazing collection of all girls.

Two years later, I'm delighted to tell you that one of those team members, Shannon Linden, is going to spend a few months serving with Amadeo in a gap semester, starting this coming September. Shannon graduates from high school in a few weeks and has a heart for service, community impact and church planting. She's also been one of our ProtoGuides this year and we have absolutely loved working with her.

The Ember Cast exist to help these kinds of relationships and experiences flourish. Combine passionate emerging global student leaders with the most adventurous, innovative and creative leaders that we know and you will get why we do what we do - we throw fire.

Wendy, Amy, A House on Beekman

On Saturday, Wendy leaves for a 6 week long internship in New York City with A House on Beekman, which we are thrilled about. We visited them in January of 2013 and are so impressed with their resolve, their humility and their approach to community development.

That is Wendy on the right. Last summer, she pretty much went sight unseen to live in Queen Creek, AZ, working at Amadeo Church for the whole summer, taking my good word for it that she would love the community there, learn a ton and that Ben Cloud was a good dude. It worked out great. And this summer, after living in NYC - where she has never visited before, serving in community and experiencing how to serve kids in one of the poorest communities in the US, and learning from some of the best, it will work out great again. Thanks Wendy for trusting us and being brave.

Amy is on the left. We met her and her family in 2010 when they let us crash at their house. They just finished a season in New York and are en route back to Queen Creek. They spent lots of time at AHOB, so Wendy had the great opportunity to pick their brain about New York, the subway, bedbugs and life in the South Bronx. Easily one of the most missional families we know and always fun to spend time with them. They are the kind that agree to host an Ember team in their house first and then figure out how to take the dining room table down second.

Oh and that is Evie in the middle.

Noah , Wendy and Ben

Team is working on a little neighborhood project helping out some of Bills neighbors.

Also heard Johns PG version story. Its a great one.

Announcing 2013 Wendy AZ

Ember is delighted to help facilitate our good friend Wendy serving with Amadeo Church in Queen Creek AZ this summer for 6 weeks. Wendy has been the ring leader with a community of college students at Salisbury Uni who have a consistent presence among different community impact projects near campus. and we've worked with her 5 or 6 different times through various missions/service/leadership events and weekends. She's the kind of global leader you want to hang around - funny, compassionate and convinced that she should serve others because she has been served.

We are expectant to hear some great stories about Wendy and Amadeo - both are going to bless each other like crazy.