The Ander­sons spent their first few years ana­lyz­ing the Cur­to lan­guage, devel­op­ing lit­er­a­cy mate­ri­als, prepar­ing oral Bible sto­ries, and trans­lat­ing the first Scrip­ture por­tions to pro­mote inter­est in the Gospel. Some seeds of inter­est began to grow. In 2013, there was a break­through when, through mirac­u­lous cir­cum­stances, the first Cur­to fam­i­ly began to study at the Ammi Train­ing Cen­ter. Ammi is a school where indige­nous peo­ple from all over Brazil come to learn about God. Although the Cur­to fam­i­ly came to Ammi pri­mar­i­ly seek­ing phys­i­cal safe­ty, they soon found safe­ty for their souls as one-by-one the entire fam­i­ly came to know Christ. The daugh­ter was the first Cur­to believ­er and she devel­oped a strong pas­sion to see her peo­ple wor­ship the one true God. The Cur­to church is grow­ing despite per­se­cu­tion and more new believ­ers are study­ing God’s Word at Ammi. 

In 2015, Mike and Kel­li moved to the Ammi Train­ing Cen­ter and cur­rent­ly serve by teach­ing, dis­ci­pling and work­ing along­side these new Cur­to believ­ers, as well as stu­dents from oth­er lan­guage groups. They also help lead mis­sion teams both going out from Ammi to local vil­lages and receiv­ing teams from the States to serve at Ammi. God is grow­ing his church among the Cur­to and oth­er indige­nous peo­ple of Brazil. It is an excit­ing time as God is turn­ing hearts from fear of the spir­its to faith in Christ. 

Prayer Requests:

• Pray for Cur­to church
   — strength for believ­ers as they endure persecution
   — courage as they bold­ly share their faith 
• Pray for Mike and Kelli
   — strength and safe­ty for each day
   — wis­dom as they share the gospel to many peo­ples of many cultures
   — school­ing for their chil­dren as there are lim­it­ed options beyond homeschooling

“Swe­den is so post-Chris­t­ian that it is pre-Chris­t­ian.” Upward of 90 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion does not know Jesus as Sav­ior, and many of the church­es are either dying or doc­tri­nal­ly lost. More recent­ly they have cre­at­ed con­nec­tions and built rela­tion­ships with many refugees that have come to the coun­try in the past years. The Ash­mens serve as the Scan­di­na­vian field lead­ers with Euro­pean Chris­t­ian Mis­sion (ECM), and they part­ner with sev­er­al local church­es and Bible schools. 

Prayer Requests:

• Praise the Lord for the spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing this cri­sis has caused among many believers. 
• Pray for the Swedish state church — that they would remain bib­li­cal­ly faith­ful as they are thrust into this lead­er­ship role. 
• Pray for those per­se­cut­ed here. Many Mid­dle East­ern broth­ers and sis­ters con­tin­ue to receive threats on their lives and well-being. 
• Pray for the Ash­mens; pray for strength, wis­dom, and clar­i­ty as they nav­i­gate the uncer­tain­ty of such a ministry. 
• Pray for their kids — Eleri, Ada­lyn, and Evan­ge­line as they are being raised in the most sec­u­lar con­text in the world.

They pro­vide sup­port in var­i­ous ways includ­ing church plant­i­ng, mis­sion­ary train­ing, dis­ci­ple­ship, encour­age­ment, med­ical, cloth­ing and fresh water out­reach­es and spread­ing of the Gospel to the unreached peo­ple groups in Ghana and West Africa. Eric and Katie are based in Tamale Ghana but often work in remote, hard to reach areas.

Eric and Katie also are lead­ing the Bethany Glob­al Uni­ver­si­ty mis­sion­ary intern­ship pro­gram. Ghana is one of nine inter­na­tion­al sites offered by BGU. The interns are train­ing and study­ing to become full-time mis­sion­ar­ies to wher­ev­er God calls them. 

Prayer requests:

• For Jesus, the Mes­si­ah, to reveal Him­self to the Mus­lims in West Africa and that the Lord would lead us to those look­ing for Him. 
• For wis­dom to walk out the Lord’s call­ing and assign­ment for us in Ghana and West Africa and the strength to endure. 
• For Christ’s love to sat­u­rate us and over­flow to all those we work with, serve and min­is­ter to. (Eph. 5:1 – 2) 
• For the pow­er of God to walk in the Spir­it and not the flesh. (Gal 5) 
• For under­stand­ing and wis­dom to war in the spir­it and not just work things out in our own under­stand­ing. (Eph. 6:10 – 20) 
• That God would be hon­ored, glo­ri­fied and lift­ed up in all that we say and do.

In June of 2016, they held their first Sun­day ser­vice and Wednes­day night Bible study. Brent’s goal is to main­tain the exam­ple of Athey Creek by teach­ing verse-by-verse through the Bible and to fol­low the Acts 2:42 mod­el of wor­ship, prayer and fel­low­ship. Each Wednes­day night, they pro­vide din­ner for the church (and for who­ev­er wan­ders by) before they open the Word to study and dis­cuss the Scriptures. 

Because of abus­es suf­fered and free­doms tak­en from the trib­al mem­bers by past mis­sion­ar­ies in the name of Chris­t­ian ser­vice, a deep mis­trust of Chris­tians has devel­oped. The Wrights have had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to hear some of their accu­sa­tions and mis­giv­ings, learn from them, and share the real love of Christ. 

A word from the Wrights: ​“The reser­va­tion is an area high in crime and drug and alco­hol abus­es, so we have found the most fer­tile ground to be in the jail. Week­ly Bible stud­ies with the men and women sep­a­rate­ly have giv­en us abun­dant oppor­tu­ni­ties to share God’s love, truth, and mes­sage of free­dom with a fruit­ful har­vest! In the few short years we’ve been here, we have seen the Lord’s faith­ful­ness to open doors and hearts that were closed to the Gospel and pro­vide a hunger for His Word. We feel so priv­i­leged that God allows us to share His love and truth with these won­der­ful peo­ple. Our hope and prayer is that hearts will con­tin­ue to open to Jesus through His Word, so those who are lost and bro­ken will find peace and grace in Christ. We are so thank­ful for and depend on your prayers!”

Tibet:

Athey Creek part­ners with a fam­i­ly serv­ing in Tibet.

Mid­dle East

My stir­ring to serve in the Mid­dle East began upon read­ing the Bib­li­cal account of Ish­mael cry­ing out to God in the desert. God heard Ishmael’s cry and pro­vid­ed a well of water to drink. Today, the descen­dants of Ish­mael remain thirst­ing, thirsty for Liv­ing Water. 

Our min­istry aims to devel­op rela­tion­ships with Mus­lims and Nom­i­nal Chris­tians. We intro­duce oth­ers to wor­ship the True and Liv­ing God, to plant seeds of the King­dom of Heav­en, to pray togeth­er to the God who hears, to share the Word of God, to share the gospel mes­sage of Jesus the Christ, to make dis­ci­ples, and to bap­tize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Give thanks to the Lord for His gra­cious appear­ances, mirac­u­lous heal­ings, for His mer­ci­ful kind­ness and His truth that con­tin­ues to endure in this dry and desert land.

Prayer requests:

• Pray for hearts to be soft­ened, and for the Lord to soft­en hearts.
• Pray for wis­dom in shar­ing the good news, and patience unto the Lord and His timing.
• Pray for new­ly plant­ed seeds to remain growing.
• Pray for whole tribes to be saved as God is enter­ing each tribe in pow­er­ful ways!
• Pray for uni­ty in the church through Jesus the Christ.
• Pray for a hum­ble­ness of heart in a bold and wild land.
• Pray for new believ­ers to be baptized.