The Kairos Season Comes to a Close

Posted on August 18, 2011 by jason

Kairos Discipleship School Class of 2011

The greek word: “Kairos” means a unique season of opportunity. It has indeed been a very rewarding year at Kairos Discipleship School. I have been challenged, grown, and stretched in countless different ways as the year progressed. One of the big themes for Kairos was about applying things we learned to our lives instead of just gathering head knowledge. That said, here are some of the takeaways from a few of the experiences I had this year:

Class: We had class for about 17 weeks of 3 hours a day and we heard from around 14 different speakers as well as the Kairos Leadership.

  • We learned all about our personalities, strengths, and spiritual gifts and how to use our personal makeup intentionally to our advantage in working with other people to build the Kingdom of God. I learned that I am a high energy person who thrives on variety and social interaction. I also observed several different types of environments where my personality elements shifted to better adapt to the situation I was in.
  • Living a lifestyle of prayer and worship. My views on God and how we interact with Him on a daily basis were greatly expanded. I was shown almost daily the importance and power of specific intercessory prayer and became much more used to simply focusing on and giving all my affection to God during times of worship.

Honduras: We took a 20 day mission trip to Honduras half way through the year. This was my first cross-cultural missions experience.

  • I learned that success in ministry is largely due to faithfulness to God and his plan. I learned a lot about being available to God and trusting Him to use me how He will. Time after time I was not able to plan or create any of the ministry opportunities myself, I just had to do my best when they were presented to me.

Nepal: The conclusion of the program was an 8 week trip where I was a leader for high school and junior high students on the Royal Servants trip to Nepal.

  • Discipleship. On my Nepal trip I got to participate in both sides of the cycle of discipleship. I was a small group leader for 3 high school boys and I had a blast watching God work in their lives as I spent time with them instructing them and just being an example. I got a much better understanding of what Jesus had in mind when He gave his 12 disciples their main mission: making disciples who make disciples who make disciples….
  • Relational evangelism. Instead of having someone stand up and preach when we were out evangelizing in villages we used a different strategy. Every time the gospel was shared it was in a personal and interactive conversation which allowed the message to be uniquely tailored for each recipient. One conversation in particular I had in a village one day was with a college student named Basanta. We talked for over an hour as I answered some of his questions about Jesus, why He came to Earth, and why we need Him as our Savior. This is not the only way to share the gospel, but it is the main way that most people (except for pastors) have to share the good news of Jesus with people they know and so it was good to get practice doing this.

I want to say a big thank you once more to everyone who supported me this year to allow me to go to Kairos. I cannot tell you how grateful I am and how much I appreciate your sacrifice to invest in me. I plan on repaying you by taking the things I have learned this year and continuing to study them, apply them, and then pass them on to others.

This next year I will begin attending Mount Vernon Nazarene University for Computer Science. Please pray that I transition smoothly and that my relationship with God will continue to deepen as I begin the next phase of my life.

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Adventures in Nepal

Posted on July 26, 2011 by jason

We are continually seeing so many new and fascinating things here in Nepal that it is sometimes hard to keep track of them. When we arrived we took just a few days to get acclimated to the culture and to learn as much as we could before we started doing ministry. One of the first places we went was the Monkey Temple. This is one of the most famous Buddhist temples. As with most things here in Nepal, this was simultaneously sad and fascinating. The center of the whole complex of temples, shrines, and monasteries was the large Buddhist temple which is ironically a hollow building with prayer wheels and prayer flags attached to the outside. It has the “all seeing eyes of Buddha” painted on all four sides of the top of this dome structure. It was at the top of a large hill and so the view was incredible of Kathmandu Valley below.

The Staff Disciplers at the Monkey Temple
The Staff Disciplers at the Monkey Temple

The Guys of Nepal at the Monkey Temple

The Guys of Nepal at the Monkey Temple

The next day we went to see a few Hindu places of worship, including seeing what the Hindus believe is a living incarnation of the goddess Taleju, called Kumari. Every few years they select a young girl who meets the physical qualifications and they believe the spirit of the goddess then enters her for around 10 years at which point the goddess then leaves her. This makes me incredibly grateful to know that unlike hundreds of years of Kumari girls, I have the Spirit of the living God living in me and I don’t have to meet any sort of qualifications or fear that he will suddenly abandon me.

One really encouraging place we went was to an orphanage called Morning Star Children’s charity. This orphanage was run by a Christian man named Visnu (after the Hindu god.) His family was from the Brahmin, or priest, caste. When he was 12 years old he received Christ after hearing an evangelistic program he attended. Because of his conversion, he was kicked out of his house by his devout Hindu family. Eventually he was taken in by a pastor in Kathmandu and he finished his education in a christian school. As a result of his experience on the streets of Kathmandu he felt called to later go back and start an orphanage to take in street kids and turn their lives around. Now he is the head of multiple orphanages and he is making a huge difference in the lives of hundreds of kids. We spent the day at this orphanage and we were all encouraged to see a group of former street kids in a loving and fun environment. All the kids called each other and us “brother ___” or “sister ___”. I also received a Nepali name there at the orphanage: Taklu, which means bald.

The very next day we went to Peace rehabilitation center, which is a home for girls rescued from the sex slave trade. The team went to the home and we met with Shanta, who is the woman who runs the center. We learned about her story and how she started the home after going through a discipleship training school 30 years ago. We also learned about the problem of prostitution and the sex slave trade in Nepal. There are over 17,000 Nepali girls (usually between the age of 8 and 16) trafficked every year and that number does not even include those who enter into prostitution willingly. The problem is daunting, but at Shanta’s home was responsible for putting at least 6 of those sex traffickers in jail so far this year. When a girl comes to the home after being rescued (usually from a hospital where warning signs of abuse are found) she learns, among many other things, a trade so she can go back to her village and support herself.

Jason and Shanta

Meeting Shanta

The next day was our last day of ministry in Kathmandu and we went to a modern day leper colony. I was not even aware that leprosy even existed until recently and yet I found myself in the midst of an entire colony of people in Nepal who had been so disabled by the disease that they could no longer live and work in their own homes. Leprosy is a completely curable disease but the effects cannot be reversed and so most of the people we saw had missing fingers and toes and some other disfigurations. There was almost nobody there who spoke english and so a few of us sat down with some of them and learned Nepali words for things we could point to and we just spent time laughing with them.

Learning Nepali words at the Leper Colony

Learning Nepali words at the Leper Colony

After just over 2 weeks in Kathmandu, the capitol city of Nepal, we loaded up into a bus and drove 9 hours to another city called Pokhara. Pokhara is a much more laid back place and is very beautiful. We are virtually surrounded by some of the tallest mountains in the world but because of the clouds we cannot see them at all.

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“Namaste!” from Nepal

Posted on July 18, 2011 by jason

It has been a long, intense, stressful, and yet very rewarding month of ministry. I kicked off y summer with Royal servants by spending 3 weeks at training camp: one week as just the students of Kairos Discipleship School, one week with the rest of the d-group leaders, and one week with all the students. Training camp was very challenging. The living quarters were tight, the pace was bordering on frantic, the mornings were early, the free time was almost non-existent, and the weather was hot. They run the camp at such a high level of intensity on purpose. I did not enjoy the experience much, but it was very effective.  It was a speed incubator for relationships and community building and it got us prepared for doing ministry in any situation. It also taught us a lot about gratitude and being content. Then after what seemed to be an eternity, we were off to Nepal.

The three travel days were fairly grueling, but we arrived to Kathmandu in good spirits and moved into our hotel. We are staying in Thamel which is one of the most “colorful” parts of Kathmandu. I am involved in 3 main kinds of ministry during this trip. The first is with my d-group. I have three high school students in my small group that I am discipling and we meet daily and do other things together throughout the week.

My D-group

My D-group: Matthew, Jason, Will, Andrew

This is my d-group out to dinner at one of the Nepali restaurants we frequent, which is known to us as “The naan place.” Our initial food adventure, naan is basically just bread with different meats or veggies baked inside. It is delicious!

Another type of ministry we do is called intentional shopping. Several times a week we go out in groups into Thamel and get to know the shop owners and street vendors. The main way that effective evangelism and discipleship happens is through relationships, and so we are trying to build lasting friendships with the people here. One relationship in particular that I have made is with a woman named Devakee. She has a laundry shop and also sells bottled water and hand made hats. She is incredibly friendly with us and we now go to her shop just to have tea and talk with her. I just got back from there about 15 minutes ago as I write this.

The third type of ministry is our street ministry. We have gone to about 5 villages in the 9 days we have been here. Our day in the village incorporates many things. First, we go prayer walk around the village. We ask God to bless our ministry in specific ways as we walk around the village and get our bearings. As we are doing this we definitely stir up interest as the people see 30 white people walking around town. Then we go out and invite people to see our performance. We are loud and energetic and try to generate as much interest as possible. So far the crowds have been around 150 people gathered in the town square as we do our dances, dramas, and puppet songs. As soon as we are done, we disperse into the crowd and commence sharing the good news that God loves them, has a plan for their life, and has gone to great lengths to restore their relationship with Him. This is the main time when the language barrier becomes apparent. Despite this obstacle, I have already had multiple extended conversations with interested people who have never understood the message of Jesus Christ. Another huge challenge is the blend of religions already in Nepal. Most of the people here are Hindu, which is a very relativistic religion. They all believe that there are different names for God and that the way they do religion is just fine. This means that many of them get through the entire gospel, agreeing the entire way, and then declare that they now believe in Jesus too. Most of the Nepali people are proud of their new religious freedom (since 2006) but it is very difficult for them to grasp the concept that one way could be right while others are wrong.

Please pray that:

  • I will be able to effectively communicate the gospel despite language barriers.
  • People will be able to understand the concept that Christianity is not one of many equivalent religions
  • Devakee will have a good and lasting conversations with some of the people on our team and will be open to Jesus Christ.

That is all I have time to write now. Soon I will tell you all about some of the other interesting adventures I have had in Nepal. The ever growing list includes the Monkey temple, an orphanage, a safe home for sex-trafficked girls, and a leper colony.

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Nepal

Posted on May 24, 2011 by jason

Jason with Job and Bethany Hammond

I have been working since last week at the Reign Ministries headquarters in Minneapolis doing data entry. I have had a blast getting to know all the staff and assisting in the preparations for Royal Servants. Some of the people I have met here are Job and Bethany Hammond, who are the leaders of my Nepal trip. It has been confirmed, I am indeed going to Nepal this summer! I sat down with them early last week and got filled in a little more on the nature of our upcoming trip.

During our time in Nepal we will be staying in 2 main cities, one of which is the capital: Kathmandu. We will be living in hotels the whole time and going out daily into different areas. We will do a large variety of ministry: we’ll go to a leper colony, many surrounding villages, and even to the Swayambhunath Monkey Temple which is a sacred temple for both Hindus and Buddhists. It is named after all the sacred monkeys living there! The picture shows prayer wheels at the temple which people spin as they go by in attempt to get their prayers to be heard.

Monkey Temple

The Monkey Temple

Here are some of the key dates for the summer:

June 13: Arrive at Training Camp

June 25: Students arrive at Training Camp

July 5: Leave for Nepal

Aug 6: Fly home from Nepal

Aug 13: Kairos Discipleship School graduation

Needless to say, I am getting very excited for the summer and I can’t wait to see what God has in store for us all!

Even though the location of the trip was changed from Italy to Nepal, my financial needs remain the same I still need about $300 in my Reign Ministries account, and another $300 to cover some of the personal expenses of the trip.

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Blessed are the Flexible

Posted on May 15, 2011 by jason

“Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.”
2 Hesitations 3:2

I do not have anything definite to announce yet, but more than likely I will be going to Nepal this summer instead of Italy. The reason for this is that more male students signed up for the Nepal trip late and they now have a shortage of small group leaders. You could pray for me for peace of mind as my near future is up in the air and also that all the details get worked out for the possible transition in such a way that I end up in the place God has for me. I will post an update talking more about the Nepal trip once I know for sure if I am going there or not.

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Italy!

Posted on May 7, 2011 by jason

Kairos Class of 2011

I have just finished the classroom portion of Kairos Discipleship School. I have been incredibly blessed during these 20 weeks of inspiring and challenging speakers. I have learned about topics like: surrender to God, freedom from sin, maximizing personality strengths, guidance from the Holy Spirit, the father heart of God, spiritual gifts, forgiveness, public speaking, world missions, evangelism, world views, and much much more.

Now that the teaching is done, we are moving on to other exciting things. Coming up I will be doing a leadership challenge/canoe trip in the Boundary Waters between Minnesota and Canada. Also coming up soon is my summer missions trip. I found out this week that I will be a discipleship-group (or “d-group” for short) leader on the trip to Italy! I will be working in a town called Lido di Ostia which is just south of Rome. We will work both in public areas like squares and coffee shops doing evangelism and also with some churches and established missions organizations. Other than the emphasis of the trip, as a d-group leader my main job is to be available to the students on the trip whatever we end up doing. I will have around 4 or 5 guys in my d-group and I will have a chance to invest in their lives and disciple them. I will have the same amount of contact with these young men in 6 weeks that a youth pastor would have in 2 years!

Also, I have some additional financial needs in a couple of areas as the year goes on:

1) Expenses for the Italy trip including fees and required spending money:  $470.  You can give online here. Find my name in the drop-down menu and follow the instructions.

2) Personal expenses like rain gear, thermal gear, sleeping bag, camping pad, and transportation and living expenses : $400.  You can mail a check (made out to Jason Radcliffe) to:

Jason Radcliffe
16910 Agnes St.
Gardner, KS 66030

I thank you in advance for your faithfulness in giving financially and supporting me with your prayers! You make it possible for me to actively pursue my destiny, gain ministry experience, and invest in the next generation of youth who are on fire for Christ!

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Honduras Pt 2

Posted on April 1, 2011 by jason

Well, since last time I shared a somewhat disappointing story of my experiences in Honduras, I think it’s time to share with you some of my most positive experiences as well.

I’ll start off with an answered prayer that I had. In the post leading up to my Honduras trip I mentioned how I was concerned about some of the modern comforts I would be leaving behind. I didn’t want to be having an attitude of simply trudging along and enduring whatever I encountered, but that I wanted to actually enjoy my time and not be distracted as we did ministry. Looking back I can see how God answered this prayer in a big way. During the whole trip, the aspect I was the most grateful for was that very thing. I loved the times in the mountains without running water where we went swimming in the frigid mountain stream every day. I had a blast in my sleeping bag on the floor of a one room school. Some of my favorite meals were the oatmeal for breakfast, dry ramen for lunch, and some variation of pasta and summer sausage for dinner. All in all, I was very grateful for the chance to get out of my comfort zone and broaden my horizons in that way.

I also wanted to tell you about some pretty thrilling things I got to do in the way of ministering to kids. This trip wasn’t only about kids, but they were no small part of our focus either. There were a couple of different things we had planned to do with kids: we put together a VBS program to do in the different villages we went to and we brought lice treatment and shampoo with which to wash the girls’ hair in the public sinks (called a “pila”). Both of those were fantastic opportunities to interact with the kids. These were all great, but I had two other times of witnessing about God to the Honduran children weren’t on the schedule and I had no preparation time for either….

On our big hiking day into the mountains, I was just coming in to the village after hiking 5 or 6 hours through the rain forest. It was 4:02 and as I arrived, I was told that the leaders who got there ahead of us had set up a teaching time for 4:00. I was exhausted after the hike, but I began to get out my notes and prepare to teach about surrendering to God and living a lifestyle of complete obedience to Him. I got ready quickly, but there was only one problem. No adults showed up. There was, however, a small gathering of about 20 highly curious kids. After determining that nobody was going to come for the teaching, I decided to utilize the opportunity we had with a crowd of kids and a translator. I had them all come in to the building, and my teaching group and I began to tell the kids some Bible stories. We had a lot of fun as we enthusiastically acted out the story of Daniel in the lions’ den, Elisha and the bears, and Jesus feeding the 5,000. The second opportunity was equally spur of the moment. We were doing our last VBS at a public school called Buenos Aires. There were around 80 kids there in grades 1 to 5.I was notified as we began our 10 minute opening program that they were going to add something to the program and that at the end I would have the opportunity to go up and share the gospel with the kids.

Sharing the gospel at VBS

I don’t remember exactly what I said, but the theme of the VBS was about sheep and so I told them briefly about the Good Shepherd, and how He gave up his life to rescue his sheep from death and how we as sheep need to choose to follow the good shepherd to be saved. I will always remember those two overwhelming personal victories and how I learned that much of ministry and even overseas missions is just showing up and being available for God to use.

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Honduras Pt 1

Posted on March 8, 2011 by jason

I arrived home a week ago from an 18 day trip to Honduras that I would describe as a learning trip. There were some good moments, some disappointments, many changed plans, some moments of triumph,  a few missed opportunities,  enough memories to last a lifetime, and one very different haircut.

In 1 Corinthians 3 Paul describes the process of missions as he was experiencing it: “ I planted the seed, someone else watered it, but God made it grow … By the grace God has given me, I laid the foundation as an expert builder, and now someone else is building on it.” This was an excellent description of our ministry in the remote mountain villages of Honduras. We went to numerous villages and two of them were at opposite ends of that process. The first village (San Pedrito) had a growing community of Christians and a 4 year old church. Our team got to do some discipleship training with the Christian leaders there.

The other village was called Rosario. It took a day’s hike and a three and a half hour mule ride to get there from the place where the road ends. As far as we know our team of 6 was the first Christian missionary contact with the village. The response we received was much less positive in this visit. The village was predominantly “catholic”.  I use the term loosely because I am not sure how catholic it really is. There is a hermitage in the village which is just a catholic church with no priest to do things like marriages, baptisms, funerals, confessions, communion or any other sacraments. The catholic leader of the village basically controls what the people believe. We went in with a Spanish audio Bible that was charged with a solar panel so that illiterate people in remote areas can still have the Word of God. The missionary with whom we were working had a conversation with the catholic leader and the woman he was living with and it was somewhat disheartening.

We were asking the woman for permission to play some of the Bible in her home and she would not allow us to. She said that she did not need or want to hear the Bible for herself because she had him to tell her what it says and explain it to her. This same woman had a young son who had cut his finger with a machete about an hour before we arrived. It was bad enough that without medical treatment in a few hours he would probably lose that finger. We offered to take him with us to the nearest medical clinic but she put us off and said she would do it herself the next day. It was clear that she had no intention of doing so. The catholic leader throughout the course of the conversation made it clear that the only way that we could have a presence in the village as far as he was concerned was for us to begin some projects such as new house buildings and such and put him in charge (essentially buying converts). That was the extent of our contact with Rosario and we then rode back over the mountains on our mules.

There is some hope however, because we were told that when teams initially went to the first village of San Pedrito less than a decade ago they also received a similar response. We could clearly see the fruit of the labor of others in the first village and how God had a sovereign plan and we will just have to trust that he also has one for Rosario and that one day in the future teams will be going to Rosario bringing hope and changing lives.

That’s it for now. I will be posting some more stories of my experiences in Honduras soon.

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Expectancy

Posted on February 6, 2011 by jason

Well, it’s time for the next exciting part of Kairos. I will be leaving for Honduras in just 3 short days. I still have a ton to do in order to prepare, so I’ll try to keep this fairly short.

Up until last Thursday, we had not been given very much information about the trip so it was hard to even imagine what was coming. Now that we have gone over the schedule, I couldn’t be more excited for what is in store! We will be leaving early on Wednesday morning and will be in Honduras until February 26th. We are going mainly to minister to a people group called the Lenca Indians (if I’m not mistaken they predate the Mayans) who are a minority people group in Honduras native to the Opalaca Mountains. Until recently they were completely unreached with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They were living in intense poverty and in extremely unhygienic conditions. Their dirt floors were full of parasites and their thatched roofs had disease carrying bugs. They were going hungry for 3 months out of every year because of their lack of farming expertise, and their family structure consisted of almost entirely single moms and absent and alcoholic fathers. Then just over a decade ago, a missionary couple moved to the area to attempt to help these people. Little progress was made as they hiked into villages and tried to share about God and His love for them. Frustrated, they tried a different tactic. They began to build concrete floors and put tin roofs above them. Not only did this immediately cut childhood sickness by well over sixty percent, but it also showed the people in a tangible way about God’s love for them. Since then progress has been making leaps and bounds as change and hope are flooding into the area.

This will be the fifth year that Kairos has sent a team, and each year new ground is broken. Four years ago a church was started in the village of San Pedrito. Last year’s team finished the church building and put the roof on. This year we have two amazing privileges. The first is that we will be training the leaders of this church with some of the teachings we ourselves have received this year. I can’t think of a better way to carry out 2 Timothy 2:2 which is the blueprint for the cycle of discipleship: “And the things you have heard me say… entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.”

The second opportunity is a particularly exciting one. We will be hiking further into the mountains than ever before and going to some villages that have never heard about Jesus. You can be in prayer for me especially on February 16-19 as I will be sharing about the love of God for the first time to these people.

We will also be doing some VBS for the kids in a few villages so you can pray that all the planning for that comes together on time and that the result is a fun program that will stick with the kids for years to come. The theme for the VBS is about sheep (John 10:27) and so we are preparing some skits, games, crafts, scripture memory, and songs to go along with that.

Some challenges I will face on the trip are mainly comfort zone related. The showering situation will be minimal at best, and the food (we’re bringing food with which to cook all of our own meals) while not incredibly scarce, might not be the most ideal or plentiful either. As for weather and climate I don’t really know what the mountains of Honduras will offer us, but from what I’ve heard the temperature should be in the range of 50′s at night to 80′s during the day. All that to say, pray that I adjust well and that I find the grace to endure enjoy whatever circumstances I encounter.

Well, I guess that’s it for now, so much for keeping it short. Please pray for me and my team during this trip. Psalm 5:3 says: “In the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.” Join me in expecting big things to happen in Honduras!

P.S. I am a little bit sick right now, so you could also pray for a speedy recovery, preferably before I leave the country.

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Limitless

Posted on February 3, 2011 by jason

During some of our extended prayer times for the “Speaking Blitz” trip from which I just returned, one of the promises we received from God is that He would make this trip limitless. Something you may or may not have known about me is that I am a very results driven person. I like goals, strategies, and especially accomplishments. The speaking blitz that we just finished blew all that out of the water. The surface level objective of the 18 day speaking trip to Amarillo, Texas was to do promotion to teenagers about Royal Servants summer missions trips and Kairos Discipleship School. Even if that was all we did, the impact of the trip couldn’t just be measured by the number of kids who signed up for a missions trip this year. The exciting thing is that the difference we made on this trip will never be known. We will never even find out the impact we had on these students as we talked with them, prayed for them, and showed them how rewarding, fulfilling, and fun it is to selflessly pursue God. All we could do is be faithful to plant, water, and trust God to grow the seeds, and I am infinitely more confident in God’s ability to change hearts than mine or even Reign Ministries’.

Some of the highlights of the trip were: all 12 of our speaking engagements, a visit to Palo Duro Canyon (the 2nd largest in the US), building deeper friendships with my team, getting to know all of the awesome people who hosted us at their homes during the trip, and of course, spray painting a Cadillac at Cadillac Ranch.

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